Free Murder of Angels by Caitlin R. Kiernan

more pills out into her bandaged palm.
    “There’s no way to ever finish the story without you,” he said, but not his voice now, a woman’s voice instead, and the air around Niki grew suddenly cold and smelled like dust and Old Spice aftershave, sweat and a skunky hint of marijuana smoke. Niki watched the Klonopin bottle slip from her fingers and the blue pills spill out and bounce away across the museum floor.
    “You put this goddamn thing inside me,” she said and swallowed. Anger rising slow, swimming against and through the honey-thick tide of benzodiazepines clouding her brain, and she wouldn’t turn to see if it was really Spyder or if it was only another ghost, something pretending to be Spyder so Niki would have to pay attention. “That’s a cheap trick,” she said. “That’s a really cheap fucking trick.”
    A thirsty sound like wind in dry autumn leaves then, or thunder very far away, and Niki knew that whoever had been sitting there beside her was gone. She glanced up at the spider display one more time, Plexiglas coffin for widows and tarantulas and granddaddy longlegs, and then she bent down and started picking up the scattered pills.

CHAPTER TWO

The Wolves We All Can See

    A lmost noon, and Daria has lost count of how many cups of strong black coffee, how many cigarettes, since she and Marvin came downstairs, leaving Niki alone to sleep and dream beneath the painting of Ophelia. They’re sitting together in the big kitchen, and the air smells like tobacco smoke and coffee. There’s a sandwich in front of her that she hasn’t even touched, the sandwich she let Marvin make for her even though eating was the very last thing on her mind. Sprouts and low-fat gouda cheese, thick slices of ripe avocado on whole wheat, a perfect, healthy sandwich on a cobal blue glass saucer. And it’s times like these Daria wishes she’d never become a fucking vegetarian; something else that she did for Niki, indulging Niki’s guilt, and the sandwich looks about as appetizing as a field of grass.
    “You might have told me these things just a little bit sooner,” Marvin says, and Daria pushes the unwanted sandwich a few inches farther away from her. “It’s hard enough without everything being on some sort of top secret, need-to-know basis.”
    “I figured if Niki wanted you to know about Spyder and Danny, she’d tell you herself. Frankly, it didn’t seem like any of your business. You’re not her shrink.”
    Marvin rubs his eyes and reaches for Daria’s sandwich.
    “You’re not even going to eat this, are you?” he asks, and she shakes her head, glad to see the sandwich find a better home so she won’t have to sit staring at the damned thing any longer.
    “I can’t stand to see food go to waste,” Marvin says, and he sniffs at it.
    “I didn’t mean that the way it probably sounded, about Danny and Spyder not being any of your business. Maybe I should have told you.”
    Marvin glances at her, a brief and wounded glance, then back to the sandwich, and he sniffs it again. And God, it annoys her the way he’s always sniffing at his food, sniffing like a stray dog, so she looks down at her empty coffee cup, instead.
    “Hey, it’s your call, Dar,” he says. “You’re the boss. You set the terms. But I think the fact that Niki had two lovers commit suicide within five months of each other is pretty significant to anyone who wants to help her.”
    “Jesus, Marvin. I’m trying to say I was wrong, if you’ll shut the hell up and listen.” And Daria picks up her coffee cup, chipped milk white mug with Edward Gorey art printed on it, pushes her chair back and stands up. She looks at the empty pot in the coffee machine and briefly considers brewing another, then thinks better of it; her stomach hurts enough already, sour and aching, faintly nauseous, and so she walks to the sink and rinses out her mug. The water is cold, clean, and she splashes some of it on her face.
    “And they both hung