Free Blood Oranges (9781101594858) by Caitlin R. Kathleen; Kiernan Tierney Page A

around, hit up the usual suspects, see if I can find out what machinations the Bride might recently have set in motion. How’s that?”
    â€œShitty,” I muttered.
    â€œBest I can do, kiddo. At least for the time being.”
    â€œAnd the loup thing?”
    â€œI have heard it said that a devotion to Saint Hubertus has been known to keep the symptoms in check. Patron saint of hunters or some such. Did you know . . . no, I bet you don’t . . . did you know that the Jägermeister logo—the stag with the cross above its antlers—is a reference to Saint Hubertus? Also, don’t eat the neighbors’ cat, or any of the neighbors, for that matter. Draws attention.”
    I sighed, dropped the rest of my cigarette to the sidewalk, and ground it out beneath the heel of my sneaker.
    â€œI’m going home,” I said, with as much disgust as I could muster.
    â€œAs well you should. Ta. I’ll be in touch.”
    So, he left me standing there, and I watched Jack until he noticed me watching him, then headed back to my own place. Which, by the way, was an apartment down on the south end of Gano Street (coincidentally, not too far from the rusty bridge and the ditch I woke up in that night). First floor of an old house, and it must have been nice once upon a time, before the fifty years of frat boys and other assorted college students. It had shag carpet the color of vomit, and the paint was peeling off the walls like scaly patches off a shedding reptile. Still, better than abandoned warehouses and couch-surfing, right? Sometimes, the hot water was even hot. And it was easy enough to avoid the hole in the kitchen floor. The rats, I just thought of them as roommates.
    It occurs to me I haven’t explained
why
Mr. B showed up that day, bearing gifts of heroin and a free apartment. It’s not all that complicated, but it did take me about a month to get him to confess his motives. You live on the streets a few years, you learn to be suspicious of any act of goodwill. There are almost always strings attached, so it’s a question of weighing the pros against the cons. Just how badly are those strings gonna cut you? Actually, sometimes the strings, they’re more like piano wire than strings, if we’re talking string in the twine sense. Anyway, I’d had my fingers sliced enough times that I was wary, but not so wary that I was about to turn down free smack and a cleanish place to live. So, dude sets me up, assures me he’s on the level, and no, he’s not looking for sex, not unless I decide to grow a dick.
    But I knew there was more to it than a random act of kindness (to quote the bumper stickers), and one night at Babe’s I popped the question. I’d already taken to meeting him there. It seemed to make him happy, and he’d buy me beer and talk about vamps and loups and ghouls and shit. And things I’d never even heard of. I learned there was this whole fucking underworld, and I don’t mean the Mafia. I mean the things that hide
beneath
the Mafia, and would have the La Cosa Nostra bosses quaking in their shiny Italian croc-skin shoes. Where was I? Oh, right. Popping the question. So, what’s in this for you? Or something of the sort.
    Mean Mr. B, he stirred his Cape Cod and smiled, and at first I figured he’d find a perfectly good reason not to answer the question. Or maybe he’d act offended, knowing I’d apologize and drop it for fear of losing such a sacchariferous deal. But that’s not how it went. He had one of his boys that night, a cross-dressing piece of arm candy whose name I’ve long since forgotten. Also, I should note, the aforementioned burly blue-collar types, who were Babe’s bread and butter, never even blinked an eye at his boys. Not even at the drag queens and transvestites. Working guys, they drank their beers and watched the ballgames playing on the widescreen TV behind the bar and