Read Online Bride of Death (Marla Mason) by T.A. Pratt - Free Book Online Page A

everywhere.
    There we go.
    The bell over the door rang as someone entered, and I slid the ring back onto my finger and watched as a twitchy, scruffy-looking guy in his thirties shuffled in. He wore a dirty red flannel jacket, and he kept wiping his nose with his crusty sleeves. The guy was on some kind of drugs, obviously, and from the look of him, I didn’t want any of what he was having. “Lucille!” he shouted. “Lucille, I need to talk to you!”
    The waitress who’d served me crossed her arms and scowled. “Lucy ain’t here, Gary. Why don’t you just go on home and wait for her.”
    “She worked today!” he shouted. “She works every Friday! Don’t you lie to me, Arlene!”
    “It’s Thursday,” Arlene said. “You look like a mess. Maybe you shouldn’t be driving. You have a seat and let me get you a cup of coffee –”
    “I don’t need coffee, I need Lucille , it’s payday and she needs to sign her check over so I can get my medicine, I can’t wait no more –”
    “It’s not payday until tomorrow, anyway, and you can’t be shouting like that, you’ll scare the customers –”
    “ Don’t you tell me what to do! ” he shouted – screamed, really. “Lucille, get out here right now !”
    “She told you Lucille ain’t here, son,” one of the truckers said. He was a big guy, probably ran two-eighty and only some of it fat, and he put his hand on Gary’s arm, not even in a threatening way, more conciliatory.
    Gary came out with a hunting knife and slashed at the trucker, who fell back, shouting. He slid off his stool, blood welling through a long tear in his sleeve. Gary had slashed his bicep, which probably hurt like hell, but he wasn’t likely to die from it.
    Gary started for the counter, knife raised high. Arlene was pretty clearly his next target. He went through the pass-through behind the counter, and Arlene surprised me by vaulting right over the counter before he could get to her, knocking salt shakers and coffee cups out of the way in the process. Gary wasn’t impressed by her athletic prowess. He just changed course, came back around to our side of the counter, and lifted his blade. Arlene moved past me, toward the booth where the family was sitting, but there was nowhere for her to go after that, and Gary was advancing. Lucky for Arlene, he’d have to pass by me to get to her.
    I’ve been trained by some of the best knife fighters in the world. I know about the advantages of the reverse grip, hammer grip, icepick grip, and fencer’s grip. I know the uses of biomechanical cutting – slashing at your opponent’s muscles to disable them – and I’ve been in my share of actual trying-to-kill-somebody fights. Plus, I’ve got a dagger so sharp it can cut through ghosts.
    But I didn’t pull my knife and tussle with Gary. The thing about knife fighting is, it’s ugly. The only time you get to use fancy moves is in a formal duel or a demonstration bout between masters. If you want to win a knife fight in the real world, the best way is to strike before the other person even knows they’re in a knife fight – just rush them and stab them as hard and fast as you can, prison-yard style. A surprise blitz attack is almost impossible for any knife fighter to defend against, no matter how well trained they are. Going at Gary, when he was jacked up on who knew what exciting substances and clearly had no particular concern for long-term consequences or self-preservation, would be a good way for me to get cut, and getting cut hurts.
    So instead I picked up my full coffee cup, took aim, and threw it at Gary’s head as hard as I could. The side of the heavy porcelain mug struck him right in the middle of the forehead, staggering him and splashing hot coffee across his face and scalp, and all down his front as the cup tumbled. He didn’t fall down, but he wobbled, and the arm holding the knife hung loose at his side.
    I knew he was seeing stars, but depending on what he was on, he