Read Online Haunted Legends by Ellen Datlow, Nick Mamatas - Free Book Online

city of Fatehpur Sikri on the site of his camp and moved all his wives and courtiers to the top of this plateau in the middle of the desert, where they lived in splendor until—what was he thinking?—they ran out of water and abandoned the city to red dust and the desert winds. The Tomb of Salim Chisti lies just inside one of the gates to the great ghost city.

STEVEN PIRIE
The Spring Heel
    Steven Pirie lives in Liverpool, England, with his wife, Ann, and their small son, James. His fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies around the world. His comic fantasy novel,
Digging Up Donald,
came out in paperback in 2007, and he’s finishing up related (although not sequel)
Burying Brian.
    More information may be found at Steve’s website: www.stevenpirie.com .

 
     
     
     
     
    Sometimes Ruth closes her eyes. But it’s hard to dream when the tree bark is rough against her shoulders; when
he’s
thrusting away, not caring she might need lubrication, not bothered she might be bleeding down her thigh.
    “Do you kiss, love?”
he
says.
    “No,” says Ruth. “Never.”
    He
buries his mouth into her neck. At least Ruth knows
he
won’t be long now. She stares out into the park dusk over
his
back. It’s dark under the trees; nothing moves but the whores and the rats. No lights shine behind the windows of the big Victorian houses that line the park driveway. No one lives here anymore and most of the houses are in ruin.
    As
he
grunts, Ruth stares up at the slate roofs, stained yellow by the glow of the city lights on the clouds, darkest only where the slates have fallen through. And there’s a figure up there. Even from down here Ruth sees its face is twisted, grinning or scowling, she’s not sure, and it twirls arms and legs as if dancing on the rooftops. Its limbs are spindly, gangly, too long.
    Ruth rubs her eyes and stares again. The figure is gone.
    He
slips out, spent and panting. “You sure you don’t kiss, love? I like a bit of a kiss when I’m done.”
    But Ruth is already pulling up her pants to leave.
    •  •  •
    It’s Tuesday morning and the mission hall is full. The fat women behind the tea urn dole out tea and toast and scornful looks. They shake their jowls asRuth passes. They know what Ruth is. Ruth hates the Mission, but in the day, if she’s moved on from her restless sleep behind the bins to the rear of the Easy Rider bicycle shop on the High Street, there’s nowhere else to go. She’s long since learned the church opens its doors only partially to girls like her.
    Ruth takes tea and pushes through the rut of unwashed bodies toward the alcove under the stairs. She can hide here, in the dim light. Ruth is more at home in the dark. The priest is less likely to spot her and try to save her. She shivers; how Father Thomas might save her by soaping her breasts in the bath she doesn’t care to know.
    The Runt’s here, as is Basil and Lass. Basil surreptitiously tips alcohol into Ruth’s tea.
    “It’s a bit early for tea without gin, what,” he says. Lass grips his arm as if she’s feared to let go. “I always say PG Tips alone is no way to start the day.”
    “You’ll get us thrown out,” says Lass.
    The Runt grins and glances around. “Fuckin’ hope so,” he says. “This place is ripe today, even by my stench. I hear they’re going to knock it down. They’ve found asbestos, and even shit like us are protected from asbestos. I hear there’re holes in the roof.”
    Ruth splutters on her tea. For an instant, she’s back in the park, and the devil is dancing on the rooftops, leaping between the broken chimney stacks and grinning down at her. Too long, those legs; too sticklike; too hot, that stare.
    “There was someone on the roof last night,” Ruth says, distantly.
    “Of the mission?” says The Runt.
    “No, on the houses in the park, a strange gangly bloke leaping about. He stared down at me, and his stare burned my face. It made me piss myself.”
    “How the devil