Read Online Murder of Angels by Caitlin R. Kiernan - Free Book Online Page A

Eisenhower-era edifice of gray stone blocks and concrete columns, an austere and secular church for modern stargazers and alchemists. In a few minutes, she would go inside and see whatever it was she was supposed to see, but for the moment, better to stand out here beneath the wide blue sky and smell the clean ocean air, the mild autumn breeze, the flowers and grass, and Niki imagined that she could smell nasturtiums and roses growing somewhere nearby.
    Some of the older kids noticed her, and a few pointed rude fingers and stared, laughter for the frowzy Vietnamese woman in her coat that looked like maybe someone had skinned Grover the Muppet and sewn the pieces back together for her to wear. Her messy hair and the sloppy, bloodstained bandage on her hand, and I bet I look like a homeless person, she thought. A street lunatic, a damn crack whore, which made her sad, sad and tired, but made her smile, too, thinking about Daria’s money, Daria’s big house on Alamo Square.
    “You don’t look so good, lady,” one of the boys said, bolder than the rest, sixth- or seventh-grader in a Sponge-Bob T-shirt and his red hair shaved almost down to his scalp.
    “I don’t feel so hot, either,” she said and wiped sweat from her forehead, held out her rag-swaddled hand so the boy could get a better look.
    “What’s the matter with you, anyway?” he asked. “You got AIDS or something?”
    And then his teacher noticed, and she rushed over to reclaim the boy, a strained, unapologetic smile for Niki, and she pulled the boy away, tucked him into line with his restless classmates. But he glanced back at Niki over his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at her.
    What you waiting for now, Niki? Too afraid of what you’re going to see in there?
    “Leave me alone,” she said, talking to no one at all, or herself, to the boy or the muttering, colorless thing nestled somewhere inside her. “Just leave me the hell alone,” and she walked past the children, up the stairs, into the museum.

     

    Eight dollars and fifty cents to get through the door, past guards and docents and into the Tyrannosaurus -haunted atrium. The skeleton loomed above her like a sentinel outside the ebony gates of Hades or Mordor or Midian, something that might lunge from its pedestal, loud clatter of bones and steel rods, to snap her apart in those petrified jaws, those long stone-dagger teeth.
    “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered confidently to the dinosaur, not even a real fossil, remembering the first time she’d come here with Daria, and the Tyrannosaurus was only a clever replica, nothing but molded fiberglass and plaster and paint. Damnation’s scarecrow wired together to impress the gullible, and Niki glared defiantly up at its empty eye sockets, and the skeleton stayed right where it was.
    “Can I help you find something, miss?” a girl asked her, a very polite girl wearing a plastic name tag with the museum logo printed on it, and Niki turned her back to the phony Tyrannosaurus . The girl’s name was Linda, and she had a smile that reminded Niki of an airline stewardess.
    “Do you have spiders?” Niki asked her. “I need to see the spiders, if there are any.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the girl said and pointed at the other side of the atrium, behind the tyrannosaur. “They’re located in the Hall of Insects,” and she smiled again and handed Niki a colorful, glossy pamphlet with a map of the museum.
    “Thank you,” she said, but the girl was already busy asking if she could help someone else.

     

    Niki Ky sat alone in the Hall of Insects, sat on a long wooden bench in front of a big display case of spiders and scorpions, mites and ticks and less familiar creepy crawlies; a hundred minuscule corpses, minute crucifixions for the curious to gawk at, sideshow for the squeamish or a nightmare for arachnophobes. Beneath the sweatshirt rag her hand had begun to itch, and she concentrated on the display, trying not to scratch at it or mess with