Read Online The Altonevers by Frederic Merbe - Free Book Online Page A

dying her dress to the color
that it is today. It takes an hour, for the water, by then red as a
rose, to rise to her open mouth. To spill slowly down her throat
and fill her gurgling lungs. Drowning her, edema before the fresh
red water even touches her top lip.”
    “ Memories,” says Rebecca,
drowning her tongue in vodka.
    “ It is a nice dress, but
how did you live if you've died?” Anna asks astonished.
    “ You didn't even tell her
that?” Rebecca says, “poor girl?”
    “ Because Anna, she lives
forever, forever longing for love. Just as any of the blood stained
doves of her mother’s backyard.”
    “ Down, the road huh? there
was a delay on my way here,” The Raveness says.
    “ Oh yeah?”
    “ Yeah, there was a service
interruption. Do you know anything about it? I mean it would be
rare,” Rebecca says to a spine chilling silence.
    “ What would be 'rare' about
that?” she asks.
    “ Oh, nothing, he’s just not
often seen with redheads, and so clever and bright you aren’t,
usually takes to the dark haired girls. My, my, how his tastes have
changed,” Rebecca says.
    Anna thinking she's referencing her
own past with Cider, leers at her as though trying to pluck at her
nerve’s. Cider looks to the dealer, waiting for the next hand to be
dealt. Knowing that this shark eyed girl is a ravenous vixen. A
captain of bartered souls, whose only real task is to bring their
boss more of them, for her to then command. And commanding legions
she does, almost everywhere an InterAlto train can stop. That she
must think he saved Anna for himself, stealing her from another
Alto because he couldn’t stand to see her die. He saved her. That
if he's keeping her close and out of sight he must care. Then
thinking how much of that string of thought was only his own
thoughts. That he may care for her, but they, the Ravens do not,
and he's sure they’ll try and use Anna as a chain , to shake his
shackles and tighten their noose.
    “ What did that feel like?”
she asks.
    “ What?”
    “ Your head?”
    “ Seeing a drop of water in
that split second it touches a rose petal. Very nice to see you
Cider, and I look forward to meeting you again Anna. It’s been
utterly delightful,” Rebecca says, standing and leaning over the
table.
    “ See you around
Rebecca.”
    “ I like you Cider, so, I'll
give you a hand on the way out,” The Raveness says. “Who here has
rank?” she shouts as she strolls away from the table on her long
slender legs.
    “ Me, I'm the lieutenant,” a
man yells “What’s the trouble?”
    “ With a working girl on his
lap. Get up,” Rebecca snaps.
    “ What do you mean get up?
who do think you are?” the burly voiced man says from behind a fog
of smoke.
    “ The Raven known as Cider!”
Rebecca bellows wickedly and cackles before squeezing her finger
several times. Slaying the sleazy Lieutenant and two of his
gambling buddies with a few flashes of her silver muzzle, then
practically prances away. Not one soul even looks her way as her
cardinal dress vanishes through the haze of smoke and faux
fireflies.
    Half the room is struck by fear,
everyone else howls with laughter. A greedy drunk makes a grab for
an extra card, triggering a brawl that quickly sprawls into a riot
of frenzied degenerates feasting on the thrill of fighting.
Flipping tables and fighting tooth and nail, to the death, for
scattering piles of cheap plastic chips. A melee of broken bones,
and stabbings and close range gunfights between people no further
than six feet from the other with, bullets whizzing not ten feet
from Anna’s head. Disorder, desperation and free fortunes are free
to take, she swipes some chips to Cider's delight, she’s living in
the disorder he adores. The two crouch and weave through the rumble
like wading through a moving mangrove of scrambling bodies. A jolly
rolls by, lifting everything in the room off the ground and
dropping them a second, or two, later. She bruises her hip in the
drop, then keeps