Darkness of the Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the bottom, looked like that one on that Metallica album, only with extra points. Star-like thing, got it? And the old dude said it meant something to his family. I remember that, because I asked about it. Gotta check for defacement during the appraisal, or Pops is liable to clout me.
    “So I ask, he gives me that line, I shrug, give him his five bucks, and off he goes. He stopped just long enough to tell me that I’d know when it was time to sell it and that I should take good care of it. And how’s that for fucked, ditching some family heirloom for five bucks to play the one-armed bandits, and telling me to take care of it? Then out the door he goes, never to be seen again.”
    Drakanis shrugged, scribbling down the high points: foreigner, Arab or Indian, family crest, Metallica. Then he looked at Parker, brows raised. With the kind of pseudo-telepathy that develops among close friends and partners, Drakanis told him, That’s it?
    Parker returned the shrug. Never know when that shit might be useful. Then he turned back to Marvin.
    “Okay, great. So a raghead sold it to you, told you to take care of it, then what?”
    The clerk shrugged. “I forgot about it, really. Didn’t even remember putting it out. Last I remember seeing it, I shoved it in the back, since we were overstocked anyway. Didn’t think I’d get more than twenty bucks out of it. But there it was, sitting on the rack, right in front, when those old dudes came in.”
    Drakanis looked a little ill at hearing this, as a small flash of memory from the day Gina’d brought the thing home came to him.
    “Isn’t it lovely?” she asked him, tipping it in his direction; he’d had to resist the urge to go into dramatics, since it was the only way he could have expressed his opinion without offending her.
    “I   .   .   .   guess. Not bad, anyway. Where’d you get it?”
    “Oh, the market up the street, you know, the one with all the junk on sale. It was sitting right in the window. Want to hear the weird part, hon?”
    “Uh-huh   .   .   .   ” Drakanis was already looking away then, looking for something else to do, something to fixate on, before he could get dragged into art appreciation.
    “The owner didn’t even remember putting it up! Almost like it was just there, just for me, when I came by! Isn’t that a scream?”
    Years later, standing in a different pawnshop hearing a variation of the same story, Drakanis thought that it was indeed a scream, but not a good one. It was the sort of scream in that Munch painting, one that comes when you crack and goes on… and on… and on.
    Parker sensed something wrong and shifted his focus back to his partner. Scowling, he said, “You okay, man? You look like you’re about to hurl.”
    Drakanis shook his head, biting down on his tongue and fighting with his gorge. It came close, but the fresh air—what little of it there was—blowing through the open door helped a bit, and after a pair of gasping lungfuls, he managed to fight back the panic that wanted to claim him. He rolled his hand at the clerk again, trying to get him to hurry up and finish the damn story before he died of old age.
    Christ, you never should have started this. Let those bodies lie, man, and just give it up. Great advice, he thought. Too bad it was also the wrong advice. If he let this go, just gave up and went back to his pretend life with his pretend entertainment and his pretend dreams, he’d be doing the worst thing he could to the memory of his wife and son; he might as well just dig them up and kill them again.
    Marvin and Parker were both staring at him, he realized, the latter with genuine concern, maybe a little upset that it was his doing that was putting his friend through this; the former with a cold gaze that was trained only to look for profits and fat wallets, discarding the rest as the trash that accumulates on the floor of human existence.
    Drakanis flapped his hand again and managed to grunt out a