Fade to Black Read Online Free PDF

fingers registering Perak’s pulse.
    The doctor scowled at me. “No visitors, not yet.”
    I shrugged. Putting this off would be a relief, but Perak didn’t have that luxury. “I’m his brother.”
    The doctor laid Perak’s arm down and regarded me critically, maybe assessing the likeness. He seemed convinced. “Hmm. Well, when he wakes up again you’ve got two minutes. We managed to get one bullet out. The other’s still in his chest somewhere.” He shook his head so his hair flopped overhis forehead. Suddenly he lost his arrogance and looked young and tired and pissed off. “This is only the third bullet case I’ve ever seen. The others were minor, but the potential for damage – the wounds are nothing like knife or sword wounds and we’re still learning. That bullet might be fine, or it might kill him, and I haven’t a clue which it will be. Whoever invented guns, I just hope Namrat takes the guy’s soul
and
balls when he dies.”
    The doctor made for the door, trailing weariness in the slump of his shoulders. He turned at the doorway with an afterthought. “I haven’t told him everything about his wife. He just knows she’s dead. Perak said you find people for a living and you’re going to find his daughter. If you think anything about the mother’s death would help, come and find me after. Ask for Doctor Whelar.”
    The room was deathly quiet when he left, with only the bubble of Perak’s breath to break the silence. I went over his words earlier, the way he’d sounded as though tears were choking every word. I’d never known Perak cry before. I’d rarely seen him any other way than in his own head, grinning at what went on there and occasionally trying it out in the real world, generally with disastrous consequences.
    Of course the consequences had always been left for me to deal with, like that time he’d mixed together all the powders, liquids, bits of soap, paint and scraps of wood he could find with a thimbleful of black powder he’d found somewhere, and lit the resulting mess. Right near the guard’s station. It wasa clear area, he said, like that was an obvious place for an experiment. Well, yes, it was clear because no one went close if they could avoid it, so as not to get arrested for being alive. Which at least meant no one got hurt when it all exploded, but the station had a large hole in its side and the guards were seriously pissed off. Who did they chase? Oh yeah, me. Almost caught me too. I suppose it was inevitable that Perak would end up in Alchemy Research.
    Still, he’d never meant any harm, which was part of the reason it rankled so much. Now real life had finally caught up with him.
    I was just beginning to doze myself when Perak woke up. He struggled to sit and I helped him get settled on some pillows and tried not to see the way his eyes tracked me. When I sat back, he couldn’t hold it in any more. Tears choked him until I thought he’d open up his wound with the wrenching sobs. Or maybe I just worried about that to take my mind off the misery that seeped into me. I was reminded just how much I loved him, even if he had almost got me thrown in jail at least four times, more than one of which would have meant a one-way trip to the ’Pit. I remembered what I’d made myself forget when I’d cut myself off from him: his generous heart, a complete faith that everything would work out; one I could never share. That faith was stretched to its limit now.
    “She’s only six,” he kept saying. He couldn’t seem to say anything else without it coming back to that. “Only six.”
    I didn’t know what I could say to him that would help. Inthe end there was only one thing I could do, the reason he had called me. “What happened? And since when have you been married?”
    He managed to pull his sobs back into him, and gave me a ghost of his old smile. “Not long after I saw you last, when you—” He didn’t need to finish that sentence.
    The last time I’d seen him