To Make Death Love Us Read Online Free PDF

stupidly.
    Colonel John the
Midget walked in with Marco the Strong Man. There was a frown on his face.
    "Nobody out back in
the garage," said the Midget.
    "That's all right,
Colonel John," Will said. "This lucky man here owns the whole kit and kaboodle, I'll just
bet."
    The counterman was
looking at the Midget now, though the Colonel was far less a wonder, almost a com­monplace, after
what he had seen so far.
    "Will you do it,
friend?" said Will, his voice like honey as It poured from his tongue. "And besides, we'll do
what chores we can around here until noon. Paulette and Serena do marvelous needlework. Marco—the
Strong Man there—and me can do some heavy cleaning up, and the Colonel, small as he is, can lend
a hand. What say, friend, would you see this wonder or no?"
    The man nodded
dumbly. "Have her read it."
    Serena ran her
fingers over the menu, hesitating here and there over a grease stain or a bit of dried mustard.
Then, in a clear, sweet voice, she read off without mis­takes the man's refreshment list to
him.
    The counterman
nodded again, like a stupid puppet with a broken head string. His eyes were wide with
un­comprehending wonder.
    "All right then,
I'll feed you, but first I got to get the kids up to see this. Hell, it's like having our own
damned pri­vate circus."
    He pulled his apron
off and disappeared through the swinging door alongside the grill, and they could hear him
rousing his young ones in an excited, festive voice.
    Will Carney smiled
all around to let his charges know that he'd taken care of them once again.
    The truck shuddered
as some loose rock peppered it from above and Will like to wet himself.
    "Save us, damn it!
Save us!" He half laughed because he thought he heard someone ask "Why?" Now that was a question
wasn't it? "Why?"
    "In the name of the
Juggler," he whispered to himself.
    The counterman had
come back and started slapping bacon and eggs on the griddle. He kept glancing wonder­ing glances
back at one and all. Now that he was paying for them, he wanted to enjoy all of the sight of them
that he could.
    Then the swinging
door opened and three sleepy girls, dressed in the shifts they slept in, came stumbling into
the café. Did they pull up short! They
were dumbfounded and opened their mouths just like their daddy did, the better perhaps to catch
unwary flies.
    Will's own mouth
dropped an inch before he laid on his best grin.
    One of the brute's
daughters, late in her teens, was as pretty as sin and just as willing. She caught Will's secret
grin, meant only for her, and the wanting behind it. She batted her eyes and flicked her little
tongue out to wet her lips suggestively.
    She smiled back in
such a way that Will knew he had only to figure the place and the privacy. Oh yes, how good days
did sometimes follow bad.
    And deadly nights,
peaceful ones as well.
     
     
     
     
     
    Serena the blind
albino lived a secret life inside herself. Inside, in that strange and fragile dream house that
was her mind, she was a being of great and seldom-used power. This great power came to her
unasked, caught her quite by surprise. At first, it was only a dream. But, like all dreams, it
contained the idea of death.
    It was a power that
never came to her in any other fashion than as a dream, yet it grew, taking on a life— almost a
reality—of its own.
    And it was a
powerful dream, a gentle dream, an under­standing dream, and, sometimes when she willed it, a
fatal one. Yes. Fatal. For with it, this gentlest of all gentle creatures had killed and would
kill again, that was a certainty. For what was power if it was not meant to be used.
    Blind, loving
Serena made a strange executioner.
    The first death she
dreamed into being was more an act of kindness than murder, even if it was her own
father.
    Serena was born in
Baltimore, Maryland, once called the City of White Steps because it had been the special pride of
the good housewives in the old town