Vurt Read Online Free PDF

come in?" she asked and I let her walk past me into the room. She dropped onto the bed and then started to curl up like a flower's petals when the sun has gone. I went back to my table to carry on with the writing.
    Brid was breathing sweetly now, lost in sleep.
    I was putting it all down in words, a small desklamp hiding me in a shadow. The glow of my ledger burning softly as I banked up the words, the stories.
    "What are you writing, Scribb?" I thought she was asleep and when I looked at her she was comatose and happy, eyes shut, curled up in her own shape. I couldn't see her lips move and then I realised, Brid was dream-talking, putting thoughts into my mind, which is the gift of the Shadows.
    Shadows are the thought-readers. They are born with the powers of telepathy and their mind can by-pass the vocal cords, putting words into your brain, and stealing the secrets that you thought were yours alone. Shadowcops are the same, but mixed up with robo, rather than flesh, so they're not as strong; they can't go deep down, into the soul.
    Still pretty scary though, especially when you're out on a spree. The human Shadow works best when asleep, so that's how you find them, usually, dreaming their dreams of knowledge.
    "Don't let it worry you, Scribble," Bridget thought. "I'm not."
    "I was just wondering. . . you're always writing. What's it all about?" "Everything," I answered, out loud.
    "You don't have to talk," she said, except that the words just formed themselves into my mind. I looked at her again, her sleeping face, and I knew what she meant.
    "This is weird," I thought. Just thought! "What do you mean, everything?" "Everything that happens."
    "Between us?"
    "Sure. The Stash Riders."
    The Beetle called us this, and it stuck. He was making life into a kind of adventure, I guess. Just like a kid, but what's so wrong with that? That's the score with Cortex Jammers; they just want to be kids again.
    "It's our story," I thought. "That's nice," she answered.
    And then a deep silence. Just the sound of her breathing in my head and the soft petals falling off my alarm clock as it shed the minutes away until morning.
    I was back to writing but nothing came out, nothing good, so I stopped, took a cigarette, a Napalm filter, and watched the smoke drift for a while. And petals falling from the clock. Stuff like that. All quiet now from the next room.
    Brid's voice coming into my mind again; "Is it all right if I sleep here, Scribb?" "You've got a bed of your own."
    "Not tonight, Scribb. Not tonight."
    I took another few hard drags whilst forming the words in my mind. "That's all right, Scribb. It's a pleasure."
    Shit! Some real dirty thoughts about Brid had flickered across my mind. When the shadowgirl was this deep, I had no secrets left."
    "That's right, Scribb. No secrets."
    "Give me a chance, Brid!" I said. Out loud, not thinking.
    Brid's voice in my head again; "It just comes in pictures. Pictures and shapes." "I'd rather just talk."
    "Sure. You don't mind me sleeping here?"
    Why should I? She looked real beautiful in sleep, and the world was waiting for me to climb right on in there, curling up, losing myself in all that drifting smoke.
    "Thank you," she thought. Like I said; no secrets.
    "I just wanted to thank you," I told her sleeping face. "For taking the rap for me.
    You know, with the Beetle, in the Skull Shit."
    "We all jerk out sometimes." "You took the blame, Brid." "I guess I like you."
    "More than Beetle?" "Don't ask. You'll get hurt."
    "I saw Desdemona in there. In the Vurt." "I guessed that."
    "She was in such pain. I couldn't stop pulling out. But I couldn't admit it, not to the Bee."
    "You like that man too much, Scribble." "So do you."
    "You're thinking about her again." She meant Desdemona. Bridget's words floating into my mind, like a mist over the pale shape of Desdemona; "Can't you forget her, Scribble?"
    "We've got to find her, Brid!"
    "We will, Scribble," said Brid's voice. "You want to sleep next to