Cherry Bomb: A Siobhan Quinn Novel Read online

  Praise for the

  Siobhan Quinn Novels

  Red Delicious

  “Wisecracking. . . . Another defiantly over-the-top yarn that breaks every rule in the book, mostly with advance warning, and succeeds by being even more flagrantly disgraceful than its predecessor.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Gritty urban fantasy meets old-fashioned noir in this high-octane sequel . . . entirely original.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A fine balance between parodying urban fantasy and being urban fantasy: a little grim and a lot tongue-in-cheek . . . a rollicking good time . . . witty and snide . . . just enough parody, just enough narrative fiction—keeps the reader amused and engaged alike.”

  —Tor.com

  “Quinn is the sort of fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, ask-questions-later, non-detective detective that busts the genre wide-open. This Siobhan Quinn book isn’t horror or urban fantasy or mystery, but rather [features] a horrifying, fantastical heroine who finds herself embroiled in a mystery.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “Sinfully delicious. . . . If you like your urban fantasy down and dirty, then you can’t freaking pass Blood Oranges and Red Delicious up!”

  —My Shelf Confessions

  “A well-written, smart, and unapologetically snarky follow-up to Blood Oranges.”

  —That’s What I’m Talking About

  Blood Oranges

  “A pedal-to-the-metal, balls-to-the-wall female antihero who doesn’t give a damn if you like her or not . . . which totally made me love her.”

  —Amber Benson

  “A memorably exhilarating and engaging experience. Sly, sardonically nasty, and amusingly clever.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “[Kiernan] brings an engagingly fresh prespective to well-trod territory. . . . Colorful side characters and a fully realized setting make this a fast-paced series opener well worth checking out.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Kiernan . . . has made it her business to turn the comfortable genres of imaginative fiction inside out. Now writing as Kathleen Tierney, she introduces a heroine as fascinating and compelling as she is foulmouthed and impatient.”

  —Library Journal

  “[A] fast-paced, profane, and combustive little thriller.”

  —The Black Letters

  “A strange (and unmistakably fun) project, a parodic urban fantasy that at once vivisects the tropes of the genre as it currently stands and also employs them with vigor and a backhanded, wild immersion.”

  —Tor.com

  “A lot of fun.”

  —Locus

  “A dark, twisted ride through the seedier side of life, but it’s peppered with enough humor to make it enjoyable.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Tierney has created a marvelous character in Quinn. . . . She keeps readers on their toes.”

  —Fantasy Literature

  “A mesmerizing exploration of magic without certainty . . . a must read for anyone drawn to the darker edges of urban fantasy.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “Sometimes subtle, a little crass, and even lovely . . . for those that like Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black series and even Steve Niles’s Cal McDonald series.”

  —SF Signal

  Praise for the Novels

  of Caitlín R. Kiernan

  The Drowning Girl

  “A stunning work of literature.”

  —Peter Straub

  “Incisive, beautiful, and as perfectly crafted as a puzzle box.”

  —Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Black Heart

  “A beautifully written, startlingly original novel that rings the changes upon classics by the likes of Shirley Jackson, H. P. Lovecraft, and Peter Straub.”

  —Elizabeth Hand, author of Available Dark

  The Red Tree

  NOMINATED FOR THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD

  NOMINATED FOR THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD

  “A strange and vastly compelling take on a New England haunting. . . . Kiernan’s still-developing talent makes this gloriously atmospheric tale a fabulous piece of work.”

  —Booklist

  Daughter of Hounds

  “A hell-raising dark fantasy replete with ghouls, changelings, and eerie intimations of a macabre otherworld . . . an effective mix of atmosphere and action.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Murder of Angels

  “Lyrical and earthy, Murder of Angels is that rare book that gets everything right.”

  —Charles de Lint

  Low Red Moon

  “Eerie and breathtaking . . . [a novel] of sustained dread punctuated by explosions of unmitigated terror.”

  —Irish Literary Review

  Threshold

  WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL HORROR GUILD AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

  “Threshold is a bonfire proclaiming Caitlín R. Kiernan’s elevated position in the annals of contemporary literature. It is an exceptional novel you mustn’t miss. Highly recommended.”

  —Cemetery Dance

  Silk

  WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL HORROR GUILD AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

  FINALIST FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD

  FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

  NOMINATED FOR THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD

  “Remarkable.”

  —Neil Gaiman

  “A daring vision and an extraordinary achievement.”

  —Clive Barker

  BOOKS BY CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

  Novels

  Silk

  Threshold

  Low Red Moon

  Murder of Angels

  Daughter of Hounds

  The Red Tree

  The Drowning Girl: A Memoir

  Writing as Kathleen Tierney

  Blood Oranges

  Red Delicious

  Cherry Bomb

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan, 2015

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Kiernan, Caitlín R.

  Cherry bomb / Caitlín R. Kiernan writing as Kathleen Tierney.

  pages cm.—(A Siobhan Quinn novel; 3)

  ISBN 978-1-101-59489-6

  1. Werewolves—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.I358C48 2015

  813'.54—dc23 2014031584

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the prod
uct of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Books by CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Author Disclaimer

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER ONE: PUSSY TROUBLE

  CHAPTER TWO: THE WHORES HUSTLE AND THE HUSTLERS WHORE

  CHAPTER THREE: QUARREL WITH THE MOON

  CHAPTER FOUR: PICKMAN’S MADONNA & GHOULS ON A TRAIN

  CHAPTER FIVE: BAD PENNY AND POSTCARDS FROM HELL

  CHAPTER SIX: NOT A ROAD MOVIE

  CHAPTER SEVEN: OPEN THE DOOR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For Amber Benson (The Voice), Geoffrey H. Goodwin (The Friend), and Vic Ruiz (Compatriot in Ghul Lore)

  As I’ve said twice before, if your ears, eyes, and sensibilities are easily offended, this book is not for you. If you want a romance novel, this book is not for you. And if

  it strikes you odd that vampires, werewolves, demons, ghouls, and the people who spend time in their company, would be a foul-mouthed, unpleasant lot, this book is not for you. In fact, if you’re the sort who believes books should come with warning labels, this book is not for you. Fair notice.

  THE AUTHOR

  I wish to do more violence.

  —ILLYRIA

  I think a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen.

  —MR. PARKER

  It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

  —TYLER DURDEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  PUSSY TROUBLE

  Jump cut.

  I met Selwyn Throckmorton five years after I’d left Mean Mr. B and Providence behind me and arrived in Manhattan, three years after that whole mess with the Maidstone sisters and those two demon whoremongers from an alternate reality, all four of whom were scrabbling ass over tit to get their hands on a magical dildo carved out of a unicorn’s horn. No, seriously. You may have heard about that kerfuffle. Or not, but it’s something else that didn’t go so well for much of anyone involved, all those greedy assholes out to screw each other over just to get their hands on this totem of purportedly unimaginable power, blah, blah, blah. And when it was done and the dust had settled, I told B I’d had enough and he could find himself another bulldog to fetch and heel and do his bidding. All I wanted was to disappear.

  I went south to Florida, then New Orleans (bad, bad idea), then west all the way to LA. But every city was a new hassle. For example, the crazy albino kid in Jacksonville who went all Seven Samurai on my ass. Or the job I took in post-Katrina NOLA, putting down a cult of Cthulhu-worshipping alligator women. Or the swank gig in Hollywood working for a couple of agents at WME who’d made the mistake of accepting shitwit baby vamps as clients.

  Fun fucking times.

  Finally, I came back east and took up with a mortal thrill seeker in Brooklyn, this lady who was willing to give me a place to hang my hat in exchange for a sip from my wrist every week or two. Her very own pet vampire. She had no idea about me also being a werewolf. I never told her. Didn’t really care if she found out; the subject just never came up. Actually, I got more than a roof over my head. I also got a decent meal off her once a week, which mostly kept me from having to hunt. So, my very own pet human. Probably as unhealthy a mutually beneficial, symbiotic psycho fuckfest as you can imagine.

  Her name was Barbara O’Bryan, but she called herself Eve when she wasn’t at the office counting other people’s money or doing whatever it is that accountants do. She was ass deep in the local BDSM scene, and I played the top to her bottom at clubs and whenever the leather-and-latex crowd threw a soirée. Sometimes we even had sex, but not as often as you might imagine. She really, truly wasn’t my type.

  Anyway, it was at one of those clubs—a sweaty Chinatown cellar below a shop that seemed to specialize in the unlikely pairing of Hello Kitty tchotchkes and leather daddy porno—that Selwyn spotted me. I was busy with a riding crop, keeping up appearances and keeping Eve happy, and Selwyn had probably been staring at me a long time before I finally noticed. Selwyn Throckmorton knew enough about nasties to know right off that she was looking at a vampire (though, as with my sugar mama, the loup part of me was flying somewhere below her radar). She waited until I was done beating Eve, until I’d sent her off to get me a beer, and then Selwyn just walked right up to me and said, “I know what you are.”

  Normally, someone pulls that sort of stunt, they may as well have just signed their own death certificate. Normally. But, you see, Selwyn Throckmorton was a lucky girl that night. Because she was my type.

  “Is that a fact?” I asked her, and she just smiled and sat down next to me on the ratty leather sofa where Eve and I had settled after I administered her thirty lashes.

  “It is,” she said and smiled.

  “That’s a fairly strange pickup line,” I said and lit a Camel.

  “It’s kinda obvious, what you are, if someone knows what they’re seeing. Not like you’re trying very hard to hide it.”

  “And it’s kinda goddamn stupid, you mouthing off about it.”

  She just kept smiling and held out her hand. I shook it. What the hell else was I gonna do? I was already wet. The possibility that she was working some sort of voodoo sex–magick shit on me very briefly crossed my mind.

  “I’m Selwyn,” she said and sat back, making herself right at home. “You’re not the first one I’ve met. In fact, I’ve met several. In my line of work, it’s not all that uncommon.”

  “And just exactly what is your line of work?”

  “Occult antiquities,” she replied. “Acquisition and appraisal.” And wet or not, I’d have wrung her pretty neck right then and there if she’d said one word about dildos and/or unicorns.

  Her eyes were the deep blue of a star sapphire, and her hair was the black of a lump of coal. Skin like a glass of ice-cold milk. Hey, I can ladle on the purple prose with the best of them if the mood strikes me. And remembering that night, the mood strikes me. She could just about have been something awful herself, a demon or one of the Unseelie gazing out at me from beneath her glamour. Unlike most of the people crammed into the place, she wasn’t dressed in some tacky fetish garb. Just a black Hellboy T-shirt, faded jeans, a leather biker jacket a size or two too small, and a ratty pair of checkered Vans. She was both hot and goddamn adorable. Which is to say she stuck out in that crowd like the proverbial sore thumb. Shit, even I caved in and wore the silly dom getups Eve the CPA bought for me from a couple of shops down on St. Mark’s, just to keep her happy. I also wore the cosmetics, contact lenses, and dental prosthetics that were supposed to help keep people from going all looky-loo on me.

  “Acquisition and appraisal,” I said. It sounded a hell of a lot more interesting than accounting.

  “Plus,” she said, “I’m a bit of an armchair occultist, and a halfway decent thief. But that last part just sort of comes with the territory.”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “It can be. Hazardous. But I’m careful. Cautious.”

  “Right now, Selwyn, careful and cautious are probably the last two things I’d call you.”

  She laughed, winked, then fluttered those sapphire eyes. “Oh, come off it,” she said. “You’re not gonna hurt me.”

  “And why is that, Selwyn?”

  “Because,” she began, then paused to point an index finger at Eve, who was still waiting at the crowded bar. “To begin with, your date there bores you to tears. I’m still trying to figure out what you see in her. I know the sort. Something excruciatingly extra dull by the light of day, a wedding photographer or an accountant or an economics professor. Am I right?”

  It’s not li
ke I could say she wasn’t.

  “We have an arrangement,” I said.

  “Oh, I bet you do.”

  I stared at her, smelling her; she smelled like blood and clean laundry and vanilla. Suddenly, my mouth was as wet as my pussy. Anyone—living or dead—gets bored eating the same meal week in and week out, no matter how convenient that might be.

  “Pollyanna Wannabe over there,” Selwyn continued, “she comes home from a hard, tedious, unrewarding day at the office, right, and there you are waiting for her, wilder and weirder and more dangerous a creature than she’d ever hoped to meet, much less swap blood with. And every day, every evening, she knows that might be the day or night you finally get bored, decide you’ve had enough, and finish her off. The cherry on top, so to speak. Living dangerously.”

  “But I suppose you’re different.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It was heavily fucking implied.”

  She laughed again, stretched her legs out in front of her, and rested her head on the back of the sofa. I glanced from her to the bar. Wouldn’t be long now until Eve was on her way back with our beers.

  “Just what is it you want, anyway?”

  “Didn’t say I want anything. What’s your name?”

  “Quinn,” I told her. “You should know up front I’m a piss-poor conversationalist.”

  “Lady, if I did want something from you, it wouldn’t be conversation.”

  “But you don’t want anything from me.”

  “Didn’t say that, either. Are you always this prone to putting words in people’s mouths?”

  I looked up at the low concrete ceiling, hoping that if I ignored her, maybe she’d fuck off, and I could get back to my dull but convenient arrangement with the CPA who never asked more from me than her weekly ration of red sauce, nothing more than a monster willing to play arm candy and give her a halfhearted flogging now and then. A sea of chatter pressed in all around me, the casual rise and fall of talk in a place no one came to talk. I could hear Selwyn Throckmorton’s beating heart, along with the dozens of others. I could hear her breath, and gazing at the ugly ceiling did nothing whatsoever to calm my appetite or my libido.