Richard Kadrey - Blind Shrike

"They say that when your head gets chopped off, it can still see and hear for a few seconds, so I'll have to go with beheading," said Spyder Lee to Lulu Garou.

Spyder Lee was drinking shots of Patron Ajo tequila with Lulu, his business partner, at the Bardo Lounge just off Market Street in San Francisco.

Lulu looked into her empty glass and thought for some time, took a drag of her Marlboro Light and winked at the woman tending bar. "Being beaten to death," said Lulu. "Badly. I don't mean like with a baseball bat or rebar so you're out cold, but something small." She crushed out her Marlboro in the ashtray the bartender slid in front of her. "An eight ball in a sweat sock. That'd give your killer a good workout."

"Not if the guy hit you in the head right off," said -Spyder.

"My mama was pretty free with her hands. I'm a faster ducker," Lulu replied. She grinned. Spyder could tell she was unimpressed with his argument.

"Burning at the stake," he said.

"Drawn and quartered," Lulu countered.

Rubi, the bartender, took their empty glasses away. "Exactly what are you two rattling about?"

"Worst ways to die," said Spyder. "Being covered in honey and staked out on a red ant hill."

"Dying of thirst. Like right now," said Lulu.

Rubi slid her hand across the bar and took hold of Lulu's left pinkie. "You parched, baby?"

"I'm drier than Candy Darling's cunt."

"Candy Darling was a man," said Spyder.

"Exactly."

Rubi leaned forward and kissed Lulu's pinkie. "I'll get you both another round. On me." As she left to make their drinks, Lulu called after her, "That ain't all that's gonna be on you tonight." Rubi stuck her tongue out at Lulu.

"Being crucified. That's supposed to be horrible," said Spyder.

"You're only saying that 'cause that's how they talk about it in movies. You ever known anyone who was crucified? Or even heard of one? Hell no. Maybe being crucified is great. Maybe it's a fucking hoot. Maybe it's a blow job and ice cream on your birthday." Lulu took out another Marlboro Light and lit it with a pink fur Zippo. "Know what would really suck? Being force fed a bucket full of black widows."

Spyder made a face, half frown and half smile. "Jesus, girl," he said.

"You're upping the ante on me."

It was the end of another day at the tattoo studio and piercing parlor Spyder and Lulu ran together. Spyder did the ink while Lulu handled the metal. It was a pleasant business. It let them both pretend to be artists while making money and getting a lot of tail on the side. Rubi, for instance, had been one of Lulu's earliest and most regular customers.

"She's got about five pounds of me all over her all the time," Lulu liked to tell friends.

Rubi bought back their drinks and set them on the bar. "What time you getting off tonight?," asked Lulu.

"Early," said Rubi. "'Bout an hour."

"Sweet."

"Being eaten alive, Night of the Living Dead-style," said Spyder.

Lulu turned to him. "You mind? We're having a moment here."

"Wait, better than that," Spyder went on. "Being starved to death, but given topical anesthetic and surgical equipment, so the only way you could stay alive'd be to amputate your own limbs and eat them."

Rubi said, "You two ought to get married. Move into the Bates Motel." She went down the bar to serve other customers.

"Now you ruined our surprise," Spyder called after her.

Lulu took a long pull on her tequila. "Flayed alive and drowned in pickle brine."

Spyder looked at his hands. The back of one was -covered in an intricate black tribal snake pattern while the other hand sported a cartoon red sacred heart. MANS RUIN was tattooed across the knuckles of both hands. He'd gotten the letters while doing a year in reform school for car theft. They were bullshit tats. Kid stuff. But they marked a period of his life, so he never bothered to have them lasered off. From his neck to the tops of his feet, Spyder Lee was an explosion of images and pigments. He'd never felt normal until he'd been tattooed for the first time. The ink felt like some kind of magic armor. His tattoos, even the stupid ones, made him feel bullet-proof.

He was one of those lanky Texas boys you see working on cars in oil-stained driveways, a cooler full of Coors, his only concession to the summer heat. A perpetually messy mop of black hair and long arms covered in grease working on the transmission of a vintage Mustang of questionable ownership.

"Split open, your organs torn out with hooks and replaced with red hot coals," he said.

Lulu leaned in close. "Strapped to the front of a burning boat and driven through a mile and a half of electrified razor wire in a Tabasco sauce hurricane."

They both broke up in drunken laughter, spitting and slamming their hands on the bar.

"You're both wrong," said a woman sitting to Spyder's right. He and Lulu turned to look at the woman. She was small, with fine features and the smooth grace of a dancer. The woman was drinking red wine and was wearing sunglasses. In her right hand she held a white cane, the sort used by the blind.

Lulu called over Spyder's shoulder, "Okay Stevie Wonder, what's the worst way to die?"

The woman finished her wine and stood up. "To be betrayed by the one you love."

She turned on her heels and swinging her cane in small arcs in front of her, pushed her way through the crowd and out of the bar.

Spyder watched the door as it closed behind the woman. Lulu took a drag off her Marlboro. "Stupid bitch," she said and dropped the butt into the woman's empty wine glass.

The Earth was born in a furnace. When the world grew strong enough, it crawled into the dark void to cool and heal itself. Soon, however, it grew too cold and shivered with ice.

The Earth looked around and found a small star to warm it up. Deciding it liked the neighborhood and the climate, there the Earth stayed.

Life appeared across the Earth, splashed in the water and glided on thermals through the sky. It didn't take life long to grow so abundant that it began preying on itself.

Crows, bats and eagles, the lords of the air, scooped up fish from the seas and dumped them in the desert until the dry lands were piled high with their bones. These carcasses became the Earth's first mountains.

Other animals learned to climb the trees and attack the birds as they hunted for food. The land dwellers decorated the bare trees with the birds' feathers and painted the ground with their blood. The gray earth suddenly had color.

Every creature who lived in the sea-the fish, the whales, the seals, the crabs, the squids and the rays-met in the South Seas and beat their fins, claws and tentacles, and raised an enormous tidal wave. The wall of water shot across the earth, drowning millions of the land and air beasts. This is how the many rivers and oceans of the world were born.

After an eon or two of mass murder, when the surface of the Earth was a stinking slaughter house, the lords of the different realms of life met at the ancient human city of Thulamela to see if they could end the butchery. This wasn't all that simple, since the many different creatures of the Earth were going to have to live on the same planet, but give each other plenty of room.

They divided the world into three Spheres, with each Sphere being invisible and out of the reach of the others. Humans and the most numerous animals of the land, sea and air were given one Sphere.

A second Sphere was home to the rarest creatures-the phoenix, selkies, vampires, barbegazi, corrigans, tengus, lamias, rompos, sylphs, gorgons, volkhs, wyverns, trolls and other exotic beasts.