Trophies Read Online Free Page A

we'd heard, less than an hour ago,
William the Third was still fighting for his life in surgery.
Because he was my brother's son, I'd never met him, and couldn't
help wondering if he was as much a bullying sod as his father. But
rather than start another round with Patty, I stepped from the
car.
    Even within this ritzy neighborhood, Aunt
Edith's house was a standout, a sweep of Tudor set back on a large
lot within a grove of elderly oaks. Dark beams contrasted with
white stucco, just as Aunt Edith's brilliant vivacity had offset
Uncle Hubert's stolid good nature. Hawthorns, roses, and begonias
bloomed in brilliant explosions in beds defined by rough-quarried
granite. Out near the road in a special bed, the statue of a
sword-maiden guarded a fountain and a park bench, my favorite spot
for reading Shakespeare.
    I wouldn't mind staying with Patty if she
lived anywhere else. But she'd given up her apartment and moved in
with Aunt Edith two years ago, when she was laid off at the type
shop; Aunt Edith had insisted, and I was just as happy that neither
of my two favorite femmes lived alone in the big bad city. Now
staying with Patty meant being surrounded by memories of Aunt Edith
and that stupid lump in my throat swelled again at the thought.
    Of course, it's also possible Patty simply
didn't wish to be alone in the house, either. That suspicion was
the only reason I'd given in and agreed to stay over.
    Crossing the lawn and approaching the granite
steps was like walking backward through time. The sorry years since
Uncle Hubert's death fell away and only the few magical ones he and
Aunt Edith and I had enjoyed together remained. The garden, even
the towering oak grove, looked fresh and new, startlingly vivid as
if a fourth, Puckish dimension had squeezed in amongst the usual
three. Rose petals littered the surface of the sword-maiden's pond,
glittering like blood-red drops as the fountain splashed them—
    —the picture window of the Carr Gallery, just
overhead, was splattered with something dark. More of it sprayed
the polished maple door, the brass railing and handle and mail
slot. A small hole in the door, at waist level, had been marked
with chalk—
    —more dark stains, lit obliquely by the dawn
light, trickled down the red brick, dripped from one concrete step
to the next, painted the sidewalk. I suddenly realized I could
smell it—
    —the smell of blood vanished within seconds
and the remembered, long-dead magic wasn't far behind. Adrenaline
surged again and suddenly I couldn't catch my breath, my heart
hammering.
    The Army shrink who examined me after the war
called flashbacks an "out-of-current-body" experience. Caren
Gallardo, my erstwhile girlfriend and a psychiatrist herself,
referred to them as waking nightmares: one moment everything's
normal, the next, without warning, I'm reliving some private little
hell. Usually they passed quickly, as this one had, and for the
most part I'd taught myself to keep it together and let the
nightmare unroll on the movie screen of my mind without
demonstrating my oddities for everyone. Even when I smelled
blood.
    But now the hemline of my self-control was
fraying and images of Aunt Edith vanishing beneath that zipper
haunted me. I needed to find somewhere safe, curl up within myself
for a bit, and recuperate. Sitting out by the pond beneath the
sword-maiden's shadow was tempting, but Patty wouldn't understand.
Inside the house it would have to be. She still sat in the Taurus,
cell phone to her ear, staring earnestly at an invisible something
a few inches before her nose. Distracted and not watching me.
    I tugged my little maroon case from one hip
pocket and unzipped it, selecting a springy steel tension tool and
my favorite half-round pick. I'd lost my keys to the house when I
was fifteen and never bothered to replace them because I never used
them. Aunt Edith, of course, said nothing. Nor had she replaced
them herself.
    The tension tool fitted into the bottom of
the deadbolt's