"That's it for now," Cirocco said. "If you're good, you can have more."
"What is that?" Robin asked. Snitch rolled his eyes toward her.
"It's grain alcohol. Snitch likes his liquor straight." She sighed. "He's an alcoholic, Robin. It's about all he consumes, along with a little blood once a day."
Snitch jerked his head toward Robin.
"Who's the bimbo?"
Cirocco flicked his face again, and he howled, then quickly shut up. "Maybe ... " Robin began, then thought better of it.
"Go ahead," Cirocco said.
"Uh ... maybe he was what was causing your... problem."
"There's no need to walk around it, Robin. Maybe it was him making me into a lush, right?" She sighed, and shook her head. "I tried my best to think that for a long time. But I knew I was just wishing my own weakness off on something else. If anything, I'm the cause of his problem. He sat there on top of an alcoholic brain for so long he got addicted." She straightened her shoulders and then leaned forward a little, staring at the demon.
"Now, Snitch," she said. "We're going to play a game."
"I hate games."
"You'll like this one. Gaea has done a terrible thing."
He cackled. "I knew something good was about to happen."
"But you'd never think of warning me, right? Well, maybe next time you will. What happened, you venomous pestilential cancre, is that somebody has kidnapped a child. Gaea is behind it, as surely as flies breed in shit, and you're going to tell me where the child is."
"Why don't you bite my ass?"
Robin was startled when Chris reached between them and grabbed the ugly little thing in a big fist. Only its head was visible, and its eyes rolled wildly.
"I want him, Captain," Chris said. His voice was low. "I've been thinking about him for the last hour, and maybe I've come up with some things you haven't thought of yet."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" the Snitch shrieked. "You know I do better work if you don't hurt me, you know that, you know that!"
"Hold on, Chris," Cirocco said. The tiny eyes moved from Chris to Cirocco and back again. He gulped, and then spoke in a wheedling tone.
"What do I care what Gaea's cooked up?" he said. "For a couple of drinks, I might be able to help you."
"Four drops is what I'm offering."
"Now be fair," he whined. "And be reasonable. You can't deny that I do my best work when I've had a few under my belt."
Cirocco seemed to consider it.
"All right. But you didn't let me tell you about the game. Put him down, Chris." He did, and Cirocco struck a match. She moved it toward the demon, held it about a foot away.
"I'm going to give you two drops right now. Then you are going to tell me where the child is. We will fly there. When we get there, if you were right, I'll give you three more drops. If you're wrong, I will wire one of these matches along your back and light it. They take about twenty seconds to burn. Then you'll try again. If you're wrong again, you get another match. I've got about ... " she looked down into her pack, "... oh, about fifty matches. So we can play the game a long, long time. Or it can be over very quickly."
"Quick, quick, quickquickquickquick!" Snitch yammered, jumping up and down.
"Okay. Open your mouth."
Cirocco gave him his two drops, which seemed to calm him. And, oddly, to color him. He had been a rather sickly yellowish-white at first. He was turning ruddier.
He jumped down from the edge of the jar and began pacing up and down the dashboard. Robin watched, fascinated.
The demon paced for a few minutes. Eventually he began to stagger as the drinks hit him. But gradually he looked more and more toward one part of the sky. He lurched up to the windshield and pressed his repulsive face against it, as if to see better. At last he belched and pointed with one leg.
"He's up thataway," he said, and fell over.
FOURTEEN
"Conal, turn left twenty degrees and climb to forty kilometers. Increase speed to two zero zero kilometers per hour."
"Twenty degrees left, forty, two hundred; Roger, Captain."
He executed the turn immediately, increased the thrust, and watched to make sure the plane did the rest as it was supposed to.
Like clockwork, he thought, with satisfaction. Outside, the wings were shrinking from their three-quarters deployed position and sweeping back slightly.
"Why do you suppose she decided to do that?" Nova asked.
"I don't know," Conal said. Actually, he had a good idea, but it would be too complicated to explain, and he had been instructed never to speak to anyone about the Snitch unless specifically authorized by Cirocco.
"I can't figure her out," Nova confessed.
"You aren't the first one."
"Conal, are you wearing your flak suits?"
"No, Cirocco. Should we?"
"I think so. We're putting ours on. I don't have any specific reason except my standard one."
"What's the use of having it if you don't use it, right, Captain?"
"That's it."
"Will do." He turned to Nova. "Can you reach them? Those blue outfits."
Nova fumbled with one of the suits until she had it unfolded. It was a light, slightly stiff blue jumpsuit without arms or legs. The carbon-filaments woven through tough plastic would stop any handgun bullet, and give some protection against heavier weapons and bomb fragments.
"What if you get hit in the head?" Nova asked.
"If we get into something, we'll put on those helmets, and the leggings, and the sleeves. Do you need any help with that?"
"I can manage." She lifted herself off the seat, and shoved her pants down around her ankles. The plane lurched to the right, and she looked outside anxiously. "What happened? What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Conal said, and coughed nervously. "Ah, I thought you'd put that on over your pants."
"Does it matter?" She pulled her shirt over her head. The plane only jumped a little that time.
"No, it doesn't matter," he said, and pulled the privacy curtain down from its little niche overhead.
He heard her long-suffering sigh. Then she jerked the bottom of the curtain and let it roll back up. He glanced at her and saw she was holding her clothes over the front of her body. Her eyes were blazing.
"Can I talk to you a minute? Is this okay? Am I decent?"
He gulped. "It's ... Nova, it's not enough."
She ran her fingers through her hair, then tugged at it in frustration.
"Okay. My mother told me about this but I just couldn't understand it, so maybe you can explain it. It's not that you don't like to look at me, is it."
"No, it's not that at all."
"That's what I can't understand. You make me feel ugly."
"I'm sorry." Jesus, where to start, how to explain? He wasn't even sure he could explain it to himself, much less to her. "Dammit, I get upset because I want you, and I can't have you. Seeing you gets me turned on, okay?"
"Okay! Okay! Great Mother, I don't know why you're so worried about getting turned on, but I'll go along with you. I'll cover up the places Robin told me to cover up. But I thought I was doing that now. So tell me, mister male man, what do I have to cover up?"
"You can throw all your clothes out the fucking window for all I care," Conal said, through clenched teeth. "It's your business, not mine."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to upset you. I wouldn't want to make you lose your precarious control of yourself. Mother, preserve me." She slammed the curtain back in place, then, a few seconds later, pulled it back up enough to look under it.
"There's one more thing. I didn't have a chance to pee before we took off. Do I have to wait till we land?"
Conal opened a compartment in the dash and handed her the oddly-shaped cup, pulled the vacuum hose from its slot.