What truce? He had never found out. But the man with the sword cane had accused her and her people--he called them Ogs--of first breaking thetruce. The Ogs had captured Childe and abused him. This was definitely againstthe rules. He was not even to be aware of their existence or of that of the Tocs.
Moreover, they had endangered Childe's life. He might have beenkilled because of their irresponsible behavior. In fact, the Tocs were notsure that the Ogs had not had it in mind to kill Childe.
"You know as well as you know anything that we agreed on The Faceof Barrukh and the Testicle of Drammukh that we would let The Child developuntil he was ready!" the swordsman said.
"The Child?" thought Herald. "Or did he mean The Childe?" Later, he thought, "Possibly the two are the same." Vivienne, still crouching on the bed, had said, "It was an
accident that he came to our house--to Igescu's, I mean. He insisted on breaking inand spying onus, and the temptation to partake of his power was too much for us. In that, wewere guilty. Then things got out of hand. We did not handle himcorrectly, I'lladmit. We forgot that he would have to be watched very closely; helooks so human it's easy to do, you know. And he acts so stupidly at times, hemade us a little contemptuous of him."
"Of The Child?" the swordsman said. "I think you are the stupidones. He is not an adult yet, you know, so you can't expect him to act like one. Anyway, Idoubt the adulthood of any of you Ogs."
Vivienne, looking then at Childe, said, "We've been talking inEnglish!"
She burst into a spew of a language which he had heard beforeeven if it was unintelligible to him. It was the same language that his captors hadused when he was a prisoner in Igescu's.
Though he did not understand what followed, he was able todetermine the name of the swordsman. It was Hindarf.
Hindarf seemed inclined to run Vivienne through, but she talkedhim out of it. Finally, Hindarf pricked him with a needle, and presently he wasable to function almost normally. He got dressed and allowed himself to beescorted out of the house. He was still too shaky to drive, so Hindarf drove whilethe two men followed in their car. Hindarf refused to answer Childe's questions. Hisonly comment was that Childe should stay away from the Ogs.
Apparently, he had believed Vivienne's story that Childe was the intruder in this case.
A few blocks before they came to the turnoff to Topanga Canyon, Hindarf stopped the car. "I think you can drive from here on."
He got out and held the door open for a moment while rain fellinto the car and wet the driver's seat and the steering wheel.
He stuck his face into the car and said, "Please don't go nearthat bunch again. They're deadly. You should know that. If it weren't..."
He was silent for several seconds and then said, "Never mind. We'll be seeing you."
He slammed the door shut. Childe scooted over into the driver's seat and watched Hindarf and the others drive away. Their car swung around andwent down Topanga Canyon.
As he sat in the front room and tried to watch TV while he swigged JackDaniels, he thought of that evening. Almost nothing made sense. Buthe did believe that Igescu and Krautschner and Bending Grass and Pao and theothers had not been vampires, werewolves, werebears, or what have you. They wereverystrange, bordering on the unnatural, or what humans thought of asunnatural. The theory advanced by Igescu, and presumably invented by the early 19thcenturyBelgian, "explained" the existence of these creatures. But Childe wasbeginningto think that Igescu had led him astray. He did not know why he wouldlie to him, but there seemed to be many things he did not know about thisbusiness.
If he had any sense, he would follow Hindarf's advice. That was the trouble. He had never shown too much common sense. Fools rush in, and so forth. After four shots of mash whiskey on an empty stomach, one also
unaccustomed to liquor, he went to bed. He slept uneasily and had a number ofdreams and nightmares.
The persistent ringing of the telephone woke him. He came up outof a sleepthat seemed drugged, and was, if alcohol was a drug. He knocked thephone offwhile groping for it. When he picked it up, an unfamiliar male voicesaid, "Isthis McGivern's?"
"What number did you want?" Childe said.
The phone clicked. He looked at the luminous hands of hiswristwatch. Three o'clock in the morning.
He tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. At ten after three, hegot up andwent into the bathroom for a drink of water. He did not turn on the light. Goingout of the bathroom, he decided to check on the condition of thestreet before he went back to bed. It was still raining heavily, and the street hadbeen ankle-deep in water when he had driven up before the house.
He pulled the curtain back and looked out. The car that had beenparkedunder the oak tree was pulling away. The lights from the car behindit showed that a man was driving it. The car swung around and started slowlydown the street towards Topanga Canyon. The lights of the other car shone onthe paleface of Fred Pao, the Chinese he had seen at Igescu's. His lightsthrew the profiles of the three men in the other car into silhouette. One ofthem looked like Bending Grass, the Crow Indian, or Crow werebear, but that couldnot be. Bending Grass had died under the wheels of his car when Childe hadescaped fromthe burning Igescu mansion.
He turned and ran into the bedroom and slipped into a pair ofpants andshoes without socks. He ran into the front room, put on a rainhat andraincoat and picked up his wallet and car keys from the dining room table. Hegot intothe car and took off backwards, splashing water as if he were surf- riding as hebacked onto the street. He drove faster than he should have and twice skidded and once the motor sputtered and he thought he had killed it.
He caught up with them about a quarter of a mile up Topanga. Thelead car was slowing down even more and looked as if it would swing into aprivate roadthat went up the steep hill. He had never been up it, but he knewthat it led to a huge three-storied house that had been built when the road was adirt trail. It stood on top of a hill and overlooked much of the area, includinghis own house.
Abruptly, the lead car stopped. The car behind it also stopped. He had to goon by them; they would become suspicious if he also stopped. At thetop of thehill he slowed down, found a driveway, turned in, and backed out. Hecame down the hill again in time to see the two cars heading back down TopangaCanyon.
He wondered what had made them change their minds? Had theybecome suspicious of him? Perhaps they had seen his lights as he turned ontoTopanga.
Childe followed them into Los Angeles. The cars proceededcautiously throughthe heavy rain and flooded streets until they reached San Vicente andLa Cienega. When the light changed to green, the two cars suddenlyroared into life. Shooting wings of water, their tires howling even on the wetpavement, they sped away. He accelerated after them. They swung left onreaching Sixth andskidded into the traffic island, bounced off, and continued back upSan Vicente on the other side of the boulevard, then skidded right as they turnedon Orange.
The green light was with them and with Childe, who was about ablock behind. His rear tires hit the curb of the island and one wheel went over and there was a crash. He supposed his right rear fender had struck the trafficlight, but itdid not seem to impair the operation of the car. He shot after theother two cars, though he wondered why he was risking his limb and life. Butthe fact that they were trying so desperately to get away, that they haddeliberately led himastray from that road up to the house on top of the hill kept himgoing.