“Harmful things, you mean.”
“Yes. That is how I'd put it. Harmful things …”
Sabatino glanced at Finn, then back to Letitia.
“What they do is different from what the Hatters do. The Hooters neither skin, flog, strangle nor gut folks during their rites. What they do-normally, I mean-is slice off a victim's fingers, one at a time, then all of one's toes, then an eye and an ear and a nose. After that comes the scary part-”
“Damn you, that's enough,” Finn said, for Letitia had turned a paler shade of white.
“What they do,” Sabatino finished, “is burn every-thing-every being-in sight. This is what they like to do best.”
“You've actually-seen such barbarous acts?”
“Of course not, why would I?”
“You see,” Finn said, turning to Letitia, who shivered in the hollow of his arms. “You see what he's doing now?”
“I don't have to see,” Sabatino said abruptly. “Father was a Hooter until he retired. A Grand High Hooter, as a fact.”
Sabatino's father looked up with a toothless grin. “A Grand High Hooter Third Class. No one hardly ever gets higher than that.”
“This is true, then?” Finn looked at the old man in a different, more chilling light.
“Why do you think the Hatters made such a big thing out of doing him in? Anytime a Hatter can get a High Hooter …” Sabatino spread his hands. There was, his gesture said, really nothing else to add.
Finn held Letitia close, but her trembling wouldn't go away.
“What I am about to say,” Sabatino said, gazing at the early evening sky, “is a thing so foreign, so alien to all I believe, all I hold dear, that I cannot imagine these words are about to emerge from me. Though I loathe you with all my heart, Finn, I owe you a debt, and a debt I must pay. This is why I offer you-I can scarcely even say it now-I offer you the sanctuary of my home for the night …”
Sabatino rolled his eyes and ran a hand across his brow. “Father, I must ask your permission for this-heresy of mine.”
Father, though, had fallen fast asleep on the ground.
“Very well, then. I will take the responsibility myself.”
“No, most assuredly not,” Finn said. He turned to Letitia Louise. “If I had been thinking straight, I would have headed right for the harbor when the mast of the vessel first appeared. That, my dear, is the path we shall follow now. I think I can assure you no Hooters or other apparitions will appear.”
“I am-ever in your hands, dear Finn.”
“Are you sure? You seem uncertain to me.”
“Not at all, love. How could you ever imagine that?”
“I'm grateful for your trust. I'm confident we'll come safely through.”
“Yes. I'm-certain we will.”
“Are you two finished?” Sabatino said with a sigh. “If you are, I bid you farewell with this parting word. When you reach the sea-if you did, I mean-you would find that the Madeline Rose is not at the wharf anymore, but is anchored in the bay. You would find all other vessels are anchored there as well.
“It matters very little if you don't believe in Hooters. I assure you the good captains do, as they've all been here before, and don't wish their vessels burned down to the keel. No one, Finn, and Letitia, dear, is fool enough to brave the night here …”
11
Moments after the sun disappeared beyond the rust-colored sky, darkness rushed in to swallow up the day. It happened so quickly Finn felt a chill that had little to do with the oncoming night. Letitia felt it too, for she huddled in the hollow of his shoulder and held herself tight, as if she might make herself smaller, safe against the dark in a warm hidey-hole, as her kind had done in ages past.
Sabatino seemed to read her thoughts, for he told them not to be concerned, that his home was just down the road, not very far at all. Finn caught the touch of amusement in his voice, for the fellow knew that Finn was not pleased with the prospect at all.
“Stay close to me in this damnable dark,” he told Letitia. “If anything should happen, I want you very near.”
“If she gets any closer,” Julia croaked from Finn's shoulder, “she'll be up here with me.”
“Be quiet. I can't think straight with you squawking all the time.”
“I seldom squawk. And even if I did-”
“Both of you be still, will you?” Letitia said. “There's something out there.”
“What? I don't hear a thing.”
“You don't have Mycer ears, dear.”
“That's true, I don't. But I have very sensitive hearing myself. My mother used to say-”
“Finn …”
“All right, I'm quiet.”
“Stay that way.”
Letitia closed her eyes, her features strained against the night as if she were feeling great pain.
“Hooters,” she said at last. “I'm certain there are Hooters out there.”
“Are you sure?”
“They're out there, just this side of town. Oh Finn, it's just like he said!”
“It's all right, we'll be just fine …”
“Keep up, craftsman,” Sabatino said, “or I'll leave you out here.”
“Just him,” the old man said. “Don't leave the pretty behind.”
Sabatino shook his head. “This has been a most intriguing day, I'm damned if it hasn't.”
“That's not what I'd call it,” Finn muttered to himself.
When he first saw it, when the dark shape appeared against the greater dark of night, it looked as if a jagged, ragged, malformed tooth had thrust itself up from the awesome jaws of the earth.
Closer, Finn decided it was less of a molar and more a horrid accident. Someone, or something, had apparently run into the thing, and knocked it all askew.
No, he thought again, there's a better metaphor than that: a mad architect and a crew of drunken builders had stood well back and tossed sticks, stones, mortar and bricks in a great ungainly pile. Then, as a parting thought, threw in a score of cracked windows and cater-wonker doors.
There were two, three, or four dizzy floors, depending where you looked. No angle matched another, no pitch was the same. Rooms, towers, chimneys and roofs had been tacked on anywhere. This was a house, Finn decided, that defied the laws of nature, gravity, reason and taste.
And worst of all, the longer he gazed at the thing, the more it seemed to waver, shift, vanish all together, then pop into being again.
“I feel kind of funny,” Letitia said, her face visibly pale even in the dark. “I think I maybe have to throw up.”
“Don't look at it,” Finn said, “that thing isn't real, it's some kind of spell.”
“He's right, for once,” Sabatino said, “some of it's magic, some of it's not. We don't know why, it's been that way long as anyone can recall. Takes a while to get used to-look at something else.
“Come along, your Newlie is right. There are Hooters out there, and not far at that. Most of the bastards never heard of Father, and wouldn't care if they did …”
Inside, the house was most peculiar, although without the nauseating effect. The fault there lay in a great abundance of dust, darkness and neglect. The wooden beams were suffering from rot. The stone walls were cracked. Moths had devoured the tapestries down to a few feeble threads. The decor was Early Gloom. The overall ambiance was Damp.
“We'll be having a late dinner, I fear,” Sabatino said, flinging his hat at a chair. The colorful plumes had broken in the fight and were now reduced to stubs.
“Don't bother,” Finn said, an image of Sabatino's kitchen in mind, “I couldn't eat a thing.”
“I could,” Letitia said, “I'm absolutely starved.”
“Letitia …”
“I must say I've never seen a place as big as this. Why, we could fit the whole house on Garpenny Street in a corner somewhere.”
“I can't imagine why we'd do that. No offense, you understand.”
“None taken,” Sabatino said. “That craftsman's sense of humor has a fine edge, Finn.”
Finn pretended not to hear. He noted they'd been inside scarcely a minute and a half and Sabatino's father had completely disappeared. Changing into something more proper than nothing at all, no doubt.