He jumped from a roof made of shingles to a roof made of pebbles to a roof made of plaster and sticks. Some roofs were steep, and others were flat. One had a hole that he nearly fell through. A man down below looked up at Finn and stared, said, “What the hell you doin' up there?”
“Pardon,” Finn said, and noticed the man was cooking an ugly fish.
Someone shouted and told him to stop. Finn thought it was the man, then saw it was a Foxer running straight at him across the rooftops. Another appeared, then another after that. Then, worse still, three more, and that added up to six.
“They've brought in help,” Finn muttered. “That doesn't seem right.”
With a leap and a yell, the nearest foe came at him, twisting his sword in a high and fearsome arc. Finn met him with the flat of his blade, pushed him aside, broke into a run and didn't stop.
This appeared to anger his pursuers. They jeered and called him names. Finn didn't care. Honor was scarcely an issue here. The Foxers were no great fencers, but six of them would surely bring him down.
One came at him from the left, two closed in from the right. Finn feinted toward the loner, then surprised them all by going for the pair.
A moment's hesitation, an instant of surprise gave Finn a small advantage and he took his foe out, blooding him deeply from his knee down to his thigh. The Foxer gave a cry and stumbled back. Before he hit the roof, Finn turned on his companion-whom he recognized as Toothy-and drove him savagely away.
Step, slash-step and slash again-
— and then he was aware of the loner at his back, aware with a start, that his single enemy had turned into four. It struck him, again, this was not the vacation he'd bargained for.
“Standin' and fight,” said Foxer number one, “face me if yous dare!”
“We'll not bes harmin' if you do,” said number two.
“Yes we will,” said three, formerly known as Limp, “that bes what we're here for!”
“I'm afraid I have to go,” Finn said, “I'm expected somewhere.”
With a bark and a shout, Limp came at him, driving Finn up the steep slate at his back.
“What yous gotten in the basket?” Limp said, slashing at Finn's head. “When I bes makin' you deads, I takin' a look inside.”
“There's not as much as you'd think, but you're welcome to it if I fail.”
“Hey, failin' you will, for we doesn't welcome strangers to our shores.”
“If you'd not taken up with Nucci scums, we'd maybe lettin' yous go,” said a Foxer approaching from the right, one he didn't know. “You dids, though, an' we gots to stick you for that.”
Finn turned from Limp for an instant to drive the newcomer back. The Newlie was better than he'd thought. Instead of retreating, he lunged in quickly and ripped Finn's shirt at the chest, leaving a painful stripe of red.
“Hah! You'd best bes givin' in,” the Foxer grinned, licking his pointy nose, glaring at Finn with his hateful red eyes. “Yous no match for me, yous only a man!”
“A lucky hit,” Finn said, “don't count on doing that again.”
He forced a smile to match his foe's, but the cut hurt him more than he wanted the fellow to know. Without looking back, he retreated up the steep slope, praying he didn't slip on a slat some lazy roofer had failed to nail down.
“Is it bein' true what wes heard,” Lump said, edging up on Finn's right, “is it trues in your land you got a place where strangers stop and sleep?”
“Spend the whole night?” someone added.
“And eats there too?”
“With peoples you don't even know?”
“Where yous can see them, and theys can see you?”
Limp made a face. “Humans is nasty everywhere, but I never heards anything sicker as that.”
“What is it you have against the Nuccis?” Finn asked, hopping to the right, and then the left again. “I'd simply like to know.”
He was nearing the peak of the roof. Another step or two, and he could risk a look down the other side …
“If it's that lad on the ship-is that it? I stopped Sabatino, I'd like to mention that. Weren't aware of that, right? To tell you the truth, I don't care for the Nuccis myself. Fate tossed us together, I assure you, I didn't have a great deal of choice.
“But attacking people in their beds, in the dark of night-that's a coward's path, there's little pride in that. Far better if you'd face them in the open, work out your quarrel in an honest, straightforward way-”
The Foxers came at him as if they were all of one mind, as if some sign, some gesture, had passed between them unseen. Their teeth were bared and their eyes were bright with rage. Their blades flashed in the sun, and they raised a terrible din.
“Something I said to offend, I'll wager,” Finn muttered to himself, hastily backing toward the peak. “I fear I've set you fellows off again.”
He reached the top, then, one foot braced on the near side, one against the other, neither too secure, for he felt a bit light in the head. He'd ignored the wound thus far, knew he should have left before the weakness took him down.
The Foxers could sense his confusion, read the hesitation in his stance, smell the blood, perhaps, as their kind had done before the Change.
Every action, now, seemed to move faster for Finn, everything but the limbs at his command. While the Foxers were a blur, moving with a speed uncanny to the eye, his legs, his arms, the weapon in his hand, dragged through a thickening mire, moved with all the fervor and dash of a tortoise in a syrupy sea …
Color faded from the sky, simply cracked and peeled like dry and weary paint that's seen its day. Then there was nothing, nothing there at all, only the sense that he was falling, tumbling, giddy and muddled, out of control, drifting, drifting far away …
25
“Vat dey smellit like,” said the one, “Is s on yons. Vile onyons un' leeks.”
“Garlig,” said the other, “thas the wursof awl. Garlig getting in da poors an' dond efer goes avay.”
“I won say it iss or it's nod. To me, iss nod a simble thing, it's the mix dat make a scent I kant abide. You takes a radich. A radich un a kabach-ain't so fensive as it iss ven dey kook da damn ting, I'll say dat. Now der is un odor dat'll drife you up da vall.
“But I vas sayin radich, radich un kabach, dey won be zatisfy wid dat. A Hooman bein's goda grind dem peppah on it and stir in zum sprout. Bad enuf ven dey ead da filty stuf, the wurst iss in da varts. May I die if it's nod da holy truth, der is nuttin' like the badd smellin vind from a Hooman's goda gutt fulla green an' yellah plants. Vhatcha gotten now? I'm showin' pair of fivezies, and a prince. You goda tree twos, the bet's to you …”
Finn could smell them …
He could smell them in his dreams, smell them when he woke, didn't even have to look. Bowsers always smelled the same, like they'd come in from the rain. He'd known a few at home. A couple lived on Garpenny Street and did good business selling meat and bones. Rabbit and gopher, possum and coon. Beaver, goat and porcupine, wrens, hens and hawks. Carcasses hanging on hooks out front, bloody and swarming with flies.
The folk who ran the shop were decent folk, but Letitia wouldn't speak to them at all. Some of the meat they sold were related, she said, squirrels and voles and such. Besides, Yowlies shopped there; even if they didn't care for Bowsers, they hungered for the dead things they sold.
“I goda tree Vitches,” said one, “that'll beat your twos.”
“You're a tamn cheet is vat you are,” said the other, “you didn haff no Vitches before.”
“I god you both,” said the third, “I god a pair of nines un tree Seers.”
“Shid,” said one.
“I'm oud,” said the other, and tossed in his cards.
Finn risked a look and opened one eye. When he did, a terrible pain shot through his head. For the very first time, he remembered the rooftops, remembered the Foxers, wondered just how he'd gotten here.