“I hope I'm not intruding, sir. I'd speak if you've the time.”
“Damned impolite, I'd say,” said Pynch, “but no one has manners these days.”
With that, the captain floated over to the basket to whiff some emanations himself.
“I am Lucas D. Klunn,” the misty figure said. “I lived here all my life, and I have to say the town is as dreadful for the living as the dead.”
“I can only speak for the former. But I'd likely agree with that.”
“I felt the need to speak when I learned who you were. You're in great danger, sir. I don't suppose I have to tell you that.”
Finn was taken aback. “You know me? You know who I am? From Pynch, I suppose. You overheard our talk.”
“No, there was no need for that. A Coldie hears things, sir. There's little else to do, you know. It takes up the time, whatever that is, the meaning's slipped my mind.”
The wraith had a grisly, terrifying demeanor. Worse, even, than the gruesome Captain Pynch. Very little head, and the features that were left were awful to behold.
“I think I said I'm Lucas Klunn, which will have no meaning to you since the Fates have kindly set your life in other realms. I was a merchant, once, and made a small fortune in the export of peas. My church affiliation was Hatter, though I seldom went full-time.
“In my early middle years, I was struck with dread disease. Either that, or poisoned by my wife, I've often wondered which. She left soon after, with a fellow who dealt in beans.
“But I digress, sir, and apologize for that. What you'll want to know, or maybe not, is that I feel you've little chance of leaving here alive. If things come to that, you're welcome in our little band. Or, if you'd care to go home, the vessel Irrational Fears should be putting in soon, the one Captain Pynch came on-”
“Master Klunn!”
Finn was greatly startled, stunned, and given a turn by the apparition's words. “If you could get to it, I'd be pleased. I'm anxious to hear what dangers I face, besides those I know about myself.”
“Oh, well then …”
Klunn, what there was of him, looked disappointed that his dire and dreadful tidings might not be news at all.
“You know, I guess, that the Foxers here have posted a reward for your fingers and your toes …”
“For my what?”
“Fingers and toes. They're not your ordinary folk, you know. They have their own manner, their own peculiar ways.”
Finn tried to set this disturbing image aside, but it failed to depart.
“I know they have a quarrel with me, I'm quite aware of that. We had a run-in the other night, which you've likely heard about. Apparently, everyone has. I had thought they were angry merely because I was on the scene. I'm no longer certain of that. I don't know if there's more to this or not. If anyone else is behind this thing, someone using Foxers to get me out of the way …”
The shade began to fade, flicker, shake and shiver all about. Finn looked away before he got terribly sick.
“That I can't answer, sir, but I can tell you this. You got the Foxers on your trail, you don't need anyone else.”
The wispy fellow shook his head, which was not a pleasant thing to see. “This thing with the Nuccis, it's more than a quarrel. It's a plain blood feud is what it is. Old hates were stirring long ago, before I was born.”
“And when would that be?”
The spectral figure hesitated. “That's hard to say. Time doesn't work the same for the living as the dead. Sometimes it feels like tomorrow when it's truly yesterday.
“I worked real close to a Foxer whose name escapes me now. He was in beets, when I was in peas. He and his sort were hard to be around. They didn't much care for human kind. There'd been some trouble with their folk disappearing, simply dropping out of sight, never showing up again.”
“Disappearing how? You don't mean dying, you mean just-going, right?”
“That's it, indeed. And didn't anyone ever know why, ever know how.”
“And this had to do with the Nuccis somehow?”
“I'm near certain it did. Everyone thought so at the time. Bad blood is what I'm saying. I've no idea why.”
Finn took a breath. Lightning forked out of the sky and struck the ground far away. Finn could feel the tingle in his boots. And, for an instant, the Coldies seemed to blink away.
“Do you know a man here in town named Dr. Nicoretti? He's a Hatter, I don't know much more than that.”
“I know who he is. I wasn't alive in his time.”
“And a Mycer seer …”
“Well, certainly I do. How do you think you found us this night, Master Finn?”
Before Finn could answer, the ghost of Lucas Klunn began to shimmer and drift apart.
“One thing more, or maybe two,” said a chilly whisper in his ear. “You might stay among the living, there's a little chance of that. The Newlie, now, I doubt she'll make it through. And hear me, Master Finn: There is something in the Nucci house that's more like us than you …”
“Wait,” Finn said, “you can't go and leave me with that!”
Finn scarcely blinked, and Lucas D. Klunn was gone. So was Captain Pynch, and so were all the rest …
30
Finn had been so intent on Lucas Klunn that he'd failed to notice the storm had swept over the town. Scudding clouds near touched the earth, and thunder was a drummer far away. Errant drops of rain plunked from ruined timbers overhead. Somehow, the silence now was more frightening than the raging storm itself.
There was so much stirring in his head that Finn feared it might burst at any time. Foxers, Bowsers, and sly Nicoretti, who was clearly a danger, though he couldn't say how. Dread revelations from the Mycer, doom from the apparition Klunn.
Reason said put it all aside. Stay alert, keep your mind free until you come safely back to Letitia's side.
“A fine idea,” Finn agreed with himself, “I'll surely have to try it some time …”
Finn damned and praised the mess the storm had left behind. His legs were weary from stomping through the muck and mire. Still, this misery was countered by the fact that he seemed to have the night to himself.
He wondered about the time. “Night” was likely not the proper word now. It had to be the very early hours, not too far from dawn. With this in mind, he quickened his pace as much as the rain-soaked earth would allow.
A good quarter hour after he left the shades, Finn smelled the strong, salty scent of the sea. Moments later it appeared, a darkness greater than the night, touched here and there with peaks of luminescent white.
He was very relieved at the sight. If the sea was to his left then he only had to turn a short angle to his right. The road from town to the Nuccis would appear, and he'd be with Letitia long before first light.
Finn had not allowed himself to dwell on her much until now. She had to be safe, had to be just as he'd left her, just as he saw her image now. Sabatino wouldn't harm her, wouldn't dare. Even that crazed old man had warned his son about that.
Finn hesitated, closed his eyes and drew in a cold breath from the sea.
“Bricks and Sticks,” he said aloud, aware at once of the foolish rationale he'd allowed to cloud his mind. “Letitia's all right because Calabus is there? Wake up, Finn, before you go as mad as all the rest!”
The day was coming much too quickly now. Moments before, Finn had felt secure in the safety of the dark. Now, things gray and indistinct threw off their nightly guise and donned their daytime shapes again.
He felt naked and exposed. He found a small depression and hunched down nearly to the ground. He could still see a slice of the sea, the low outline of the town etched against a sky tinged with purple, streaked with dirty blue.
Standing again, moving quickly but carefully across the wet ground, he saw a darkened smudge not far ahead below the last wink of fading stars-