Tzekich stopped in the doorway. She turned back to consider us. Impervia and I tensed, ready to put up a fight… but the Caryatid simply toyed with the anchor device Dreamsinger had left in her keeping, idly tracing one finger along the inlaid gold horseshoes. Did Tzekich want to mess with a Spark Lord's "dear sister"?
A tense silence. Then Tzekich said, "Forget them." She glared in our direction. "Get the hell out."
We didn't need to be told twice. Before Tzekich vanished from the doorway, before Xavier could have us roughed up behind his boss's back, we three teachers were out the window and scurrying into the darkness.
The guard dogs raised a ruckus on our way off the property; but with the Caryatid waving flames in the dogs' faces and Impervia swinging a fallen tree branch as a club, the animals soon decided their duty lay in snarling from a distance rather than outright attack. They saw us to the gate, yapping all the while and continuing long after we were gone. Dogs on other estates took up the barking, making an awful racket… and I cringed at the noise until I realized it was harmless.
We'd survived.
After running afoul of a spike-armed enforcer, a Sorcery-Lord, and the Ring of Knives, my friends and I had survived. We were also cut loose from our burdens: the Sparks were on the case, and didn't need help from mere schoolteachers. We'd even told Knife-Hand Liz her daughter was dead… and once you've informed the authorities and the parents, what more must a teacher do?
Quest over. Home to bed.
But even as these thoughts passed through my head, Impervia asked, "So how do we get to Niagara Falls?"
I groaned.
Arguing with Impervia was futile. Besides, my heart wasn't in it-though part of me wanted to run back to Simka, another part oozed with guilt at abandoning Sebastian. If I could believe Dreamsinger, it seemed certain the boy was now in the clutches of a Lucifer. Furthermore, the Sorcery-Lord was in hot pursuit of the couple; even if she saved Sebastian from the shapeshifting alien, I doubted that she'd treat the boy kindly. A lunatic like her would probably consider Sebastian the Lucifer's partner-in-crime.
Boom.
Besides, if we went home now, we might never learn what was going on… and despite my past deficiencies in scientific curiosity, this time I wanted to know everything. Therefore, when Impervia began preaching about our divine calling to see this business through, I put up only a token protest: I just pointed out that Dreamsinger and the Ring might both slit our gizzards if we meddled, and that by the time we got to Niagara Falls, all the excitement would likely be over.
Impervia admitted the risk of gizzard-slitting but not that we might be too late to affect the final outcome. We'd been called; therefore we had a part to play. God and the Magdalene had summoned us, and if we stayed true we would end up where we were supposed to be. Holy foot-soldiers in a divine battle plan.
I had no answer to such rock-hard faith. My own sense of religion had never developed one way or the other: I was too embarrassed to say I believed in God, but not angry enough to say I didn't. Neither hot nor cold. I'd always longed to receive a clear vocation ("Philemon Dhubhai, this is your purpose!") but mistrusted anything so pat. When Impervia said we'd finally been called, all I could do was dither.
"Yes, but…"
"No, but…"
"I see that, but…"
"I know that, but…"
I was saved by the arrival of Myoko, Pelinor, and Annah.
They'd been down on the docks when they saw the milky tube descend from the sky. Hard to miss on a dark silent night. So they'd left their fruitless questions about Sebastian-in a port full of smugglers, no one would divulge anything-and they hurried up the cliff-road to the mansions of the rich. Dreamsinger's travel-tube had vanished by the time they arrived; instead, they followed the howling of dogs and found us at the epicenter.
Myoko shook her head ruefully as she approached. "What did you do this time, Impervia?"
Impervia only sniffed.
Tales were quickly told. Myoko said she envied us for finding so much excitement. The Caryatid suggested where she could put that excitement… and much crude-mouthed banter ensued.
Annah, of course, did not take part-not quiet, doe-eyed Annah. She merely listened with a polite smile, glancing my way from time to time. I couldn't tell if those glances meant she was glad I'd survived or if she was having second thoughts about me, my friends, and this whole crisis-prone outing. Before I could draw her aside and ask, Impervia's voice cut through the chatter.
"Enough! We have to find a boat for Niagara Falls. A fast boat. Did you see any possibilities in the harbor?"
"Not among the fishing boats," Pelinor answered. "For speed, you'd want the marina; the expensive pleasure yachts that rich people keep here over winter."
"I'll bet," Myoko said, "we could find a yacht that wasn't securely locked up…"
"Don't even think it," Impervia growled.
Myoko pretended to be surprised. "We can't commandeer a boat in the service of God?"
Impervia only glared.
"I know people in town," Pelinor said. "Horse breeders with money. They probably own boats."
"If we're thinking of people with money," said the Caryatid, "there's always Gretchen Kinnderboom…"
Everyone turned toward me-even Annah, who I'd hoped might not have heard any gossip about me and Gretchen.
I sighed. "Yes, Gretchen has a boat-and she claims it's the fastest in Dover. That's likely just idle boasting, the way she always…" I stopped myself. "Gretchen has a boat. It's supposedly fast. Come on." Silently, I led the way forward.
Kinnderboom Cottage was thirty times the size of any cottage on Earth; but Gretchen reveled in twee diminutives, like calling her thoroughbred stallion "Prancy Pony" and the three-century oak in her side yard "Iddle-Widdle Acorn." (Gretchen had a habit of lapsing into baby talk at the least provocation. She was that kind of woman… and beautiful enough that I often didn't care.)
Like all houses in this part of Dover, the Kinnderboom mansion squatted in the midst of a pointlessly large estate overlooking the lake. The building itself was an up-and-down thing, equipped with so many gables it seemed more like a depot where carpenters stored their inventory than someplace people actually lived. Wherever you looked, there was an architectural feature. Each window had a curlicued metal railing; each door had a portico, an arch, or an assemblage of Corinthian columns. And everything changed on a regular basis: an army of construction crews, landscapers, and interior decorators passed through each year, ripping out the old, slapping up the new. I don't think Gretchen really cared what any of the workers did-she just hired them so she could have more underlings to boss around.
The workers were always men.
The grounds of Kinnderboom Cottage were surrounded by a wall; but I had a key to the gate, plus a good deal of practice sneaking in under cover of darkness. I let my friends enter, locked the gate behind us, then motioned everyone to stand still. Ten seconds… twenty… thirty… whereupon an unearthly creature appeared from the shadows, his stomach pincers clicking as he walked.
"Ahh," he said. "Baron Dhubhai."
Myoko turned toward me and mouthed the word Baron? I shrugged. I had no title in my native Sheba-no one did, except a few old men, indulgently allowed to call themselves princes-but Gretchen knew how rich my family was, and she fervently believed such money would make me at least a baron in any "civilized" province. Therefore, her household slaves were obliged to address me in that fashion.