Dotes mistook me. “Your name isn’t in it. Yet.”
“Not entirely reassuring. But good to know.”
Dean seldom takes an interest. But he had no work and it was too early for bed. He brought a chair in and nurtured the fire while he listened. He kept quiet.
I told Morley, “Interesting stuff, but why come out in this?”
“I was concerned that Rory might think you had something to do with his brother’s misfortune.” Friendship and the showmanship involved in being a manly man lead us through dumb contortions, sometimes.
“What do you think, Old Bones?”
Nothing.
“Come on. I know you’re not asleep.”
Indeed not. I am monitoring the approach of the grand villain Teacher White and his merry men. Including a man named Merry, whose appellation seems singularly inappropriate.
“Headed here?”
Five minutes. Teacher White knows the truth, but Merry Sculdyte will come in blind.
I felt him get busy telling everybody else what to do.
He’s a take-charge kind of guy.
45
Though Morley was bedraggled, he was his old svelte self compared to Teacher White, his crew, and their prisoners. That whole gaggle was on the far marches of the drowned-rat category. Though Singe would have bristled at the cliche.
Teacher told me, “Here you go, asshole. Green Bean, Squint, Brett Batt, and Merry Sculdyte. This’ll probably get me killed. And here’s what Kolda told me was your friggin’ antidote when I bought the samsom weed. Now have your monster get this nightmare outta my head.”
I stood around gaping like a yokel while Teacher’s henchmen piled bodies in the hallway, and halfway wished my monster would get the whispering nightmares out of mine. The black murmurs just wouldn’t go away. Dean sputtered about the water being tracked in. The captives were bound. They were all bloody. Some were still leaking. That did nothing to make Dean happy, either. I couldn’t imagine what White’s bunch must have done to pull this off. I had more difficulty imagining what the Dead Man could’ve done to Teacher to get him so motivated.
Excellent. Most excellent. You have performed prodigies, Mr. White. I am sure that, at this point, you would like to disappear for a while.
“No shit.”
Go quickly, then. The watchers are paying no attention because of the weather. Go quietly.
“What about the mindworm thing?”
I have removed it already.
“That fast?”
That fast. That easily. You will begin to feel much better soon. Go. Watch your footing. Move that coach away from here, even if it is stolen.
Just what we needed. Another stolen vehicle abandoned in front of the house.
The White crew went away, fast.
“Did you get anything new from them before they left?”
Nothing useful. Though Mr. White certainly had himself an adventure. It will become an underworld saga if he survives.
“Interesting.” I checked the pile of twitching, battered bodies delivered by my once and future enemy. “What about this lot?”
Where to start?
I gave Brett Batt a huge kick in the ribs. “Right here. Put in two of those mindworms.”
Garrett.
“All right. I’ll be civilized.”
Morley opined, “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Meaning?”
“I was beginning to wonder if you hadn’t developed sense enough to bust a moose like that up when the chance was there instead of waiting till it’s fair.”
Move Mr. Vrolet out into the weather. Leave him under someone’s stoop. He knows nothing.
There was an edge to his thought that left me mildly suspicious. “It’s freezing out there.”
The chill will wake him up.
“Everything’s covered with ice.”
Then you will have to make sure of your footing. No one will see you. Those tasked with watching us have chosen to do so in warm, dry places.
I muttered and grumbled. The crowd of Dean and Morley eyed me like they thought I was being a big baby. And I was. It was nasty out there, But I latched on to Squint. Dean worked the door. I hauled the villain off into the night. The front steps didn’t improve his complexion.
“How many times did you fall down?” Morley asked when I stumbled back into the Dead Man’s room.
“I lost count. Dean. Can you make hot cocoa?”
It arrived immediately. A cup all around, except for the bad guys. Maybe smelling it cooking was why I asked.
Mr. Ractic can be removed now, Garrett. Once you finish your cocoa.
“Is that the way it’s going to be with all of these goons?”
You have a better plan?
“Any plan that doesn’t take me out into the weather.”
That would result in our guests’ waking up here in the house. And, possibly, remembering it later. An insalubrious eventuation.
“Easy for you to say.” I considered kicking Brett another time or two. “How am I supposed to move this ox?”
I am confident that something will occur to you. Deeply amused.
He was having fun with me. And I didn’t know what it was all about.
I sighed and got to work dragging Green Bean. I didn’t damage him much getting down the front steps. I planned to dump him somewhere on Wizard’s Reach, but when I got to the stoop where I’d left Squint, Vrolet was gone. I replaced him with Green Bean.
The rain continued to fall. Most of it found a way to get under my collar in back. I needed a hood or a big hat.
Gloves wouldn’t hurt, either.
Garrett!
I jumped, startled. “What?” I was still ten yards from my stoop, clinging to an abandoned, stolen goat cart, halfway unconscious, trying to keep from sliding back downhill.
Remember to breathe. You are lucky to be close enough to be assisted.
Yeah? I had a feeling that I’d just been manipulated somehow, so I’d learn a lesson.
I went in and attacked some more cocoa. Then hot tea, then cold water. I crowded the fire. I asked, “Are we learning anything? Has any of this been worth my trouble?”
You will be pleased to learn that Mr. Rory Sculdyte considers you one of the most dangerous men in TunFaire. Worth murdering preemptively.
“Oh, my. I’m a made man now. Are we headed for another anticlimax, with these guys all being marginal?”
Not quite. You were a target of opportunity for the Batt brothers, not the point of the exercise. Merry Sculdyte had instructions to put you to sleep if the opportunity arose. Perhaps the stone egg was slung at you by an opportunist Sculdyte soldier. You are on the list not only because you are a general nuisance but because you might find Chodo before the Sculdyte crew. You have an astonishing reputation among these thugs. Clearly, they do not know you at all well.
“What’re my chances of digging them out?”
Getting better by the minute. Every thug able to get up on his hind legs has been looking. We know a very great deal about where Mr. Contague is not.
“Is he with Belinda? Or does Harvester Temisk have him?”
The consensus is that Miss Contague is hunting her father with more vigor than anyone else. And your idea did occur to me. I have asked John Stretch to put word out in the ratman community, offering a substantial reward.
Clever. Ratfolk go everywhere. Nobody pays attention, except to yell. I glanced at Singe. She seemed quite pleased. And tired.