Wicked Bronze Ambition

52

Singe was there beside my bed, armed with my favorite mug. It was filled with medicated black tea. Something had reached inside my still throbbing coconut to waken me. It withdrew after easing the pain a little.

“Did I make a total fool of myself?”

She raised a hand, thumb and forefinger narrowly separated. “Close. But not quite. Drink this. It’s from Kolda. You have work to do.”

She’d been up long enough to go see Kolda? I seemed to recall her gobbling the dark with enthusiasm herself.

Must be something she’d kept around, just in case.

She said, “You left the dogs out without food or water.” Apparently a crime, though I didn’t get it. Dogs are dogs. They belong outside.

I swallowed some tea. The medicine hit fast. Kolda knows his stuff. But it didn’t change my attitude toward the mutts.

“You just cannot do that sort of thing, Garrett. You have accepted responsibilities.”

I wound up to protest and argue.

She stepped all over me. “Go downstairs. Things need doing.”

Old Bones brushed me, mildly impatient.

“Huh?”

“That sorceress is here with the tracers for the swordsmith.”

“Huh?” Again, now with startled oomph! behind it. “Moonblight? I didn’t think she’d come within a mile of here ever again.”

“Himself says she is all business this time. Something happened on the Hill last night. . Oh! You were there, too.”

Intuition, maybe subliminally fed by the Dead Man. “All that flash.”

“Apparently. He has not filled me in.”

Interesting.

Kolda’s herbs did what they could, but a low-grade headache persisted. I’ve had some experience with the hangover phenomenon. This day might not be filled with sunshine and joy. I started it with the traditional vow never to do anything as stupid again until the next time. I was too old for this crap.

And we have heard it all before. Please move along. Wear comfortable shoes.

He was trying to scare me.

There was a grand conspiracy afoot. Penny waited to play her role at the foot of the stair. She herded me toward Singe’s office, no stalling or side trips allowed. We met Dean coming the other way. He said he had delivered breakfast for me and a light repast for our guest. I glanced into my old office as I passed. Vicious Min lay splashed across a couple of old mattresses, on her back, totally disheveled, in a coma induced by the Dead Man. My attempt to stop for a look failed. Penny and Singe both pushed me on.

“But what have we learned from her?” I demanded manfully. Though Singe claims I whined.

Very little. Her mind operates differently. She deals with situations by translating from our ways of thinking to hers. Her rest state, or ground state, is wholly alien. I am trying to work my way into her mind by tracing one memory at a time.

“Oh, come on!” My exasperation did not target him so much as the perversity of the universe where I was stranded. If reality was a solipsist bubble, the chief engineer needed his butt kicked till he got his mind right.

She may be a demonic immigrant after all.

An immigrant. Right.