Wicked Bronze Ambition

65

We headed back north, me now particularly conscious that a cloud of Specials must be swarming around us. The others, excepting Niea, were relaxed. Scithe chattered incessantly, digging into how Strafa’s passing might touch my connection, or lack thereof, with my former woman. Despite being married, with children, Brevet Captain Scithe was thoroughly infatuated with Tinnie Tate. Not that he would ever push past flirting-but he would certainly look out for the pretty red-haired lady.

I neither encouraged nor discouraged him. Tinnie was outside my personal orbit but not gone from emotional recollection. I lugged around a satchel full of guilt about the split. I like Tinnie. She is good people. I wish there was a way we could stay friends.

Belinda Contague crossed my thoughts.

We had stayed buds.

Belinda was unique, though. She was crazier than most.

Tara Chayne asked, “Working on your suicide program again?”

“Huh? My what?”

Then I got it. I’d drifted away again, escaping dread reality.

“I’m awake.” I checked to see where we were.

We hadn’t been wandering. We were only blocks from Playmate’s stable. I felt like I’d forgotten something important but hadn’t lost track of the fact that I needed to see my friend and to check on Little Moo.

Her I expected to be gone. Playmate was kind, caring, and gentle, but knew less than I did about the nurture of teenage girls. Especially those who were intellectually and emotionally challenged.

Lucky me, I had Dean, Singe, and Old Bones to help chip the edges off a reasonably normal Penny Dreadful.

I suffered a sudden blow to the right biceps. “Ow! That hurt!”

Not nearly as much as it might have had Tara Chayne not been older than stone and punching sideways off the back of another horse. “Stop fantasizing. Death is afoot.”

“What?” I didn’t see anything unusual. We were a block from Playmate’s place in one of the quietest neighborhoods in TunFaire. My encounter with Little Moo could be the biggest excitement there in months. “What do you mean?”

“Just trying to get your attention.”

One thing had changed. Helenia had joined us, limping badly. “Blisters,” she said when I caught her eye. “I’ll need to wear better shoes if Deal keeps sending me off on these fool’s errands.” She grimaced at each fourth or fifth word.

“Hang in there, eighty yards more. Then when we get rolling again I’ll let you ride.”

I should have been down off that monster already. We couldn’t travel faster than Scithe and Niea could walk.

“Trouble coming,” Tara Chayne warned, shifting to Moonblight mode. She hadn’t lost her edge since coming back from the Cantard.

I felt the change, too. The air became charged with crackling imminence and a touch of ozone. The dogs, Scithe, even Niea felt it, as did our hitherto invisible escort. Several materialized, drifted in around our party.

The imminence faded. I sensed irritation, frustration, and impatience tempted to take a chance.

More red tops revealed themselves. They had an idea whence those sensations had come. They closed in fast. In moments they were chasing several people.

None of my companions gave in to the impulse to join the chase.

That caused another wave of irritation.

Moonblight ripped off a peal of laughter right before she gave away the fact that she was a heavyweight off the Hill.

She said something in a demonic dialect that consisted mostly of grinds and clicks and consonants. The pure jet ink of a living centipede shadow materialized overhead, legs churning, body undulating like that of a snake in a hurry. A cry of despair rose somewhere between us and Playmate’s place. Moonblight spoke again. The centipede scuttled off after whoever or whatever had run away. It walked on air fast!

Moonblight said, “I’ve been looking to use that ever since they misspulled me in.” “Misspulled.” I’d swear that’s what she said, though she promises that she said, “Since this mess pulled me in.”

Some awful noises started up in the direction that the centipede had run. The roar of a panicked crowd followed.

“Caught them!” Moonblight crowed. “We’re having fun now, aren’t we?”

She didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. In midchatter she had shifted attention from the sounds to some red tops bringing two prisoners our way. They weren’t coming to meet us. They passed by on their way to the Al-Khar, which lay back behind us. They nodded courteously to Scithe and winked at Helenia.

The prisoners wore clerical mufti. Collars proclaimed their professions. Civilian clothing declared them off duty. They belonged to the same litter as the prisoners taken in front of Chattaree.

Niea froze. He blanched. He stared at the bowed backs of the captives.

“Friends?” I asked.

Apparently not. “I know what they are. I’ve heard the rumors.”

Smiling enough to reveal her need for dental attention, Moonblight said, “He’s marked.” Which I understood. She asked him, “Are you carrying some token that your bosses insist you keep with you all the time?”

“I don’t understand.”

“It could be anything. Jewelry. A badge. A uniform bit of clothing. A handkerchief with a Church monogram. Anything. Just something they gave you and told you to keep on you.”

He got it, turned to gape at the departing prisoners. “They were here after me. Maybe they were supposed to kill me!” He fumbled in a shirt pocket, produced a painted wooden plaque bigger than a playing card but smaller than those used to read the tarot. It slipped out of his shaking fingers, clattered on the cobblestones. Brownie gave it a sniff. Her hackles went up. She began to growl.

Number Two and the others hurried up the now empty street, formed a skirmish line. Tin whistles who had been nearer the source of the trouble had all dematerialized again.

Niea took hold of his death card, passed it up to Moonblight. He began shaking so badly he could hardly move. More than to the terror he was reacting to the opening underfoot of a depthless abyss of betrayal.

The thing that was a hundred-legged absence of light returned. It circled above Moonblight, widdershins of course, legs flailing like the oars of a galley where the rowers were totally wasted. It looked fatter than before.

Scithe opined, “I think a new Special just got born.”

“Recruit him if you want. My partner gets to see him first, though.”

Moonblight studied our surroundings. Some red tops from earlier reappeared buildings up ahead, each of two pairs carrying a corpse slung from a commandeered pole. Tara Chayne muttered, “And I guess that will be that.” She swatted her centipede. It shattered into a thousand fragments, each of which faded to amber and evaporated.

I had to admit, “That was impressive.”

“Thank you. It was all show. I don’t get many chances now that we’re not at war anymore.”

“Can’t say as I feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the excitement back. I enjoy the quiet life. My sister is the one in mourning because of the peace plague.”

“Then she’s having a good time today, isn’t she?”

“And that’s why I want to leave her where she is. Hoping she’ll suffer enough to realize that she’s too old for this shit. You’re all goggle-eyed. What now?”

I pointed.

Little Blonde stood atop the peak of a roof tree up the street, hands tucked into her sleeves in front of her, untroubled by the fact that she was three stories above the cobblestones and the weather was about to get damp again. She wore an aquamarine winter coat with a white lace collar. A little white pillbox of a hat sat cocked atop her head. Her shoes were out of sight, but I didn’t doubt for a second that they were shiny black leather over low white socks. Very in for the well-to-do girl-child these days.

She offered me a slight bow and a small smile once she saw that I had spotted her. I didn’t see her sidekick but was willing to bet the farm he was within stabbing distance.

Moonblight said, “I know her.” Her tone was one of awe.

“Who is she, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Uh. . That don’t make much sense.”

“Right. All right. I’ve seen her before. Somewhere. But I can’t remember where or when.”

That was no help and I said so.

She wasn’t going to apologize. “She the one who turned up before?”

“She is.”

“She’s cheating. She isn’t what she seems. She might even be a spirit or demon.”