Wicked Bronze Ambition

71

Moonblight revealed her talents once more, showing no originality at all. Her best trick seemed to be that giant flying centipede of darkness.

Singe asked, “Is there an alpha with those things?”

I did not understand, nor did Moonblight.

Dollar Dan, that clever fellow, did. “Most flying thunder lizards do not show gang behavior. Flock behavior? Those up there feature a red-and-blue crested helmet growth. I believe that makes them a carrion-eating breed.”

I was lost. But he was right about what looked like big tumors on top of their heads. They were buzzards that would kill something when nature’s rhythm let them down.

I was big on thunder lizards as a kid. You saw more of them back then. I thought I knew all about them. Now I knew that I didn’t.

Singe explained, “I believe they hunt singly but call each other when they find a carcass, cooperating to fend off competitors. My question is, in a group situation does one animal take the lead? If so, we should capture that one and have Dan take it to the Dead Man.”

“Good thinking, Singe!” Truly excellent. Scary excellent. Though Dollar Dan wasn’t excited about the role she had chosen for him. He didn’t argue with the logic, though.

While we convened our committee, the gargoyles got on with business, the main feature of which was a massed plunge straight down.

Moonblight’s centipede bought us precious seconds by wrecking the foremost monster and rattling the others.

I produced the lead-weighted oaken head knocker I supposedly always carry, and actually had remembered this time. It was my favorite instrument of applied mayhem. This time it didn’t give me the reach I wanted. Those things had wingspans of five to eight feet, the widest I’d ever seen inside the wall. Plus, they had plenty of claws and thickets of teeth that stuck out at seven different angles. I thought Dollar Dan might have been optimistic about them being carrion eaters.

Dan produced a truncheon similar to mine. He would be in serious trouble if the tin whistles caught him carrying that. Not that he was breaking any formal law.

The common law, the unwritten law, the law that says humans get to make it up as they go along where the Other Races are concerned-especially with artificials like rat people-was being badly abused here. Nobody wanted to see a rat man armed with anything resembling an actual weapon.

A rat man with a nightstick might get the idea that he could hit somebody back, or even whack somebody just for being an asshole.

Singe, however, had that staff that would cause less comment, she being a girl, and it had some real reach. Plus, as instantly became obvious, she had snuck in some training in the art of fighting with big-ass sticks. She destroyed three of those ugly turkeys in about that many seconds, stepping, grunting, twisting, thrusting, and thumping like she was working her way through a floor exercise.

The rest of us would have backed off to watch, mouths agape for flies to nest in, if those gargoyles not yet demolished hadn’t decided to get the hell gone.

A particularly bold monster, the one who had gone to scout the nuns, stayed to watch from the flock’s original perch.

A tin whistle whose uniform had shrunk in the wash arrived. There were no longer any weapons in evidence. Dan and I were cleaning cuts and whining. Singe was leaning on her staff looking dreamy. Moonblight was poking fallen gargoyles and rifling pockets in the weird net vests they wore strung between their long necks and the hips of their stubby legs. The fat red top was too winded and stressed to grab witnesses who might not tell him the same lies we would. He puffed, hands on knees, staring in disbelief at the scattered beasts. A widening circle of emptiness developed as potential witnesses made themselves scarce.

Folks just didn’t want to spend their afternoon telling red tops something the tin whistles didn’t want to hear.

Moonblight drew the fat man’s attention by bringing in her centipede. That made clear what she was. “None of these creatures is dead, Officer, but they’re all broken. There’s another one up there.”

I thought she meant the watcher but then noticed bits of ragged brown felt hanging off the edge of the roof. Her centipede had gotten one more as the gargoyles made their getaway.

She added, “I can have it brought down if you like.”

“No, ma’am. That is entirely unnecessary.” She being what she was, he was eager to please and to avoid inconvenience. He didn’t give a rat’s patootie about the rest of us. We must be servants. She was between us and him, anyway. “Other Guards will arrive soon, I’m sure. They will clean up and see what the witnesses say. How may we get in touch if it becomes necessary that my superiors disturb you?”

I had trouble keeping a straight face. I almost lost it when Moonblight gave him her sister’s name. I got an ugly look for that.

The moment the fat red top turned to greet the next tin whistle, Dollar Dan asked, “Does this mean that it is too late to take one-”

Moonblight silenced him. “We didn’t get the right one.”

We looked up.

The remaining gargoyle wilted slightly, then concluded that it might have a brighter future elsewhere. A demonic centipede might be sent to visit if it stayed here. It launched itself in a frenzy of flapping.

“Did you see?” Singe asked. She was staring up at the building beside the limestone ugly, a redbrick pile almost as hideous. It stood some taller with its sloping roof and whatever was above that.

“I did not. What? I was engrossed in the gargoyle’s getaway. I was hoping it would smack into that half-timbered place over there. What did you see?” I figured she’d seen some other exotic from outside the wall, meaning maybe we ought to get braced for another adventure.

“There was a little girl up there. Just standing on the slate. Dressed too heavy for the season. A nice blue coat. She went away walking with nothing underneath her feet.”

“I see.”

Tara Chayne nodded thoughtfully. “Hmm.” But she kept looking in the direction the gargoyle had fled. “It might behoove us to fade away before someone with more status, nerve, and initiative, who doesn’t care who we are, turns up.”

Yes. Some Guards wouldn’t be afraid to hold us up all day for having committed the sin of making them work.

Tara Chayne gestured at Singe and Dollar Dan, got them moving, then me and my mare, then moved out herself, walking rearguard.

We hadn’t gone fifty feet before I found myself swarmed by dogs.

They had vanished while gargoyle weather loomed. They crowded in close now, not confident of the threat’s end.

I suspected that they might have some dark collective memories of deadly hunger from the sky.

We nearly made a clean getaway, but the dreaded somebody with the exaggerated sense of self-importance did turn up and start hollering for us to hold it right there. He had a big, shiny Specials badge on his beret.

“Nonsense,” Moonblight said. “Turn into that alley.”

Dollar Dan did so. Singe followed. Garrett and pack, with pony, chugged along behind, neither arguing nor questioning. Surprised, Singe asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“No need to be a wiseass,” I snapped, and kept moving, thinking I knew what Moonblight intended. And she did it, putting up a visual barrier that would make it look like we had dashed into that alley and off the face of the earth.

She was in a generous mood. She left no booby traps, humorous, humiliating, or dangerous. She caught up. “A shift in plans. I want to see Barate before we go after my sister.”

“That will cost time. They could move her.”

“I understand that. I’m trusting your associate to live up to her reputation.”

Singe preened.

“We can. Home it is, then.”