Angry Lead Skies

62

Singe let me into the house moments after the Goddamn Parrot, evidently under the illusion that he was some kind of eagle, slammed down onto my right shoulder and tried to carry me off to his aerie.

He couldn't work up quite enough lift. So he gave up.

I feared Singe was going to climb all over me exactly the way I'd wished about a thousand young women of passing acquaintance would've done in days of yore. And she might've done so if the sexier silver elf hadn't come out of the Dead Man's room to see what was happening. She wore a tattered old shirt probably taken from Dean's ragbag. It might've served as a child's nightshirt before it acquired all those holes. It was barely sufficient to cover the subject. Most of the time.

That was distracting. Even on her. Because there was nothing but her underneath the tatters.

Maybe it was some sort of experiment by His Nibs.

Singe settled for clinging to my arm. "So what great adventures did you get to enjoy out there today, while the rest of us were locked up here, dying of boredom?"

I detached the Goddamn Parrot from my shoulder. "I traded you to John Stretch for two Bic Gonlits and a sugar-cured ham." I tossed the jungle chicken in the general direction of his perch, in the small front room.

"What?" Singe shrieked.

"John Stretch really wants you. You really turned his head."

Garrett, do not be a fool. Miss Pular is about to fly into a panic. What you are saying means more to her than it should.

"I'm sorry, Singe. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that like it sounded. I was teasing you. Yes, I did tell John Stretch that I'd trade you for two Bics. But his chances of... "

Garrett!

"All right! Singe, no matter what I told John Stretch, I'm not letting you go. Nobody is going to take you away. So relax. Take some time, again, to see if you can't figure out when you're being teased. And I'll try to rein it in. If I can. Humans seldom speak straightforwardly and direct. I find that frustrating myself, sometimes." Like almost every time I spend more than a few minutes in the company of most human women. "Anyway, even if I was that big a villain, how likely is it that John Stretch would keep his word?"

"Because he's nothing but a slimy little rat, you mean, and we all know that ratpeople are nothing but stupid, lazy, lying, thieving, smelly animals?"

While Singe shouted the Dead Man passed along one or two points of interest. Well, well. The ratman who calls himself John Stretch was born Pound Humility, of the same female one litter before Miss Pular Singe. It may be that his interest in her is less political than personal. Miss Pular suspects an unwanted brother's concern for his sister's welfare. From the viewpoint of a ratman she would be making a huge mistake by getting involved with you.

"Whoa! Whoa! Singe! I'm sorry! I apologize! That isn't what I meant at all." I felt a variant of Winger's question kicking in. If the woman who heard it wasn't human was the man still wrong? Apparently so. I'd tripped a triggerwire and I wasn't going to talk my way out of this one.

Good to see that you are not going to deny that she is involved with you, even if you do not feel that you are involved with her.

The Dead Man rescued me. This once. Because this wasn't a hole I'd dug for myself without help and because Singe was creeping up on the edge of true hysteria. And if there's anything the Dead Man dislikes more than females in general, or as a class, it's hysterical females.

There was one plus side to the whole emotional circus. Although ratgirls do get upset, they don't shed tears.

The silver elf woman just kept standing there, gaunt as Famine Himself in that old shirt, taking the scene in with those huge, strange eyes. She didn't seem frightened anymore. I wondered how much she was picking up from the Dead Man.