Gilded Latten Bones

30

There were four sleeping rooms on the second floor of my house. The biggest, stretching across the front, was mine. Dean's room spanned the house in back, except for a storage closet and space taken by the stairs. Singe occupied the largest of the remaining rooms, which sat on the west side of the central hallway. In area, it almost matched Dean's. The fourth room-our guest room-contained a seldom-used bed and lots of stuff that should have been thrown away. We used to hide somebody there once in a while.

There were two real, glazed windows in my room. They were not barred because there was no easy way for villains to get at them. Both looked down on Macunado Street. The one to the east might as well have not existed. I've never opened it and seldom looked out it. The other, beside the head of my bed, had seen some action. Once upon a time I would stare out it while I ruminated. Tonight, as always in warm weather, it was open a few inches so cool night air could get inside.

I liked sleeping in a cool room.

I had the opportunity that night. The temperature plummeted after sundown. At one point I wakened and added a light blanket to the sheet that had been adequate earlier. Later, I wakened again and used the chamber pot, setting some beer free. Then I wakened a third time, needing a heavier cover and with my bladder ready to explode.

The sky had been overcast during the afternoon and evening. That had cleared. The light of an unseen moon splashed the rooftops and turned them into a weird faerie landscape.

My aim was less than perfect. I missed the pot completely to start. Disgusting. I gobbled something incoherent meant to be an appeal to the Dead Man. No telling what I thought he could do. I got no response, anyway.

Then I saw the ghost.

The specter drifted down out of the night and came toward my window like a vampire in a dream. "But vampires don't really fly," I reminded myself. "They just jump really far." Vampires can leap for altitude or distance but they don't flit like bats. Nor do they turn into bats, much as they might want the prey community to think they do.

I calmed myself, completed my business, formulated a plan for cleaning up before Singe or Dean discovered the evidence. Then I checked the window. And nearly panicked.

The flying woman was still there, hair and clothing streaming in the breeze. Her dress was something light and white that, in moonlight, made me think of fashionable grave wear. And reminded me of what I had seen vampire brides wearing in the nests in the adventure where I first butted heads with Tinnie Tate.

My ears kicked in. I heard my name. Then my brain shed sleep enough to put it all together. That was the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light. And she wanted in.

So, naturally, I remembered that vampires, like most evils, have to be invited in the first time. And I recalled my reaction to this woman last time our paths crossed.

She didn't look like she had seduction in mind. She looked troubled.

I raised the window as high as it would go, which was not much. I turned up my bedside lamp. The Windwalker, being a wisp of a woman, drifted through the narrow opening.

I settled on the edge of my bed, waited, hoping she would feel no need to pace over there by the chamber pot. She glanced around, shoved my dirty clothes off the only chair, settled. She turned the lamp back down. "A watcher might wonder."

Assuming he failed to notice a flying woman in her nightgown sliding in the window. "You didn't ride anything this time."

"A broomstick isn't necessary." She noted my interest in her apparel. "The King held a ball at Summer Hall. I was invited. He has aspirations." She spoke softly.

So. Not a nightgown. "I see." I matched her soft voice. Singe would invite herself to join us if she heard us talking. "And now you're here."

"Yes. It was on the way."

Only by the most circuitous route.