Gilded Latten Bones

98

Strafa returned, dripping. The rain had started up again. She asked Singe, "Why is he so glum?"

"He is remembering the sad times before he found you. How bad is it?" She produced a twin to the towel she had used to dry Kyra.

A glance at Strafa told me she had bad news.

"There was an attack on that place we went last night. They burned it to the ground."

"Oh, shit. Crush! DeeDee. Mike."

"It started just after Belinda left. She heard the racket and went back. There was a huge fight."

It must not have gone well. "Penny?"

"I don't know. They were just starting to pick up the pieces. The fire wasn't out yet. They were concentrating on that. The Guard turned up in time to get into the fight. The woman in black leather was there. She did some sorcery. Her thread men got wiped out. I counted eighteen. The woman and the cart took off. There was a running fight with Specials armed with military weapons. They stopped the cart by killing the goats. The woman got away. So did the thing that was in the cart. Nobody would swear it, but the talk was, a giant squid thing crawled out and turned into a naked man that ran off with the woman. She was wounded. Singe, could you track her?"

"In this weather? Not likely."

I asked, "How about Belinda? How about Morley?"

"I don't know. They wouldn't let me get close. It looked like most of Belinda's escort went down. Their mounts, too. The coach is on its side in the street, the team dead in the traces. On the upside, it didn't look like the people from the house suffered much."

"What should we do?" I asked the air.

The air did not reply.

"Singe, we have got to get him awake."

"I have a job to do, as Strafa just said."

"And, as you pointed out, it's raining."

"I am going to give it a try. The squid man should have a serious reek."

Getting feisty, my little girl. Her charming adolescent deference and diffidence were fading.

"If you're sure that's what you need to do, go for it." I asked Strafa, "Are you going to take her?" Hoping the prospect would turn Singe's bones to jelly. If a shape-changing guy who turned into a giant squid didn't do the trick.

"I have to go back anyway, to see about our friends."

They were my friends so they were her friends. "I guess you do. Bless you, Strafa Algarda."

"Garrett?"

"Just a sentimental moment. You are too perfect. Too precious. It's frightening."

And she didn't get embarrassed by mushy stuff. She just laughed like wind chimes. Her eyes turned a violet shade that made me want to kiss each lid about a thousand times.

"The next few years could get really saccharine around here," Singe grumbled. "Are we going to go, Strafa? Or would you rather stand around with a goofy expression, twisting Garrett till he looks like he's mentally challenged?"

"That one for sure. But I was raised up to honor my civic responsibilities first."

"Yes. Yes," I said. "What will all this do to the political situation? They got everything calmed down once. Prince Rupert thought the cover-up would stick. But another attack could rip the head off a butt of chaos."

Strafa kissed me. She made it clear that she meant it when she said she would rather stay and make me crazy. Then she headed out, with Singe right behind.

I asked the air, "Did the evil genius behind everything deliberately create a new crisis?"

Dean showed up. "Do you think it's too risky for me to go out?"

"Yes, I do. There are people out there who want to commit murder for no obvious reason. Is there something we need desperately? Have Dollar Dan make the run when he gets back. Or go wake Bird up and promise him a bottle."

"We face no critical shortages. I wanted a couple pounds of beef to slice for a dish I want to try. And I was hoping to swing by to see how Playmate is managing."

"He took his medicine with him?"

"He did."

"Strafa can check on him later."

"That is best, I expect." A pause. "I'm having trouble adjusting to the excitement being back."

"I'm sorry."

He chuckled. "I wasn't fishing for an apology." He made a search-and-capture sweep of Singe's space, collecting rogue cups, trays, pots, and flatware. "It should all turn tediously domestic once this insanity gets sorted out."

"Really?"

"The only challenge I foresee is you deciding if you'll go live in the Windwalker's mansion or if she'll move in here. I'm thinking this place will get cramped with a gaggle of little Garretts underfoot."

"Gleep!" Or, maybe better said, "Gleep?"

"I'll give odds. You'll be a daddy inside a year. And you will awe and amaze us all by turning out to be a good one."

I couldn't answer that. I didn't have the words. "Gleep?" That stuff didn't sound absurd when he said it.

The redhead, with her usual steadfast self-assertion, entered my mind. Hands on hips. Head cocked to her right. Chin lowered. "Well?"

The question never came up. Not even as speculation, excepting in the lateral sense of prevention. We'd never discussed our attitudes toward children let alone thought about making our own. Which surprised me, in retrospect.

I muttered, "God, strike me down now. I can't possibly be old enough to be a parent."

Dean broke out in the biggest shit-eating grin I ever saw on his ugly old clock.

"You prick."

His grin got bigger. "We should move to her place. There'll be room for your own kids and strays like Penny, too."

"Penny isn't my stray."

We exchanged troubled looks. Hanging around our house might have gotten that girl into the worst trouble of a short, troubled life. And we might have gotten Crush, DeeDee, Mike, and the gang at Fire and Ice into the worst trouble of their troubled lives, too.

I said, "Well, for now let's just be gay bachelors-the way we were before the females began to accumulate and complicate."

"Yeah," Dean said, with a marked absence of enthusiasm. He headed for the door. A moment later I heard Dollar Dan ask why he looked so glum.

Rain was falling again. I got a strong whiff of Dollar Dan as he followed Dean to the kitchen.