Wicked Bronze Ambition

113

The centipede surged up and out, off my face, leaving a hundred stinging scratches. The chant ended; then stunned silence gave way to a weird, girly squeal that did not come out of the only girl in the room.

I surged up, right hand seizing the throat of an old goat with wild white hair and a repulsive growth on the front and top of his head. He wore one of the robes tailored at Flubber Ducky. The best of the bunch, I’m sure. He dropped a bronze sword. His eyes bugged. He tried to shake his head. “No!” I couldn’t tear my gaze away from that monster blemish, bigger than a pomegranate and the same color, with ample decorative liver spots.

I thought about Strafa and squeezed.

The centipede had one end each around the throats of two hired hands, the youngest and healthiest of the lot. They were outfitted with robes and swords, too. They wouldn’t have drawn a second glance on the street tonight. There were others, but most were barely breathing or were Mikon D. Stornes. Mikon hadn’t rated his own costume or sword, even incomplete.

He moved toward Kevans and Kip, who were laid out Mandela-style atop a plank table positioned at the heart of the most elaborate and colorful mystical diagram I’d ever seen. Kip was unconscious. Kevans was not. Magister Bezma had resisted villain stereotype enough not to have stripped her down before he got to work. She was sort of half-ass draped in one of the robes, though. Second best, probably. And a sword lay upon her chest, grip in her bound hands and tip between her knees. She got all loud again before I finished crawling out of the coffin. I hoped Mikon’s intentions were good. There wasn’t much I could do if he went bad on me before I finished with his cousin.

No worries needed, though.

The front door and surrounding wall exploded inward.

The Black Orchid emerged from the debris, very much meeting my inclination to see her as a death spirit. She was dreadful. She gave off her own dark glow and darker sparks. A stench preceded her. It would have been totally appropriate had she been sporting a jewelry ensemble made of rotting baby heads and severed penises.

The wall in the back blew in. Magister Bezma’s wards and alarms hadn’t been worth much. Moonblight and Moonslight arrived. Their blazing anger did not nourish the hope that flashed across my victim’s face. Moonslight was the more grim twin. She had a full charge of woman-scorned going on.

The house shook so violently that even the centipede lost its grip for an instant.

The blonde’s mighty companion dropped through the ceiling, like a stone falling from a great height. . Actually, he was standing on a pointed ton of stone, an inverted, stolen tombstone stele, having already penetrated the roof and several higher floors. He drove on down through the floor in this room, too, missing Kevans, Kip, and Mikon by inches, stopping hip deep in hardwood. Every waking eye looked his way. And the little blonde floated down through the opening that he had broken.

I got my grip back. Magister Bezma passed out from lack of air.

Morley, Singe, and Dollar Dan charged in through the breach opened by the Black Orchid.

Everybody looked at everybody. Only Kevans had anything to say, but plenty of that, loud, filthy, and virulent, until Moonblight extended a hand the way she had in front of my Macunado place, with similar advantage to the public peace-for maybe twenty seconds. Then something gave and Kevans started right up again.

Mikon fumbled at Kevans’s bonds, finished, turned to Kip. The liberated cords and gag went right onto Magister Bezma. The moment Meyness B. was sewed up I hied my handsome but worried butt over to Kip, who did not look good. He had an ugly blue-gray hue to him. “Somebody look at this kid and see what’s wrong with him.” I was talking to the twins, but the death master left Magister Bezma in response. She had Kip’s color coming back in seconds.

“You!” I told Kevans, finger stabbing. “Shut the hell up!” It was time. Her butt had been saved. She wasn’t required to fawn or be grateful, but she could cut back on the godsdamned complaining.

Teenage girls: got to sing, got to dance, got to whine about every damned thing. And I had another one, live-in, coming up.

“You,” I told Singe. “I don’t want to hear a word.”

She didn’t say anything, either, but I knew what she was thinking. I said, “Let’s get them together in one place,” like that really needed saying. The bad guys were crowded together already, now absent their bronze toad stickers. “And get their costumes. We can use those.” They were in no mood to resist, just standing, sitting, or lying there looking unhappy and hopeless. The one who did break for freedom smacked right into a combo mechanical and magical snare that, through absurd happenstance, hadn’t inconvenienced a single invader.

“Mariska, get that moron loose. Morley, let’s you and me and Mikon get the big fellow out of that hole.” He had begun struggling. That just got him more stuck. I met the little blonde’s gaze. She awarded me a very slight smile and a tiny nod of appreciation. In that moment she seemed more than a little familiar. But how?

The feeling that I should know her was stronger than the feeling with Hagekagome, which seemed mostly nostalgic.

Dollar Dan tied bad guys wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle with cord off a roll he found on steps leading to the second floor. That cord was the same as what had been used to bind Kevans and Kip. Kip was breathing better but sleeping. He must have been drugged to keep him pliable.

Dan made sure each healthy villain was tied between two who couldn’t get around under their own power, then put a dead guy at each end attached by a tangle that only a knife would ever defeat. The bad boys were not pleased to be at the mercy of the least of the Other Races. Only one commented, though. Tara Chayne fixed him up with a throat spell that worked better than had the one she’d wasted on the sorceress’s daughter.

Mud Man appeared up front. “Hey, we got it, Dan.”

“Good work.”

“It” was the wagon that Evil Lin had taken away, without the gray teamster. Dollar Dan had sent Mud Man to get it because he figured some of us might not be able to walk away from the scuffle.

Mud Man also announced, “There are tin whistles filtering into the neighborhood. They appear not to know what they are after, but they are looking for something.”

Dan told me, “We should finish here and leave before we find ourselves trapped in an interview that never ends.”

Tara Chayne grumbled, “Why the hell aren’t they off riding herd on the All-Souls revelries?”

The costume folks should be out by now, in the better-lighted parts of town, since no rain had yet materialized. Pickpockets and purse snatchers would be out with them. After the fireworks the drinking and rowdiness would really begin. If the red tops were serious, they would concentrate on keeping the worst incidents nonfatal, local, and unpopular.

Hell. General Block’s people would be doing that. Anyone filtering into this neighborhood would be up to something special. They would be Specials. It wouldn’t be smart to count on a friendly mind-set in Deal Relway’s Special fellows.

They might be under special instructions to make a special example of a certain special pain-in-the-ass-type professional snoop. They might make a special effort to catch said special guy in sufficiently special circumstances that his only way to weasel out would be to claim special immunity as Prince Rupert’s personal special agent.

I said, “We maybe ought to consider getting out of here especially fast.”

Special minds were already thinking along those exact lines. John Stretch had his crew, including himself and Dollar Dan, gone in a trice-not just doing a fast rat scurry but getting out in front of the Specials with intent to provide mystery shadows for them to chase.

We finished tying Magister Bezma’s crew to one another. They stayed to greet the Specials. Bezma and Mikon went into the wagon along with still-sleeping Kip Prose, still-fuming Kevans Algarda, who had been tied up so long that her circulation wouldn’t let her get around under her own power, along with all the weapons and costumes originally intended for the Ritual. All four dogs found ways to climb in with the people.

They had kept a low profile during the excitement. They knew when it was best to stay out of the way.

Morley brought us down to earth, dispersing a growing communal urge to do something hasty and probably foolish. “With all the talent we have here, we should be able to leave without being seen as anything but some people headed for the celebrations.”

“Good thinking,” Tara Chayne opined, considering Morley with that speculative look that women get around him. “We have their costumes.”

Singe rolled her eyes, shook her head, and whispered, “Don’t get jealous.”

“Yeah? This could be fun.” Too bad Belinda wasn’t around to impress us with her lack of humor.

Then we were rolling with no ratfolk but Singe visible, nor any Black Orchid, nor even the little blonde’s big-ass friend. Nor the blonde herself, come to that. I hadn’t noticed Orchidia disappearing. I last saw her when she told me to take the gang to Shadowslinger’s place. Her turning into a ghost was a disappointment but no surprise. The blonde vanishing was a bigger disappointment. I’d been all set to get to know her better.

The big guy managing to vanish was more of an amazement.

I was sure I’d see them all again.