Wicked Bronze Ambition

73

When we left Shadowslinger’s hovel, we hustled straight to Moonblight’s place. She wanted to pick up some tools that might come in handy if we ran into supernatural trouble.

That took only a minute, but during that minute Kyoga and Bonegrinder had a change of heart and deserted us. I’m not sure why. A second minute went to Tara Chayne giving Denvers special instructions. Then it was a quick trek southeast, Dollar Dan leading, essentially reversing the route we would have taken had we come straight from Chattaree to the Machtkess house. The place where Moonslight was supposed to be was barely five blocks from Prince Guelfo Square and the home of Frenklejean’s porkly magic. The area featured masonry operations and those who prepared the brick and stone that masons used. Too, there was a place that produced tombstones and one that burned specialty cements for mortars. The neighborhood had a distinctive odor after a productive day. In among the shops and storage buildings and manufactories were the homes of the owners and a few tenements that offered housing for workers. It was a glum and dusty neighborhood on the best of days.

It was late enough that most places had shut down for the day. Dusk threatened. A glance skyward left me suspecting that we would be getting wet again soon.

Dollar Dan’s arrival spontaneously generated rat men. He and they chatted. They were nervous because of the human crowd. They were awed, too, because Dan could hang with notable humans and Pular Singe, too. They were afraid to get close to Singe. She was next to royalty among ratkind. She should not be troubled by peasants.

I had no difficulty considering her royalty. There never was a rat person like her. Only John Stretch came close. She was a celebrity. She was a heroine. She might become a saint.

She was a huge source of pride to all ratkind and better known there than her dim-candle sidekick, me.

She had no brief for what of that attitude she did notice, which she blamed entirely on Dollar Dan.

Dan came over. “They are getting ready to move the woman. They have been doing that, off and on, all afternoon.” He raised a paw. Moonblight wanted to launch an immediate sortie. “Patience, please. Hear me out first. Orders for the move came hours ago. Then those orders were countermanded. Then, just a while ago, someone angry rolled in wanting to know why the move had not been made, apparently because Moonslight’s keepers are supposed to be able to anticipate their boss’s desires.”

I have worked for bosses like that.

My jaw hung. It wasn’t alone. Singe rasped, “Who are you, Poindexter, and what did you do with my Dollar Dan Justice?”

Dan lapsed into drooling idiocy instantly. Pular Singe had praised him. She had called him “her” Dollar Dan Justice.

He got over it fast. He was back to business in seconds, describing the inside and outside layouts of Mariska’s “prison.”

Barate whispered, “Did they just roll in there and map it?” The information was detailed.

“Some rat people have some amazing talents.” Singe, while unique, was not alone in not being a big lump of dumb with whiskers and ears. Barate had seen it himself, back when, but I chose not to remind him that some rat men can commune with their unmodified cousins and use them as scouts. That shouldn’t get spread around, especially on the Hill.

An intelligence resource like that would be massively useful to any villain. And I’d bet that the possibilities hadn’t gotten past Singe or John Stretch. They probably had plans for dealing with the evilly ambitious.

I asked Dan, “Have they scoped out the tactical situation?”

Again Dan failed to commit to stereotype. “They have a plan and an alternative plan, in shock-and-awe style.”

He produced a map, crudely drawn on ragged-ass scrap paper. The lighting left something to be desired, but the damned map worked.

I said, “One change, I think. Instead of taking the risks that come with a break-in, why not let them come to us? The only way out, if they want to sneak, is through the storage lot to the alley. Which would be perfect for an ambush. Right?”

Dan said, “Let me talk to Mud.”

Ted whispered, “Why wait? Why not just blast in from three directions? They couldn’t handle that.”

“Coordination problems. Somebody would go early. Somebody else would go late because they didn’t hear anybody else moving. And the baddies would be ready because somebody would make noise and give the whole thing away. Plus, we could end up fighting each other in the dark.”

Dan came back. “Mud Man says you are a genius, Garrett.”

Singe said, “Which shows you how well Mud Man knows him.”

I said, “Well, of course I am. My mom always told me so.”

Actually, she was talking about Mikey when she said that. Me she told, over and over, that I would end up in the gutter unless I made at least a half-ass effort to live up to my potential.

Oh, sigh. The past is never as shining as we like to remember. And it never turns us loose.

Whispers ran among the rat men. There was a stress-out squeak from Tara Chayne as regular rats of unusual size scrambled around among us. So. The little scampers made the dread Moonblight nervous.

Dan said, “They’re about to move out, exactly the way you guessed. We need to be ready.”