Wicked Bronze Ambition

77

The Dead Man’s room remained untainted by the chaos burbling in the hallway. He was not alone, though. Penny was there pretending to work on a painting, escaping the confusion herself, and making a statement. If we wouldn’t let her play with the big kids, she wouldn’t do anything else that she didn’t have to.

Penny was the only one conscious there. There were leftovers from other roundups. They weren’t stacked in, but they did take up most of the available room.

In fits because he was running near capacity, Old Bones informed me, I need your. . assistance clearing. . out. Too. . much of my attention. . is consumed by the. . need to manage them.

“So why not have Penny. .?”

Penny. . does not have the strength or. . physical skills needed to. . handle one of them. . if my control slips.

Penny did that girl-kid thing where she sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth while pulling down a lower eyelid with a single finger. I’ve never figured that out and didn’t see how it fit the current situation, either.

I was pleased that she was no longer afraid to act like that.

The gods don’t want us to understand kids, nor are kids supposed to understand us-our lack despite us having survived kid-dom ourselves.

I suppose that, like childbirth pain, it just drifts off into the ether.

I noticed some friendlies behind the crowd, Playmate and my friend the poisoner. . Excuse me. My friend the apothecary, Kolda. He and Playmate must have become inconvenient to have underfoot, though I thought Playmate would have been useful removing no longer wanted houseguests. Maybe Old Bones was so distracted and pressed and frustrated that he had added them to the people freeze because that was easiest.

I glared at Penny. There was no way she couldn’t have managed those two just by making puppy eyes.

She asked, “Did you see what they did to the door?”

“What?”

“You’re going to need that Mr. Mulclar again.”

“Door? Mulclar?” Mulclar has an enduring problem with gas. I could smell him already. Feh! “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Some people tried to break in. Some of them weren’t human. Himself had so much going he couldn’t totally deal with them. He only had me and Dean to help.”

And me standing there looking at Playmate and Kolda. Kolda was no ax-swinging barbarian, but Playmate, even weakened by cancer, could handle his weight in wildcats.

“It got exciting. He had to keep all these idiots controlled while he held off the people outside. They were working on the door with pry bars when some red tops finally stepped up.”

“I see. So. Who were they? Do we know that much?”

“No. At least Himself didn’t tell me and none of them offered a calling card. Probably had to do with those Operator creeps.”

“They didn’t know about the Dead Man?”

“Maybe not. Maybe they didn’t care. We didn’t get to ask.”

They would care if they knew.

She added, “Maybe the red tops will tell you what they get from the ones they caught.”

Maybe. I didn’t think I’d hold my breath.

That should’ve been the Dead Man’s cue for a comment about my cynicism. He forbore. Or he was too damned busy.

“Penny, how about you give me a hand clearing these deadbeats out?”

Playmate and Kolda looked like their minds were beginning to unfog.

Old Bones managed a feeble Do not. . waste time. Big pressure. . has begun. . to develop from. . outside.

Meaning he would have no attention left for doing anything with or to the new intelligence sources I’d brought in.

Exactly.

And that was his last word.