Wicked Bronze Ambition

78

I chose a villain who looked ready to be returned to the wild, suggested, “Pick one, Penny. Then lead him out ahead of me and mine.”

Grumbling, she did as I suggested.

“Wait by the office door. I’ll get Barate and Ted to help.” If nothing else, somebody had to stand by at the front door in case of comebacks while the bad boys were being ejected.

We were at the door. Penny was set to spring it. I got caught up in one of those speculation loops, wondering what had become of Hagekagome. I’d seen no sign of her. Had she run away, been turned loose, or been chased off? Unlikely. Playmate was still here. He’d never let anyone that vulnerable roam around unprotected.

And what about Vicious Min? Was she still in that induced coma?

Penny poked me, hitting a pain point perfectly, no doubt having learned by observation. My once-upon-a-time, Tinnie, had been a master at finger-poke torture. “Wake up, old man! You’re the one who says we have to do this.”

“All right. Sorry. I took a second to worry. And to let Ted and Barate catch up. Go on, now. Open her up.”

She unbuttoned and flung the door wide-then put every ounce of her ninety-some pounds behind the shove she gave her victim.

He flipped over the porch rail.

“Damn, girl, I hope you didn’t break him.” I moved my man out more gently, then backed against the wall so Barate and Ted could evict their own.

“Why?” Penny asked. “They work for people who want to kill you. Who already killed Strafa.”

Barate shared her level of anger. He got a lot of muscle behind his toss.

Dr. Ted, though, wussed out. He still had trouble getting past that first-do-no-harm twaddle.

Then we were all tumbling over one another as we tried to get the door shut before something bigger than Vicious Min or the little blonde’s companion, wearing a head like a squid, got a tentacle in there among us.

Ted had no trouble going to work on that with his knife.

“What the hell was that?” the sweet young thing among us demanded. “That was one ugly fu. . freak!” She was panting and shaking.

I was panting and shaking. Barate was panting and shaking. Ted was panting and shaking but had not gotten distracted from keeping eighteen inches of writhing severed tentacle pinned to the floor.

I said, “That thing had twenty arrows in it.” Though, really, most had been crossbow bolts. Whatever, they should have slowed it down.

The street had been seething with excited red tops, some of them Specials armed for military-style action.

I had some military tools of my own. I was tempted to break them out. If I did, though, Deal Relway would insist on knowing why I had them and where I’d gotten them, after the dust settled

Penny asked, “Would salt do any good?”

We once had an encounter with a tentacle-thing that had responded to salt like a snail or slug.

“I doubt it. That was a whole different kind of beast.”

Ted said, “You could experiment on this piece, though.”

That hadn’t stopped wriggling.

I said, “How about let’s get us some fresh victims?” I stepped to the doorway to the Dead Man’s room.

Shifting four bodies out hadn’t freed him up. He now had nothing with which to offer an explanation.

Penny guessed, “He’s busy holding off that thing out there.”

Almost certainly. The people still in the room had begun to stir. Then some heavy-duty thumping started up somewhere else in the house, maybe over where Vicious Min was supposed to be sleeping.

“Penny, run across and tell Moonblight. .”

I didn’t have to finish. Mr. Tentacle had put the hoodoo on the kid, big-time. In seconds Moonblight was headed up the hallway looking grimly angry and as scary as Shadowslinger in a sour mood. She told me, “Stay out of the way, candy-ass!” Then, “My gods! I am going to blister that girl’s butt when I catch her.”

She knew what was out there and who to blame for its having come around. So. Here was more family squabble, of the sort where somebody was supposed to wind up hurt. Moonblight flung the door open and to hell with being fussed about what might be out there.

Tentacle-boy was right where we left him. But he-she-or-it wouldn’t be aggravating anyone else any time soon. Something had happened. Something that wasn’t all those bolts and arrows totaled up.

Something had carved off big chunks, including tentacles, legs, an arm, and a head. One big eye still had a dagger lodged in it, tip stuck solidly in the creature’s weird, cartilaginous skull.

Moonblight opined, “Well, hell, this isn’t so good.”

“Looks good to me,” I had to say. The contest in the street was breaking up. Bad boys had begun showing their heels with verve and enthusiasm. Tin whistles were putting the captured and fallen into restraints, ignoring wounds, taking no chances on dead guys only faking it.

There did seem to be an excessive number of fatalities. Red tops try to take their men alive. Prisoners can be passed along to the labor camps, where they pay their debts to society by contributing to public works. Plus, the camps pay prize money for breathing bodies.