Wicked Bronze Ambition

81

The street was quiet. The show that had brought the crowds out was long gone. The cobblestones were still messy, though. Brownie and her friends found a hundred places deserving of sniffing and pawing. Some looked like patches where somebody had lost bladder or bowel control. A few stains might have been spilled blood.

Local civilians wanted nothing to do with it. Some wanted to arrange it so nothing like it ever happened again. A fierce committee of two upright subjects and three busybody goodwives engaged us in the street. They explained in no uncertain terms how insistent they were that I not bring any more such intolerable nonsense into the hood. In fact, it would be best for the hood if I just packed up and. .

Tara Chayne stepped up to the grim-faced harridan who was the grit round which this pearl of displeasure had formed. “I don’t like people like you, you sour old witch.” She waved a hand on which fingers danced inside wisps of indigo mist. The unhappy woman’s hands leapt to her throat. She made choking noises. Her eyes expanded more than could be accounted for by choking.

Despite everything that had happened tonight and all that she had ever seen, that old woman never really believed that what touched me could also reach out to her.

She went to her knees still fighting for air. Moonblight patted her head as if she were a small child. “Anybody here having trouble understanding? No? Good. I didn’t think you would. In a nutshell, it’s mind your own business.” She dropped her fingers to the choking woman’s head, lifted. The woman floated up as if she weighed four ounces.

Her choking never quite became life-threatening.

“There. Have some air. That’s better, isn’t it? Are you listening now? I’m going to say something important after I remind you that Mr. Garrett is now part of one of the senior houses on the Hill.”

The entire committee cringed.

“Are you listening?” Moonblight asked again.

The biddy could only nod.

“That’s good. That’s what I wanted to hear. You need to listen and remember. What you’re experiencing now will stay with you forever. I’ll loosen it a little before we go. You should remember that it’s there-though I imagine that it will remind you frequently. I know your type. You’ll never stop cursing and complaining, so you’ll guarantee your doom. Once we go, that spell will tighten a little every time you say Mr. Garrett’s name.”

Moonblight squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “It’s up to you. I don’t think you can save yourself. You’re too rigid, too sour, and too bitter. But I could be wrong. Maybe you can change. My sister did. Let’s go, gentlemen.”

The only person of the male persuasion handy was me, and I’m no gentleman. Barate and Dr. Ted were long gone. Tara Chayne had been having too much fun to notice.

We left those people flustered, intimidated, outraged, and frightened. Which one in what combination depended on individual characters.

Out of earshot, with Tara Chayne hogging Number Two’s place to my left, I observed, “You weren’t very nice to my neighbors.”

“They were going to be nice to you? I’m constitutionally incapable of being polite to that kind of butthead.”

“But. . Well, I’ve always tried to get along with them.” Sadly, I can’t control the bad behavior of people who come around trying to cause me misery. “Making it so she can’t even say my name seems a bit harsh.”

“Pussy.”

“But-”

“That was all bullshit. Nobody can cast a spell that fine.”

“But-”

“You sound like you’re doing background vocals for one of those street-corner singing clubs.”

“But-”

“It’s too complicated to craft a spell that specific. But she doesn’t know that. We work hard to make people believe that we can wiggle our ears and make any damned thing we want happen. She’ll believe it. She’ll feel the noose tightening every time she starts bitching about you ruining the neighborhood. And when she does she’ll believe in it even more. She could end up strangling herself using her own imagination.”

I couldn’t help blurting, “You’re evil!”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

I hoped I never got into a position where that truth might affect my well-being. And then I wondered if she wasn’t trying to do to my head what she’d already done to that of my neighbor.

Probably. She was a natural-born voodoo woman. She’d been doing it since she was a toddler. She had started doing it to me the moment we met.

She said, “I wonder what all the excitement was a while ago. Up the Hill, I mean. Remembering what we’re involved in.”

It felt like she was playing some game with me again.

“Are we going to go find out?”

“Not hardly. We still have Mariska to catch.”

We weren’t headed toward the Hill. I should have understood that without having to be told.

I was tired.

I was going to get more tired. Or even tireder.

She said, “We’re not out here alone again anymore. Again.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

I sighed. “Any idea who it is?”

“It might be the curly top.”

I saw nothing but darkness. “No rats? No red tops?”

“They figured we’d quit for the night.”

“Why is this kid so interested in us?”

“A good question. Let’s hope we get a chance to ask.” Some seconds passed. “I think the big thing is with her. Or someone showing an interest.”

I suspected that “the big thing” was always close by, whether or not he was visible.

Was he her Mortal Champion or Dread Companion? Where was the other member of their team?