Wicked Bronze Ambition

94

Saucerhead and Winger started cursing again. It sounded like somebody slugged somebody.

Penny yelled at me about the door. Again.

Dex opened his mouth, finally about to get to the reason why he had come to the house.

Vicious Min bulled out of my old office in a ferocious drunken stagger, hunched over, with Tharpe on her back and dragging Winger by the left ankle. That was a sight, Winger being as big as me. Min banged herself and Winger off the doorframe, hard. Saucerhead hung on despite getting banged against the overhead for being stubborn. Min’s face had taken a serious beating. Saucerhead’s, too.

He kept punching. Min tried to smash him against the ceiling. His eyes crossed, but he kept on keeping on.

And that is what made Saucerhead famous. He could take anything and keep on scrapping.

So could Vicious Min.

She headed my way, scattering Dean and his cart. The dogs went crazy when she shoved Hagekagome.

I still had the head knocker handy. And still had the door held open. I realized that and tried to do something about it at a time when I should have been concentrating on getting some serious oomph on my stick.

Things didn’t work out.

Min brushed my stick aside and trampled me in a single drunken stagger. I sat down to bleed. Min flung the door wide. Rain blew in. She blew out, still dragging Winger, who never stopped screeching. She did scrape Saucerhead off on this doorframe. He fell on me, twitching some. Min realized she still had hold of Winger, let her go as she reached the bottom of my steps. Winger lay moaning in the rain.

All through the action growling, nipping dogs participated in the excitement, making the footing difficult for all two-leggers still standing. They might have continued the chase if Hagekagome hadn’t gotten herself together and called them back. Then she got busy trying to lever Saucerhead off the two-thirds of me that he had buried.

I was dizzy but did glimpse a white-faced Dex pressed into the wall by Singe’s office doorway, unharmed but shaken. His eyes rolled up. He sagged.

People from Singe’s office broke up a clog in that doorway, came out babbling questions so vigorously that they frightened Hagekagome all over again. I got hold of her hand, which had an instant calming effect. Helping hands moved us against the wall, me, Hagekagome, and Dex, with Dean on the other side of Singe’s office doorway. Saucerhead came next; then a gang of cursing souls conspired to ferry Winger back inside and into my old office, where the sorceresses among us employed such healing skills as they possessed.

Winger had suffered a concussion. She had bruises and abrasions everywhere. She had some broken bones-and yet I didn’t doubt that she would be good as new before long. She was almost as resilient as Saucerhead.

I couldn’t say the same for the old dread who was so critical to the Macunado household. Even an idiot should now realize that none of that would have happened had the Dead Man been on the job.

Singe and Tara Chayne both told me not to worry about Min getting away. No way could she get far or evade pursuit. She was too easy to spot and too weak to endure. Morley and Belinda agreed from behind those two, just nodding.

Then Orchidia took a knee in front of me. “I believe I’ve learned all I needed to know here, sir, excepting what I may be able to get from the woman who just left. I’ll go find her. I have one chore to handle after that. Then I’ll stop back and let you know what she had to say.”

Oh, such confidence. I wish I had that knack.

She reached up, squeezed my shoulder the way Barate had one time, then gently tousled Hagekagome’s lustrous hair. “You’re such a good girl. You really are. Take good care of him.”

Hagekagome was, at the moment, squeezed up tight against me on my left, head against my shoulder, hanging on to my arm with both hands, still shaking. She responded to Orchidia with an explosively huge smile and vigorous nodding.

Dean got his feet back under him. He drafted Penny to help pick up. Several others joined in. Some genius found sense enough to finally shut the door. And good old Dex finally began to pull himself together.