She sighed, lowering her eyes. "It was all Dad's idea," she said reluctantly. "He had this crazy notion that merc groups who took teenagers probably didn't keep very good records on them. He figured he could keep indenturing me to one after another, collect the money and then help me get out, and they'd never catch on."
"Cute," Jack said. "More stupid than cute, actually. But no crazier than some of the scams my uncle and I pulled over the years."
"So you are a con artist?" she asked. "That's sort of what I figured."
"Reformed con artist," Jack corrected. "Trying to reform, anyway. So what were you doing in the Whinyard's Edge HQ that night?"
"I wanted to get a peek at their records on me," Alison said. "Just in case Dad's plan hadn't been as clever as he thought. I guess I should have waited until we were on Sunright."
"Or skipped it completely."
She made a face. "Dad wouldn't have liked that," she said. "He's—well, let's not go into that."
"Bad childhood?" Jack suggested.
Alison shrugged. "Mom and Dad and I never stayed in one place very long, if that's what you mean. Other than that . . . I don't know. I don't really have anything to compare it to."
"I know the feeling," Jack said ruefully, thinking back over his own life with Uncle Virge. "What kind of work do your parents do?"
"Whatever they can find," she said. "Dad's always chasing the Big One, as he calls it. The job that'll finally bring him fame and fortune and success."
"I gather he hasn't made it?"
She shrugged again. "There's been some success, I suppose. There hasn't been any fame. There certainly hasn't been any fortune."
Jack nodded. She was being evasive, but he could read between the lines as well as the next guy. Her father was a criminal like Uncle Virgil, though apparently not nearly as successful.
Which was ironic, considering that it was Uncle Virgil's spectacular career that had caught the attention of Arthur Neverlin in the first place, which was what had dragged Jack, and now Alison, into this mess. "Where are your parents now?" he asked. "Are they the ones you're expecting to pick you up?"
She shook her head. "These are some friends of theirs. Actually, I really don't know where Mom and Dad are. Like I say, they move around a lot. What's a K'da?"
With a supreme effort. Jack managed to keep his face expressionless. "A what?"
"A K'da," she repeated. "Frost said he didn't want you and your K'da to suffer the same fate as your uncle. Come on—I've told you about me. It's your turn."
"I have no idea what he meant by that," Jack said, feeling sweat break out on the back of his neck. He'd completely forgotten that last comment of Frost's just before he'd shut down his comm clip. This girl was way too observant for his taste. "Some slang term, I suppose."
She stared hard at him with those dark eyes. Jack held her gaze without flinching, and after a moment her lip twitched. "Fine," she said. "Don't tell me. Can I at least get your real name?"
"Jack Morgan," he said. "Raised by my uncle, Virgil Morgan."
"Virgil Morgan," Alison said thoughtfully. "I've heard that name. One of the great con men and safecrackers of our age, isn't he?"
"Certainly in his own mind," Jack said, feeling a ghostly echo of pain and loss. Even more than a year after Uncle Virgil's death, it still hurt sometimes. "No, that's not fair."
"Not if even half the stories are true," Alison agreed, an odd glint in her eye. "So you're Virgil Morgan's nephew."
"Yes, we've established that," Jack said, eyeing her suspiciously. Was there a hint of actual admiration in her voice? Or was it just more sarcasm? Whatever it was, he didn't like it. "And I'm reformed, remember?"
"Sure," she said, the faint admiration turning to equally faint amusement He liked that even less. "Well. That was fun, but we really ought to try to get a little more distance before sundown."
Ten yards behind her, Jack caught a glimpse of gold dragon scales. "If you insist," he said, wincing as he pushed himself up off the ground. Even during the brief rest break, his leg muscles had stiffened up considerably. "You still want to handle point?"
"I'm still the one with the gun," she said. "By the way, have you noticed that these Phookas can change color?"
Jack's first reaction was to wonder which of these animals could possibly have gotten riled up enough to go into K'da combat mode. He'd seen that effect a couple of times with Draycos, where some of the poet-warrior's heightened blood flow seeped into his gold scales and turned them black.
But a second later he realized what she was actually talking about. As one K'da left his Erassva host and a differently colored one took his place, Alison would naturally interpret that as the original Phooka changing colors. "No, I hadn't," he said. "Interesting."
"You should pay better attention to your surroundings," Alison said reprovingly as she got to her feet. If she was feeling stiff, it didn't show. "And try to keep them quiet. I'm guessing the Malison Ring will make some move before nightfall."
However Draycos had worked his end of the scheme, he'd clearly done a terrific job of it. The group reached the area he'd described as the site of the Malison Ring picket line to find it completely deserted.
Jack had gone perhaps twenty yards past the picket line when, from somewhere ahead and to the right, came a sudden crashing of branches and a distant howl of pain.
Ducking around trees and bushes, he ran toward the sound. Rounding one last stand of reeds, he nearly ran full tilt into Alison as she stood at the edge of another of the sharp drop-offs. "Watch it—watch it," she said, putting a hand out across his chest. "This whole ridge is crumbly."
"What happened?" Jack asked.
"We've lost one," she said grimly, nodding down the cliff. "Take a look. But be careful."
Holding on to a nearby tree branch, Jack eased up to the edge. Thirty feet down a steep slope, a dusky red Phooka was lying on his side, two of his legs thrashing weakly as he struggled to free himself from a tangle of vines. "Did you see what happened?"
"About what you'd expect," she growled. "Stupid thing wasn't watching where he was going and walked off the edge of the cliff. Question is, what do we do about it?"
Jack took a step back and looked around. Draycos was nowhere to be seen, probably still playing shepherd off to the left. "Let's start by asking Hren," he said. "Hren? Hren!"
"Yes, young Jack?" the Erassva's voice called from behind him.
"Come here a minute, will you?" Jack called back. "We've got an injured Phooka on our hands."
The fat alien appeared and stepped to the edge of the drop-off with what seemed to Jack to be a complete lack of caution. "How sad," he said as he peered down. "How very sad."
"Never mind the sadness," Jack said. "How do we help him?"
"Help him?" Hren seemed puzzled. "There is no help for him, young Jack. Not down there. A few hours and he will be gone." He turned to go.
"Wait a second," Jack said, grabbing his arm as he looked down at the injured Phooka. The creature's eyes were half-closed, but even in the fading light Jack could swear he was looking directly at him. "We've got some rope in these packs."
"We'd need more than just rope," Alison said. "These things are heavy, and we'd be dragging him against all that vegetation. At the very least we'd need a block and tackle."
"But we can't just leave him there to die," Jack protested.
Alison shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions."
Jack clenched his hands into fists. There had to be a way to do this. "How about if I go down to him?" he suggested.