The guests backed away again but continued to watch. Even the musicians and servants wanted to gawk. There wasn't an ounce of compassion in the house.
What does that say about the human folk of TunFaire?
Valiant Marengo stepped forward heroically. With an elegant flick of his blade he slit the changer's stolen dress. The creature kept trying to wriggle away. Its limbs refused to cooperate.
I yanked the bolt out and pushed my coin in before the wound closed. "This's the last one. I hope." Six was more shapeshifters in one place than I'd ever heard tell of. A few more wouldn't be a real surprise now.
Weider stared at the changer. He shook his head. "I don't get it, Garrett." He was fighting the shakes.
He had a better chance of understanding than I did. It was his house, his family, his brewery. What I understood was, he was my friend. "We'll find out."
Ty agreed. "Whatever it takes, Garrett." He was shaking, too. "No prisoners. No quarter." He refused to sit down.
"I'll need help dragging these things out of here." On cue, Relway's thugs materialized. They must have been listening. They slipped through the crowd like they were greased. "Where were you guys when I needed some backup?" I grumbled. "This needs taking away. I have two more upstairs. I'll show you where."
Weider addressed his guests again. "Please, people. Celebrate. Be joyful." He couldn't fake any joy himself. His despair shone through.
My admiration grew. Max was like those old-time aristocrats who had built the empire. He soldiered on with what had to be done despite any personal pain. He would not yet yield before his duties were satisfied.
I led Relway's men to the study.
One prisoner had slipped his bonds. We got there just in time. It cost me another groat to get it under control again. I was grumbling like Marengo before we finished.
Ritter said, "We'll take them out the back way. You'll hear from the chief."
"Remind him. He promised."
Belinda was waiting when I went back downstairs. She asked, "Are we ready to go now?"
I watched North English entertain a gaggle of hangers-on, flourishing the borrowed sword. He seemed particularly animated. I must have missed the most exciting part of the adventure.
A frown darkened his face when he saw me watching—but he was too pleased with himself to worry.
Miss Montezuma offered me a speculative, enigmatic, almost frightened glance. She looked like a woman who had found a snake in the breadbox. Though I doubted she would know what a breadbox was.
Again Belinda asked, "Can we go now?"
"I can't. Not while there are guests still here." And then there was Tinnie.
Belinda scowled. "There was a time, not that long ago, when you would've dropped everything... " It wasn't true. We both knew it.
"Go if you need to, Belinda. I'll get in touch. If you'll let me."
She nodded unhappily.
Belinda Contague was powerful and deadly—and a sad little girl. Not to mention dangerously willful.
Sometimes I'd like to choke Chodo for whatever he did to her.
"I'll go, then." She glanced at Tinnie. "Don't forget me." Damn! She wouldn't get into a killer Contague mood, would she?
Chodo got rid of Belinda's mother because he couldn't stand competition.
"Belinda... "
She stalked away. She muttered something I didn't hear as she passed Tinnie and Alyx. She paused to say something to Marengo North English. He seemed startled, pleased, frightened all at the same time. He looked at me speculatively. Belinda swept up the stairs to the outside door and Gerris Genord. She and the majordomo were gone before I got my thoughts organized. Events had Genord looking bleaker than they did Max or Gilbey.
50
Nothing else happened. The do was not the ball of the season. Too much crude excitement for people of refinement. Our sort don't let these things happen. The bigger-name guests shortened their visits. They began leaving soon after Belinda. Those who stayed on were almost exclusively rightsists nabobs and men who wanted a private word with Max Weider. I'm sure Max wasn't much help.
Tinnie didn't stray far the rest of the evening. Alyx tagged along gamely, never grasping the truism that there is no outstubborning a redhead. I should have told her. I have some experience in the field.
Even diehard friends of the Weider and Nicholas clans packed it up before the orchestra finished playing. Ty was unhappy. Nicks was outright depressed. I caught the glimmer of a tear more than one time.
"This is sad," Tinnie mused. We were surveying the grand hall from the vantage of the front entrance. Gerris Genord nodded as though she had spoken to him. The man looked like he was fighting an ulcer. "I feel for Nicks, Garrett. If you make a huge sacrifice just to make your family happy, it shouldn't turn to shit around you the way this has."
"Woman! Such language for such a delicate—"
"Stick it in your ear, Garrett. I mean it. She didn't get any joy out of tonight. I don't think that would be too much to ask in exchange for the rest of her life."
"There's got to be a curse on Max Weider. On the whole damned family. It rubbed off as soon as Nicks decided to join up." I was beginning to wonder if such a curse could actually be managed. It seemed unreasonable that a man's only luck ever had to be bad.
Without really seeing him I watched Gresser bustle around frantically, as though his depleted crew had work to catch up.
Tinnie said good-bye to some straggler she knew, not bothering to introduce me. I asked, "You going to stash me in the flour pantry and only take me out when you want to play?"
"There's an idea." She gave me an arch look. "If I could keep the Alyxes of the world out of there. Are you going to stay?"
That was my secret plan. "Coy doesn't become you."
"Me? Coy? Since when?"
"You're trying to fake it. I don't think Dean would ground me if I didn't come home tonight. Especially if I make up a story that has your name in it somewhere." Tinnie remains one of Dean's favorite people.
One of mine, too.
"What I love about you is your wild enthusiasm when you decide to do—"
"Excuse me, sir." Genord was back from escorting the straggler to his coach. He looked grave. "There's someone to see you."
Again? "Not a gentleman?"
"Definitely not a gentleman."
Tinnie hissed angrily. "I knew something would happen."
I went out. It was Relway. Again.
Of course. Who else knew where to find me? Certainly not my least favorite pigeon. There'd been no sign of the little vulture since he got himself evicted.
Maybe the vampire bats got him. Or maybe he was just lying up somewhere, waiting for the light. He wasn't like the parrots in the islands who stayed up all night, mimicking the cries of the frightened or wounded.
Relway again. Definitely not a gentleman. Gerris Genord would have messed his smallclothes had he known who this runt was.
Relway looked beat. "It wearing you down?" I asked.
"Not yet."
"What's up?"
"I need you to look at something again."
"Not something happy, I assume."
"No, nothing. It's not a happy night."
51
It wasn't happy at all.
It wasn't far from where he'd overtaken the murder wagon.
This time it was Belinda's ugly black coach. Empty. One horse lay dead in the traces. A crossbow had caught it in the throat. The other beast was psychotic.
"Poisoned bolt," Relway explained.
One coach door dangled off a broken hinge. A man I didn't recognize sat in the doorway. He held his right arm and rocked slowly. He was in pain.
Two corpses lay in the street. I did know them. Again, spectators were noteworthy for their absence.