I saw bits of fire burning. I saw two thread men, one down and the other ambling in a small circle, constantly turning left. Easing my head to the right I spied one more just standing in one place.
I tried the bolts and locks. Every one worked, though the one Singe had complained about before had to be forced. The bottom of the door hit the floor when it was halfway open. It would go no farther. But that was room enough for me to get out, heavily armed with a custom club and a cook's fork.
I didn't want to be seen with anything more useful at a time when some of my betters would appreciate excuses to lock me up.
I saw nine thread men: three down, four standing still, one smoldering, and one circling to his left. Then a tenth fell out of the sky, firebomb in hand. Fire oozed out from under him.
I was about to go galloping back inside when I spotted the goat cart just standing in the street up near the Cardonlos place. A dark lump lay ten yards closer to me. It moved.
Oh, yes! Time for that sweet thing and me to get friendly. I ducked back into Singe's office and conscripted a small lantern to share patrol duty.
The door would not shut all the way again.
The woman had trouble making headway with her left arm and left leg damaged but she was stubborn. She almost caught up with her cart before I caught her.
I found the pink wig about two thirds of the way there.
"You dropped something, precious. Here. Let me give you a hand." Odd. She no longer made that outfit look as good as she had just minutes ago.
She turned to see who was talking.
"Goo!" That face was a good forty hard years old. "This a magic wig?" I tossed the wig into the back of the cart.
A big uproar broke out behind my house. A cloud of brown dust rolled up, illuminated by the burning thread man.
Several thread men got motivated and started our way.
A big scream came from behind my house. It was a lost soul kind of yowl.
The woman gasped, "This can't be happening!"
She was determined to get up without help. Her now drooping posterior betrayed her. Down she went, leading with her chin.
The thread men did the same.
The woman now looked a hard rode fifty.
"The more you move around the more the barbs on those bolts will chew you up inside."
"Can't let go now." She started to get up again.
I tucked my tools into my belt, set my lantern down, stepped over to the cart, yanked the canvas cover off. That released a pocket of stench so pungent it almost laid me out. Even so, I hoisted the woman up there and stretched her out on her right side. "Hang in there. Neither bolt cut a big vein. I'll get them out before they do lethal damage." Where the hell were the tin whistles? I got busy eliminating evidence that might suggest the use of illegal weapons in a civil confrontation. "Grit those teeth, girl. This will hurt like hell."
I started with the bolt in back. Its head was peeking out already. I could just push it through. "Thanks for coming by. You helped me figure it all out."
Shouting erupted down the street. A ratman wanted my attention. Other ratmen were with him, making sure the thread men would not get up again. The work apparently required the use of hatchets.
The ratman screamed at me. It couldn't make out what he said.
I slipped the bloody bolt inside my shirt. "One down. Now for the one that's really going to hurt." She had been a trooper during the first removal. She had an old truce with pain.
Several ratmen were yelling now. Two were headed my way. I turned to see what their big-ass problem was.
Something hit me with all the enthusiasm of a haymaker delivered by a truly pissed-off war god.
101
There were faces all round me, looking down, when badly blurred vision began to return. I tried to say, "Hey! You guys are all right."
Unless I was hallucinating, the circle included Morley, Belinda, Penny, John Stretch and Dollar Dan, Dean, and Strafa shouting down a long tunnel about how leaving me unsupervised was worse than leaving a three-year-old home alone.
Penny was crying. I heard General Block and several others yammering farther away.
Singe hove into view armed with a pitcher and mugs. She said something about how it was too damned expensive to have me live at home anymore. Mr. Mulclar was already at work repairing the door.
I'm not sure how my head was working. I wondered how long I had been out but what came out was, "The Bird?"
"It has been handled," Morley told me. "You have been unconscious for sixteen hours." Which meant it was the middle of the night, now. Why were all these people here in the middle of the night?
While I was thinking that Crush and Mike poked their clocks in to check the status of my breathing. I heard DeeDee giggle somewhere, apparently at a joke Saucerhead told Playmate.
Dean reported, "The monster did it. It shape-shifted into the man Bird painted, only in awful shape. Big chunks were missing. He looked like he'd been rotting. But he was in good enough shape to go pound you. He took off with the woman and the cart."
Singe said, "I tracked them to the Knodical. The woman who hit Fire and Ice went there, too. They wouldn't take these two in. They headed up the hill from the Knodical. I lost them. They poisoned the trail again."
Strafa said, "I checked my house. They didn't go there."
"Don't matter where they run," I tried to say. "I know what they're doing. I think I know where they're doing it."
So there I was, with people crowding in, eager to hear the big revelation.
I went back to sleep amidst a great fuss about concussions.
I wakened to a remixed set of faces. This set included Deal Relway and Westman Block. The latter was in no mood for foreplay. "We've been fired."
I made noises.
"Can they do that? They can. For cause. Strictly speaking, for actually doing the kind of corrupt stuff they're insisting that we do. In a broader sense, they have to make it stick. Right now it doesn't look like they have the horses."
I made more noises while wondering why they were here instead of out doing something useful.
"The public temper is fragile right now. People are nervous and upset. Two attacks in one night by monsters and zombies is a little excessive. Dismissing the Civil Guard officer corps for trying to deal with it may be too much. We have every man out trying to keep the head on the barrel."
"How come you're here?"
"Because the King's men don't dare come after us here. Word is out that the Dead Man is awake and extremely unhappy."
He was not. I got no sense of Himself at all.
"Last resort, we will let out the truth about the thread men."
Several people helped me up, including Morley. "Trying to play Little Dead Man, eh? Going to sleep right after dropping a big hint that you had it all worked out."
They moved me to Singe's office, installed me in the best chair. I could not help seeing the empty doorway during the journey. I whined.
Singe told me, "Mr. Mulclar will have it fixed by this time tomorrow."
Mulclar had been maintaining the door for several years.
"What happened to the F and I girls?"
"Gone to watch a Jon Salvation play rehearse. Then they'll head for Strafa's. She's going put them up for a couple nights."
I glanced at Strafa. She nodded. "You'd better get over there and lock up your valuables. How about the Bird?"
Block said, "In a cell at the Al-Khar and still bitching. Forensics is trying to figure out how."
"Thought you were fired."
Relway said, "Only in theory. The King and Crown Prince are isolated in Knodical. The Specials have kept them from communicating with the cavalry barracks."
Some bright monarch, having attained the throne with the assistance of the city garrison, had bought insurance against a repetition by moving all the barracks outside the city wall. Now the troops were in no position to put down a mutiny by the tin whistles.