A movement across the street to our left caught my eye, and I looked over to see Oved emerge from a doorway and hurry toward us. "Stay here," I told McMicking, and got out.
"Thank God you're back," Oved murmured tightly as we met in the middle of the street. "They're in there now—six of them—handing out drinks like—"
"Hold it, hold it," I interrupted. "Who is in where?"
"Six Filiaelians are in the bar," he said, stumbling a little over the name. "They came in right after you left and sat down at a couple of the tables. They're offering free drinks to anyone who can beat them at arm wrestling."
I looked toward the bar and the sleeping men piled along the walkway around it. "I gather they've been doing a lot of losing?"
"Yes," Oved said, sounding a little mystified that I'd come to that conclusion so fast. "I don't know what's in those bottles they brought, but one shot and you're done for."
"Dark brown bottle?" I asked. "Triangular base with a short, wide, corkscrew-shaped neck?"
"Yes," he confirmed. "They must have a dozen of them, packed away in wraparound belt bags. But it can't be poison—they're drinking it themselves."
"It's not poison," I said. "It's dilivin. A classic Filly drink never intended for Human stomachs. Where's Karim?"
"Behind the bar," the boy said. "Standing on the door to the storage cellar. The main storage cellar, I mean. Not the one—you know. He told me to come out here and wait for you."
I nodded with approval. If the Modhri had figured out Rebekah was underground, he would reasonably assume she was in the cellar. Karim standing defiantly on the access door would add weight to that conclusion, which in turn should have the Modhri working on a way to get him off it.
But even the Modhri wasn't crazy enough to take on an entire bar's worth of Humans with only six Fillies. Hence, the rigged drinking contest to thin out the crowd. "Okay, I'll handle it," I told Oved, and headed back to the car. I would go in alone, I decided, and have McMicking find a nice shadow to hide in as backup. Bending down, I looked into the car.
McMicking was gone.
I straightened up, looking around as I silently cursed the man. But he was nowhere to be seen.
"What is it?" Oved called softly.
"Nothing," I said, turning back toward the bar. The least McMicking could have done was wait for my instructions before deciding to ignore them. "Stay here."
The tavern had been reasonably full before I left for Veldrick's place. Now, it was even more crowded, with wall-to-wall people laughing and hooting and generally enjoying themselves at the tops of their lungs. Clearly, word had traveled about the strangers in town providing free entertainment and free firewater.
Both of which were still going strong. Peering through a narrow gap between the bystanders, I saw two Fillies and a burly middle-aged Human seated at a table in the center of the main room. The Human was arm-wrestling one of the Fillies while the other alien looked on, a dilivin bottle and set of shot glasses neatly lined up on the table in front of him. Both Fillies, I noted, had turned their chairs around and were seated on their knees and shins in normal Filly style.
Behind the Human, a third Filly and two more Humans stood watching the action. One of the Humans was holding a notebook and pen, the other was cupping a fist full of coins. Apparently, book was being made on the various contests. All three Fillies were wearing the distinctive layered tunics and flared hats that always reminded me of Genghis Khan's thirteenth-century Mongolian warriors.
Fastened around their waists at their backs were the belt bags Oved had mentioned, five bags per Filly, each long enough to hold a dilivin bottle. Clearly, they'd come prepared to make a night of it.
The rest of the tables had been pushed back, leaving a small open area around the main event. I pushed my way through the rows of spectators, ignoring the growls and complaints that followed me, until I reached the inner edge. Just as I eased between the last two men the Human slammed his opponent's hand to the table. Through the mixed roar of triumph from the winning bettors and groans of disgust from the losers, I gave the room a careful scan.
Three of the Fillies, as I'd already noted, were standing prominently in the center of the room. The other three Oved had mentioned were nowhere to be seen.
Were they even now with Bayta and Rebekah?
"There you are," a throaty voice said.
I looked back at the table. All three Fillies had turned in my direction and were gazing at me down their long faces in a way that reminded me of an old man in a dit rec drama peering at fine print through the reading section of his bifocals.
They were definitely Filiaelians. No one else in the galaxy looked even remotely like that. And yet, as I studied the somewhat shorter lengths of their faces, the shapes of their scalloped ears, and the colors of their bristly facial hairs, I was struck more by the differences between them and Filiaelian norm than by their similarities to that standard.
And if there were that many differences showing on the outside, there were probably even more drastic changes on the inside. Clearly, someone had done some serious genetic work on them.
But for this bunch, altered DNA was the least of their problems. As I looked more closely, I could see the slightly unfocused eyes and slackened jaws and the minor darkening of the distinctive blaze marks on their long faces. Changes that had taken place sometime since I'd first seen them thirty seconds ago.
The Modhri had taken over.
"Here I am," I agreed. "Question is, what are you doing here?"
The two Fillies seated at the table reached behind them into their belt bags, each producing two more dilivin bottles. "For all," the losing arm wrestler said, reaching behind him to hand his bottles to two of the men in the crowd. "Enjoy to the fullest."
There was a fresh roar of appreciation as the second Filly passed his bottles off to his side of the ring. With the free entertainment over, but an even better deal on the free firewater, the audience broke up, the onlookers redistributing themselves into new groups centered around the four bottles.
I waited until their attention was firmly elsewhere, then closed the last couple of meters to the Fillies' table. The winning Human arm wrestler had also joined the rest of the crowd, leaving the half-full dilivin bottle behind. "I repeat, what are you doing here?" I asked the Fillies, keeping my voice low.
"A strange question," the Filly still standing said, peering down his long face and comet-shaped blaze at me. "Surely you know we're here to destroy the Abomination."
"That wasn't the deal we made at Yandro," I insisted. "Or aren't you in the loop yet on that?"
"I'm aware of the agreement," Comet Nose said gravely. "I'm also aware of how badly you've kept other such agreements in the past."
Unfortunately, he had a point. "So what exactly are you planning to do?" I asked.
Comet Nose flipped his head. "I?" he asked, stepping right up to me and resting his hand on my shoulder in classic the-car-salesman-is-your-friend fashion. "I will do nothing." He slid his hand off my shoulder and down the front of my jacket.
As he did so, I felt him slip something into my outer jacket pocket. I reached up a hand to see what he'd put there—
"Everyone freeze!" a Human voice snapped from behind me.
Instantly, the bar went silent. Keeping my hands motionless, I carefully turned my head.
There were six cops spread out around the wall by the door. All six had their guns out.
All six guns were pointed at me.
I took a deep breath. "Is there a problem, Officer?" I called.
"Stay exactly where you are, Donaldson," one of the cops ordered. "You—everyone else—get up and move calmly out of the way. Calmly, I said."