Only dwarves and ratmen do much drinking. And the dwarves tend to keep it at home.
I don't like ratmen much. I had to work to find the charity to say, "Their money is no different color than anyone else's."
"There's scary stuff getting ready to happen, Garrett."
I touched my cheek where the sleet had bitten me. "How right you are, without knowing the half. What's ready to eat?"
He had drawn me another mug of the dark. I dropped a groat onto the counter. That would serve us both for a while.
"Specialty of the house. Sausage and kraut. Or sausage and black beans. Or, the missus made a kidney pie nobody's touched but old Skidrow yonder." He indicated the least respectable of his few customers.
"Where's Blowmetal?" Skidrow was half of the only pair of identical twin winos I'd ever seen.
Beetle shrugged. When his shoulders came up like that, you could see why the nickname. Back when he was a lot heavier it had fit much better. "Heard they had a fight. Over a woman."
"Shit. The guy is a hundred and twelve."
"That's in street years, Garrett. He's only a little older than you are."
I finished my mug, pushed it over for a refill. "Give me the sausage and kraut. And remind me not to get so far down on my luck that I've got to live like a ratman."
Beetle chuckled as he started digging around in a pot. He gave me an extra sausage. Both looked a little long in the tooth. They had been in the water a long time.
"Hey, Garrett. Don't get down on your luck. And try to turn the beer-drinking back into a hobby. Or you might get there."
"What's this about The Call? They trying to work the protection racket on you?"
"They don't call it that, but that's what it amounts to." He plopped a couple of boiled potatos on the plate on top of the kraut.
"I know somebody who might get them off your back." That was just the kind of thing Relway and his secret police liked to bust up, and I had no love for The Call.
"Appreciate it." Beetle turned to hand me my plate. His gaze went over my shoulder. His face turned pale.
45
I turned.
A cascade of black paper was fluttering through the doorway, buoyed by no obvious wind. Through that came a huge dog, tongue dangling a foot, eyes burning red. A second dog followed, then Black Mona herself, bearing up well under the weight of all those weapons.
"What did you do now?" Beetle croaked.
He could see them?
"Who, me?"
"They ain't after me, Garrett."
"Yeah. You're right."
The doorframe behind Quilraq began to glow golden.
Shadows crept in. Good old Torbit was here, too. Maybe it was a Shayir family reunion.
Had they whipped the Godoroth?
I started wolfing kraut and sausage. The Shayir glared at me.
Beetle filled my mug. "What are those things?"
"You really don't want to know." He was a religious man. He would not want to think ill of the gods.
Cold air blasted through the doorway.
Blur. Black Mona staggered. Her hounds yipped. Quilraq rustled. Jorken materialized in front of me. He was not in a good mood. What a day he must have been having. He grabbed me by the shirt and tossed me over his shoulder.
The side wall of Beetle's place exploded inward. Daiged, Rhogiro, and Ringo charged through. I thought that now Beetle would have to believe my story.
Imar himself followed the flying wedge of double uglies, baby lightnings prancing in his hair. His eyes were not pleasant when they touched me, but his immediate attention belonged to the Shayir.
"Run for it, Beetle." As Jorken turned, though, I discovered that Beetle was prescient. He had taken my advice before I offered it.
Jorken sprinted through the hole opened by the ugly boys. Egad, we could have used a few like them down in the islands. The war wouldn't have lasted nearly so long.
The air ripped past so fast I could hardly snatch bites out of it. Light sleet was falling steadily. That dark coach loomed out of the night. Abyss, that darkness in darkness, stared down as Jorken tossed me inside without bothering to open the door. I picked up fresh scrapes on the window edges. I got a pat on the cheek from Magodor before she dismounted from the far side. Her tenderness was false. She was in full Destroyer avatar. She hurried off to do whatever she did. Jorken went with her.
I was alone. With Star. Who had what it would take to make a statue stand up and listen. The coach started moving. So did Star. That gal knew her business.
This insanity certainly did have its moments. The bad part was putting up with what went on in between. Star relented after I begged for mercy. She settled opposite me, gloriously disheveled. She giggled like the last thing you could expect to find in her head was a thought. Every boy's dream.
I was tying my shoes when the horses screamed and something ripped the top off the coach.
"Damn!" I said. "Now for more of that stuff in between."
I flung myself out a door, into the cold. I rolled in sleet half an inch deep. A stray thought: What had become of the Goddamn Parrot?
Not far away, Abyss was pulling himself back out of the hole in a wall through which he had been thrown.
He was not pleased. The darkness within his hood was deeper than ever. Maybe the madder he got the more fathomless the nothingness there grew.
The right rear wheel of the coach collapsed. The nearest side door flopped open. In a sort of ghost glow I saw Star still sitting there jaybird, grinning, totally pleased with herself.
Time for Garrett to get in some more exercise.
Abyss moved to intercept me. Something whooshed through the night, slammed him through the air. He smashed into another wall. Business would be great for the brickyards tomorrow.
Abyss slid down, did not bounce back up. So. Even a god can go down for the count.
I heard the approach of heavy wings. Lila and Dimna dropped out of the night, became their charming girl selves. "It worked!" one piped. She started toward me like she had that old wickedness in mind. The other one clambered into the coach and planted a distinctly unsisterly kiss upon Star's lips. Star snuggled right up.
Golden light rippled through the night. Shadows pranced. Faun guy Torbit coalesced. He seemed baffled. "Stop that! All of you. Trog. Grab him and get out of here." Torbit and Star looked at one another. I had a feeling they would not stick to business long. Make love, not war.
The humongous guy with the club and divinely potent body odor came close enough to be seen. Chunks of coach still stuck to his weapon. He grabbed me up like a little girl grabs a doll. It took me only a moment to discover that struggling was futile.
I was not real happy. It had been one damned thing after another. And now sleet was getting down the back of my neck.
46
It didn't do any good to get mad. I wasn't going to kick any divine butts. The one weapon I had in this scrap lay between my ears, and it hadn't been real deadly so far.
I don't like whiners and excuse-makers, but... it's hard to think when you're getting lugged around in one humongous hand, hardly gently. With hailstones hitting you in the face and sliding inside your clothing.
The bizarre weather had to be connected with the solid materializations of all these divinities. Maybe that required pulling the warmth right out of the mortal plane.
If only we could get the effect under control and harness it for use during high summer, I could make my fortune. How could I work a partnership deal with a god?
The big guy stopped walking. He began turning in place. Zoom! I saw why. Old Jorken was on the job, circling us. Poor Jorken. He'd had a rough day. If I was him I would demand a raise. Boom! Down came that tree of a club. It bashed a hole in the street. Jorken missed getting splattered by barely half a step.