“That’s the Amador where those fellows are staying, Elmo. You better go over there before somebody tells them you’re in town. Me, I’d better start getting this place cleaned up.”
“We’re in no hurry, Cornie. But you go ahead with whatever you’ve got to do.”
Cornie eyed us. He went a few steps toward what was left of his stable. He looked us over. Elmo considered him blandly. One-Eye lifted his horse’s left foreleg to check its hoof. Cornie ducked into the ruin. “One-Eye?” Elmo asked.
“Right on out the back. Heeling and toeing.”
Elmo grinned. “Keep your eye on him. Croaker, take notes. I want to know who he tells. And who they tell. We gave him something that ought to spread like the clap.”
“Zouad was a dead man from the minute Raven named his name,” I told One-Eye. “Maybe from the minute he did whatever it was back when.”
One-Eye grunted, discarded. Candy picked up and spread. One-Eye cursed. “I can’t play with these guys, Croaker. They don’t play right,”
Elmo galloped up the street, dismounted. “They’re moving in on that whorehouse. Got something for me, One-Eye?”
The list was disappointing. I gave it to Elmo. He cursed, spat, cursed again. He kicked the planks we were using as a card table. “Pay attention to your damned jobs.”
One-Eye controlled his temper. “They’re not making mistakes, Elmo. They’re covering their asses. Comic has been around us too long to trust.”
Elmo stomped around and breathed fire.- “All right. Backup plan number one. We watch Zouad. See where they take him after they grab him. We’ll rescue him when he’s about ready to croak, wipe out any Rebels around the place, then hunt down anybody who checked in there.”
I observed, “You’re determined to show a profit, aren’t you?”
“Damned straight. How’s Raven?”
“Looks like he’ll pull through. The infection is under control, and One-Eye says he’s started to heal.”
“Uhn. One-Eye, I want Rebel names. Lots of names.”
“Yes sir, boss, sir.” One-Eye produced an exaggerated salute. It became an obscene gesture when Elmo turned away.
“Push those planks together, Doughbelly,” I suggested. “Your deal, One-Eye.”
He did not respond. He did not bitch or gripe or threaten to turn me into a newt. He just stood there, numb as death, eye barely cracked.
“Elmo!”
Elmo got in front of him and stared from six inches away. He snapped his fingers under One-Eye’s nose. One-Eye did not respond. “What do you think, Croaker?”
“Something is happening at that whorehouse,”
One-Eye did not move a muscle for ten minutes. Then the eye opened, unglazed, and he relaxed like a wet rag. Elmo demanded, “What the hell happened?”
“Give him a minute, will you?” I snapped.
One-Eye collected himself. “The Rebel got Zouad, but not before he contacted the Limper.”
“Uhm?”
“The spook is coming to help him.”
Elmo turned a pale shade of grey. “Here? To Oar?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, shit.”
Indeed. The Limper was the nastiest of the Taken. “Think fast, Elmo. He’ll trace our part in it... Cornie is the cutout link.”
“One-Eye, you find that old shit. Whitey. Still. Pokey. Got a job for you.” He gave instructions. Pokey grinned and stroked his dagger. Bloodthirsty bastard.
I cannot adequately portray the unease One-Eye’s news generated. We knew the Limper only through stories, but those stories were always grim. We were scared. Soul-catcher’s patronage was no real protection against another of the Taken.
Elmo punched me. “He’s doing it again.”
Sure enough. One-Eye was stiff. But this time he went beyond rigidity. He toppled, began thrashing and foaming at the mouth.
“Hold him!” I ordered. “Elmo, give me that baton of yours.” A half dozen men piled on One-Eye. Small though he was, he gave them a ride.
“What for?” Elmo asked.
“I’ll put it in his mouth so he doesn’t chew his tongue.” One-Eye matte the weirdest sounds I’ve ever heard, and I have heard plenty on battlefields. Wounded men make noises you would swear could not come from a human throat.
The seizure lasted only seconds. After one final, violent surge, One-Eye lapsed into a peaceful slumber.
“Okay, Croaker. What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. The falling sickness?”
“Give him some of his own soup,” somebody suggested. “Serve him right.” A tin cup appeared. We forced its contents down his throat.
His eye clicked open. “What are you trying to do? Poison me? Feh! What was that? Boiled sewage?”
“Your soup,” I told him.
Elmo jumped in. “What happened?”
One-Eye spat. He grabbed a nearby wineskin, sucked a mouthful, gargled, spat again. “Soulcatcher happened, that’s what. Whew! I feel for Goblin now.”
My heart started skipping every third beat. A nest of hornets swarmed in my gut. First the Limper, now Soulcatcher.
“So what did the spook want?” Elmo demanded. He was nervous too. He is not usually impatient.
“He wanted to know what the hell is going on. He heard the Limper was all excited. He checked with Goblin. All Goblin knew was that we headed here. So he climbed into my head.”
“And was amazed at all the wide open space. Now he knows everything you know, eh?”
“Yes.” Obviously, One-Eye did not like the idea.
Elmo waited several seconds. “Well?”
“Well what?” One-Eye covered his grin by pulling on the wineskin.
“Dammit, what did he say?”
One-Eye chuckled. “He approves of what we’re doing. But he thinks we’re showing all the finesse of a bull in rut. So we’re getting a little help.”
“What kind of help?” Elmo sounded like he knew things were out of control, but could not see where.
“He’s sending somebody.”
Elmo relaxed. So did I. As long as the spook himself stayed away. “How soon?” I wondered aloud.
“Maybe sooner than we’d like,” Elmo muttered. “Lay off the wine, One-Eye. You still got to watch Zouad.”
One-Eye grumbled. He went into that semi-trance that means he is looking around somewhere else. He was gone a long time.
“So!” Elmo growled when One-Eye came out of it. He kept looking around like he expected Soulcatcher to pop out of thin air.
“So take it easy. They’ve got him tucked away in a secret sub-basement about a mile south of here.”
Elmo was as restless as a little boy with a desperate need to pee. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“A bad feeling. Just a bad, bad feeling, Croaker.” His roving gaze came to rest. His eyes got big. “I was right. Oh, damn, I was right.”
It looked as tall as a house and half as wide. It wore scarlet bleached by time, moth-eaten, and tattered. It came up the street in a sort of shamble, now fast, now slow. Wild, stringy grey hair tangled around its head. Its bramble patch of a beard was so thick and matted with filth that its face was all but invisible. One pallid, liver-spotted hand clutched a pole of a staff that was a thing of beauty defiled by its bearer’s touch. It was an immensely elongated female body, perfect in every detail.
Someone whispered, “They say that was a real woman back during the Domination. They say she cheated on him.”
You could not blame the woman. Not if you gave Shifter a good look.
Shapeshifter is Soulcatcher’s closest ally among the Ten Who Were Taken. His enmity for the Limper is more virulent than our patron’s. The Limper was the third corner in the triangle explaining Shifter’s staff.
He stopped a few feet away. His eyes burned with an insane fire that made them impossible to meet. I cannot recall what color they were. Chronologically, he was the first great wizard-king seduced, suborned, and enslaved by the Dominator and his Lady.
Shaking, One-Eye stepped out front. “I’m the wizard,” he said.
“Catcher told me.” Shifter’s voice was resonant and deep and big for even a man of his size, “Developments?”