Nothing.
Ratsnickle was tugging at her belt. She seized it in both hands so he couldn't unbuckle it and he punched her again. In the stomach this time. That made one hand let go, but she managed to keep a furious grip with the other. He was trying to pry the fingers back. Wet, gloating sobs rose from the back of his throat. She clawed at his face. It was nothing but the indignity of event after event, as endless and inevitable as a nightmare.
"Stop that!"
Jane stared up, stunned, into the face of someone she'd never imagined she would ever be glad to see.
It was Grunt.
He reached down an enormous hand and hauled her to her feet. She tugged at her chinos, pulling them up, rebuckling the buckle. When she looked up again Ratsnickle had fled, crashing through the woods.
"You filthy child!" Grunt's lips were white with emotion. His tiny eyebrows made a comic vee over the expressionless disks of his glasses. He swung Jane onto the path, and grabbed her by the nape of her blouse. The cloth pressed against her breasts, dug painfully into her armpits. "You dirty little monster."
"But I didn't do anything!" Her face was beginning to swell; she could feel it. It wasn't possible Grunt could think she was a willing participant in what had happened. Not when she hurt the way she did. "It was Ratsnickle who—"
"Shut up!"
He quick-marched her through the crowds and into the tavern. She had a quick glimpse of the wine steward snoring in a chair and then Grunt had flung open a door and thrust her into the cloakroom. He slammed the door behind him. "Is this the way you repay me all my pains? You evil creature! Seducing honest boys with your nasty ways." He was beside himself with indignation. "I thought we knew all about you. But this—this!"
Suddenly he stopped and bent nearer. His nostrils flared. "And your breath reeks of alcohol!"
The lecture lasted forever. It was hard to endure because not only could she not speak up in her own defense but also, much like Ratsnickle had, he lost his temper anew any time she looked away. She could not track what he was saying. She followed each word so closely it became as hard and real as an object—a hammer, a ceramic mug, a painted rock—and she could make no other sense out of it.
At last Grunt ran out of steam. "Go!" He flung open the cloakroom door, and called after her, "We're watching you, young lady. Don't think we're not. Oh, no. Don't think any such thing."
Jane stumbled away.
Outside, it was the blue hour between afternoon and evening. Paper lanterns had been strung up but not yet lit. Jane didn't cry. She had that much control, anyway.
Jane's mind was a knot of confusion, with Ratsnickle and the child catcher all tangled up with Grunt and the voice in the woods. Everyone was angry at her; it was as if the outrage she felt had been turned against her. Her face ached, and her thoughts were all jumpy, uneven, disconnected. She could not go home in such a state. Melanchthon would greet her anger with silence and a nasty amusement. He'd gotten what he wanted, after all, without having to stick up for her. She could taste his humor in the back of her mouth, making her feel as though she were the butt of a smutty joke.
Everybody she knew was still at the barbecue. She couldn't enjoy the mall with her face like this. That left only one safe haven.
"Holy shit, girlie! Looks like you been in some kind of fight."
"You should see the other guy," she muttered. But in too low a voice, too darkly. She didn't have the self-possession to pull it off. "I just wanted to putty in some of these dents." She faked a smile. "You must've been a handsome thing when you were new."
Ragwort's eye swiveled apprehensively. "Whoa, you don't just smear on that crap without no preparation. You gotta grind away the rust first."
"So all right," she snapped. "That's what I'll do." She donned goggles and dust mask, and plugged in the electric grinder.
"Tell ya what, Sis. Not that I don't trust you or nothing, but how about you set up a mirror over on the workbench so I can watch what you're doing? I can talk you through it."
Jane hesitated, then nodded. She set up the mirror.
"Okay, the first thing you wanna do is find a spot where the rust ain't so bad. Up near the front flank, say."
Half an hour later, the left front fender was looking pretty good. Not perfect, but a few coats of paint to smooth things out, and it'd be fine. Jane felt a little better, too. Work could do that. There was nothing like a little directed action to fill up the mind, steady the nerves, drive away thought.
"Yo, girlie," Ragwort said. "Now that you got all that free-floating anxiety out of your system, I don't suppose you'd mind telling me just what's bugging you?"
"Oh, Ragwort. It's all too complicated and you don't even know the people involved."
"Like who?"
"Oh, gosh, like Ratsnickle, Grunt, the—"
"Don't know Grunt! Him and me, we're asshole buddies. Why, last year he come in the shop when I was telling some a my old war stories and he tried to say I was never no combat model. The little prick said I'd never seen action. I showed him some action all right. Stepped on his foot and broke three bones. He ain't been back since."
Jane stifled a laugh. "Really?"
"All together now, class." Ragwort managed a rough but identifiable imitation of Grunt's voice. "The four fucks: Fucked-up, Fucked-over, Fucked-out, and just plain Fucked."
Jane laughed until she choked, and couldn't stop, even then. It poured out of her endlessly, as if all the pain and fear within had been converted to a river of laughter. "No, please!" she gasped.
"That's better," he said. "Dry them tears, girlie. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
— 9 —
"I'VE BEEN DOING SOME FIGURING," JANE SAID. "DO YOU know how much work it's going to take to completely restore you?"
The dragon did not answer. He was watching the meryons, as usual. Lines of tiny soldiers were marching off to battle. Derringer-sized cannons and other instruments of war were hauled by machines no larger than mice. Their tanks were marvels of miniaturization. Wisps of smoke arose from the temples.
"Years!"
No response.
"Decades!"
No response.
"Centuries!"
Silence.
She opened the grimoire and quoted: "Seventy-nine years of specialized labor go into each Moloch-class dragon. This does not include the armaments or surveillance and communication equipment, which are fitted to the mainframe after completion." Her voice went up slightly. "If the labor involved in crafting pretooled parts bought from outside vendors were factored into account, the total would be closer to eighty-six years." She slammed shut the grimoire. "Eighty-six years! I remember once Peter spent three days reworking the wiring on a horse he was trying to fix, and we're talking about something that probably only took ten minutes to install in the first place."
A cool breeze tumbled a poplar leaf through the cabin window. The leaf was yellow and shaped like a spearhead. The wind dropped it in Jane's lap. It seemed an omen, of what she did not know.
"You lied to me." The dragon's gaze was fixed on the streams of captives winding their way up the outsides of the temples. Priests waited on the top, invisible daggers in their hands. The temples formed a semicircle, all facing the dragon; from a certain perspective they looked like stylized geometric representations of his face. There was a sick interdependence between Melanchthon and the meryons; he gave them materials they required for their industries, and they in turn fed his monstrous need for diversion. "You made me promise I'd fix you, but that's not possible and you know it. You knew it then. Why did you make me promise something you knew couldn't be done?"
No answer.