Maybe. "d.a.m.n! Who did it?"

Morley spread his hands wide and gave a blank look. "I suppose one of the same fun-loving bunch. It went down in broad daylight, in front of fifty witnesses. Farmer-looking guy just steps out of a doorway behind him and lets him have it."

"Being a wizard ain't everything." I'd developed an itch between my shoulder blades. That could happen to anybody at any time. If somebody wants you bad enough, they'll get you. "I don't know if I wanted to know that."

"We'll tighten up around you, Garrett. We'll make them work for it."

"That's a comfort, Morley." Peridont getting it bothered me bad. I had this feeling I'd lost my last best ally.

"You think I want to go tell Chodo I blew it?"

I knew what he wanted to say, but he was saying it so clumsily it was worse than if he hadn't said anything. For Morley, the actual expression of concern or friendship is next to impossible.

"Never mind," I told him. "Quit while you're ahead. Was there anything else?" His friend was tickling his neck with a fingernail. He wouldn't keep his mind on business long.

"No. Go home and stay there. We won't have to pick up pieces of Garrett if you keep your head down."

"Right. I'll think about it."

"Don't think. Do."

"Come on, Maya. Let's go home." Morley and I both knew I wouldn't give it a thought.

40.

It started when we were two blocks from my house, a roaring and grumbling hurrying up from the south. Lightning zigged around it. I pulled Maya into a doorway.

"What is it?"

"Something we don't want to notice us." A big, red nasty bobbed in the middle of the cloud.

People stuck their heads out windows, got a look, and decided they didn't want to know.

The micro storm headed straight for my place.

Wouldn't you know it?

This time there was no roof busting. A nasty red spider strutted down out of the night-and something swatted it right back.

"Old Chuckles is going to pay his rent tonight," I muttered.

"You're shaking."

I was, worse than if I'd been in the thick of it. Yet my mind wasn't working right. I didn't think about Dean or the Dead Man. All I could think about was what might happen to my house. It was all I had in the world. I'd gone through h.e.l.l to get the money to pay for it. I was getting too long in the tooth to start over.

The storm whooped and hollered. The spider headed in again, scarlet swords of fire leaping from its eyes. Bam! They hit an invisible wall. The spider bounced back.

"I didn't know he had it in him."

The Dead Man had a lot more than I'd suspected. He never tried to hurt the spider, but he turned every a.s.sault. The more its efforts were stymied, the more ferocious the monster became. It didn't worry about damaging the neighborhood.

This was going to make me popular with my neighbors.

You can only stay keyed up so long. When I began to settle down I had a thought. "This doesn't make sense. I may have been a pain in the a.s.s to those guys, but not this big a pain. There's something else going on."

The flash and fury distressed Maya less than it did me. Maybe it was her lack of experience with sorcery. "a.n.a.lyze it, Garrett. This is the second time your place has been attacked. You weren't home either time. Maybe it doesn't matter if you are. Maybe it's the house."

"Or something in it."

"Or something in it. Or someone."

"Besides me? n.o.body..." The Dead Man? But he'd been dead too long to have enemies left. "Know what I think? I got started on the wrong foot at the beginning. I've been trying to get it to make sense."

Maya looked at me weird. "What the h.e.l.l are you yapping about?"

"I'm trying to make sense of something that isn't rational. I knew from the beginning that religion was involved. Several religions, maybe. You can try from now until the end of the world and you're not going to make sense out of that. I shouldn't be attacking it that way. I should be going with it, going after who's doing what to who and not trying to figure out why."

Her look got weirder. "Did you get hit on the head? You're raving."

Maybe I was. And maybe somewhere in my nonsense there was a kernel of wisdom. That business down the street looked like a good argument for rea.s.sessing my place in the excitement. "Ever been to Leifmold, kid?"

"What?"

"I'm starting to think the smart thing would be to get out of town. Let this thing take care of itself."

She didn't believe me for a moment. And she was right. Maybe it's a lack of common sense. Maybe I just have a feeble survival instinct. I'd hang in until the end.

I mean, what kind of reputation would I get if I backed off just because that was the safe thing to do? Somebody hires you, he wants you to stick. You want to work, you got to do that-at least until moral revulsion forces you out. You don't let a little thing like fear slow you down.

The thing with eight limbs was on the ground now, stomping around the house, making the earth shake, roaring, grabbing up cobblestones and throwing them. I told Maya, "Every living city flunky will be around to pester me now." I didn't look forward to that. I'm not at my best with those people.

One of my angels darted through the shifting witch light. I recognized Wedge.

"Remind me I don't want to get into your line of work, Garrett." He looked up the street. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"You got me. I'm not sure I want to know."

The eight-limbed thing tore chunks out of a couple of houses, and flung them at my place. They bounced back. The Dead Man was showing unnecessary patience. The monster jumped up and down like an angry child. It looked to me like he and the Dead Man had a standoff. I was amazed. I couldn't picture my boarder holding his own against the avatar of a G.o.d.

"I didn't sign on for this, Garrett," Wedge told me. "I ain't no chickens.h.i.t, but saving your a.s.s from demons is a little top much."

I could empathize with that. "Saving my a.s.s from demons is a little too much for me, too, Wedge. You want to do a fade you won't hear me cry. I didn't beg Morley for any guardian angels."

"You didn't. Chodo did. If you did he'd have told you to go tongue-kiss a ghoul. Bye, Garrett. Good luck."

"Yeah." Candy a.s.s. When the going gets tough, the smart get going and the stupid keep heading toward trouble. Garrett didn't have enough sense to follow Wedge's example. He hung on where he was.

Maya asked, "We going to do something?"

"Find a tavern and hang out till it's over."

She knew a wisecrack when she heard one. "We hang around here and the Watch will scoop us up. They must be awake by now."

She had a point. Something this loud would force those guys to come out so their a.s.ses would be covered when questions were asked later. In that way having the spider get held off was worse than having the house get smashed. This was a hurrah that couldn't be ignored.

"h.e.l.l!" I spat. "Enough is enough." I stepped out of the doorway, trotted up the street, stopped a hundred-fifty feet from home, eyeballed the spider, wound up and let my last bottle fly like it was a flat rock. It didn't hit the spider but it did smash between the monster's legs. Whatever was inside splashed.

The thing jumped about forty feet high and shrieked like the world's biggest stuck hog. It turned in the air. It picked me out of the crowd, which wasn't all that tough. It started its charge before it hit the ground.

Now what, genius?

I shoved Maya into a breezeway and scooted in after her. The spider smashed into the buildings as though trying to bull right through. It let out a big ba.s.s whoop of frustration, then started ripping materials out of its way. One hairy leg kept reaching for me.

There were greenish spots on the leg where Peridont's stuff had splattered it. Every little bit it paused to scratch those. In five minutes it was scratching more than it was trying to get us.

The breezeway was a dead end. We were caught good. I didn't waste the five minutes it took the spider to become preoccupied with itself. I tested two doors and attacked the weakest. I got it open just as the spider started spending most of its time scratching.

"Come on." I pushed into the darkened interior, part of someone's home. Maya stumbled around behind me. When I paused I heard rapid, frightened breathing. There were people in there, trying to keep quiet and not be noticed.

We got through without killing ourselves on unseen furniture, found a window in back, got it open and slithered through.

"Slick, Garrett," Maya said. "You'd better hope they didn't recognize you."

"Yeah." I already had enough trouble getting along with my neighbors.

"What now?"

We took half a block along an alleyway, toward home, to where I could check on the spider.

For a G.o.d it wasn't very bright. It was still trying to tear its way into that breezeway, when it wasn't scratching. Doing a fair job, too. "When I say go, we head for the front door. And pray Dean lets us in before that thing catches up."

"I think maybe going to Leifmold was a better idea."

"Maybe. Ready?"

"Yes."

"Go."

That d.a.m.ned spider wasn't as fixated as I hoped. It spotted us and began bouncing in our direction before we'd gone ten steps.

We wouldn't make it in time.

41.

Maya pounded the door with both fists. I bellowed at Dean. The spider galloped toward us. I spotted a human skull-type face where the thing's head was, sort of like it had been painted over the usual spider face. Spreading mandibles made that skull look like it was grinning.

Chains and bolts rattled on the other side of the door.

We had gotten Dean's attention.

But it was too late. The spider was on us- It hit something. Or something hit it. There was a sound like crunching gravel. The monster went tumbling back the way it had come, trailing another of its bellows of frustration. "The Dead Man is still on the job," I gasped at Maya. "Come on, Dean!"

The monster was charging again before the old man got the door open. We plunged inside, trampling him, then tumbled over one another trying to bolt up. Though a fat lot of good bolts and bars would do against that thing.

"What's going on, Mr. Garrett?" Dean was pale and rattled.

"I don't know. I was just going to call it a night when that thing dropped out of the sky."

"Like the thing you saw at the kingpin's place?"

"Same kind of thing in a different shape."

"I don't think I want to be involved anymore, Mr. Garrett. Things like this don't happen in your regular cases. I think I want to go home until it's over."

"I don't blame you. But first we have to get that thing to go away." I peeked out. It had quieted down. I thought it might be getting ready to try something nasty.

It was standing in the street, balanced on three legs. It scratched itself with the other five. The green spots on its legs had grown and now shed a phosph.o.r.escent light. The more it dug at those the more they irritated it.

Good. Maybe it would forget us altogether.

It pounced at my place like it meant to take us by surprise. Off it went with a howl, slapped away. It stood up unsteadily, scratched vigorously. I told Maya, "I'm going to have a chat with my dead buddy. Why don't you help Dean in the kitchen?" Hint, hint.

It took the old boy a while. But he got it after I told him to bring me a pitcher.

The house shook again. Storms of rage played around outside. I went into the Dead Man's room, settled into the chair we kept there for me, and considered the old mountain of blubber. Despite the excitement he looked no more animated than usual. You couldn't tell if he was asleep or awake if it wasn't for a sort of electric radiation bleeding off him. "Whenever you have a minute or two," I told him.

He wasn't himself. Go ahead, Garrett. Go ahead, Garrett. He was saving his irritation for the thing outside. He was saving his irritation for the thing outside.

"Got any idea what that thing is?"

I have begun to develop a suspicion. I have not yet gathered evidence enough to establish a certainty. I do not like the suspicion. If that thing is what I fear...

He wasn't going to say, but then he never let anything out of the bag until he was sure he wouldn't contradict himself later. I knew what sort of answer I'd get, but I asked anyway. "And what's that?" Maybe he'd be distracted enough to let something slip.

Not yet.