Book 08 - Petty Pewter Gods Read Free Page B

chicken carcass. Palm readers and phrenologists
swapped fortunes. Aquamancers, geomancers, pyromancers, and
necromancers all napped in their stalls.
    Maybe customers were staying away in droves because they did not
need experts to tell them that bad times were coming.
    I got some interesting discount and rebate offers. The most
attractive came from a dark-haired, fiery-eyed tarot reader. I
promised, “I’ll be right back. Save a dance for
me.”
    “No, you won’t. Not if you don’t stop here.
Now.”
    I thought she was telling me, “That’s what you all
say.” I kept on keeping on. The Goddamn Parrot started
muttering to himself. Maybe the Dead Man’s compulsion was
wearing off.
    “I warned you, Handsome.”
    How did she manage to see her cards?
    I had not seen the redhead since before my negotiations with the
runt arms merchant. I didn’t see her now, but something
flashed around a turn of brick up ahead. The guy who laid out
Heartlight Lane was either a snake stalker or a butterfly hunter.
It zigs and zags and comes close to looping for no reason more
discernible than the fact that that is the way it has got to go to
get between the buildings. A few quick turns and the lane became
deserted except for a big brown coach, its door just closing.
    Empty streets are not a good sign. That means folks have smelled
trouble and want no part of it.
    Maybe somebody just wanted to talk to me. But then why not just
come to the house?
    Because I don’t always answer the door? Especially when
somebody might want me to go to work? Maybe. Then there is the fact
that the Dead Man can read minds.
    I took a couple of cautious steps, glanced back. That tarot girl
sure was a temptation. On the other hand, red hair is marvelous
against a white pillowcase. On the third
hand . . . 
    I got no chance to check my other fifteen fingers. From out of
the woodwork, or cracks in the walls, or under the cobblestones, or
a hole in the air came the three ugliest guys I have ever seen.
They had it bad. I think they wanted to look human but their
mothers had messed them up with their hankering after lovers who
spelled ugly with more than one
G.
All three made me look
runty, too, and I am a solid six feet two, two hundred ten pounds
of potato-hard muscle and blue eyes to die for. “Hi, guys.
You think we’re gonna get some rain?” I pointed
upward.
    None of them actually looked. Which left me with a nasty
suspicion that they were smarter than me. I would have looked. And
they
hadn’t followed some wench-o’-the-wisp up
here where some humongous brunos could bushwhack them, either.
    They said nothing and I didn’t wait for introductions and
didn’t wait for a sales pitch. I feinted left, dodged right,
swung my new club low and hard and took the pins right out from
under one behemoth. Maybe the dwarf did me a favor after all. I
went after another guy’s head like I wanted to knock it all
the way to the river on one hop. Big as he was, he went ass over
appetite and I started to think, hey, things aren’t going so
bad after all.
    The first guy got up. He started toward me. Meantime, the guy I
hadn’t hit planted himself resolutely in the way in case I
decided to go back the way that I had come. My first victim came at
me. He wasn’t even limping. And his other buddy was back up,
too, no worse for wear, either.
    You could not hurt these guys? Oh my oh my.
    “Argh!” said the Goddamn Parrot.
    “You said a beakful, you piebald buzzard.”
    I wound up for a truly mighty swing, turned slowly, trying to
pick a victim. I picked wrong. I could not have chosen right.
    I took the guy I hadn’t hit. The plan was to whack him
good, then display my skill as a sprinter. The plan didn’t
survive first contact with the enemy. When I swung he grabbed my
club in midair, took it away, and flipped it aside with such force
that it cracked when it hit a nearby building.
    “Oh my oh my.”
    “Argh!” the Goddamn Parrot observed again.
    I went for the fast