The Nimble Man Read Free Page A

that he nearly plowed the limousine into a squat blue
mailbox on the sidewalk. In a panic, Squire hit the brakes and got the limo's
nose headed in the right direction again.
    Eve watched him in the mirror. Several times the annoying
little creature opened his mouth and closed it again, as though for the first
time in his life he had no clever or boorish remark to make. She knew it would
pass, though. With Squire, it always did.
    "Hell," the goblin said, the word coming out in a
harsh grunt. "All the stories say . . . ah, hell, Eve, all the
stories say that would be a bad idea."
    Squire kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.
A taxi cut in front of the limousine despite that there were only a handful of
cars on Seventh Avenue. Ahead a light turned red and the goblin began to slow
the limo.
    "True."
    The word came from Doyle. Eve glanced over at him and saw
that his eyes were red and his face somewhat flushed. He had not slept nearly
enough, but that was not unusual. Magic had suspended the aging process in him,
had even partially reversed it, but there was no escaping that the man was
still human. An alchemist and magician, a brilliant writer and scholar, a
believer in both the goodness of the world and the darkness that tainted it,
Mr. Doyle was among the most powerful magicians on Earth, but he was also just
a man. Human.
    Eve envied him that. She could not even remember what it
meant to be human.
    "Boss, you're awake," Squire said, turning to
glance back at Doyle now that he was stopped at the red light.
    Tiredly, Mr. Doyle smoothed his jacket and ran his fingers
through his silver hair to straighten it. "And you, my small friend, have
a gift for stating the obvious."
    "What can I say?" Squire muttered happily. "I'm
blessed."
    The light turned green but Squire was careful to look in
both directions before the limousine picked up speed again. Behind him, his
employer tugged out a pocket watch and clicked it open. He checked the time and
then slid the watch back into his vest pocket.
    Doyle cleared his throat and glanced at Eve, then turned his
attention to Squire again.
    "The warnings about what would happen to anyone who
searched for Sweetblood are dire," the magician absently admitted as he
began searching the inner pockets of his jacket for something. "But I
suspect they were spread by Lorenzo himself in an effort to dissuade the
curious."
    Eve stared at him. "And if you're wrong?"
    Doyle raised an eyebrow and stared at her, his eyes as
silver as his hair. "If I'm wrong, then we handle it."
    "That's your plan?" Squire asked. "That's not
much of a plan."
    "There isn't time for subtlety," Doyle replied. "My
search has always been a casual one, rarely the focus of my efforts. But Dr.
Graves has word that someone — someone with malevolent intentions —
has indeed located Sweetblood."
    "And we need to get to him first," Squire said,
nodding to himself as he turned the limousine down a side street, the rear tire
bumping up over the curb.
    "Precisely."
    The goblin turned south again at the next corner and soon
enough the city was changing around them. The skyscrapers had given way to
brownstones and rowhouses and there were trees growing up out of the sidewalk. They
passed a park that seemed remarkably free of litter and graffiti.
    "All right," Squire said. "I get it. But I
was still half-asleep when you got me out of bed to drive you, so there's still
one thing I'm not understanding."
    "Only one?" Eve taunted.
    Doyle frowned at her. "What's that, Squire?"
    "Where do the glass spiders come in? You said something
about glass spiders, didn't you? Or was that in my dream?"
    Before the dapper magician could answer, Eve spied their
destination, the address plainly exhibited on the front door of the brownstone.
The sky had begun to lighten but the drenching rain and the heavy cloud cover
would shield her from the sun.
    "Stop here. This is it."
    The goblin pulled the limo to the curb. Doyle leaned across
the back seat