lily harper - complete series, page 241
“Blondie's yer pet nickname for Alaire, then?” he asked.
“Who the hell else could it be?” I took a breath. “Soze, yeah, they’re worthy of bein’ called my friends and I'm standing by their side until the end of goddamn time.”
Sid kinda stared at me for a second, like I had something nasty on my face. I knew something was wrong when Mantis started jumping up and down on my head. Sid-ful pointed just a few inches over Mantis.
“Umm, mate...”
I looked down at my hands, saw them glowing along with the rest of my body. “Damn aura,” I muttered as I doused the light. That didn't usually happen unless I let it. Then again, Uriel always did say I was a better night light than Rudolph whenever I got passionangry about something.
“There you two are,” a panting voice said from behind us before coming out of the shadows. Huffing and puffing in all her muscular glory, Charmion ran up to us with a pair of shovels cradled in her beefy arms.
“Took yer time there, luv,” Sid-ful grumped as he grabbed one of the shovels off her.
“You know why,” she retorted. “But I'm here now.” She put her hands on her haunches to catch her breath. “Whew, hope we're not too far from where we need to be.”
“It's still a hike,” I told her, pointing at the trees. “But once we're under the shade, we're there.”
We finally got there about twenty secinutes later. Even if the ground hadn't looked like somebody had ripped it up, my Soul Sight could make out the bodies under it. Wasn't hard to figurate out which ones were in the best shape. A grand slam total of two still had all the pieces attached.
I let Sid-Ful and Muscle Mama scoop up all the dirt. I had the fat-ique of a god. Problem was that god's name was Buddha, not exactly right for heavy labor. The little bassist was huffing and puffing within about three strokes, but he kept on going. It took his girl about halfway to the corpses to even break a sweat.
Once they got close, I jumped into the ground with them. “That's good, that's good! Better scrape 'em out by hand.”
“Sorry?” Sid-Ful asked. I just bent down and scooped out some dirt with my hands. Charmion did the same with hers. Pretty soon, a satyr's face was looking up at us.
“Ta-da,” she said before grabbing some more dirt. Mantis and me helped her scoop out the corpse.
Sid was the one who finally tossed the body out. A look at the satyr corpse in the moonlight and Sid shook his head.
“Alright, so he's not too full o’ holes, but I don't see how this is gonna fool anybody who gets too close.”
“Not the point, Sid-Ful,” I told him, letting Muscle Mama pull me back up to the top of the grave hole. “We just need him to draw-tract everybody's eye long enough to get a fight going.”
The kid might have been slow, but he did get there eventually. “A fight’s gonna knock that poxy truce they just made on its arse.”
“And while they're busy fighting, Tallis and Lily are going to make some moves of their own,” Charmion added, pulling out the other body. The Norse cosplay and general stench told me it was a druager. Seeing as those asshole druagers were already corpses, it was harder to tell when they were dead.
“Yeah, that's pretty much the plan,” I admitted, looking further down the road with the telenoculars. “Just need a likely hiding place to set up our new pals.” That took less than a secinute. “Yeah, there's a little cave we can shove them in over there.”
“We'll need to really sell it to the rubes that these guys got all the way over there,” Muscle Mama mentioned.
I grinned. “Got it covered.” Mantis wing-dinged over to the satyr and sliced him open at the right side. A nice red trickle came out of him, making Sid-Ful jump back.
“Just stamp their feet here in the dirt,” I said, pointing at the left foot. Then I pointed at the right foot. “Drag the other and let the blood do the rest.”
Charmion raised an eyebrow. “And what about the hole we just made? And our tracks?”
Mantis flew over to the pile of dirt next to the grave. He flapped those wings of his hard enough to get a good breeze knocking me back. When he was done, every bit of dirt was back in the ground and he was ice-skating around it to make it look like the other graves.
“Nice one,” Sid-Ful said, looking impressed. Mantis buzzed at him.
His built girlfriend gave the druager a doubtful look. “Too bad these things haven't got much blood to lose.”
Mantis leaped over from the dirt to slice out some of that Norse mummy's flesh. Most of its side was gone by the time we got to the cave. Once Sid-Ful and Muscle Mama put the corpses in the cave, I cleared my throat. “There's, uh, one other thing I need you to do...”
“What’s that?” Sid asked.
“Beat the shit out of me.”
They looked at me with astonish-prise. “Look,” I told them. “Someone's gotta pass the news to Frank-N-Full-Of-It and his gangster sidekicks. And since that person’s gonna be me, well, I gotta sell it.”
Charmion nodded. “All about turning the trick with the rubes.”
Sid-Ful adjusted the grip on his shovel. “Alright, mate. Ya want the boot or the shovel?”
***
Lily
Geoffrey spent the whole walk back looking pissed off. That diagnosis got confirmed when we returned to the throne room. Eleanor was just sipping tea from a cup when he stormed up to her.
“So, Mum,” he said with barely disguised contempt. “What was so urgent that you felt the need to interrupt my successful negotiation?”
She didn't answer straightaway, just waved the back of her free hand at the Malefacted. They went outside, she kept drinking her tea. Geoffrey kept on fuming as she waited for them to leave before turning to me.
“Thank you, Mistress Harper, for fulfilling your obligation in protecting my son.”
“I'd say you're welcome,” I told her, feeling a little pissed myself. “But that's going to depend on whether or not I get to see Asterion and Ariadne.”
There was a coldness to her smile that made me wonder if I'd made a mistake in being so demanding. “You would be wise not to take your lessons in insolence from Geoffrey. He has a good many special privileges you do not enjoy.”
“One privilege I would appreciate at the moment is recognition about getting those armed peasants to stand down,” Geoffrey added with irritation.
“Well, that is certainly something, my son,” Eleanor admitted. “However, the Armenian Gurdjieff did lead me to hope Mistress Harper would get rather more out of this meeting.”
This was the moment I'd been waiting for. “Nitti told us about a special convoy Alaire is sending into town.”
Eleanor gave her full attention to me, which further irritated Geoffrey. “Special in what way?”
“That part, I didn't get...”
“How shocking,” Geoffrey said with contempt.
I gave him a glare as I finished with, “But I do know Nitti already intercepted the convoy before sundown.”
Geoffrey snorted. “We would have known if Nitti had set one foot outside of New Botany Bay.”
“And Connor would have been noisy as hell if he'd gone, sure,” I agreed. “But I seem to remember that leaves us one head gangster unaccounted for.”
“Benjamin Siegel,” Eleanor said with triumph. “Still, if the convoy has been taken care of, why sue for peace?” Then her eyes widened. “Unless... there was a survivor.”
“Two survivors actually,” I confirmed, glad she'd swallowed the bait. “They're hiding somewhere along the river, probably trying to make contact with Alaire.”
“Hence the sudden need for a unified front,” Geoffrey concluded, shaking his head with a combo of disgust and admiration. “And here I thought Nitti was just another would-be merchant prince.”
“I keep telling you, Geoffrey,” Eleanor admonished him. “It does not do to dismiss merchants. People who understand the cost of everything are frequently more dangerous than any army.” Tapping her free hand on her armrest, she added, “Speaking of soldiers, I'd like for you to go with ours to find these witnesses.”
“The only persons they would be of value to is Alaire,” Geoffrey pointed out.
“From whom we may be able to secure the proper aid to finally finish our conquest of this principality,” his mother said. “But only if we find Alaire’s underlings before those hooligans do.”
“I'm rather surprised you're not dispatching your chevalier noir,” Geoffrey said. It was a good point. This did sound like the kind of job she'd send her medieval Darth Vader to handle.
“At present, our faithful servant is ensuring that our current borders remain inviolate,” Eleanor explained. “With the news we have learned, that task has just become doubly important.” That cold smile came over her face again. “Besides, I seem to recall how you have been longing for your own command in order to prove yourself as good as your brother Richard the Lionheart.”
Geoffrey looked at her with distrust. “That still doesn't answer what you get out of sending me.”
“Would you rather fuss over such trivial details or would you rather guarantee that our enemies are at a disadvantage? Go!”
Her son's eyes didn't leave her as he bowed to her. “At once, my Duchess.” He strode out of the room like he was expecting to get knifed any second.
Once he'd left, Eleanor turned to me and her smile warmed up a little. “Assuming this information proves to be true, you've done very well this evening, dear.” She rose from her throne. “I had planned on allowing you the liberty of seeing your... friends on the morrow. But I believe this occasion calls for more immediate gratification.”
She nodded to someone behind me and some sort of black cloth fell over my eyes. “What is this?!” I shouted.
“Oh, do be at peace, Mistress Harper,” she told me. “While I promised to let you see the Minotaur and his amour, I said nothing about showing you where they were.” A shove got me moving forward. I could only hope I had this play figured out right.
***
Tallis
It wasn't until the wee hours afore the stookie angel finally showed up. He was his usual loud self. “Hey! Cato! Little help out here!”
I could see from the upstairs window what a mess the wee fella was. While angels can't die, they can sure as the sunrise be injured and feel pain. Judging from the welts all over his face and the way he was stumbling, the stookie angel was in much of the latter, thanks to a lot of the former.
A burst from one of the Thompsons stitched bullets into the ground in front of him.
“Close enough, angel,” Connor's voice yelled at him. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you into chopped liver.”
“Because your daddy Cato would have spanked your winging Irish ass for being that rude, yo.”
Oh but this will not end well, I thought.
Another hail of .45 bullets punched through the stookie angel, pushing him back up the street. The muzzle flashes allowed me to see a gold dot that could only have been his pet weapon floating towards me. Mantis landed on me forearm and jumped up and down.
“Aye, ‘tis good to see ye too, ye wee gold bug,” I told it, stroking its wings like a favorite cat's head.
It hopped around, over to the splayed-out angel, who was moaning from his fresh injuries. When Mantis gave a whimper of despair, I told it, “Ach, it's nae matter. He'll be fine in a bit.”
“Damn, Connor, that's how we're greeting guests now?” Ben bellowed just before stepping into view on the street. He was still wearing the suit jacket from before, but he had his .45 pistol out just in case.
“Little bastard insulted me!” Connor responded, sounding like a child caught stealing a horse. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Use something other than your trigger finger for once,” Frank snapped at him, sounding like an irate father about to give our kid horse thief a heavy punishment. “Or were you so angry you didn't notice how worked over the angel was?”
“O...occupathional hazard,” the stookie angel called out, while picking himself back up. “How... you doin', Frank-Talk?”
“As the Chinese would say, Bill, we're living in interesting times,” Frank replied. Then he called up to my window, “Hey, Tallis! Come on down here, wouldja?”
“Oan my way!” I called back before whispering to Mantis, “See if ye can find Master Hephaestus.” He buzzed off to the ceiling and started walking it upside down while I went outside.
Ben, meanwhile, was dragging the stookie angel back in when I arrived.
“What the hell you doing out here, Bill?” he asked, shaking his head. “Last I heard, you earned those wings and was a fully made guardian angel.”
“Well, for one, AE jacked me on those wings,” the stookie angel answered, gritting his teeth against the pain. “For another, they kinda lied to me about the guardian angel gig. So I went freelance.”
“Of all the places you could go, you come here?” Frank asked, still not quite believing.
“Was hoping... ow... Old Cato might give me a job, yo. He always talked about it.”
Connor gave him a nasty laugh. One glare from Frank cut it off like a head from an executioner's ax.
Ben sighed and said, “Seeing as my partners are too busy right now, guess I gotta break the bad news, Bill. Cato's been KOed... permanent.”
“Dammit,” the stookie angel muttered, making it sound convincing. “Whodunnit?”
“One of Mammon's bitches.”
That made the stookie angel groan. “You're not talking Eleanor of Aquitaine, are you?”
I stepped in with a raised eyebrow. “Ye know her, then, stookie angel?”
“I know about her... and with the shit she's pulled, even that feels too close for comfort.”
“She the one that had you beat up?” Frank asked, leaning down to wipe the blood off his face with a handkerchief.
“Nah, it was this satyr and druager if you can believe it,” the stookie angel said. “Here I am, trying to get some sleep-eye in a little cave and those assholes just stomped me. I had to play dead until they dumped me in the river. Then I hightailed it into town.”
Ben's eyes grew scared. “You wouldn't be bullshitting me about who gave you the beatdown, would you, Bill?”
“C'mon, Ben!” the stookie angel said. “I've told some whoppers in my time, yeah. But what I got to gain by lyin’ ‘bout that?”
“Like ye saw today, Ben,” I chimed in. “Druager are mighty hard to kill. An' satyrs know all 'bout survivin' in the wild places.”
“How do we know AE isn't just using this little shit to screw with us?” Connor spat out.
“Haven't met the person yet that thought screwing with you was worth the hassle, Crazy Connor,” the stookie angel answered.
The man-boy's eyes got wild at the nickname. “You mother…!”
I slammed me fist into his gut, making him buckle to his knees. The other guns turned on me, making me raise me hands. I looked to Frank. “Ah overstepped me bounds, Ah know, an' Ah apologize for such.” I looked down at Connor with contempt. “But ye cannae say that he didnae have it coming.”
Connor looked up at me in anger. “One of these days, Black, it's gonna be me doing the bushwhack.”
“Settle, fellas,” Ben said while putting a hard but friendly hand on me shoulder. “I swear, you guys get way too meshugga over the tiniest stuff. Some things aren't worth sweatin', am I right, Frank?”
Frank had finished wiping down the stookie angel and was gesturing for two of his men to get the little angel inside.
“Yeah but those two cowboys who jumped Bill? They sound like they'd be worth the saltwater.”
“Guess I'll take the boys back out,” Ben offered. “Might as well finish the job I started.” He patted my shoulder a couple more times. “Wanna come for the fun, Tallis?”
“Think Ah'll mind the defenses of yer little keep,” I said. “Maybe more than jist those two out there an' Ah know somethin’ about sieges.”
“Yeah, well, do what you want, Gramps,” Connor said, picking himself up off the ground. “I'm going with Ben to finish the job you messed up.”
Ben looked a question at Frank, who shrugged. Ben said, “Yeah, sure, Connor, give ya a chance to blow off some steam. Glad to have the help.”
While he started talking details, Frank and I steered the stookie angel inside.
Mantis find ya, Tido? the stookie angel asked in me head.
Aye, right when ye got used for target practice.
“We got a sawbones who can patch you up,” Frank said as he looked at the stookie angel.
“You hicks manage to finally get some decent Wi-Fi out here?”
TWELVE
Tallis
Frank cocked an eyebrow at the graybeard doctor as soon as he came out of the second-story room. He was a thin man under his white coat and shabby suit, as though he hadn't been on friendly terms with a meal for over a century. When he met Frank's gaze, he just shrugged his bony-thin shoulders.
“I've patched him up as good as I can, hoss,” he said with a breathy voice that seemed too light for the heavy Texas accent. “It's up to his body to do the healing now.”
“Seein' as he's an angel, any idea how long that’ll be?” I asked. From all the other times I'd seen the stookie angel take his beatings, I already had a pretty good idea. But since I needed to sell the lie that I knew only little about angels, I figured it'd be best to ask.
The doctor’s eyes showed some anger when he shrugged again. “Hell, son, how would I know? It ain't like I treat their kind down this way regularly.”
Frank cooled him off with a clasp of the forearm and a smile. “Hey, if you don't know, you don't know, Doc. Thanks for the help, just the same.”
Though the doctor's eyes cooled, the grunt he gave Frank spoke volumes. “Not like you boys ever give me much choice when it comes to treating folk.” Then he added a weary nod. “But I reckon you're welcome.”
After reassuring the doctor that he'd be called on again if needed, Frank dismissed him.
Once he was heading down the stairs, Frank said, “Not sure I trust our new angel guest.”
