the fearful wind and rain, his mind sang.
The house shook somewhere deep down, and the lights went out. Doc's battery-powered headlamp made huge shadows on the tile walls. Stagger got out another lamp, and Fay brought in spirit lamps.
The fourth, over the right shoulderblade, were metal disks again; a different metal, badly discolored, with necrosis and pus around them. Doc had to open an area the span of four fingers, flush and cleanse and dress the wounds. Stagger adjusted the trance bands and stood away. Fay carried away the soiled sponges without a flinch. Doc argued with himself about putting in a rubber drain. They might heal more neatly if he just cleaned and closed, but… it was so damned dark… He decided to trust to goldenrod and careful observation.
The last cuts were inside the right thigh, and the probe led to thumb-sized lumps of waxy white stuff, smelling faintly of camphor.
Doc held one up to Stagger's lamp. There seemed to be something buried inside them. Doc didn't ask what, or cut one open. He didn't care. He threw them into the basin, cleaned up and dressed his incisions.
They moved the patients into the infirmary bedroom, turned the lamps down.
Stagger Lee stripped off his gloves, said, 'I really need a drink.'
'Why don't you go get one, then.'
'Good night, Stagger. Thank you.'
'Yeah, Doc. Good night.' He bowed slightly to Phasia, left the infirmary.
'Flesh leyell ins'ta?' Fay said. 'Kissna Kissna verdet well.' Her face, lit from below, looked unreal. Doc thought she seemed near collapse with the effort of making words. He felt exhaustion like a hand rearranging his guts.
He made a sleeping gesture. She nodded. He took both of her hands and held them, not knowing how else to say thank you. There must be ways, he thought. Had they done enough with sign language?
She went out. Doc went to look at the sleeping women again. He should stay here tonight. He couldn't possibly watch them even an hour longer, but at least he would be here if something happened.
He called the kitchen. As they were connecting, the door opened and Lucius came in. Doc said, 'I was just calling for some coffee and a sandwich. Would you like something?'
'Never to refuse free coffee, that is the Law, are we not men?'
Doc smiled and made the order. They sat down. Doc found himself nodding off in the chair. 'What… brings you here?'
'Just a couple of things to say. One is thank you. For getting Kitsune out alive.'
Doc thought about what the simulacrum had been made to say. 'You love the Fox, don't you.'
'Birdsong on love in one paradox: Nothing is more perfect than the unattainable,' Lucius said. Crying to make it sound like I joke. 'See, the audience all knows that the lady's supposed to fall in love with the hero, even though she's running a clue short. So the hero has to go into the fire, or the ice, or the generally bad place, and come back with the plot coupon that says Good for One True Love.' He shrugged. 'We don't do that anymore. Not if we're really heroes.'
'What's the other thing you wanted to say?'
'Wait till the butler's come and gone. It's only for you.'
After the coffee came, Doc said, 'Well?'
Lucius looked at the bedroom.
'They're asleep.'
'I should have told you this before. Or maybe I shouldn't. I didn't know what was going to happen when you found her. I suppose I thought things didn't need any more complication. And that, if she died, it might as well stay unsaid.'
'What you mean is,' Doc said, 'she did sell Mr. Patrise out.'
'Ah. I see you love a mystery too. But that isn't what I've got to say. Kitsune did try to deal with Whisper Who Dares, but it wasn't anything to do with street fights and gwaed gwir bootlegging. She wanted something she thought Whisper might be able to give her.'
'Which was?'
'Truebloods lie about magic, did you know, Doctor? They know that in the Shades the spells that can reshape the stuff of reality itself work like a two-stroke lawn-mower engine with grubby plugs and bat guano in the fuel line. But magic's part of elf style. So they lie about what they can do. Or can't do.'
'Okay…'
'The Fox is a consummate deal maker. I'm sure she expected Whisper to deal tough. But she probably didn't count on pure-quill Ellyll crazy. So she got caught. I wish I knew just when she got caught, when it started being the copy. Information did pass Whis-perward after that, but that was different. I'll never know, though, because I'll never ask. Will you?'
'I don't suppose it matters.'
'No,' Lucius said, suddenly very still, 'I don't suppose it does.' He stood up. 'Good night, Doctor. Thank you for the coffee and the attentive ear. And thank you again for my friend's life.' He stood up, got his hat, went to the inner door and looked in on Kitsune and Jolie-Marie in their beds. His hands clutched the hat tight to his chest. Doc turned his head until Lucius came away from the women, headed for the exit.
'Lucius.'
Birdsong stopped.
'Will you tell me one more thing?'
'Knowing that it will surely make none of us happy, why, yes, Doctor, I should be delighted.'
'What did you see at the Rush Street, that night?'
'Remember that there was gunfire, before the explosion?'
'Yes.'
'Were any windows broken when you got out to the front room?'
Doc thought back. 'No, there weren't.'
'I saw the bullet marks. They were all high and outside. Nobody's that bad a shot, except on purpose. All the gunshots were supposed to do was bring somebody out of the back room, just in time for the blast to get him.'
'To get who?'
Lucius looked infinitely sad. 'Someone who'd dash right out to help the shooting victims, without thinking twice.' He opened the door to the hallway, smoothed his lapels and tilted his hat to hide his eyes. 'It shouldn't be possible to forget, given all the strings round our fingers: Hammett, Chandler, Crumley, Macdonald and McDonald. Not to mention Oedipus the King. But we do. Something in the genes, in the winds of DNA, that says The Answer is Good. I really cant be trusted, you know, Doctor. Good night.'
And he was gone.
Doc sat down heavily, and just stared at the wall for minutes on minutes, thinking.
There must be some reason for a thing like that, he thought; people didn't just kill each other for the amusement value. Another part of his mind answered back. Wanna betf
But if there was a reason, what was it? What did he know: What could he do? He wasn't any threat to Whisper Who Dares, certain]) not before the meeting with the Highborn Glassisle. Even afterward, he'd only used her gift as a bluff.
Unless the reason was something that Doc didn't know, and wasn't supposed to live long enough to find out.
Kitsune had wanted something from Whisper, wanted it so much that she had ended up selling herself out. What could anybody want quite that badly? What, Doc thought, would he do such a thing for?
So the hero has to go into the fire -
Birdsong on love in one paradox.
Of course. Not a what at all.
Doc checked on his patients: still sleeping quietly. He went around the room snuffing the lamps, until there was only the circle of illumination from his headlamp. He reached into his bag, took out the crossbow bolt he had pulled from W 7 hisper's body.
The metal didn't look transformed, but neither had all those bullets. Did it have to be death that brought the power? Surely not.
He had no solid idea how to proceed. Where he had come from, there wasn't any magic, but people believed in it anyway-any of your neighbors might be bribing the Devil to blast your crops, sicken your stock, dry up your
