Gilded Latten Bones

'What should we do?' I asked the air.

The air did not reply.

'Singe, we have got to get him awake.'

'I have a job to do, as Strafa just said.'

'And, as you pointed out, it's raining.'

'I am going to give it a try. The squid man should have a serious reek.'

Getting feisty, my little girl. Her charming adolescent deference and diffidence were fading.

'If you're sure that's what you need to do, go for it.' I asked Strafa, 'Are you going to take her?' Hoping the prospect would turn Singe's bones to jelly. If a shape-changing guy who turned into a giant squid didn't do the trick.

'I have to go back anyway, to see about our friends.'

They were my friends so they were her friends. 'I guess you do. Bless you, Strafa Algarda.'

'Garrett?'

'Just a sentimental moment. You are too perfect. Too precious. It's frightening.'

And she didn't get embarrassed by mushy stuff. She just laughed like wind chimes. Her eyes turned a violet shade that made me want to kiss each lid about a thousand times.

'The next few years could get really saccharine around here,' Singe grumbled. 'Are we going to go, Strafa? Or would you rather stand around with a goofy expression, twisting Garrett till he looks like he's mentally challenged?'

'That one for sure. But I was raised up to honor my civic responsibilities first.'

'Yes. Yes,' I said. 'What will all this do to the political situation? They got everything calmed down once. Prince Rupert thought the cover-up would stick. But another attack could rip the head off a butt of chaos.'

Strafa kissed me. She made it clear that she meant it when she said she would rather stay and make me crazy. Then she headed out, with Singe right behind.

I asked the air, 'Did the evil genius behind everything deliberately create a new crisis?'

Dean showed up. 'Do you think it's too risky for me to go out?'

'Yes, I do. There are people out there who want to commit murder for no obvious reason. Is there something we need desperately? Have Dollar Dan make the run when he gets back. Or go wake Bird up and promise him a bottle.'

'We face no critical shortages. I wanted a couple pounds of beef to slice for a dish I want to try. And I was hoping to swing by to see how Playmate is managing.'

'He took his medicine with him?'

'He did.'

'Strafa can check on him later.'

'That is best, I expect.' A pause. 'I'm having trouble adjusting to the excitement being back.'

'I'm sorry.'

He chuckled. 'I wasn't fishing for an apology.' He made a search-and-capture sweep of Singe's space, collecting rogue cups, trays, pots, and flatware. 'It should all turn tediously domestic once this insanity gets sorted out.'

'Really?'

'The only challenge I foresee is you deciding if you'll go live in the Windwalker's mansion or if she'll move in here. I'm thinking this place will get cramped with a gaggle of little Garretts underfoot.'

'Gleep!' Or, maybe better said, 'Gleep?'

'I'll give odds. You'll be a daddy inside a year. And you will awe and amaze us all by turning out to be a good one.'

I couldn't answer that. I didn't have the words. 'Gleep?' That stuff didn't sound absurd when he said it.

The redhead, with her usual steadfast self-assertion, entered my mind. Hands on hips. Head cocked to her right. Chin lowered. 'Well?'

The question never came up. Not even as speculation, excepting in the lateral sense of prevention. We'd never discussed our attitudes toward children let alone thought about making our own. Which surprised me, in retrospect.

I muttered, 'God, strike me down now. I can't possibly be old enough to be a parent.'

Dean broke out in the biggest shit-eating grin I ever saw on his ugly old clock.

'You prick.'

His grin got bigger. 'We should move to her place. There'll be room for your own kids and strays like Penny, too.'

'Penny isn't my stray.'

We exchanged troubled looks. Hanging around our house might have gotten that girl into the worst trouble of a short, troubled life. And we might have gotten Crush, DeeDee, Mike, and the gang at Fire and Ice into the worst trouble of their troubled lives, too.

I said, 'Well, for now let's just be gay bachelors-the way we were before the females began to accumulate and complicate.'

'Yeah,' Dean said, with a marked absence of enthusiasm. He headed for the door. A moment later I heard Dollar Dan ask why he looked so glum.

Rain was falling again. I got a strong whiff of Dollar Dan as he followed Dean to the kitchen.

99

I went out onto the stoop. I'm not sure why. Maybe some vague notion about seeing for myself if all the watchers had been chased off by the rain. Or maybe I just wanted to enjoy the sound of rain on the stoop roof.

It was an odd rainfall, not heavy but steady, with big drops.

The street was empty. No people. No animals. The Palace Guard vehicles were gone. The air was cold and it was clean. For a moment all was right with my world.

Dean came out. 'Can you come back in? We have a problem.'

I gripped the cold, wet, recently painted balustrade. I did not want to leave contentment to deal with whatever had him upset.

My imagination was capable of encompassing only one terrible possibility. The Dead Man had given up the ghost, for real and forever. Henceforth my life would revolve around removing a quarter ton of moldering corpse.

Dean did head for the Dead Man's room. 'Here,' he said, indicating the Bird with the toe of his right shoe.

'I know. I thought he went home, too.'

'That's the problem.'

'Huh?'

'He's dead. He'll start smelling pretty soon, no matter how cold we make it.'

I knelt for a closer look. A voice not Bird's told me, 'Get your boot out of my back, asshole, unless you don't want to keep them ugly teeth.'

I touched Bird's neck. No pulse. 'Penny was right.'

'Apparently. But how can they use him after he's one of them?'

'I don't know.' I was upright again and oozing toward the door. 'But this strikes me as a sound reason for procrastination. Suppose we just let dead Birds lie till Strafa gets back? She'll know what to do. Or she can tell us who does.'

Dead Bird said something obnoxious. How? Voices came out of his mouth, not like the Dead Man talking inside my head.

Dean said, 'Perhaps I was hasty when I pronounced him dead. Look. He's breathing, now.'

He was, but only to collect wind to mutter and snarl in several voices, squabbling over how best to use the