“The baby-kil er.”
Exasperated, “What would you have me do?”
“Something. Good men do nothing.”
He counted silently.
Nepanthe said, “The Star Rider wil be there til the end of time. Meantime, the monster has hold of another girl.”
“I understand.” Surrendering to the wil of the wife.
The vil ain should not be hard to find. A divination at the body dump… “I’d have to go there. I can’t manage the time dives from here.”
Fright flashed across Nepanthe’s face. “Real y? You’re not just saying that so I’l ask you to back off?”
“No. I have to be there to catch the necessary personal resonances.”
Nepanthe freed one of her classic sighs. “What must be, must be. Go.”
“You insist?”
“I do.”
“I’l set Scalza’s scrying bowl so you can watch.” That lacked any facility for listening in. He did some this and that while mumbling about it being a good thing that Radeachar did not have much character. The monster had gotten flung al over creation lately, with little respite.
He had the Unknown show itself blatantly, then cal ed it back to Fangdred.
...
Ozora Mundwil er glared at Kristen. She scowled at Dahl Haas. “That thing is going house to house, staring in windows!”
Dahl said, “The wizard wants it understood that he’s watching.”
The old woman seemed inclined to lay the blame at their feet. “We’ve always known that. Why the sudden close-ups?”
Kristen said, “Neither of us knows Varthlokkur wel enough to fathom his thinking. If I was to guess, though, the intent is to panic somebody into thinking that the wizard is onto them.”
“Somebody in Sedlmayr.”
Dahl nodded. “Would that be a first?”
“No. But it would be someone skil ed at not getting noticed.” Aral Dantice came to al three minds. And Aral had disappeared.
Ozora announced, “I have regained my composure. I wil assume the Unborn’s behavior to be a message. I’l ask questions. If there is anything going on I wil expose it.
Bight? Where is that boy?”
Haas said, “He’s got a new crush.”
“That Blodgett chit? He’s not supposed to let Kristen out of his sight.”
“She would be the one,” Kristen said, amused. “She may be just a wee bit more pliable than I am.”
“I’l ply…”
Haas added, “She seems like a nice kid. Down to earth.
For her age.”
“But an orphan,” Ozora grumbled. Styling. It was no secret she actual y liked Bertie Blodgett. The girl made her laugh.
“Living on the charity of the enThal family. Where did she come from, anyway? Those people…!”
Old family animosities were at work there. Ozora was too old and set to let them slide. She was, surprisingly, stil flexible enough not to issue anti-fraternization decrees on that basis alone.
Later, Dahl teased Kristen, “You got too old for Bight.”
“What you mean is, too sophisticated.”
“And too taken.”
“That could be changed. I see the way you look at that Bertie.”
“Can I help it if I’m not dead yet? A man is a man. I never do anything but look.”
Kristen did not take that in the spirit in which it was offered.
...
“I don’t have the skil s to divine the past!” Babeltausque declared, not for the first time. “I’m not real y a necromancer. The spirits I command can’t look back, either. We need to find something of the vil ain’s and trace that. Or just keep on working the neighborhood where the girls grew up. We’l find something eventual y.” Nathan Wolf asked, “Does it have to be something that belonged to the vil ain? We do have the dead girl.”
“That might work,” Babeltausque conceded, irked that it had taken a layman to suggest what should have been obvious to him.
So far working the neighborhood had produced only rumors, ugly stories, and malicious finger-pointing. Few local girls reached their wedding days untouched by family or neighbors. People considered it part of growing up.
But nobody sanctioned what had been done to Phyletia Plens. They pretended to cooperate, speculated freely, and strained muscles in their eagerness to point fingers.
The butcher was a magnet. Neighbors wondered if he had not kil ed Haida Heltkler and blended her into his sausages.
Stil fighting that cough, Josiah Gales said, “We could put Black to the question. That would get to the facts.” Inger said, “Do arrest him. What is al that noise?” A grand racket had developed elsewhere in the castle.
“A mob?” Babeltausque asked, suddenly frightened.
Wasn’t it too soon for that kind of trouble?
Inger said, “Nathan, find out what’s happening. And bring the doctor when you come back.”
As the door closed, Babeltausque said, “Black isn’t our kil er but he does know something about the girls who lived in his house.”
Possibly. One girl later murdered and another now missing.
Significantly, though, the other victims and missing girls had lived within a short distance of Black’s shop.
Inger said, “I want the doctor because I have a notion worse than running girls through a meat grinder. Which, you’l recal , did not happen to Phyletia Plens. What we do have is the monster’s seed that he spil ed into Phyletia.
Babeltausque, you and the doctor wil …”
The door opened. A man stepped inside.
Inger final y exhaled. “Varthlokkur!”
“I am not happy to be here. My wife insists that I help stop what’s been happening.”
Babeltausque withstood the wizard’s stare. “It isn’t me.”
“True. But you do know what became of one missing girl.” Babeltausque inclined his head. “She isn’t missing. She’s hiding.”
Oh, he hated to confess. He did not want to suffer the disapprobation he would face now. But he would not grant the wizard a blackmail hold.
“I see. Consensual.”
“Entirely.”
The wizard surveyed the others. “One disappearance solved already. Tel me about the others.” Wolf and Wachtel arrived while Babeltausque was confessing. The doctor looked older than his incredible age. He was pale and grim. His hands trembled.
Wolf said, “I sent men to fetch Black. Meantime, we have a smal mystery, brought to my attention while I was out.
There, by the way, is the cause of the excitement.” He nodded at Varthlokkur.
“What is the mystery?”
“We have ghosts in the cemetery.”
“That seems the most likely place to find them.”
“Absolutely, but for the fact that nobody ever saw any until, a while back, a Siluro family squatting in Fiana’s mausoleum were evicted by ghosts who then vanished when the Unborn appeared.”
