Odd Girl Out

Behind his makeup, McMicking's forehead creased slightly. 'You have a car?'

'A borrowed one, yes,' I said. 'Smaller boxes will be easier to get through Customs, too.'

'You may be right.' He set the coral back into the flowing water, his eyes never leaving my face. 'Where are you parked?'

'Two blocks away,' I said, nodding the opposite direction to where I'd actually left the car. 'Come on—you might as well give me a hand with them.'

A minute later we were outside the house. 'This way,' I said, heading off at a fast walk toward my car. 'Hurry.'

'What's going on?' McMicking murmured as he caught up with me.

'Bayta once told me the polyps in Modhran coral could detect and interpret vibrations when they were underwater,' I said. 'In other words, the coral can hear.'

'Yes, I remember her saying that,' McMicking said. 'So?'

'So you've been in the house for twenty minutes, getting ready to carve up the coral,' I gritted out. 'Not just attacking a major Modhran outpost, but also ruining his detector array. So why haven't the Filly walkers shown up in force to stop you?'

'Oh, hell,' McMicking said, his voice soft but deadly.

'You got it,' I said bitterly. 'He doesn't need the array anymore.

'He's found Rebekah.'

Ninety seconds later, we were in the car, barreling down Imani City's peaceful streets toward Zumurrud District.

'She says they're all right,' McMicking said, his comm still at his ear as I took a corner way faster than either the laws of man or physics would have preferred. By a miracle of engineering, the car stayed on the pavement. 'She can hear a lot of commotion going on in the bar, but so far no one's come poking around Karim's office.'

I didn't answer, my stomach knotted with fury at my stupidity, my mind fogged with images of Bayta standing alone against the full strength of the Modhri.

'How did he figure it out?' McMicking asked.

'He didn't figure it out,' I snarled. 'I told him.'

'How?'

No gasps of surprise, no blank stares, no time wasted with recriminations. Sometimes I forgot what it was like having a fellow professional like McMicking at my side.

And that reminder loosened the knots in my stomach a little. Together, we might still have a chance. 'Because I was stupid,' I told him. 'I even said he was putting the damn coral in cars.'

'You mean he had some in the police car?'

'Can you think of a better way to keep the local kids from taking it out for a spin than to stash it with a couple of dead cops?' I bit out. 'It's either in the trunk or just sitting on the ground underneath the car. I never thought to look either place.'

'I thought he also needed a Filly nearby to make this trick work,' McMicking said.

'This particular chunk wasn't part of the tracking array,' I said, a fresh wave of self-disgust washing over me. 'It was put there to eavesdrop when I went to investigate the bodies. And I fell for it. I stood there feeling all safe and secure and unobserved and blabbed my stupid mouth off.'

McMicking was silent for a few more blocks. 'If you're right about the Modhri eavesdropping on you, he knew I was heading over to Veldrick's,' he said at last. 'But he didn't know what I was going to do to the coral once I got there.'

'You're taking it home to Daddy, aren't you?'

'You miss my point,' he said. 'You and I know that, but the Modhri didn't. Neither of us said anything about it in that conversation, or any other he might have listened in on. For all he knew, I was going to bring a sledgehammer and beat him to death.'

He drew his gun and laid it ready on his lap. 'But the Fillies still didn't show up,' he continued. 'That means he was willing to sacrifice an entire coral outpost if necessary in order to get at this girl.'

Which was pretty much the same deal he'd offered me a couple of months ago, with those boxes of coral on the train from Ghonsilya to Bildim. He'd been willing to sacrifice all that in order to get his hands on the third Lynx sculpture.

I knew now why he'd considered that trade worth making. What the hell was Rebekah to him that he was offering to make the same trade for her?

I had no idea. I just hoped we would all live long enough to find out.

At first glance Karim's block looked pretty much the way I'd left it. There were still drunks and toughs all over the place, making navigation hazardous as they wandered onto and off of the street.

But on second glance I could see that something about the scene had changed. A lot of the drunks weren't wandering anymore, but were just lying or sitting along the sides of the buildings. Passed out, or else on their way there.

McMicking noticed it, too. 'They crash and burn early around here, don't they?' he commented.

'Hardly seems worth the effort of going out,' I agreed as I let the car roll quietly to a halt by the curb half a block from the bar. 'Snoozers, you think?'

'That would be the simplest conclusion,' he said. 'But bystanders normally don't hang around when that much shooting starts.'

A movement across the street to our left caught my eye, and I looked over to see Oved emerge from a doorway and hurry toward us. 'Stay here,' I told McMicking, and got out.

'Thank God you're back,' Oved murmured tightly as we met in the middle of the street. 'They're in there now —six of them—handing out drinks like—'

'Hold it, hold it,' I interrupted. 'Who is in where?'

'Six Filiaelians are in the bar,' he said, stumbling a little over the name. 'They came in right after you left and sat down at a couple of the tables. They're offering free drinks to anyone who can beat them at arm wrestling.'

I looked toward the bar and the sleeping men piled along the walkway around it. 'I gather they've been doing a lot of losing?'

'Yes,' Oved said, sounding a little mystified that I'd come to that conclusion so fast. 'I don't know what's in those bottles they brought, but one shot and you're done for.'

'Dark brown bottle?' I asked. 'Triangular base with a short, wide, corkscrew-shaped neck?'

'Yes,' he confirmed. 'They must have a dozen of them, packed away in wraparound belt bags. But it can't be poison—they're drinking it themselves.'

'It's not poison,' I said. 'It's dilivin. A classic Filly drink never intended for Human stomachs. Where's Karim?'

'Behind the bar,' the boy said. 'Standing on the door to the storage cellar. The main storage cellar, I mean. Not the one—you know. He told me to come out here and wait for you.'

I nodded with approval. If the Modhri had figured out Rebekah was underground, he would reasonably assume she was in the cellar. Karim standing defiantly on the access door would add weight to that conclusion, which in turn should have the Modhri working on a way to get him off it.

But even the Modhri wasn't crazy enough to take on an entire bar's worth of Humans with only six Fillies. Hence, the rigged drinking contest to thin out the crowd. 'Okay, I'll handle it,' I told Oved, and headed back to the car. I would go in alone, I decided, and have McMicking find a nice shadow to hide in as backup. Bending down, I looked into the car.

McMicking was gone.

I straightened up, looking around as I silently cursed the man. But he was nowhere to be seen.

'What is it?' Oved called softly.

'Nothing,' I said, turning back toward the bar. The least McMicking could have done was wait for my instructions before deciding to ignore them. 'Stay here.'

The tavern had been reasonably full before I left for Veldrick's place. Now, it was even more crowded, with wall-to-wall people laughing and hooting and generally enjoying themselves at the tops of their lungs. Clearly, word had traveled about the strangers in town providing free entertainment and free firewater.