Singe said, “Tinnie is not finished being mad at you. You should stay away till she’s ready to accept your apology.”

“And when she hears about Belinda?” Life gets complicated if you get too engaged with it.

Dean sneered.

Saucerhead asked, “How was you figuring on getting out? On account of I still need to get out of here myself.”

“Just wait till they get bored.”

“There’s still plenty of racket out there.”

I shrugged. Tired was wearing me down. Also, that hint of the weird closing in that I’d begun to feel as soon as I came home.

Crash! Thunder shook the house. Stuff fell off my desk. Eleanor’s portrait wobbled and ended up at a steep tilt. Dean dashed off to the kitchen. My ears rang. I hadn’t heard anything fall out there but probably only because I couldn’t hear.

Singe’s eyes went wide with terror. John Stretch’s, too. The primal rat took over. They didn’t run only because there was nowhere to go.

Melondie Kadare was out cold.

“That was a close one,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me. I felt rather than heard the thunder rumble off into the distance. “That must have hit down here in the neighborhood.”

Saucerhead grunted feebly.

I’ve never been bothered by thunder and lightning. I find a good lightning show enjoyable. But I’d seldom had the hobnailed boot of a god slam down quite so close. “That ought to break up the mob out front, Saucerhead.”

He couldn’t hear me, but the idea occurred to him on its own. He got moving toward the front door.

Dean returned, half of his favorite teapot dangling from his right forefinger. There were tears in his eyes.

A second peal of thunder started way off to the east and stumbled toward us, roared overhead, hugely loud, then ambled on westward, diminuendo. Soon afterward a lightning symphony opened to a vast audience.

Then some antic vandal of a boy god knocked open the sluice gates of heaven. The rain came. Torrents hammered the house.

Kittens poked their noses out of hiding places. Well. The world was still here.

Saucerhead came back. “That broke them up. Man, you got to see the hailstones coming down.” He was more awed than frightened now.

I went to look.

Tharpe was right. It was an awesome show, the lightning flailing around, thunder’s hammers pounding the anvil of the sky, hail coming in a downpour heavier than any I’d ever seen.

People always exaggerate the size of hailstones. That’s human nature. So I’ll say only that there were tons of them, they were big, and on the ricochet they knocked over carts and wagons. Then daring, enterprising, dim-witted youths hit the street with buckets and baskets, harvesting the ice while it still hammered down.

A flash almost blinded me. Thunder’s roar came a heartbeat later, so strong I felt it right through my body. Had gangs of stormwardens decided to rumble? My ex-army pals claim they saw a lot of this sort of thing in the main war theater.

There were material as well as social advantages to being a Marine. Marines on swampy islands in the Gulf didn’t have to worry about getting caught between dueling sorcerers. Sorcerers, on both sides, didn’t mind cruel and deadly warfare, but they refused to become physically uncomfortable while they were fighting.

Saucerhead pushed past behind me. “I might freeze or drown, but I’m getting while I can get.”

I had a couple of kittens underfoot, trying to figure out what hailstones were. They weren’t impressed.

I asked, “You want a cat?”

Tharpe gave me a look colder than a bushel of hailstones.

“They’re cute.”

He left me with a one-finger salute.

Once again I got up earlier than was rational. Since I’d gone to bed early, though, I missed no sleep. I just didn’t regain what I’d lost the day before.

Everybody else was up before me. Of course. Go figure. And they were all in good moods, despite wet and windy weather. Dean had a warm fire going. I settled in and observed professionally while he continued to deal with the storm damage. “How much do we need to replace?”

“I’m making a list. Not a lot. We had too much to begin with, since we never entertain.” He produced tea in a cracked beaker. I drank.

“What’s Singe up to?”

“She and her brother are in talking to the thing.”

“The thing? Old Jolly woke up? Why didn’t you say so?”

“It may be old age confusing me. I thought I just did. The fury of the storm woke him up.”

I didn’t buy that. Now I knew why I’d felt weird after I got home yesterday. Old Bones was awake and lying back in the weeds.

“Give me a refill, here, and I’ll be off.”

He muttered something about my not needing any tea to get there.

Singe had half the lamps in the house in the Dead Man’s room. He makes her nervous. Though I don’t know many people who are comfortable around corpses. Particularly around corpses still inhabited by the original occupants, like a ghost that can’t get up and walk.

Asking what kind of mood he was in would waste time. Ill-tempered usually covered it. Instead, I asked, “Where are the cats?”

“Hiding,” Singe said. “They are terrified.”

“Makes sense. In his time His Nibs was known as Terror of Kittens.”

John Stretch eyed me like he wasn’t sure I was joking. He was rattled. If he were human, he’d have been a bloodless white.

“You sure he’s awake?” I asked. “I’ve been in here a whole minute and he hasn’t contradicted me yet.”

There are matters of greater weight to consider, Garrett. A dozen minds in the street outside need examination. Employing a pickpocket’s touch inasmuch as they believe that I am no longer viable.

“Ah. Were you ever?”

And still the man wonders why I prefer sleep to suffering his company.

He was employing one of his lesser minds to communicate. He didn’t have his heart behind his snaps. He was distracted. Which was a good sign. He’d found this new world exciting enough to engage his intellect.

Here is what you must do. Beginning immediately. Have Mr. Tharpe and Ms. Winger come see me. Employing your considerable talent for fabrication, get each of the following to visit, as well. Colonel Block and Deal Relway. Miss Contague. The child, Penny Dreadful. Any of the men who wear green pants. Or their handlers. The priest you visited. Teacher White or one of his henchmen.

Once I have interviewed a few of them it should become possible to develop strategies. Finding Mr. Contague and Mr. Temisk will be critical. Those two will be able to clarify the developing shakeout in organized crime.

That’s the Dead Man. He goes on and on. And on. The bottom line is legwork for me.

Where is the bird? I do not sense the parrot.

“Gone,” I said. I tried to sound thrilled, but the truth is, I do miss the foulmouthed chicken. Just a little. In rare, maudlin moments.

Ah. An interesting turn of events. Most of which I am thankful to have missed.

“You didn’t miss much.”

Do you honestly believe you can mislead me?

“I don’t remember who, but somebody said that where there’s life, there’s hope.”

My cousin Duphel said it first.

“What?”

He responded with the mental equivalent of a shrug. He had wasted time enough. Here is your schedule.

My partner. Already in there bullying me to collect the bits he needed to make sense of the senseless. He makes connections quicker than I do.

Should you prove able to approach Mr. Dotes in such fashion that his subsequent actions appear to be independent of your visit, ask him to stop by. Then go to the Bledsoe. See what more the outlanders have done.

Didn’t seem like they could’ve gotten much done. Most of them were in jail.

There is a witch you know.