Dean jerked back inside, started to push the door shut.

"Wait! No. Go ahead. I can look through the peephole."

Dean stepped aside. I peeped. "I was right. The beer wagon is coming. Get an extra keg if he has one. We may be locked up a long time."

Dean glowed with dark disapproval. Then, "Are we actually involved in something serious?"

All the activity had not clued him.

"We are. And it might be the most dangerous thing yet." I hit the highlights while we waited for Charanagua Slim to bring his cart to the foot of our steps. Slim was part elf, part troll, an improbable mix that had to be seen to be believed. He was short and hard as a rock, and both his parents had to have been the ugliest of their kind ever to reach breeding age. He was a sweetheart when you got to know him, but he made nails look soft when money was involved. He was important in my life only because he was my main source of fresh kegs of the holy elixir.

Dean slipped out to help Slim. Slim was going to be irked. Not all of my empties carried his chop.

I denned up in my office. Slim didn't need to see me. He might tell somebody later. Or he might insist we review my fickle relationships with beer haulers.

I heard the door close barely after I sat down. I never caught a snarl of complaint from Slim. Something was wrong. I headed for the hallway.

Dean had just passed my door. He had a pony keg on his shoulder. That's hardly enough beer to wet your whistle. "What's that?"

"All he could deliver right now. All he had left on his cart. I took what I could get."

I followed him into the kitchen. The empties had not stirred. "What about those?"

"He didn't have room on his cart. He'll be back, he said. He said business is good, what with the soldiers coming home. Said he's working fourteen-hour days."

Wouldn't you know? "I smell a beer shortage coming on. Another of the unexpected horrors of peace." I went scurrying toward the front door. Better have Slim bring me a cartload all my own. I would become a beer hoarder.

Garrett, please.

I gave it up, just took a peek through the hole. Slim sure enough did have kegs and barrels practically dripping off his cart. "I guess those human rights guys need a lot to keep them going." Beer drinking is an essential part of the preliminary rituals of political demonstrations.

"Hang on, Smiley."

Yes?

"Use my eyes. Take a gander up the street, past Old Lady Cardonlos' place."

I see nothing but a somewhat substantial peasant girl.

"That's Cat. The one who gave me the ride on the flying horse."

I have her. Half a minute passed. She is not quite mortal, Garrett. Ah. She is an interesting child. And this house is her destination. She is not aware that it is the center of a great deal of attention. She lacks some very basic divine senses despite being the child of a god.

"She never struck me as any genius. Hey, Dean! We're going to have company. Take her in to His Nibs. We don't want her to know I'm here."

Dean offered me a look at his hardest glare. "I hope there is money in this somewhere. I have no interest in putting on a show for one of your prospects."

"It's all business. Just let her in. Offer her tea and a muffin and hand her off to the Dead Man."

"Yes, sir."

Thank you.

Both sounded as though no greater imposition had settled upon their lives before.

"You wanted to interview Cat, Smiley. Now's your big chance."

Those things out there do not appear to be aware of her as anything but another mortal. I sense no interest at all.

"Intriguing."

Extremely.

Nobody knew who Cat was, but Cat was in the game. "Old Bones, this may be more complicated than I thought."

Probably. And she may be more of a challenge than I had anticipated. Her mind has a remarkably stout shell surrounding it. It conceals her memories and all but her surfacemost thoughts. There is enough on the surface, though, to confirm the notion that she serves neither the Shayir nor the Godoroth.

"That's hot news. Shucks. Recomplication wasn't what I wanted right now."

Dean continued to grumble his way up the hall. He had a pie in the oven and didn't think it was reasonable that he be expected to watch the door as well. We were turning into a bunch of cranky old men.

Had to be the Dead Man's wicked influence.

Pshaw! Allow her to knock a second time before you open the door, Dean. I need time to get the bird back here.

Dean responded with select commentary worthy of Mr. Big himself. I have to admit I felt a certain sympathy for his position.

Go into your office, Garrett.

He was surly. Still had that one eye inside my head.

I went, but watched as long as I dared.

Dean stiffened, presumably getting instructions. He really hates having the Dead Man get into his head. I managed to get out of sight before he yanked the door open, not waiting for any damned second knock while his pie was baking.

The Goddamn Parrot blasted inside, staggering the old man, arriving with his beak going full speed. "Lay your glims on this bimbo! Hooters deluxe!"

"What is that?" Cat squeaked. My erstwhile traveling companion seemed a touch irritable.

Welcome to the house of aggravation, dear.

"A pet. Ignore it. Product of a wastrel youth. It doesn't understand that it is offensive," Dean replied. "It escaped some time ago, going out to search for Mr. Garrett, my employer. Mr. Garrett has vanished. Wenching again, no doubt. They were inseparable."

I considered what choke holds might best serve in a debate with a man Dean's age.

Garrett. The creature No-Neck has been warned. He recognized the bird but failed to take its message seriously. He seemed to think you were trying to pull some clever practical joke.

Great. "He didn't get the name No-Neck for no reason," I whispered. But would I have listened to a talking bird I had met only once, when both of us were drinking?

Probably not.

Unless it was a redhead. Dean. Please close the door.

"Cheap shot!"

The Goddamn Parrot kept yapping like he thought Cat was Winger. Maybe he couldn't tell the difference.

Near as I could tell from the racket, she kept getting in Dean's way, possibly because she didn't know how to deal with the Goddamn Parrot. No matter how obnoxious the critter gets it's never good manners to stomp somebody's pet in their own house.

Then the awful truth plopped like a great stinking lump falling behind the tallest herbivorous thunder lizards.

"Hey, Honeybuns, dig the weasel out of this dump and let's get going." Yes. Him. And his humming wings.

The Goddamn Parrot shrieked and headed down the hall. Dean clumped after him, exercising his own vocabulary. The bumblebee buzz drifted. I heard rattling at the door to the small front room.

"Nothin' in there. Stinks, though. That bird. Let's look at this next one."

I went over behind my desk and picked up the spare headknocker. It was time to find out how much power a cherub had.

Calmly. Calmly.

The runt's mouth never stopped. Neither did his banger. The smoke began coming in under my office door.

The Goddamn Parrot's beak never stopped.

Dean kept swearing.

Cat kept after everybody. She sounded like she was about to break down crying.

Be patient, the Dead Man sent. The girl is rattled. This is to our advantage. I see weaknesses in the armor around her mind.

"Oh, excellent," I muttered. "And what about that stinking, banger-smoking cherub?"

Cherub?

"The one in the hallway with the rest of that baby riot? The half-bug little guy trying to get into everything?"