"And?"

"She looked all right."

"I told you that. She's got people to look out for her."

"Now I know about her, there's no way I can get around meeting her face-to-face. And that scares the shit out of me. What do you say to your kid you ain't seen since she was this high?"

It would terrify Sas too. When the time came. She didn't know that he was aware of her existence. I kept debating whether or not to tell Hullar. It would piss him off, but I guessed I'd better. "I understand. But don't let the stress get you. You may have a valuable mission ahead."

"Huh?"

"You should get out among the people. Hang around the taverns and sidewalk cafes." Plotting urban revolution isn't a poor boy's hobby. Poor folks stay too busy working to keep body and soul and family together.

Amato shook his head. "I wouldn't fit in."

"Sure you would. Get yourself some new clothes. Put in some time getting in touch with today's popular climate."

"How come?" Mild suspicion. He still didn't trust me completely.

"There's a new spirit afoot. It doesn't amount to much yet, but it could. You ought to be aware of it." I thought he could become a real force on the street if he addressed real fears and angers. Lots of people had heard of him. He was a folk hero. People did listen when he stopped talking about himself.

He spoke largely out of imagined pasts now, but there was no reason he couldn't apply his passion to futures as yet unimagined.

53

Captain Block caught me during my chat with Barking Dog. He looked less like a Watchman than ever, though he was well-dressed. His henchmen, too, were trading uniforms for street clothing. Apparel had become a statement. Those who shed the red and blue meant to take their work seriously. The rest would become unemployed if Prince Rupert gained control of the city's police powers.

"How's it going?" Block asked. He ignored Amato. Barking Dog pretended Block was invisible. It was a good working arrangement.

"I've got a story. Sort of. It's not as clear as I'd like. It won't be much use. The documentation is all of the we-did-this-and-that, this-woman-got-killed, so-did-that-one, we-caught-the-villain-and-hanged-him-and-buried-him-where-he-fell variety. Not a hint how to control the curse.

"Back then the curse didn't migrate from villain to villain the way it does now. It didn't get the chance. I think the people involved understood it better. And it wasn't as sophisticated as it is now. And the local wizards weren't always out of town. The job wasn't just up to the Watch.

"Before the second killing round ended, everybody knew they were dealing with an accursed man who'd opened the grave of the first killer." And we, as brilliant as our forebears, had gotten that far too. Hooray.

"They didn't do anything about it?"

"Sure. They hanged a man and buried him where they thought he wouldn't be found. They were wrong. I'm no expert on sorcery, but I'll bet this curse has some kind of summons built in that calls till somebody hears it and sets it free. Smarter and nastier than it's ever been before."

Block mused, "And today we can't do anything about it even if we want. We don't have anyone who can neutralize it. Because of the war."

Yep. All our real badass wizards were in the Cantard.

"What about your end?" I asked. You never know. He or his boys might have tripped over Winchell.

"Not a trace. We'll have to trap him. It's set. The girl goes back to work tonight. She skips tomorrow night, works the next two nights. The extra one is in case he can hold off for a day. Your partner says he wouldn't move two days early."

I didn't think Winchell would be dumb enough to go where he was expected at all.

Block continued, "The only people in the place not part of the cover team will be Hullar, the dwarf, and three girls Hullar trusts with his life. There won't be no way Winchell can get to her. If he has to do it, he'll have to take the bait."

If he had to have either Candy or Belinda. But I wasn't the least bit confident that Winchell wouldn't find other victims. Unless his girl luck was as bad as mine.

I didn't criticize. The Dead Man had scoped out this plan. He termed it his martial-arts approach. We would lay back and let the curse betray itself. I've already mentioned his plan's obvious weaknesses.

"Just suppose he gives it a skip and takes second best."

"The minute we find a body, we're on his trail. Spike's hired the best ratman trackers in town. They're on call. In fact, he's got them wandering around in case they cross Winchell's track by chance."

When everything you can do isn't enough, you do whatever you can. Give Block that. This time he was giving a hundred percent.

He asked, "You identify the sorcerer responsible?"

"Only to a probability. It goes way back. Farther than we thought. There's still some stuff I need translated before I can say for sure, though."

"Goddamnit, say something for unsure."

"Hey, temper. The oldest depositions, first time there were killings, mention a Drachir Nevets. I checked with a historian. He'd never heard of a Drachir Nevets but he did know about a Lopata Drachir of Nevetska, a real shadowy old-time superwizard who was always into it with a sorcerer named Lubbock Candide. Drachir's forte seems to have been writing curses so complicated that nobody could escape them."

Block grunted, thought a moment, amazed me by knowing the names. He was better educated than I'd suspected. "Why this particular curse? Any hints?"

"More shadowy stuff. Candide had a daughter."

"Arachne."

"Right. A major ass-kicker herself. Unless the translator was yanking my leg, both Drachir and Candide were out to win her favors and found a dynasty of witch-kings. Arachne decided she'd rather snuggle up with daddy, which pissed Drachir off mightily. Which, I'm guessing, led him to send a curse after her."

"All that would have been way, way before the first killings."

"Yeah. I'm thinking maybe that wasn't the real first time around, only the first that got recorded."

"Like maybe Arachne deflected the curse earlier and buried it and didn't tell anybody."

"Maybe." The man could think when he wanted. "It might be useful to find out if there are any extant portraits of Drachir and the Candides. Especially Arachne."

Block grunted. He wore a faraway look. "This just won't be settled the easy way, will it?"

"Not hardly." Heavens, the things I was going to have to talk over with the Dead Man. And him not in a charitable mood because the news from the Cantard had such a lull-before-the-storm feel. "Speaking of things not settling easily, without making a big to-do, catch a look at the guy watching us from up where the old ladies do their temperance thing."

Block looked. "Chodo's man Crask."

"Bingo. I'm going to trust you with something." Barking Dog had gone back to work early, not wanting to be close to a minion of his oppressors. No one would hear.

"The other girl at my place. Belinda. Her full name is Belinda Contague. As in the daughter of Chodo Contague. She's hiding out with me because Crask and Sadler want to kill her."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because they did something to Chodo. Poisoned him or something. I've seen him." What the hell? Everybody lies to the police. "He's a vegetable. They just pretend he's giving the orders. Belinda knows that, which is why they want to get rid of her."

"I think I missed something, Garrett."

"Belinda can take them down. They have to cover their scam or lose control. I got into it because they wanted to hire me to find her for them."

"A girl who happens to be one of the main targets of our killer?"