Oh what an elegant theorist am I. I was probably off the mark on half of this. But I didn't let a little thing like maybe being wrong slow me down. "After the excitement at the engagement bash Genord began to understand how badly he and his pals were being used. He sneaked away to raise hell about it. He got no satisfaction and, possibly pursued, was in a highly disturbed state when Lance and Ty surprised him at the front door. Since then things have been falling apart fast for the Wolves and Dragons both.

"Meantime, not one person involved in this has dealt with me straight. Everybody, including you, has had an agenda they didn't want to abandon. Although everybody told me a little something here and there so I could have a tool or two to go make things uncomfortable for some other guy. I don't know what your problem was, boss. Maybe you just didn't want a guy with dirt under his nails making the guests nervous by tracking real life all over the place. I'm offended but I'll stipulate that it's your house, your party, your call."

Max's gaze flicked to Gilbey for an instant. Ah. His idea, huh?

Gilbey asked, "You have any idea who this mysterious manipulator is?"

"Just a feeling. No evidence. But if this turns into the pressure situation I want it to become, somebody will point a finger, and say ‘He made me do it.' "

Gilbey stirred the fire again. Max looked thoughtful. I said, "There's more but those are the assumptions I'm working with tonight. We'll see how things come together."

99

I stood at the head of the grand staircase, overlooking the Weider great hall. Tinnie wriggled in under my left arm. Morley had reminded me to add her to the guest list, possibly saving me several centuries in Purgatory. Or what she'd make seem like several centuries. Morley's thoughtful effort balanced off about one talon's worth of the Goddamn Parrot.

Tinnie said, "If it wasn't in bad taste, I'd ask who died." There were a lot of people of various persuasions and allegiances below us, mostly gathered in sullen clumps. The main folks circulating, other than Mr. Gresser's serving crew, were hard-eyed men from Theverly's freecorps, the brewery, my friends, and even a few of Belinda's.

"Some parties just never come to life. Damn!"

"What?"

"Saucerhead brought Winger." Winger might decide that being up to her eyeballs in toughs and lawmen represented a challenge. I glanced up. A gaudy glob remained perched on the main chandelier, gawking at the mob. The bird was vitally alert and his beak hadn't gushed an abomination in the past hour. He was way out of character. I was concerned. But even Morley hadn't noticed. If we could just keep it that way...

Manvil Gilbey came out of Max's study. "Going to be much longer?"

"Still missing some key faces... Speak of the devil. Here come Colonel Block and the secret police." More hard-eyed men, probably not Relway's undercover goons because he wouldn't want their faces this exposed, came in through the front door. Some pulled chains. A few of my guests wouldn't be willing participants. Examples hove into sight: Crask, Sadler, Gerris Genord and his captive friends. Genord seemed particularly unhappy about returning to the scene of his crime.

Him and his buddies got dragged to a bench that was chained to a pillar. They wouldn't be lonely there. The bench already supported eight desolate Brothers Of The Wolf who hadn't scooted fast enough to avoid Lieutenant Nagit's roundup at The Pipes. Apparently Nagit even caught North English by surprise with that. He'd told me that Marengo had been put out in the extreme... according to Tama Montezuma, who continued doing most of his talking for him.

Alyx joined us. "That's an awful lot of men who don't like each other crammed in nose-to-nose in one place." She'd dressed. Gorgeously. She looked like she wanted to go down and set the mob at one another's throats. "I'm surprised you got them all to come."

"Hey. We serve the best beer in town. And it's on the house." My gaze drifted to Trail and Storey and Miss Trim. And Medford Shale. Shale had refused to be left at Heaven's Gate. All four were demonstrating an heroic dedication toward making sure they got a fair share of Weider's best.

The real reason most of these people had come was that they were afraid not to. They might miss something critical. It was a tense time in the history of TunFaire. It was a time not to let yourself fall a step behind. It was a time when the future was rewriting itself from minute to minute and you wanted your hands and nose right in the middle of anything that might nudge the pen of destiny.

"Manvil, tell... " He was gone. "Oh, good. Better late than never." Saucerhead had completed his mission. Below, Ty had entered the hall from the family dining room. He was on crutches. Nicks was beside him, trying not to look like she was there to catch him if he fell. Ty was directing a crew from the brewery who were dragging one of those huge, thousand-gallon wooden settling tanks where beer sits briefly while the grossest sediments settle out. Later the holy nectar would migrate onward to occupy the kegs and barrels the customer sees. Questions about the tank stirred every little cluster but people were too wary of their neighbors to ask outside their own cliques. Ty gave me a thumbs-up. I blew him a kiss. We were getting along today. I told Alyx, "Go tell your pop. I just dealt myself another ace. Everything's set and we're just waiting for Relway."

"Waiting for Relway. Right."

"He'll understand."

She went. Tinnie asked, "Think she'll remember all the way over there?"

"You're vicious. And she's your friend."

"You keep that in mind. All right. You've got everybody that you've ever met gathered in one place. What the devil do you plan to do with them?"

"Oh, I'm going to make them all unhappy. Real unhappy. Unless I manage to make me real unhappy by making a complete fool of myself."

"You think the bookies are giving odds? Is there a point spread?"

"Lift your skirt."

"Right here? I can be conned into a little adventure sometimes, Garrett, but... "

"Three inches will be far enough." Her hemline dragged the carpet. "Ha! I thought so."

"What?"

"You're wearing the green shoes. I don't know if they turn you wicked or you just wear them when you're feeling wicked, but—"

"Somebody's here."

Yes. Somebody was. The boys from the Lamp brewery had arrived. They looked sexy in their shiny new silver-plated chains. I'd expected the logistics to be a problem but Relway had been on the job already, having anticipated having to control shapeshifters again, and better.

"Five... six of them. I thought there'd be more. There should be more. Hell, there're only five of them." The sixth was a ringer, Relway himself, in disguise and not really part of the coffle. He was pretending to be a little hunchbacked torturer's apprentice, jingling the ends of the chains. Probably no one but Singe and I recognized him.

Singe showed more courage than I'd thought possible. Not only was she on the scene, she was out where people could see her. She stayed close to the walls, though.

The rightsist types were surprised by her presence but it didn't distress them. Not nearly so much as did the presence of Morley Dotes and Belinda's swagging toughs. Ratpeople knew their place.

Everyone I wanted there had arrived. Singe had not yet found any shapeshifters other than those Relway was delivering but she kept on looking. I was counting on surprise visitors of several kinds.

Marengo North English wove his way through the crowd hurriedly, headed my way. He seemed to cringe from the touch of the crowd. He wanted out of the press, fast. His lovely niece trailed a step behind him. Tama seemed uncomfortable and deeply troubled. Maybe that was because there were so many really bad people around, though I couldn't picture her having much difficulty managing in even the direst circumstances. She'd already impressed me as a first-class survivor capable of cool thinking and quick decisions.