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Melondie groaned and whimpered. It s your own fault, Bug. In the distance,
Whitefield Hall cast a cheery glow. The pixie crawled out of my pocket. She
tried her wings. I caught her before she crashed, tried to put her away again.
She wasn t interested. She clung to my shoulder instead. But when I stopped to
listen for footsteps she slithered inside my shirt. When you re small you lose
body heat fast.
Don t bounce around so much, Biggie. And keep them cats away.
The streets remained deserted, which was unusual. TunFaire goes round the
clock. But I was content. It s nice when no sense of dark imminence hangs in
the air.
Hey, Bug. We re almost home. And I ve got an idea. How about you help me
catch this spook that s dogging us.
My head! She groaned. What you mean, us, Big un?
All right. You. Because who the hell would be after me for a bucket of
cats?
Smart-ass, All right. I m listening. But keep your voice down. What s the
plan?
The plan was, I plunked my little friend on a ledge, out of sight, then
headed on along. I took a right at the next cross street, took another right
and then another, and soldiered on until there I was, plucking my shivering
sidekick off her ledge.
Did you have to stop for a beer?
Whiner. I would have, if I d seen a place. It s past my time to start
sipping. So, Bug. What s the evil word? What wicked dark lord off the Hill is
dogging me through the alleys of the night?
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You re so full of shit, Garrett. A blivit. Hell, the world s first
hyperblivit. Forty pounds of shit jammed into a ten-pound sack instead of just
twenty.
But I m so pretty. All the girls want to love me.
If they re some kind of weird, like sky elves. Or ratgirls. Or troll jiggles
so ugly they can t find themselves a guy who s rock hard.
Unfair. No troll girl ever chased me. You re upset because you re too
teeny to enjoy the special Garrett charm. I wondered how trolls tell the
girls from the boys.
Sure you re not imagining things, Garrett? Because that s not what I hear.
Ooh! How sharper than a frog s tooth. Come on, Mel. Who am I dragging along
behind me? Before I need to scope out how to turn my last two hairs into the
perfect comb-over.
You re no fun anymore. All right. It was that little girl-boy. Or boy-girl.
The one who brought the cats.
Penny Dreadful? That kid can bang around behind me, keeping up, and I can t
catch her? That s hard to believe.
I can believe that. You being you, with your appreciation of you. Face it.
You don t have the mojo this time, Big Guy.
I m thinking about showing you some genuine Garrett mojo, Bug. I know some
things. I know some people. I could have you bigasized.
You couldn t handle it. You d have a stroke or a heart attack.
And so it went. We headed south on Wizard s Reach, turned west on Macunado.
And there we were, home again, home again, ziggity-zig. In time to get behind
the door ahead of a band of do-gooder city employees who missed seeing us by
half a minute.
They pounded on my door. I used the peephole but didn t open up. Melondie
Kadare snickered and giggled. She was having a good time.
Why don t you check on your people? I ve got cats to feed.
She couldn t do that from inside. I d been clever enough to make sure the
pixies couldn t bring their special culture into my castle.
My bucket leaked cats fast. They bounded off toward the kitchen. I followed.
Singe and her brother were there, each with a beer in paw. The platter
between could serve a party of forty. Singe asked, Where have you been?
I had to work tonight. Then I had to walk home because my ride disappeared.
Leaving me lugging a bucket of ungrateful meows while listening to the world s
worst bitching pixie complain because she s too small to be my girlfriend.
Even John Stretch looked me askance then. Melondie produced a resounding
raspberry and started wobbling around in search of something small enough to
use as a beer mug.
Singe shook her head, too damned human. You hungry?
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Just like a rat. Everything comes down to food. I could use a sandwich. I
didn t get a chance to eat at Chodo s party.
What a dumb failure. Nobody ought to be so focused on business that he
forgets to eat free food.
The platter had a dozen fried cakes aboard. Dean delivered four more, still
crackling from the hot oil. The square ones are sweet. The round ones have
sausage inside.
Uhm?
An experiment. Looking for something different.
Pigs in a blanket weren t new at my house. But this wasn t a biscuit dough
production.
Melondie gave up looking for a mug. She went to work on a square cake half as
big as she was. The wee folk eat more than we do. Because of all that flying.
I tried a sausage cake. Good, I said with my wet mouth full.
Dean scowled, not flattered, as he brought me a cold lager. He put down more
food for the cats.
I asked, Singe, you got any thoughts about tonight?
Not unless you want to hear your species belittled.
Belittle away. If you have any useful observations.
Useful, how? John Stretch and I went along and tried to help, but we do not
understand what you hoped to accomplish. That may be because you were not
clear on that yourself.
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