Free Yowler Foul-Up by David Lee Stone Page B

Nature’s children.”
    “Not right? You can’t rely on Mother Nature, you know. Just look at what she did to Pegrand. Besides, we don’t have time for this nonsense, or to mess about rescuing people. I need some sleep and so do you.”
    Flicka looked suddenly wretched. “What about Pegrand?” she said.
    “I’ll get him out in the morning,” said Modeset, after a pause.
    “You promise?”
    “Yes. Now go!”
    He watched her turn and make for the stairs, listening for any hint of a giggle. He was about to retire himself, when the innkeeper came barrelling out of the dining hall.
    “Bloody nuisance,” he spat. “Shutters broken. More bloody money.”
    “Yes,” said the duke. “I’m terribly sorry if that puts you out.”
    “Puts me out, you say? Puts me out? You’re a nuisance.”
    “Yes, again, my apologies. Any chance of a new room tonight?”
    “Any chance? No chance. Sleep in the alley, far as I’m concerned. You’re a bloody curse, the lot o’ you.”
    Modeset shot forward. The movement was sudden and unexpected, and the innkeeper found himself pinned against the hall wall.
    “Now listen up,” snapped the duke. “I’ve told you you’ll see your money, so get this straight; you’ll give me a new room, a better room with a nice soft bed and a proper window; you’ll stop moaning; you’ll be pleasant to my staff; and if I get even the slightest hint that you’ve been spitting in the wine, they’ll find you where I leave you. Now, do we have an understanding?”
    The innkeeper swallowed, and Modeset thought he could just make out a nod.

TWENTY-FOUR
    D ULLITCH WAS A CITY FULL of filth and, as Obegarde could testify, it all floated to the surface at downtime.
    Downtime. He repeated the word over and over, working it into a steady rhythm. His boots splashed water as they hit the puddle-strewn cobbles.
    Downtime was the affectionately named period between midnight and sunup when some of Dullitch’s darkest, weirdest, and most nocturnally bound citizens began to stir. It was also a time in which the city had a strangely isolated air; the streets were shadowy, lamplight was bleak, and, nine times out of ten, it was pissing rain in the bargain. Downtime was the only time certain people could walk the streets.
    People like Obegarde.
    The wind whistled, rolling bottles along the damp cobbles and turning over rubbish bins across the city.
    On the roof of Karuim’s Church, an ancient, rust-riddled weather vane moaned in the wind, broke from its support, and fell. It landed three inches short of Obegarde.
    The investigator flinched. His hearing went fuzzy. A breeze ruffled the flaps of his dark coat. He looked behind him.
    Embedded deep in the cobbles, the weather vane was still taller than a man, its base jutting out of the earth like the hilt of a giant’s dagger. A few twisted brackets hung loose. The metal finger that acted as the vane’s indicator had folded back on itself. Obegarde noticed, with some small degree of amusement, that it now pointed skyward.
    The entrance to the church flew open, and a man came hobbling up a stone flight of stairs that ascended from the tunnel below. He was elderly, awkward, and bespectacled. He wore a ragged suit of leather.
    Obegarde squinted through the rain. “Nasty night,” he said, when the old man was within earshot. He nodded down at the fractured weather vane. “Narrow escape, there. I was lucky.”
    The stranger’s scowl suggested that “lucky” would have meant that Obegarde had been underneath the vane when it fell.
    Obegarde extended his hand, waited for about a minute, and then withdrew it.
    “Good evening,” he began, his mind racing for a suitable ruse. “I’ve come about thejdjffkfkdk.”
    “What?”
    “I’ve said I’ve come about thejdjjfjdfjfj.”
    “I can’t hear you. Speak up!”
    “Can I come in?”
    The old man hobbled up to him and, to Obegarde’s extreme surprise, actually stepped on his toes. When he spoke, uncomfortably