Free Soul Hunt by Margaret Ronald Page B

minute he saw me his face lit up, and he started yanking on his friend’s arm. The big guy turned, and achill trickled down my back as I recognized the gray-bearded man who’d carried Deke out of the fire. Deke grinned—a wider grin than I’d ever seen on his face—and waved like a deranged marionette. “Hound! See, I told you I’d find her, this is the one I was telling you—”
    I tucked my helmet under my arm and approached, still not quite sure what to make of the other man. You know how there are some people that seem like they’re made for certain situations? The guy with the Santa Claus beard, or the thin-lipped woman who just needs a nun’s habit and a ruler? This guy was a little like that. He had a clipped, gray-going-to-white beard and a long white ponytail. Drop him into the middle of a Renaissance festival and you’d never see him again, or put a yellow rain slicker and hat on him and you’d expect there to be fish for sale nearby. He looked a little older than Deke, but in much better shape, though given Deke’s shape that wasn’t difficult. And his eyes—very bright blue, like the sky above us—were as hard and keen as awls.
    Though I couldn’t rely on my nose as fully as I was used to, I didn’t sense any reason for concern: the man smelled of salt and tar, with maybe a touch of granite worn by waves, and more important, Deke seemed at ease around him. Whatever had spooked him so, it no longer affected him. “Hey, Deke,” I said. “You all right?”
    “What? Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
    “He got a bit of smoke in his lungs,” the big guy said. “We were just getting him checked out.”
    “Yeah, Tessie got it too. She was in the boat,” I added to Deke’s look of incomprehension. “Got her out, but she’ll be in the hospital for a bit longer.”
    Deke’s face fell. “Tessie? Oh, no. No, I didn’t know that.”
    The big guy hadn’t quite stepped between me and Deke, but something about his posture made him look like a bodyguard sensing a threat. “You’re the girl Isaw on the fishing boat,” he said. “You saw me carrying Cam out of there.”
    “Cam?”
    “’s me.” Deke thumped his chest. “’s my name. Roger knows it. We knew each other in high school.”
    Oh yes. Deke’s full name was Decameron Croft, the legacy of parents who were classics professors at some little college on the Coast, parents who’d disowned him a long time back. I wasn’t sure I blamed them, knowing how much crap Deke could get into if left alone.
    Deke, oblivious to my train of thought, punched Roger in the arm, and Roger, a brief, fond smile breaking out under his beard, punched back, sending Deke staggering a couple of paces. “We go way back,” Deke said happily, then paused. “I’m sorry Tessie got hurt.”
    “She’ll be all right. But what were you even doing out there, Deke? I mean, I know you like fire, but that —”
    Roger held up one scarred, slablike hand. “That’s my friend’s business, and you’ll just have to—”
    “No, no, it’s okay! This is Scelan, the one I told you about. Hound, the finder, remember? She could help you!” Deke turned that happy smile on me and back to Roger. Guy looked like a puppy on Christmas—okay, a bedraggled, mud-rolled puppy that had fallen on its head one too many times, but still that innocently enthusiastic. It wasn’t something I was used to seeing from Deke, but it was certainly a step up from the paranoia I’d encountered so far today.
    Roger’s brow creased. “Maybe. I don’t know, Cam, okay? And now’s probably not the time to talk about it. I gotta get moving or she’ll be pissed.”
    “Then when would be a good time?” I asked, stepping back a little, arms crossed. If I could get something out of Deke, I might be able to figure out if what scared Tessie was still around to be reckoned with. And a job … well. We’d see.
    “Tomorrow?” Deke said. “Or—or the day after? Anytime. Anytime is good.”
    I