Twenty-four

"I've never heard 'mongrel verses' before. And isn't 'dog loyal' a compliment?"

"Not entirely." Baskerville sighed; being a dog, he did so very theatrically. "Loyalty's a good thing, but the influence of the feline conspiracy" (he glared at Jelly) "has meant that 'dog loyal' has taken on a sort of negative slant, like it means you're loyal because you're so stupid you only know how to follow orders. 'Mongrel verse' is just any kind of poem that's made of mixed styles. Only pedigree snobbery" (he glared at Jelly again just in case, though the cat didn't look particularly purebred) "would think that's any worse than other sorts of poems, but I guess some people value conformity more than originality, funnyness or dirty bits. Surface wins over soul, it fools people every time, they think if you enjoy it it can't be Great Art."

Baskerville has a little tiny bit of a bee in his glossy black barnet, in case nobody's guessed.

Shade's colloquialisms (not to mention dogs' ones) are a bit different from English, so he didn't find it surprising if Sylvie hadn't heard of some of them.

Sylvie sighed in sympathy, and tried to remember some saying she could contribute. This was fascinating.

"Where I'm from there's a saying, 'brave as a cenuicane', that's a breed of dog. And someone who notices things other people miss has 'a track dog's nose'. In some places up north that's 'a black dog's sight', I think." She yawned hugely. "Sorry. And an 'old cat' is, hm, someone who purposefully gets in the way to get attention."

Jelly closed his eyes, rolled over on his back, and started giggling hysterically... trying to say whatever was making him laugh but unable to get the words out. This continued for several minutes before he could gather himself together and talk, tiny giggles still slipping past his needle teeth.

"Hehehehehe. Oh, how I'd love to say you were just being paranoid, hell-doggy, but my pride just showed up and told me off. I'm just THAT happy that what I started all those millennia ago is still going strong today. And it even spread to here!" He stopped and looked around at the absolute lack of dogs or cats besides the two of them in the crossroads. "Uhm. Well, it has now. Hehehe. Feline conspiracy... make that ORGANISED feline conspiracy. Hell-doggy, you and your pathetic cousins never stood a chance. Cats forever!" He closed his eyes and broke into uncontrollable giggling again.

He'd been calming down nicely with Sylvie's words, but now Baskerville was really riled again.

"That's it! I'm going to kill him!" he shouted. "I'm going to - isn't anyone going to stop me?"

Suitov shrugged aristocratically at him, perhaps enjoying the argument.

"I'm sure you can settle that among yourselves..." Sylvie backed off. If the cat was anywhere near serious, it surely was able to look after itself. No reason for risking getting blood splatters on her clothes. Anyone's.

She walked over to a window. She was curious to find out what the workers were planning.

The builders hadn't been lazy, oddly enough for their line of work. They had evidently decided that the stonework was still okay, but most of the wood inside was beyond saving. Not only had water been leaking in from the roof, swelling and rotting things, but the floors were also bowed and springy because of (so the surveyor had told Suitov) too many notches cut in the support beams.

At least he'd known all this before buying the building.

The builders were setting up what looked like portable pillars to support the upper floor while they took it to bits. They'd brought the company mage with them. She looked to be concentrating deeply.

Jaina didn't know what to make of Jelly's gloating. When Skerv threatened to attack the cat, she pondered a moment and decided that a little buttwhuppin' never hurt anybody. This nonsensical idea can be safely blamed on her undercaffeinated state. Her attention wandered and finally settled on the reconstruction, which was at least less messy than a cat and dog fighting like... well.

Up on the roof, Sunev had heard noises inside and, as usual, gotten curious about their source. That is why he had gripped the roof's edge with his hind feet, wings spread wide in case he slipped, serpentine neck curved for the best viewing angle.

He looked for all the world like a lizard-patterned kite had caught against the building and fallen to sway in the breeze, except that a kite didn't constantly readjust its position.

The killer monk Weft rose from his crouch and performed the short stretches before exiting the tree he had been occupying for the last few hours. It was some days later and the builders had been busy.

Weft approved of industriousness in general, but this was mitigated by a general disapproval of anyone Suitov would hire.

They were a firm from Weft's own city-state, true. They were not approved by Weft's order, though, which meant they would not have included any of the unofficial features that made life easier for a monk on long-term surveillance duty.

This was to assume anyone could have slipped that kind of device past Suitov in the first place. That was the thing, wasn't it? None of the clever things he'd been taught actually worked on Suitov.

You track him for days, not a noise made, not a shadow disturbed, and then they stop to fill water flasks, and he looks right at you and offers you a drink...

Tables were stacked in disorganised piles at the back of the building. Weft vaulted neatly over one and threaded his way through the others. There wasn't much else to exercise his skills.

The outside walls, quality stonework, were untouched. The woodwork was all new: sills, shutters and balustrades, all bare wood awaiting a painter's attention. Even the inn sign hanging out front was blank. Wasn't there a superstition about that? He wasn't sure.

Weft was a low-grade assassin - reflexes of a coiled cat, crafted to watch, wait and kill. Instead he was reduced to walking into his target's building and socialising with him. This wasn't real spy work. He didn't even get an evening suit. He wasn't even allowed to blow anybody up. He put his foot on the newly-renovated back verandah. Solid construction. Good purchase. Non-slippery. Maybe he'd get to kill someone out here.

You'd say to yourself, this man's not human. But you knew that was what he encourages people to think.

"That you, Weft? In here." Suitov's words sauntered out into the afternoon air to greet him. Suitov's speaking voice annoyed Weft. It was just so smug; smooth, smiling, rich, dancing with humour... well, Weft hated it and that was the truth. He pushed open the door and strolled in as though he owned the place. Never let them see they've rattled you. He moved through the kitchen and found Suitov in the bar room.

He briefly wished his religion forbade him to enter places where they served alcohol. Weft's religion placed no such restrictions on its servants. Drug dens, demonic temples, cathouses, all sorts of lairs of evil; it would see them go anywhere, and sooner or later, everywhere...

And it's all trickery, of course. He's a magician and a psychological con artist. He doesn't have our knowledge-gathering methods, for grace's sake, he owns a stupid dog with a clever nose. But he still gets you thinking it.

If it was in Weft's capabilities to question his orders, right now the questions he would have been asking were: why me? Why him? Couldn't they just have cut out my heart or dropped another building on me?

Weft cast a disapproving gaze round the blank, off-white plastered walls and wood panelling. "It's better than it was. The interior decoration needs a man's touch, though," he sneered. On Weft's world, boys tend to be the more artistic sex.

The front door opened and Jaina breezed into the bar room. "Hallo, Ice!" she said cheerily. Her outdoors wanderings had clearly done her some good. Seeing Weft, she narrowed her eyes briefly, then ignored him altogether.

Jaina reached for Suitov's hand as she leaned toward his ear. "Thanks for letting me stay here before the grand opening," the redhead told him quietly, attempting to evade Weft's hearing. "It means a lot to see this place get fixed up. When I was a kid, we were all about destroying the bad. It's nice to get to see some creation instead of destruction for a change."

Oh, speaking of things desperate for a man's touch... Weft suddenly found the walls very irritating, judging by the way he was glaring at them.

Suitov smoothly abandoned whatever argument his friend had been trying to pick. "It is more of a campsite than a guest house at the moment. Hopefully that will change. You know, the place will need a name and I haven't begun to select one. Care to offer any suggestions?"

Jaina smiled and shook her head. Whether is signaled a friendly disagreement with Suitov or an gleeful intolerance for Weft was open for debate. "It's lovely already, just a tad underfurnished at the moment, and that's not a problem for me."

Naming gave her pause. "If I were any good with names, I wouldn't have just 'JJ' for a nickname," the huntress pointed out. "I'd opt for something like 'Jaina the mighty, executioner of evil' if given the choice. That probably disqualifies me from naming anything, ever." She shot Weft a smirk at the word "evil," just for spite.

"I think we should call it the "First Djew Free," but then I'm biased at the moment. I want some." It took two seconds for her to realise how Weft might interpret that, at which point her expression changed from cheerful seeking to revulsion and anger with herself.

She needn't have worried about Weft, who was thinking blah blah blah me me me oh Ice your hotel is so big and rugged blah blah blah... while resolutely examining the handle of one of his daggers. He was going to disappear as soon as an opportunity arose to extricate himself with a little dignity. He didn't want to seem to be retreating.

Ice cast a quick glance between the two of them. That two of his friends didn't get along did not concern him. (His familiar, of course, found it hilarious.)

"Living with orcs for more than half an hour, you learn when not to offer free drink policies," he said, moving behind the bar and looking through the neat stack of unopened shipping crates. "They may not be able to remember a bar tab, but you'd be surprised how quickly they hit upon the idea of leaving then coming back in for another first drink. Anyway, that's the sort of thing I hire innkeepers to decide."

Suitov proceeded to prove that even if he did enjoy mixing explosive compounds, he wasn't entirely stupid, and he proved this by hoisting a papyrus case out from behind the bar, slicing it open and proffering a Djew.

Weft eyed the newly-functional front door. He didn't want to retreat, but there was really no reason to hang around, being ignored, to witness a silly mudlark fawning on an annoying nobleman.

"Drink, Weft?"

Damn! "Uh. No. I won't just now. I'm, I'm working."

Suddenly Baskerville ran through the area, stark naked!

Conveniently, Agueda woke up.

"Mmm, thanks!" Jaina gleefully accepted the Djew and cracked it open.

"Orcs are more clever than I'd guessed, then. I'll have to remember that. And it sounds like you speak from experience?" She left the question dangling as an invitation for Ice to add detail. Orcs didn't seem to get bitten by vampires very often, so she hadn't encountered many -- but that hardly meant she was uninterested in learning about them.

Jaina couldn't resist grinning maniacally at Weft when Ice offered him a drink, too. "You have the oddest job I could name then, kiddo, and I've even had a few of the runners-up."

Her composure shook somewhat when Skerv came barreling through, though she couldn't figure out why. She shrugged it off and happily sipped her drink.

The dog (the naked dog!) skidded to a halt on seeing Agueda moving, wagged seventeen to the dozen and then brought her a stick. "Pour vooz," he said indistinctly, then dropped it.

Weft's eyes widened. "I love my job, even though it takes me to very dubious places. And company." A wide-eyed glare would be a contradiction in terms, so we'll call it a pointedly unfriendly stare that he turned on the two of them alternately. His job was objectively strange, but she didn't have to say it like it was an insult.

"No need to be rude about my orcs," Suitov told him, deliberately misunderstanding as was his hobby. "Weft doesn't like my company," he informed Jaina.

"Oh, yes, and the orcs." Weft sneered, curling both sides of his top lip. "Uncultured, stupid blunt instruments. You are going to be right at home with them, huntress, I can just tell."

"Really? You know, it's terribly bad manners to throw presents around, especially when the person who gave it to you is present." Agueda teased.

She looked around for Bowman, and caught him tipping more of his special enzyme on Jelly's ears.

Jelly, sleeping in a corner, opened his eyes slowly, just as the enzymes made thier way down.

"I'm BLIND! You bastards nwhatdidjadotame ARGH!" He shot into the centre of the floor and shook around like a tiny clawed whirlwind, finally coming to a standstill, back arched and fluffy, blinking furiously. In the resulting silence, the enzymes made a loud plop and they ran down his nose onto the floor. Jelly stared at them for a second, then started giggling maniacly. He flopped onto his back on the floor, shaking with laughter, fur slowly settling down.

"You can keep it, it's yours," Baskerville said generously... then the very hair stood up along his spine as he heard the shrill yowl of a diabolical, hated foe. (Yes I mean the cat, of course I mean the cat.)

He whined in the back of his throat and stared very firmly in front of him, facing as he was directly away from Jelly. He had the look of a dog who knows it must leave something it really, really wants to chase around the room and snap at.