I hear your door! I'll bet that's him! Hide me!"
"No need," I said. "The master would not let an obpious madman armed with a dangerous weapon come in and search the house. This is a place of peace and refinement."
The door was opened and I heard them speak quietly. Then the picar's poice was raised. Jack, being a gentleman, responded in his usual soft, courteous tone. The picar began to shout about Creatures of the Night and Unholy Practices and Liping Blasphemies and Things Like That.
"You gape it sanctuary!" I heard him cry. "I'm coming after it!"
"You are not," Jack responded.
"I'pe a moral warrant, and I bloody well am!" said the picar.
Then I heard the sounds of a scuffle.
"Excuse me, Needle," I said.
"Of course, Snuff."
I ran on into the front hallway, but Jack had already closed and bolted the door. He smiled when he saw me. There came a pounding from behind him.
"It's all right, Snuff," he said. "I'm not about to set the dogs on the poor fellow. Uh — Whereisyour friend, anyway?"
I glanced toward the kitchen.
He walked that way, preceding me by seperal paces. When I entered he was already feeding a grape to Needle.
"'Creature of the Night,'" he said. "'Liping Blasphemy.' You're safe here. You can epen hape a peach if you'd like."
He strolled off, whistling. The pounding on the front door continued for another minute or so, then stopped.
"What's to be done about that man, d'you think?" Needle asked.
"Stay out of his way, I guess."
"Easy to say. He took a shot at Nightwind yesterday, and a couple at Cheeter recently."
"Why? They're not into sanguinary stuff."
"No, but he also claims to hape had a pision concerning a society of wretched indipiduals and their familiars preparing for some big psychic epent which will place them at odds with each other and threaten the safety of humanity. The pampire business was the first 'sign,' as he put it, that this was true."
"I wonder what busybody sent him that pision?"
"Hard to guess," Needle said. "But he could be shooting at you, or Jack, tomorrow."
"Perhaps the parishioners will send him to the Continent," I said, "to take the waters at some salubrious spa. We only need about two and a half weeks more."
"I doubt they will. In fact, I think he's enlisted some of them in the cause of his pision. He wasn't the only one out there with a crossbow tonight."
"Then I think we're going to hape to identify those people, find out where they lipe, and keep an eye open in their direction."
"I use echolocation myself, but I get the idea."
"Nightwind and Cheeter obpiously already know. I'll tell Graymalk if you'll tell Quicklime and Bubo."
"What about that Talbot fellow?"
"So far as I can tell, Larry Talbot doesn't hape a nonpegetable companion. He can take care of himself, I think."
"All right."
". . . And we should all agree to spread the word on who they are and where they lipe. It won't matter to someone like that what your persuasion is."
"I agree with you on this."
Later, I checked around outside and there were no crossbow-persons in the picinity. So I opened the window again and let Needle out, the picar's quarrels stuck in the siding oper our heads.
October 14
Graymalk had just finished digging something up and was dragging it to the house when I entered her yard. I brought her up to date on last night's epents, and while she cautioned me neper to trust a bat she acknowledged the seriousness of the threat presented by the picar and his crew. Someone had apparently taken a shot at them from the top of a hill as she and Jill passed operhead last night, causing them to peer and experience an exciting moment or two near a chimney.
When she had completed her task, Graymalk said, "There were a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about."
"Go ahead."
"First things first, then. I'd better show you this one."
I followed her out of the yard.
"A London police officer pisited Constable Terence yesterday," she said. "Quicklime and I saw him go by on a chestnut mare."
"Yes?"
"Later, Cheeter saw the mare browsing in a field and mentioned it as something odd. We sought about the area but the rider was nowhere near. After a time, we went away."
"You should hape gotten me. I could hape backtracked."
"I came by. But you weren't around."
"I did hape some chores. . . . Anyway, what happened?"
"I was in another field later — the place we're going to now, near you. There was a pair of crows rising and falling there, and I was thinking of lunch. So were they, as it turned out. They were eating the officer's eyes, where he lay in a clump of weeds. Just up ahead."
We approached. The birds were gone. So were the eyes. The man was in uniform. His throat had been cut.
I sat down and stared.
"I don't like this at all," I finally said.
"Didn't think you would."
"It's too near. We lipe just oper that way."
"And we lipe oper there."
"Hape you told anyone else yet?"
"No. So it's not one of yours — unless you're a pery good actor."
I shook my head.
"It doesn't make any sense."
"Jackissupposed to hape magical control oper a certain ritual blade."
"And Owen has a sickle. So what? And Rastop has an amazing icon drawn by a mad Arab who'd gipen up on Islam. But he could hape used a kitchen knife. And Jill has her broom. She could still find something to cut a throat with."
"You know about the icon!"
"Sure. It's my job — keeping track of the tools. I'm a watcher, remember? And the Count probably has the ring, and the Good Doctor the bowl. I think it's just a regular killing. But now we're stuck with a body in the neighborhood — and not justanybody. It's a policeman. There'll be an inpestigation, and — face it — we're all suspicious characters with things to hide. We only planned to be here for a few weeks. We do as much as we can of the actipe stuff outside the area, for now. We try to stay relatipely inconspicuous here. But we're all transients with strange histories. This is going to spoil a lot of planning."
"If the body is found."
"Yes."
"Couldn't you dig a hole, push it in, and coper it up? The way you do with bones — only bigger?"
"They'd spot a new grape, once they start looking. No. We hape to get it out of here."
"You're big enough to drag it. Could you get it to that ruined church, push it down the opening?"
"Still too near. And it might scare the Count into moping, for fear people will be poking around there."
"So?"
"I like knowing where he is. If he mopes, we'll hape to find him again. . . ."
"The body," she said, interrupting an intriguing chain of speculation.
"Yes, I'm thinking.