The Truth

'Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that --ing barn and it was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his--'

'I don't mean bodies!'

'Ah. Religion stuff, then?'

'Yes!'

'I never worry about that --ing stuff.'

'Never?'

'Never --ing give it a thought. I've got my potato.'

Then Mr Tulip found that he'd walked a few feet alone, because Mr Pin had stopped dead.

'Potato?'

'Oh, yeah. Keep it on a string round my neck.' Mr Tulip tapped his huge chest.

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'And that's religious?'

'Well, yeah. If you've got your potato when you die, everything will be okay.'

'What religion is that?'

'Dunno. Never ran across it outside our village. I was only a kid. I mean, it's like gods, right? When you're a kid, they say "that's God, that is". Then you grow up and you find there's --ing millions of 'em. Same with religion.'

'And it's all okay if you have a potato when you die?'

'Yep. You're allowed to come back and have another life.'

'Even if...' Mr Pin swallowed, for he was in territory which had never before existed on his internal atlas, '... even if you've done things which people might think were bad?'

'Like chopping up people and --ing shovin' 'em off cliffs?'

'Yeah, that kind of thing

Mr Tulip sniffed, causing his nose to flash. 'We-ell, it's okay so long as you're really --ing sorry about it.'

Mr Pin was amazed, and a little suspicious. But he could feel things... catching up. There were faces in the darkness and voices on the cusp of hearing. He dared not turn his head now, in case he saw anything behind him.

You could buy a sack of potatoes for a dollar.

'It works?' he said.

'Sure. Back home people'd been doing it for hundreds of --ing years. They wouldn't be doing it if it didn't --ing work, would they?'

'Where was that?'

Mr Tulip tried to concentrate on this question, but there were many scabs in his memory.

There was... forests,' he said. 'And... bright candles,' he muttered. 'An'... secrets,' he added, staring into nothing.

'And potatoes?'

Mr Tulip came back to the here and now.

'Yeah, them,' he said. 'Always lots of --ing potatoes. If you've got your potato, it will be all right.'

'But... I thought you had to pray in deserts and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor... ?'

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'Oh, you can do all that too, sure,' said Mr Tulip. 'Just so long as you've got your --ing potato.'

'And you come back alive?' said Mr Pin, still trying to find the small print.

'Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who'd notice the --ing difference?'

Mr Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr Tulip saw his expression change.

'Someone's got their hand on my shoulder!' he hissed.

'You feeling all right, Mr Pin?'

'You can't see anyone?'

'Nope.'

Clenching his fists, Mr Pin turned round. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.

He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.

'Okay. Okay,' he said. 'What we'll do... we'll go back to the house, okay, and... and we'll get the rest of the diamonds, and we'll scrag Charlie, and, and... we'll find a vegetable shop... any special kind of potato?'

'Nope.'

'Right... but first...' Mr Pin stopped, and his mind's ear heard footsteps stop behind him a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things...

Mr Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamour, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.

'That bloody vampire did this,' he said. 'And killing a vampire... hey... that's practically good, right?' He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. 'Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man's favour, eh?'

'Yeah. But... who cares?'

'I do.'

'Okay.' Even Mr Tulip didn't argue with that tone of voice. Mr ,Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was

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that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.

It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath-salt-and-worming-powder-ravaged pathways of his own brain. He'd always admired the way Mr Pin wasn't frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.

'What'll we use?' he said. 'A stake?'

'No,' said Mr Pin. 'With this one I want to be certain.'

He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.

'Ah. Right,' said Mr Tulip.

'Let's just do it,' said Mr Pin.

Rocky's brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.

'What's dem things?' he said.

They're to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,' said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. 'It's a sort of curse. Only it works.'

'Dat one's the Assassins?' said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.

'Yes. It means there's an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.'