Vicious Circle

Either way, though, I couldn’t answer the charge in any detail while the hand of the taller man—Po?—was still crimping my windpipe. Zucker seemed to realize this: he tapped imperiously on Po’s wrist, and Po slackened his grip a little.

“Well,” I said, swallowing with a wince of discomfort, “you tell me who the wrong people are, and maybe I can avoid them in future.” I slurred the words more than my already-thickening lip required, and I let some bloody drool come out with them; it was probably good if they thought I was more damaged than I was.

“There’s something in your tone that sounds like sarcasm.” Zucker brandished the knife in front of my eyes. The edge of the blade had a two-tone sheen to it, suggesting hours of loving work with a strop and a wad of Scotch-Brite. I probably wouldn’t even feel it going in. “You can’t imagine how unhealthy sarcasm could be for you right now. You should be thinking in terms of humility, contrition, and open cooperation. We’re looking for nothing less.”

I threw up my hands, palms out. “I’m just doing a job—like you,” I said. “Okay? No need for heavy threats.”

“Like me?” The comparison seemed to sit badly with Zucker. “Like me? Say that again, and I’ll cut your tongue out.” I thought the anger might be a sadist’s window dressing, but the glint in his eyes was real enough. I’d touched a nerve, and he was ready to touch back. Good. That was another point in my favor: if he was angry, he was likely to be stupid and hasty and misread my move when I made it. Unfortunately, he was also likely to make good on his promise and cut my tongue out. I was treading a fine line.

“Sorry,” I said, making my voice a servile mumble. “Sorry, mate. No offense.”

By now, that additional sensory channel I’ve got that is more like hearing than anything else was jammed with deafening discords. These guys looked human enough, the eyebrows aside, but they were loup-garous: dead human souls that had invaded, possessed, and shaped animal bodies to the point where you couldn’t tell any longer what they’d originally been. Not until the dark of the moon, anyway—then all bets were off. When I realized that this was what I was dealing with, I dropped my eyes to the ground: some were-men respond to direct eye contact in the same way male silverback gorillas do. Come to think of it, Po could have been a gorilla at some point in his post mortem history. Maybe that was a touch exotic for central London, though: the risen dead tend to do their shopping locally.

“Well maybe you’d like to show us exactly how sorry you are,” Zucker suggested sardonically. “Maybe you’d be interested in switching sides. How does that sound?”

“Love to. Love to. Whose side am I on now, then? I mean, whose side was I on before I switched to yours? Because I jumped across as soon as you suggested it. Straight up. You tell me whose back you want me to stab, and I’m there. Just give it a name, okay?”

Zucker hesitated. I knew why, too: when you’re the one with the other guy’s balls in your hand, so to speak, it goes against the grain to answer a direct question. It’s almost as though you’re giving away the advantage. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. “Examine your conscience,” he suggested, baring his teeth. “Who’s been asking you for favors lately?”

Who indeed? Juliet. The Torringtons. The London Met. If this was what an embarrassment of riches felt like, I decided I could live without it: it was too sharp and pointy by half. But it would really help to know who I had to thank for this special attention, so I decided to push the issue just an inch or so further.

“I’m hugely in demand,” I said. Po had unconsciously relaxed his grip by a fraction, so I was getting some of my breath back now. “You’ll have to give me a clue. You’re not working for a drug pusher, are you? Gent by the name of Pauley? No? Because my mate in Serious Crimes reckons I might be in line for what he called ‘the frighteners.’ Do you gents qualify as frighteners, or are you more in the line of softeners-up for the frighteners still to come? Sort of a John the Baptist deal, if you take my meaning?”

They were looking at me in bewilderment. But then they gave it up and got down to business again. The edge of the knife touched my cheek in a way that was unpleasantly suggestive. While this was going on, though, I was turning over in my hand the object I’d palmed when they dragged me to my feet. Metallic, certainly, rounded, basically cylindrical but hollow at one end and with a tapering extension at the other. The goblet. I’d picked up the goblet I carry around with me for the very rare occasions when I’m tempted to try my hand at black magic.