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could shove another box down on them."
Jamie nodded. His face grew stem, and he tapped his foot. "All right. Agent
Renskie, Agent Equator shove a box
84 Holly Lisle
over the side as soon as you can get it there. I have another idea."
Equator and Renslde chose a trunk with lots of little, hard things in it, and
started shoving that through the maze of junk toward the stairwell. Agent
Jeevus, meanwhile, dragged a chain to the edge of the landing, then a couple
of loose pieces of armor. Then, both buckets of slimy cleaning water.
Jamie's weapons didn't make a very impressive pile, Bamey thought.
Bamey suddenly realized he and Carol weren't going to get to the edge in time.
"They're ready now, Jamie!" he yelled.
Below, Bamey heard the leathery flap of wings.
"Keep coming, men," Jamie shouted back. "I'll take care of 'em! Chain!" he
screamed, and shoved it over the edge.
The chain made a long, slithering rattle as it fell. Below, the monsters
yelled and shouted instructions. The chain hit the ground noisily then Bamey
heard the wings again.
"Shrapnel!" Jamie screamed, and kicked me pieces of armor over the edge.
Bamey heard thuds and screams from what sounded like direct hits. He and Carol
were almost out of the room with their box. TTley kept pushing. Jamie crouched
on the edge, hands gripping the edges of the bucket.
The sounds of flapping wings came up the stairwell for the third time, and
Jamie shrieked, "Boiling oil!"
He dumped both buckets, and below, several voices screamed. Bamey heard glass
breaking.
"Psych!" Jamie yelled,
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Carol laughed- "Got 'em! Got 'em! Way to go, Jamie!"
Carol and Bamey maneuvered the trunk onto the land-
ing, while Jamie did a little victory dance. "Suckers!" he shouted down into
the stairwell.
The trunk sat, poised on the lip of the abyss.
"Don't shove it over yet," Jamie told Carol and Bamey.
"Save it for the next attack- Get ready "
Both Carol and Bamey braced against the trunk, waiting for Jamie's signal.
We're gonna win, Bamey thought. We're gonna beat the monsters.
MINERVA WAKES
85
Below, everything was silent.
Without warning, big daw-tipped hands lifted Bamey
into the air from behind. Identical sets picked up Jamie and
Carol.
"No!" Jamie yelled. "They flanked us! They flanked us!"
Bamey shrieked and kicked and tried to bite.
The monster who'd captured him growled, "That will be
quite enough of that."
CHAPTER 5
Minerva and Talleos kept themselves out of sight. They went through the
endless meadows crouched over, until
Minerva's lower back burned with pain. They ducked into every available stand
of trees. And they ran north steadily north.
Minerva kept seeing those still forms silhouetted on the path watching her. In
her mind's eye, they grew hideous.
Their cloaks whipped around their legs, their hands twisted into talons, and
from empty eye-sockets in hideous faces, eerie ruby light burned.
She wished to hell she'd never read Tollaen.
Talleos' response to her few attempted questions was to press a finger to his
lips.
It was a long, exhausting, frightening day.
At twilight, when Talleos led her into a dark woods, she was ready to drop.
She was hungry and thirsty, and she longed for a place to sleep, or even
something soft to sit on for just a while. In the gloom, she saw the bulk of
darker gloom a building of some sort, squat and dire and silent.
Talleos motioned her to be still, then crept around it and out of her sight.
She clenched the hilt of die little silver knife that hung at her hip and
pressed her back against the biggest tree she could find. Whatever came after
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her, she was going to be ready.
She waited. No sound of Talleos. No sign of him. Thin^
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Holly Lisle
cracked and crunched around her. Leaves rustled. A night bird screeched right
behind her and she nearly jumped out other skin. The damp night air brushed
the hairs at the back of her neck, familiar as a lover. She shuddered-
They're out there, she though. Those things, those Watch-
ers they're out there looking for me. Oh, Cod. what if they
find me?
She was scared- She wanted to be home, safe, with her kids and her husband.
She wanted someone to tell her everything would be okay.
Suddenly, cold, bony fingers gripped her shoulder.
She whipped around toward her attacker, swinging the knife up underhanded,
putting all her strength into the tip.
She knew that the wraith or whatever had come to get her wouldn't be stopped
by such a tiny weapon
Tatleos shrieked and leapt back before the knife con-
nected. "Gods on hot rocks, Minerva!" he yelped. "What are you trying to
do kill me?"
Minerva was shaking. Her heart pounded in her throat, and her puke roared in
her ears. "Why the hell did you sneak up on me?" she snarled. "You damn near
gave me a
heart attack."
"Yeah? WeB, you just returned the favor," Talleos mut-
tered- ^ was checking out the house to make sure we didn't have any unwanted
company. We don't " He glared at her.
"Unless I decide you're unwanted company. If you think you can refrain from
skewering me, I'll let you go inside."
"You mean we get to rest now?" Minerva whispered- "Oh, how wonderful."
She followed the cheymat along the tiny flagstone path to his house. It was a
big cabin built of rough, hand-hewn logs, chinked with what looked like a
mixture of moss and day
the windows were small and covered with oilskin.
Primxtwe, Minerva thought. But I don't care. If I have to sleep on ammal skins
tonight and kill my breakfast in the morning, that wB, be just fine. At least
I'U get to sleep and eat.
Talleos ushered her through the door and closed it behind him. Then he
switched on the light.
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MINERVA WAKES
89
"What?" She stared around the entryway in shock. Foyer, she thought, and
rubbed her eyes to make sure she was see-
ing it right Straight out of the pages of House Beautiful.
Featured in Bobin Leach's "Ufestyles of the Well-Hooved and Famous."
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