Nightlord: Orb (29 page)

“Yeah, yeah.  I think I can do that.  Yeah.”

“Good.”  I pocketed the pulled tooth.  “You’ve got a lot to do, but you can start in the morning.  You’ll want to get that arm seen to, I’m sure.”

I turned my back on him and walked slowly to the bedroom door.  He didn’t go for the nightstand.  I didn’t hear him move at all; I think he was afraid to.  Nobody tried to stop me leaving, either.  A last party guest departing is well within the limits of the spell.  I walked away for a while before getting a cab and going home.

Sunday, November 1
st

The Four-minus-one reported immediately after noon, presumably after church.  They had lists of things they would miss if they didn’t have a home.  Good lists, too; between them they hit pretty much everything.  You wouldn’t think kids would realize how important an oven is; they don’t do the cooking, but they listed it.  Most of their lists were things like that, part of a house.  Oven, yes, but also carpet, lights, electricity, toilet, bathtub, sink… They were thorough, I give them that.

“So,” I asked, setting up a workbench and some power tools, “how much of that do you think Gary is going to need?”

“All of it,” Edgar suggested.

“Do you have anything you could spare?  Any of that you could give him?”

“I don’t,” Luke said.  “Dad says I have to take care of my sneakers because they’re goddam expensive.”

“Luke.”

“Well, that’s what
he
says.”

“All right.  But you don’t have to quote him.”

“Oh.”

“So, if we can’t get all this together, who can we get to help us?”

“Our parents?” Patricia asked.

“That’s a start.  Anyone else?”

“Kids a school,” Edgar suggested.

“Could be.  Anyone else?”

“Teachers?” Luke asked, hesitantly.

“Possibly.  They’d be good people to ask, certainly.  Anyone else?”

They traded glances with each other, puzzled.  Thoughtful, but puzzled.

“Do people ever knock on the door and ask for contributions to a charity?” I hinted.

“Yeah,” Luke said.  “Dad says the… um.  He says they’d drain the… um.  There’s always… some… body… asking for money?”

“Good work.  But you can’t go door-to-door asking for money.  We’re not an official charity.  We could put up a stand in Gary’s front yard, though.”

“A lemonade stand?” Patricia asked.

“We could sell lemonade,” I agreed.  “Whatever we make, we can save for him.  We could also have a sign asking for donations.  If people want to help, they can give stuff to you and you can keep it for him until he gets out of the hospital.  Anybody want to help me build a lemonade stand?”

To judge by their response, that was the best idea since digital watches.  So we built a stand (I let them use the power tools under close supervision) and we painted a sign.  A few two-by-fours and some plywood and we were almost in business.  Luke and I carted it down to the yard while Patricia went home to mix lemonade and Edgar went home to get chairs.

People on our street were soon greeted by the sight of a large lemonade stand with the sign: “House Fire!  Please DONATE!!!”  It’s not a through street, of course; it’s a cul-de-sac.  Still, it was a start.

They manned the thing all day.  I took a couple of pictures with my skinphone and left them to it.  There was cybering to do—first, to various charities and relief organizations on Mark’s behalf, then to the local news agencies about the wonderful kids who decided to help.

They were at it all afternoon and into the evening.  I brought them snacks and all the instant lemonade I had while checking up on them.  The rest of the time I was mixing concrete.  Special project.

We didn’t have much by nightfall.  Mostly, it was canned goods and loose change.  Still, I stowed the loot at my house while they went home.  Their spirits were still good; they got something for their effort.  Not much, maybe, but there was tomorrow, after school!  I promised to look after the stand during the day.

About eight-ish, well after dark, my chimes rang.  I answered the door and the gentleman on the porch snatched his hat off his head.

“Master Smith?  Master Vladimir Smith?” he asked.  His English was excellent, but his accent sounded French.

“Speaking.”

“My name is Roland Etierre, and I’ve come to apologize.”

“Etierre?  Oh.  I thought I told you to send a letter.”

“Yes, sir; so you did.  Grandmother insisted on a personal touch.  She would have come, herself, but at her age,” he shrugged, “it did not seem feasible.”  He pulled out a thick, old-fashioned envelope, sealed with wax.  “I’ve brought the apology, sir, direct from her hand to yours, as she instructed.”

“I suppose you had better come in,” I allowed, and held the door for him.  He wiped his feet on the mat and came in, still holding his hat and the envelope.  He didn’t sit down.

“All right,” I told him.  “Say it.”

He proceeded to give a speech, still holding his hat.  It was a good speech.  He explained how his sons, being somewhat local to the effect—in the country, at least—immediately rushed to investigate and, in an excess of zeal, upon discovering the house was empty, had intruded in a most inappropriate fashion.  The whole family was grateful at my restraint in the face of severe provocation and wished to make clear there was no animosity whatsoever—indeed, they felt themselves indebted to me, both for offending me in the first place and for letting the boys go.  (Apparently, other families have been known to be less tolerant of other magi tromping uninvited on their sacred ground, if that’s what they call it.)

“I have to say,” I told him, “I haven’t heard an apology that impressive since… actually, I’m not sure anyone has ever apologized to me so well.  Good job.”

“Thank you, sir.  Once again, I regret disturbing you, but it was the express wish of Grandmother to have this matter attended to with dispatch and with personal attention.  I trust you can see my dilemma?” he asked, shuffling his hat between his hands, slowly working around the brim.

“No, but I gather it’s a troublesome one for you.  I won’t hold it against you.  You’re off the hook.  Your whole family is off the hook.  I accept your apology.  Won’t you sit down?”

“I would love to, sir, but I’m afraid I must decline.  Grandmother’s health really is failing and I have to fly back to Avignon as quickly as possible.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry on your behalf.  Avignon in France?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You left the bedside of your dying grandmother to come all this way to tender a formal apology to me?”

“It was her wish, sir.”

“If I hadn’t already forgiven you, I would now.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m afraid not.  Not unless you know a ritual to undo old age.”

“No… no, I don’t.  I’m sorry.”

“There is one thing I need to ask, before I go.”

“Sure.”

“Roger tells me he dropped a box while he was in your home.  It’s a rather precious box.  If you’ve found it, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Yes, I have.  I presume you would like it back?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, yes, sir.”

“Certainly; it’s yours, after all.  One sec.”  I went off, found it, pulled out my hotwiring spells, and brought it back to him.  He accepted it with a little bow.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he asked, “I’m afraid I really do have to hurry.”

“By all means.  I wouldn’t want to keep you from your grandmother’s bedside.  A pleasure to meet you and I would not be against meeting again.  Goodbye.”  I showed him out the door to the tune of a repeated thank-you and farewell.  Polite fellow, I thought.  Maybe I should be less grouchy about my personal space.  From everything I could see, he really did regret what he viewed as a terrible misunderstanding.

Once he was gone, I built myself a chair.  A crude, heavy thing, but something I could lug down to the stand to sit on.  I put it in place, then took down my minimal Halloween decorations.  I wondered if Myrna had noticed—probably—and whether or not she would have anything to say about them—probably.  The candy bowl certainly noticed; most of it was missing.

My magical zones were still charging, so there was nothing much to do with them.  Instead, I whipped up a flyer, printed several dozen, and cruised around to coffee shops, ATMs, and similar all-night places to post them.  Then I came home to mix and pour more concrete.

Monday, November 2
nd

I manned the charity stand shortly after dawn.  The kids waved at me as they hummed off to school in their schoolbus-cab. I gave them a thumbs-up in return.

A number of people came by with contributions, including a guy who wanted to take pictures.  I explained I was only keeping the stand open while the proprietors were out.  It was their idea; all I did was donate some lumber and paint.  Anything anyone else wanted to give should be brought by after school if at all possible.  If it wasn’t possible, then yes, I would accept it—but if you can,
please
come back this afternoon!

Most people could, including the guy who wanted pictures.  I suspect I’m not nearly so newsworthy as the kids.  Certainly not as photogenic, even though I show up in cameras and suchlike during the day.

Susan went out of her way to be helpful; she kept me supplied with lemonade, hot tea, eggrolls, and flirting.  Olivia came with her on those trips and was overjoyed to see me.  I wound up baby-sitting to avoid the crying and screaming when Mommy wanted to take her home.  Fortunately, her afternoon nap coincided with Myrna showing up.  Susan took an exhausted Olivia home when Myrna arrived.

I can’t prove the timing wasn’t a coincidence, but I have my doubts.

“I see you’ve taken down the symbols from your doorway,” she noted.  Her voice was sweet and her expression cheerful, but there was a rebuke in there, anyway.

“Well, yes.  I certainly wasn’t going to put them up all week, like some people,” I pointed out.  That seemed to take some of the wind out of her.  “They were only there to let the kids know it was okay to come get the candy.  Naturally, I took them down when the candy ran out.”

“Do you know the origins of that superstition?”

“Yep.  And if it earns me goodwill with a bunch of neighborhood kids instead of goblins and fairies, that’s good enough for me.”  Myrna was nonplussed at this idea.  I’m sure she wanted to go on about how it was catering to superstition, but I jerked the rug out from under her.

“Well.  Good.  So, you’ve started a charity for Mark and his boy?”

“Nope.  I’m minding the store for the kids who did.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They asked me to keep an eye on their lemonade stand while they went to school.  I guess it comes with the territory when the kids know you’re a decent person.”

“Then why wasn’t I informed?”

I didn’t say what leaped to mind.

“Informed of what?”

“As the president of the neighborhood association, I feel I should be kept abreast of developments and plans along our street.  Don’t you?”

“I didn’t know we had a neighborhood association.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Okay.”

“Good.  I’ll expect to have a report on everything collected.”

Suddenly, I’d had it with her.

“Go to hell.”

I couldn’t have shocked her more with a cattle prod.

“
What!?
”

“I’m sorry; language.  What I meant to say was, ‘No.  This is none of your business.’ My mistake.”

“It most certainly
is
my business!  I’m responsible for everything on this street!”

“Then why didn’t you stop the fire?” I queried.  “If you’re responsible, that is.”

“That’s not what I mean!”

“Oh.  Then why didn’t you put together a charity donation drive?  You’re responsible for that, at least.  Right?”

“I had planned to discuss the matter with Mister Spotznitz when he was released from the hospital!”

“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be in a mood to discuss it while he’s wondering about his next meal.”

“Fred has made arrangements!”

“I’m so glad you’re on the job,” I observed, drily.  “In the meantime, I’m expecting a reporter this afternoon.  If you have the authority to order the kids to tear down their stand and remove it, go ahead—I’ll let the news know you shut the kids down.  If you don’t have that authority, go away.”

“You can’t order me to leave!”

“You have a point.  It’s Mark’s property, not mine.  Feel free to stand there all day, if you like.”  I put my boots up on the stand and leaned back in my chair.

“You just wait!  You can’t get away with this!”

“Get away with what?” I countered.  “What, exactly, am I getting away with?”

“This!”

“I won’t get away with minding a charity stand for the neighborhood kids?”

“You know what I mean!”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.  What am I getting away with?  I’m not making anything off this; I even donated to their charity drive.  Did
you?
”

“That’s beside the point!”

“That’s true.  Any lack of the virtue of charity is another matter entirely.  However, if you have some sort of objection, madam, I urge you to go pray about it.  And then, with the guidance of your faith and within the tenets of your religion, do the right thing.  I’m sure Fred will be behind you, right at your heel, every step of the way.  In fact, as soon as you explain it to everyone in the neighborhood, I’m sure they’ll all do the right thing.

“I, for one, will be here.  Good day to you.”

I laced my fingers behind my head and closed my eyes.  She kept trying to talk to me anyway.  I tried to emulate Bronze and pretended to be a statue.  I moved only to greet fresh contributors and explain the schedule.  We were making a pretty good haul even without the people who promised to come back.  Myrna eventually went away, hopefully to start some sort of fund-raising on her own.  I suspected there would be some hell-raising along with it, but Myrna wouldn’t see it that way.  People like her never do.

When the Three got back from school they rushed right over.  Patricia took over the stand while Luke and Edgar helped me transfer our latest loot to storage.  I also got a five-gallon bucket, cut a hole in the lid like an oversized coin slot, and painted “Can you spare a dime?” on it.  We put it at one end of the stand.

We were still moving stuff when Susan and a woman I didn’t know started setting up a table next to our stand.  Susan folded a posterboard sign reading “Bake Sale” into a sort of tent shape, hiding the words, and instead drew a big, black arrow on it.  She placed it on the folding table so it pointed at the bucket.  Then she and half a dozen other ladies started trotting out all sorts of home-baked goodies.  Velma’s cookies were especially tempting; nobody, but
nobody
, bakes like a grandmother.

I barely had time to get formally introduced to the rest of the neighborhood ladies before the flood started.  I turned away people all day, telling them when the kids would have the stand.  It was the kids’ stand, not mine, and they should get the pleasure of accepting donations for their friend.  I didn’t expect anyone to actually come back.

I was wrong.  I have been more wrong, but not often.  I’ve also been wrong about things I was very sad to be wrong about, but this wasn’t one of them.

The people I turned away not only came back, they brought friends.  One guy, with an old gas-burning truck, not only returned with the furniture he tried to give me, but he also came back again with a second load.  We put two couches and three easy chairs—old, but still solid and comfortable—on the sidewalk and on the walk up to the now-missing door.  He drove the rest of it to the end of the street and we put it in my barn.

The charity drive became a lawn party.  People came to drop things off, stayed for a bit, ate a cookie or a slice of cake, bought lemonade, and put money in the bucket before they left.  I discovered some people still use checkbooks, too; more than one check went into the bucket.  A number of people wanted to use their skinphones to load a digital stick.  I didn’t know they could do that, but I had a digital stick.  I put Edgar in charge of it; he parked himself at the end of the table with the coin bucket and held the stick up whenever someone walked past him.

I think his serious, earnest expression earned us twice what the bucket did.

Myrna showed up and took over the bake sale.  She didn’t change anything, but assumed a sort of authority over the yard and bossed the place.  Once again the center of attention, she was all smiles and good humor.  She didn’t speak to me or to the children, though.  I suspect the kids didn’t mind.  I know I didn’t.

The picture-taker showed up—Elias Watson, a blogger and newsie, whatever a “newsie” is.  He took pictures of the kids at their stand, of the people lining up to help, everything.  He interviewed people, especially the kids, and, rather involuntarily, accepted Myrna’s press release.  He also wanted to know how long this was going to go on.

“Gary gets out of the hospital tomorrow,” Luke told him.  “His Dad might get out by the end of the week.  We’ll stick until his Dad can collect his stuff.”

News to me.  Nobody tells me anything.

We finished moving the loot into the house and barn after it got dark.  I took a “bathroom break” around sunset—that took a while; sunsets seem longer on round worlds than flat ones—before coming back out to finish.

I had to carry the bucket.  That’s a lot of loose change.

My original thought for the evening was to head straight out to see if Mary was around.  Now, though, I had to deal with the aftermath of charity.  Fortunately, it’s not hard to find an automated coin-counter machine.  It put the total on our digital stick.  The same machine did the same with the folding money.  Checks were the hard part.  I totaled them up, deposited them in my own account, and consolidated it all.

The accounting paperwork took a while, but I was done before midnight.

I can calculate a cometary orbit or work out the equations of a new spell, but financial wizardry is still a mystery to me.  Oh, well.  That’s why I hire that sort of talent.

After some consideration, I’ve decided tomorrow night should go more quickly.  The first flood will hopefully taper off over the rest of the week and be less of a job to tally up.  I’ll stay in tonight and try to finish my concrete project.

Mixing concrete in an Oklahoma thunderstorm is not rewarding.  I moved everything into the barn and grumbled back at the weather.  It didn’t seem to care.

Well, there’s always my ruthenium and iridium experiments.  I went into the house to play with electricity and space.

Footnote:  Oklahoma storms are quite capable of knocking out even modern power lines.  This is not helpful when you’re in the middle of a project to warp space or build an electromagical transformer.  You’d think they would have figured out a way to prevent that by now.

Maybe I should look up the local gods and see if the one in charge of weather is ticked off at me.  I’m not sure what I could have done, though.

I guess I can practice brooding darkly in my lair.  It’s something I’m supposed to be good at, after all.  Have to keep up the standards, right?

You could have a nap, Boss.

“What for?”

You haven’t slept in a long time.  Plus, you do that whole psychic visions thing when you relax your brain.

“See, now, that’s kind of the reason I don’t want to.”

Psychic dreams?

“Relaxing my brain.”

I don’t get it.

“I’ve recently had a good look at the nastiness my conscious mind sits on top of.  I’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime.  I’d rather not let it out.”

But you’re immortal, Boss.

“I know.”

Don’t you need to sleep?  I mean, eventually?  Elves are immortal and they sleep.  Even dragons sleep.  We’re famous for it.

“Dragons are famous for burning things and eating everything else.”

That, too,
Firebrand agreed, smugly. 
But dragons also sleep for ages.

“Good.  But I don’t know that I ever actually need to sleep.”

Maybe you should try.  You might notice a difference.  Maybe not, but you could do that whole experimenting thing you love so much.

“And let my personal demons loose in my mental study?  No, thank you.”

Suit yourself.  Thought I ought to mention it.  Although, if the personal demons are all you’re concerned about, Bronze and I can keep an eye on things.

“Maybe later.  Right now, the idea of sleeping and letting my subconscious mind run wild makes my skin crawl.”

I thought that was snakes, not vampires?
Firebrand asked, doubtfully.

“Shed.  Snakes have their skin shed, not crawl.”

Oh, right.

“I thought you were once a dragon.”

Not the same thing, Boss.  Dragons don’t shed their skins.

“They don’t?  Then how do they grow?”

Our skins and scales get bigger, too.

“But what if you lose a scale?”

They grow back, of course.  Why?

“I thought they left a bare patch if knocked off.”

For a while, yeah.  A couple of years, maybe.

“Shows what I know.  Thanks for setting me straight.”