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forgive your assault on me.
This
time.”
    Mighty big of him, that.
    My whole back spasmed as he hauled me up closer, mug to mug.
    “
If
you tell me where it is!”
    I’d have happily told him, if I had the faintest idea
what
“it” was, let alone
where
.
    Say this for Herne, he’s sharp. Guess centuries after centuries of hunting’ll do that for a guy. Whatever I croaked out wasn’t much of a word, but whatever he heard in it, saw in my face, he realized quick enough that, far as I was concerned, he was speaking Greek.
    Well, not literally, since I coulda understood if he was, but you know what I mean.
    “If you don’t have it and aren’t searching for it,” he said, now more bewildered than anything, “why are you here?”
    This time, I managed syllables that actually belonged in the same neighborhood as each other.
    “’Vestigating… break-in…”
    Herne’s lamps went wide, and he chuckled, just the once. Then he shifted his weight off my wrist and lowered me back down to lie flat. As he did so, he leaned in, staying in my face. I had a crazy thought that he was gonna either bite me or kiss me.
    “Heed my advice, then, Mick Oberon. Keep your head down for a few weeks. Stay home, or perhaps leave Chicago. You do
not
want any part of what is happening here—and
I
am far from the least merciful of us. Do not stand in my way again, or I shall
become
so.”
    I didn’t really have a smart answer to that. Or even a dumb one. In fact, he’d dusted out before I had the breath and brain to speak again. I didn’t even see which way he’d gone.
    I lay there for a long damn time, feelin’ like a goblin’s ass after a double shot of gin and cholera. All I could see was the ceiling, but I wasn’t paying any attention to it. I was looking more inward.
    You wanna know how come I got licked? What happened to all that extra luck I’d armored myself with? I’d burned through every iota of it not getting pummeled
worse
.
    Everything hurt from pate to plates, but other’n a few hairline fractures, nothing was actually
broke
. I could feel the blood of shiny new bruises bubbling under my skin, but nothing important had ruptured.
    Hell, the way I heal, I might even be tip-top in just a couple days!
    Didn’t hurt any less
now
, though. Damn, how bad would it’ve been if Herne
had
really wanted me chilled off?
    It wasn’t me wincing and groaning as I staggered to my feet, it was, uh, the elephant, making fun of me. Yeah. Same thing on my second attempt.
Mighta
been both of us on the third.
    “Think you’re looking at?” I growled at him, wobbling like a stubborn ninepin. “Huh?”
    That showed him.
    I stumbled over to where my wand had rolled, nearly falling again as I collected it. One knee on the floor and one hand on a display of I-don’t-even-remember-and-who-gives-a-damn are all that saved me from a face full of floor.
    Display.
Shit. I hadda think of a good yarn to spin about the case back in Africa before…
    I froze, glaring back at where I’d fallen. Thick pool of the red stuff spattered over the stone. Not as much as you’d expect from a broderick like I’d taken from Herne, but enough.
    Hadda deal with that, then, too.
    Cost me another twenty minutes, three trips to the washroom, and any tiny bit of hope I mighta had about ever washing the blood out of this shirt. Shoved that wadded, sodden lump in a flogger pocket and gave the mirror another quick up-and-down. The worst of the grime on my face had gone down the washroom sink, and most of the blood on the coat itself was on the inside. Button up tight, make myself walk steady, maybe fiddle with a few people’s noodles here and there, nobody oughta see that I was banged up.
    Or shirtless.
    When I finally got down to the basement—hey, it took a while! Damn stairs were in cahoots with the elephants—the big room we’d been in before had sprouted more police. Probably the bulls who’d been waiting around outside. Still barely enough people here