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way, they certainly didn't need my services.
    "Neither had we," he said. "But Mellar found a way." At last! A name! Mellar, Mellar, let me see... right. He was awfully tough. He had a good, solid organization, brains, and, well, enough muscle and resources to get and hold a position on the council. But why had the Demon told me? Was he planning to kill me after all if I turned him down? Or was he taking a chance on being able to convince me?
    "What way is that?" I asked, sipping my wine.
    "To take nine million gold in council operating funds and disappear." I almost choked.
    By the sacred balls of the Imperial Phoenix! Absconding with Jhereg funds? With council funds? My head started hurting.
    "When--when did this happen?" I managed.
    "Yesterday." He was watching the expression on my face. He nodded grimly. "Nervy bastard, isn't he?"
    I nodded back. "You know," I said, "you're going to have one bitch of a time keeping this quiet."
    "That's right," he said. "We just aren't going to be able to for very long." For a moment his eyes went cold, and I began to understand how the Demon had gotten his name.
    "He took everything we had," he said tightly. "We all have our own funds, of course, and we've been using them in the investigation. But on the kind of scale we're working on, we can't keep it up long."
    I shook my head. "Once this gets out--"
    "He'd better be dead," the Demon finished for me. "Or every two-silverpiece thief in the Empire is going to think he can take us. And one of them will do it, too." Something else hit me at that point. I realized that, for one thing, I could accept this job quite safely. Once Mellar was dead, it wouldn't matter if word got out what he'd tried. However, if I turned it down, I was suddenly a big risk and, shortly thereafter, I suspected, a small corpse.
    Once again, the Demon seemed to guess what I was thinking.
    "No," he said flatly. He leaned forward, earnestly. "I assure you that if you turn me down, nothing will happen to you. I know that we can trust you--that's one reason we came to you."
    I wondered briefly if he were reading my mind. I decided that he wasn't. An Easterner is not an easy person to mind-probe, and I doubted that he could do it without my being aware of it. And I was sure he couldn't do it without Loiosh noticing.
    "Of course, if you turn us down and then let something slip ..." His voice trailed off. I suppressed a shudder.
    I did some more hard thinking. "It would seem to me," I said, "that this has to be done soon."
    He nodded. "And that's why we can't get Mario. There's no way we can rush him."
    "And you think you can rush my friend?"
    He shrugged. "I think we're paying for it."
    I had to agree with that. There was, at least, no time limit. But I had never before accepted "work" without the understanding that I had as much time as I needed. How much, I wondered, would it throw me off to have to hurry?
    "Do you have any idea where he went?"
    "We strongly suspect that he headed out East. At least, if I were pulling something like this, that's where I'd go."
    I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. Dragaerans out East are treated about the same as Easterners are treated here--worse, if anything. He'd be considered, if you'll pardon the expression, a demon. He'd stand out like a Morganti weapon in the Imperial Palace."
    He smiled. "True enough, but we have the fewest resources there, so it would take a while for word to get back to us. Also, we've had the best sorceresses from the Left Hand looking for him since we found out what happened, and we can't find him." I shrugged. "He could have put up a block against tracing."
    "He definitely has done that."
    "Well, then--"
    He shook his head. "You have no idea of the kind of power we're pouring into this. We could break down any block he could put up, no matter how long he's been planning it, or who the sorcerer is who put the block up. If he was anywhere within a hundred miles of Adrilankha we'd have broken it by now, or