“Checking out our new neighbor, Snuff?” came a voice from a tree to the east.
“It never hurts to be thorough,” I replied. “What about you, Nightwind?”
“The same. But she’s not a player. We’re almost sure of it.”
“Oh? You’ve met?”
“Yes. She visited the masters yesterday. They feel she’s harmless.”
“Glad to know that someone is.”
“Unlike the vicar, eh?”
“You’ve been talking to Quicklime.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you at odds. I heard you’d dropped him in the river.”
“A misunderstanding,” he said. “We’ve smoothed it over since.”
“What did you give him for the vicar?”
“Needle’s nightly feeding route,” he said. “Maybe he plans to ambush him and eat him.” Nightwind made a chuckling sound, something halfway between hoot and gasp. “That would be amusing.”
“Not to Needle.”
He chuckled again.
“That’s true, isn’t it? I can almost hear him crying, ‘This is not funny!’ Then _gulp_, and we’d all have the last laugh.”
“I’ve never eaten a bat,” I said.
“They’re not bad. A little salty, though. Say, since I’ve run into you maybe we can do a little business, nothing major, but we take whatever’s there, eh?”
“Usually,” I said. “What’ve you got?”
“After I heard about the vicar I went looking around his place. Met his companion…”
“A big white raven,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”
“Hm. Well, I decided on the direct approach. I flew up and introduced myself. Her name’s Tekela, and she seemed behind on the Game and trying to catch up. Didn’t have much to trade, but all she wanted was a list of the players and their companions. She’d get it from someone else if she didn’t get it from me, I figured, and I might as well get whatever she had for it. First, though, she did know that you’re one of us, and your bird-eating friend. She told me she’d seen you a few nights back, with another big dog, dragging a body toward the river. That was the missing officer, wasn’t it?”
“I won’t deny it.”
“Did you or Jack kill him?”
“No. But the body turned up too near home for comfort.”
“And you were just getting rid of it?”
“Would you want the thing in your front yard?”
“Certainly not. But what I’m curious about is your friend. Tekela recognized you as she swooped by, but not the other dog. So she followed it when you parted. She said that it went to Larry Talbot’s place.”
“So?”
“We’ve been puzzled whether or not he’s a player. One argument against the assumption was that he hadn’t a companion. Now…”
“What was Tekela doing way in the hell out in that field that night?” I asked.
“Presumably, she was patrolling the area in general, as we all do.”
“‘Presumably’?” I said. “Her master was involved in that man’s death, and she went looking for the body after I’d moved it and found it. She was keeping an eye on it to see whether whoever’d put it there would be back to do any more with it.”
He was silent, and he shrank a little within his feathers. Then, “That’s what I was going to trade you for the story on Larry’s companion,” he said. “But do you know _how_ he died? She did tell me that.”
Just then I saw it. I’d a vision of the officer, drugged, knocked out, or tied up upon the altar as the vicar blessed an edged instrument.
“Ceremonial killing,” I said, “at one of his midnight services. It was early in the cycle for one. But that’s what happened. Then he left the remains at our place for a bit of misdirection.”
“He needed it early for the extra power, because he’d gotten off to a late start. All right. I’ll give you something else for Talbot.”
“Concerning what?”
“The Good Doctor.”
“Done. I haven’t heard anything about him for a while. The dog is a stray from town. Name’s Lucky. I give him some of my food when he’s around and he does favors for me. He hangs around Talbot’s place, too, because Talbot saves scraps for him. He’s too big for anyone to want to feed on a regular basis, though, which is why he hasn’t a real home. You might even spot him in the woods or fields some night, hunting rabbits.”