Taking a chance that he wasn’t observed, the Necroscope used the Möbius Continuum to follow the pup’s thoughts to their source: a kerbside in the main village street, at a junction where the street turned left on to the main road into Edinburgh. A workday, there weren’t many people about; the handful which had gathered had their backs to Harry anyway where he emerged on to the pavement as if from thin air. And the first thing he saw was the long, dark skidmark burned into the road’s surface.
The pup’s deadspeak thoughts were more desperate now as it realized that it couldn’t extricate itself from this new predicament. There was no feeling, no contact, no light. Where was its God, its young master?
Shh! Harry hushed. It’s OK, boy! It’s all right! Shh!
He moved to the forefront of the handful of onlookers, saw a young boy kneeling there in the gutter, his cheeks shiny with tears, the broken pup dead in his arms. One of the pup’s shoulders was askew and its spine kinked; its right foreleg flopped like a rubber band; its crushed head oozed brain fluid from a torn right ear.
Harry got down on one knee, put an arm round the boy and stroked the dead pet. And again: ‘Shh, boy!’ He comforted both of them. And in his mind the pup’s whines and yelps quietened to a panting whimper. It could feel again. It felt Harry.
But the boy couldn’t be comforted. ‘He’s dead!’ he kept moaning. ‘He’s dead! Paddy’s dead! Why didn’t the car hit me and not Paddy? Why didn’t the car stop?’
‘Where do you live, son?’ Harry asked the boy, a towhead of maybe eight or nine.
The other glanced at him through blurred-blue eyes. ‘Down there.’ He nodded vaguely over his right shoulder. ‘Number seven. We live there, Paddy and me.’
Harry took the dog gently into his arms and stood up. ‘Let’s get him home then,’ he said.
The crowd parted for them and Harry heard someone say, ‘It’s a shame. What a terrible shame!’
‘Paddy’s dead!’ The kid clutched the Necroscope’s elbow as they turned the corner into a narrow, deserted street.
Dead? Yes, he was, but … did he really have to be? You don’t have to be, do you, Paddy?
The deadspeak answer which came back wasn’t quite a bark and it wasn’t quite a word – but it was an agreement. A dog will usually agree with his friends, and rarely if ever disagree with his master. While Harry wasn’t Paddy’s beloved master, he certainly was a new friend.
And the decision was made as quickly as that.
Before they reached the small garden in front of number seven, Harry looked down at the lad and said: ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Peter.’ The other could scarcely get it out past his tears and the lump in his throat.
‘Peter, I – ‘ Harry jerked to a halt. Play-acting for all he was worth, he glanced at the pet in his arms. ‘ – I think I felt him move!’
The boy’s mouth fell open. ‘Paddy moved? But he’s so bad hurt!’
‘Son, I’m a vet,’ Harry lied. ‘Maybe I can save him. You run quickly now and tell your people what’s happened, and I’ll take Paddy to the surgery. And whatever happens, I’ll be in touch just as soon as I know how bad he is – or how good. OK?’
‘But -‘
‘Don’t waste time, Peter,’ Harry urged. ‘It’s Paddy’s life, right?’
The other gulped, nodded once, flew to the gate of number seven and through it, and as he vanished pell-mell into the garden Harry conjured a Möbius door. By the time Peter’s Ma came out of the house wringing her hands – came flying to see the vet – Harry was at a different address entirely …
The Necroscope had perhaps too few friends among the living, but one of them was an old potter up in the Pentlands who fired his own kilns. Paddy was absolutely dead, no doubt about that, when Harry handed him over to Hamish McCulloch for calcination in one of his ovens. ‘It’s worth a twenty to me, Hamish,’ he told the old Scot, ‘if you can bring him down to ashes. Well, if not to me, to his master, a young lad with a broken heart. And I’ll pay you for one of your pots, too, to keep him in.’