I tried to ignore him. He was chock full of reminiscences of his past glories, and listening to them only made me more depressed. Well, it would have to be the Catorcena dress that Paimon had made for me. It was the only dress that fit and looked appropriately splendid, even if it was fluffy. I wished it wasn’t quite such an awful shade of red and that perhaps the skirts were not quite as ruffly, but they were impressively wide, which somewhat canceled out the ruffles. And the neckline was plungy. I certainly outshone the Zu-Zu there, no problem. She had as much cleavage as a washboard. I would wear Mamma’s pearls (pillaged from her jewelry box) and carry my birthday fan, and if Valefor could help me with my hair, I wouldn’t look too bad.
But first I had to get into those damn stays, which I dreaded. I’d let the back laces out as far as they would go, and it was still a struggle to get the busk closed. One of the steel bones was rubbing a raw spot under my arm, right through my chemise. As soon as Mamma got home, I was going to demand that we go to the Army-Navy store and get new underpinnings.
I was hopping and swearing and Valefor was urging me to suck it in, though it was sucked in as far as it would go, when a rap on the window made me jump. Blast it, I had almost gotten the bottom snap of the stays hooked. Now I would have to start over.
“It’s Udo,” Valefor said helpfully. Who else would it be? Udo’s the only person besides me who knows the trick of climbing through my window.
Udo swung in over the sill after I opened the window “Why’d you latch your window?”
“To keep undesirables out,” I said. “Where’s your Chickie, Poo-Poo, or whatever her name is?”
“Did a hurricane come through here? Pigface, what a mess.” Udo tossed aside the clothes draped on the settee, then threw himself down. Flynnie got up from his snooze on the bed and ambled over to sniff his hand. “Her name is the Zu-Zu, as you well know. We had our coffee, and a few other things besides...” And here he smiled in a most sick-making way “Then she had to go to band practice; Califa’s Lip Rouge, that’s the name of her band, did I mention? She’s the lead singer. I couldn’t very well take Springheel Jack back home to Case Tigger, right? Anyway I’m supposed to be staying here with you. So here I am.”
“Last night you were supposed to be staying here, Udo. It is not last night anymore.”
“The weekend,” he said airily.
I looked out the window but saw no zombified outlaw below. The gate to the kitchen garden was open, and Dash and Flash were nibbling their way through the tomato plants, while Crash was digging a hole in the asparagus bed. Blasted dogs. I leaned out the window and hollered. They looked up, heads cocked as if to say What on earth can be wrong with Flora? And then went back to their munching and digging.
“You left the garden gate open, Udo,” I said, slamming the window shut. “The dogs are in there making a mess.”
“Sorry. Look, Flora, I put Springheel Jack in the stables—”
Valefor shrieked like a teakettle. “You put a zombie in my nice clean stables?!” I had told Valefor about Udo’s little scheme earlier, and he had been even less impressed with the plan than I had. And if Valefor, the Very King of Bad Ideas, thought the idea was bad, then it must be bad indeed.
I didn’t care about the clean stables at all. “How long does that powder last, Udo? What if he comes back to himself suddenly in our stables? Did you think of that?”
“I did, actually, Flora. But it ain’t going to be a problem.”
“Why is that? And get your boots off my settee.” I pushed Flynn away from whatever he was licking up off the floor. Only two days earlier I had spent several hours polishing it, and I didn’t want to have to redo so quickly.
“My stables! What if he scares my pretty horses?” Valefor moaned.
“He ain’t gonna bother your horses, Val. Now don’t be mad, Flora, but Springheel Jack is dead.”
“What do you mean, dead? Flynn—get away. What do you mean he’s dead?” I demanded.
“Well, I guess he was hit during the gunfight, Flora, and the zombie powder kept him moving. I didn’t notice it until I got to the stables, and, well, the back of his head is gone.” Udo looked rather chagrined.
Valefor shrieked again. “Is he dripping? He’d better not be dripping, Udo. Oh, to be so helpless, while I am ruined. He’s not dripping, is he?”
“Udo.” I moaned. Why was I cursed with relatives and friends and dogs? Why couldn’t I be an orphan? And a hermit, too? A hermit orphan who was allergic to dogs. The blasted dog wouldn’t leave the licking. I put a foot in his ribs and gave him a soft boot, to no effect. “Oh, Udo...”
“Don’t get yourself all twisted, Val. He’s not dripping; I wrapped his head in a feed sack. So he’s fine. But anyway, Flora—it’s not just that—”
“I smell blood,” Valefor said suddenly. He began to crawl down the front of the wardrobe, spiderlike, snuffling. “Full of delicious Anima.”
“Ayah, that’s what I’m trying to say,” Udo said triumphantly. “I’ve been shot!”
Twelve
First Aid. Apple Gin. Udo’s Pockets.
UDO HAD BEEN SHOT, the wretch. His shoulder was a sticky bloody mess, and more blood was dribbling down his arm, and trailing on my nice clean floor, delicious to dogs. I felt faint, but a ranger cannot flinch. Nini Mo didn’t flinch when she had to amputate her scout’s arm with a sewing awl after he got mauled in Nini Mo vs. the Chupacabras. She just gritted her teeth, shoved a stick in Frank’s mouth, and started sawing.
Pushing the lip-licking Valefor out of the way, I helped Udo pull off his coat. The cloth was stuck to the wound, and he whined and swore as I eased the fabric away.
“It stopped bleeding earlier and so I thought it was nothing, but now it’s started again. I must have strained it climbing up the side of the house. Be careful of that—it’s one of my favorite shirts,” Udo complained as I tried to unstick the linen using water from my teakettle and a hanky “Owww.”
Valefor drifted over us, making disgusting little noises and begging for a taste.
“The shirt is ruined, Udo, and, Val, get away—you’re a Butler, not a vampire!”
“But the lovely Anima,” Val whined. “It’s just going to waste, and I’m so famished.”
I drew Udo’s shirt over his head and off, thus revealing a clotted red mess on his left shoulder. My tum twisted and my breakfast rose upward. I swallowed hard; I was not going to give Udo the satisfaction of urping. Valefor grabbed the bloody shirt and whisked back to the top of my wardrobe, where he began to make slurpy sounds.
“How could you go this long without doing something?” I said. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I didn’t even feel it,” Udo twisted his head so he could inspect himself. “I can hardly feel it now. Anyway, I was busy with other things.”
The Zu-Zu, I warranted, and suddenly I felt very mean and rather hoped that the wound hurt quite a bit.
“Wait until the excitement wears off.” Valefor had stopped smacking. “And then you’ll be howling like a monkey. I remember when the Butcher Brakespeare shot Hotspur, it was the night of Pirates Parade and he—”
“Val—shut up. You are distracting me,” I said. Pouting, he obeyed. I poured more water and dabbed at the wound, while Udo squirmed and ground his teeth. Eventually was revealed a long red furrow running the length of his bicep, skimming the top of his shoulder.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Udo said, disappointed. “It’s just a little scratch. The bullet must have been spent when it hit. And I never even felt it. Ain’t that weird—you should know when you get shot, but I didn’t even notice.”
“You need to see a doctor,” I said. “Maybe it’s worse than it looks. It could get infected.”
“No way!” Udo answered in alarm. “If I go to a doctor, they’ll want to know what happened, and it’ll get back to Mam and the Daddies, and then I’ll be in a world of hurt for sure. It’s just a scratch.”
“Udo, you’ve been shot, for Califa’s sake! You ha
ve to see a doctor. I told you that stuff with Springheel Jack wasn’t a game—someone was going to get hurt.”
Apparently Valefor was done with the shirt, for now he drifted down from the wardrobe. “Pah, you are an old nurse, Flora. It’s nothing. Just wipe it out with some bugjuice, bind it up, and he’ll be fine. But we have to do something about that drippy outlaw.”
Springheel Jack! We had to get Jack out of the stables before Poppy found him. And I had forgotten I was supposed to be getting ready for the Warlord’s Birthday Ball. It was almost time to leave. But how was I going to explain to Poppy that I had to take Udo to the surgeon? No lie I could possibly think of was going to be good enough to satisfy Poppy and keep us out of trouble. And if I missed the Ball, who knew when I would have a chance to get close to Lord Axacaya again. Blast Udo!
The Eschata has a whole section on first aid, for rangers often operate far beyond the reach of doctors, or have medical needs that they do not wish to disclose. Luckily for Udo, I’d read that section three times already and even done some practice by bandaging up Flynn. The wound didn’t look that bad. It had already waited and Udo hadn’t yet died. Surely it could wait longer.
But suddenly Udo was not quite so perky He lay back on the settee, his face pale, his eyes closed, while I tore up one of my outgrown chemises. He wiggled only a little as I carefully cleaned the scratch with the bottle of apple gin I had long ago confiscated from Poppy and kept around just in case. I folded a piece of the cloth into a nice little pad, soaked it with the bugjuice, and then secured it over the wound with a goodly quantity of brown paper tape. Nini Mo advises that you can pack a wound with cobwebs, but I didn’t have any, so the apple gin would have to do.
I said, “There, you are done. If your arm turns green and falls off, Udo, it won’t be my fault.”
“Pooh,” said Udo, drowsily “You aren’t a very nice surgeon.”
“You are lucky I didn’t just whack your whole arm off as a precaution.”
“Ha-ha,” Udo said weakly, and I poked him in the chest.
“Hey. You can’t pass out now, Udo. We have to figure out what to do with Springheel Jack.”
“You’d better give him another jolt of that apple gin,” Valefor suggested, and for once his idea was a good one.
Udo took the glass of gin. “Turn Jack in is what we are going to do,” he said. His hands were now shaking so hard he could barely get the glass to his mouth. I took it from him and held it against his lips. He drank, sputtering, but I didn’t take the glass away until the entire jolt was gone.
The kitty-clock on the mantel said it was five o’clock. I had to leave in forty-five minutes. The gin had turned Udo’s cheeks bright red, and now his eyes looked glassy, though that might have been the shock of the gunshot catching up with him. He wasn’t going to be good for anything. Once again, it was all up to me.
I said, “Look, Valefor, can you get to the stables and guard Springheel Jack? Make sure that Poppy doesn’t go out there. If he looks like he’s heading that direction, then come back and tell me quick and I’ll try to distract him. We’re going by cab, but Poppy might decide to check on the horses or something. I’ve got to finish getting dressed and then I’ll be down to move Jack to a more secure location.”
“He’s going to spoil,” Udo mumbled. “We gotta turn him in.” He was snuggling up with the pink pig, his face buried in the pig’s fat neck. The pig stared at me with beady little eyes; now his expression seemed rather amused.
I said, “We can’t do anything right now, and I have an idea where to stow him. Go on, Valefor. We haven’t got any time to waste. Can you get there? You should have gotten something out of Udo’s shirt.”
Valefor stuck his nose in the air. “You are bossy, Flora Segunda.”
“Go!”
With a wiggle, Valefor disintegrated. Now that I had purpose, I was able to snap my busk with minimal fuss. I yanked my laces as tightly as they would go, tied them off with a bow, then slithered into the red dress. Caught my hair back with my red Sanctuary ribbon and hung my fan case on my sash. In the beauty section of The Eschata, Nini advises that even if you wear no other maquillage, you should always wear lip rouge. I didn’t have any lip rouge, but Udo would. He was asleep, so he would hardly squawk if I borrowed it. Snatching up his jacket from where I had tossed it, I went through his pockets, finding a crushed box of Madama Twanky’s Coffin Nails, a silver lighter engraved with the initials O. A., his bankbook (in which the balance clearly showed that Udo was in no danger of being broke), a lip rouge in the shade of Death in Bloom—and a package of Madama Twanky’s Netherglove sheaths, size extra large.
Quivering, I dropped the coat and stared at Udo. Could he and the Zu-Zu possibly...? But they had just met—just yesterday! Surely Udo wasn’t that rash? How could he, with such a skanky slag?
I opened the tin and saw that the sheaths were all there. Well, why should I care if one was missing? If Udo wanted to fondle that stick girl, then all the more welcome he was to her. They were equal to each other in vanity and idiocy. I had bigger things to worry about than Udo’s bad taste in women: the Birthday Ball, Springheel Jack, Idden. Udo’s love life was low on my list. Actually Udo’s love life wasn’t on my list at all. Not even at the very bottom.
“You look nice, Flora.” Udo opened his eyes as I leaned over him to tuck the blanket up over his shoulders.
“Thanks.”
He said, sleepily “But you need some lip rouge; Zu says you should always have a good lip rouge.”
“Huh,” I answered, the little glow of his compliment now extinguished.
“Zu is a stunner, don’t you think?”
“If you like them with one foot in the grave,” I said sourly but Udo didn’t answer. He’d passed out.
Thirteen
Wheelbarrows. The Icehouse. An Ant.
I GALLOPED DOWN the Below Stairs and, at the bottom, skidded to a breathless halt, startled. A bright red stranger stood at the stove, his back to me. This stranger wore the Alacrán regimental dress uniform; his frock coat, a deep bluish crimson called sangyn, had gilt-encrusted bat sleeves, and the hem of his sangyn kilt just brushed the top of his polished black boots. His sangyn wig was in the style called the Flail, because the long braids are gathered together so they look like the lash end of a whip. His sabre sling was empty, showing he was prepared to dance, not fight. But the gun on his hip showed he was prepared to dance and fight.
The sangyn stranger turned around, and was, of course, Poppy.
His face was painted as white as bone, the scars on his cheeks, one slash to each side of his nose, striped with red. His lips were red, too, bright and shiny, as though touched with blood. Two lines of small sangyn marks dotted his forehead. I didn’t have to count to know there were sixteen of them: the number of scalps that Poppy has taken. The Alacráns are the only regiment in the Army that takes scalps. This adds to their terrifying reputation and has earned them the nickname Skinners.
I had never seen Poppy in his Alacrán uniform before, and the initial sight was somewhat terrifying. But looking beyond the bloody uniform, I saw that the white powder on his face smoothed the lines and made him look younger, like the Poppy I had seen at Bilskinir House, when Udo and I had accidentally gone back in Bilskinir’s history. The loops of the crimson wig reminded me of the skeins of that younger Poppy’s hair, which had been long and coppery rather than short and silvery. The younger Poppy had been beautiful; this Poppy would have almost been handsome if it weren’t for all that bloody red.
Poppy said, “Here, let me blot your lip rouge; it’s a bit too bright.”
I dodged his outstretched napkin-waving arm and said, “I have to run out to the stables for a minute. I forgot to grain the horses.”
“You should have remembered before you were dressed,” Poppy said. “But go and hurry. The fly will be here any minute. You need a new pair of stays. You are about to explode out of the pair you are wearing.”
“I know, Poppy,” I s
aid, feeling my face go hot. I grabbed my pelisse off the coatrack and threw it over my shoulders. I was suddenly regretting the low cut of my neckline. Maybe I could leave the pelisse on during the Ball. “I’ll hurry.”
I found Springheel Jack sitting on a hay bale, stiff as a board. Udo had been lucky the zombie powder had kept the dead outlaw going long enough to stash him in the barn, but now the powder had worn off and rigor mortis had set in. Udo had kindly wrapped a feed sack around Jack’s head, but the parts of him that still showed—his neck and hands—looked waxy and livid. My arrival dispersed a merry band of buzzing flies that were hovering over him. Bonzo and Mouse hung their heads over their stall doors, complaining. For battle-hardened horses, they were certainly acting delicate.
Valefor flitted down from the shadows in the eaves. “You took forever, Flora Segunda. I thought any minute we would be discovered. The horses are unhappy. They don’t like the smell.”
I didn’t blame them; I didn’t like the smell, either—a meaty spoiled odor like the kitchen trash when no one has taken it out for a week. I held up my arm and sniffed deeply the laundry soap and bleach smells of my sleeve. To make my lie to Poppy less of a lie, I poured sweet feed into the horses’ manger while I considered what to do. The horses left off their nervous complaining and started to gobble. This was actually their second ration of sweet feed today, and now they didn’t care about the stinky outlaw stench.
“What are we going to do, Flora Segunda?” Valefor asked.
I looked at him hopefully. “I don’t suppose you can move him, can you?”
“No. Not unless you give me some Anima, and I know, I know—I’m not asking, just saying. Udo’s shirt was something, but not enough.”
Having been down that road with Valefor before, I had no desire to set foot on it again. I would have to move him myself.
“Any idea how long it takes for the rigor to wear off?” I asked.
“Days, I think,” Valefor answered. “I remember when Aeyptia Fyrdraaca hid in a gunpowder cask during a game of hide-and-seek. She cheated, silly duck, by using a Concealment Sigil, but her air ran out, and when we found her a week later, she was as stiff as a yaller dog’s spine. We had to bury her in that barrel; she was stuck tight as a tick. See what happens to people who cheat?”
Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) Page 9
