Yowler Foul-Up by David Lee Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

noticing on the edge of his vision that the gambling pits were opening for business.
    “You don’t look very fast,” he said to the bird, edging carefully toward the alley mouth. “I could probably outrun you.”
    The bird hopped along the wall. “Try it,” came the squawk.
    “I might, at that,” Jimmy said, and darted off across the road. The bird took flight and flapped speedily after him. The chase had begun.
    Jimmy ran like lightning.
    The bird flew like a bullet.
    Jimmy slipped through the door of the inn.
    The bird hit it.
    “ Squawk ! Squaark ! I’ll get you yet, sonny. However long it takes, I’ll be waiting. You’ll rue the day you ever pulled the wool over my beak!”
    The barrowbird flapped against the wood a few times, then flew up to sulk on the swinging sign of a nearby tavern.
    Just after three o’clock, two bouncers carried out the comatose figure of a young man, dumping it unceremoniously in the alley across the street.
    Before they disappeared back inside the murky depths of their pit, one of the bouncers was sure that he heard a menacing and somehow feathery cackle.

FIFTEEN
    K ARUIM’S CHURCH WAS UNIQUE in that it was the only building on Oval Square to have its entrance on Bark Street. Well, unique was perhaps too strong a word. After all, the buildings that occupied the other side of the square would’ve been hard-pressed to have their entrances on Bark Street without some sort of magic door in use. Nevertheless, Karuim’s spurned the palace which dominated Oval Square, and many took this to be indicative of the Yowlers’ notorious defiance in the face of royalty. Not that the church was wholly Yowler-run: it hadn’t been so since a breakaway faction had claimed it a little more than a year ago.
    The church itself was an eyesore, black as pitch and thoroughly shapeless, with an ugly gaping hole where its doors should have been. Worshippers walked into this cave mouth and through the ensuing tunnel system before emerging into the dark expanse of the sanctuary proper.
    It was a frightening journey, especially for Grab Dafisful, who was increasingly of the opinion that his every move was being watched, and not by a bird. In fact, he couldn’t help but feel, as he was about to deliver his sack to the church’s vestry, that the kind of eyes currently monitoring his progress were the sort that traveled back and forth to a belt dagger between glimpses. Sweat beading on his forehead, Grab reached for his own blade.
    “Hmm … I’d move that hand back pretty sharpish if I were you, especially since you’ve got only the one.”
    Grab froze; the voice had come from behind him. His hand hovered an inch or so above his belt.
    “Throw down the knife,” the voice commanded. “You shouldn’t bring such things into a house of the gods.”
    The dagger clanked onto the stone floor, followed by three smaller blades and a set of knuckledusters.
    “Well, well, well,” the voice continued. “You do come prepared, Mr. Dafisful. Now, please deposit your burden into the pew at your extreme left. Very good. Now, face front and prepare to answer a few questions.”
    While Grab did as he was told, a hand snaked around from behind him and snatched up the sack.
    “Where’s my money?” he shouted, being careful not to move a muscle.
    “All in good time,” said the voice. “First, the questions.”
    There followed some sort of commotion in the shadows before Grab noticed two cloaked shapes moving up the aisles on either side of him. Once in the center of the sanctuary, they separated, to stand not more than six feet apart. When given occasion to speak, they spoke together, more, Grab fancied, to disguise their individual voices than to create an air of mystery. It worked; the only thing he could be sure of was that one was male, the other female.
    “Thief Dafisful. You have done as the brotherhood commanded?”
    Grab nodded. “I ’ave.”
    “You have retrieved no less than ten Batchtiki from the