Page 143 of Sky Song
Zaron, hair standing up and face smeared with someone else’s blood, wrung his hands. “What happened to the no bloodshed in the club rule?”
Paloma cursed in the background and Ren blinked owlishly.
“Today is an in-service day,” Lyle offered as a cop out.
Zaron stared dumbly at the bodies. “We could’ve handled it without killing anyone. And Mark - he wasn’t a half-bad bouncer.”
Lyle’s face hardened, his energy warping briefly before settling. “If that motherfucker rose now, I’d kill him again.”
People in the corner shrunk back together as one.
“And this is the guy you trust to take you across the Universe?” Zaron addressed Ren.
“Now, now, Uncle Z.” Ren made pacifying gestures with his hands. “We’re all a little traumatized right now. Let’s not provoke another fight.” His eyes cut meaningfully at Lyle.
Lyle scrubbed his face with both hands. “I need a timeout.”
“Not a bad idea,” Ren agreed under his breath.
“I’ll spend some time by myself.”
Cricket was still clinging to Lyle. He took her into his embrace carefully, tenderly. “I’m going to move away now, myhearts,” he whispered for her ears alone. “Remember, I can smell you.”
“Lyle…” Was she ever going to say something more meaningful than his name? But he didn’t need other words to understand her. He flashed her his gap-toothed smile, briefly transforming into the Lyle he used to be.
He disengaged from Cricket and moved to the door.
“What am I supposed to do about this butchery?” Zaron wailed. “The peacekeepers will close my Atticus, and that’s the best-case scenario.”
Lyle stopped and sighed. “I’ll take away the bodies. You clean the blood off and open as usual tomorrow, then pretend to be outraged at your bouncer quitting without notice.”
“You’re a real number, are you?”
Lyle hefted Mark’s bloody corpse onto his shoulder. “What can I say? Taking Care of Business is my middle name.”
The week that followed proved stressful, compounded by Cricket’s inability to leave Ren’s and Rosamma’s apartment.
Ren moved back home, what with Atticus becoming a hot spot in the wake of Mark’s disappearance.
The investigators had arrived a few days after the fight, when Mark was reported missing. Because it was Mark’s official place of work, the peacekeepers sat Zaron down and interrogated him at the club. He feigned ignorance and concern for Mark so convincingly, that the peacekeepers almost believed him.
No one had asked after Gus or the Tarai - possibly because the two had never gotten reported as missing, or because their connection to Atticus hadn’t been established, and Zaron knew better than to bring up their names during the interrogation.
But the peacekeepers were thorough. They dragged Zaron to the precinct and put more pressure on him, and he gave them the performance of his life that, in Paloma’s words, evenmamanwould have struggled to outdo.
Then, the peacekeepers brought in a cadaver dog, which would have found nothing as Lyle had removed the cadavers, but anxious about the traces of blood being discovered despite a thorough bleaching, Zaron made a drastic move and borrowed Hipper. He let the cattoon loose in the club, and once the sniffing dog made the appearance, Hipper went into such a frenzy of yapping, howling and climbing the bar shelves, dropping the bottles and causing such mayhem that the peacekeepers winded down their investigation. There were clearly no cadavers, and the only suspicious thing about Atticus was its smarmy owner.
Zaron got fined for keeping a native animal as a pet and levied heavily for the unsanctioned subfloor that, of course, had been discovered during the search. His license temporarily suspended, he bemoaned the expenses loudly and blamed Cricket and Paloma for leading Ren astray and causing his misfortunes.
Ren didn’t seem to care but Rosamma took it hard. “I can’t believe Uncle Zaron would blame either of you for anything.”
Cricket believed it. “That’s okay, Rosamma. He’s only upset. It’s hard on him, all of it.”
Rosamma’s lips trembled.
Paloma raised her head from the small portable keyboard she had started lugging around, twiddling endlessly with charts and maps, and calculating supplies needed for their full roster of passengers. She had resigned from the daycare. That, like nothing else, made it real to Cricket that they were truly going to depart Meeus soon.
“Come on, Rosamma. It’s Zaron. What did you expect?”
