Chapter 19 #3
When he died, Skotch had gone to considerable effort to conceal it.
Had a discreet mole artisan in to boil the shell and shine it up with Turtle Wax polish, as presentable a memorial as any body laid out at a wake.
He’d put it about that Ikelos was hibernating.
He’d kept the place clean. And, in return, had access to the tech the tortoise had brought with him, and to that one other thing.
The shell. The big hollow shell that stood in for the last remains of Ikelos of Santorini, secretly deceased.
A space he’d stocked with his own little stash of food and water.
When he’d been with Meece that one time, in Madparrot Alley; as they’d listened to the sound of Tybelle fighting off the parrots just round the corner, he’d made the snap decision.
Told the mouse about this place, and how to get in.
Not like genius Doctor Meece couldn’t remember a few access codes, after all.
And all that time, as Skotch had dodged from one set of hands to another, Meece had been hunkered down here in Ikelos’ nook, in his very shell, as weird a mock turtle as the world never saw.
While Skotch had tried to work out what to do with a mouse who seemed to be simultaneously saviour and destroyer, perhaps on a scale that would topple all of Neuwien.
And now he’s come to collect, and he forgot to watch his back. Assuming any amount of watching would have seen Szerky coming.
Szerky knocks again and snickers. “Why your friend sounds quite hollow, Herr Skotch. Perhaps he’s out.
And the problem with leaving your home empty is that little vermin will sneak in.
” She darts another look at the shell, her neck snaking to let her look at the seam where plastron meets carapace.
The catch there is hidden, but she sees it.
He sees the satisfied flick of her ears.
He goes for her. He didn’t particularly intend to, but that smug little movement cues him.
And, because he didn’t intend to, he gives her no warning.
Is on her even as she’s turning back to him.
She jabs the gun at him but he gets an arm in the way.
A handful of stingers spit out across Ikelos’ nook and rattle at his screens and wiring, eviscerated insects ejecting from the breech to get trampled underfoot.
But Skotch actually has hands on her, digging in with his claws, using his greater strength and bulk.
She writhes in his grip like a serpent. Her teeth snap at his eyes and he leans back.
He’s trying to smash her against the wall but she won’t keep still for it.
It’s like trying to hold on to an eel. There’s a flash of pain: she has a blade out, cutting at his thumb.
He flails her at the floor like a whip and she actually shrieks with outrage and—he hopes—pain.
Something snaps in him and he goes for her with his teeth.
It’s what fights between Gehirner always devolve to.
The thin veneer of civilized engineering rubs off mighty fast in a scrum.
Her fur, her blood in his mouth, her own vise jaws closing about his arm.
For a moment they both hold fast. Then she’s raking her little knuckle-knife at his face and he lets go.
They break, both bloodied. Her eyes shine like gems. The fight is something she feeds off, while Skotch is drained by it.
Maybe she’s right about the whole warrior thing.
The bee gun is lying on the ground. Skotch goes for it, hoping that she’s hopped up enough on bloodlust that she’s forgotten her ranged options.
She’s a second behind as he begins his lunge, a second ahead as he ends it.
They both get hands on the weapon. He feels the uncomfortable vibration of its living contents.
It’s made too small for his hands to close about it properly, though, and she twists it from his grip, ends up with it practically shoved up his nose.
Breathing fast, eyes wide, as excited as if this was courtship.
“Why, Herr Skotch,” she hisses delightedly. “Who would have thought you had such exertions in you.”
He waits for the shot, the brief but savage agony of a lethal anaphylactic reaction. Instead she coils back from him, every part of her in sinuous motion save the hand that holds the gun.
“Let us at least have an audience for your execution, Herr Skotch,” she tells him, and flicks the catches of the shell.
Ikelos of Santorini’s cenotaph of a shell hinges open smoothly. Inside there are empty water bottles, SLG wrappers, scraps of crumpled paper written over with alchemical notation. No mouse.
“What?” Szerky demands. Skotch can only echo the sentiment. The mouse was right here. They spoke not so long ago. He’d been waiting for Skotch. That was the plan.
The little squeaker ran out on me. And maybe he shouldn’t blame Meece for not trusting one raccoon’s personal Damascene conversion, but in that moment he’s still absolutely furious at being outmanoeuvred by a mouse.
Every bit as much as Szerky. And she looks to him, jabbing the gun, but obviously reads his reaction as genuine.
Meece has pulled one over on the both of them.
Or maybe not. Because, from beyond the open door to Ikelos’ sanctum rings a single high, clear note.
Tybelle leans her head into the doorway. The sound of her bell slowly fades into the growing silence.
“Aw,” she says to Szerky, mock solicitous. “What were you expecting to find in that shell, Fraulein Stoat?” Luxuriously licking her lips. “Meece’s pieces?”