“Ruining the crime scene,” Philip said. “We want to catch the guy. Right now it looks like you did this—”
Buck waved his hand over the long, raw gouges in Spleen’s abdomen. “We both know what manner of beast did this,” he said. “Now the question is, who?”
“I’m cold,” Spleen said. His voice was so weak, and my hand tightened on the rough jacket of the man beside me. Philip jerked, then holstered his weapon, took off his thousand-dollar suit jacket and laid it over Spleen’s body, patting him gently.
“Medics are on the way,” Philip said. “Who did this to—” Spleen reached up and grabbed Philip behind the ear, pulling his head down towards his ratlike face and yellowed eye. Philip just let him do it, listening as Spleen whispered something. Then Philip turned to me and motioned me down.
“Dakota,” he said quietly. “He wants you.” The Good Samaritan helped me bend. I tried to kneel, but couldn’t, so and sat awkwardly in the spreading pool of blood. A second coat—ruined.
“I’m here, Diego,” I said.
“Kotie,” Spleen said in a whisper. “Nobody calls me that no mores.”
Suddenly his hand reached out and pulled my head close. “Kotie, Kotie, you hearing me?” he said. His breath was foul, and I had a close up look of his great, yellowed eye. I’d always thought it was a bad glass fake; now I could see it was real, and diseased. What had happened to his eye? How long had I known Spleen and had never thought to ask?
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said. “Who did this to you?”
“A wolf,” Spleen said, drawing a ragged breath. “Werewolf. Big fucker—”
“No!” I said. “Not Wulf—”
“Not Wulf,” Spleen said, wheezing. “Don’t think. Never caught up with him tonight. Wasn’t supposed to pick him up for another half hour. Don’t think it was Wulf—”
“You don’t think,?” I said, my gut sinking. “You mean, you don’t know? How could you not know?”
“How the hell could I know, Kotie?” Spleen said. “I never asked the bastard to change into a wolf for me. I just took his money.”
“But—”
“Don’t matter. Whole thing’s got too messy. Stay clear of him. Stay clear of this. Don’t let them get you too,” Spleen said intensely—and then his grip slipped on the back of my neck, his left eye went as dull and expressionless as his right, and he sagged back into Lord Buckhead’s arms—still breathing, but not much.
I looked up at Buck. He shook his head sadly and gently lowered Spleen to the pavement. Philip stood, holding his finger to his ear. “How far away is that evac?”
I stared down at Spleen. How long had I known Diego Spillane, and learned nothing about him other than his nickname? How many times had he been there for me and how little had I been there for him? Had I been scared of him all this time just by a little halitosis and a bad eye? Then I saw the antlers of a stag shifting in the shadows, and looked up at Buck.
It had just been a trick of the light as he stood, a moment where the shadow of his statue form overlapped the shadow of his human one. He stood there, tall, proud, and sad. “He is going. I am sorry,” he said. “There’s nothing more I can do here.”
“No, for starters you can tell us what happened,” Philip snapped. Sirens and ambulances were sounding in the distance. “You can help us find who did this—”
“I found him like this in a place he should not have been, a place where you may not go,” Buckhead said, with folded arms. “I brought him here for help. That is all.”
“That is not all,” Philip said. “This is not a fucking joke, ‘Lord Buckhead.’”
“You are not ready to learn all of the secrets of the Edgeworld,” Buckhead said.
“I’ve seen things even you wouldn’t believe,” Philip shot back.
“Guys,” I said. “He’s… he’s going.”
A long, low sigh escaped Spleen’s lips, and his head slowly slumped to the left.
I stared at him a long time, then looked up to find Philip, Buckhead and our Good Samaritan all standing at attention. Then Buckhead sighed. “I am going,” he said. “I am sorry. Lady Dakota, I will pass along anything I learn of this crime.”
Then he stepped round the statue of the Storyteller, or into it; because when Philip ran around the statue after him, he emerged from the other side alone.