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I turn to her.
“Bet I outlast you, Nancy Drew.”
The Magistrate reaches over and pulls me back into place.
“You might not even make it past today,” she says.
I give her a look.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that line.”
She leans over and whispers, “I didn’t say you were going to die. Just not make it.”
Before I can ask her what the hell she’s talking about, the Magistrate hands the map to Daja and she folds it up.
“Mr. Pitts, would you join us?” he says.
I go over as he pulls the town bigwigs he’s been talking to aside.
“I have tried reasoning with these people,” he says. “I have tried cajoling them and even promising rewards, but none has taken it upon themselves to be cooperative. What do you think of that?”
I look over the sad sacks. Shrug.
“Maybe they don’t know anything. Look at them. I’m surprised they can even talk. Where the hell are we?”
“On an important ley line that passes right by this town.”
“What makes you think they know that?”
The Magistrate brightens and sweeps his hand across the crowd.
“Because we are in a town of holy people. Priests. Nuns. Rabbis. Mullahs.”
I point at the woman in the evening gown.
“Then why is she dressed like Joey Heatherton?”
“She has been here so long that her vestments rotted away, the poor dear. She had no choice.”
“And you think these losers know something about your crusade?”
“I told you I was a student of psychology. I know they know something.”
“You’re a goddamn mind reader, too?”
“The Magistrate knows something about everything. He’s a genius,” says Daja, a proud kid who knows that her daddy can beat up your daddy.
“Fine. Say you’re right,” I say. “Maybe you should give these poor slobs some food or water. Then maybe they could think straight.”
“They have gone without for too long. The shock to their system might send them to Tartarus without us lifting a finger. What a waste of scant resources,” he says.
“Why are you telling me all this? Why am I even here?”
“This is my domain. What exists here without knowledge exists here in defiance.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“He’s calling them liars,” says Daja.
