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“Just because there’s one with us doesn’t mean they don’t have a partner.”
Okay. Logic isn’t working. Let’s try something else.
“Do you have extras or do we need to burn another town looking for one?”
She gives me a look. “Don’t worry your precious little head. We have plenty.”
“The Magistrate thinks of everything.”
“Everything,” she says. “Don’t forget it.”
The dog pack smokes and drinks around us. Wanuri looks to the rear of the havoc, then at me.
“We might as well get this over with. Daja usually plays social secretary, but she’s gone, so I guess it’s up to me,” she says. “Come along, buttercup. Time to meet the others.”
One by one, she introduces me to the other members of the dog pack. The mutilated guy calls himself Johnny Basher. He has an Aussie accent and Hellion runes branded all over his face, the mark of an escape artist, but not a very good one. Runaways in Hell get marked so the guards will know to keep an eye on them. Johnny’s got at least a dozen brands. Maybe he’s not smart, but you have to give him an A for effort.
Most of the others in the pack are the same forgettable assholes you meet in any gang. Loyal idiots with a chip on their shoulder, but a talent for following orders if you keep them simple like “Kick that guy to death.” There’s a toothless weather-beaten one-percenter with heil tattooed on one hand and “1488” on the other. An older woman with a Louise Brooks haircut who looks like she’d be more at home baking cookies for the PTA, except for the small panabas and butcher knives hanging from her belt. A square-jawed guy named Frederickson who looks like an ad executive if it wasn’t for the fact that the whole top of his head is crudely stitched together and looks like it might blow away in a strong breeze. Somewhere, sometime, someone scalped the fucker. I hope he did something to deserve it. The Mohawked Hellion woman who drove Traven’s truck one day is there. The sweat pig whose bike I stole after kicking him in the head. Billy. He’s looks utterly delighted to have me in the fold. Two of the women are twins with mismatched eyes. One has brown and blue. The other has green and gray. Everyone calls the handsome black kid Gisco.
“He sings like an angel, but don’t try talking to him,” Wanuri says. “He only speaks some gibberish. Old Greek or something.”
“Carthaginian,” says Johnny.
“That’s it. Something old as dirt. The Magistrate is the only one who can talk to him. With us, it’s mostly grunts and charades, ain’t that right, Gisco?”
He raises his eyebrows and makes a series of quick hand gestures. Everybody laughs.
“Same to you, sweetheart,” says Wanuri in a teasing way.
I say, “Gisco. You understand what these animals are saying?”
He nods.
“But they don’t understand you?”
He nods again.
I look at Wanuri.
“Interesting. At least I know who the smart one around here is.”
“Fuck off,” says Frederickson.
“Watch your mouth, mate,” says Johnny.
The sweat pig says, “Anyone can sucker-punch, faggot. Fight me face-to-face sometime.”
I say, “I don’t think I could stand looking at you that long.”
“That’s enough,” says Wanuri. “Yes. The kid is smart. That’s why we like having him around.”
“Was Megs smart?”
Everyone laughs at that.
“Is a dog smart?” Wanuri says.
“I don’t know, but one time at a carnival a chicken beat me at tic-tac-toe.”
