Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett [52]
“But it pushes along well by the handle,” said Modo. “I’m amazed that anyone would want to throw it away. Why would anyone want to throw away something like this, Mr. Poons?”
Windle stared at the trolley. He couldn’t escape the feeling that it was watching him.
He heard himself say, “Maybe it got there by itself.”
“That’s right, Mr. Poons! It wanted a bit of peace, I expect!” said Modo. “You are a one!”
“Yes,” said Windle, unhappily. “It rather looks that way.”
He stepped out into the city, aware of the scraping and thumping of the door behind him.
If someone had told me a month ago, he thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door…why, I’d have laughed at them.
No, I wouldn’t. I’d have said “eh?” and “what?” and “speak up!” and wouldn’t have understood anyway.
Beside him, someone barked.
A dog was watching him. It was a very large dog. In fact, the only reason it could be called a dog and not a wolf was that everyone knew you didn’t get wolves in cities.
It winked. Windle thought: no full moon last night.
“Lupine?” he ventured.
The dog nodded.
“Can you talk?”
The dog shook its head.
“So what do you do now?”
Lupine shrugged.
“Want to come with me?”
There was another shrug that almost vocalized the thought: why not? What else have I got to do?
If someone had told me a month ago, Windle thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door and accompanied by a kind of negative version of a werewolf…why, I probably would have laughed at them. After they’d repeated themselves a few times, of course. In a loud voice.
The Death of Rats rounded up the last of his clients, many of whom had been in the thatch, and led the way through the flames toward wherever it was that good rats went.
He was surprised to pass a burning figure forcing its way through the incandescent mess of collapsed beams and crumbling floorboards. As it mounted the blazing stairs it removed something from the disintegrating remains of its clothing and held it carefully in its teeth.
The Death of Rats did not wait to see what happened next. While it was, in some respects, as ancient as the first proto-rat, it was also less than a day old and still feeling its way as a Death, and it was possibly aware that a deep, thumping noise that was making the building shake was the sound of brandy starting to boil in its barrels.
The thing about boiling brandy is that it doesn’t boil for long.
The fireball dropped bits of the inn half a mile away. White-hot flames erupted from the holes where the doors and windows had been. The walls exploded. Burning rafters whirred overhead. Some buried themselves in neighboring roofs, starting more fires.
What was left was just an eye-watering glow.
And then little pools of shadow, within the glow.
They moved and ran together and formed the shape of a tall figure striding forward, carrying something in front of it.
It passed through the blistered crowd and trudged up the cool dark road toward the farm. The people picked themselves up and followed it, moving through the dusk like the tail of a dark comet.
Bill Door climbed the stairs to Miss Flitworth’s bedroom and laid the child on the bed.
SHE SAID THERE WAS AN APOTHECARY SOMEWHERE NEAR HERE.
Miss Flitworth pushed her way through the crowd at the top of the stairs.
“There’s one in Chambly,” she said. “But there’s a witch over Lancre way.”
NO WITCHES. NO MAGIC. SEND FOR HIM. AND EVERYONE ELSE, GO AWAY.
It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t even a command. It was simply an irrefutable statement.
Miss Flitworth waved her skinny arms at the people.
“Come on, it’s all over! Shoo! You’re all in my bedroom! Go on, get out!”
“How’d he do it?” said someone at the back of the crowd. “No one could have got out of there alive! We saw it all blow up!”
Bill Door turned around slowly.
WE HID, he said, IN THE CELLAR.