Page 94 of Throwing Fire

“Then we seal this fucker up. How many other entrances into the Deeps?”

Acker’s whiskers twitch and the muscles of his chest and shoulders tighten. I wait. He either trusts me or he doesn’t. “Eleven,” he says finally.

I have enough tinglers for eleven entrances. “I brought tinglers. Surveillance system. We set up a tingler at each entrance. That way we know before theOjoscome knocking again. Can you and your people hole up in the Deeps for a few days? Limit ins and outs to one or two entrances that we can defend?”

“Yes. There’s much to do with the wounded and rebuilding what theOjoshave damaged.”

“Good, let’s get on it.”

CHAPTER 34

Give the rats credit, once they’re told what to do, they don’t fuck around.

Acker gives me a team of two young males and a huge female who is as different from Tiancha as night is to day. Kez joins us, cleaned up and smelling a lot better, to help set the tinglers. I give the rats a crash course in creating a surveillance net, and then we split up to set the tinglers in all the entrances. Kez smiles and doesn’t argue when I insist she stay with me, even though it means we’re the last to finish.

By the time we return, Gig has arrived. His nose wrinkles when he greets me, but he doesn’t comment. Just knocks knuckles and hands me a bag that I assume contains fresh clothes, since I have most of my weapons with me. I give him the codes to the tinglers, and he loads them into an apparatus that he’s got spread like a mechanical tegli over what was once Acker’s desk.

Once Gig’s got the network set up, it’ll block any foreign signal as well as report any movement. That’ll be the end of the Ojos’s explosive capabilities. Acker himself leans against the cave wall nearby,eating something with a lot of legs off a skewer. He watches as Gig takes over what used to be his sanctuary. When I’ve finished with Gig, Acker offers me the tray of skewers.

I take two skewers, give one to Kez, draw her warm and safe against my side, and chew contentedly on grilled hopper. “How’s Tee?” I ask Acker.

“Sleeping peacefully. Your man has seen to her.”

“My man?”

“I called Doc Gray while you were gone,” Kez says. “He knows a lot about burns.”

“You have him look at your arm?”

“Yes, he gave me a white derm.” She pulls a face.

I give her a squeeze. Doc Gray’s white derms are an antibiotic cocktail. He stuck six on my neck to fight the infection in my arm. They made me puke and reel around like I was drunk, but they did save me from blood poisoning, so it seemed ungrateful to complain. “He still here?”

“Uh-huh. He wants to see you before he goes.” Kez shuffles under my arm. “He gave me the lecture.”

“Which lecture is that?”

“I’m eating, see? And I haven’t done anything more strenuous than walk around setting tinglers.”

“So that would be the eatin’ and restin’ lecture?”

I’ve had that lecture, too. And thestop putting yourself in situations where you get critically injuredlecture. And thedon’t wait until your arm turns black to call melecture. In fact, I think I’ve had all of Doc Gray’s lectures.

“Yes,” Kez says mulishly. I chuckle and give her another squeeze. My kitten’s a big girl; she knows how to take care of herself under normal circumstances. But these ain’t normal circumstances, and she’s got more than a bit of a martyr-complex, which Doc Gray knows as well as I do. Between the two of us, we’ll make sure she takes care of herself. Even if it goes against her grain.

I take another skewer from the tray Acker’s holding and pass it to Kez. “Since Doc Gray’s already given you the lecture, we don’t need to argue about you takin’ a nap after we finish our bugs.”

Kez tilts her head and glares up at me out of one big blue. “Don’t we?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Mmm.” Not sure she agrees. “What will you be doing while I’m napping?”

Torturing me an Ojos. “Couple things. Once I’m done, I’ll join you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Oh, there’s that gift for inflection. Beside me, Acker chuckles. He might have a woman in his life who uses inflection like an edged weapon, too.