Dead to Rites Read Online Free Page B

over my head for a year. Or over the Ottatis’ heads, either, for that matter. It’d be not just neat and convenient, but a genuine relief, to have done with the bastard.
    So yeah, on the one hand, I mighta been a bit more closed-minded to other possibilities than I ought to have been. But on the other, it
did
all fit. Somebody swapping faces the way most people change underwear woulda explained why I felt like I was bein’ shadowed but couldn’t catch anyone,
and
the upsurge in the curious masses asking about me. It came together, top to bottom.
    Except…
    Ramona. Why the hell would Goswythe be asking about Ramona? I’d only spent a few days around her, in the middle of the biggest influx of Fae your half of Chicago’d seen in a good while. At most, she shoulda been lumped in with my other occasional contacts. For Goswythe—yeah, yeah, or whoever—to be asking about her specifically? Meant someone either had a much stronger idea of the connection I’d shared with her, however much bunk it mighta proved to be afterward, than anybody should…
    Or that whatever was goin’ on wasn’t just about me, but was about her, too. She might actually be a target, not just a means to get to yours truly.
    Did I care? I shouldn’t care. And if I did, was it really me caring? Did the damn broad still have any magic hooks in me?
    Goddamn it.
    “Do me a favor, Franky? See if you can find out from any of the others if they’ve seen more’n one of these ginks at a time?” I didn’t figure any of ’em had—and it’d totally sink my Goswythe theory if they had—but better to be certain.
    “Sure thing, Mick. Um, okay if I call you, though? Running back and forth across town like this…”
    Makes you look up to your ears in whatever’s going on.
But he’d already stuck his neck out, and if it wasn’t entirely on my behalf, well, he’d still put me wise to something I really hadda know about. So, much as the skin on my ears crawled just thinkin’ of the damn payphone hanging in the hall near my office…
    “Yeah, the horn’s fine. Just keep tryin’ back if I ain’t here.”
    “You got it.”
    “Hey, Franky?”
    He stopped in the middle of turning away, each foot on a different step. “Yeah?”
    “Thanks.”
    Heh. Between that’n the earlier apology, he’d be off-balance for days. I really did mean it, though.
    Franky opened the door above and—since the sun had gone and bunked while we were talking—disappeared between the streetlights. I hit the sidewalk just a minute behind him, hands in my coat pockets and leaning into the nighttime breeze. I had more’n a few questions dangling in front of me, some new, some that’d gone unanswered for over a year now. I didn’t figure it made any kinda sense to wait until morning to get started.

CHAPTER THREE
    So, which fish did I wanna try’n hook?
    Goswythe had managed to duck me for a year, and I had no good cause to think he’d be easier to find now. Although, if he was active again—and all indications suggested “yep” on that one—maybe he would be.
    Somewhat easier, but not much. It’d probably be less of a trip for biscuits to hunt up the delightful Ramona Webb instead.
    But while that might be simpler, it also meant dealing face-to-face with the aforementioned Miss Webb. And I just wasn’t sure how eager I was to do that. If she was mixed up in whatever trouble’d come knocking on my door this time around, it was probably inevitable, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t put it off as long as inhumanly possible. Frankly, I’d rather have faced down a whole chopper squad or even a few Seelie knights with iron blades. All
they
could do was kill me.
    So how to find the
phouka
palooka? No way Franky or the crew knew from nothin’. I hadn’t asked around about Goswythe in a while, but I’d poked ’em about him often enough when I first started looking that they knew I was still gunnin’ for the guy. If they’d heard something about him, I’da heard