Hibla squared her shoulders. "My father was a dispatcher at the Gagra railroad station. When the Shift happened, he turned into a jackal in the middle of the station. Once the magic wave was over, the railroad guards cornered him and shot him, and when he wouldn't die, they threw him under the incoming train. And then they hunted down our family. Me, my mother, and my two brothers, we had to run into the mountains with nothing but the clothes on our backs. When I walk through the town now, people bow to me. You want to know why I follow Lord Megobari? I do it because I am not the one in the cage. You can be outraged all you want. It bothers me not at all."
The prisoner clutched his stomach and vomited water onto himself.
Hibla sneered. "Abzamuk."
The man shook his head, drank another desperate swallow, and hugged the canteen to him. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Christopher. Christopher. I am."
"Why did they put you into the cage?" Derek asked.
"I stole. Very bad, very, very bad. Wrong. It was a book. I wanted the knowledge." His gaze fixed on me. "Beautiful lady, kind lady. Thank you."
Derek glanced at me. "He isn't all there."
No, he definitely wasn't. Either he was nuts to begin with or sitting in the cage shook a few screws loose. Crazy or not, the desperation in his face was real. Hugh could let him die in this cage and it wouldn't bother him at all. It bothered the hell out of me.
"Christopher, today a guard died on top of the tower," I told him. "Did you see what happened?"
He looked at me with eyes that were luminescent with a mix of innocence and wonder. "I see everything. I see wonders."
Right. Lights were on, but nobody was home. "Could you tell me what you saw?"
"A beast." The man raised his hands, his fingers spread like claws. "Big, orange beast. Swooped down-whoosh-dead doggie."
Dead doggie was right.
"It is the hunter of heavens. A celestial protector."
Celestial protector. Chinese legends spoke of dragons that acted as celestial guardians, but none of them looked like cats with wings. "What do you mean by 'celestial protector'?"
"A guardian who no longer guards. A predator of the sky."
That didn't help me any. "In what country would I look for this predator?"
"It doesn't exist." Christopher gave a sad smile. "Rocks and memories forgotten."
"What happened after the beast killed the guard?"
"Then I died for a little while. I often die, but just for a minute or two. Death never stays. She only visits."
"Christopher, focus. What did the beast do after he attacked the woman?"
"I will tell you. I will tell you all, but water." Christopher held the canteen upside down, his face sad. "No more. All empty. Nothing left. Sonst nichts."
That last bit sounded German.
"You give me more water and I will tell you. Everything." Christopher nodded.
"You'll tell her everything anyway," Hibla growled. "Or-"
Or nothing. "Derek, please give me your canteen."
Derek handed the canteen to me. I held it up. Christopher focused on the canteen.
"Tell me what you saw and it's yours."
"Water first."
"No. Information first."
Christopher licked his lips.
I moved the canteen toward Derek. I would go to hell for this.
"The beast took the woman. Off the wall. There!" Christopher pointed at the wall. "It bit her neck and carried her away."
On the other side of the wall was a sheer cliff. Made sense. Tamara was a grown woman, at a minimum an extra hundred pounds of deadweight, probably more. To carry her off, the beast would have to start a glide somewhere high. Leaping off the wall with several hundred feet of clear air under you would be perfect and nobody could follow it. Our investigation just withered at the root and died.
"Did the beast speak? Did you see anything else?"
Christopher shook his head and reached for the water. We wouldn't get anything else out of him. I gave him the canteen. He clutched it and hid it under his rags. Crazy, yes. Dumb, no.
We walked away.
"I shared with you," Hibla said. "What are your thoughts?"
I had to be diplomatic. "I'm formally advising you to double the patrols."
"We will," Hibla said. Green rolled over her eyes. She'd asked for my advice, but she really didn't like me telling her what to do.
Diplomatic. "Did you tell Lord Megobari about this?"
She raised her chin. "We provide security. It is our problem."
Right. Someone in the castle was turning into a giant creature nobody had ever seen before and then making off with the guards, but let's not tell the person in charge about it. Why, that would be ridiculous. In fact, let's keep him in the dark as long as possible, so when he's attacked, he will be caught completely off-guard. Kick-ass strategy.
"Glorious lady!" Christopher called from the cage. "You are so kind!"
At least I had made his life easier, if only for a little while. "We need to see the top of the main tower."
Hibla raised her chin. "I will take you."
As we walked away, Christopher grabbed the bars. He didn't say anything. He just sat there and watched us walk away.
"You seem to think that I know nothing," Hibla said, as we walked through the hallway up to another set of stairs. "I am good at what I do."
You know what, screw it. "I get it. You probably worked hard to get where you are now. You run this place the way you want to run it, and usually you have no issues. Now you have a castle full of heavy hitters who are at each other's throats, a human who is stepping on your toes, and some weird creatures that are killing your people. You are trusted and you don't want to let anyone down. This is your home and your job. I don't want either."
She stared at me. I couldn't tell if I was getting through or not.
"All I want to do is to keep my people safe and go home. We are not opposed to each other. We want the same thing: you want us gone, and I want to be gone. I'm not a threat. I have experience, and together we would be much stronger. You must realize this, because you found us and brought us to your murder scene. But I can't work with you if every time I suggest something or question something, you bristle like a hysterical hedgehog. You can choose your pride and lose more people, or you can work with me. You still might lose more people, but at least you'll know you did everything you could to avoid that. Let me know what you decide."