Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Angua looked panicky.

'Where does it show?'

'It's the smell, girl. Din't you learn nuffm? Smelled you a mile orf. I thought, oh-ho, what's one of them doing in the Watch, eh?'

Angua waved a finger wildly.

'If you tell anyone—!'

The dog looked more pained than normal.

'No-one'd listen,' it said.

'Why not?'

' 'Cos everyone knows dogs can't talk. They hear me, see, but unless things are really tough they just think they're thinking to 'emselves.' The little dog sighed. 'Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. I've read books. Well . . . chewed books.'

It scratched an ear again. 'Seems to me,' it said, 'we could help each other . . .'

'In what way?'

'Well, you could put me in the way of a pound of steak. That does wonders for my memory, steak. Makes it go clean away.'

Angua frowned.

'People don't like the word “blackmail”,' she said.

'It ain't the only word they don't like,' said the dog. 'Take my case, now. I've got chronic intelligence. Is that any use to a dog? Did I ask for it? Not me. I just finds a cushy spot to spend my nights along at the High Energy Magic building at the University, no-one told me about all this bloody magic leaking out the whole time, next thing I know I open me eyes, head starts fizzing like a dose of salts, oh-oh, thinks I, here we go again, hello abstract conceptualizing, intellectual development here we come. . . What bloody use is that to me? Larst time it happened, I ended up savin' the world from horrible wossnames from the Dungeon Dimensions, and did anyone say fanks? Wot a Good Dog, Give Him A Bone? Har har.' It held up a threadbare paw. 'My name's Gaspode. Something like this happens to me just about every week. Apart from that, I'm just a dog.'

Angua gave up. She grasped the moth-eaten limb and shook it.

'My name's Angua. You know what I am.' 'Forgotten it already,' said Gaspode.

Captain Vimes looked at the debris scattered across the courtyard from a hole in one of the ground-floor rooms. All the surrounding windows had broken, and there was a lot of glass underfoot. Mirror glass. Of course, assassins were notoriously vain, but mirrors would be in rooms, wouldn't they? You wouldn't expect a lot of glass outside. Glass got blown in, not out.

He saw Lance-Constable Cuddy bend down and pick up a couple of pulleys attached to a piece of rope, which was burned at one end.

There was a rectangle of card in the debris.

The hairs on the back of Vimes' hand prickled.

He sniffed rankness in the air.

Vimes would be the first to admit that he wasn't a good copper, but he'd probably be spared the chore because lots of other people would happily admit it for him. There was a certain core of stubborn bloody-mindedness there which upset important people, and anyone who upsets important people is automatically hot a good copper. But he'd developed instincts. You couldn't live on the streets of a city all your life without them. In the same way that the whole jungle subtly changes at the distant approach of the hunter, there was an alteration in the feel of the city.

There was something happening here, something wrong, and he couldn't quite see what it was. He started to reach down—

'What is the meaning of this?'

Vimes straightened up. He did not turn around.

'Sergeant Colon, I want you to go back to the Watch House with Nobby and Detritus,' he said. 'Corporal Carrot and Lance-Constable Cuddy, you stay with me.'

'Yes, sah!' said Sergeant Colon, stamping heavily and ripping off a smart salute to annoy the Assassins. Vimes acknowledged it.

Then he turned around.

'Ah, Dr Cruces,' he said.