The Truth (Discworld 25)

'Sure. No point in coming back dead. Who'd notice the --ing difference?'

Mr Pin opened his mouth to reply, and Mr Tulip saw his expression change.

'Someone's got their hand on my shoulder!' he hissed.

'You feeling all right, Mr Pin?'

'You can't see anyone?'

'Nope.'

Clenching his fists, Mr Pin turned round. There were plenty of people in the street, but no one gave him a second glance.

He tried to reorganize the jigsaw that his mind was rapidly becoming.

'Okay. Okay,' he said. 'What we'll do... we'll go back to the house, okay, and... and we'll get the rest of the diamonds, and we'll scrag Charlie, and, and... we'll find a vegetable shop... any special kind of potato?'

'Nope.'

'Right... but first...' Mr Pin stopped, and his mind's ear heard footsteps stop behind him a moment later. The damn vampire had done something to him, he knew. The darkness had been like a tunnel, and there had been things...

Mr Pin believed in threats, and in violence, and at a time like this he believed in revenge. An inner voice that currently passed for sanity was making a clamour, but it was overruled by a deeper and more automatic response.

'That bloody vampire did this,' he said. 'And killing a vampire... hey... that's practically good, right?' He brightened. Salvation beckoned through Holy Works. 'Everyone knows they have evil occult powers. Could even count in a man's favour, eh?'

'Yeah. But... who cares?'

'I do.'

'Okay.' Even Mr Tulip didn't argue with that tone of voice. Mr ,Pin could be inventively unpleasant. Besides, part of the code was that you did not leave an insult unavenged. Everyone knew that.

It was just that nervousness was beginning to percolate even into the bath-salt-and-worming-powder-ravaged pathways of his own brain. He'd always admired the way Mr Pin wasn't frightened of difficult things, like long sentences.

'What'll we use?' he said. 'A stake?'

'No,' said Mr Pin. 'With this one I want to be certain.'

He lit a cigarette, with a hand that shook just a little, and then let the match flare up.

'Ah. Right,' said Mr Tulip.

'Let's just do it,' said Mr Pin.

Rocky's brow furrowed as he looked at the seals nailed around the doors of the de Worde town house.

'What's dem things?' he said.

They're to say the Guilds will interest themselves in anyone who breaks in,' said Sacharissa, fumbling with the key. 'It's a sort of curse. Only it works.'

'Dat one's the Assassins?' said the troll, indicating a crude shield with the cloak-and-dagger and double-cross.

'Yes. It means there's an automatic contract out on anyone who breaks in.'

'Wouldn't want dem interested in me. Good job you got a key...'

The lock clicked. The door opened at a push.

Sacharissa had been in a number of Ankh-Morpork's great houses, when the owners had thrown parts of them open to the public in aid of some of the more respectable charities. She hadn't realized how a building could change when people no longer wanted to live in it. It felt threatening and out of scale. The doorways were too big, the ceilings too high. The musty, empty atmosphere descended on her like a headache.