The priests and nuns also liked you to set an example. He'd happily swallow his doubts and buy some new rosary beads and show up for a few masses for Blake's sake.
He checked his tribal city pass as he left the church by the public side door. He wore it around his neck on a shoelace tether: a cardboard emblem the size of a bar coaster emblazoned with a two-color circle of blue and white copied from the BMW logo. The Grogs of the Waterway Guides had a knack for picking up on designs of deep spiritual significance. He shared a hobbyist's enthusiasm for fishing with a clan chief and they gave him his Looie foot pass at a steep discount.
The well-maintained shotgun formerly of F. A. James greased the transaction, of course. Offering up the weapons of a killed enemy transferred spiritual power to the Waterway. Valentine had been glad to be rid of its weight and associate memories.
Just across the corner from the cathedral was the dormitory and school. Even his limp became a little less pronounced as he bounced up the steps and signed in with the desk warden. She wore her foot pass in the form of an oversized earring, which swung as she pulled on a bell cord.
"He's still downstairs?" Valentine asked when Monsignor Cutcher welcomed him back.
"And thriving like a mushroom", the bristle-haired Jesuit said. He spoke with a faint accent, indefinite but distinctly European when compared with the usual Midwestern drawl of the Looies, and sometimes chose odd similes. Cutcher was the most well-traveled man Valentine had ever met, and had come all the way from Malta to assist with Blake, though he spoke of Cape Town and Kyushu with equal ease.
Cutcher took him to an alcove with a discreetly placed, heavy wooden door. "He gets the playground all to himself every night", Cutcher said. "We had a dark episode with a squirrel he'd been offering tidy-bits. He gained its trust and then attacked the poor rodent. Just like with the pigeons. He always obeys a warning for a few minutes but forgets unless frequently reminded. Tiresome".
"We may have to move him", Valentine said.
Cutcher paused at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh?"
"I've been informed that they are hunting him. The Freehold is going to fake his death in the documents. I'd like to make sure the trail dead-ends here at the same time".
"There is a small mission in La Crosse. But it may perhaps be easier to hide him somewhere else in this city. Strangers are noticed here... someone snooping around is sure to draw attention of the tribes".
They descended to what had probably once been preparation and scullery rooms for kitchens, judging from the number of sinks. Wooden partitions filled one whole wall, storage space and dormitories for the worst of the summer heat. Valentine's odds and ends filled one; the more permanent trunks of the Bloch brothers rested open in another. Behavioral biologists from the Miskatonic in Pine Bluff, they studied Blake's every intake and excrete, and gave him an occasional medical examination - and then only under supervision Valentine trusted. Getting Narcisse out of Southern Command had been easier than he'd thought: They'd put her to make-work in a convalescent home and treated her more like a patient than a skilled nurse or cook. Will Post had presented her with his offer and arranged to relocate her to a border town where they could be reunited.
Valentine looked forward to giving the Miskatonic fellows their walking papers. Their faces would drop lower than the muddy bottom of the nearby Mississippi.
Valentine smelled food cooking. The Blochs were probably at breakfast. Blake was mostly nocturnal, and they'd adapted their schedules to his.
A squeak of rubber turning on linoleum sounded from the darkness of a corridor ahead.
"I heard your step on the stairs, Daveed", Narcisse said, coming into the dim light reflected from the dirty tile.
Valentine's old guide from Haiti smiled up at him from beneath one of her colorful bandannas. Her face had a few more lines, a few more liver-colored blotches.
"Hello, Sissy".
"You look tired. Rest and eat. Let me pour a bowl of soup for you. There is bread. Olive oil too, from some raid or other. It gives the gray folk the runs something terrible, so they give it to us".
"I'd like to see Blake first".
"Of course".
"I'll say good-bye to you two", Cutcher said. "Feel free to hop up and talk, David, if you have any concerns regarding Blake".
"Will do, Monsignor".
She led him down the hall. They'd mounted a first-aid kit the size of a briefcase on the wall since he'd last been there; Valentine wondered if there'd been worse trouble than with squirrels and pigeons. They entered the incinerator room that now served as the young Reaper's bedroom.
An aged nun with a face like a raisin watched him as he slept, a crack in the basement window admitting a shaft of sleep light.
"David Valentine, we see you again at last", she whispered as she hugged him. "Such a blessing".
Blake had grown like Iowa corn in a hot, thundery summer. Valentine felt the old pain, looked at his wrists, both of which still bore a faint track or two, like needle marks on the addicts he'd seen in Chicago's Zoo. He remembered the exhausting first months with Blake, shuffling him from Nomansland hole to Nomansland hole under cover of darkness, feeding him when there wasn't livestock to be had. He'd looked in a mirror once and thought he was staring at his own ghost.
"Blake", Valentine said from across the room. He could sometimes lash out like a wild animal if he was touched in sleep.
Yellow, slit-pupil eyes opened. The small figure sat up, wearing an old pajama top with characters that Valentine recognized as Ernie and Bert.
"papa", Blake said in his tiny, breathy voice. He sprang out of bed, crossing a meter or more in a clumsy jump.