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.
"Jumping", Narcisse warned, and the obsidian-toothed mouth formed a regretful "o".
Valentine took Blake up, turned the child's head up and away from his breast - no sense taking chances, and besides, he wanted a good look at the growing face. He was shocked at the weight gain. At two years and three months, Blake was a good deal heavier than a human child his size, perhaps the weight of a five-or six-year-old. "papa bek. papa bek. see bwaykh!"
"Yes, I'm back". Valentine's wary ears picked up a faint thump from beneath the cot and a little terrier mix appeared, wiggling as it scooted out.
"That's Wobble", Narcisse said. "Blake got heem as a puppy".
"wobbow not for eat", Blake informed Valentine, his blue-veined face going serious.
Wobble had a bare patch on his back and a tiny ridge of scar tissue, and a bit of a limp. Valentine wondered how many close calls Wobble had survived before Blake had finally learned.
"Of course he's not for eating", Valentine said, going down cross-legged - with a twinge from his bad left leg - so he could set Blake's formidable weight down and pet the squirmy dog. Of course when he'd run with Southern Command's Wolves he'd learned to dine on dog and had eaten them innumerable times since, but what was civilization but a lengthy set of agreed-upon tribal taboos?
Despite his change in size, Blake's grip on his arm and shoulder was a good deal more gentle than he remembered. What accidental pains Narcisse had suffered to her shattered body as Blake's nursemaid Valentine couldn't imagine.
Blake began to produce his favorite toys.
Which reminded Valentine. "I had a letter from Will and Gail. Ali tracked me down".
"A letter!" Narcisse said. The St. Louis Grogs weren't on any postal network. "What it said?"
Valentine handed her the grease-stained envelope, spiderwebbed with creases. "You can read it". Valentine went back to helping Blake work a spinning top made out of an old office-chair caster.