“I’m a luduan!” it said huffily.
I looked it over. It would be maybe three feet tall in its stocking feet, if it had feet, which it didn’t, or was designed to walk standing up, which it wasn’t. The body covered in golden brown fur looked a lot like a dog’s, except for the too-large lionlike head with a curly brown mane. To further confuse the issue, it had a unicorn-type horn in the center of its forehead.
“Dog-ish,” I corrected.
“Give me my cat!” it demanded.
“Or what? You’ll smite me like a Balrog?”
The golden eyes narrowed. “I quote Tolkien because he puts it better. But I can still open a can of whup ass all over you.”
“You’re right,” I told him. “He does put it better.”
The creature used its horn to snag a radio by the handle, preparing to launch it at me. I dangled the kitty over the long drop. “Just try it.”
His face crumpled. “Oh, come on. Don’t do that. You’ll scare her!”
“Maybe we can work something out,” I offered.
He sighed in resignation. “I don’t have any money, okay? So you can tell whichever one of those sharks you’re working for that he’s wasting his time.”
“I don’t want money.”
“And you’re not getting a pound of flesh, either!”
“I’m not here to beat you up.”
The big head tilted. “Then why are you here?”
I pulled the cat back in. She didn’t look particularly scared to me. Maybe because the “body” down below had vanished like the cut-rate illusion it was. “I just want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About what happened at Ray’s place last night.”
He blinked those enormous eyes at me. “Come again?”
“You heard me.”
“No, I didn’t. That’s the kind of talk that could get my horn ground up.” He petted it nervously. “It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac, you know? Not that it’s done me any good lately. Do you know how few lady luduans are in existence?”
“Not really.”
“Neither do I,” he said miserably. “I just know there’s none around here.”
“That’s a bitch. Now are you going to help me or not?”
“Not!”
“Here, kitty, kitty.”
“Cut that out!”
“Look, you can talk to me, or you can talk to Fin’s boys. They’re waiting downstairs. But I’m nicer.” He shot me a look. “Okay, that was a lie. But I can help you out.”
“How?”
“Tell me what you know, and I get you off the hook with Fin.” I couldn’t afford it, but if it helped Louis-Cesare, I didn’t think Mircea was going to quibble about the expense account.
He looked at me for a long moment, those lamp-lit eyes brighter than the streetlight across the road. “Touch the horn,” he finally said.
It was my turn to look wary. “Is this something kinky?”
“As if.” He sniffed. “You’re not my type.”
Thank God for small mercies. “If you poison me, I can’t help you with Fin,” I pointed out.
He yawned, showing a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. They matched the talons at the end of its paws. “Relax. All that was just good propaganda. Not that I don’t know a few tricks, mind you.”
“Like the flame of—”
“Shut up.”
I decided I didn’t have time to be cautious, hiked up to the third-floor landing and touched the horn. And no sooner had my finger brushed the tip than he rammed it into my skin. “Ouch!”
“Don’t be such a baby,” he told me, as my blood sank into the apparently porous bone. His eyes rolled up in his head, and he sat there, humming and making these weird faces. I let him get away with it for maybe a minute, and then I gave the kitty a little squeeze. The spoiled thing mewed, and his eyes shot open. “You’re a piece of work—you know that?” he demanded.
“I told you this had better not be kinky.”
“It isn’t!”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Like that’s hard,” he sneered. “And you may as well let Pooky go. I know you won’t drop her.”
“Wanna bet?”
He sighed. “Lady—or may I call you Dorina?”
“No!”
“Okay, Dorina, it’s like this. I’m a luduan. I taste your blood, and I know what kind of person you are, whether you’re lying to me, yadda yadda.” He waved a paw. “You know the score, or you wouldn’t be here. Don’t waste my time.”
I sighed and pulled a gun. “You’re right. I can’t kill an innocent creature just for sport. You, on the other hand . . .”
“Hey!” Those bright eyes narrowed. “No need to get nasty. Did I say we couldn’t do business?”
“Then what was all that about with the blood?”
“Establishing some guidelines. It saves time. Otherwise, people try to lie to me and it gives me a real headache”—he tapped the space above the horn with his paw—“right here.”
“So do we have a deal?”
“I don’t know. What exactly do you want to know?”
“Well, for starters, you could tell me who killed Jókell.”