The Truth

weapon. Please? I don’t want to die just yet. Just do whatever you came to do and go?”
    It was a pretty good impression of an abject coward, he thought, because it was casting for type.
    Pin glanced away.
    “How are we doing, Sister Jennifer?” he said.
    Sister Jennifer held a struggling sack.
    “Got all the —ing terriers,” he said.
    Brother Pin shook his head sharply.
    “Got all the —ing terriers!” fluted Sister Jennifer, in a much higher register. “ And there’s —ing watchmen at the end of the street!”
    Out of the corner of his eye, William saw Sacharissa sit bolt upright. Death was certainly somewhere on the agenda now.
    Otto was climbing unconcernedly up the cellar steps, one of his iconograph boxes swinging from his shoulder.
    He nodded at William. Behind him, Sacharissa was pushing her chair back. Back in front of his case of type, Goodmountain was feverishly setting: Hide your eyes
    Mr. Pin turned to William. “What do you mean, white ink for the spaces?”
    Sacharissa was looking angry and determined, like Mrs. Arcanum after an uncalled-for remark.
    The vampire raised his box.
    William saw the hod above it, crammed with Uberwaldean land eels.
    Mr. Pin thrust back his coat.
    William leapt towards the advancing girl, rising through the air like a frog through treacle.
    Dwarfs started to jump over the low barrier to the print room with axes in their hands. And…
    “Boo,” said Otto.
    Time stopped. William felt the universe fold away, the little globe of walls and ceilings peeling back like the skin of an orange, leaving a chilly, rushing darkness filled with needles of ice. There were voices, cut off, random syllables of sound, and again the feeling that he’d felt before, that his body was as thin and insubstantial as a shadow.
    Then he landed on top of Sacharissa, threw his arms around her, and rolled them both behind the welcome barrier of the desks.
    Dogs howled. People swore. Dwarfs yelled. Furniture smashed. William lay still until the thunder died away.
    It was replaced by groans and swearing.
    Swearing was a positive indication. It was dwarfish swearing, and it meant that the swearer was not only alive but angry too.
    He raised his head carefully.
    The far door was open. There was no queue, no dogs. There was the sound of running feet and furious barking out in the street.
    The back door was swinging on its hinges.
    William was aware of the pneumatic warmth of Sacharissa in his arms. This was an experience of the sort which, in a life devoted to arranging words in a pleasing order, he had not dreamed would—well, obviously dreamed , his inner editor corrected him, better make that expected —would have come his way.
    “I’m dreadfully sorry,” he said. That was technically a white lie, the editor said.
    Like thanking your aunt for the lovely handkerchiefs. It’s okay. It’s okay.
    He drew away carefully, and got unsteadily to his feet. The dwarfs were also staggering upright. One or two of them were being noisily sick.
    The body of Otto Chriek was crumpled on the floor. The departing Brother Pin had gone one expert cut in, at neck height, before leaving.
    “Oh, my gods,” said William. “What a dreadful thing to happen…”
    “What, having your head cut off?” said Boddony, who’d never liked the vampire. “Yes, I expect you could say that.”
    “We…ought to do something for him…”
    “Really?”
    “Yes! I’d have been killed for sure if he hadn’t used those eels!”
    “Excuse me? Excuse me, please?”
    The singsong voice was coming from under the printers’ bench. Goodmountain knelt down.
    “Oh no…” he said.
    “What is it?” said William.
    “It’s…er…well, it’s Otto.”
    “Excuse, please? Could somevun get me out of here?” Goodmountain, grimacing, pushed his hand into the darkness, while the voice continued: “Oh, crikey, zere is a dead rat under here, somevun must’ve dropped zere lunch, how sordid—not zer ear please, not zer ear …by the hair, please…”
    The hand came out again, holding Otto’s head by the hair, as requested. The eyes swiveled.
    “Everyvun all right?” said the vampire. “Zat vas a close shave, yes?”
    “Are you…all right, Otto?” said William, realizing that this was a winning entrant in the Really Stupid Things to Say contest.
    “Vot? Oh, yes. Yes, I zink so. Mustn’t grumble. Pretty good, really. It’s just that I seem to have my head cut off, vhich you could say is a bit of a