Lir took to riding my shoulders. I thought he'd scratch me with his nasty claws, but already our connection was pretty strong. He knew to be careful. So he rode next to my head like a fuzzy pirate's parrot. "Why do you want to visit this jerk? I thought he was a monster."

"He is. He was going to do very bad things. He was going to hurt Lux, and hurt me, and his people are vicious loser idiot failure scumbag moron Nazi racist criminals."

"That's a lot of negatives attached to someone you aren't planning to beat to death."

How to explain it to him?

I thought about it as the little aircar chugged its way to Todd's Winnie. It was a sunny day, cloudless blue sky. We cruised over the shallow sea to the creature, still three storeys tall. Adaobi had mentioned it was growing rather slowly. Hmmm.

"Permission to come aboard, Todd." My voice boomed out from a loudspeaker most of the cars came with.

He poked his head from one of the round-trunked Houseplants growing on the back of the baby Winnie. He saw our car, waved, pulled his head back in.

Not a yes, not a no. We landed and left the car. Lir stayed on my shoulders, and I adjusted to the rhythm of the walking baby Winnie.

I was no Winnie mahout, but I didn't think things looked great here. The Winnie's hide was dry and ashy. Its antlers hadn't sprouted yet, which was apparently a bad sign. I only knew because I'd heard Adaobi muttering about it earlier at the Denny's.

I called him, and here he came, Todd Preston Covenant. No trenchcoat. No shirt, just sweat pants and sneakers. He looked pretty hung over. I offered my hand, and he looked at it a moment before shaking. He smelled of alcohol.

"Am I in trouble?" He asked wearily. "Another visit where I'm in trouble with that damn Council."

"No, I…just wanted to give you a housewarming present." It sounded lame, but it was true. I produced a box, and it was full of tiny bottles of Alien Hooch. I'd thought he could use it to be a good host, to offer them to his guests.

His face, normally expressionless, lit up. "Hey, booze!" He yanked one out of the box, twisted the lid and downed it. "Breakfast," he said when he could breathe again.

Lir, on my shoulders, radiated disgust.

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Todd looked me in the eye, really examining me for the first time. "Why are you nice to me?"

"I took you hostage after beating you up."

"Yeah but … I feel like some of that might have been on me." He frowned. Introspection was a new thing for Todd, I think. "We were going to…I mean…"

Lir's ears went back. I stroked his head.

"You've got a place here," I said. "I think this is better for you than the camp. I think this could work out for you if you give it a chance."

He nodded rapidly. "I know, you're right. And I'm doing a lot better here. Things are going well."

Lir looked around ostentatiously. He didn't say anything, but the ashy Winnie hide wasn't looking good, and there was a smell. Like decay. Like rot. And Todd was fragrant himself, in a Human way.

LEAVE

The voice gonged in my head, rattling my skull. Lir flinched. Todd didn't seem to have heard it.

"What do you think I should name it?" he asked me. He pulled another little bottle of booze from the gift box.

"Take it easy on that, it's strong…" I said.

"I'll just sleep it off," he said, and drank it all in one go. "Thanks, man."

"I think it would be good to offer to guests," I said helpfully.

"Not the ones I'm getting."

"Nice," said Lir.

"Not you," Todd said hastily. "I'm…I think you've tried to help me." He frowned. "After everything. Why?"

"Everyone's just trying to get by," I said. "We're all we've got."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." He looked at me, avoiding looking at Lir. Because Lir was unclean; I'd forgotten. "I've got work to do. The Council doesn't like this much." He gestured all around. "There's this guy, Piscator? He thinks he knows better than everyone."

"Maybe we could help yyyy…" I couldn't finish. I couldn't. This was supposed to be MY Winnie…and Todd was…

We left. Watched Todd from up in the car; he drank another bottle and seemed to return to bed.

"I figured it out," said Lir. "Why you're trying to help him. First and foremost, you want to turn him. Use him to get into the Covenant and wreck it. That's obvious and it's a good idea. But more importantly: you want him to see that he sucks."

"Yeah."

"And that you're awesome."

"It'll kill him once it hits."

"That's not very nice."

"Thank you, sir."

"I'll be nice to him too," Lir said, his fangs slipping out.

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