Red Iron Nights

by Glen Cook

  The whole place went silent.

  Winchell started moving fast.

  I yelled.

  Everybody joined in.

  It was the battle of Sadler all over again, only Winchell was tougher. The curse had made him a superman. He got to Belinda, hoisted her onto one shoulder, headed for the door. When I tried to talk him into changing his ways, he deposited me on the back of my lap under a table. Nobody slowed him down till Crunch decided to take matters into his own hands, brought up a pony keg, and politely tossed it across the room to meet Winchell’s surprised face. The keg was full. Not bad for an old hairbag.

  Winchell never got his eyes uncrossed. The boys from the street came in and helped close him down. They tied and gagged him, and most of the excitement was over. He looked small and old now, like the curse was turning him into the old green-eye who’d started it all at Morley’s.

  Then Belinda was all over me.

  Past her I saw Barking Dog buttonhole Hullar.

  It was a while before the excitement faded. Block arrived. He circled Winchell smugly. I told him, “You let him get away again, I’m personally going to drop you in the river with a reminder boulder tied to your toe.”

  “Relway. Get him sacked up and celled up. And don’t let that gag slip.” Winchell looked spooky enough with his eyes glowing. Grinning, Block bragged, “Won’t be no mistakes this time, Garrett. This’s our future here. We’re gonna be careful. We’re gonna wall him up in the cell I let Crask stew in. Prince Rupert is gonna send for the wizard help we need soon as he knows we got him.”

  I grumbled, hinting that I might be less than confident about the competence of a certain prince and his Watch.

  “You got any bright ideas?”

  “Yeah. I got a real special one.”

  “So?”

  “I go hit the sack. You want anything else, come bug the Dead Man. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Belinda said. “Garrett’s going to have to get some sleep too.”

  “Huh?” Us investigators have minds like steel traps. “Too?”

  She winked. “I might let you catch a nap. If you’re a good boy.”

  “Oh.” Block had gotten it before I did. I was suitably chastened.

  Meantime, Barking Dog was in full cry. He had Hullar and Crunch both confused and on the run.

  57

  I was further chastened by fate’s unrelenting efforts to keep me chaste.

  Winchell had had a strong suspicion he was headed into a trap. The curse had compelled him to go anyway but had permitted him some latitude in preparation. It was smart enough to allow its steed its head when that was appropriate.

  I hit Macunado Street with visions of a wild night dancing in my head—and found my front door shattered. Dean lay in the hall about halfway dead, his stray curled inside the curve of what looked like a broken arm, crying. Belinda said, “I’ll look after Dean. You find out what happened.”

  I opened wide but sensed nothing from the Dead Man. That scared me. Only once before had the villains gotten in, and then they’d gotten only a few feet. The Dead Man turned would-be intruders into living statues—usually while they were still in the street. Here there was no evidence he’d been able to do anything. The invader (or invaders) had hiked straight from the entrance to the stairs.

  Had the Dead Man finally taken that long last step across to the other shore? I got no sense of his presence.

  “Go on!” Belinda snapped.

  “Be careful.” I edged forward, my heart in my throat. I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. This had the same feel I recalled going into the worst raids we pulled back when I was one of Karenta’s brave young Marines. I crept along the wall to the Dead Man’s door, nudged it open.

  I whirled inside, ready for anything.

  Nobody there but my partner.

  He looked unchanged, but there was a difference. I felt a tension unlike any I’d encountered before. I sensed that he was safe and awake but way too focused to spare me a thought.

  Which meant the trouble was still in the house. And he was a nightmare.

  Upstairs. He had to be upstairs. Candy was upstairs.

  But we already had Winchell . . .

  I felt for the Dead Man, seeking confirmation. He did not respond. Of course.

  “Whoever did it is still here,” I told Belinda. “And he’s so strong he’s fought the Dead Man to a standstill. I think he’s after Candy. I’m going after him. But I’m afraid if I go upstairs he won’t be there. He’ll grab you and take off.”

  “So check down here first.” She was calm and practical. Maybe it was hereditary.

  “I guess Old Bones can hold out a few minutes more.”

  “Nothing in here,” Belinda said, having entered the kitchen boldly. “And the cellar door is locked from this side.”

  A shriek came from above, from Candy’s room in Candy’s voice. “Could be bait.” Something thumped the floor. It sounded like a body falling. Belinda grabbed my arm. I asked, “You reckon it’s a trap?”

  “Garrett!”

  “Right. This is no time to make light.” Tell me a better time.

  I told me to pretend I was Morley Dotes. This might be a job that called for Morley’s legendary cool. If my honey didn’t just have a guy up to play . . . Morley’s cool. I was tempted to send out for it. Only . . .

  Only what the hell was going on here? I did my part. I got Winchell sewn up and delivered. It was time to collect my reward and ride off into the sunset. What was all this mess?

  My office was clean. I traded looks with Eleanor. That calmed me. It reminded me that I’d gotten through bad times before, that calm was my most potent weapon. “A little reason would help too, sweetheart.”

  The small front room contained nothing but an odor cat haters know well. “You little shit. You blew it.”

  I jammed my rain hat onto my head, set course for the kitchen. I banged around in there till I found the cheesecloth Dean bought the time he had a blue-sky idea about saving money by making his own cheese. I told him: did I want to cut financial corners, I’d do without a housekeeper. Anyway, to date we were out the cost of cheesecloth without no cheese to show. I hacked off a few yards, folded the cloth over my rain hat, and tucked the edges under my collar, front and back.

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Beekeeper trick. You might want to try it yourself.”

  “You’re insane, Garrett.” But she followed my example. She even made herself crude mittens.

  I dug through drawers and poked into closets till I found my sulfur candles. “Try not to breathe the fumes once I light these things. They’ll knock you on your ass.”

  Belinda shook her head, muttered obscenities, but went along. “You’re completely paranoid. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I have been ever since I found out they were out to get me. Anyway, I couldn’t stand it if you was to get butchered now.”

  “You’re a born romantic too.”

  “That’s me. The man of a thousand faces.” All this was punctuated by repeated thumps and yells from above. Then the yelling stopped. The silence seemed particularly ominous.

  “I think you better get on your horse, Garrett.”

  “Yeah.” I checked Dean. He was doing as well as could be hoped. He had his hairball buddy to look out for him. I wished we had time to send out for reinforcements, but the silence upstairs told me I was all out of time. “White knight to the rescue. Well, it was white back before the rust set in.”

  “Let’s do it, Garrett.”

  No style, this one. But one hell of a set of legs.

  58

  “I knew it!” I moaned. “It had to be something impossible.” There were butterflies on the second floor. They were big and green and unpleasantly carnivorous but blessedly few and stupid. “Watch those things. I got a feeling if they nip at you it could spread the curse the way mosquitoes spread yellow fever.” People in TunFaire didn’t generally know that
, but in the islands you learned from the natives. If you were smart enough to listen when they told you something.

  “So light some candles.”

  Belinda wasn’t exactly supportive. Pushy, even. It wasn’t time to light candles.

  First I visited my goody closet, dug out a nasty knife, offered it to her. “Whoever he is comes near you, carve your initials on him with that.” For myself I chose a knife with a blade nearly long enough to qualify it as a shortsword. I used it to point toward Candy’s room.

  I went first, macho clown that I am. And there was our interloper, a monster of a man, moving almost imperceptibly as he hoisted Candy toward the ceiling. He had rigged a block and tackle on a beam we’d exposed while rehabbing. He was ruled by the curse and he was going to do a girl on the spot.

  “It really is multiplying,” Belinda whispered.

  I kept my mouth shut. My throat was too dry for chatter.

  The man kept moving against all the Dead Man’s power. What incredible strength the curse gave!

  Why hadn’t Candy run out on him? With the Dead Man slowing him down, he couldn’t hardly keep up with her.

  “Huh! Belinda. Don’t look this clown in the eye. I have a feeling that if he lays the green eye on you you’re a goner.”

  “Right.” She wasn’t nervous. Not my gal Belinda. She was as cold as her daddy. “You want to do some candles before the bugs carry me off?” They tended to leak from the corners of the villain’s mouth.

  I lighted a sulfur candle off the tallow candle Belinda had thought to bring, set it on the floor just inside the doorway to Candy’s room. As I set out the second candle, the bad boy realized he had company.

  Gods, he was huge! He looked like Saucerhead Tharpe’s big brother. Where did Winchell find him? Nothing that big should have been running loose. He turned his head slowly.

  “Why don’t you stick him, Garrett? You want to make a career of farting around, don’t you?”

  I do. It’s because I have this hyperactive conscience. In this case it was also because I was completely lost. This wasn’t suppose to be happening. The girl-killer problem was supposed to have been solved at Hullar’s place. I was supposed to be in bed now, if not asleep.

  The big guy had Candy hoisted up till only her head was touching the floor. He let go the rope. It squealed through the block. Down she crashed. She started making noises behind her gag like she was trying out my name.

  I really hoped she wasn’t trying to relay a warning. I didn’t have time to fish it out of her. The big guy had begun to get him a case of the green eye. He was barfing butterflies. Most of those were green too. Old Drachir had had a thing about green.

  The big man was aging before my eyes. He’d put on a year or two in the past few minutes. He’d gotten shorter, too, though I wasn’t ready to jump in for fifteen rounds.

  He got a good look at Belinda.

  He charged like he was headed into a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. He puffed and snorted. Moths leaked from his nostrils. They were pretty stupid moths—or the curse controlling them was pretty dumb. They mostly went after him.

  I held a lighted sulfur candle in front of him. He roared out butterflies that couldn’t get me because of the cheesecloth. He didn’t seem to care, though. He had eyes only for Belinda.

  “Don’t look the bastard in the eyes,” I reminded her, sliding to one side. I dropped to hands and knees, scooted forward while the villain continued his glacial charge. I cut the tendons behind his right knee and left ankle. It took a while for his brain to get the word, but he fell. Then he started to lift himself up again. I drove my knife through his right hand, pinning it to the floor.

  Belinda did his other hand. “You might try to get a gag on him, Garrett.” She did have the Contague flair.

  The cumulative pain and damage shocked the man enough that the curse slipped control. The Dead Man jumped on that. The villain became as rigid as stone.

  Like a far, far whisper on a contrary wind, came, You took your sweet time.

  I got Candy loose. “How come you keep fooling around with these perverts?” I asked. “What’s wrong with a nice straight guy like me?”

  She threw her arms around me. She didn’t say anything, even when Belinda cracked, “Maybe she figured you were taken.” She just clung like she didn’t plan to let go during this lifetime.

  Butterflies zoomed around drunkenly. The sulfur fumes were getting to me too. The bugs discovered bare areas on Candy. They called their friends. I didn’t know but what the curse could be carried by the little devils. “Let’s get out of here. Lock them in with the candles.” I considered sliding a few candles into the Dead Man’s room while he was preoccupied, just for effect.

  Belinda helped with Candy, though with poor grace.

  I glanced at my unwanted guest. Butterflies still crawled out of his open mouth. Belinda said, “We can’t leave him here.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll croak.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  “Think, genius.”

  Indeed. Boggle us with a first.

  “You keep out of this.” I grunted, disgusted. If the villain died, I’d be the only place for the curse to migrate. I didn’t think that was such a great idea. “We do need to keep him unconscious. He might commit suicide.” I had a sudden conviction that the curse had driven Winchell into Hullar’s place to provide a diversion from the attack here.

  The Dead Man sent, Ican keep the man under control.

  “Like you were doing when I got here?”

  Bind him if that makes you more comfortable.

  “Right.” I peeked inside Candy’s room. The big guy’s breath problem had improved. The floor was covered with fallen butterflies. Only a few showed any life. I said, “I’ve got an idea. Get the curse to jump to the Dead Man. Then it wouldn’t—”

  “Then it would be able to talk to you direct.”

  “Miss Practical.” I rounded up a ball of linen cord and went to work on our villain. I used it all, then gagged him good. Then I saved him from the fumes. I gave Belinda my nightstick. “Bop him if he even twitches.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get Block. To get this character out of here.”

  I didn’t get that far. Not right away.

  59

  I might have known. I should have expected it. Hell, I should have counted on it. It had to be in the stars. It started out being about Barking Dog Amato, and no matter how I wriggled, Amato kept getting in the way. So why on earth should I have been surprised to find Barking Dog camped out in my hallway with Sas and Dean, Sas looking mightily distressed while Amato fussed over Dean and Dean groggily insisted there was nothing wrong. Dean was so woozy he didn’t know he was hurt.

  “How do I get around this?” I muttered before anyone spotted me. At the moment I didn’t much care about Barking Dog’s troubles.

  “Garrett!”

  I’d been spotted. “Don’t start. I’ve got problems of my own and it’s going to be real hard to give a rat’s ass about whatever is bugging you.”

  “Hey, yo, no problem. I kind of figured you’d be distracted when I saw this mess.”

  “The curse managed to split somehow. I’ve got another killer upstairs.” Damn. That put a sparkle in his eye. What now? “I’m going to get Captain Block.”

  “That’s all right. I understand. I’ll hang out here, keep an eye on things.”

  “You don’t need to. Go on home. Get some shut-eye. The Dead Man can be pretty handy when he wants.”

  I got a smug snicker from the other side of the wall and a denial from Amato. “I wouldn’t feel right, Garrett. After everything you done for me. Anyway, I got to talk to you about my girl. This here Sas ain’t my girl.”

  So I’d gathered earlier. I didn’t stay around to find out anything more. I nurtured some small, vain hope that the Dead Man would pity me and run him off before I got back.

  The only good thing about finding Block was I got to w
ake him up. Again. I never had a big case before where I got to wake other people up. It was always somebody coming around wanting me to be bright-eyed at some absurd hour of the morning.

  “Yes!” I insisted, after getting through to his quarters. “You get off your fat political butt and come on over, you can see for yourself. The curse has spawned. You don’t grab this guy, it keeps right on going like we never met anybody called Winchell. I guarantee. You think I’m running around at this hour because I’m nursing a grudge? You know me better.”

  Block grunted. “Unfortunately. You can’t just bring him in tomorrow?”

  “I’m going home. When I get there I’m handing this guy over to whoever’s around. If that’s nobody, he walks. And I don’t have nothing more to do with unraveling curses by old-time lunatic wizards. You really want to give me a thrill, come up with some excuse for arresting Barking Dog Amato. Material witness, maybe. He’s set to drive me crazy.”

  Block observed me under his brows briefly, maybe wondering if he ought to jump on such a great straight line. A nasty smile crawled around on his lips. I said, “Don’t go getting any ideas about doing something I’m going to regret.”

  “Me? Forsooth. Maybe even more sooth than that. Echavar!” A servile type materialized as though he’d been lurking outside, just hoping Block would holler. “Inform Relway that I need a squad to accompany me when I arrest another curse carrier. Or, failing that, a leading public nuisance.”

  I got the impression he wasn’t talking about Barking Dog.

  Block didn’t recognize the man who’d invaded my place. Neither did his troops. After checking him over and taking statements from Candy and the Dead Man, Block grudgingly admitted, “It looks like you did the right thing, Garrett.”

  “I always do the right thing.”

  “Tell it to your smelly buddy downstairs.”

  Barking Dog hadn’t gone home. The girl called Sas had, but only because Block’s men had pried her loose from Amato. Block and Barking Dog still weren’t wasting any love on one another.