Wicked Bronze Ambition

by Glen Cook

  I made sure. “Vicious Min was the target?” No way Strafa could have been that at fifteen feet up in a one-missile theory. “I’m confused.”

  Nor are you alone. Your problem, however, is that you are determined to force a pattern onto an inadequate information array.

  “I know. Do the outside pieces first. Did somebody say that the red tops found the other half of the bolt?”

  I do not recall that. If so I have not been so informed.

  I mused, “I need to take a closer look at Vicious Min.” Again we faced the fact that our only witness to murder was someone who might be vested in avoiding the truth.

  The Dead Man put nothing in concrete form, but he was thinking the moral equivalent of “Don’t teach Grandma to suck eggs.”

  He offered a scenario in which Vicious Min was the assassin and the sniper was there to protect Strafa.

  “Logically absurd,” I said. “Anyone trying to cover Strafa would have started making excuses before she hit the ground. Speaking of grandmothers . . .”

  As he sent, Speaking of Vicious Min . . . Be careful out there!

  I needed a moment to get that he meant that for Penny.

  “You sure you want to let her go out?”

  She will be at less risk than you would be. She will pay attention to her surroundings.

  I stomped my pride down. “Yeah. About that . . .”

  40

  I wasn’t listening well. I missed Penny’s return till she came into the Dead Man’s room to say, “I could only find Dollar Dan.”

  “I have an ever higher regard for you, too, girl-child.” Dollar Dan Justice oozed past her. He is a rat man. At five feet six he is a hulking brute of his kind, but, like Singe’s brother, whose second in command he is, he is more than a thug. He is a thinker and definitely a would-be lover.

  Dan said, “John Stretch is away on business. He left instructions to help you any way we can.”

  Dollar Dan was eager to be my pal, more so than Singe’s brother was.

  He had an ulterior motive.

  He announced, “I have a detail waiting outside.”

  It had been a while since I had seen Dan. He had begun trying to upgrade himself. His apparel was finer, more stylish, better kempt, and less garish than usual for rat men. I saw no yellow, orange, or electric green whatsoever.

  Singe was why.

  Poor guy. He was spitting into the wind with those hopes.

  He knew it, too. But where there is life there is hope, as some word slinger once claimed.

  I asked, “A detail?”

  “Six good rats and true.”

  To accompany you on your progress to the Hill, where you will take up that more valuable part of the investigation. There being no one else available to guard your back.

  “My progress to the Hill, eh?”

  Miss Contague and her friends have departed. As with Mr. Dotes, she has other demands on her time. Those occasionally trump her devotion to you.

  He was being critical in some shadowy, oblique way. Didn’t she owe me? Didn’t I just save her sweetie from the zombie masters?

  “Aren’t I old enough to take care of myself?”

  He sent me a one-second vision of a ridiculously powerful sorceress lying in a glass-face coffin. If you insist on suicidal actions because of an inability to control massively misplaced adolescent pride . . .

  Before Strafa’s death I might have pitched a snit. Before Strafa I could’ve altogether thrown a heavy-caliber tantrum out of dimwit pride, yes. The woman had taught me to get past my worst knee-jerk responses.

  And I had a mission. I had to stay above the grass in order to put some Operators under it.

  “I’ve got hold of the reins. I’ll be a responsible adult, cautious and rational at all times. I will consider consequences before I speak or break anything.”

  Rat men can’t grin. Dollar Dan would have been ear to ear if they could. Penny did so, with some skepticism. Himself was amused. And all full up on “I’ll buy that when I step in it.”

  Excellent. So. Here are some angles you might pursue.

  What he wanted to see get poked was obvious, mostly. See if Shadowslinger was avoiding him. Likewise, Vicious Min. He wanted to get together with Min as soon as she could survive the haul to Macunado Street. I should consult Dr. Ted in both cases, get a read on him, and get him to come with one of the women.

  Ah, Dr. Ted. I’d been considering having a chat with him, even if I had to hunt him down.

  41

  Brownie and crew were not fond of rat people. Dollar Dan and his pals felt the same about dogs. Good thing those mutts weren’t rat terriers.

  The tribes came to a silent accommodation. Brownie and Number Two got to stick to me, at their usual posts. The other two ranged ahead, in nervous pairings with a brace of young bucks far too proud of their gang connections. They put on way too much swagger.

  I cautioned Dollar Dan.

  “They have to learn the hard way.”

  John Stretch was a power only inside his own community. Plenty of beetle-brow humans would not be intimidated, regardless. The possibility that they should be would be beyond their ability to grasp.

  The boys didn’t learn their lesson while I watched. We ran into no one inclined to teach them.

  We did collide with some attitude, though.

  A fat man about forty, wearing the cap of the disbanded City Watch, intercepted us soon after we passed the bounds of the Hill, a private security type. He was shorter than me, sloppy because a master tailor would not be able to make clothing flatter his shape, and maybe a little dangerous in the way that Saucerhead Tharpe is dangerous.

  He looked like a guy you could hammer on all you wanted and he would keep on keeping on, with no skill but definitely with a long supply of stubborn. He did not favor the presence of known felons within the bounds he was pledged to defend, his root assumption being that all rat people are criminals.

  That stereotype isn’t far off the mark, actually. That’s how rat people have survived since their forbears escaped the laboratories where they were created.

  I glanced past the man, who didn’t seem to understand that he was outnumbered, and, bam! There was the pretty blonde and her humongous friend, half a block ahead. She glanced our way, maybe startled. She said something to her companion. He scooped her up and headed out at a pace no horse could match.

  “Who was that?” I asked the guard.

  He scratched his head. “Who was who?”

  Dollar Dan, his crew, and the girls had not missed the kid. Dan spoke softly. Two of his guys and Number Two scooted around the patrolman and sniffed for a trail.

  I said, “This is good. This will get us somewhere.” Whistling in the dark in broad daylight.

  Meanwhile, flustered, the patrol guy fussed and blustered. He left me no choice. “You got a problem with me, take it to my grandmother. Shadowslinger. She’ll satisfy your needs. She’s been thinking a lot about you people lately.”

  Hardly fair of me, really.

  He blanched.

  The guards would know that the Algardas were looking for goats to roast because of Furious Tide of Light. More than one jaundiced, angry eye was focused on the overpaid muscle that had failed to protect her.

  Shadowslinger had been sharpening her teeth in public.

  The man in the retro hat stepped aside. “You shoulda said who you was, sir.” Feebly trying to salvage some face while sweating grease.

  Yes. My Algarda connection was a tool I should remember to use.

  Half a block later Dollar Dan said, “That fool made a good point. You should not hesitate to use the old witch’s name.”

  “Old habits are tough to break.”

  “Oh, do I not know the truth of that!”

  42

  I took Dollar Dan into the kitchen of my place on the Hill. My place. That was a tough one. Race and Dex were enjoying an afternoon snack consisting of a gallon of fortified wine. Me and my troop of rat man gang
sters didn’t rattle them. They had heard all about me. Plus, they had been nibbling that lunch for a while.

  Dex sealed the bottle and put it on a shelf too high for Dollar Dan to reach. Race gathered knives and silverware and everything else small enough to fall into a pocket. Neither showed an inclination to be apologetic.

  I considered a crack indicting them, of all people, for prejudice but chose to save my breath. They wouldn’t get it. “You two the only ones here?”

  Some folks just can’t answer a question directly. They’re made so they have to go somewhere else to get the job done.

  Race said, “Barate was here but he left. He went up the Hill to visit.”

  “I see. One of you go fetch Dr. Ted.”

  Dex had had lunch enough to fuel a spark of attitude. He considered arguing. Race took him by the right elbow, burying a thumb in the joint, got his attention.

  I said, “Dex, there are some dogs in the garden. They’re with me. Give them something to eat. Race, get the doctor.” I deployed my sergeant voice, the voice of the god that admits no possibility of debate.

  The arrogance of my assumption that Dr. Ted would drop everything never tickled my consciousness.

  In the nethermost background of my directions, unstated, was the fact that Race and Dex were facing the arbiter of their continued employment. Dr. Ted was, too, some, because of my Shadowslinger connection.

  Dex said, “He’s probably at the old witch’s house with Barate.” For Race’s benefit, not mine, as he gathered scraps suitable for doggie dining.

  Despite a major onset of the surlies, both men got busy.

  Rat men tagging along, I went to have a gander at Vicious Min.

  There was no Vicious Min.

  There was an empty bed where a demon woman was supposed to be laid up. “Dan, get that clown I told to feed the dogs.”

  Dex turned up fast, eyes bugging. “What the hell? Where did she go?” He began to shake.

  “I was hoping you could explain, Dex.”

  He swallowed some air. “I don’t know. She was in that fracking sack twenty minutes ago, when we was trying to get some soup inside her. She looked the same old, same old, in a coma. Worse than before, even. We figured she’d be gone in a day or two. You could smell the pus.”

  “And then there was a miracle,” I grumbled.

  “I guess.” Dex stirred the bedding like he might find that big beast hidden in the fold of a blanket. “This is still warm.”

  He was right. Min had cut out moments before I walked in.

  Dex said, “She must have been faking. But that would be tough to do, man.”

  I agreed. I was suspicious. But in my racket you’re always suspicious. If you’re smart you keep a jaundiced eye on yourself. “Dan, there any chance your guys can follow her?”

  “Garrett, take a whiff. You could follow this one.”

  The bedding certainly reeked. “You give me too much credit. I just smell sickness and infection. Dex. When was the last time the doctor was here?”

  “The day she went down. You was here.”

  “Not since then? Why not?”

  “Shadowslinger said.”

  I didn’t get it. “She say why?”

  “She didn’t want that thing having no outside contact with nobody.”

  There might be some logic behind that, but I missed it. “I’ll ask why when I see her.”

  Dex chose to reserve his thoughts about that. His employment was at risk already. “I hope she’s in good enough shape to talk. She looked awful when I saw her.”

  There was a ruckus elsewhere in the house, which turned out to be Dollar Dan running into Race and Dr. Ted.

  “Damn, Race, that was fast.”

  “We said he was just up at Madame Algarda’s.”

  “I thought it would take longer. Thanks for coming, Doctor, but things have turned sour. The patient has absconded.”

  Dr. Ted sighed, shook his head. “She must be tougher than I guessed. I expected her to die.”

  “I wouldn’t want you wasting your time, especially if you were working on Shadow . . . On Constance. Who is doing how well, anyway?”

  “She’s making progress. I’m cautiously optimistic, though I can’t quite say why. She’s in a vegetative state right now. With a will as massive as hers, she’ll probably bull her way through.”

  “That’s good news.” The expected response, but I wondered if some folks might not consider it discouraging. “Can I visit her?”

  Ted eyed me as though consulting a checklist of possible motives. “A visit should be all right. Don’t expect a response. Remember that even fierce people with hard hearts deserve consideration once they’ve been struck down. She might be aware of you. That could stiffen her resolve. But no business. No pressing. No bullying. I’ll throw you out if you try.”

  I couldn’t stifle a grin at him doing his damnedest to be fierce. I could get to like the guy. “Where did you do your five, Ted?”

  Nobody over twenty-two would misunderstand. When we were young anyone who turned eighteen still equipped with an approximately appropriate number of limbs and digits and a working eye could expect to spend his next five years trying to enforce the Karentine crown’s will on Venageta. For more than a century, that war was as much part of life as weather and the seasons. When I was a boy, even the concept of dissent had no life anywhere. Evaders were rarities held in contempt by all.

  The state and polity still struggle with the consequences of victory. The end of the long war caused huge dislocations.

  Ted reddened, did one of those indirect answer things. “I volunteered for a maneuver unit. Twice. Both times they told me I was too valuable to risk in a combat zone.”

  Translation: His skills were such that they wouldn’t be wasted on less than the most exalted among us. Those days would have been when he made his connections on the Hill.

  “Thank your patron god.” Guys like Ted, never stewed in the cauldron of blood, would be best suited to pilot Karenta into the postwar age. We who had seen the elephant knew only one way to cope.

  Our Shadowslingers, who had been to war many times over, had to be heralded for their courage, but that sustained exposure seriously distorted their thinking.

  Ted said something that I missed. I had wandered into the wilderness of my mind again. That was getting irksome. “Excuse me. I zoned.”

  “Understood. I have flashbacks and never got closer to the fighting than Full Harbor with Prince Rupert the first time he went. I was a medical orderly then, officially.”

  Naturally. He would have been taken into service before he finished hopping through all the hoops. “Your father was a physician, too?”

  “Both parents. My mother was a medical genius. She never became a doctor officially. They didn’t accredit women back then. But she was a pet of the Royals. She saw to it that women can get accredited now.”

  He probably started learning his stuff while he was learning to walk.

  He observed, “There is no reason for me to stay here, the patient having chosen to desert.”

  “Right. I’m sorry. I’m rattled. Dex, should any rat men turn up here, tell them I’ve gone on to the old woman’s place. And ease up on the wine.” I’ve never understood why some people prefer rotted grape juice. I can’t quite trust their sort.

  Dex restrained himself. “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.”

  “Good. I’m sure we’ll be glad we decided to keep you, Dex.”

  43

  Ted flirted with the dogs all during the short journey to Shadowslinger’s place. He found a friendly side to Number Two that she had hidden from me. “Are you sure that these are feral dogs?”

  “They were till they adopted me. They live in the Orthodox cemetery.” I gave him a rundown on them and Little Moo.

  “Really? That’s strange. And there was no connection with Strafa?”

  “Not according to Constance. And she could tell if anyone could.”

  “No doubt. No doubt
. I was never that close to her.”

  I liked Ted better and better, for no definable reason. He was just a nice, comfortable guy, rather like Strafa had been.

  “You were interested in Strafa, weren’t you?”

  “I was.” Confessing made him uneasy. “Once upon a time. Barate didn’t approve. She could never defy him.”

  “I see.” Best to drop it. Aspects of that were too creepy to discuss.

  Ted was ready to let it go, too. He had smelled the same shadows.

  Shadowslinger’s place seemed deserted. Ted and I headed upstairs, to the witch’s hide. The dogs and Dollar Dan stayed down, on guard.

  I’d never left the ground floor before, but encountered no surprises. Upstairs was as grim as down till we entered Constance’s own bedroom. And that was only slightly better.

  Barate Algarda was asleep in a fat chair beside his mother’s bed, troubled even while out. He started awake.

  “Garrett. Hi.” Sleepily. “Ted. Excuse me. This is kind of rough.”

  “I understand. No problem.”

  “Hey! Ted says he thinks she’ll come back.” The ugly old tub of goo lay on her back, upper half slightly elevated, arms and hands lifeless beside her, atop a quilt probably sewn for a pittance by some refugee even older than Shadowslinger herself.

  I studied her hands. They were slightly deformed, the way arthritis does. Chronic pain might explain why she was always cranky. Ted and his kind, and magical healers of the quality accessible to someone of Constance’s status, might not be enough to beat that bitch. It was one of those things that could be immune to sorcery.

  Some things just naturally are resistant, and some people, too. Penny has the knack, a little. A few metals and minerals disdain or even negate witchery. Iron and silver are the best known.

  Still muzzy, Barate asked, “Where is Kevans?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Ted said, “We didn’t see anyone. No one answered the door. Is she supposed to be here?”