Faded Steel Heat gf-9

by Glen Cook

  "Ah. Too bad about that."

  "Belinda Contague is there. Speaking for her father."

  "A genuinely hard woman. And so young. Out of a privileged household. Makes you wonder. You're a friend of the family. How come we see so much of her now and so little of her father?"

  "Chodo had a stroke. He doesn't want people to see him until he recovers. They might think he's getting weak. But he's as hard as ever and getting mean-spirited besides. Anything new on Crask and Sadler?"

  "No. But they're out there."

  Those two were worth worrying about. They were nightmares.

  44

  "I'll take these three to the Al-Khar," Relway told me. "Drop by and find out what they had to say."

  His people would wait outside the Weider shack while I rounded up the changers inside.

  "I want these bodies," I reminded.

  "Go ahead. Take them."

  I folded the door shut before he changed his mind, pinned it, climbed to the driver's seat. I gathered the reins like they were covered with slime, told Relway's thugs, "You guys want to make sure this monster stays headed in the right direction?"

  Monster and thugs eyeballed me. The horse smirked. One of the thugs—their names were Ritter and Abend but their attitudes left them undeserving of remembrance—said, "You can't drive a cart? Get down from there."

  "I can drive a cart," I muttered. "If I really want to, I can drive a cart. But I'm going to let you do it this time." I can drive a cart. I learned in the Corps. But watching the south end of a northbound beast, knowing the critter is looking for a chance to visit disaster upon me, isn't my idea of fun.

  The big bruno on the back gate was on the job now. He had let this very wagon scoot out—along with Relway's guys, whom he'd forgotten to mention, which you just naturally had to wonder about—but now nothing was going to get past him. "What's my name?" I demanded.

  "You're Garrett."

  "And what's my job?"

  "You're in charge of—"

  "Bingo! I'm in charge. And I'm telling you to let us in."

  "But you never said nothing about—"

  "I'm saying it now. I gave you some hard road about letting this wagon get away. Then I went and got it back. Open the gate."

  "But—"

  Relway's men ran out of patience. They vaulted the low wall and opened the gate. The guard raised a loud fuss. Gilbey arrived before I finished proving I could drive a wagon and got it parked. Of course, it might be sunrise before I got the best out of the damned four-legged snake pulling the vehicle.

  Gilbey said, "I thought you went home with Dame Tinstall, Garrett. Your friend is fit to be tied."

  "Which friend is that?"

  "The one who came with you. What have you got here?"

  I opened the side door. There was light enough from the house. Gilbey threw his right forearm up against the side of the wagon, closed his eyes, froze that way. He controlled himself before he asked, "What's going on?"

  "Shapechangers." I told him what I'd been doing.

  "It explains a few things. I just saw Kittyjo. Now I see why she was staying out of the way tonight when she was so excited about everything this afternoon."

  "Any idea why a shapeshifter gang would want to take over the Weider family?"

  "Because they like beer? Because they want a brewery?"

  That wasn't some attempt at black humor. Gilbey meant it. "I'll bite. Why would they want a brewery? Why right now?"

  "Better ask them, Garrett. Anyway, the brewery might not have anything to do with it. What now?"

  "Much as I hate to, we have to tell the boss."

  He seemed exasperated. "Of course we do. I mean, what do we do about these monsters? We need to catch them, don't we?"

  "Sure. And we need to move fast. Before they get the word, change appearance, and get away. I think there are only three still here. The others took the corpses away."

  Undetected and unchecked, I was sure the changers still in the house would have brought in more of their own. The Weider place would have become a changer fortress and haven.

  But why the Weiders? There were other families as wealthy, others more iconoclastic, others better forted up.

  But suppose the presence of the leaders of the rights movement had something to do with it. Suppose the changers had come in because of the guest list. Suppose Marengo North English and Bondurant Altoona got replaced? They were goofy already. Would anybody notice?

  Whatever, it couldn't be meant long-term. Shapechanger schemes get found out. We liked to think, anyway. In TunFaire some real heavyweights would trample all over them once the news got around. By tomorrow there ought to be a hue and cry. The rightsists would be in deep clover.

  Shapechangers scare everybody. Alienists make fortunes proving to losers that their loved ones haven't been possessed by demons or replaced by shifters. Or the other way around if that's where the profit is.

  Alienists are like lawyers. Right, wrong, justice, the facts of the case, none of that matters. Results are what count. That's usually somebody else with empty pockets and a dazed expression.

  The alienist's client doesn't want to believe his beloved no longer loves somebody as wonderful as him. The explanation has to be supernatural and sinister.

  Changers have served as excuses for murder, too, though it seems the corpses never change after death. No murderer ever got off using that excuse.

  I told Gilbey, "We won't make anything happen standing around trying not to cry."

  45

  Belinda was in the hallway outside Weider's study, standing delightfully hip-shot, listening to Marengo North English. The man had to have a side I'd overlooked. She seemed enthralled.

  He seemed to have forgotten his niece.

  Belinda spotted me. Her expression went colder than arctic stone. Then she recognized the damp around my eyes. "What happened, Garrett?"

  "You two come with us. Max is there, isn't he?"

  North English nodded. "He hasn't made it downstairs yet. Too many visitors." So Marengo and Belinda had been standing around chatting for a while. Interesting.

  Gilbey remarked, "Ty will be getting cranky. He dislikes taking second priority."

  I opened the study door slowly. Max was seated in front of his fireplace, deep in a comfortable chair. He'd built the fire high. The heat beat out in waves. He stared into the flames as though he saw through them into an age when the world knew no suffering.

  "Back again, Garrett?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Your friend was furious because you left."

  "She gets that way." My friend winced. "I had to see about something outside."

  "What's the news, then? How bad is it?"

  "As bad as it gets. Tom and Kittyjo have been murdered. So has Luke."

  Gilbey said, "That's the man we asked to look out for Tom."

  I said, "The change happened before that."

  "Change?" Weider muttered.

  "They were replaced by shapeshifters," Gilbey said.

  I added, "It looks like Black Dragon is a shapeshifter cover. It claims to be a rights group but it's really something else." Non-humans wouldn't be interested in human rights. Not quite the way The Call is.

  Weider sighed. "I'm tired, Garrett," he told me. He sounded tired to the marrow. "Sit down, Manvil. Garrett." He indicated chairs. "I just want to put my burdens down. I want to take a long, long rest. I don't have any fight left. If there was anybody to surrender to, I'd let destiny make me a prisoner of war."

  "You did your share, Max," Gilbey said. "Take it easy. Garrett and I will handle it." Gilbey glanced at me. I nodded. He asked, "Should we enlist Lance?"

  "Lance strikes me as more the executive sort."

  Gilbey smiled. "Not far from wrong, Garrett. Though the man can surprise you sometimes." He twisted, looked beyond me. His eyes gleamed for an instant.

  "I'll help," Belinda said. I'd almost forgotten she was back there, listening.

  I didn't argu
e. Neither did Gilbey. I was beginning to develop a suspicion that Gilbey would be incapable of arguing with Belinda. He told us, "That junk in the corner there was mostly for decoration but there was a time when all of that was real weapons. Help yourselves."

  Without hesitating Belinda selected a wicked fourteen-inch blade, examined it with a professional eye. Gilbey chose a bronze gladius sort of thing and added a small, coordinated buckler for the left wrist. "Stylish," I observed, sighing. Now that I was sitting down I didn't want to get back up.

  Gilbey didn't smile. Except for Miss Contague he was all smiled out for the century. Nobody else smiled, either.

  I miss the old days. Nobody grins into the face of the darkness anymore.

  You need a sense of humor when the going gets grim.

  Seldom do I lug lethal hardware but I couldn't find a simple headknocker anywhere. At least nothing sure to stand up to harsh commercial-grade use. A small crossbow, intended for use by cavalrymen or centaurs, caught my eye. I used to be pretty good with one of those things, though I hadn't had one in hand for a while.

  Marengo North English considered the choices. Gilbey suggested, "Why don't you stay with Max? He's a little distracted."

  North English relaxed visibly.

  Obviously the great champion of humanity volunteered only because of Belinda. Oh, what to do when the delicate flower chose danger without thought?

  Gilbey picked up a light, thin-bladed antique. "I've heard you were well regarded as a fencer." He extended the weapon to North English.

  "When I was young."

  "Good," I said. "Then we won't have to worry about Max while we're gone." I gave his shoulder a comradely pat. He puffed up like he'd been handed the key role in the mission. Maybe, in his mind, that's what happened. He seemed incapable of seeing himself anywhere very far off center.

  46

  We slipped into the back stairs. I told Belinda, "You don't have to do this."

  "I know. And you didn't have to warn me. Don't waste your breath."

  I wasted no breath. I'd argued with her before. And the stairs were steep.

  I was shaky when we reached the fourth floor. I'd been pushing my luck a lot lately and Fate wouldn't give me time off for bad behavior. It was one damned thing after another, too often involving me getting hit over the head.

  You can't roll the bones with the sickle-toting guy without crapping out sometime.

  I controlled the shakes. I learned that trick in the Corps. The hard way. I took a deep breath, held it a moment, asked Gilbey, "Is there more than one way out of Tom's suite?"

  "Possibly. There're servants' passages all through the house. But if we hurry, that shouldn't be a worry."

  Indeed. And maybe I should have had Relway's guys stick with me, just in case.

  Belinda said, "If I knew where we were going, I'd leave you behind just to make you stop thinking, Garrett."

  All my life I've been told I think too much. Except at girl time, when I'm told I don't think enough.

  So it goes. You can't win.

  I stepped into the hallway.

  The Luke replacement was standing guard right where Luke was supposed to be. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. I pasted on a big grin. Belinda and Gilbey marched along behind me. I said, "Hey, Luke. The Old Man says bring Tom down. He wants the whole family there for the announcement."

  Whoever Luke was really, he couldn't argue without giving himself away. He couldn't let Tom out without courting disaster. And I didn't give him time to consider his options.

  A crossbow isn't a customary accessory when you're just going to escort somebody somewhere inside his own home. Faux-Luke figured that out almost quickly.

  He flung himself back just as I started to pop him with my free hand. He tried to run into Tom's suite. We didn't let him. But he did make a big racket not getting there.

  He went down. Belinda had a knife pricking his throat before he stopped bouncing.

  Gilbey and I burst into the suite.

  And I said, "Well, there is more than one way out." It stood open.

  There was no light behind the panel except what ambled in from Tom's apartment. That was just enough to show us that the shapeshifter could only head downstairs. This almost qualified as a secret passageway. It was barely wide enough for a grown-up my size. The stairwell was just slightly less steep than a ladder. I thundered down to the floor below. Another door stood open, exiting through a broom closet. The main hall lay beyond it. Gilbey stayed with me. We couldn't let the shifter get a big lead. It would change faces on us again.

  A door stood open down the hall, still moving. My mother would have been all over this guy. He was a wonderful bad example. We blew into the room—and froze.

  It was Hannah Weider's bedroom. It smelled of sickness and despair. The dying woman had been confined there for ages. Her face brightened when she saw us. She tried to say something.

  Hannah Weider was so withered and liver-spotted she looked more like Max's grandmother than his wife.

  Words wouldn't come. She wiggled a finger.

  Gilbey got it. "It's under the bed."

  Trace Wendover scooted out. He headed for the door, realized that I could get there first, flung himself back at the bed. He snagged Hannah, dragged her in front of him as a shield. A knife appeared. He didn't need to voice the threat.

  Alyx appeared in the doorway. "Mama, I brought you some of Ty's—Shit! What the hell?"

  Trace turned, startled.

  Mama tried to admonish her baby about her language.

  I shot Wendover in the forehead.

  I used to be pretty good with one of those things. Evidently I still had the knack.

  47

  "She's gone!" Alyx wailed. "It was too much for her." There was no vinegar in her now. She was about to fall apart. She shook her mother like that might bring her back.

  Belinda arrived. She had her changer under control. She looked at Alyx, shrugged, gave me a don't-look-at-me stare.

  I didn't expect her to do any comforting. She wouldn't know how. I doubt that anyone ever comforted her.

  "Get Tinnie," I suggested. She knew Tinnie. "Or Nicks."

  Trace had a bolt in his head but he remained active. His shape shifted continuously until the bolt popped out. It clunked on the floor.

  "There's a neat trick," I muttered. "Sure like to learn that one."

  Alyx jumped on the thing.

  It tossed her across the room.

  I shot it as it got up. This time I followed up. I pushed a silver groat into its new wound.

  The changer lost control of its muscles.

  I asked, "Gilbey, you want I should tell the Old Man this one?"

  "Still my place, Garrett. But this time might be the one too much. Hannah was the reason he kept going."

  Belinda's changer kept sliding out of his restraints. He oozed like a slug. By trial and error I found that a whack on the side of the head would do to them what it did to me. "A few yards of silver wire would come in handy about now."

  Nicks appeared on cue. "Here, Garrett." She shed silver chain necklaces. "Tinnie will be here in a minute. Alyx? You all right?" Then Nicks realized that Hannah really was dead. The look she gave the changer made me glad she was on my side.

  I asked, "How come you're here?"

  "Your vampire girlfriend told me to come." She had a sharp tongue on her, Nicks did.

  I used her chains to bind the guy I'd bashed. He started shaking and flopping. I thought he'd break the chains easily but he didn't.

  Gilbey knelt beside me. "Gag them. We don't want to upset anybody downstairs."

  Tinnie marched in. Belinda was right behind her. The redhead said, "Ty will be here as soon as Lance gets somebody to help."

  Gilbey shook his head. "He doesn't need to do that. Better he should meet us in his father's study. If you ladies will see to Hannah's dignity? Garrett. Let's drag this garbage downstairs."

  "We have another one running loose still," I said as I gathe
red my share.

  "I know. I know. We'll deal with it."

  I wondered. If Relway was right, that one would know that something had gone wrong.

  48

  Max surprised us all. Horrible news piled atop horrible news prodded him back to life instead of finishing him. Maybe the pain was just too big to encompass. Or maybe he was too long in the habit of meeting Fate head-on. He glared at our captives but did not touch. He would take a practical, businesslike approach to revenge.

  Both changers still twitched and flopped. They would've screamed if not for their gags.

  Gilbey left to divert Ty and Lance.

  Marengo North English, Belinda, and Nicks had been asked to step out. Max didn't want to share this with them.

  Lance followed Ty into the study. Ty was on crutches. You didn't see that much. He was pale and angry. "Fuck up again, Garrett?"

  "Be quiet," Max said. His voice was calm and flat and cold. Ty responded instantly. "Sit down."

  Ty sat. Likely he hadn't heard that voice in a decade.

  "This isn't Garrett's fault. He wanted me to be more careful. Somebody meant to murder us all tonight. Who knows why? We've stymied them. Because we let Garrett do a little. Blame the mess on me. We did capture five shapeshifters." He hadn't been surprised to hear that the secret police were watching the house. "Manvil. What about the other one?"

  Gilbey nodded. He must have been up to something.

  "Five?" Ty croaked. He stared at the two squirming in front of the fire. That had burned down some now but still put out a lot of heat. The changers didn't like that.

  "Garrett dealt with three more outside the house." He didn't mention Tom or Kittyjo. Yet. He looked at me. "We'll get their story?"

  "If it can be gotten."

  "There's another one here in the house, Ty," Weider said. "I expect to deal with it momentarily."

  So Gilbey had been up to something. I should've warned him that the creatures could feel one another's distress.