Faded Steel Heat gf-9

by Glen Cook

  "Yeah. Would you believe they wanted to charge us with desertion?" Storey grumbled.

  Trail grumped, "We demanded a truthsayer. Even then they didn't want to believe us because a disaster that big would ruin lots of careers. But eventually enough others got back that they had to believe a story everybody told."

  "We won a kind of battle, just getting back with the truth," Storey said. "The gods smiled on us. We had to cross two hundred miles of desert without getting caught by the Venageti or the natives. If we didn't get back, them shapeshifters could've pretended to stay with Karenta and led even more troops into the cauldron."

  "It was bad," Trail told me. "I still get nightmares about that desert. I wake up and try to convince myself it was worth it 'cause if'n Will an' me didn't make it back, maybe there wouldn't have been any war for you kids to win."

  "Most of us try to think that way, Mr. Trail." I shuddered, recalling the islands. Mostly we'd just wanted to stay alive but there'd been a flavor of hanging on so somebody else could bring the slaughter to a favorable conclusion someday.

  In forty-two, eh? Over fifty years ago. And these old friends were still scrapping with the darkness. Maybe there was one more trick they could play on the nightmares.

  "You ever see those shifters up close?"

  "Up close?" Storey growled. "Shit. We practically slept together the three months before the attack. I reckon we saw them up close. One I'll never forget. We called him Pinhead. Pinhead sounded something like his name in his own language. And it fit. None of them was really bright. It made him really mad when we called him that."

  Trail said, "They were so dumb we figured the gods made them that way to balance off how they could turn into something else when you wasn't looking. Like they had to be too stupid to take complete advantage."

  Storey said, "I don't think they had the ability to appreciate the blessing. Some of it they couldn't control. Some of it they had to do whether they wanted or not."

  "Yeah," Trail said. "There was this one called Stockwell. He made a chicken look smart. He was only a kid by their standards. The rest of them rode him—"

  "Whoa! Stockwell? For sure?"

  "He was another one that got called what his name sounded like. Most of them did. We turned this one into Carter Stockwell. It was kind of a joke, too, on account of—"

  Couldn't be the same clown. Could it? After all these years? "I've been butting heads with a bunch of shifters. Believe it or not, one of them calls himself Carter Stockwell."

  "Really?" Trail asked. For the first time he seemed completely interested. "Ain't that interesting, Will?"

  "Sure is. I'd like to run into Carter Stockwell again some time. When I have a sack full of hot irons and silver knives. You know it's almost impossible to hurt them unless you use something silver?"

  I nodded. "I noticed."

  Trail said, "Always been my pet theory that silver is the reason they got involved in the war in the first place. That they never was on nobody's side but their own. If they could glom onto the silver mines, they'd control the best weapon that could be used against them."

  "You could be right," I said, though that sounded like a stretch to me. "Interesting. Have some beer, gents. Keep talking. Name some more names." Not that I believed their Carter Stockwell was mine. He might be a grandson, though. "Talk to me about tattoos."

  That drew blank looks and puzzled grunts.

  "The changers I'm running into all have a dragon tattoo right here. It's about six inches long but hard to see when they're alive."

  Storey shook his head. "I don't remember nothing like that."

  "Me neither," Trail said.

  "I do," Miss Trim told me. She was well sloshed now, sliding out of focus. She wore a lopsided, trollish leer. Was she making it up to get my attention? "It's a dragon squeezing the commando insignia in its claws."

  I grunted. "We're onto something, Quipo."

  "They were commandos. Mercenaries. I didn't know they were shapechangers, though. They called themselves the Black Dragon Gang. Said they came from Framanagt."

  "Which is an island so far east of nowhere that nobody would ever check. Was anybody named Norton involved?"

  "Colonel Norton was their commander. But he was Karentine."

  Stockwell and his pal had expected me to know something about their crew. "What did Black Dragon do to get famous?"

  "Nothing. It was the other way around. They did everything they could to hang around Full Harbor. They only went out when they couldn't avoid it. You don't make a name doing that."

  "That's where you were? Full Harbor?"

  "For nine wonderfully miserable years."

  Full Harbor was where I'd had my only previous encounter with a shapeshifter, a Venageti agent masquerading as a Karentine spy-master. Was there a connection? Should I have made one? "When did you separate?"

  "Six years ago." Quipo didn't want to talk anymore. She wanted to act but the only guy around young enough wasn't interested.

  Six years was long before my own encounter.

  I reminisced silently, trying to discover if I knew something I didn't know I knew. Apparently I did. Or Black Dragon didn't realize that I didn't know. "Was there ever any suspicion that the Black Dragon Gang might not be trustworthy?"

  "Uh?"

  The beer was hard at work now. I was about to lose Quipo. "Is there any chance those guys were really working for Venageta?"

  Miss Trim's eyes focused momentarily. She gave it a good try. "Uhm? 'Dwould 'splain a lot. Never fought a dat."

  Plop! She melted on the spot.

  The Cranky Old Men became excited. Only the fact that Quipo had a few sober sisters chaperoning saved her from a catalog of minor indignities and vengeances.

  I became the crowd favorite. I was an ear that would listen. Every old man wanted to tell his life story. None of those had anything to do with shapeshifters.

  Part of the cost of doing business. I might have to come back someday.

  I hung in there bravely, almost as long as the moon did, but eventually the beer ran out and I fell asleep.

  66

  I had a hangover. Again. Surprise.

  It was not yet a classic. It was just an infant. But it had potential. This was practically the middle of the night still. Dawn was only a hint of color in the east.

  Victor nudged me with a toe in a spot that the ogre had thumped yesterday. I woke up sprawled under an olive tree, supported by cold, damp stone. The Goddamn Parrot was on a branch overhead, muttering. He made no sense but occasionally my name entered the mix. "Get up, Garrett," Victor insisted. Pain blazed through my side. Oh, no! Not another cracked rib. "Some guy is looking for you."

  Some guy? That didn't sound good. I hadn't mentioned Heaven's Gate to anybody, ever. Nor had I noticed anybody following me. Not that I'd made much effort to keep track. Crask and Sadler were in the tank. The shifters ought to be licking their wounds. Nobody else should be interested.

  "Get up, damn you!" Victor let me have it again, in the identical spot, harder. He knew what he was doing.

  Victor was a teetotaller, a member of TunFaire's smallest and most viciously bizarre cult. He was the only born-again alcohol hater at Heaven's Gate. He'd let me know again and again what he thought of me dispensing the devil's sweat.

  "Victor, you do that again, you'll need to get fitted for a wooden leg."

  Victor chose discretion. "Your party is outside the front gate."

  My party was Ritter from Relway's deck of jokers. Brother Relway was looking like a mojo man who sees all and knows all. I asked, "Don't you guys ever sleep?"

  "Sleep? What's that? Wait! Yeah! I remember. They used to let me do that when I was in the army. Once a week whether I needed it or not. Don't have time to waste on it anymore, though. This is Card." Somebody unclear, clinging to a shadow, lifted a hand but didn't speak.

  I told Ritter, "I always knew you groundpounders had it sweet but you're the first one who ever admitted it. What's happenin
g?"

  "Boss wants you back at the Weider place."

  "That doesn't sound promising. How come?"

  "There's been another killing."

  "Shit. Who was it this time?" I should've gotten Saucerhead in there.

  "I couldn't say. Nobody told me. I'm just supposed to get you."

  "How'd you know where to find me?"

  He looked at the thing on my shoulder. "Followed the parrot droppings."

  "No, really."

  "The boss told me you were here. I don't know how he knew. I didn't ask." That cut me off quick. "I'm just a messenger, Garrett. He picked me because you'd recognize me."

  "You guys bring any transport?" Besides being hungover and achy from the ogre's handiwork I was stiff from sleeping on cold, damp stone.

  "You kidding, Garrett? You know what kind of budget we've got?"

  "Can't blame a guy for hoping. Though I expected the worst. You do that and you're never disappointed. Sometimes you're even pleasantly surprised."

  "It isn't that far, you know. Just a couple miles."

  "More like four. And I have a hangover and fresh bruises."

  "That ogre thumped you pretty good, eh?"

  Relway's crew seemed to know every breath I took. Relway had to want me to know that, too. Ritter was hardly so dumb he'd give it away if it was supposed to be a secret.

  "Just don't get in any hurry. I'll hike as fast as I can. I gotta do one thing before we go, though."

  I limped over to Shale's apartment. He lived alone. His personality guaranteed his privacy. I slipped the packet of cookies into the crook of his arm. He was a nasty old thing but he was family. The closest I had anymore.

  67

  Colonel Block met us on the Weider front steps. "Good morning, Garrett." He was in uniform. He dismissed Ritter and Card, eyed me as though he had developed major reservations. A large, muscular, nameless bruno lurked close by in case Block needed a ton of muscle in a hurry.

  The mansion looked deserted from the outside. I saw no light and heard no morning bustle. People should have been stirring.

  "You came yourself?" I asked.

  "This is getting big. A definite high-level interest has developed. Things are going on that we can't see from down here in the bushes." I got the impression that he was understating—and was not about to go into detail why.

  "I didn't want to hear that. Where's Relway?"

  "Good question. I haven't seen him since yesterday."

  "He sent for me."

  "I sent for you, Garrett. Because you know these people. They need to deal with somebody familiar. They're like trapped animals right now."

  "Ritter told me there's been another murder."

  "Yeah. Guy name of Lancelyn Mac. He had a head-on with somebody who tried to force his way into the house. The cripple was there but didn't see that part happen."

  "Ty."

  "Ty, then. Talk to him. I can't tell you anything he can't."

  "Where is he?"

  "Everyone in the house is in the family dining hall. Anybody who leaves has to go with someone else. That rule applies to everybody. My people included. Nobody should be alone, ever." Which explained the muscular behemoth attached to him like a shadow, jabbering like a stone.

  "You think changers killed Lance?"

  "Maybe. Nobody else is interested in the Weiders. Are they?"

  I shrugged, sketched what I'd learned at Heaven's Gate. Block listened without interrupting.

  "Interesting," he said. "The same name cropping up, then and now. You could cobble together some weird hypotheses if you made a few assumptions about shapeshifter thinking."

  You sure could. I had one notion I wanted to bounce off the Dead Man. It regarded his hero Glory Mooncalled and plans the man might have regarding TunFaire. "They have a strategy. They have a goal. If we knew what that was, we could figure out what they'll probably do next."

  "Next time we catch one I'll be sure to be more careful about keeping it caught. They're in here."

  "Here" was the family dining room that had served as Mr. Gresser's staging area during the ill-starred engagement gala.

  Tinnie ambushed me at the door. "Where the hell have you been?"

  "Out white-knighting around. I rescued a maiden, then I rushed to the bedside of an old man who doesn't have long to live. I took him some cookies to ease the pain."

  "We heard about Belinda Contague. I want to talk to you about... "

  Alyx materialized. Her bounce and deviltry had gone missing. She was a kid who needed somebody to tell her everything was going to be all right.

  The whole crowd seemed possessed by a universal despair.

  "Hi, Alyx. Hang in there, kid. We're going to turn it around. Gilbey. Max. Nicks. Ty. Can we get right to it?" Ty was in his wheelchair. Nicks sat nearby at a long rosewood table. Earlier that table had been shoved against the wall and piled with the goodies Gresser's people had been serving to the rest of us. Nicks was nowhere nearby mentally although she did grunt in response to my greeting.

  I needed to hone my charm skills.

  "Ty," I said. "Come walk me through what happened." All business is my middle name—even when I have a beautiful woman hanging on both arms. In my dreams.

  Block wanted to see a re-creation. Ty had refused to do it for him.

  Ty pushed his wheelchair away from the table. "I guess." His voice was flat. He was ready to give up but was going on because he was expected to go on. I'd seen it before. It might armor his soul till he passed through the dark fire.

  Nicks positioned herself behind Ty's chair. She moved like a sleepwalker.

  The remnants of this family would need a lot of help. Though if I didn't get somewhere soon, there might not be a family much longer.

  I followed Nicks into the great hall. Block followed me. I heard feet shuffle. Well. Max had invited himself along. Gilbey paced him, ready to help. Max looked like he'd aged thirty years.

  "This way," Ty murmured weakly.

  Alyx trotted along. She might be up for a fight before long.

  Ty directed Nicks to the foot of the steps to the front door. He beckoned me. "I couldn't sleep, Garrett. My back was aching and my leg was burning. I decided I'd get some work done if I was going to be awake anyway. I dragged poor Lance out and made him come down here with me to talk about how we were going to bring the furnishings back. I was in the chair, right here, looking back along the hall, when Gerris said something from up there. I was surprised to see him. He said someone was at the door. He wanted instructions. He seemed rattled. Lance said he'd take care of it."

  "Nicks," I asked, "would you walk through Lance's role? Alyx, scoot up there and be Genord."

  A snooty voice suggested, "Why not let Genord be Genord?" Genord stepped out of the gallery, which continued to grow behind Max and Gilbey.

  "Perfect. You be Genord, then. And we'll walk through it."

  Nicks positioned Ty according to his instructions. He told me, "I was saying something to the effect that I hoped Dad wouldn't insist on putting that ugly rust-bucket suit of armor back by the green colonnade when Gerris spoke."

  Genord, now at his post, stepped into sight and announced, "Sir, there's a very abusive young man here who insists on being allowed inside."

  "That's not quite right. I think he used the word obnoxious," Ty told me. "What's he want, Gerris?"

  Genord replied, "He just wants in, sir."

  Ty said, "That's when Lance said he'd take care of it. He was exhausted. He didn't want to be awake. He was in a mood to be very rude to somebody. I told him, ‘Kick his butt down the stairs if you have to.' He went straight to the door."

  I looked up at Genord. He told me, "I stayed with him. Just in case. I wasn't alert enough. Something did happen. And it was over before I could react."

  I nodded. "Go ahead. Nicks?"

  Genord moved Nicks into position at the door, returned to his own place.

  "Freeze," I told them. "Genord. Is this where everybody was? Exact
ly. Ty? Were you still looking up the hall?"

  Genord nodded. Ty told me, "No. I was looking over my shoulder like this. But I couldn't see anything. Lance or Gerris."

  I didn't have to bend or squat to see that he was right. You had to be two giant steps to his right even to spot the tail of Nicks' skirts.

  "But you saw it all?" I asked Genord. I was down to the unexpected eyewitness.

  He nodded. "The man was in shadow, though. And I was turned toward Master Ty when Lancelyn squawked."

  "But you got a look at the visitor when you answered the door, didn't you?"

  "I'd recognize him if I ever saw him again."

  "Did you recognize him then?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "I'm wondering if he might not have been here for the betrothal party. Possibly as one of Gresser's serving crew."

  "I see where you're going. I don't think that's possible. Though if you assume that the assassin was a shapechanger, he could have been here before in a different guise. But didn't you lock all of them up?" Genord seemed to be enjoying himself now. Was he fond of being the center of attention?

  Block observed, "Evidently the guy wasn't out to kill just anybody. Otherwise, he would've sliced you up when you opened the door. And he must not have wanted in all that badly or he would've just made his entrance over you and Ty. He's already made one kill. He'd have nothing to lose by another."

  I snapped, "He say anything to you?"

  Genord appeared rattled again. "Uh. Yeah. Let's see." Genord's snooty accent evaporated. He closed his eyes. After a deep breath he uncorked a string of rude demands for the return of a missing girlfriend. I frowned. So did everyone else. Genord stumbled. "Uh. That's what it sounded like to me. I was puzzled. That was one reason I deferred to Lancelyn. I couldn't imagine that the man had come to the wrong house." There is no other residence near the Weider mansion.

  I exchanged glances with Block. The puzzle was growing bigger. I said, "I mean did he say anything after he hit Lance. But before you answer that, tell me, are you saying that this killer was accusing Lance of stealing his woman?"