by Glen Cook
Something below her screamed and screamed.
Morley’s mention of the vampire nest reminded me that I had heard that kind of scream before. It was rooted in the agony of knowing that immortality had been betrayed.
Tentacles whipped at the Windwalker. She dodged them easily.
Coming into the last hundred fifty feet of my run I saw that the monster had only two tentacles free to fend off an aerial attacker. The rest all had hold of people, the most notable of who was Morley. Several men threw things ineffectively. Nobody had come prepared to deal with this. But it could not flee while in squid form.
I was fifty feet away, lungs afire, wishing I’d had the stones to bring something lethal to the fight. The Windwalker made a quick run.
She pelted the beast with precisely delivered handfuls of rock salt.
It stopped trying to fight. It began to shudder, to shake. It turned loose of Morley and the others. I got in close, grabbed Sarge’s arms, and started dragging. Other guys got hold of other victims, some of who had gotten thoroughly squeezed.
The Windwalker dropped down beside me. She turned into Strafa Algarda again. She was not breathing as hard as I was. “I ran out of salt!” She was exasperated.
“But you had enough.”
She slipped her right hand into my left hand and pulled me forward.
The monster ripped through one final, violent, screaming convulsion, followed by a bizarre, noisy death rattle. It relaxed into the Nathan of the Bird’s portrait, only looking as he might have at twenty, improved by a vast suite of cosmetic enhancements.
This was the male equivalent of the sweet thing in black leather — except for proportional wounds where its alternate form had been showered with salt.
Block caught up. He clamped his right hand on my left shoulder, facing me, while he fought for wind. “We got’em. Finally.”
“Not all of them. Not yet.”
Morley stumbled over and hung on to Block. He could not take his eyes off our prisoner. “I remember most of it.” He pointed at Nathan, who was getting the hog-tie treatment despite his poor health. “Him. He was the one who locked me up down there. I think because I saw them bringing prisoners off a barge over there.” At which point he became completely confused.
I asked the question that was troubling him. “What were you doing here in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t remember.” But he did before he finished saying that. And it was something he dared not discuss with Westman Block close by.
This near the river, after dark, meant smuggling. In Morley’s case, undoubtedly to avoid import duties. He donned a broad, weak grin.
Block said, “We won this round.” His men had Nathan cocooned in rope in case he decided to come back to life. “But we still have work to do.”
105
They picked me to step up to the Knodical door and ask for Prince Rupert. Strafa went along. The door opened. We went inside.
Other than the servants who admitted us there were no visible staff. The place was halfway a ruin. Maintenance had been neglected for years.
I went in all worked up to protect my best girl. A few minutes later I was thinking more rationally. I understood who would be protecting whom.
The servants led us to Prince Rupert. He was the absolute antithesis of happy. My message was brief. “The people outside want you to see something before this situation gets any uglier.”
He had no choice. We had seen the inside of the Knodical. We would take that information back with us. And go we would because the Windwalker would make it happen.
“What?”
“You need to see it with a virgin mind.”
Strafa said, “You have no choice, Rupert. See what you must see. Then we’ll put this trial to bed.”
He asked, “Is it still raining?”
Prince Rupert shared our coach. We reached the Landing. General Block had the army setting up a field hospital. Morley, Belinda, and Deal Relway were still on site and getting underfoot. The ratpeople were all gone. Nobody offered the Crown Prince a welcoming smile.
Rupert was fresh out of smiles himself. Life was a nightmare that was sure to get worse.
The rain picked up.
As we approached it three valiant red tops emerged from the nearest door with a liberated prisoner. The man was just barely alive. One of the Guards said, “This is the last live one, General. There’s still a dozen corpses.”
“Leave them. Your Highness, do you smell that?”
“I do.” Making no pretence to misunderstand.
“It’s worse inside. I won’t force you to experience it. I don’t want to give you any more reason to hate me. This was their headquarters. This was where they made themselves young. One level down is another laboratory like the one on the edge of Elf Town, a tailor shop, and a woodshop. Below that are the cellars where they kept their human resources.”
Relway joined us. “I told Berry to break through the back wall so we can flood the cellars.”
“That should help. Windwalker, Mr. Garrett, His Highness grasps the true enormity of the situation. You may return him to the Knodical.”
I wasn’t part of the in-group here. I was day labor. “Yes, sir.”
Block and Relway eyed me with immense suspicion.
Block said, “Day after tomorrow we’ll open this to the public.”
Rupert said, “You don’t want to do that.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But I will. I remind you, it was Crown Prince Rupert who proclaimed a new Civil Guard and an era when no one would be above the law.”
Rupert had nothing more to say. We returned him to the Knodical, at which point we had to give up the coach. The Windwalker flew us back to my house. In a downpour.
Though it was not yet late everyone but Penny had gone to bed. Penny helped slap together a half-assed supper. There were loose ends to the day but I didn’t care. All I wanted was a full belly and a warm bed.
Strafa was more exhausted than I was. She had put in a heavy, hard day. I carried her upstairs. We collapsed on top of the covers in our wet clothes. Singe and Dean would raise hell in the morning.
106
I woke a couple of times, used the pot, shed some of the miserable wet clothing, went back to sleep. Hunger brought me out after fourteen hours.
Strafa remained dead to the world. She hadn’t moved since I laid her down.
The night did tell me one more thing about her. She snored like a longshoreman when she was exhausted.
Dean fed me an indifferent meal. He was distracted. He foresaw a crowd gathering. I told him, “If you don’t open the door you won’t have to entertain them.”
“No doubt true. However, I lack your facility for pragmatic rudeness.” Muttering, he headed out to answer a knock.
He was back in a minute with Playmate. I said, “That wasn’t so bad. Put him to work. How goes, Play?”
“Screaming fine. But I do need to find Kolda. I’m almost out of medicine.”
“We’ll hunt him down as soon as...” Done eating, I was moving into the hallway. Penny was at the peephole. She looked rather nice.
I am still alive. I do notice things.
Penny opened up. John Stretch and Dollar Dan trundled in. Singe was right behind. She had the boys doing porter work. She had looted a stationery shop.
“What the hell?”
“I was out of paper and low on ink. What did the Dead Man say?”
“How much paper do you...? He didn’t say anything. He tends not to talk in his sleep.”
“He woke up hours ago, Garrett. Definitely dragging, for him, though. What did you do?” Suddenly suspicious.
“I didn’t do anything. I just got up. Why do you need so much paper?”
“I’m recording the family history.”
Garrett. Please join me.
He was back. That was the difference I’d felt. The place just fits different when he’s awake. Though Singe had it right. This was just barely.
<
br /> I stepped into his room. A handful of candles burned there. The cold was a shock. The light was for Penny. She had a painting going.
Saucerhead had arrived at some point. He sprawled in a corner, snoring.
I told Penny, “That’s really good. You even got Sarge’s wart.”
The kid flinched but beamed. She was doing a collage of faces, working from memory. I had no trouble recognizing anyone.
You managed without me.
I sensed both pride and disappointment. “I worried every minute of it, too.”
A virtual sneer. So I see. Nor have you fully worked out your woman issues yet.
“That’s a little harder. I want to do the right thing.”
Really? Or might it be that you do not want people seeing you as the bad guy when the crying starts?
“There is that.”
It is safe for Mr. Dotes to go when he wishes. The threat no longer exists. The Royals gave up the last villain. Fear of the mob moved them. The King, when glimpsed by General Block, appeared to be a scant sixteen. The antiaging process must be highly unpredictable. Though he has been aging since before you and Mr. Dotes became involved, he remains a decade younger than was his target.
It is probable, by the way, that Mr. Dotes was taken originally not because he saw prisoners being shifted but because he might have seen the King’s coach. I found a glimpse, never noticed or recognized, in a backwater of what he has been able to recall of that night.
“Dramatic age shifts? Could that explain the child’s room in the Elf Town warehouse? Did one of the female villains get pushed back all the way to childhood?”
A plausible theory. I expect that the wild unpredictability began when they started using live bodies. The dead would be at a near ground state and much alike but the living would sprawl across a vast range.
That sounded good but didn’t make much sense. I stopped listening. Nor did I harken to Dean and Singe squabbling about the work involved in throwing a victory party. Strafa had come into the Dead Man’s room. She had cleaned up and dressed herself fit to kill. She didn’t have to turn on the girl power.
So. I believe that issue has been worked out, too.
Maybe. A choice had been made. Questions remained. And I still had to summon the guts to face Tinnie and tell her there was nothing more she could do. I had to say good-bye.
I didn’t want to see that being brave, sad, resigned look. But I couldn’t disrespect her and what we had been to one another by just turning my back.
I wished there was a way we could stay friends. But that wouldn’t work any better for us than it had for Kevans, Kip, and Kyra.
Old Bones settled back virtually and included the entire household in the warm glow of his approval.
He had gotten his boy all growed up.
Even Penny gave up a grudging smile.
About the Author
Glen Cook was born in 1944 in New York City. He has served in the United States Navy, and lived in Columbus, Indiana; Rocklin, California; and Columbia, Missouri, where he went to the state university. He attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1970, where he met his wife, Carol. “Unlike most writers, I have not had strange jobs like chicken plucking and swamping out health bars. Only full-time employer I’ve ever had is General Motors.” He is now retired from GM. He’s “still a stamp collector and book collector, but mostly, these days, I hang around the house and write.” He has three sons — an Army officer, an architect, and a music major.
In addition to the Garrett, P. I., series, he is also the author of the popular Black Company series.
