by Glen Cook
She had no brief for what of that attitude she did notice, which she blamed entirely on Dollar Dan.
Dan came over. “They are getting ready to move the woman. They have been doing that, off and on, all afternoon.” He raised a paw. Moonblight wanted to launch an immediate sortie. “Patience, please. Hear me out first. Orders for the move came hours ago. Then those orders were countermanded. Then, just a while ago, someone angry rolled in wanting to know why the move had not been made, apparently because Moonslight’s keepers are supposed to be able to anticipate their boss’s desires.”
I have worked for bosses like that.
My jaw hung. It wasn’t alone. Singe rasped, “Who are you, Poindexter, and what did you do with my Dollar Dan Justice?”
Dan lapsed into drooling idiocy instantly. Pular Singe had praised him. She had called him “her” Dollar Dan Justice.
He got over it fast. He was back to business in seconds, describing the inside and outside layouts of Mariska’s “prison.”
Barate whispered, “Did they just roll in there and map it?” The information was detailed.
“Some rat people have some amazing talents.” Singe, while unique, was not alone in not being a big lump of dumb with whiskers and ears. Barate had seen it himself, back when, but I chose not to remind him that some rat men can commune with their unmodified cousins and use them as scouts. That shouldn’t get spread around, especially on the Hill.
An intelligence resource like that would be massively useful to any villain. And I’d bet that the possibilities hadn’t gotten past Singe or John Stretch. They probably had plans for dealing with the evilly ambitious.
I asked Dan, “Have they scoped out the tactical situation?”
Again Dan failed to commit to stereotype. “They have a plan and an alternative plan, in shock-and-awe style.”
He produced a map, crudely drawn on ragged-ass scrap paper. The lighting left something to be desired, but the damned map worked.
I said, “One change, I think. Instead of taking the risks that come with a break-in, why not let them come to us? The only way out, if they want to sneak, is through the storage lot to the alley. Which would be perfect for an ambush. Right?”
Dan said, “Let me talk to Mud.”
Ted whispered, “Why wait? Why not just blast in from three directions? They couldn’t handle that.”
“Coordination problems. Somebody would go early. Somebody else would go late because they didn’t hear anybody else moving. And the baddies would be ready because somebody would make noise and give the whole thing away. Plus, we could end up fighting each other in the dark.”
Dan came back. “Mud Man says you are a genius, Garrett.”
Singe said, “Which shows you how well Mud Man knows him.”
I said, “Well, of course I am. My mom always told me so.”
Actually, she was talking about Mikey when she said that. Me she told, over and over, that I would end up in the gutter unless I made at least a half-ass effort to live up to my potential.
Oh, sigh. The past is never as shining as we like to remember. And it never turns us loose.
Whispers ran among the rat men. There was a stress-out squeak from Tara Chayne as regular rats of unusual size scrambled around among us. So. The little scampers made the dread Moonblight nervous.
Dan said, “They’re about to move out, exactly the way you guessed. We need to be ready.”
74
Four people accompanied Mariska Machtkess, surrounding her in a loose rectangle. Front left and right rear were gray rat men of the sort we’d seen earlier. Neither Dollar Dan nor Mud Man had mentioned their presence.
Deliberately? Probably. But it didn’t matter much.
Moonslight didn’t look like she was under duress. She was talking steadily, too softly to hear but obviously deeply unhappy. I wished I had my magic ear back. Be interesting to know why she was feeling blue.
We should know soon enough. I meant to drag her straight to Macunado Street.
I gave the ever-so-clever signal: “Get them!”
Pounce! And multipounce! The bad boys got neutralized before they understood that they were being hit. Likewise, and especially, Moonslight. She, for one breath, looked like she meant to resist, then lapsed into a resigned “this is too good to be true” attitude.
“Tara Chayne. You’re getting sly in your old age. I never felt a thing. And you my twin.” Dramatic sigh. “I’d given up on you.”
Moonblight replied, “You were always covered. My rat man friends were there all the time. You seemed safe enough. But when things started happening elsewhere, I decided to get you back.”
Last light was almost gone. It was hard to tell, but I thought Moonslight looked a little gray.
I exchanged glances with Singe. We definitely had to fix her up with the Dead Man.
Singe’s eyes widened. I spun to see why.
The light was awful. Flecks of rain had begun to fall. Even so, there was no mistaking the little blonde atop the cement maker’s shed.
Singe stepped close, grabbed my left arm with both hands. She had a sudden case of the sniffles. She got up on tiptoe to whisper, “We are no longer alone.”
Brevet Captain Deiter Scithe stepped on her line. “So, what is this all about, Garrett?”
He had not turned up alone. Shadows moved all round, closing in.
I had to get rid of that Civil Guard tracer.
“Don’t you ever stop working?” No point mentioning that I didn’t find it useful to have the Civil Guard in my hip pocket all the time. He would refuse to be convinced.
“They won’t let me stop while you keep getting into mischief. Guess who my wife hates more than her mother-in-law?”
“Somebody kidnapped Moonblight’s sister. Singe’s connections helped us find her. We came to get her back.”
“I’m beginning to understand why the Director and General Block get hysterical about you. That feels like it’s true but smells like it’s only a fraction of the truth. That’s work that should be left to the Guard. It should have been reported when it happened.”
I shrugged. “You’re another one with serious trust issues.”
“Well, duh. You have an interesting mix here.”
I thought he meant my companions, and maybe he did, some, but he was staring at the baddies when he said it.
“Yeah. You hardly ever see gray rat men working with another race.”
“As you say. My bosses will be interested in that.”
I concentrated on self-control. This was where being the usual me might earn me a difficult row to hoe later on.
Scithe said, “Here’s a thought. The Director won’t like it, but I am the senior on the scene, with full situational discretion. And, honestly, you and your friends did all the work. It would be less than fair to confiscate your whole harvest, however much I have the law and courts behind me.”
I put my hands over the seat of my pants. Somebody was about to get bent over.
It took me a moment to realize that Scithe was messing with me. He was wasting time deliberately. He suggested, “Let’s split the haul. You take a rat and a thug, I’ll take a rat and a thug.”
“Works for me.”
Brownie took a stance in front of Scithe, bared her teeth, growled a growl that made her sound more exasperated than threatening.
Scithe grinned. “Ferocious sidekick, Garrett. Going to pee my pants leg, girl?”
“You never know,” I said. “She has character.”
Clever, clever, ever-slick Tara Chayne Machtkess used the distraction to ease Mariska away from the Brevet Captain. Mariska did nothing to make that difficult. She was disinclined to head into durance in a place unlikely to be hospitable. Denizens of the Al-Khar had been born again into the faith of the law. She preferred traditional privilege.
One or both sisters did something intended to make themselves less notable.
Scithe was not fooled. “Miss Machtkess, ma’am, I understand that y
ou want to share an emotional reunion after a successful rescue. But your sister should come see us at the Al-Khar as soon as she can so we can collect information about the scofflaws involved.” He winked at me. “That will give you time to get your stories straight.”
He didn’t quite mean what he said. He was, actually, counting on the Dead Man’s superior interrogation techniques.
He winked again as a rogue raindrop the size of a robin’s egg smacked him square in the third eye.
He yelped. “Steng, Split, snag that one and that one and let’s go. Maybe I can get my supper before midnight.”
Brownie growled again. So did her henchmutts. This time, though, she didn’t care about Deiter Scithe. The dogs all glared at the cement maker’s heating tower, where the little blonde’s good buddy stood silhouetted against what little gray light remained. He stepped off the back side and vanished.
Tara Chayne asked, “What was that?”
“I’m really starting to wonder why that girl turns up whenever my life gets interesting.”
“Does she? Every time?”
I shrugged. Maybe not. “Well, no. Frequently.” There had been times that I hadn’t seen her. But that was all that meant. She might have been watching. “I’m just really wondering why.”
“Let’s take sis to dinner at your place.”
“That’s a great idea.”
75
I wasn’t totally gone in the wastelands of my own thoughts-years of being the butt of practical jokers who scheme beneath the seat of the three-holer in the sky guaranteed that we would see an ambush before we got to my house-but I was nibbling round the crust of a slice of curiosity. What should we do with our captives once the Dead Man was done burglarizing their brains?
We must have them stacked in like cordwood by now.
Tara Chayne could do whatever she wanted with her sister once we were done with her. Maybe the Guard could pass the rest along to the labor camps.
Barate smacked us hard with the obvious. “It’s dark.” He had helped himself to some lumber from the storage lot, a broken piece of form board. He swished it around like a practice sword.
I protested, “I’m alert.”
Singe and her big stick were more ready than I was.
The dogs were close in and halfway slinking, expecting trouble.
“There was that ugliness with the Hedley-Farfoul twins last night. That must have been the first official clash of the tournament. Right?”
“So I understand.” I looked around nervously. “You’re getting at something specific?” We did not have the street to ourselves. There was civilian traffic and plenty of movement rolling with us. Tara Chayne, though, didn’t seem particularly uneasy, so I assumed that movement must be friendly. Nominally. Like Specials hoping our honey would draw more flies. Honey, I say! Not horse puckey. Not any kind of puckey, horse, chicken, or bull.
In the outbacks of my mind, a puckish imaginary being ticked the box next to Bull, Commercial Grade.
Barate said, “We should consider the likelihood that there will be more action tonight. Possibly several incidents, all extremely violent.”
“Yeah.”
Things were moving faster than we or the Operators liked.
“You should, then, be more concerned than you have been showing.”
“Eh?”
“As far as we know, you’re still Mortal Companion to Kevans’s Family Champion. The Mortal Companion should be close enough to support the Family Champion, especially when the Dread Companion isn’t around. Do you know where Kevans is?”
Oh. No. I did not, not in the least. I couldn’t think of anything to say and Barate was a worried dad snakebitten already by a nasty loss. “We should work on that once we get these villains delivered.” I unlaxed even more, and upped the pace.
Moonblight, I noted, was psyching herself up for something, too. Even Dr. Ted appeared to be readying himself.
Moonslight, though, appeared to be relaxed.
That seemed like an evil portent.
I was, by then, comfortably confident that she was connected to the Operators.
Tara Chayne softly whispered, “Mariska and Meyness Stornes were a hot item back in the day.”
I missed the hint in the fact of the whisper because I was thinking that nostalgia becomes a potent driver as we age and spend more time snuggled up with our regrets.
The workings of Moonslight’s mind were less a mystery than were those of Meyness B. Stornes, whose own grandson could become one of the victims of his cruel scheme.
Maybe the eldest Stornes planned to cheat in favor of his descendant.
“Hey,” I said to Tara Chayne, not using my inside voice. “You think anybody besides us has any idea who Magister Bezma might be?”
“And the inimitable Garrett steps into another big, steaming pile,” Singe muttered. “Really, Garrett? Don’t you ever think before you blurt stuff out?”
No need for her to explain. There was Moonslight, till now brilliantly unaware that we knew, her eyes widening in horror and her head jerking as she looked for some immediate opportunity to escape.
“Not often enough,” I confessed. “Not nearly often enough. I’m a Marine. It’s hey, diddle, diddle, straight up the middle, smashing things till the job is done.”
Some of my companions could think on their feet. Or paws, as the case might be. First the dogs, then Dr. Ted and Barate closed in around Moonslight. Ted helped her up after she tripped over Number Two while making a sudden, brief bid for freedom.
She went from confidently calm to panic in seconds. Was that only because we knew about Meyness B. Stornes? And did we, really? I didn’t feel like that had yet fully passed the frontiers of speculation.
Tara Chayne slapped me across the back of the head. “Genius.” Then, “Gods, aren’t you lucky that you’re pretty?”
That stung. That was sarcasm at its pure, crusty finest.
“I do my best,” I protested. “You should have suspected the worst when you heard that Strafa picked me.”
“That would be on her, not on you.”
Dollar Dan said, “Can we keep it down? There may be people interested in your problems, but none of them are here. We want to keep an ear on what is happening out there in the darkness.”
Singe’s whiskers wiggled. She snuffled up little chunks of air.
Tara Chayne and I exchanged looks. Dan must have taken a fistful of courage pills. He’d never been so forceful, nor as responsible, come to that.
I whispered, “Something is about to happen.”
Moonblight nodded. “Dan, whatever happens, don’t let anybody get away.”
Dollar Dan puffed up. A major Hill player had just spoken to him by name, like he was a real person.
When the something happened it didn’t happen to us. A light show, with bangs and roars, broke out over toward the Hill. Whips and staves of light lashed and slashed the darkness, making the scattered raindrops sparkle like descending diamonds. Every glow tossed off a splatter of fading shards when it hit something.
Stunning. Beautiful. A great distraction, suitable for leaving everyone oohing and aahing, but it didn’t distract us completely. We were not unready when the flood of gray rats arrived.
There had to be forty in the swarm, maybe the majority of their kind. The attack made no sense. I saw males, females, preadolescents to hobbling elders. None were armed with anything more dangerous than a stick. I might have felt sorry had they been jumping somebody else. The assault seemed that pathetic.
I didn’t let my lack of understanding keep me from cracking heads. I didn’t let my eye or conscience distinguish the stick-wielding adult male from his stick-wielding mate or granny or pup. Doing that could only lead to pain.
Ted did scruple. That doctor thing about first doing no harm. It cost him blood and bruises and us all the loss of Mariska Machtkess.
Weight of numbers nearly did for us all. Luckily, gray rat people are not big. They do not have much mas
s going for them.
Swamping was the point, of course.
The rush wasn’t about liberating Mariska; that was just its result. The object of the thrust was our gray rat captive. We would learn, later, that he was Wicked Pat, the grays’ John Stretch. Wicked Pat had been clever enough to conceal his identity and so avoid having to meet Deal Relway.
Pat would be of definite interest to the Director.
His friends and family weren’t clever enough, though. Only Mariska Machtkess benefited.
The rat tide left me wobbly and blessed with a thousand new aches and bruises. I just wanted to lie down and feel sorry for myself. Ted was in worse shape. He didn’t have enough oomph left to help himself, let alone the rest of us. He asked, “What should we do about these people?”
Meaning the rat folk who had been left behind. The light was poor. My count only approximated, yet I had eighteen feebleminded fools scattered about the street, conscious and unconscious. I hoped none were dead or badly broken.
“We’ll take a couple along so my partner can find out what moved them. The rest are fine right where they’re at.”
Singe, Dollar Dan, and the rest all panted a lot and said very little. Barate was down on one knee, bent over a puddle of lunch. Some rat had given him a solid whack to his pride and joy. Tara Chayne, between huffs and puffs, battled a case of the giggles.
“What’s with you?” I demanded, taking a break from sucking left hand knuckle abrasions. I couldn’t remember losing the skin.
“The joke is on Mariska.” She fought for breath. “I put a tracer on her a while back. Not the one from your saddle, the old Guard one. If she ran I figured it would be funny if she just got into it deeper with the tin whistles.”
Yeah. That’s the kind of thing you do to your siblings, just for the hell of it. And it was funny till you considered possible real consequences.
The fugitive was Moonslight, a Hill-topper sorceress. She didn’t have many resources, but the red tops weren’t Hill-toppers. She had skills, and her lack of an arsenal could be rectified quickly.
A general with troops to burn would rush a battalion to the Machtkess house with orders to sit tight and wait. Mariska would show. She had to show.
