by Glen Cook
“That was the deal.”
“In writing if you can. Memories are somewhat fallible.”
The Dead Man’s memory was perfect and it came with sounds and smells and kinesthetic cues. “I’ll ask Singe to create a report. But we’ve been out all day. It’ll take her a while just to catch up on her own stuff.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “Do what you have to do. But don’t waste time. Things are moving fast.”
He had that right. Developments were coming faster than we could make sense of anything.
Target and his boys clambered over the dead thing, which seemed severely deflated now and already smelled like calamari gone bad. The Specials avoided physical contact while easing past Moonblight. I said, “The ones we need to move out are in the room behind the door on the right. The ones cringing at the end of the hall still need to be processed.”
The newest arrivals were crowded back close to the kitchen door. Dean blocked that line of retreat. At some point Penny had dashed back to post herself on the first step of the stairs, cutting off any flight upward.
I glanced back outside.
Moonblight was on the porch trying to get the dagger out of the demon’s eye, if demon the critter was. Conversationally, she said, “We need to pick up this mess, throw it in a big pot, and cook it down so there’s no chance it’ll death-spawn.”
“Is it female?”
“I don’t know. How do you tell? But why take the chance?”
“I got to admit, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“These things sometimes squirt out all their eggs if they die suddenly. Thousands of eggs that can hatch in hours. The hatchlings look like whiskery little yellow grubs. They feed on the carcass till they can get at something alive. Only a few will manage, but the ones that do will make like botfly maggots.”
Botflies I knew. Botflies I remembered. Ugly, ugly stuff. The god who thought those up was one twisted. .
I didn’t get the cooking part. I guess that would kill the larvae.
Some nobility types had gotten that treatment after they died in the field, so that their relics could be sent home for interment with family. Us ordinaries remained where we fell, of course. Unless we had friends who cared enough, and had time enough, to put us down deep enough so the scavengers couldn’t get us. Or, where there was wood to waste, they might burn us down to ashes and ghosts.
I wondered what the jackals and buzzards were doing now, in a time of famine. Waiting on each other to starve?
“Garrett? Are you there?” Target asked.
“I’m awake. I promise. What?”
“That’s Harmon Kolda in there. The poisoner. How did you catch him? We’ve been on the lookout for him for months.”
But not trying very hard, I didn’t say. Kolda ran a shop not far from Playmate’s stable. He had an apothecary sign outside with his name on it.
“The Director has always been interested in his client list.”
Harmon? Really? I couldn’t recall ever having heard Kolda called anything but Kolda, even by his wife.
“Sorry. He isn’t a prisoner. He’s a consultant. He’s helping treat a friend with cancer. Maybe he was in the poison racket one time. I keep hearing that. But he isn’t now. He makes good money as an apothecary.”
Target radiated a fog of skepticism.
“Anyway, the Guard’s writ doesn’t run to anything that happened before the Crown issued its charter. Right?”
“I never figured you for a barracks lawyer, Garrett. But I won’t argue.”
Yeah. If he really wanted Kolda, he could just wait outside. Kolda would head home eventually.
Maybe Target was really testing the Dead Man. He’d done a comedic double take when he got his first glimpse. Maybe he was trying to see if that lump of weird’s reputation was solid.
I looked over Target’s shoulder. And began to wonder if there was anything to the stories myself, in the sense that I couldn’t feel Old Bones at all.
I was concerned.
In modern Karentine that meant I was worried a whole lot.
We had worked through some grim times, off and on, but I couldn’t recall a time when there had been such an overwhelming demand, stressing his capacities and talents so severely.
He might be gone.
Gone in the sense that he was deeply asleep, recovering, not in the sense that he was gone gone, like into forever sleep.
I couldn’t see that coming up in my lifetime.
Target said, “If you insist I’ll just be too busy to notice the poisoner in the back.”
“Thank you, sir.” And cut it off there, with no sarcastic color commentary. “Maybe you’d better take the rest of these bums, too. The ones in the hall that I was going to hang on to. My partner is out of it now. We can’t do anything with them. He used himself up on that thing on the stoop.”
Which was the undecorated truth, as far as I knew, but Target was skeptical. I repeated Moonblight’s suggestion about cooking the thing down. He was skeptical some more, but less so. He had seen some stuff in his day, too. “I’ll see to it.” Still. .
There seemed to be a fundamental assumption underlying Civil Guard culture: If Garrett is talking, he’s telling a tall one.
I know. They feel that way about all civilians. But it’s just not fair in my case. They’re wrong at least forty percent of the time. They should consider each statement on its own merits and in its own context.
Target eased past Moonblight so he could lean out and yell for more men, which made me real nervous. How did I make a big crowd go away, once it got in, without Old Bones to back me up?
Renewed thumping came from my old office. Something like an elephant gargling gravel bellowed a curse. It shook dust off the ceiling.
Singe leaned through the doorway to her office. “You want to do something about that?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“Think!”
“Not part of my skill set. Tara Chayne? How about you? Anything you can do?”
“I’ll try. Give me a minute. I’m working on calming down. I still can’t believe Mariska did that! All our lives I’ve made allowances and excuses and covered for her. I’ve even bought people off for her. Then she goes and sends her favorite familiar after me. Her practically godsdamned diabolical supernatural husband thing, K’thool Hoo C’Thug himself! Damn her, I’ve had it! Sister or not, twin or not, I’m not going to pretend to be blind this time!”
Renewed, ever more vigorous thumping and cursing came from the room where Vicious Min was, apparently, trying to get onto her feet and back into the business of whatever her business was.
Still muttering, Moonblight headed off north to slay that particular giant.
80
So there I was. .
A lot of my stories start that way, and then beer or some lesser form of alcohol gets involved. I was hoping some of that might be involved here soon. I waved without enthusiasm as Target and his crew hauled the last bad boys away. The dead and wounded from the street scuffle had ended up aboard a big wagon that was a cell on wheels, where they were piled three deep.
Those healthy enough to shuffle under their own power had left already, tied together in a coffle.
Though the red tops took a few with them, nobody seemed to know what to do about the balance of the gray rats. The half-ass consensus was to turn them loose and let the rat community sort them out. Meaning a blind eye would turn to the moon while John Stretch did what he wanted to restore order, social norms, and tranquillity among the under-people.
As they sometimes do, my thoughts drifted. I was agitated because Old Bones did indeed appear to have gone into hibernation. That could last for weeks or even months.
This was not a good time.
It never is.
This time he had gone without passing along anything learned from Min, Hagekagome, or any of the gang folk we had rolled past him.
There was yet another outbreak of thumping and
cursing in my old office, the verbal part more enthusiastic than the physical. I picked out a few words in no language I recognized but, doubtless, not the sort one used while having tea with one’s mother. Not my mother, anyway, even where she was likely dwelling now.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother plenty, I’ve just never had any illusions about her being a saint.
Well, she might have been to my goody-two-shoes baby brother.
Vicious Min had control of her faculties but not her flesh. The racket slowly declined.
The old homestead would need a thorough cleaning after this. How much could I pass off onto Penny?
She had scooted up front and had the door partway open, checking the street. Singe was helping her rubberneck, likely watching for her brother.
Dollar Dan lurked a few steps behind Singe, clearly nervous. It wasn’t clear why. I had no complaints. He had been a good man to have on the voyage.
Tara Chayne stepped out of my office-turned-infirmary. “That’s all I can do. It won’t last. You want her kept controlled, you need to get your partner back in action. Or convince Ted to do something.”
Ted sneered but did not dignify the suggestion with a response.
I said, “Based on experience I can say I don’t have a good feeling about that.”
“Then hand her over to the Specials, too. You won’t be able to manage her yourself.”
I started to say something, realized I had nothing to say. I broke precedent by actually not saying it.
Tara Chayne continued. “She’s mostly recovered. She has an inhuman vitality. It’ll keep getting harder to make her sleep. Ted won’t help and I’m not moving in to handle her for you. I have other squid to fry.”
She wasted no innuendo on the move-in remark. It was time to go on. She had a sister who needed to be found and spanked. That sister was tagged. How far ahead had Moonblight been thinking? Had she thought that Moonslight might lead us somewhere interesting?
Had Target figured out that the tracer had migrated? Might he and his be launching their own hunt?
Moonblight thought they might be. She was getting antsy.
No way she wanted them getting to her sister first.
“I understand. Anything else you can do before we go?”
One eyebrow rose slightly in response to that “we.” She withheld comment otherwise. She did gesture toward the Dead Man’s room.
“Like I said, he could be out for months.”
“There is another resource in there.”
I didn’t understand. His Nibs was alone now, except for Playmate, Kolda, and Niea, all caught in the twilight between sleep and consciousness.
“The poisoner can render her pliable. Or, if not pliable, then weak and manageable. Or constantly unconscious.”
Maybe he could. I didn’t think it was reasonable to ask him to break any more laws on my behalf.
“Singe, are you expecting John Stretch?”
“I am. He will appear once he knows he can get here without being seen by the Guard. He will be interested in hearing what we know about the involvement of the grays.”
He would. “Too bad Old Bones is out of it. He probably had all the answers.”
Dollar Dan said, “Singe and I can give a few. We learned a lot that would not be obvious to a human observer.”
Singe nodded, then eyed Dan like she still wondered who this imposter might be.
I bit down on a grin.
You had to give the guy kudos for studly determination. He was willing to transform himself into a total rat man Poindexter if that was the price of gaining Singe’s favor.
His quest was poignantly, sadly foredoomed, but I was willing to pony up a pail of points for perseverance.
I said, “Tara Chayne, Ted, Barate, and I will be heading out shortly. . ”
Ted said, “I’ve been away from Constance for too long.”
Barate nodded. “I still need to find Kevans and get her locked down where the gods themselves can’t get at her.”
Tara Chayne wasn’t as thrilled with the prospect of my company as once she had been. Luminous intuition suggested that this might be because I tried to do the right thing in the tight places. I was too much into ethical folderol, even after my loss.
I told her, “I’ll try to keep my big damned mouth shut.”
She would catch Mariska, sure. Things might turn problematic then, though I was sure that Moonblight would prevail. I did hope to ask Moonslight a few questions before big sister took the process too far.
“All right. If you want to tag along. But I’ll hold you to your promise.” She moved in, looked up at me from as close as she could get with her clothes still on. “I hear any of your usual lip, I’ll sew your mouth shut with catfish tripe.”
“Gah!”
“You won’t have the Algarda angels hovering anymore.”
I took that as a reminder rather than intimidation. “Got you.”
“That I’ll believe when I see it.”
I turned away, chastened. Tara Chayne Machtkess had a little Mom in her. I told Singe, “See if you can’t get word to the Al-Khar suggesting that we might be willing to turn over Vicious Min. Penny. .”
The girl was tired. She turned surly. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“But-”
“Not about any of it.”
“All right! Dean. I need you to come up with a special diet for this one. Something with less sour in it.”
Dean grunted. He had nothing else to say. He was pushing his cart. Somehow, while everything else was going on, he had found time to make sandwiches. He offered me a fat one.
Singe turned from the front door. “Humility is coming.”
“Means we can go without attracting any attention.”
Of a sudden there was a racket on the stair. Four scruffy mutts tumbled into the hallway, ready to join the new enterprise. Number Two did a perfect imitation of a tame hound’s sit-up-and-beg maneuver.
Dean said, “Pay no attention. They’ve been fed.”
I wanted to blather at him and my girls about cleaning up dog hair and any gifts the critters had left but then glimpsed Hagekagome peeking round the corner at the bottom of the stair. So. She had been hiding out.
She stared at me like she was determined to commit my face to memory. Very intent and, yet, the slightest bit confused.
She didn’t charge, telling me how much she hated me.
I told Penny, “Take good care of her, too.”
“I will.” No arguments. No attitude. No nothing at all but a straightforward statement of intent.
Did she know something that no one had bothered to share with me?
Probably. A lot.
Everybody knew stuff about stuff that they didn’t bother to share with me. That was the nature of my business. That was the story of my life.
81
The street was quiet. The show that had brought the crowds out was long gone. The cobblestones were still messy, though. Brownie and her friends found a hundred places deserving of sniffing and pawing. Some looked like patches where somebody had lost bladder or bowel control. A few stains might have been spilled blood.
Local civilians wanted nothing to do with it. Some wanted to arrange it so nothing like it ever happened again. A fierce committee of two upright subjects and three busybody goodwives engaged us in the street. They explained in no uncertain terms how insistent they were that I not bring any more such intolerable nonsense into the hood. In fact, it would be best for the hood if I just packed up and. .
Tara Chayne stepped up to the grim-faced harridan who was the grit round which this pearl of displeasure had formed. “I don’t like people like you, you sour old witch.” She waved a hand on which fingers danced inside wisps of indigo mist. The unhappy woman’s hands leapt to her throat. She made choking noises. Her eyes expanded more than could be accounted for by choking.
Despite everything that had happened tonight and all that she had ever seen, that old woman
never really believed that what touched me could also reach out to her.
She went to her knees still fighting for air. Moonblight patted her head as if she were a small child. “Anybody here having trouble understanding? No? Good. I didn’t think you would. In a nutshell, it’s mind your own business.” She dropped her fingers to the choking woman’s head, lifted. The woman floated up as if she weighed four ounces.
Her choking never quite became life-threatening.
“There. Have some air. That’s better, isn’t it? Are you listening now? I’m going to say something important after I remind you that Mr. Garrett is now part of one of the senior houses on the Hill.”
The entire committee cringed.
“Are you listening?” Moonblight asked again.
The biddy could only nod.
“That’s good. That’s what I wanted to hear. You need to listen and remember. What you’re experiencing now will stay with you forever. I’ll loosen it a little before we go. You should remember that it’s there-though I imagine that it will remind you frequently. I know your type. You’ll never stop cursing and complaining, so you’ll guarantee your doom. Once we go, that spell will tighten a little every time you say Mr. Garrett’s name.”
Moonblight squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “It’s up to you. I don’t think you can save yourself. You’re too rigid, too sour, and too bitter. But I could be wrong. Maybe you can change. My sister did. Let’s go, gentlemen.”
The only person of the male persuasion handy was me, and I’m no gentleman. Barate and Dr. Ted were long gone. Tara Chayne had been having too much fun to notice.
We left those people flustered, intimidated, outraged, and frightened. Which one in what combination depended on individual characters.
Out of earshot, with Tara Chayne hogging Number Two’s place to my left, I observed, “You weren’t very nice to my neighbors.”
“They were going to be nice to you? I’m constitutionally incapable of being polite to that kind of butthead.”
“But. . Well, I’ve always tried to get along with them.” Sadly, I can’t control the bad behavior of people who come around trying to cause me misery. “Making it so she can’t even say my name seems a bit harsh.”
