by E. E. Knight
“I trust the cutlery will be well washed,” the Duke responded. “Thanks for the offer, but I have to get back to Chicago. We need to get something straightened out, Hoppy. When it’s done, you might not want to honor that invite anyway.”
Someone screamed in the main part of the bar, and Valentine heard chairs tip over. Butterfly Knife opened the door again, and a Reaper entered the room, glancing around with wary yellow eyes. A muscular man in a sleeveless shirt followed. Then a female figure—at least, it appeared female to Valentine—slowly came in. She wore a black-and-gold woven robe and a heavy hood, her face hidden behind a shining mask. The mask was decorated only by a narrow eye slit; the rest was silvery, polished mirror-bright. She did not so much walk as float across the floor on legs unseen under the robe; Valentine heard no footsteps as she moved. A second Reaper remained at the open door, its back to the room, facing the rapidly emptying bar.
“Thank you for coming, Lord Yuse-Uth,” the Duke said, his face calm and serious.
Valentine looked at Hoppy, who seemed to have lost three inches and twenty pounds since the Reaper and its Master Vampire had entered. He focused all his attention on the blanching man, hoping the Kurian would not probe his thoughts.
“Lord, what need brings You here?” Hoppy stammered.
“I asked Her to be present,” the Duke said. “You’ve been cheating me, Hopps.”
“Never!”
“Past couple months I’ve been noticing our beer running dry a lot. We opened up some kegs, found plastic balls inside. Not many, but enough to skim off ten percent or so. I had my men spill a keg after we made our purchase today: balls again.”
Hoppy, who was apparently the factory manager, thought for a moment. “Maybe someone at the brewery is up to something. I had no knowledge of this, Duke. I’ll make it up to you.”
“I’m withholding payment. You’ve got ten percent less bodies coming north this shipment, and another ten percent less for the previous two.” The Duke turned to Kurian. “With winter coming on, that’s going to be fifty, sixty less auras for the Milwaukee Families, my Lord.”
The man in the sleeveless shirt spoke. “Lord Yuse-Uth says that the brewery will make it up next year. Her need is for the full allotment of auras.”
“I don’t like to say no to a Lord,” the Duke said, “but my own Lords may have some say in the matter. Does She want a faction-war? That’d cost Her more. I’ll split the difference, twenty-five fewer auras and you can make it up to me next year.”
The mirrored face turned to look at the Duke. “Agreed. The ring is revoked.” Valentine was not sure if the grating voice came from the mask or between his ears.
The Reaper grabbed Hoppy’s arm and reached for the ring on the third finger of his right hand. It took the ring, pulling off the finger as well with a sickening snap of tearing cartilage. Hoppy screamed. His bodyguard stood frozen, staring in awe at the Reaper.
“He is no longer under Lord Yuse-Uth’s protection,” the Kurian’s speaker said, watching Hoppy try to squeeze off the blood flowing from the pulpy mass where the digit had been. “Allenby, you are now the brewery manager. Lord Yuse-Uth trusts your deliveries will be complete. Perhaps in time you will wear this very ring.”
The woman gulped, stepping away from her former supervisor. “Thank You, my Lord,” she quavered. “Andersen, your contract with Mr. Hoppy is terminated. We will talk tomorrow about your future with the brewery. Think about it.”
“Y-yes ma’am,” Andersen said, his hands trembling.
“Dammit, I had nothing to do with shorting the shipments,” Hoppy swore.
“Lord Yuse-Uth thanks you for bringing this matter to Her attention,” the speaker said, turning to the Duke. “She looks forward to continued good relations and trade with Her Brethren in Chicago.”
“I appreciate Her Lordship’s time,” the Duke said.
The Kurian, her speaker, and the Reapers departed, and Valentine found himself able to breathe again.
“Responsibility demands performance, Hoppy,” the Duke said. “Personally, I think you were cheating me.” The Duke looked at the man with the butterfly knife. “Make him shorter. Permanently.”
Valentine watched, his face as passive as the Kurian’s mask, as the man with the knife knocked Hoppy to the floor. He savagely hamstrung the screaming man, cutting the tendons at the back of his victim’s knees.
“Guess they’ll call you Crawly now,” the Duke said. “Ms. Allenby, take that trash out with you as you leave. Dump him with the other garbage on the dock. I’ll talk to you in the morning and see what kind of understanding we can come to.”
None of the Duke’s companions looked particularly upset as the brewery people dragged the bleeding, weeping wretch outside. The Duke’s craggy face split into a smile.
“Party time. Go get a bottle of something decent, Palmers. And a couple cases of Miller, in sealed bottles. I’m going to get rolling on some of this white gold. Join me, Denise?”
She smiled and reached again into her purse for a mirror. “Tested high blue. Dukey? You bet your ring I am.”
Twenty-odd beers, three bottles, and multiple toots later, the Quislings and Valentine were closing down the Bunker. Still behind the wire, Adolph counted out most of the contents of the Duke’s purse. One bartender remained. A passed-out merchant marine was being dragged outside, and the waitress sat in the bodyguard’s lap. Her bikini top rested on the closed eyes of Butterfly Knife, who had downed almost a whole bottle of the unlabeled house busthead. Behind the toilet curtain, Denise’s shapely ankles with the blue dress around them twitched in time to the music. Valentine, who had drunk only a little booze while appearing to drink a lot, sat on the sawdust floor with his back to the jukebox, leaning up against the Duke.
Valentine had discovered a passion in the Duke for bad jokes and dirty songs. The ringholder had announced earlier in the evening, “This bar reminds me of what happens when you cross a German with an Irishman: you get someone too drunk to follow orders.” After that the Wolf had dredged his brain for every mossy old chestnut he could remember from his early teens to barracks life. Finally, in keeping with his nautical disguise, he taught the Duke of Rush all the lines he could remember of ‘The Good Ship Venus.“
“The cabin boy, the cabin boy, the dirty little nipper i Put ground glass inside his ass and circumcised the skipper,” the Duke sang with him, giggling at the end of each verse.
Eva Stepanicz rested in the arms of the other Quisling, there more to keep an eye on Valentine per the captain’s orders than to enjoy herself. A small tower of empties stood next to her, begun when she returned to the bar to find out what had transpired during the Kurian visit. She possessed an almost magical power over liquor, making her the choice for this particular assignment. She pushed the man’s face away from her, directing his beer-fumed breath toward the floor.
The bartender returned from dumping the merchant marine, escorting First Mate Silvertongue.
“Okay, Tiny, on your feet. Day’s breaking, and the captain wants you and Stepanicz back.”
Stepanicz climbed to her feet with a relieved sigh.
Valentine looked up at the first mate from beneath his red Bunker T-shirt, worn pharaoh-style on his head. “C’mon, Silver. No reason she can’t wait another hour or two. Shove off,” he slurred, more from fatigue than alcohol.
“Stepanicz, let’s get him up,” Silvertongue ordered. The two women each took an arm and pulled Valentine to his feet. Valentine winked at Silvertongue.
“I said shove off!” he shouted, startling the Quislings from their slumber. Valentine grabbed a head of hair in each hand and seemingly knocked their heads together. He arranged it so his hands absorbed most of the impact.
And so began a semidrunken three-way brawl that brought even the passed-out Denise from her toilet-seat nap. The men roared approval every time Valentine knocked one of the women on her ass, and the two females ringside cheered whenever Stepanicz or Silvertongue landed a punc
h. The bare-breasted barhop had placed her pinkies in her mouth and produced a piercing whistle when Stepanicz brought the fight to a close with a powerful, accurate, and all-too-realistic kick in the proper place. Valentine folded like the Quisling’s butterfly knife and dropped to the ground.
The Duke of Rush staggered to his feet, absently brushing sawdust from his garish uniform. He knelt next to Valentine and helped his groin-gripping drinking buddy sit up.
“Better get back to your ship, Tiny. Guess they weren’t tiny enough, heh?”
Valentine managed a pained smile.
“Look, next time you port in Chicago, look me up. I’m pretty much in charge of R and R, that’s rest and relaxation, you know, for those wise enough to join up with the Kurians. My place is above a group of bars called the Clubs Flush. On Rush Street, it’s easy to find ‘cause it’s the part of the city lit up at night, unless you count the Zoo. I cater to the creme de la creme of Chicago society, you understand. Following orders from these bitches every day, I bet you and that other guy are about dying to get laid. I’ll get you some on the house, okay?”
“Thanks, Duke,” Valentine said, adjusting his trousers.
“You’re my kind of people, Davy. And,” he added, more softly in Valentine’s ear, “if you can tie up to the big pier with another load of the white stuff as good as this, I’ll see to it that even if you dock a swabbie, you’ll sail out a captain, you know what I mean? Just stop in and see me first, at the Clubs Flush, like I said. I’ll treat you right.”
Valentine massaged his aching groin. “Thanks for the tip, sir.”
With Silvertongue on one side and Stepanicz on the other, Valentine marched back to the ship, exhausted.
“What was all that about, Valentine?” Silvertongue asked as they climbed back on board. “Why were you toadying up to that ring-carrying clown?”
“He’s a powerful man where he comes from. Sometimes just knowing the name of someone with that kind of influence can come in handy.”
Later that morning, the white lightning landed Harper and Valentine on a deserted stretch of beach north of where they first rendezvoused.
“Sorry for the kick,” Stepanicz said, shaking Valentine’s hand. “No hard feelings?”
“No, ‘t don’t think it’ll be feeling, hard for a while,” Valentine answered. “But thanks for asking.”
The captain presented them each with a fifth of rum brought all the way from Jamaica. “And the Lakes Flotilla is always willing to help you out,” she said, handing them each a card with her name written on it in elegant calligraphy. “You can always tell a Flotilla ship because the word white is in the name somehow. Or a foreign version of white: blanc, weiss, something like that. Just give them this card, and tell them I owe you a favor.”
“Thanks, Captain Doss,” Harper said.
“Your servant, ma’am,” Valentine added.
Each Wolf shouldered a bag of dispatches addressed to Southern Command. As they hopped out of the dinghy, again wetting their feet in the waters of Lake Michigan, the weight of their rifles brought home the seriousness of the journey back.
“Should we tell Gonzo about all this?” Harper asked.
“Why?” Valentine said, responding with a twinkle in his eye. “He just missed a boring evening with some sailors. And what he doesn’t know won’t piss him off. But I’ll make it up to him. He can have my Bunker souvenir T-shirt.”
Chapter Ten
Central Wisconsin, September of the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: North of the road and rail arc connecting Milwaukee with the Twin Cities, Wisconsin under the Kurians has lain fallow. Dense forests of pine and oak shelter deer, moose, and feral pigs. Four-legged wolves prey on both, and occasionally have to give up their kills to prowling bears and wolverines. A few logging camps dot the area around Oshkosh and Green Bay, taking oak and cedar for use in the south. Menominee trappers and hunters also traverse the woods and lakes, traveling down the Wisconsin River to the Dells Country to trade pelts.
The Kurian Order begins at the traveled belt linking Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Rich corn and dairy farms still fill the southern half of the state. Three Kurian Lords, known as the Madison Triumvirate, control the farms, mines, and lines of communication from the outskirts of Milwaukee to lacrosse. Within the gloom of their dominant hilltop dome in the old Wisconsin State Capitol building, they command Reapers from Fond du Lac to Platte-ville, Eau Claire to Beloit.
The humans under the teeth of the Kurians endure the New Order, living in the gray area between doing the minimum required for survival and full Quislinghood. Their family farms are self-controlled, very different from the brutal plantations of the south or the mechanized collectives of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. But recently, a new shadow has fallen over the region. Rumors spread by milk-truck drivers and road crews tell of a new Kurian Lord turning the picturesque village of New Glarus into a hilltop fortress. To the fearful smallholders and townspeople of the area, this means thirteen more thirsty Reapers taking their human toll by night.
They camped on some hills above the Wisconsin River near Spring Green. The Wolves could see miles of river valley in either direction. A few electrified farms burned porch lights, but the prominence Valentine guessed to be Tower Hill seemed shunned by the residents, for no active farm lay at its feet, or indeed within miles.
They camped a little below the hill, in the ruins of what was apparently an outdoor stage in the middle of nowhere. Valentine had explored the warped and overgrown little wooden theater nestled in a kettle in the hillside. It reminded him of a fancy version of the simple outdoor platform at one end of the public tent in the Boundary Waters, where Bobby Royce had received a prize shotgun what felt like several lifetimes ago.
He paced the footboards in thought. Were the people in the Freeholds the ones who were crazy? All the loss, all the suffering caused by the never-ending battles. A life, of sorts, was possible under the Kurians. Perhaps they should weather the storm, turn it to their advantage by bargaining for some measure of independence, rather than fighting for it. He marveled at the adaptability of his race: the Lakes Flotilla, for example. They worked at the edges of the Kurian Order, sowing seeds of destruction while turning a profit. Then there was Steiner and his enclave, trying to build something new rather than keep alive the old. Or the determination of the outnumbered and outgunned Southern Command, standing in their hilly fastness and daring the Kurians to try to enter even as they carried the fight to the Lost Lands. Even the little clusters of hidden civilizations like the Boundary Waters contributed to the fight by simply surviving.
A tingle interrupted his ruminations upon the stage. With the frozen terror of a rabbit under an eagle’s shadow, he sensed a Reaper. He stepped off the stage and padded downhill to the little cluster of cabins below. The Reaper seemed to be moving up Tower Hill, bringing silence to the nighted woods. Even the crickets ceased their chirping.
Valentine entered the Wolves’ overnight home. It was a two-room hoüse with small windows that made the absence of glass less of an inconvenience. The Wolves had stabled the horses in the larger room. He placed the fingers of one hand to his lips while making the pinkie-and-forefinger hand signal to his comrades that meant Reaper. Gonzalez and Harper unsheathed their rifles and checked their parangs.
All three concentrated on lowering lifesign, sitting back to back in a little cross-legged circle. The horses would give off no more lifesign than a group of deer; there was enough wildlife in the woods to confuse it even if it passed close, as long as they were able to mask their minds properly. As he quieted his mind and centered his breathing, Valentine found he could feel the Reaper atop the hill to the west. Minutes passed, then an hour, and the Reaper moved off to the west as clammy sweat trickled down Valentine’s back.
“That was a little too close,” Valentine said to his fellow Wolves. “Anyone want to move camp, just in case it circles around the hill?”
“Fine idea,”
Harper agreed. “I could walk all night anyway after that.”
They decided to move south, treating the Reaper as a tornado that you can best dodge by moving at right angles to its path. As Harper readied the horses and Gonzalez hid evidence of their camp, Valentine cautiously walked up Tower Hill, rifle at the ready. He read the trail left by heavy bootprints. The Reaper had paused for an hour on the overlook. Valentine wondered why. After a word to Harper, he found an unobstructed knoll above the stage and scanned what parts of the horizon he could.
Two or three miles to the southeast, flame lit the clouded night. A pair of buildings seemed to be ablaze behind a screen of trees; he could make out a small grain silo lit by the red-yellow glow. Perhaps the Hood had a better view from the western crown of Tower Hill, but it was unlike a Reaper to just stand and watch a fire for the drama of it. And the blaze seemed unnaturally bright. Valentine wished the winds were favorable enough for him to smell the smoke.
He rejoined Gonzalez and Harper.
“There’s a good-size fire,” Valentine explained. “I think a barn or a house is going up. You want to check it out? It’s on this side of the river, so we can get to it easy.”
“Do we want to be there?” Harper asked. “If it’s someone’s house, neighbors will be coming from all over. It would be just like a Hood to pick someone off in the confusion.”
“I thought we were headed south,” Gonzalez said.
“Yes, eventually. But I think this Reaper watched what was going on there for a while, for whatever reason. It’s not like them to just look at something for the sake of the view. I think it’s worth checking out.”
Harper shrugged. “It’s your party. I don’t mind watching a building burn. But I don’t like the idea of making a decision ‘cause of a prediction about a Reaper’s behavior. Sounds like a good way to end up drained.”
“It’ll be okay, as long as the lieutenant’s radar is working,” Gonzalez suggested.
