I dragged my tinsuit friend out of the closet, into the bedroom. I detached him from the support that held him upright, put him in bed. Better than using pillows to make it look like somebody was home. Looked perfect once I pulled a sheet over his helmet. “Rest easy, buddy.”
I didn’t like the way things were going. Somebody here might be less than friendly. I collected my favorite head-knocker, an oak nightstick with a pound of lead in the business end, then slipped into the hall. I was alone out there. One lamp burned. Presumably Dellwood had been around to snuff the others to save oil. He was the only guy I’d seen working, other than Cook.
I’d have to find out what everybody did. Should’ve asked Peters while I had him.
I went to the east end of the hall where a small window looked out on the grounds. Nothing out there but darkness and stars. The werewolves and vampires were taking the night off. I retreated to the first door on the left.
I seemed to be the only inhabitant of that floor in the wing so I didn’t try for quiet. I picked the lock and marched in, lamp in front in my left hand, head-knocker in my right. I needn’t have bothered. The room was a warehouse for cobwebs. Nobody had been in there in a decade.
I did a cursory inspection, went to the room across the hall. Same story. Every suite on the floor was the same, except the last, which showed signs that someone had visited recently. In that room I noted circles on the mantel where the dust was thinner. Like something had been removed. Candlesticks or small doodads. I tried to get something from the marks left by the visitor’s feet. There’s always hope you’ll find something unique, like maybe feet the size of pumpernickels or only two toes if they run barefoot. It didn’t pay off this time. The intruder had shuffled, probably not intentionally. Not the sort of thing your average thief thinks of.
The search was taking longer than I’d expected. I decided to take a quick tour and leave detail work for later. At least I’d know my way around.
There was a partial floor above mine, reached via an enclosed stair. I went up. That floor was one vast dark room over the great hall. It was stuffed with junk, mostly as dusty as the rooms below. But there was a path beaten from the stairhead across to a stair down to the fourth floor of the west wing. A shortcut. The alternative was to descend to the second floor and cut across on a narrow balcony above the back door, placed there so somebody could address a crowd. Might as well go across, work my way down the west wing, come back on the ground floor and work my way up.
The west wing was inhabited. I didn’t enter any rooms. Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe while I was in town I could have a locksmith check my key to see if he could create a skeleton key for its type of lock.
Fourth-floor hall and a stroll on the balcony there. Nothing. Likewise the third floor and its balcony. The design differed from my wing. The halls were shorter, ending at the doors of the suites of the masters of the estate. Two doors on the third floor showed light underneath. Either somebody was up late or somebody was scared of the dark.
Second floor had only five large suites, probably for honored guests like dukes and counts, firelords and stormwardens, and others a ranking commander might entertain.
The ground floor boasted rooms meant for other purposes. The west wing was where, in times past, the businesses of the estate and its masters had been conducted. The doors to several rooms were open. I invited myself in. I didn’t find anything.
From the west wing I walked across to the east, where I knew I’d be into the kitchen, pantries, dining hall, and whatnot. I’d been through some of that but hadn’t had a chance to pry.
As I passed the brave champion still stubbornly skewering his dragon, I got that creepy sensation. I looked around, saw no one. My blonde admirer? I was beginning to think she was a spook.
Not literally. The place was creepy at high noon. It had fallen from a ghost story, but I didn’t entertain the notion that it was haunted. The world is filled with the strange, the magical, the supernatural, but I didn’t figure I’d need haunts to explain anything here. Any schemes here had been set in motion by the root of all evil amongst the living.
A closer examination of the dining room proved it to be what I’d figured, big, with decorations fitting the theme of the house. I wondered how many battles the Stantnors had fought.
The room had a high ceiling, which suggested that part of the second floor east didn’t exist. True. I found out when I explored the pantry.
A door there opened on stairs. One set went up, another down. It was as dark as a vampire’s heart in there. I went up. The way led to storerooms filled with housekeeping goodies, some of which looked like they’d been laid in before the turn of the century. Some dead Stantnor had saved by buying wholesale.
Nobody swept or dusted but the place was orderly. It was inhabited by moths who found my lamp irresistible.
Why so much room for storage?
I came on stacks of four-inch-thick oak things, bound in iron, each with a number chalked onto the black iron. Curious, I looked closer.
They were covers for the windows, to seal them if the house was besieged. They had to be as old as the house itself. Had they ever been used? Not in the past century, I was sure.
I found a strong room in the southeast corner The door was latched but not locked. It was an armory. Inside were weapons enough for a company—as though there weren’t enough around the house already. Everything steel was covered with grease, everything wood coated with paraffin. Might be interesting to find out what the climate was like when the house was built. Troubled times, apparently.
I spent too much time there. When I descended it was too late. Cook was banging around in the kitchen. I slipped out before she tripped over me.
As I hit the fourth floor I caught a glimpse of white across the way. My lovely mystery lady. I blew her a kiss.
10
I’d had another visitor. This one had left in a hurry. He’d left a key in the lock with the door standing open. I saw why when I went into the bedroom.
My visitor had murdered the suit of armor. He’d walked in, wound up with an antique battle-ax, and had let the poor boy have it. The ax was still there.
I laughed. Bet he drizzled down his leg, thinking he’d walked into a trap.
I sobered quickly. That was twice. Next time more care might go into the attempt. I was way out on a limb here. I had to take steps.
I locked up, pocketed the key—which wasn’t identical to mine, so might be a skeleton key. I got the tin man out of bed and the ax out of him. “Sorry about that. But we’ll get our revenge.” I used the ax to rig a booby trap. Anybody who walked through the bedroom door was in for a rude welcome.
Then I took an hour nap.
I was early for breakfast, first to arrive. Cook was up to her ears in work getting platters ready. “Need a hand?”
“I need ten. I don’t know what you’re up to, boy, sucking up to me, but you better believe I’ll use you. Get over to the oven and see how them rolls are coming.”
I did. “Maybe a minute more.”
“What you know about baking?”
I explained the arrangement at my house, where old Dean handles the drudgery and cooking. He’s a good cook. He taught me. I can put together a decent meal when I want. Like when I give him time off because I want him out while I entertain.
“Don’t know if you’re lying or not. Probably are. I never seen a man yet who could cook.”
I didn’t tell her Dean thought the only good cooks were men. “I should get you together. To watch the sparks fly.”
“Huh. Time’s up. Get them rolls out. Drag that pot of butter over.”
I glanced at the butter. “Fresh?”
“Snake just brung it in.”
“He going to join us?”
She laughed. “Not Snake. He don’t have nothing to do with nobody. Just grabbed him some food and lit out. Not sociable, Snake.”
“What’s his problem?”
“Head got scrambled in the Ca
ntard. He was down there twenty years, never got a scratch. On the outside.” She shook her head, started piling sausages and bacon on a platter. “Sad. I knew him when he was a pup. Cute kid, he was. Too delicate and sensitive for a Marine. But he thought he had to try. So here he is, an old man with his head in knots. Used to draw the prettiest pictures, that boy. Coulda been a great painter. Had him a magic eye. Could see right inside things and drawed what he seed. Any damn fool can draw the outside of things, the way they want we should see them. Takes a genius to see the truth. That boy saw. You going to stand there jawing till lunchtime? Or you going to eat?”
I fixed myself a plate without mentioning the fact that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She rolled right along. “I told the General then—he was just commissioned—it was a raging shame to waste the boy down there. And I told him again when he come back. And the General, he told me, ‘You were right, Cook. It was a sin against humanity, taking him.’ But, you know, he couldn’t have stopped the boy if he’d wanted. Had that damnfool stubborn streak and thought it was his duty to go with the lord to war.”
The rush came while she chattered. There were two new faces, presumably Tyler and Wayne. They looked like they hadn’t slept. The whole crowd took their platters to the dining room.
I asked Cook, “That Tyler and Wayne?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Lucky stab. Anybody else I haven’t met?”
“Who else could there be?”
“I don’t know. Yesterday you said there were eighteen people here. I’ve seen ten, plus this Snake that’s shy and a blonde that only I can see. Comes up short of eighteen.”
“Ain’t eighteen.”
“You said eighteen.”
“Boy, I’m four hundred years old. ’Less I concentrate, I don’t remember where I am in time. I just cook and set table and wash and don’t pay no attention to nothing else. Just sort of drift. Don’t see nothing, don’t say nothing. Last time I looked up they was eighteen, counting me. Must’ve been a while. Hell. Maybe that’s why there’s so many leftovers. Been cooking too much.”
“I didn’t notice too many places set at the table.”
She paused. “You’re right. Part of me must keep track.”
“Been with the Stantnors a long time?”
“Came to them with my momma when I was a kit. Long time back, when the humans hereabouts still had emperors. ’Fore they ever moved out here and built the first house. This one’s only maybe two hundred. Was a sight when she was new, she was.”
“You must’ve seen some sights in your time.”
“Seen some,” she agreed. “Served every king and stormwarden and firelord right there in that dining room.” She headed that way. That ended our conversation.
I stuck my head in. Nobody showed any special disappointment. Nobody turned handsprings, either. They were a depressing bunch.
These guys had spent their whole lives together. You’d think they could make conversation—unless they’d said everything there was to say. I feel that way with some people, sometimes before anything gets said at all.
Tyler and Wayne were cut from Marine lifer cloth. Whatever the physical differences between men, they gain a certain uniformity in service. Tyler was a lean, narrow-faced character with hard brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin, speckled beard trimmed within a half-inch of his skin. Wayne was my size, maybe twenty pounds heavier, not fat. He looked like he could throw cows around if the passion took him. He was six inches taller than Tyler and blond, with icy blue eyes, yet you felt the sameness in them. You even felt the identity with Chain, who had gone to seed.
I’d spent five years in the company of men like them. Any one of them would be capable of murder if he took a mind. Human life wasn’t anything special to them. They’d seen too much death.
Which did present one puzzle.
Marines are straightforward kinds of guys. If one wanted the General dead, chances were he’d just do it. Unless there was some overpowering motive to make it a lingering death.
Like, say, hanging onto a share of the old man’s estate?
Worrying about it was pointless. You can’t force these things. They have to unfold.
I helped Cook clear away, then put on my traveling shoes.
11
I hadn’t been to Morley’s place in months. It wasn’t that we’d had a falling out or anything; I just hadn’t had a need, nor any urge to graze on the cattle food that comes out of his kitchen. I arrived about nine. He’s closed to business then. He’s open from eleven to six in the morning, catering to every sentient species there is, all so warped they try to subsist on vegetables.
It takes all kinds. Some of my best friends eat there. I’ve done so myself. Without enthusiasm.
So. Nine o’clock. The place was locked up. I went to the backdoor and gave the secret knock, which means I hammered and howled till Morley’s man Wedge brought a four-foot piece of lead pipe and offered to move my face to my belly button region.
“This’s business, Wedge.”
“I didn’t figure you was in heat for some bean curd. You don’t come around unless you want something.”
“I pay for what I get.”
He snorted. He didn’t think it was right, me using Morley just because Morley had taken advantage of me, at deadly risk and without my consent, to get out of some heavy gambling debts.
“Cash money, Wedge. And he don’t have to get off his butt. He just needs to have somebody do some legwork.”
That didn’t cheer him up. He’s one of the guys who does Morley’s legwork. But he didn’t slam the door.
“Come.” He eased me in and barred the door, led me through kitchens where cooks were butchering cabbages and broccoli, parked me at the serving bar, drew me a mug of apple juice, “Wait.” He went upstairs.
The public room was naked and forlorn, almost painfully quiet. The way it ought to be all the time, instead of overcrowded.
Morley Dotes is a headhunter. A kneebreaker and a lifetaker. Most of the guys who work for him help. Morley is a deadly symbiote feeding on society’s dark underside. He’s the best at what he does, barring maybe a couple of guys who work for Chodo Contague.
Adding up the account, Morley Dotes is everything I don’t like. He’s the kind of guy I wanted to take down when I decided to put on my good-guy hat. But I like him.
Sometimes you can’t help yourself.
Wedge came down shaking his head. “What’s up?” I asked.
“He’s taking this health stuff too far.”
“You’re telling me? He’s like a born again, trying to save everybody else.” The world’s only vegetarian lifetaker. Wants to save the world from the perils of red meat—before he cuts its throat. I don’t know. Maybe there’s no conflict but it sounds like one to me. “He’s added to the list?”
“Been a few months, right?”
“Last time I was here he’d sworn off gambling and was making it stick. He tried women but couldn’t hold out.”
“He forgot that crock. Say that for him. The thing now is early to bed, early to rise. He’s up. Now. Up and dressed and fed and doing his morning workout. A year ago you wouldn’t have caught him dead out of bed this time of day.”
You could have if there was enough money in it. “Wonders never cease, do they?”
“He said come up. You want a refill?”
“Why not? Fruit juice is the only thing here I can handle.”
He winked. He wasn’t one of Morley’s converts. He topped off my mug. I took it up to Morley’s office, which is the barbican to his personal quarters. I’m about as close to a friend as he has, but I’ve never been past the office. My hair is too short and I don’t wear enough makeup.
Dotes was doing sit-ups, chunking them out like a machine. My stomach hurt just watching.
“You’re in pretty good shape for a guy your age,” I told him. I wasn’t sure what that was. It could be substantial.
He’s part dark-elf. Elves can last a long time.
“I take it you’re working again.” He said it while popping up and down. Like there was no strain to what he was doing.
I told myself I had to start doing a few exercises. At my age, when you lose it, it’s hard to get back. “Why do you assume—”
“You don’t come down here unless you want something.”
“Not true. I used to bring Maya in all the time.” That was before she and I had gone our own ways.
“You lost a gem there, Garrett.” He rolled over, started doing push-ups.
His dark-elf blood doesn’t scream out. He looks like a short, slim, dark-haired man in good shape. He’s quick on his feet. There’s an air of the dangerous about him, but not one of menace. Maybe that’s why women find him irresistible.
“Maybe. I do miss her, some. She was a good kid.”
“Pretty, too. So you going on with Tinnie?”
My friend Tinnie Tate, professional high-tempered redhead. Ours is an unpredictable relationship. “I see her. When she doesn’t think I deserve to be punished by not seeing her.”
“Only smart thing you’ve done since I’ve known you is not tell her about Maya.” He completed fifty fast ones, jumped up. He wasn’t sweating. I felt like kicking his behind. “What’s up?”
“You heard of General Stantnor?”
“Used to be Marine Commandant?”
“The same.”
“What about him?”
“A guy who works for him, my old company sergeant, called in a debt. He got me to do a job for the old boy.”
“Don’t you ever work just to be working? I never saw anyone like you.”
“I know. I’m a dog. You never see a dog do anything when he’s not hungry. If I’m not hungry, why work?”
“What about the General? I do work when I’m not hungry. And I’ve got plenty of that here.”
“The old boy is trying to die. My old sergeant thinks somebody is trying to kill him. Slowly, so it looks like a wasting disease.”