Men came out of the woods. Little guys, all of them, but men, not elves or dwarves or whatever. They surrounded the Serpent. A little old guy with glasses hobbled after them.
Willard Tate.
“Whoa,” I said. “Stop right there, Winger. Good. Now, real careful, let’s stroll toward the road.” In half a second I’d overcome an impulse to go down and talk some sense into the Tates. That might not be any healthier than going back to hang around with Crask and Sadler. Willard Tate appeared demonic in the feeble light. He was set to get even with the world.
“What’s happening?” Winger asked.
“You don’t really want to know.” Old Man Tate had his tools with him. I kept easing toward the road, hoping I wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye. “That old man there. His niece was the one the Serpent’s thugs hit by mistake.” I wondered how much he’d spent to arrange this encounter I wondered how much had been engineered and how much was pure luck. I didn’t have any urge to go ask. Uncle Willard might decide it was a fine time to uncomplicate Tinnie’s life by removing her favorite ex-Marine.
The Serpent screamed.
“You going to do something?”
“Yeah. Get my dearly beloved ass out of here. Too many people with their blood up in this neighborhood. I’m going to go home and lock myself in for a month, then I’ll start trying to figure out what the hell became of that damned Book of Shadows.”
I had an idea. it weighed five hundred pounds and was mad as a hatter. Process of elimination. Everybody else who had the slightest interest didn’t have the book. Therefore, Easterman did or knew where it was. Maybe he wanted the excitement to settle down some before he started playing Fido the Terrible.
The Serpent had one hell of a set of lungs. She howled steadily. I didn’t look back.
I’d make my peace with me about that later. After I got used to the idea of still being healthy.
46
Six hundred yards southwest of Chodo’s gate the road to TunFaire crosses a small stone bridge over the creek that supports the woodlot where the Tates had waited in ambush. A pair of unsavory sorts were perched on the sides of that bridge. Seedy morCartha inhabited the trees overhead, for once uncontentious. Presumably they belonged to the same tribe, perhaps the same family.
The shorter character stood, dusted his seat, gave me a big smile filled with pointy dark-elf teeth. “Everything come out, Garrett?” He was a handsome devil.
I kept cool. Cucumber Garrett, they call me. Icicles for bones. “You see before you the infamous Morley Dotes,” I told Winger. Obviously, he wanted me to ply him with questions. I didn’t. I’d show him. I’d spoil his whole day.
“He sure don’t look like much.”
“That’s what the girls all say.”
Saucerhead, still seated, grinned, spat into the creek. He glanced upstream. “Some excitement, huh?”
“Routine. They never had a chance once I got rolling. I’d love to hang around and swap lies, but I haven’t had my breakfast.”
Saucerhead got up. He and Morley tagged along after us. Dotes sounded wounded when he said, “Routine? Your tail was an inch short of going down for the last time all the way. If I hadn’t had you covered every step . . .”
Saucerhead told me, “We hired these morCartha to watch and report so we could jump in if you got in too deep.”
“Oh. It was you guys that got me away from Chodo’s kidnappers and that thunder-lizard?”
Morley hemmed and hawed. “You know the morCartha. Short attention spans. They kind of lost you that time. But your luck held. We were on you the rest of the time.”
“Maybe half the time,” Saucerhead admitted. “Well, maybe a quarter of the time. People got to sleep some.”
“My pals,” I told Winger. “They look out for me.”
“Hey,” Morley protested. “Don’t be that way. I set it up so it came out in the end, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
Morley isn’t one to blow his own horn, not any louder than the trumps of doom, anyway, so he let Saucerhead explain. Seems Morley smelled something in the wind early, something that would get me and Chodo butting heads. He’d stopped hiding and sulking over Chodo’s having commandeered his place, had made arrangements. He’d gotten in touch with most everyone looking for the book and offered to become their warlord. Gnorst’s bunch had no practical experience hunting and fighting. Likewise the Tates. And his reputation was dark enough to endear him to the witch’s gang. Naturally, he’d gotten all parties to pay him in advance. Then he’d nudged everybody together for the final free-for-all.
“I thought it was pretty slick.” Morley grumbled.
“Yeah,” Saucerhead said. “Way it came out, it even halfway solved the morCartha problem.” He looked around to see if any hired hands were following. They’d lost interest. He was relieved.
Morley chuckled. “Don’t worry about them. They’re back there cleaning out Chodo’s place.”
I didn’t have much to say. Let Morley think he’d covered me. He was a friend, sort of, and he’d tried. I guess it was his morCartha I’d sensed when I’d had that feeling of being watched. It had been him and Tharpe and the Tates in the boat that had followed me and Winger up the river. Let him think what he wanted. I was sure his contribution didn’t mean much. Things couldn’t have turned out much different, the nature of the greedy beast being what it is.
As we entered the city I asked Winger, “You still on Fido’s payroll? I still have to go after that book.”
“I don’t think so.” She was puffing.
I chuckled. “Want we should stop somewhere, get you a mule?”
“For what?” She did a good puzzled look.
“So you don’t collapse. You must be lugging a hundred pounds of loot. I was amazed you kept up when we were chasing the Serpent.”
She got huffy but denied nothing.
Hell, she clanked when she moved.
Morley was thoughtful. He observed, “We may be in for interesting times, what with the kingpin’s spot up for grabs.”
“Crask and Sadler are smarter than they act. Who could challenge them?”
“Each other.”
Winger eyed him hard. “Is he that naive, Garrett?” I skipped answering because I’d figured those two out only recently myself. “Power changes people. Some get greedy.”
“They’re going to worry about the world, not each other.”
“Whatever,” Morley said. And: “All’s well that ends well.” We were in the Safety Zone then. “I’ve got to go see if I have a place left.”
“Yeah,” Saucerhead said, “I better check in with Molly. She maybe might be a little worried. I never let her know what was up.”
As he headed for his place a flight of thunder-lizards swept over. Only the pigeons got excited. Folk in the street scarcely noticed. That was TunFaire. Anything can happen so everyone gets used to everything quickly.
Winger clanked a little closer. She looked as bad as I felt. “Your friend was right. All’s well that ends well.”
“But this isn’t over. I haven’t taken care of that damned Book of Shadows.”
“Let’s get some shut-eye first, though. Eh?”
“I could handle a few weeks of that.” I didn’t have much energy left but there were loose ends. Tinnie. Carla Lindo. The book. Maybe Fido Easterman. Not to mention Crask and Sadler. But I couldn’t concentrate on them. With home and bed so near, I was fading fast.
So. Trudge trudge, drag drag, off Wizard’s Reach into Macunado Street . . . “Oh, hell! Now what?” I drifted over and parked the back of my lap on a neighbor’s steps.
There was a crowd in front of my place, oohing and ahing. But the attraction wasn’t anything as commonplace as flying thunder-lizards.
A huge character in star-spangled black floated twenty feet above the street, twisting and spinning and making motions like he was trying to swim. He didn’t get anywhere. Fido Easterman.
He spotted Winger, star
ted bellowing like a potato auctioneer.
I dragged myself to my feet, ambled closer. I noted that Fido’s whole gang was with him, though no one else was airborne. The rest were in the street, stiff as hardened leather. Some, caught in midstride, had toppled.
“What the hell?” Winger said. “What the hell?”
“He pissed the Dead Man off somehow.”
There were ogres on my stoop, also rigid. My door was open. Busted open. No wonder Old Bones was peckish.
I didn’t hurt myself getting in a hurry. The Dead Man had it under control. I slithered through the crowd, stopped to eyeball Easterman.
“Get me down!”
“Why? You want more trouble than you’ve got?”
Easterman flailed at the air, snarled something about somebody was getting away, then started laying on the threats.
He popped up fifteen feet, then fell, howling. People scattered. He started darting around like a feeding bat. People clapped and cheered and yelled suggestions about what he should try next. He really had the Dead Man’s goat.
I shouted, “What did you do? Try to break in? Why do a dumb thing like that?”
Fido glowered as he whizzed by.
The Dead Man tossed him high and let him fall till his nose was four inches from the pavement, then flipped him up again. How long had this been going on? The Dead Man’s powers are amazing, but there are limits to his-endurance.
“The book!” Easterman wailed. “I meant to snatch the book.”
“I can understand that. I’d like to snatch it myself. But why bust up my place?”
He didn’t have anything more to say. Not yet. The Dead Man set him spinning. He got busy dumping his last six meals. People scattered again, grumbling. This part of the show wasn’t so attractive.
Winger told me, “He’s always been convinced that you have the book hidden at home. That’s why he sent me in the first place. To root around.”
“Huh? Then he’s even crazier than I thought. Don’t go away, Fido.” I headed for the house. Mounting the steps, I removed the big green litter there, tossing it into the gutter where it belonged.
They’d chopped my door all to hell. Dean could use it for kindling. I wasn’t pleased.
The door to the small front room stood ajar. Had the Dead Man let them get that far before he reacted? No. Dean was in there. “Dean? What’s the matter?” He was seated on the daybed, sniffling, fiddling with gray burlap he had wrapped around one hand.
He needed time to respond. “Oh! Mr. Garrett!” It was shock. “I tried to stop her. I couldn’t.”
Winger had invited herself aboard. She said, “He’s been cut, Garrett. Yes. The floor between his feet was bloody.
I moved then, thinking he was badly hurt. But he wasn’t. His left hand had been laid open to the bone, though, like he’d grabbed a blade. “What happened?”
“She took the book, Mr. Garrett. Right after those creatures tried to break in. I caught her unwrapping it. I tried to take it away
What was he babbling about? “What are you babbling about?” Then I spotted a torn brass page under his foot. The page that had cut his hand.
“That Book of Shadows. It was here all the time. Under the daybed. And she knew it.”
She knew it? How did she know it? How come he hadn’t found it while he was cleaning? We were maybe going to have to have a talk about his housekeeping. Under the daybed? How the hell did it get under there?
“Oh, my.” I recalled a certain naked vision of a morning past. She’d carried a bundle wrapped in cloth like that wrapped around Dean’s hand. I’d paid no attention because there’d been distractions. If I’d thought of that package at all, I’d assumed she’d taken it with her when she’d done her fade. “Carla Lindo grabbed it? She knew where it was and took off with it?”
Dean nodded.
I catch on real quick. “Winger, see what you can do about that hand. I need to go yell at my partner.”
You had best not, the Dead Man sent as I charged into his den. I was as surprised as Dean.
“You couldn’t be. You know the inside of everybody’s head. You playing some kind of game?”
I was ignorant of what was happening at deeper levels of her mind, though now it is obvious that her principal motive for staying here was to locate and remain near the Book of Shadows. Note that I was unable to read the mind of the Serpent and unaware of the presence of the other while they were here in the guise of Carla Lindo Ramada. This suggests that there is something quite unusual about that young woman.
“Really?” I was angry. Needless to say. One half-wit thought after the naked woman’s departure and I could have saved us all a peck of trouble. I could have poked around, found the book, and destroyed it publicly. End of excitement. But no! I had to let myself get distracted by acres and acres of redheads.
I am doing my part here. Garrett. But I have no legs.
“Say what?”
It has not been twenty minutes since the little devil fled. You know where she is going.
I thought I knew where I was going. Upstairs. To bed. “More power to her.”
Garrett! It has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that that woman is not one of the good people either. I suggest you consider what use she or her father might have for the Book of Shadows Take into consideration their supposed base of operations, an unassailable fortress.
His feelings were hurt because he’d been taken in. He wanted Blood “All right. All right.” I needed this like I needed another vacation at the kingpin’s place. What I did need was rest, about thirty quarts of cold beer, a ten-pound steak, rare and smothered in mushrooms. A
long soak in a tub wouldn’t hurt, either. “I’m on my way “ Why do I do these things to me?
On my way where? There was a whole world out there.
She has to head west, Garrett.
That narrowed it down. There’s only one way out of the city if you’re headed west.
47
Winger invited herself along. I didn’t argue. She could stick pins in me, keep me awake.
We set our watch against the wall, outside the west gate, among the most optimistic beggars in the world. I mean, half the people inbound are destitute peasants looking for the streets of gold.
“Think we got here in time, Garrett?”
I’d taken our lives in my hands and cut through the Bustee, following the most direct route. “She doesn’t know the city. Even if she hired a coach, she couldn’t have gotten here first.” True, logically, but I was whistling in the dark. After recent events, logic didn’t seem very trustworthy.
I mean, the Dead Man getting swindled not once but three times? That was damned hard to swallow, though for the sake of peace in the house I’d take his word.
I suspected wishful thinking had helped Carla Lindo sucker him. He’d been exposed long enough to have smelled something. He’d overlooked it because she’d charmed him . . . Hell. I should talk?
“She have any money?” Winger asked.
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I wondered if she could hire a coach or buy a horse.”
“She gave us everything she had to hire us.”
“She’ll be walking, then. Can she read?”
“Why?”
“If I was her and I could read, I’d open that book and turn me into somebody else in case somebody came after me.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I couldn’t recall if she could read or not. My memory plays tricks when I’m tired. “Assume the worst. Watch for anybody with something that might be the book.”
“How big?”
I made gestures, as best I could recall what I’d seen in the naked woman’s arms.
Winger scrunched down in the shade of the wall, ignoring the glower of the beggar next to her. She closed one eye like she was going halfway to sleep. “Think there’ll be trouble because of what sour sidekick did to Easterman?”
“Nah. Shit happens. Pretty often around our place. The neigh
bors will be happy it was just entertaining this time. One time half the houses got busted up That’s why all the new brickwork and stuff. People that don’t like excitement moved out. Nobody else gives a damn. They don’t own, they rent.”
“I noticed that about TunFaire. Nobody gives a damn about anything but themselves.”
Not entirely true, but close.
Nothing happened for a while. I got into a discussion with a bum who was a fellow ex-Marine, mostly about Glory Mooncalled’s exploits in the Cantard. During the night, while I was preoccupied, word had come that Mooncalled’s magnificent maneuver down there hadn’t panned pure gold. Our fearless leaders had, in fact, anticipated it. They’d gone ahead and jumped into a brawl with the Venageti but had held back powerful reserves. Those had continued the pursuit of Mooncalled and had carved him up pretty good.
From the sound of it, once the dust settled there would be no predominant force in the Cantard. We’d be back to the old endless terror, only now with the balance teetering three ways instead of two. That should make the situation there crazier than ever.
I was glad I was past all that.
Winger nudged me.
One gorgeous redhead had come hiking out the gate She was dressed for rough travel and carried a big pack.
She was in a hurry. Literate or not, she hadn’t changed her appearance.
She was in too much of a hurry. Thus, she didn’t notice us or know that she’d acquired other admirers, city thugs who thought they had them an easy mark. They cruised along behind, knowing the road ahead would provide ample opportunity. Three miles past west gate you’re into wild country already. The hills out there are better suited to raising sheep than to grape growing.
Winger rose with me. She understood the situation without my pointing it out “I got a suggestion you ain’t going to like.”
“Which is?”
“Let those three clowns have first crack, then take the book from them.”
“You’re right. I don’t like it.”
“Think about it. No telling what’s up her sleeve, right? So why not let somebody else take the lumps?” She did have her own style of thinking She had a point, too.