by Glen Cook
“While back I got the impression you wanted to get face-to-face with the Rainmaker.”
He glanced at the stairway. Glorious, lovely Julie was very much with us even though she remained unseen. He said, “Tell me about it.”
I wondered. I knew Morley’s priorities. Seldom did he find a Julie less interesting than revenge. “I think I know where to find him.”
Morley cast one more longing glance upstairs. “How did you manage that? You turn psychic? Or psycho? Or did the Dead Man wake up?”
“Through the exercise of reason, my man. Pure reason.”
Morley offered me one of his special looks, just to let me know I couldn’t fool a stone with a learning disability. “I’ll bite, Garrett. Where?”
“On the Hill. Maggie Jenn’s place.”
He made a show of thinking about it before he smiled nastily. “Damn if I don’t think you stumbled into it and came up smelling sweet. I should have thought of that. Let’s go.”
“What? Me? No way. I did my part. Take your help. Sarge and Puddle need the exercise. I’ll stay here and hold the fort.”
“Ha. That’s ha, like in half a ha-ha, Garrett.”
“Some guys got no sense of humor.”
“You talking about me? I gave you a parrot, didn’t I?”
“My point exactly.”
“What can you do? People just won’t show any gratitude anymore. All right. Let’s go see the man.”
I smirked. Behind Morley’s back. No sense having him figure out who was manipulating whom. Not just yet.
56
I began to wonder if there wasn’t an alert out with my name on it. Three times we tried to go up the Hill and three times patrols got in our way. Unbelievably bad luck.
Morley snapped, “Don’t be so cheerful!”
I started to open my mouth.
“And don’t give me that dog barf about never being disappointed if you only look for the worst.”
“You are in a fine mood, aren’t you?” I reflected a moment. “We’ve known each other too long, you realize?”
“You can say that again.”
“All right. We’ve known each other...”
“And you turn into a bigger wiseass every day I know you. The Garrett I used to know...” Off he hared on an expedition into reality revision. We live in different worlds. He remembers nothing the way I do. Maybe that’s cultural.
The old work ethic paid off. Fourth try we got through. As we gained the high ground, I muttered, “I was beginning to think my magic gizmo was working backwards.”
“Your what?”
“Uh... I have this amulet thing. Somebody uses a tracing spell on me, I can steer them off.”
“Oh?” Morley eyed me suspiciously.
I don’t tell him everything. And he keeps things from me. You just don’t share everything, friends or not.
As we neared that grim gray canyon of a Hilltop street we grew cautious. I found myself feeling nervous in a premonitory way. And Morley said, “I have a strange feeling about this.”
“It is quiet. But it’s always quiet up here. These people want it that way.”
“You feel it, too.”
“I feel something.”
But we saw no one, sniffed out no slightest scent of a patrol ambush.
We approached the Jenn place through the alley. And strolled right on past, pretending we were scouts for the ratmen who would come for the trash.
Someone had employed the balcony route to get inside. Someone not very circumspect. We judged the break-in to be recent because there was no evidence of the patrol having taken corrective action.
I told Morley, “I need to go in there.”
Dotes didn’t argue, but he wasn’t enthralled by the notion. He observed, “The roof hatch is unlatched — if nobody cared how we got out before.”
We’d left it unlatched because the catch couldn’t be worked from outside. “Just what I wanted to do today. Clamber around rooftops.”
“You’re the one can’t leave well enough alone.”
“The firelord is paying me very well not to.”
“All right. Let’s don’t bicker.” Morley looked around. I looked around. We could’ve been surrounded by a ghost city. Other than the buildings, there was no evidence of human presence.
“Spooky,” I muttered, while Morley scampered up a downspout like some pointy-eared ape. I dragged my bulk after, groaned as he helped me roll onto a flat roof. “I thought I was getting back in shape.” Puff puff.
“Tipping a beer stein doesn’t stress your leg muscles nearly enough. Come on.”
Beer stein? I was getting to be a wiseass? Uh-oh.
Starting after Morley, I glanced back into the alley and spotted a housemaid on a balcony down the way, gaping at us. She had come out while we were climbing. “Trouble,” I told Morley. “A witness.”
“Keep low, then. If she doesn’t see where we go, we’ll have enough time.”
But time for what? I had real strong doubts about the wisdom of my approach, now.
As we neared the roof hatch, I noted that Morley seemed to lack confidence, too. But he was a dark elf, partly. He wouldn’t back down without more reason than a growing premonition.
57
We listened intently, heard nothing on the other side of the hatch. Grimly, I prized it open an inch. Morley listened with his better ears, peered into the inner darkness with his better eyes. He sniffed, frowned slightly.
“What?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Someone there?”
“Not that. Open it up. We need to hurry.”
I lifted. There was no racket in the street yet, but I doubted that that would last. Light poured into the stairwell. Neither villain nor monster rose to greet us.
Morley descended quickly. I followed less swiftly, it having gotten inky dark in there once I shut the hatch again. We entered the top story without incident. Morley kept sniffing the air. So did I. I sucked in enough dust to have to fight sneezing. But there was something...
A sound echoed up from below, a moaning wail like the last cry of a lost soul. “Spooks,” I said again.
“No.”
No. He was right. Somebody was being hurt badly. I’d just have preferred spooks.
We grew more cautious.
Confident that that floor was untenanted, we stole down a level. I murmured, “We’re going too slow.”
Morley agreed. “But what can we do?” Twice more we heard that cry of agonized despair.
What we could do was get out before the goon squad showed.
The next floor down showed evidence of human habitation. Morley and I held silent debate over the numbers, which had to have been more than a half dozen and possibly the whole crowd from that ugly warehouse.
Another cry. From the top of the stair that led down to the second floor we could hear remote voices engaged in argument. Morley held up three fingers, then four. I nodded agreement. Four. Plus whoever was getting hurt.
The Rainmaker had his reputation for torture, I recalled.
That smell in the air was stronger but not yet strong enough to identify.
Morley kept hesitating about going on down. I no longer wanted to risk even a whisper so had to trust his instincts. As he did start down, something made a clunking racket on the floor below. We froze. Surprise, surprise.
Three very large male individuals dripping sharp steel galumphed across our field of view and headed down the stair to the ground floor. Patrol thugs. Come on the scene via the balcony door, I guessed. Moving fast because somebody tripped over his bootlace and gave them all away.
Morley whispered urgently, “Hide!” He jerked a thumb heavenward. I nodded. It did seem likely that younger and more agile guards would take the path we’d used.
Our timing was superb. No sooner had we ducked under the dustcovers shielding adjacent antiques than we heard lots of boots hustling down from above. I worried about sneezes betraying me. Then
I worried about footprints in the dust. I couldn’t recall if there had been enough prior traffic to disguise our movements.
An uproar broke out downstairs. Sounded like a major battle: lots of metal banging metal, people yelling and screaming, furniture crashing. I guessed patrol types had entered at ground level, too.
A pseudopod of combat scaled the stairs. The expected gang from the roof arrived and jumped in. The hollering and cussing grew ferocious, but I kept squeezing my nose anyway. With my luck, those guys would notice even a little sputter of a sneeze.
It got brisk. For a while, despite their edge in the odds, I thought the patrol guys would lose out. They lacked motivation. They hadn’t hired on to get killed protecting property.
I never doubted that people were dying.
The guys on the stairs launched an angry counterattack.
After that the battle lasted only minutes. Soon it left the house for the street. The patrol bunch hollered in angry pursuit of those they had routed.
Came a scratch on the sheet concealing me. I gripped my headknocker, ready for a mighty two-handed swing. Morley whispered, “Let’s go. Before they come back to look around.”
He was right, of course. They would be back. But at the moment we were invisible — assuming the patrol thought the people downstairs were the guys that maid had seen.
The silence didn’t last. I picked out a groan followed by something I hadn’t heard for years — the rasp of a man with a punctured lung trying desperately to breathe.
Morley and I descended in spurts, always ready to flee. We encountered casualties, all of whom had rolled to the bottom of the stair ending on the second floor. None of the four would brawl again.
I knew that smell — now it was fresh and strong.
Blood.
Three of the fallen wore crude patrol uniforms. The fourth had fought them.
“Know this guy?” I asked Morley, sure he knew pro thugs better than I did. And I had recognized Hammerhand Nicks, middleweight enforcer type for the Outfit.
“Yes.” Dotes seemed to grow still more alert.
I told him, “I’m going down.” Not that I wanted to.
I made my feet move. I did want to know.
The smell of death grew dense.
Three more patrol types lay dead in the ground floor hall where the stair ended. Blooded steel lay everywhere. I found another syndicate character there, just less than dead. I beckoned Morley. “Gericht Lungsmark?”
He nodded. “Over there. Wenden Tobar.”
More Outfit hitters. Lungsmark groaned. I moved away. Didn’t want him seeing me if he opened his eyes. “She figured it out before I did.”
“Maybe.” Dotes eased toward the next room, whence came the sounds of the man with respiratory difficulties. “Or maybe she had help.”
“Oh?”
“Lot of ears in my place.” He started to say my name, recalled that this was not the best place. “If somebody told somebody and that somebody moved fast...”
Maybe, but I shook my head. Likely the Outfit did have the pull to get the patrols to do a favor, but... “They —”
Morley made a silencing gesture.
No. The patrols wouldn’t get into it with the Outfit without they didn’t know they were up against syndicate guys.
Come to think of it, the hoods probably did the logical thing and snatched themselves a pirate off the street outside my place.
Morley gestured again, slipped through the doorway. I went to the other side, crouching.
We found the fellow with the breathing problem, one Barclay Blue, journeyman bonebreaker. “Going to be some advancement opportunities, looks like,” I said.
Morley scowled. His situation was way less comfortable than mine. Further, there was the question of why Contague associates had gotten into a deadly battle high on the Hill. Not politic, that.
Next room boasted the remains of the main encounter. The Outfit guys had come from farther back and met the invaders there. At least one patrol bruno had carried a crossbow. I counted eight corpses. Four were Outfit. Some fine antiques had been rendered kindling. Blood covered everything.
I didn’t like the implications. Things had gotten way out of hand.
We entered the dining room I’d shared with Maggie Jenn. I understood why the Outfit guys hadn’t been willing to surrender.
The stench of death was heavy. Most of the chairs at the table had dead or probably soon to be dead people tied into them. I recognized the old guys from the warehouse, Zeke, the woman who had served Maggie and me, and others I’d seen on the street. Nobody’s breathing was real robust.
I said, “They were hiding here.”
“There were two battles. Belinda Contague won the first one.”
Fourteen people were tied into the chairs. Zeke and Mugwump were among the breathing. Excepting several guys who obviously got themselves killed when the thugs moved in, everyone had been tortured. None of the survivors were conscious.
Morley asked. “You see any Rainmaker? I don’t. No Maggie Jenn, either.”
“He’s famous for not being there when the shit comes down.” I double-checked Mugwump. He was the healthiest of the survivors.
“Yes. He is. What are you doing?”
“Cutting the guy loose. Sometimes I do stuff just because it feels right.”
“Think you’ll find anything useful here?”
“Probably not.” I noted that we were no longer a we. “Probably be a good idea to go.” We’d have the victorious patrolmen back soon and the Guard right behind them.
A bloody knife lay on the floor, probably a torture instrument. I placed it in front of Mugwump. “So let’s scat.”
58
“Freeze, slimeblog!”
Huh?
I was always a rebel. I didn’t freeze. I didn’t even check to see if I was outnumbered.
Neither did Morley. And he was where the speaker couldn’t see him.
I dove, rolled, came to my feet out of view, charged. Morley attacked from the other side of the doorway, low, shrieking.
One lone heavyweight had thought he could bluff me. He didn’t pull it off.
Morley smacked and kicked him about nineteen times. I whacked away with a headknocker rendered magically unbreakable. Down the man went, his expression saying it just wasn’t fair. Poor baby. I knew what he meant. Just when you think you’ve got it knocked, along comes some clown with a bigger stick.
Morley and I got no time to congratulate ourselves. More patrol types materialized. After the intellectual form of their subspecies, one demanded, “What’s going on here?”
Bippetty-bappetty-bopp!
I was not unaware that real heroes flail around with singing swords while I rated only an enchanted hunk of oak.
Morley whooped and hollered and popped guys all over the place. He was having a great time. He could hustle when he was motivated.
We broke through. We headed upstairs, disdaining the front way because every thug on the Hill had gathered to attend the business of counting bodies, cussing villains, and abusing captives.
My normally abysmal luck failed to assert itself completely, mostly because the patrol guys were making so much racket. They couldn’t hear me and Morley getting away.
“Let’s try the balcony first,” Morley suggested. “And quickly.”
I didn’t expect an easy getaway. Anybody with half a brain would have posted guards at every potential exit.
You never know, though, when you’re dealing with TunFaire’s bonebreakers. Most can’t think past the next arm they mean to twist. They’re efficient and technically polished within their specialty but feeble when it comes to planning and making decisions.
There had been a major engagement on the second floor, back toward the balcony door. There was a lot of blood but no bodies. Blood trails indicated that several bodies had been dragged out of what had been a lumber room last time I looked. My impression was that here was where the Outfit’s invasion first met
serious resistance. I wondered why. That room was no place to make a stand.
I took time out to look it over.
What the hell?
Seconds later, Morley called from the balcony exit, “What’re you doing? Come on! There’s nobody out there right now.”
I finished scanning the vellum sheet, one of several pages come loose from a book evidently damaged during the fighting. The rest of the book was gone. The loose pages might have gotten lost during a hasty getaway.
“I’m going to leave you here,” Morley threatened.
I folded the vellum, slipped it into my shirt. Best to get going and not pique Morley’s suspicion. I’d read the story before, anyway. The whole book, not just one page.
I reached the balcony, saw that Morley had given up on me and dropped into the alleyway. I glanced right and left, spied no trouble moving in. I landed beside Dotes. “We probably ought to split up now.”
He eyed me closely. He’s sure that any time I know what I want, I’m up to something that won’t be to his advantage. I can’t fathom why he would think that way. I said, “Do me a big one. Couple hours from now I’m going to lead that clumsy guy down to your neighborhood. Help me grab him.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to Winger. He’ll know where to find her.”
He gave me another glimpse of his suspicious side, then told me, “Be careful. Right now, they’re touchy around here. They’ll jump anything that moves.”
I nodded, less concerned about me than about him.
59
I wasn’t in a real good mood. I didn’t turn cartwheels when Colonel Block waved his clowns off and told me, “Cheer up, Garrett. It’s all straightened out.”
“How can you put these clowns on the street if they can’t recognize a pass put out by their own beloved captain?” What, me worry about getting off the Hill? I had passes and paper from a troop of heavyweights.
“The fellow who reads and writes doesn’t normally opt for a career in law enforcement. And you’ll have to admit that you refused to provide any good reason for being where you were found.”