by Glen Cook
Never mind. The Windwalker woke me up. I did what I had to do. Any romantic notions she brought along got put on hold. Still, she was a resilient fey. She might have bounced back had it not been for the interruption.
I was looking at her, determined to ask why she was here but getting entangled in the fantasy-wondering if I shouldn't have taken a bath-when she let out a baby squeal and slammed a fist down hard on the windowsill.
She had to leap to do it, and when I say hard I mean she shook the house. The wood in the window frame groaned.
A soft curse from the street followed. And I felt nothing to indicate that the Dead Man knew something dangerous had begun.
The Windwalker had not brought the lighting up brighter tonight. Yet. Only a candle burned, its wan light barely potent enough to reveal a blindly groping arm of flesh like the one that had tried getting in through the window at Fire and Ice.
I joined the Windwalker in an effort to punish that. Unhappy noises came from outside. I hurled raging thoughts the Dead Man's way. I slammed the window shut.
Furious Tide of Light used the candle to light my lamps, then applied the business end to the probe still oozing in through the crack of the window.
That caused some excitement.
Sudden as an explosion, an awful, despairing wail came from the street. The arm of flesh went crazy as a snake with a broken back. My friend kept right on attacking it. Something on the other end decided that it did not need to explore my bedroom after all.
Furious Tide of Light leaped into the air, slammed down hard on the double-hung.
A chunk of whatever two feet long and as thick as her wrist separated from what lay outside.
That was most remarkably unusual! Definitely a woman with potential.
I had nothing to say. I fell down on the side of my bed. The Windwalker landed in my lap. Our hearts were pounding. Our attention was on the severed tentacle. I croaked, "They found Morley again."
A shriek of rage and pain ripped the night outside. It did not stop. It headed away, uphill on Macunado, at no great speed.
The Windwalker did not get up to take a look. I did not have the moral fiber to set her back on her feet.
The Dead Man made contact but his thoughts had no form. I got the impression that were he a living being he would be puking up his guts.
His distress took me away from my dilemma, some, though the Windwalker kind of leaned back and made herself comfortable.
Old Bones needed time to pull himself together. Once he did I was in contact with a different being. He had dipped a toe into a darkness even he could not have imagined just a few days ago.
He was centuries older than me. That something contemporary would appear terrible to him scared the pants off me. Did I dare be pantsless in the presence of Furious Tide of Light?
If they are not on now, Garrett, get them on. You have to make a census of the people who were supposed to be watching.
I do? "What?"
Your trousers. You are not actually wearing them. Remove the Windwalker from your lap and put on your trousers. I want you both out in the street. Her I want aloft and following the thing that fled up Macunado. It was not traveling at any great speed. Let her catch up. If she can control it, have her bring it back.
I had questions. This was not the time. This was the time to move fast. Response times are crucial.
Singe will come collect the specimen.
"She'd better hurry. The one up north turned to stink and goo."
The Windwalker, prized loose, looked at me oddly.
I told her, "You know about my partner. He's why you're wearing the Kevans mesh. So he can't get inside your head. He wants me to ask you to do some stuff." I relayed the Dead Man's instructions quickly.
She understood immediately.
"I'd better get going. I don't think there's much chance I can control that thing. I don't have those skills. Get that window open."
I'd just finished when Singe bulled in, armed with a bucket and sour attitude. She turned sourer still as she watched the Windwalker float away. Which I wasn't watching because I had turned to face her.
As I pointed out the piece of monster flesh, she demanded, "Why isn't that woman wearing any underwear?"
"Damn! I missed that completely."
Lucky for Singe's peace of mind, I'd had my pants on when she charged in.
49
I went out the front door like people who can't fly. Singe had armed me up, though my lead-weighted head knocker was the only tool of mayhem obvious. I was feeling less confident than I ought, being fully aware that I hadn't done this stuff for a long time. My skills and instincts had atrophied.
The Dead Man filled my head with an itinerary. And, There will be much to tell once I have had time to reflect. Those things should not have been able to get close. They should not have been able to brush me aside so easily, though it may be a blessing that they did. I cannot imagine the mind of a master vampire being more filled with filth.
Five men representing as many interests had been posted to keep an eye on my place. No doubt they knew about one another. They might have pooled resources. Old Bones wanted a roll call. Men doing similar work had come to grief up by Fire and Ice.
This was nothing I wanted to do. Which might suggest that I was past the point where I should stop doing what Tinnie wanted me to stop doing.
If I couldn't handle the ugliness anymore I should get busy being the neutered door guard I'd seen myself as before this came rumbling down.
Among the Civil Guard, Belinda's friends, a guy from Morley's crew and one from the Children of the Light, I found six of the five people Old Bones claimed were watching. John Stretch's guys nabbed the extra.
First was a red top right across the street. He was uninjured but his mind had gone blank. Which was the story over and over. The last man, a tin whistle posted on the steps to Mrs. Cardonlos' house, was awake but deeply confused.
I found one dead man, a door up the street from my place. Nobody knew him. Probably an unlucky guy who thought he'd found a nice place to spend a homeless night.
I approached the Cardonlos homestead, wakened the widow. She pretended that I was disturbing her rest with my assault on her door. She had not aged well and had not handled that well. She had become a cosmetics huckster's dream, a younger man's nightmare, and an object of derision for attractive younger women.
I've seen so many like her that I suspected a disease strikes women of a certain age. Badly colored hair. Makeup laid on with a trowel. Perfume dense as a swamp's miasma. And a ready, pathetic simper for any man young enough to remember what it's like to stand upright.
She did not simper at me. She recognized me. "It's started, hasn't it?"
"Excuse me? What's started?"
"The death of tranquility." She freighted that with omen, like she was proclaiming the twilight of the gods. "There hasn't been any trouble here since you followed your trollop up the Hill."
She didn't have that right. My trollop was actually a lady. And she had nothing to do with the Hill. "I'm back. You should petition the Director to put you back on full time. Meantime, he needs to know what happened tonight. All his people were hurt. One man died. He'll recall what happened on the north side."
Mrs. Cardonlos gulped some air. She wanted to make that all my fault but didn't know how.
I pointed. "That one down there has lost his hearing."
The veteran lady gulped again. "The excitement is back."
"Get word to the Al-Khar. I'll be busy getting the casualties together and trying to help them." Extra info she could include in her report, to encourage a quick response.
Relway would want his troops exposed to the Dead Man as briefly as possible.
50
Furious Tide of Light returned before the Guard showed. She was morose and uncommunicative. I wasted no questions. The Dead Man would winkle out anything of interest.
I did suggest, "How about you help with these guys that got hur
t?" I had three pulled together in one place. Keeping them there was problematic. They wanted to wander off.
Singe had gone to find her brother. She returned with a half dozen ratmen who helped collect the other casualties and wrangled those already rounded up. Singe was antsy. She wanted to get on the trail of the thing that had started the excitement. But she restrained herself in front of the Windwalker, at the gentle urging of the Dead Man.
Furious Tide of Light went through the motions halfheartedly, aiding the injured. She must have found something she had not wanted to find, following that whatever to its lair.
When she wasn't being her brother's surrogate on the spot Singe glared at the Windwalker and gave me looks, demanding, "When are we going to get going? The trail is getting cold."
I told her, "I don't think we will."
"Why not?"
"Three reasons. We are forbidden. My mission is to protect Morley. And Old Bones already knows."
She understood. But still she made hissing noises to express her exasperation.
The Windwalker's healing skills were basic. She reached her limits quickly. But she did stabilize everyone.
Nobody else died but the man I had found dead stayed that way.
The man who came out on behalf of the Guard was one Rocklin Synk, previously unknown to me. He was rational and reasonable. He didn't automatically assume everybody who wasn't him was guilty of something. He didn't treat people like they'd already been convicted of aggravated capital treason with a garlic pickle on the side.
We were headed into the graveyard shift when he showed. We had a smaller audience than seemed likely. Evidently people didn't get out of bed to be entertained by the misfortunes of others anymore.
The time and pitiful audience may have helped shape Synk's attitude. Maybe it wasn't worth the work, putting on a hard-ass show.
Still, any true believer in the Relway vision must start from the premise that anyone who isn't Deal Relway or one of his henchmen is likely an agent of chaos and a harbinger of the coming darkness. Investigations are built on such foundations, their function to find or create support for the initial supposition. Synk was the kind of guy who palled around with you till you handed him the end of the rope he would use to stretch your neck.
I kept him near the house while we talked.
Old Bones soon let me know why this man had been sent.
This is Mr. Synk's first field assignment. His functions at the Al-Khar have involved payroll accounting and personnel management. His task tonight is to learn as much as possible without revealing the Guard attitude toward this case.
Meaning the Civil Guard did have an attitude they didn't want expressed. "I don't care. All I'm interested in is taking care of my friend till he's ready for release into the wild."
By now the Guard had established an overwhelming presence. Ratmen were scarce. The Windwalker got inside before she was recognized. I was outside with nobody but Singe and swarming red tops.
I developed the suspicion that nobody interested in this mess was really looking the other way just because some unidentified entity insisted. Not privately.
I was a gracious host. I repeated my story over and over. Synk insisted that he had to have the fragment of a tentacle. Singe hustled off, brought it out. It was spoiled already. The bucket contained noxious brown soup with chunks of meat quickly melting. It did not smell like fresh seafood.
I didn't care. That was what I expected. I wanted to get back inside and find out why the Windwalker was distraught.
Rocklin Synk knew more about the Garrett friends and family than Garrett did. I started to give him hell for loading all the downed watchers into his Al-Khar wagons. He cut me off. "Will we be able to borrow your tracker?"
Singe was close enough to hear. "I don't have a tracker. One of my associates is a skilled tracker. If you want to avail yourself of her talent you'll have to work it out with her."
Synk did not like that at all.
Old Bones assured me that Synk was not a bad human being. My own impression was that he was about as decent as they came inside the Guard. But he was a definite product of TunFaire's human culture. He did not consider ratfolk people. There was a solid chance he didn't consider members of any of the Other Races real people.
The thinking underlying the whole Human Rights movement was unfashionable at the moment but it hadn't gone away. It could come back fast. It needed only one ugly nudge.
I added, "Though I wouldn't ordinarily presume to tell her what to do, I'd insist she got her fee up front because she's dealing with the Guard."
"Sir?" Taken totally off balance.
"Your runty boss has a habit of expecting people to help him for the sheer joy of participating in the process. It be-hooves those addicted to food and shelter to have the foresight to collect their pay before they do the work."
Synk honestly seemed bemused."You don't trust the Guard?"
"When money is involved? Consult your own experience."
Seconds passed. Then, "I see. Unfortunately, I wasn't given the wherewithal to undertake any negotiations."
Singe said, "You are on your own, then, Constable." She headed for the house. Where had she found that title? Pulled it from the air, perhaps.
I shrugged. "There you have it. The track may still be there in the morning." I watched Singe close the door behind herself. I told Synk, "On an unrelated point, you won't get much joy from arresting Belinda Contague's men."
Synk engaged me in a brief semantic debate, insisting that nobody had been arrested.
"You'll have a hard time selling that to folks whose agents you're hauling off."
"I don't have to sell anything." He might have been an accountant turned loose but he did have a full ration of Civil Guard conceit. He gave me some crap about protective custody for witnesses and about making sure material witnesses got the best of health care.
"Mr. Synk, I have to hand it to you. You are a prodigy of Guard bullshit and refined Relway-speak. You'll go far. As long as you don't have direct dealings with disgruntled folk like Belinda Contague."
Synk proved he was a complete desk weenie, then, by not being concerned that he might irritate a gang princess.
Let it be, Garrett. He is a good man who believes his goodness to be a shield in itself. I understand that you think you must look out for everyone, but the crushing this man is thundering toward might be instructive to the Civil Guard as a whole.
"That lesson being?"
That righteousness is not a shield. The good die more quickly than the bad.
It's also damned subjective but I did not bring that up.
I had reached a point where my hopes and ambitions swirled exclusively round the prospect of getting back to bed.
Still, some things needed attention. I had to see how Morley had weathered the last few hours. Which proved to be, he had slumbered on through. And I wanted to hear about what had the Windwalker so glum.
I had a suspicion.
The Dead Man told me I was wrong. He did not want to fuss about it tonight. I did need to get back to bed. I had a stressful tomorrow looming.
My plan to hit the sack had to go on hold while I convinced Furious Tide of Light that Singe was doing right by putting her into the guest bedroom. Though nothing would have happened if she had been allowed to snuggle in the warm with me. I was exhausted and so not in the mood. Singe's nose told her that. But there were proprieties to be observed, as far as she was concerned.
Splitting the difference, I kissed the Windwalker on the forehead when Singe wasn't looking. A minute later I was secure beneath my own blanket. The window was shut and latched. I warmed up the snore cycle.
51
The Dead Man was a perfect prognosticator. Next day was a nightmare of visitations. General Block came and went. Belinda Contague did the same, and mother-fussed Morley till he begged her to leave. Deal Relway his own self turned up, accompanied by Rocklin Synk. I thought we'd never get shut of him, though early on, f
or a wonder, he granted that he must be getting the truth from me.
It was hard to keep a straight face. Relway wore a custom metal mesh coif under silver mail. His freakish ears protruded through slits provided. Weird. I'd never seen his ears before. They'd always been hidden under his hair.
The headgear was guaranteed to shield his thoughts. The Dead Man assured me that the Director had been conned. It hadn't taken him thirty seconds to break through.
Relway got no warning from me.
I wasn't sure I cared to know what was hidden inside his head.
The Windwalker stayed out of sight, upstairs. She showed no inclination to leave. Singe stoically delivered her breakfast and lunch.
Sarge turned up. I joined him in with Morley. Not much got said. Sarge was just plain misty-eyed.
While I was in there other people came by with preliminary reports. Most just shambled past and let Old Bones pluck what he needed from their heads, thus betraying no connection to us.
The Dead Man touched me. I need you to catch Mr. Relway. He is a block east of Wizard's Reach, briefing some of his men.
I scooted out, chock-full of message and thrilled to be running free.
I was hacking and panting before I found the Director. He wasn't wearing his magical headgear. He looked like just another red top. Five more of who got ready to thump on me. But Relway had them hold off. No need to start right this instant.
"You should get in shape, Garrett. You're way too young to be wheezing after a quarter-mile trot."
"Old Bones says to tell you that four new watchers just moved into the neighborhood and he can't read them. Yours and the Outfit's he recognizes and considers harmless. This bunch are different. They showed up right after you left. There might be more than four, too, since they're so hard to spot."
Relway's ugly little face lit up. He asked where to look. I told him. "Thank you, Garrett. I'm going to take back some of the harsher things I've said about you. Go home. Get inside. Lock your door. Don't let anyone in after sundown."