by Glen Cook
Kyra didn't say anything but it was plain she was more comfortable with her aunt's man having female friends than she was facing that situation herself.
Kip's mouth ran. He didn't have a clue.
Kevans and Kip being friends would offer Kyra no comfort, ever.
"So you don't know these people?"
"No." Kevans sounded definite.
Kip shook his head. He was less certain. "I think I would remember her."
That got him punched from both sides.
Kyra volunteered, "I think I've seen the girl before."
"She was out front the other night."
"I know. I only got a glimpse, then. She looked like bad news."
"She was. I learned the hard way."
Kyra nodded at Penny's drawings. "I mean bad news because she looks like one of those blondes who has gotten anything she ever wanted handed to her since she sprouted a set of knockers."
That was harsh. And a touch hypocritical. Kyra Tate had been one of those girls till she developed the mental defect that bonded her to Kip.
She said, "I might've seen this one when I was about twelve. Some older girls were teasing me about still being flat." Some pink behind the freckles on the cheeks, there. "The ringleader was sixteen or seventeen and very blessed. This looks like her. Sort of."
Sounded like a long shot. "You should go over that with the Dead Man sometime. Figure out the time and place, work outward from there."
Singe made a note.
Old Bones could sort that out in seconds.
Kyra said, "If you think it's worth it I can probably figure it out. I have a good memory for people who misuse me."
I hoped Kip heard that.
His sins, though, would be of omission, not commission. If he messed up with Kyra it would be out of blind ignorance.
I told all the youngsters, "Let's look at the man. He may be the boss of the resurrection men. Any of you know anything about him?"
No, still, though I'm sure Kevans saw the resemblance to Barate Algarda. She kept sneaking looks.
"Another hope dashed. Kevans. Kip. Please talk to me about the warehouse in Elf Town."
Kyra eyed Kip in a way that made it plain she wanted to hear more, too.
Kevans was getting tired of all this. "I hid out there for a year. I told you. I left when I stopped feeling like I had to hide."
"I'm not interested in that. But why hide there? That's a far piece for a kid off the Hill."
"I'd been there before. With my grandmother. She owned it. It was empty and starting to fall apart. I think she sold it but nobody ever used it."
I worked some calculations. Strafa had borne Kevans at a very young age. Strafa's mother had died when Strafa was a child. I had met her ghost. Kevans must have been talking about Barate Algarda's mother.
"Anything unusual happen while you were there?"
"Nothing to do with what you're fussing about."
Kip backed her up. "I used to smuggle food and stuff. It was all sad for a while."
"Singe, make a note to ask the General if his forensic sorcerers went over that warehouse. And what they found out about the glassware."
"You asked already. He told you he got warned off."
"Even so. He and Relway haven't really backed off. If they could blame the poking around on us, they'd be even happier."
"We should not be discussing that right now."
No. I should be jumping all over the youngsters. They were gaining confidence as they grew more certain that the Dead Man was sleeping.
The look I sent Singe was one of appeal. I had emptied my toolbox when it came to interrogating kids.
Singe understood.
She left her desk. She left the room. A moment later Morley appeared, assisted by Penny. He settled onto a folding chair. He stared at Kevans from the side. He is better than I am at reading females.
Dollar Dan, who must have been in the kitchen with Dean, filled up the doorway. He could be amazingly intimidating when he wanted. But he wasn't the onager Singe meant to bring to bear.
71
Furious Tide of Light arrived. She did not look like anyone's mother. She did not look like anyone's wannabe girlfriend, either. She had on the full power of what she was. I had not seen her in that mode before.
Kevans curled into herself, mentally, like an armadillo. You could almost hear bacon crackling when the Windwalker looked at Kip. Kyra gaped, astonished and thoroughly intimidated. Only Penny seemed undisturbed. She stood out of the way, watched, and learned.
The girl was getting scary. I began to picture her as a human version of Pular Singe. It was in the blood. Her father had been Chodo Contague.
She and Belinda had nothing whatsoever to do with one another.
The Windwalker, when she spoke, was gentle, with the conviction of a whip. "Are you two clear on how foul a crime has been committed? What is happening has had no equal for two hundred years."
Strafa considered the drawings and painting. "This isn't a game." She stopped. She didn't want to challenge the kids. Adolescents will push back even when they're dead wrong.
Still, she asked, "What have you been holding back?"
Headshakes I suspected of being less than completely sincere. My sense, though, was that the insincerity had to do with Kip and Kevans rather than with knowledge of horrible crimes. Their friendship might have a more experimental angle than either wanted brought out in front of her mother or his girlfriend. Both lived lonely lives. They had been friends for a long time.
Everyone caught some taste of that possibility. But that wasn't why we had gotten together. I would overrule should the discussion start to slide that way.
I exchanged glances with Singe. If ever there was a time for the Dead Man to be on the job, this was it.
Kevans continued to wilt under her mother's scowl. That the Windwalker was her mother did not matter. What did was that one of the most ferocious and talented magic users alive might be displeased by the behavior of one rogue teen.
The Windwalker demanded, "You're completely sure you don't have anything more to tell us?" I hoped she really was capable of separating Furious Tide of Light from Strafa Algarda.
She stepped in till she and Kevans were nose to nose. She whispered. The girl began to shiver. She was ready to break down but, still, did not have anything to say.
If she did know anything it was something she would not surrender willingly.
I indulged a vain hope that the Dead Man was playing possum.
The Windwalker focused on Kevans but included her audience when making it clear that TunFaire faced a test of right and wrong more terrible than any since the age of uncontrolled experimental sorcery that had produced the ratpeople, plus worse beasts that had been exterminated during the hysterical public response.
Another Time of Troubles might be coming. Ignorance and fear are with us always. Stupid is all-pervasive. TunFaire wallows in bottomless reservoirs of that. A plague of zombies could trigger something way out of proportion to the horrors we had seen.
The Windwalker changed her approach. "Kevans, come with me." She used her Windwalker voice.
They went to my old office. It was quiet over there. Morley eased himself into the more comfortable chair that Kevans had vacated. He struggled to conceal his discomfort. "I hate being like this," he said softly.
"You've been hurt before."
"Not like this. Not this stupidly. Any other time I always knew why. Singe. Anyone find out who paid that healer to drug me?"
"That would have a yes and no answer. The Dead Man saw the woman inside the healer's mind, but only vaguely." She tipped a hand toward Penny's sketches. "Probably her. Miss Contague, with an assist from Mr. Kolda and reluctant cooperation from the Children of the Light, is pursuing that." Then she volunteered, "Other acquaintances are investigating other things. The reports aren't encouraging. It's amazing that so much wickedness can leave so little evidence. These villains are heinous but careful."
I asked a question that had been nagging me. "Why?"
"Garrett?"
"Why are these people doing what they're doing? If we knew that the search range would narrow considerable."
Singe still looked puzzled.
"Come on. These villains didn't just get up some morning and decide, 'Let's have some fun. Let's cut up dead people and build some jigsaw zombies.'"
"They are not zombies, Garrett."
Literal minds! "Whatever. You know what I mean."
"Yes. And you are correct. The question of motive has not come up in so plain a form. The behavior we have seen may have little to do with that."
I said, "It has to do with covering up. A dumb effort to quash something that never got out. That's what attracted attention."
"We may never know why. I expect the Hill people to get to them first. They have the most resources."
Probably. Those people insist.
One of those people came back with her daughter. The daughter was pale. The Windwalker looked grim. "Kevans will tell Barate to come see you. She and Mr. Prose will then meet me at the warehouse in Elf Town. Question Barate, then send him to join us. No excuses. I don't expect that he will know anything so it shouldn't take long. Is there anything else you want from these two?"
"No."
Kyra certainly had something but she kept her mouth shut.
Kip would have some explaining to do later.
Singe handled the door work.
The instant that shut Morley observed, "That woman can be fierce when the mood takes her."
"She didn't think they were telling the whole truth." I turned to Kyra. "So now we need to get you home safely."
TunFaire suffered ever more virulent paroxysms of law and order but a beauty like Kyra still rated an escort, if only to keep the chatter down.
I was about to volunteer. Singe spoke up first. "Dan, please ask Toast and Packer to do the honors." She followed that with burning eye contact. There would be no adolescent bravura on her watch.
I folded.
Were Singe human she would have sneered and told me I was painfully predictable.
She could play me as easily as Tinnie could. Maybe more so because with her my ego did not feel compelled to take stands.
And Kyra never argued.
The apprentice redhead was feeling exceptionally vulnerable.
Toast and Packer turned out to be the ratmen who had come with Dollar Dan.
72
The population of the house on Macunado continued to dwindle. Dean and Penny overruled me and went out to do some desperately needed shopping. Dollar Dan tagged along. I could not refute Dean's contention that all the entertaining had seen our bones get picked. The old man kept muttering about having trouble remembering the recipe for water soup, which was what we would be eating if he didn't go.
He clinched the deal by telling me he needed to see Jerry the beer guy. We would find ourselves in a desert otherwise.
One keg was dry. The other was down to a slosh.
Singe wore the ratgirl equivalent of a troubled frown after she recorded the advance she had given Dean.
"Reality catching up?" I asked.
"Not exactly. I noticed that Amalgamated is eleven days late with the quarterly dividend. We'll need that money if we keep pouring cash into this case the way we have been."
I heard "we" a lot but chose not to quibble.
She continued, "Considering the season, the dividend ought to be strong. I will claim penalty interest."
Her shoulders hunched like she expected me to take the company line against my interest as an investor.
I disappointed her.
I didn't know what she was talking about. I left that sort of stuff to her. She understood it. She reveled in it. She wallowed in it when she could.
Playmate joined us, trying to sub for Dean. He brought tea but was too shaky to manage pouring it.
Morley told him,"Sit your ass down, man! You look like hell."
I said, "He's two hundred percent better than when he got here."
Singe fiddled with her papers, getting more restive by the moment. Finally, she snapped, "Take it across the hall, boys. Take it next door. Take it anywhere but here. I have a ton of work. I need quiet to get it done."
Morley flashed a killer grin. Playmate looked soulfully wounded. I said, "As you command, so shall it be." I collected the Bird's painting and Penny's drawings. We crossed to the Dead Man's room.
"Warmer in here," Morley opined sarcastically.
Playmate planted himself in the best chair. "The pain isn't a tenth what it was but I still don't got any energy." He had brought the tea with him. He poured while sitting.
"That will turn around," I said. "Old Bones is totally confident. Mostly, it'll just take Dean to feed you up to your fighting weight, now."
"Think he'll be out for long?" Playmate tipped a thumb at the Dead Man. "I can feel the evil starting to grow again."
"I don't know. He's unpredictable. The stuff Kolda brought isn't working?"
Playmate tapped a dusting of brown powder into his teacup. "It's working smoky-ass miracles, Garrett. But it just slows the devil down. If I take it faithfully, obeying Kolda completely, it will take me three times as long to die."
His tone was understandably strained.
Meanwhile, Morley studied the artwork like he was determined to commit every brush and pencil stroke to memory.
Playmate said, "I think I've seen that man in the painting somewhere."
I suggested, "Year and a half ago? The mess at the World Theater?"
Playmate stared some more. "I see what you mean. But that's not the same man. An older brother, maybe."
"Barate Algarda was an only child."
"I got it. Nat something. A long time ago. I was a kid. But. ." He frowned deeply.
"What?" I asked.
Morley blurted, "You're right. He does look like that Algarda creep. But not the same. See the scar?" He pointed.
Playmate ignored him. "The man I remember looked like this over thirty years ago. Scars and all."
I enjoyed that pleasant feeling you get when you stumble onto something good, though I didn't really know if this was worth the stumble.
Playmate smacked himself upside the head. "The drug is working already. I can't hardly remember anything. I know he was a villain. Who ought to be a long time dead."
Playmate slurred. His chin dropped to his chest. Morley observed, "That is some kick-ass knockout powder."
"But of limited commercial value. Otherwise, Kolda would have a pot to pee in."
"I don't like to speak ill of your friends, Garrett, but that Kolda. ."
Singe shoved into the room. "Don't you hear the door, Garrett?"
"No." I did so now only because she had the hallway door open. Door-answering isn't part of my special skill set, anyway. "Who is it?"
"I suppose we would know if somebody answered it."
The thumping suggested someone was getting frustrated.
Singe made an exasperated noise more appropriate to one of our recent young adult lady visitors. She stamped up the hall.
Morley said, "If she was human I'd think Aunt Flo was winding her up."
"It's about the same thing. She'll be over it soon."
He said, "I may have crossed paths with this guy myself, sometime."
73
Singe brought Barate Algarda into the Dead Man's room. He was not in a good mood but he had shown up quickly. He wasn't wearing a mesh helmet. He wasn't going to hide.
Barate Algarda was a big man, Saucerhead size, ugly, and unkempt. He looked like a down-on-his-luck thug not getting much work because of Deal Relway's impact on the shadow economy. He nurtured that image. It left people unready for the real Barate Algarda. He was as bright and quick as his female descendants. His only talent for the magical, though, was a strong natural resistance to the Dead Man's mind probes.
Algarda was darker and wider than Strafa or Kevans. Strafa
took after her mother, whom I had seen in ghost form, once upon a time. Kevans had gotten a little more from the paternal side. She'd never be a beauty.
Algarda barely glanced at the Dead Man. "Well?"
Singe remained in the doorway, I suppose so she could jump in if Algarda became actively hostile. He had done so before, when he thought his daughters were threatened.
"Did Kevans explain what's been going on?"
"Honestly? Not really. I got the impression that she thought she was being hounded unfairly."
"That could be."
"She showed the same attitude when her bunch were breeding giant bugs." He added, "Gods, I'm glad they didn't do any spiders."
I shivered. Me, too. "You have to admit, Kevans has a sociopathic side."
"Runs in the family."
Indeed. "So let me sketch some situations that turn out to be tied together." I brought him up to speed.
"Bizarre. Where does my daughter fit?"
I started looking for the best words to indicate a warehouse owned by his mother.
"Not Kevans. The Windwalker."
"Oh." I gave it to him straight, leaving out the personal side.
"The Crown Prince, eh?" he interjected at one point.
"Yeah."
Morley listened quietly. Playmate joined Old Bones in dreamland, only he snored. Curious Singe looked like my sanitized tale made her want to take a nap, too.
"Glassware, eh?" Algarda mused, out of nowhere. "Unusual glassware. In a warehouse. In Elf Town."
"Where Kevans lived for a year. A place owned by your mother."
He seemed mildly surprised. "A strange woman, my mother. She kept secrets."
Why not just add another whole level of weird? Though the Dead Man would have cautioned me about jumping to conclusions based on prejudices.
I reiterated, "There was evidence that Kevans stayed there. The Specials have that. She says she was there for a year. She knew about the place because her grandmother took her there when she was twelve."
"That's how you got to my mother."