by Frank Tuttle
The Ogre didn’t move until the giant was out of sight. Then he deflated, and for the first time in my life, I saw an Ogre shiver with fear.
A few minutes later, a pair of white-faced bumpkins scurried out of the wall. They watered and fed the black wagon’s ponies, and brushed them a bit, but they didn’t untie them or lead them away.
“We ought to get away from this place,” whispered Mama. “We ought to go right now.”
“They didn’t unhitch the team,” I said. “We wait. They’re leaving soon. Want to follow.”
Mama searched for words.
She never found them. We waited.
Four more times, we joined hands. Four more times, Mama whispered her words. She was corpse pale and shaking after the last time, and I’d resolved to leave when the skull-faced woman in the black lace skirts came strolling out of the makeshift lair.
She headed straight for the black wagon. A nervous man followed her and untied her team and then scurried quickly away. She laughed and cursed him for a coward in passable Kingdom and then she turned the wagon back the way it had come and we held our breath until she was well and truly past.
The hens stayed in the trees. The Ogre shuffled from foot to foot, clearly weighing his need for coin against the call of the wild wood.
We crawled back into the pines. Mama reached them first and kept crawling, picking up speed and pushing heedless through briars.
No one spoke for half an hour.
“That there critter is the scariest damn thing I ever seen,” said Mama after hiding us with her hexes. She was shaking, and she forgot to put the witch-woman rasp in her voice.
“The sire or the dame?”
“You know damned well which one I’m talking about, boy. He was wrapped ‘round with hexes. I ain’t never seen the like.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I mopped sweat from my face. “But let’s talk about the woman for a minute. What can you tell me about her?”
“I reckon she’s some kind of foreign witch. Wears too many bangles.”
“So she’s got lousy fashion sense. I was hoping maybe you could tell me what kind of magic she deals in.”
“I recognized several pieces of her jewelry,” said Darla, who refused my offer of a handkerchief with a smile. “None were particularly valuable. Her boots came from Ingalls, and cost half a silver new, which they weren’t, because they’ve been re-soled.”
“So she shops for bargains and prefers style over substance.”
“Hell, boy, are ye lookin’ to recommend her some shops?”
“Nope. I’m going to follow her, see what she’s up to. You both heard the way she spoke to our giant, shirtless friend. They’re a couple, or I’m a potato rancher.”
“I tell ye, boy, she’s dangerous too, and don’t you think otherwise.”
“I don’t.” We were back to our wagon, and I was relieved to find both wagon and ponies waiting.
“She’s got quite a head start,” said Darla. “Do you think we can find her?”
I clambered up and took the reins while Mama untied the ponies.
“If I can’t find that wraith of a woman and that black wagon in broad daylight, I need to take down my finder’s eye and take up cheese rustling.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” said Mama as she climbed aboard. “Let’s get gone.”
I turned the ponies around, and we headed back to Rannit.
Chapter Twelve
Finding the woman in black was as easy as falling off a barstool. I just stopped the wagon now and then and asked anyone idling near the street if a circus witch-woman had passed in a black wagon.
Kids playing in vacant lots, oldsters napping in the sun—all were eager to share tales of the singing woman who drove like a devil and cursed like a barge-master. She’d charged through north Rannit at a gallop, whipping her ponies and screeching. Blind, old Mr. Waters could have stayed on her trail by listening with just one ear.
I first caught sight of the black wagon a few blocks from the old palace. I hung back, occasionally letting her get out of sight, sure I could catch up easily enough. I had Mama and Darla swap places now and then, and Darla and I took turns driving so if she was watching she didn’t see the same silhouette twice.
The woman in black had quite an afternoon. She stopped at three potion and herb shops, ones Mama Hog claimed to deal in dark arts. She paused at a couple of bars too, screaming and cursing so loud we could hear her from a block away. She would enter, the screaming would begin, and in a few moments the bar’s former patrons would pour out and hurry away.
It was after her second bar stop that she drove half a block, parked her wagon in the middle of a busy street, and got out to scream at the row of pigeon-spotted statues that lined the old Hall of Justice.
A crowd gathered just to watch the show. She went from statue to statue, howling at each, waving her ring-encrusted fingers at each sooty, weatherworn face.
“She’s insane,” said Darla.
“She’s certainly no fan of historical masonry.” I turned to face Mama. “Remind you of anyone?”
Mama frowned. “Boy, there ain’t no comparison.”
“Comparison with who?” asked Darla.
“With Mama’s friend Granny Knot.”
“The spook doctor?”
“Don’t they all act like this?” I watched the woman rave. “Granny does a fair amount of railing at fence-posts and mail-boxes. Seems to come with the talent.”
“Them what can speak to the dead are a might eccentric,” said Mama. “But this woman appears to be just plain crazy.”
“We’ll see.”
Once she’d castigated each of Rannit’s last six kings, the woman scrambled back into her wagon and resumed her reckless charge through Rannit, scattering pedestrians and traffic-masters alike.
We followed her west, then south, then east again. She took her wagon through the Park, running over one of the NO CARRIAGES OR WAGONS signs and whipping a terrified Park patrolman in the face when he dared tell her to halt. She parked her wagon atop a hill and ate a lunch of what appeared to be raw eggs and whiskey.
When the sun began to set, though, she changed with the darkening sky.
She stopped singing. She stopped whipping her sweat-soaked ponies. She didn’t curse or scream or threaten.
“I was a mite more comfortable when she was loud,” said Mama.
I agreed. Crazy was one thing. Crazy and focused was quite another.
A bank of clouds marched across the sky, extinguishing the sun early. Distant thunder began to sound, and flashes of far-off lightning lit the belly of the clouded sky.
Her next stop was a cemetery. There isn’t a boneyard in Rannit that isn’t locked up tight come sundown, but she rolled through the iron gates without slowing.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Mama.
I shushed her. We were hidden behind a row of stores, but Rannit was falling quiet, and even softly spoken words can betray.
The woman remained in the graveyard for a quarter of an hour. Then she rolled out and sped away.
“Stay put,” I said. Darla’s boots hit the cobbles with mine. So much for lingering patriarchal authority.
Mama stayed. “I ain’t got to tell you to stay this side of the gate,” she said.
“You don’t. We’ll be right back.”
I offered Darla my arm, and she took it, and we were just two people, strolling home.
When we reached the cemetery gates, they were open. The chain that should have held them closed was broken, the links snapped as clean and smooth as though they’d been cut with a hard, patient file.
Darla lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a nice trick. Any idea how she did that?”
“Something involving mirrors, I imagine.”
“We’re not going in there, are we?”
I leaned on the gate and looked out over the gravewards. They stood tall in the dark. Some leaned with age and neglect. Lightning lit the scene briefly, send
ing shadows flying.
A chill ran tiptoe up and down my spine.
“I think not,” I said, pretending to stifle a small yawn. “It’s just a cemetery. Bones and whatnot. Let’s get back to the wagon before poor, elderly Mama grows fearful and has a fit.”
“Let’s.” She took my arm again and we headed back to the wagon at a pace that might be called brisk.
“Well?” asked Mama.
“If we hurry we can catch her,” I said. Mama gobbled something about graveyards and fools.
I snapped the reins, and we headed toward the storm.
Five cemeteries later, the rain began in earnest.
I was glad for it. Rain masks noise, limits vision. Rain at night is as good as a black cloak and a mile of thick fog.
Mama sputtered and cussed. Darla produced a hat and bore the deluge with a smile.
The woman in black rolled through locked iron gates as though they were made of cobwebs and shadow.
High up on a lonely hill, one of Rannit’s oldest Church-sanctified cemeteries keeps watch. The church name for the place is Calthon Knoll, but everyone knows it simply as the Pale.
The Pale because of the white outcroppings of chalk that dot the hillside. Rain dissolves it, and the chalk stains the slope white. From the north side, the Pale bears an unfortunate resemblance to a human skull, partially buried, one baleful eye staring upward.
We watched the woman in black leave her wagon and wind her way up the Pale. Lightning showed her in high relief against the chalk-stained hill. She marched three-quarters of the way up, the wind whipping her hair and cloak every step of the way. Finally, she stopped at a tall, freshly polished granite crypt.
“Oh damn oh damn oh damn,” muttered Mama, singsong, as she squinted through the rain. The woman stood before the crypt, her arms uplifted, her voice rising now and then over the storm. “Oh boy, this ain’t good at all.”
Lightning flared.
There was the woman in black.
More lightning, and for the briefest portion of an instant, I thought I saw the shape of another person standing with the woman in black. A second female, clad in flowing shrouds, decidedly lacking in feet, ankles, or anything below the knees.
Darla’s fingernails dug into my arm.
“I saw it too,” I said.
The woman in black was alone again.
“I seen enough,” said Mama. “She’s trafficking with spirits, boy. Dark spirits. We need to go, right now.”
Mama’s voice held genuine urgency.
I counted crypts, made mental notes of tall or unusual gravewards.
“Right now, boy.”
I snapped the reins. The ponies, no fools, didn’t need any coaxing. I put our back to the Pale, kept walls and roofs between us, and made for home.
Buttercup came out of hiding before we’d made the block. She danced and leaped from roof to roof, glowing like the moon. Mama railed about her for getting wet, but when I dropped Mama off a few blocks from her shop, Buttercup sailed down from the roof, bone-dry and giggling.
Darla and I returned our rented wagon and exhausted ponies before catching a cab to our hotel. We got there right before the doorman locked the place down for Curfew.
Waiting for us was an envelope, addressed to me in Evis’s neat hand. Beneath my name was a single word—URGENT.
Darla sighed and lost her smile as I tore the envelope open.
Come at once, read the letter. A carriage waits behind the Brass Lantern.
“Be careful,” said Darla. “Wake me when you’re done.”
There wasn’t much else to say. I gave the doorman a hard look when he complained about unlocking his doors, and as the Curfew bells bade honest folk to lock themselves indoors, I took to the empty streets, bound for a long carriage ride in the rain.
I’d spent my day crawling through weeds or shoving through briars, and my night chasing a madwoman through a rainstorm.
Still, I doubted I looked as haggard as Evis, because a haggard halfdead is a sight to behold.
He raised an eyebrow at me and glared over the stack of wet papers on his desk.
“Don’t say it,” he said.
“You look like death itself.” I seated myself. “I have things to tell. But you go first, since you’re buying the beer.”
He groaned, but reached down and produced a pair of bottles.
“Here’s something to read while you drink.” He pushed a pile of rain-soaked waybills toward me. I took a long draught of beer before I gently pried the top one off the stack, and held it up in the dim light.
ELIN FORTHER, it read. Below the name, a crude drawing depicted a dismembered corpse. Someone had thoughtfully arranged the severed limbs atop the torso, and balanced the head on top of the pile.
Below the drawing was a date and a time. The date was today’s and the time was just before Curfew.
And then, of course, the five faces, spaced neatly across the bottom.
“I take it the unfortunate Mr. Forther is as dead as dead can be?”
Evis nodded. “Dismembered, just as drawn.” He picked the next one off the pile. “Dead. Just like Norvil Scot here.” He tossed me the soggy waybill and selected another. “And Mabus Court. And these others.”
Scot was drawn with his head bent sideways. Court was hanging from a banister.
“Why do these names sound familiar?”
“Because you’ve heard them before. Elin Forther ran most of the brothels at the foot of the Hill. Norvil Scot was the boss of the Top Button gang. Mabus Court was the judge House Lethe kept in their pocket.” Evis poked the stack of waybills with a bony, white talon. “Someone has been cleaning house. We’ve found two dozen of these things littering the streets.”
I whistled. The Top Buttons were a street gang that graduated from strong-arm robbery and extortion to the more genteel but no less rapacious art of banking. Rumors claimed Forther was never far from his small army of bodyguards. Judge Court did the frequent legal favors for and enjoyed the protection of House Lethe, although that protection hadn’t kept a noose off his neck.
“All the dead men are crooks?”
“One man’s crook is another’s civil servant,” said Evis. “It’s the pattern I find disturbing. There’s no singling out of one gang or House or avenue of endeavor. This is a systematic, methodical extermination of Rannit’s extralegal community, from the bottom up.”
“Extralegal community. I like that.” I was so thirsty I finished my beer. “I’m confused, though. Someone is killing ne’er-do-wells and celebrating their exploits with amateur sketch art. Are you hoping to stop them or give them a medal?”
“Each of the drawings was distributed well in advance of the actual act of murder,” said Evis. “In some cases, many days before.”
I put my empty bottle down with what I hoped was an emphatic hollow thump.
“I suppose that explains the Watch’s interest in all this,” I said. “But I’m missing something, aren’t I?
“An example. A blackmailer named Gosset Kemp received a drawing. Having heard the rumors about the five faces, he fled Rannit. His horse threw a shoe. Kemp wounded his forehead in a fall and then sought refuge in a woodman’s shack. He was impaled on a hay-fork during the night.”
“Which is why I never leave the city,” I said. “Too many hay-forks. Too many rage-filled hay ranchers.”
“How, Markhat? How did the artist know Kemp would flee? How did he know Kemp would die with a gash on his forehead, or be forced to take refuge in a shack? How did he know, days before the events, that Kemp would be impaled on a hay-fork with a bent middle tine?”
“He didn’t. He couldn’t. The whole scene had to be staged.”
“It was not staged. Nor were the others. I have directed the full force of Avalante into this investigation. It appears magic is involved.”
“Stitches agree with that?”
“She does,” said Stitches, who simply appeared from thin air.
I jumped. Evi
s grinned a weary grin.
“Good evening, Mr. Markhat.” Her eyes moved behind the bleeding stiches that held them shut, as though she was observing my disheveled attire. “I see you have not been idle.”
“Not nearly as idle as I’d like to be.” I pointed to the stack of flyers on Evis’s desk. “Others have been busy too.”
“Indeed they have.” Stitches moved to stand by the desk. “I surmise the effects of this campaign are no longer a secret.”
“Hell no,” said Evis. “Half of Rannit’s criminal underworld is holed up in the old bunker six floors down. They’re terrified. They think we can save them.”
“Can you?”
“I doubt it. The House isn’t even sure we should try. None of the remaining crime bosses is a particularly valuable ally.”
“My advice is to turn them out at once,” said Stitches. “No good can come of unnecessary involvement in this matter.”
“Harsh but practical,” I said. “These crime bosses. Anyone I know?”
Evis sorted through the stack of damp drawings.
“Here they are. Ecols Rorshot runs most of the gambling houses. Stales Tin is in charge of the shipping unions. Nato Pung handles the barge fees, and Frant Mark is the taxman. Names ring any bells?”
They didn’t, but my knowledge of Rannit’s minor underworld figures was sketchy at best. They tended to die accidental boating deaths so often committing their names to memory seemed like a waste of time.
The drawings were typically gruesome. One fellow perished by fire. The next was missing most of his throat and gut. The next—
I held the page close and strained to see details in the dim light.
The name above the drawing was Ecols Rorshot. His body was crumpled on a plank floor, his skull crushed in by a brick.
The date and time were two weeks in the future.
“Ecols Rorshot,” I said. “You don’t by any chance have him cooling his heels down in this no doubt tastefully-appointed bunker of yours, do you?”
Evis nodded a yes. “Why? He a long-lost twin brother?”
I turned the page around. “The wide-brimmed hat on the floor. The dog leash in his hand. Hell, the little dog lying by his side. None of that suggest anything to you?”