Angry Lead Skies gf-10

by Glen Cook

  Lightning bolts, like swift left and right jabs, rained down on the ruins, starting small fires, flinging debris around. Despite his discomfiture and the inelegance of his situation the stormwarden was still in there punching.

  Other things were happening at the same time. They were less intensely visual. I credited them to the Visitors because Bic's gang were the people being inconvenienced.

  Damn! We'd dropped the invisibility spell and were trying to fade into the onlookers but Bic spotted us almost immediately. But he didn't get the chance to report us. A Visitor floated up out of the ruins, jabbed one of those gray fetishes in his direction. And he fell down, sound asleep. I wasn't feeling real charitable. I hoped he woke up with a headache as ferocious as the worst I'd enjoyed back when they were knocking me out all day long.

  I told Singe, "It'll be a week before they get their stuff together back there. Let's use the time."

  We did. To no avail whatsoever. Not only were the Maskers not hiding where John Stretch said, there was no sign of their skyship. I'd hoped it would be right there where I could sabotage it. Or whatever seemed appropriate at the moment of discovery.

  Why would I want to keep them from going away? The longer they hung around the more likely they would fall into the hands of somebody off the Hill. Which would make times just that much more interesting for those of us who couldn't fly away.

  "Singe? You smell anything that might be the Masker skyship?"

  She strained valiantly. And told me, "I can tell nothing. What happened back there has blinded my nose."

  Poor baby. "Follow me." It was time to get the hell away from the Embankment.

  Our line of retreat took us back past the ruined tannery.

  Raindrops continued to strike randomly, scattered but getting fatter all the time. And colder. One smacked me squarely atop the bean. It contained a core of ice. It stung. I regretted my prejudice against hats.

  "Look," Singe said. We were slinking through the crowd of onlookers, which had swollen to scores, most of them tickled to see a stormwarden looking like he had a firm grip on the dirty end of the stick.

  A groggy Bic was back up on one knee, a black-clad ankle still in hand, glaring at the mob, not a man of whom offered a hand. He spied somebody he thought he recognized, that somebody being Mama Garrett's favorite boy. He croaked out, "Garrett!"

  Garrett kept on rolling. Maybe a little faster. Garrett's sidekick puffed and hustled to keep up.

  Bic yelled as loud as he could. His excitement didn't do him any good at all. The one response he did get was a growing hum that sounded like a swarm of bumblebees moving in for the kill. It came from within the rubble. Masker sorcery. Bic slapped another hand onto his boss' ankle and went back to pulling.

  "Look!" Singe gasped again.

  The rubble had begun shifting and sliding as though restless giants were awakening underneath.

  The bubble was coming up again. And now the bumblebees were singing their little bug hearts out.

  The bubble got a lot bigger this time. Bricks and broken boards, ratmen and squealing henchmen all slid off. Bic forgot about me and Singe. He forgot his manners entirely. He yanked the mask off the stormwarden, slapped his face. I caught a glimpse of pallor disfigured by indigo tattoos. A real heartbreaker of a face. It must drive the hookers wild.

  Something began rising up inside the bubble. Something shiny, like freshly polished sword steel.

  The bumblebees lost the thread of their hearty marching song and began to whine. The bubble began to shrink and the steel to sink. But the bees picked up the beat after a few false notes.

  The Masker skyship emerged from the ruins.

  The addled stormwarden popped it with his best lightning bolt.

  The skyship popped him back. Enthusiastically. He flew twenty yards, ricocheted off a brick wall, barely twitched once before an incoming Bic Gonlit, tumbling ass over appetite, crash-landed on top of him.

  The Masker vessel lumbered into the sky and headed south, the bumblebees occasionally stumbling, the ship itself wobbling.

  "A little faster with the feet, I think," Singe said when I slowed to watch. "I am developing a strong need to find myself somewhere far away from here." The crowd seemed to agree with her. Everybody thought it was time to be somewhere else.

  "Yes, indeed, girl. Yes, indeed. Before old Bic wakes up and decides to blame us for everything."

  We did go somewhere else. But we weren't much happier there than we'd been on the Embankment.

  81

  "I've got a bad feeling about this, Singe," I said, puffing as I headed south, the knees beginning to ache. "I'm willing to bet I know exactly where that thing was headed."

  No dummy she, Singe opined, "Mr. Dotes' establishment."

  "Yeah."

  Yeah.

  The skyship was long gone by the time we reached The Palms but people were still hanging around in the street, telling each other about it. There'd been enough excitement for the visitation to become a neighborhood forty-day wonder. I noted a couple of familiar faces among the gossipers, guys asking only occasional questions and doing a lot of listening.

  Some snooty galoot got his heart broken when I didn't even slow down going past him at the door—with a rat in tow, for the gods' sake! For a moment I thought I'd finally get me a chance to witness a genuine sputtering fit of apoplexy.

  Snooty galoot disappointed me.

  People so often do.

  "I smells, wit' my little smeller, somet'in' what a man ought not ta got ta smell," Puddle announced from the shadows at the other end of the room.

  Sarge hollered from the kitchen, "Dat mean dat Garrett's here?"

  "Dat it does indeed."

  "Ha! So pay up! I told ya da man don't got a ounce a shame an' he'd turn up before da dust settled."

  "Sounds like we guessed right," I told Singe. "They did come here."

  "Hey, Greenwall," Puddle yelled. "Ya need more help talkin' people outa comin' in da door?"

  The snooty character gobbled some air. It was obvious that Morley had hired him for his upthrust honker, not for his ability to intimidate hard men.

  I said, "Don't be too rough on the guy, Puddle." I intended to explain how he naturally went spineless when he saw Singe and me bearing down, but Puddle interrupted.

  "Yer right, Garrett. It's his secont day on da job. Ain't every day ya look out da door an' dere's one a dem flyin' disk kinda t'in's landin' in da street out front, wit' goofy-lookin' silvery elf guys jumpin' down an' whippin' up on everybody."

  I took a second glance at Greenwall. He did look like a man nursing a ferocious headache. So did Puddle, for that matter. "So the girls all got away."

  Puddle stared at me with narrowed eye for several seconds. "Yeah. Dey went. But one a dem had ta be dragged kickin' and da udder two cried all da way 'cause dey didn't want ta go."

  "Wow! Your boss is quite the man. He'll be heartbroken, I'm sure."

  "Morley's gonna be singin' hosannas, soon as he gets enough strengt' back." Puddle's grin slid away. His face turned serious. "I hate ta be da one what gives ya da bad news, Garrett, but dem sluts, dey stole Mr. Big when dey went."

  "Oh, that is awful." What an actor. I know what racket I ought to be in, now. Not involved in inventing and manufacture. I ought to be on the stage. I managed to be convincing in my loss. "O Cruel Asp of Fortune, thou wicked serpent, how painful thy sting... "

  "Gods, Garrett, you aren't just a ham, you're the whole stinking pig." Morley had managed to get most of the way downstairs. He looked like a guy fighting a big headache, too.

  Once again I brought my acting skills to bear and concealed my amusement. "You look like death warmed over. You been playing with the vampires?"

  "Of a sort. Right now I don't think I ever want to see another woman."

  "Oh, I suspect you'll change your mind. After you recover from the fantasy come true." Given a few days I'd found myself thinking of Katie and Tinnie in a nonplatonic fashion again. But I am a
very resilient fellow.

  "They stole Mr. Big, Garrett."

  "You sound like that bothers you."

  Morley's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Like why wouldn't that bother the gods themselves?

  "It's no secret that I wasn't fond of the ugly moth. But if you miss obnoxiousness fluttering around you I'll send over some of the swarm of pixies that're living in my walls, now."

  "No need. Mr. Big will be back," Morley predicted. He sounded so confident I wondered if I ought to be worried.

  "You sound sure. And glum at the same time."

  "Evas and her friends are going to come back with him."

  "Heh-heh-heh." I pulled my most evil laugh out of my bag of attitudes for special occasions. "You sure they won't just wring his neck when they get tired of him?"

  "You'll be laughing out the other side of your mouth when they get here, Garrett."

  "I'll move. I'll go into hiding."

  "You're marked, buddy. You're special. You started something and now you're marked for their special attention."

  "I started nothing. It was all Evas' idea."

  "You gave her the idea for her new idea, Mr. Entrepreneur. She's going to get hold of a bigger skyship and start bringing silver elf women to TunFaire for very special vacation getaways. And she sees you as a whole lot better partner in her enterprise than she sees me. She told me so." A bit of wickedness lurked in the corners of his eyes. He just might have had something to do with the lady Visitor's attitude.

  Telling stories on me again, probably. I have to break him of that habit.

  "Their government will never let them do that." Stopping adventurers was Casey's business. His whole purpose in life was to prevent contacts between his people and ours.

  "You really think? It's beyond corruption?"

  "Glad to see you're all right," I said. "Get plenty of rest. And get some meat in your diet. You'll need to beef up if you want to make it in the gigolo racket." I began to sidle toward the door.

  "I plan to maintain my amateur status. But you being a businessman now, you might want to exploit the opportunity."

  Maybe I could recruit Kip and Rhafi and a dozen of their friends. What they lacked in experience they could make up in enthusiasm.

  I sidled some more, noting that Singe was enjoying my discomfiture entirely too much.

  "What's your rush, Garrett?" my old pal asked.

  "I've got to see a Dead Man about a horse."

  Morley took his turn chuckling. Chances were he had a fair notion what was going on in my head. But he said only, "You be careful on the street. There are some ratfolk out there who resent what the Guard did to Reliance. And they think you and Singe might have had something to do with that. Your friend John Stretch is having trouble setting himself up as Reliance's replacement."

  "My friend John Stretch is going to get some grief from me, too." I'd concluded that John Stretch had given me completely bum information about where to find the Maskers. That Singe and I had stumbled into the right place at the wrong time almost entirely by chance. That we never would have found the Visitors if Bic and his sorcerer friend hadn't been dogging us.

  Dotes got in a final gouge as we stepped into the street. "See you at Chodo's birthday bash. I think you could sell your gigolo franchise to the Outfit."

  Chodo's birthday party. That bucket of ice water put everything else into a more favorable perspective. The return of the insatiable Visitor girls sounded positively attractive by comparison.

  82

  "What the hell do you mean, he got away?" I yelled at Dean. "Between you and Old Bones in there you couldn't manage one guy four feet tall and only about fifty pounds soaking wet?"

  "You exaggerate, Mr. Garrett," Dean replied with cold dignity. "That creature has Powers. And the thing in the other room went to sleep." He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the Dead Man. "If you insist on pillorying someone for dereliction, I suggest your candidate be the thing actually capable of having exercised control over the foreigner."

  "But he's asleep. I can't vent my frustrations by yelling at him."

  Dean shrugged. My need to yell was a matter of indifference to him. Unless I showed the slack-witted judgment to zero in on him personally. "I expect you're starved, Mr. Garrett. What do you say to stuffed peppers?"

  That was blackmail in its rawest form.

  Dean's smile was wicked, even demonic. He'd do it. He'd really make the whole house reek of that foul fruit.

  "You watch out I don't change the locks next time you go out of the house."

  Dean smiled. It's his firmly held conviction that I can't get along without him.

  The man is mad.

  "I'm going to go into my office. I'm going to put on my thinking cap. Singe, how about you grab us a pitcher and a couple of mugs?" I really wanted to go pummel the Dead Man but knew I'd just end up driving myself crazy. If he was soundly enough asleep to let Casey get away there'd be no waking him up anytime soon.

  Because beer was involved Singe overlooked my treating her more like an employee than a partner, which is what she figured she was.

  I didn't give Eleanor more than a passing glance because I knew what I'd find if I bothered to consult the woman in the painting. No help at all and a whole lot of amusement at my predicament.

  Singe materialized with the beer. Not one pitcher but two, one in each paw, with mugs. We went to work sipping, nobody saying much. After a while she returned to the kitchen for refills. We sipped some more. I began to relax. Then Dean stuck his head in to tell me that Colonel Block was at the door and wanted to see me.

  I hadn't heard him pounding.

  Singe hadn't either, apparently. She said, "Just when I was about to seduce you."

  "Life's a bitch. There's always a Westman Block ready to jump in and ruin the moment. Colonel! How good to see you. To what do we owe the pleasure?" Singe moved her special chair aside so Block could plant himself in the guest seat.

  Block nodded his head sagely. "All right, Garrett. You got me fooled. You're thrilled to see me. I just wanted to share some news. We caught one of those silver elves that have been terrorizing the city."

  "Terrorizing?" Being the superb actor I am, I kept a straight face and said, "Really? Congratulations."

  "Don't waste the effort."

  "Huh?"

  "I know what's been going on, Garrett. Lucky for you, most of the time I buy into Deal's concept of the rule of law."

  "I'm glad to hear it."

  "Your attitude, however, frequently makes it hard to cut you any slack."

  "So my best friends keep telling me. I had a rough childhood. My daddy got killed in the war."

  Which wasn't the smartest choice of wiseass comments. But the good colonel set me straight.

  "Don't be a dickhead, Garrett. Everybody's daddy got killed in the war. That's the way they did it in those days. They waited till a guy created a family before they conscripted him. That way they could be sure there'd be more soldiers coming up."

  "Easy. Sorry." This was an aspect of Wes Block I hadn't seen before. "So let's be serious. You've caught one of the silver elves."

  "And he isn't talking. We're not entirely sure that he can. The people who've examined him say it might not be possible to make him talk because we don't have the technical expertise."

  Clever, clever Casey. He was selling his strangeness. "And?"

  "And there have been suggestions, from some quarters, that your partner might be able to fill the communications gap."

  Ah. Now we came to the reason for the friendly visit. "There's an idea that hasn't found its time. Assuming there was any way at all he could be talked into underwriting the delinquencies of the people you're fronting, there's still one problem. He's sound asleep. Based on grim experience, I'd say there's a cruel chance he'll stay that way for a long time. Because he's had to stay awake a lot, lately."

  "I'm trying to save you some grief, Garrett."

  "And I appreciate it. But no amount of good intenti
ons on your part, or of anybody else's wishful thinking, can change the facts. Come on. I'll show you." Like there's anything visibly different about how the Dead Man looks when he's sleeping. "Stick a pin in him if you want. He wouldn't feel it anyway but if he was awake he'd respond to the insult. Or you could say something revolting but true about the Loghyr."

  "I'll take your word for it." But his tone wasn't that reassuring. "The trouble is, I have people pressing me who don't really care about such problems."

  "You have people pressing you who're stupid enough to risk offending a dead Loghyr?"

  "In a word, yes. There really are people who don't know any better."

  "People that survived the Cantard?"

  "We have a crop of apprentices coming up who didn't get a chance to experience the worst the war had to offer before the Venageti collapse. They don't know they're not invulnerable. They have no grasp whatsoever on their true limitations. And they're in a hurry now."

  "You don't say. And you don't know any older, cooler heads who might rein them in?"

  Block shrugged. He looked grim. He shuddered. I asked, "What?"

  "I never expected it would be easy. But I did hope."

  "Which means?"

  "Which means that I'm going to have to find a hole and pull it in after me because Relway's gotten a big head lately, too. He insists that if any of those spook-chaser pups do step very far outside the law, he'll nail them the same as if they were muggers on the street."

  "Oh, boy. That'll bring their daddies out." I took a huge breath, let it go in a grand sigh. "I didn't think he'd move this soon."

  "That little man is crazy, Garrett. But crazy like the proverbial fox. I'd bet he's a lot more ready for a showdown than you or I think he could be. If he does go down he'll make sure it's in a conflagration so dramatic that not just TunFaire but all Karenta will be changed forever."

  I sighed me another one of those huge sighs. "All right. I don't want to do this. I hate to get noticed by those people. But there's a slim chance I can get through to your guy. If he's the one we called Casey. I assume he is because all the rest of them seem to have gone aboard the skyship that was terrorizing the city earlier today."