Angry Lead Skies gf-10 Read online

  Angry Lead Skies

  ( Garrett Files - 10 )

  Glen Cook

  Glen Cook

  Angry Lead Skies

  1

  Mom was too embarrassed to tell the truth. She never said a word. But I'm not entirely stupid. I figured it out on my own.

  I was born under an evil star. Maybe an evil galaxy. With zigging mad lights quarreling all over angry lead skies.

  The planets had to've been so cruelly misaligned that no equally malignant conjunction will be possible for another hundred lifetimes.

  I have a feeling, though, that my partner will be there to gloat when those celestial maladroits again foregather to conspire.

  Grumbling, head aching, empty mug in shaky hand, I stomped toward the front door. Some soon-to-be sporting an iron hook for a hand pest refused to stop bruising the oak with his knuckles.

  The air shivered with amusement that only rendered me more glum.

  Anything my partner found entertaining was bound to be unpleasant for me.

  In the small front room the Goddamn Parrot harangued himself in his sleep, his language fit to pinken the cheeks of amazons.

  I had to preserve the woodwork personally because Dean was out visiting his gaggle of homely nieces. And the Dead Man won't get off his can and answer no matter what the circumstances might be. He's had a severe attitude problem for about four hundred years. He figures just because somebody stuck a knife in him back then he doesn't have to do anything for himself anymore.

  I peeked through the peephole.

  I cussed some. Which always makes me feel better when that old devil sixth sense tells me that things are about to stop going my way.

  Nowhere in sight, for as far as my eagle eye could see, was there even one tasty morsel of femininity.

  I was so disappointed I grumbled, "But it always starts with a girl." My seventh and eighth senses started perking. They couldn't find a girl, either.

  Then my natural optimism kicked in. There wasn't a girl around! There wasn't a girl around! There wasn't anybody out there but my old pal Playmate and a skinny gink who had to be a foreigner because there was no way a Karentine of his type could have survived the war in the Cantard.

  No girl meant no trouble. No girl meant nothing starting. No girl meant not having to go to work. All was right with the world after all. I could deal with this in about ten minutes, then draw a beer and get back to plotting my revenge on Morley Dotes for having stuck me with the Goddamn Parrot.

  Another ghost of amusement tinkled through the stale air. It reminded me that the impossible is only barely less likely than the normal around here.

  It was time to air the place out.

  Then I made my big mistake.

  I opened the door.

  2

  Playmate isn't really nine feet tall. He just seems to fill up that much space. Though he did stoop getting through the doorway. And his shoulders were almost too wide to make it. And there wasn't an ounce of fat on the not really nine feet of him.

  Playmate owns a stable. He does the work himself, including all the blacksmithery and most of the pitchfork management. He looks scary but he's a sweetheart. His great dream is to get into the ministry racket. His great sorrow is the fact that TunFaire is a city already hagridden by a backbreaking oversupply of priests and religions.

  "Hey, Garrett," he said. Repartee isn't his main talent. But he does have a sharp eye.

  That's me. Garrett. Six feet and change inches of the handsomest, most endearing former Marine you'd ever hope to meet. The super kind of fellow who can dance and drink the night away and still retain the skill and coordination to open a door and let a friend in at barely the crack of noon the next day. "That's not your usual homily, buddy." I've had a listen or two on occasions when I wasn't fast enough or sly enough to produce a convincing excuse for missing one of his ministerial guest appearances or amateur night sermons at some decrepit storefront church.

  Playmate favored me with a sneer. He's got a talent for that which exceeds mine with the one raised eyebrow. The right side of his upper lip rises up and twists and begins to shimmy and quiver like a belly dancer's fanny. "I save the good sermons for people whose characters would appear to offer some teeny little hint of a possibility that there's still hope for their salvation."

  Over in the small front room the Goddamn Parrot cackled like he was trying to lay a porcupine egg. And that amusement stuff was polluting the psychic atmosphere again.

  The dark planets were shagging their heinies into line.

  Playmate preempted my opportunity to deploy one of my belated but brilliantly lethal rejoinders. "This is my friend Cypres Prose, Garrett." Cypres Prose was a whisper more than five feet tall. He had wild blond hair, crazy blue eyes, a million freckles, and a permanent case of the fidgets. He scratched. He twitched. His head kept twisting on his neck. "He invents things. After what happened this morning I promised you'd help him."

  "Why, thank you, Playmate. And I'm glad you came over because I promised the Metropolitan that you'd swing by the Dream Quarter to help put up decorations for the Feast of the Immaculate Deception."

  Playmate glowered. He has serious problems with the Orthodox Rite. I gave him a look at my own second-team sneer. It don't dance. "You promised him? For me? That's what friends are for, eh?"

  "Uh, all right. Maybe I overstepped." His tone said he didn't think that for a second. "Sorry."

  "You're sorry? Oh. That's good. That makes everything all right, then. You're not presuming on my friendship the way Morley Dotes or Winger or Saucerhead Tharpe might." I would never presume on them. Not me. No way.

  The scrawny little dink behind Playmate kept trying to peek around him. He never stopped talking. He strengthened his case constantly with remarks like, "Is that him, Play? He ain't much. From the way you talked I thought he was gonna be ten feet tall."

  I said, "I am, kid. But I'm not on duty right now." Cypres Prose had a nasal edge on a cracking soprano voice that I found extremely irritating. I wanted to clout him upside the head and tell him to speak Karentine like a man.

  Oh, boy! After closer appraisal I saw that Prose wasn't as old as I'd thought.

  Now I knew how he'd survived the Cantard. By being too young to have gone.

  Playmate put on a big-eyed, pleading face. "He's as bright as the sun, Garrett, but not real long on social skills."

  The boy managed to wriggle past Playmate's brown bulk. Ah, this child was definitely the sort who got himself pounded regularly because he just couldn't get his brilliance wrapped around the notion of keeping his mouth shut. He just naturally had to tell large, slow-witted, overmuscled, swift-tempered types that they were wrong. About whatever it was they were wrong about. What would not matter.

  I observed, "And the truth shall bring you great pain."

  "You understand." Playmate sighed.

  "But don't hardly sympathize." I grabbed the kid as he tried to weasel his million freckles into the small front room. "Not with somebody who just can't make the connection between cause and effect where people are concerned." I shifted my grip, brought the kid's right arm up behind his back. Eventually he recognized a connection between pain and not holding still.

  The Goddamn Parrot decided this was the ideal moment to begin preaching, "I know a girl who lives in a shack... " Playmate's friend turned red.

  I said, "Why don't we go into my office?" My office is a custodian's closet with delusions of grandeur. Playmate is big enough to clog the doorway all by himself. We could manage the kid in there. If I dragged him inside first.

  In passing I noted that my partner had no obvious, immediate interest in participating—beyond being amused at my expense. Same old story. Everybody takes advant
age of Mama Garrett's favorite boy.

  "In there, Kip!" Playmate is a paragon of patience. This kid, though, was taking him to his limit. He laid a huge hand on the boy's shoulder, pinched. That would smart. Playmate can squeeze chunks of granite into gravel. I turned loose, went and got behind my desk. I like to think I look good back there.

  Playmate set Cypres Prose in the client's chair. He stood behind the kid, one hand always on the boy's shoulder, as though the kid might get away if he wasn't restrained every second. For the time being, though, the boy was focused. Totally.

  He had discovered Eleanor.

  She's the central figure in the painting that hangs behind my desk. That portrays a terrified woman fleeing from a looming, shadowy manor house that has a lamp burning in one high window. The surrounding darkness reeks of evil menace. The painting has a lot of dark magic in it. Once upon a time it had a whole lot more. It helped nail Eleanor's killer.

  At one time, if you were evil enough, you might see your own face portrayed in the shadowy margins.

  Eleanor had poleaxed my young visitor. She startles everyone at first glimpse but this reaction was exceptional.

  "I take it he has a touch of paranormal talent."

  Playmate nodded, showed me an acre of white teeth, mouthed the words, "There might be a wizard in the woodpile somewhere."

  I raised an eyebrow now.

  Playmate mouthed, "Father unknown."

  "Ah." Our lords from the Hill do get around. Often playing no more fairly than the randier gods in some of the less upright pantheons. Offspring produced without benefit of wedlock are not entirely uncommon. Not infrequently those reveal signs of having received the parental gift.

  I asked, "Am I going to grow a beard before I find out what's on your mind?" I heard a thump from upstairs. Katie must be awake. She would boggle the boy, too.

  "All right. Like I told you, this's Cypres Prose. Kip for short. I've know him since he was this high. He's always hung around the stable. He adores horses. Lately he's been inventing things."

  Another black mark behind the kid's name. Horses are the angels of darkness. And they're clever enough to fool almost everybody else into thinking that they're good for something.

  "And this matters to me because?"

  That air of amused presence became more noticeable. Kip definitely felt it. His eyes got big. He lost interest in Eleanor. He peered around nervously. He told Playmate, "I think they're here! I feel... something." He frowned. "But this's different. This's something old and earthy, like a troll."

  "Ha!" I chuckled. "More like a troll's ugly illegitimate uncle." Nobody had compared the Dead Man to a troll before—except possibly in reference to his social attitudes.

  I felt him starting to steam up.

  The boy getting the Dead Man's goat should've told me something but instead left me a tad open-minded at a when my finances didn't at all require me looking at work. Money had been accumulating faster than I could waste it.

  "I'll give you five minutes, Playmate. Talk to me."

  3

  Playmate said, "It would be better if Kip explained."

  "But can he pay attention long enough to do it? Somebody please tell me something." Patience is not one of my virtues when I've got a sneaking suspicion that somebody wants me to work.

  Kip opened and closed his mouth several times. He was trying but he'd become distracted again.

  I sighed. Playmate did, too. "He lives in his own reality, Garrett."

  "So it would seem. You know him. Long time know him, yes yes. You tell me, Horsepooperscoopinman. He invents things, yes yes? You're here, yes yes. Why?"

  "Somebody—and I have a feeling it might actually be more than one somebody—has been following him around. He claims they've been trying to dig around inside his head. Then this morning somebody tried to kidnap him."

  I looked at Kip. I looked at Playmate. I looked at Kip again. Heroic me, I managed to keep a straight face. But only because I deal with these problems myself on a regular basis. Particularly threats of mental vandalism and larceny.

  Another cascade of remote amusement. Kip jerked in his chair.

  I suggested, "Tell me why anybody would bother."

  Playmate shrugged. He seemed a little embarrassed, no longer sure seeing me was the best idea. "Because he invents things? That's what he thinks."

  "So what's he invent?"

  "Ideas, mostly. Lots of ideas for devices and mechanisms that look like they'd work just fine if we could get the right tools and the proper materials to build them. We've been trying to put a couple of the simpler ones together. In practical terms he's mainly made little things of not much value. Like a writing stick that doesn't crumble in your fingers like charcoal can but that doesn't have to be dipped in an inkwell or water every few seconds. Eliminates the problems you have with wet ink. And there was a marvellous tool sharpener. And a new style bit that isn't nearly as hard on a horse's mouth. I'm already using that one and it's been selling pretty well. And he has all sorts of ideas for complicated engines, most of which I just don't understand."

  Kip's head bobbed a little, agreeing with Playmate but about what I have no idea.

  "What about family?"

  Playmate winced. That wasn't a question with which he was comfortable. Not in front of the kid, anyway. "Kip is the youngest of three. He has a sister and a brother. His sister Cassie is the oldest. She has four years on his brother Rhafi, who has a couple on Kip. His mother is... unusual." He tapped his temple. "Their father is missing." He held up two, then three fingers to indicate that multiple fathers had to be considered. Possibly Cypres wasn't aware. In such matters, sometimes, mothers can be less than forthcoming.

  "The war?"

  Playmate shook his head. He rested both of his hands solidly on Kip's shoulders. It was impossible for that kid to sit still. He had begun rifling through the stuff on my desk, reading snippets. He could read. That was not common amongst youngsters. I was willing to bet his literacy was Playmate's fault.

  I pulled my inkwell out of harm's way while thinking that eliminating wet ink might be an amazingly wonderful trick. When I get going I get the stuff all over the place.

  The boy said, "There are more of them all the time, you know. They're looking for Lastyr and Noodiss. They've hired a man named Bic Gonlit to help them."

  "Garrett?" Playmate demanded. "What?"

  "I know Bic Gonlit. Know of him, anyway."

  "And? You look puzzled."

  "Only because I am. Bic Gonlit is a bounty hunter. He specializes in bringing them back alive. Why would he be interested in Kip?"

  Kip's tone told me he wondered why everyone else in this world had to be so thick. "He's not looking for me. They don't care about me. They want Lastyr and Noodiss. They're only bothering with me because they think I know where those two are."

  "And do you?" Lastyr and Noodiss?

  "No." Not entirely convincingly, I thought.

  Those names didn't fit any recognizable slot. Not quite elvish. Maybe upcountry dwarfish. Possibly ogreish, if they represented nicknames. Noodiss sounded like something scatological in ogre dialect.

  "Who are they?"

  Kip said, "You can't tell them from real people. They make you think you're looking at real people. Unless you look at their eyes. They can't disguise their eyes."

  Who can't? "What the hell is he talking about, Play?"

  "I'm not sure, Garrett. I can't get any more sense out of him than that. That's why I brought him to you."

  "Thanks. Your confidence makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over."

  Playmate ignored my sarcasm. He knew me too well. "I thought he was mental, too, at first. This's been going on for a while. And I never saw anything to convince me that he wasn't making up another one of his stories. But then somebody broke into his flat. While some of his family were there. Which is weird, because the Proses don't have a pot to pee in. Then, next day, this morning, they came to the stable. Three of them. Three strange,
shiny women. I've been letting Kip use a corner of the smithy for a workshop. He does his projects there. They tried to drag him off."

  "You didn't let them?"

  "Of course I didn't let them." He was offended because I'd even asked. "Though it wasn't all me. They seemed extremely distracted by the horses. Afraid of them, even."

  "That just sounds like basic common sense to me."

  "You shouldn't joke that way, Garrett." Playmate just will not believe the truth about horses.

  "These guys know horses mean trouble and they've got a beef with this kid and those things are somehow a surprise to you?"

  Some people view the world through a whole different set of spectacles.

  Playmate chose not to pursue the debate. "Their eyes were weird, Garrett. Almost like holes. Or like there were little patches of fog right there hiding them when they looked straight at you."

  I tried to imagine the encounter. Playmate abhors violence, yet, for a nonviolent idealist, he can be totally convincing in any argument that steps on a banana peel and slides off the intellectual plane. Playmate has sense enough to understand that not everyone shares his views. There are some people that need hammering and others that just plain need killing. There are people out there even a mother couldn't love.

  "These visitors some new kind of breed?" All the races infesting TunFaire seem capable of interbreeding. Often the mechanics aren't easy to visualize but the results are out there on the street. At times nature takes a very strange turn. And some of the strangest are among my friends.

  Kip shook his head. Playmate told me, "Give me a sheet of paper. I'll draw you a picture." He produced a small, polished cherrywood box with silver fittings. When opened it revealed a battery of artist's tools. He took out a couple of sticks I decided had to be Kip's inventions.

  "Another unsuspected talent." I pushed over a torn sheet of paper. I'd only just started using its back side.

  I recalled seeing charcoal drawings around Playmate's place but I never wondered enough about them to make a direct connection.