Dread Brass Shadows Read online

“Who did it?”

  He shook his head again. “Everybody cleared out before we got here. You know how it goes. See no evil, hear no evil, you don’t got to worry about comebacks. We only caught one old guy who was too slow. He didn’t know nothing but the dead guy’s name. Dipshit was so thick he used his own name.”

  “Bright.” But what did that mean? None of us knew Holme Blaine. The dead guy could be anybody and we wouldn’t know the difference.

  I glanced around again. Looking more closely, I could see the damage wasn’t just insane destruction after all. “Somebody wanted it to look like crazies did it.”

  Crask smiled at me like I was a dull pupil who had seen the light at last. “Somebody was looking for something. Maybe some of them looking while some of them were asking. Then we come along unexpected, they do a quick cleanup and fade.”

  Ha! “So where are they?”

  “Gone. Saw us coming.”

  Huh. I wondered why anyone would bother hiding the fact that they’d searched Blaine’s place and fixed him so he couldn’t talk about it. Did we have somebody looking for the book who didn’t want somebody else looking for it to know they were looking, too?

  That came to me off the wall but felt so right I went into a trance trying to figure out why.

  Sadler said, “You want something to exercise your mind, check this out.” He yanked the blanket off Blaine.

  I gaped. I managed a one-syllable expletive after about fifteen seconds, and a quarter of a minute later said, “That’s impossible.”

  “Yeah. Prime example of a mass hallucination.”

  Damn. Everybody was getting sarky.

  Blaine was half-man, half-woman. Actually, more woman than man. Running from three inches above the waist on the right diagonally to his left shoulder, he was a he. Down below he was a she. Very much a she. In fact, a familiar one. I’d seen that end before.

  “What do you think of that?” Crask asked.

  I chewed some air. I made my eyes bug. “Looks like he had trouble making up his mind.” I made funny noises. “Bet he had trouble on dates.” They must’ve thought the circus was in town and I was practicing for my audition.

  “First time I ever seen him without some wiseass remark.” Crask said. I bet he’d waited a year to pick a time to drop that one.

  Sadler asked, “What you know about this, Garrett?”

  “I know it’s weird. I never saw anything like it.” Well, like part of it. That bottom had been in my small front room for a while. “It’s like something out of a freak show.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  I knew that. “Zip.”

  “You sure? You wanted this guy.”

  “Because he was supposed to have the answers.”

  Sadler gave me the fish-eye. “Don’t look like anybody’s going to get to empty him out, now.”

  “No. I guess that’s the point.” I leaned against a wall, where nobody could get behind me, and gave the room another took. But there wasn’t anything there to see. Except that body. Whoever did the job, they left nothing of their own. And they didn’t find what they were looking for, else they wouldn’t have been there still when Crask and Sadler showed. “Nobody saw nothing, eh?”

  “This’s TunFaire. What do you think?”

  I thought they were lucky to have caught the old man they’d caught. I told him so. He grunted.

  “You sure you ain’t got nothing to tell us, Garrett?”

  “Actually, I do. But let it ride a minute. I want you to understand something. I don’t have a client. There’s no percentage in me holding out.” What’s a little white fib amongst friends?

  Crask said, “Would you look at this?” He’d gotten distracted in a big way.

  “What?” Sadler.

  Crask pointed at the body. We looked. I didn’t get it till Sadler said, “It’s changing.” A little more of it was male than had been before.

  Crask knelt, touched it. “And it’s dead enough it’s cooling out. This is weird.”

  “This is sorcery,” Sadler said. “I don’t like this. Garrett?”

  “Don’t look at me. I can’t change water into ice.”

  They both scowled, sure I was holding out. Sure. Blame it on Garrett when weird things start to happen.

  Crask said, “I don’t like it. We ought to get out of here.”

  I said, “That sounds like a good plan.” I headed for the door. “You guys rounded up any other news? You get a line on those dwarves yet?”

  They both got a funny look. Sadler said, “Not yet. And that’s weird, too.”

  Crask said, “Yeah. They got to leave a trail. They got to be staying somewhere.”

  True. Curious. It bore some thought. Where could they stay and not catch the eyes of the kinds of people who work for Chodo, or who work for the people who work for Chodo? Couldn’t be many places like that around.

  I paused in the doorway. “Somebody really blew in here.”

  “Yeah,” Crask said. “Hope I never have to arm-wrestle him.”

  I went over the fragments, looking for maybe a thread from a knit sweater that came only from one small island off the coast of Gretch, or something. You go through the motions even when you think they’re pointless. A matter of discipline. They pay off sometimes, so you do them all the time. When I found a big lot of nothing, I wasn’t disappointed. I’d fulfilled my expectations. If I’d found something, I’d have been overjoyed, having struck it rich beyond my wildest fancy.

  Sadler said, “Let’s not slide out so fast, Garrett. You had something to tell us.”

  “Yeah.” I’d been vacillating. Information given up is advantage surrendered.

  “Well?”

  “Found out about another character who’s got something to do with whatever’s going on. Called the Serpent. She’s the one this guy is supposed to have stolen a book from.” Blaine was changing faster, maybe because he was getting cold.

  “Well?”

  Sadler ought to get together with Puddle for a gabfest. Sparkling. “The Serpent is a witch. She hangs out with dwarves.” I took it from the top. They had some of it already but I didn’t know how much. I gave them everything I thought they needed to know. I was real ignorant about why the book was a big deal.

  “Witch, eh?” Crask eyed Blaine. That was the salient point for him.

  “Tattoo?” Sadler asked. He lifted an eyebrow. “That would be a sight to see.”

  It would, but I was surprised he thought so. He never showed much interest along those lines. He asked, “You figure she cut Squirrel?”

  “If she didn’t, she knows who did.”

  “We’ll find her. We’ll ask.”

  “Be careful”

  He gave me a look. Mostly it wondered about my smarts. He’d be careful. He’d survived his five in the Cantard. He’d survived in his line of work long enough to get to the top. Careful was his middle name, right between bad and deadly.

  I took a final look at Holme Blaine, who hadn’t been careful enough. He still didn’t have anything to tell me. I didn’t have anything to say to him, either.

  I’d done my duty. It was time to get my bones moving toward a bed. If the morCartha took pity maybe I could get some sleep.

  20

  Morley’s place wasn’t far out of the way. I ignored my weariness and the racket overhead and the doings of a night proceeding in the streets and headed for the Joy House.

  Ratmen were out doing what they do, picking up after everyone if they worked for the city, stealing anything loose if they were self-employed. There were more goblins and kobolds and whatnot out than I was used to seeing. I guess the weather had turned for the night people, too.

  I still had that feeling I was being watched. And I still couldn’t spot a watcher. But I didn’t try hard.

  Morley’s place was a tomb. Nobody there but a couple of the kingpin’s men. Even Puddle was gone, home or wherever. That gave me pause to reflect. I don’t often think of guys like Puddle, or Crask and Sadler,
in human terms. Home. Hell. The guy might have a family, kids, who knew what all. I’d never considered it. He’d always been just another bonebreaker.

  Not that I wanted him to ask me over for dinner, to meet the missus and little bonebreakers coming up. I was just in one of those moods where I start wondering about people. Where they came from, what they did when I wasn’t looking, like that. Probably got started when Chodo told me about his girlfriend.

  It isn’t a mood I enjoy. It gets me thinking about myself, my own lack of place and depth in the scheme. No family. Hardly any friends, and them I don’t know that well. What I don’t know about Morley or Saucerhead could fill books, probably. They don’t know me any better, either. Part of being a rough, tough, he-man type, I suppose. On stage all the time, hiding carefully.

  I have plenty of acquaintances. Hundreds. We’re all tied together in a net of favors done and owed, all of us keeping tabs on the balance, sometimes thinking it friendship when it isn’t anything but a shadow of the obsession that drives Chodo Contague.

  Comes out of the war. There isn’t a human male in this city who didn’t do time in hell. I even have that in common with the nabobs of the Hill. Whatever privileges they claim or steal, exemptions aren’t among them.

  Down in the Cantard witch’s cauldron, you keep track of all the little stuff and strive to keep a balance because you don’t want anybody checking out owing you. And, even though you share a tent, cooking utensils, campfires, clothes, even girls, you never get too close to anybody because a lot of anybodies are going to die before it’s over. You keep your distance and it don’t hurt so much.

  You dehumanize the enemy entirely and your comrades enough so—though you’ll charge into hell behind them or storm heaven to rescue them—you never open your heart and never let them open theirs.

  It makes sense when you’re down there in the shitstorm. And once you’ve survived the storm and they send you home, you’re saddled with that baggage forever. Some come home like Crask and Sadler, purged of everything human.

  That got me wondering what those two had done during their duty. I’d never heard. They’d never said. A lot of guys don’t. They put it all behind them.

  Then I started wondering why, though the night people were busier than usual, it was so quiet out. Night isn’t just the time of those races who have to shun the sunshine, it’s the time of the bad boys, the time when the predators come out. I wasn’t seeing anybody dangerous or suspicious.

  I guess Chodo had the baddies beholden to him busy, and the free-lancers, not clued in, were lying low so they wouldn’t catch his attention. Or maybe it was just the morCartha being so obnoxious nobody came out who didn’t have to.

  The morCartha weren’t that much trouble if you hugged the edge of the street and kept an eye out. They seldom risked crashing into a building just to swoop down and steal a hat.

  Speaking of whom . . .

  The tenor of their aerial pandemonium changed suddenly, radically. A violent outcry spread. It sounded like terror. Hasty wings beat the air frothy. The sky cleared. An almost total silence fell. It was so remarkable I paused to look at the sky.

  A broken fragment of moon lay somewhere low in the east, out of sight, casting barely enough light to limn the peaks and spires of the skyline. But there was light enough to show a shape circling high up.

  Its wings sprawled out a good thirty feet. It wasn’t doing anything but making a wide, gliding turn over the city before heading back north.

  A flying thunder-lizard. I hadn’t known they were night hunters. I’d never seen one before. What I saw of this one made it look a lot like a prototype for all those dragons guys in tin suits are killing in old paintings. I hear they are. The dragons of story are mythical. Which makes them about the only imaginary creatures in this crazy world. Hell, I’ve even run into a god who thought he was real.

  “Garrett.”

  I turned, less surprised than I expected. There must have been subconscious clues. “Winger. Kinda hoped I’d run into you again. Wanted to warn you. You got some bad people looking for you. Not in too good a mood, either.”

  That surprised her. “You can tell me about it on the way. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t think to ask where or why because her attitude tapped my anger. “I have a previous engagement. With my bed. You want to talk to me about something, come around in the morning. And try to ask nice.”

  “Garrett, you seem like a pretty good guy, considering. So let’s don’t butt heads. Let’s don’t do it the hard way. Just come on.”

  She had a problem. A serious problem. Now I wouldn’t have gone anywhere with her even if I’d planned to before. “Winger, I kind of like you. You got balls and style. But you got an attitude problem that’s going to get you hurt. You want to make it in the big city, you got to learn some street manners. You’re also going to have to know who you’re messing with before you mess. You cut somebody who has friends like Chodo Contague, your chances of staying healthy just aren’t good.”

  She looked baffled. “What the hell you talking about?”

  “That guy you cut in the alley off Pearl Lane. A couple thousand of his friends are looking for you. They don’t plan to slap you on the back and tell you you did a great job.”

  “Huh? I never cut nobody.”

  “I hope not. But he was following you when it happened. Who else could’ve done it?”

  She thought about it for half a minute. Then her frown cleared as she decided not to worry about it. “Come on.”

  “Not smart, Winger. You’re pressing where you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  She was one stubborn woman. And just a whole lot too confident. Maybe where she came from men wouldn’t defend themselves against a woman. Maybe she was used to them hesitating.

  Hell, I might have myself. But she’d let me talk and that had given me time to get my mind right.

  She got out a nightstick not unlike my headthumper. So I got out mine, a replacement for the one I’d left down by Dwarf Fort. She came in figuring to feint a few times and tap me up side the head. I didn’t cooperate. My head had taken enough dents already.

  I just slipped her guard, rapped her knuckles, then her elbow when the pain froze her for an instant, then jabbed her in the breadbasket as her stick tumbled toward the street. “That’s how you use one of these things.” She wasn’t very good. All bull offense.

  She didn’t seem upset because she’d been disarmed so easily, just surprised. “How’d you get so damned fast?”

  “There’s two kinds of Marines, Winger. Fast ones and dead ones. Better get something through your head right now, before you run into somebody who won’t cut you some slack. There isn’t a man in this town, over twenty-three, who wasn’t tough enough and fast enough to survive five years in the Cantard. A lot of them, you make a move on them, they’ll leave you for the ratmen and not look back. Especially the bunch that are looking for you. They like to hurt people.”

  “I said I didn’t cut nobody. Not yet.”

  “Then you’d better be able to tell them who did. Fast.”

  She raised both eyebrows. A strange woman. She wasn’t afraid. You have to worry about the sanity of somebody who doesn’t have sense enough to be afraid of Chodo Contague.

  “You be careful,” I told her. “Come by in the morning if you still want to talk.” I turned to head for home.

  Damned if she didn’t try again. Barehanded.

  The reflexes still worked. I heard her move, pranced aside, stuck out a leg and tripped her, grabbed her by the hair on the fly. “That’s twice, Winger. Even nice guys run out of patience. So knock it off,” I turned loose, started walking.

  This time she listened to the message.

  21

  Dean almost got his marching orders when he went to get me up for my morning run. He’s worse than a mom about not buying excuses. “You started it, you stick with it,” he told me. “You’re going to run, you’re going to run every day.

&nbs
p; Grumble grumble grikkle snackfrortz. Go take a flugling fleegle at a frying forsk. I said something like that. I fought the good fight till he went for the ice water. Then my yellow stripe came out. He’d do it, the driggin droogle. I didn’t want to stay in bed that bad.

  Carla Lindo was heating up the kitchen when I stumbled in. I grumbled a greeting.

  “He always such a ball of sunshine in the morning?”

  Dean told her, “This is one of his better mornings.” Thanks, old-timer. He plunked honeyed tea down at my place at the table. He had bacon frying, biscuits baking. The smell of the biscuits was heavenly. I gathered he hadn’t bothered to go home. Not much point. Wouldn’t have been much time to sleep.

  His nieces were used to it. They’d know I was into something. Now, if they’d just forget to use him not coming home as an excuse to come hang around, cooking and baking and batting their eyes and uglying up the place.

  I sipped tea and stared into a fog, nothing much else happening inside my head. Carla Lindo stared at me but didn’t say anything. She wore a teensy frown. Maybe her confidence was rattled.

  You may suspect that morning isn’t my best time. You may be right. I’m waiting for some genius to figure out a way to do without it. The sad truth is, too often it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

  “How do you feel this morning?” Carla Lindo finally asked.

  “Black and blue. My bruises got bruises.” I hadn’t been a lovely sight when I got dressed. I’d seen corpses in better condition.

  Dean took the biscuits out, set the baking sheet directly on a trivet on the table. “You ought to figure a way to trade with His Nibs. He could get out and run while you loafed all you want.”

  He takes advantage of me mornings. Snipes away, knowing my brain isn’t working. The best I can do is threaten to send him Job hunting. A hollow threat if ever there was one. Crafty old dink don’t play fair. He made himself indispensable.

  He asked, “Did you learn anything last night?” as he brought the bacon.

  “Yeah. That Winger character’s only got one oar in the water.” I told him about it.