Wicked Bronze Ambition gp-14 Page 5

  “Yes, sir, Director. I understand you perfectly, sir.”

  “Get moving, then. Garrett, I expect you to control yourself. I’ll see you again soon, hopefully with something to report. I must get matters rolling here.”

  And that was that, a little confusing in the state I was in.

  14

  I didn’t get to ask Target how he got his name. Having been to the war zone, I expect that it had to do with his size and capacity for attracting enemy fire. He clearly did not like being called Target, but he wasn’t going to argue with his boss about it.

  He led us back to the entrance I had used getting into the Al-Khar, muttering about the damned woman being so damned slow, she should quit playing her damned games with that damned dick Merryman. .

  I caught the stench of horse before I heard or saw the monsters coming, with fiery evil eyes and fangs like the mother of all saber-tithed toogers. . I have a problem with horses. No, actually, horses have a problem with me. I’m willing to live and let live, but they are equally willing to do what it takes to wrap my story up early. Then they could let bygones be bygones and get on with live and let lie down dead.

  These nags were not the worst. No smoke rolled out of their nostrils. After a single flash of contempt, they chose to ignore me.

  My companions paid the monsters no heed. Target just stayed near Womble in case Preston got struck stupider and tried to make a break. Helenia and an old red top who would drive the coach hung on behind the pair of scruffy devils. Each led one animal by the harness. I looked for their muzzles and failed to spot any. The coach was not a big one. It was marked but not with any official insignia.

  Helenia noted my interest. “We confiscated it under the racketeering statutes.”

  Um. Yeah. There was a good idea. Give the tin whistles the power to take anything they want from anybody they cared to take it from just by accusing them of being criminals. That had to be too much temptation even for a straight arrow like Deal Relway.

  Target told me, “We didn’t figure you were up for walking.”

  He had a good point there.

  So. He or Helenia, or both, were the thoughtful sort, belying their looks.

  I hoped the coach belied its looks.

  It felt like maybe it used to belong to Shadowslinger’s evil older sister. It was all black, decorated with carvings of critters who would give voodoo priests the heebie-jeebies, and it had no springs. Walking might be less painful if we hit some really bad streets.

  “Let’s get rolling,” Target said. “You get in first, Womble.”

  Helenia opened the door on the left side of the vehicle. There was a crest carved there, but the lighting wasn’t good enough to show it clearly. No doubt I didn’t really want to see it, anyway. It might redouble the kind of nightmares I had already from being around my future in-laws.

  Helenia urged me in behind Preston, then came aboard herself. The interior was nicely appointed in silks and leathers. I hoped the latter was sheepskin, not peopleskin.

  There was room for four people if three were half my size. Womble did not take up much space, but Helenia was wide at the base and came armed with a big leather case. She said, “I’ll be trying to take witness statements.”

  I figured, good luck with that, even if you can write fast enough.

  No two witnesses ever see the same thing.

  I heard some creaking as Target opened the gate.

  The old man said something in Horse, probably offering to feed me to the beasts if they did what he asked. The coach lurched. Preston and I had our backs to the direction of travel. I almost fell into Helenia’s lap.

  The coach stopped after thirty feet. The gates creaked again. The old man clambered up to the driver’s seat, making the vehicle rock and squeak. Meanwhile, moisture began to sneak in through the side windows even though those were supposedly shut against the weather. I peeked. The rain had grown a little more vigorous, though it was still only slightly more enthusiastic than a desultory drizzle. It was very, very cold, however.

  Helenia was chatty. “This coach belonged to somebody off the Hill. One of the necromancer types. His own people turned him in because he was so rotten.”

  “Sounds like my grandmother-in-law.”

  Cynical me, I suspected that there must have been legacies and estates involved that someone had wanted resolved in a manner other than the one outlined in the relevant documents. The Unpublished Committee would not back that kind of play, but Relway’s crew was still only a small faction at the heart of the new law enforcement.

  Helenia continued. “The Director uses it when he wants to keep a low profile.”

  Yes. Of course. Send out the ugly. Nobody would notice that.

  Target cracked the door, poked his mug in. “All set?”

  Nobody declared any serious lack of readiness. How do you answer that kind of dumb question?

  He pushed on the door. A catch clicked. The coach sagged and rocked despite its lack of springs as Target mounted the footman’s backboard.

  The coach lurched ahead.

  I had recovered enough emotionally to realize that I ought to be glad that Target was not allergic to the damp. It would have gotten tight with him inside, too.

  15

  There was no immediately obvious sign, in Strafa’s neighborhood, that anything huge had happened. There were people around, naturally, but the rain kept the Lookie Lous away and Barate had gotten the key people moved inside. A brace of forensics sorcerers roamed the street out front, pretending to be something else but not convincingly because they wore their red Guard berets.

  Our driver took us in under the porte cochere. Target manned the door, helped Helenia dismount. Barate came out to greet me with an uncharacteristic hug.

  Algarda said, “Mother is on her way. She’s been delayed because there were steps she wanted to take first.”

  Did I even want to know? He made “steps” sound nastily portentous.

  He eyed Target, Womble, and Helenia but kept his expression neutral and did not comment. They had red berets on now, too. Other tin whistles were all over. A squad had a couple of the Hill’s private patrolmen cornered and were asking embarrassing questions.

  I showed Barate a raised eyebrow.

  He said, “There was an explosion on the other side of the Hill. They all headed over there. Those two were dumb enough to come back. The rest have vanished off the face of the earth.”

  They would be found. They would explain why they had not done the job for which they got paid more than your average tin whistle did. The Civil Guard were hard on the private side lately. Too often the private guys didn’t do their jobs or got caught taking tips to look the other way right before bad stuff happened.

  Times were changing, though.

  The weather was not. It seemed determined to get colder, wetter, and windier. I beckoned Target, Womble, and Helenia. “Let’s get inside.” I told Barate, “They’re with me.”

  He went right ahead on having no comment.

  I failed to notice that Helenia left her case in the coach, meaning it was just a prop.

  • • •

  We were still shaking the moisture off in the ballroom-size foyer when a bug-eyed Preston pointed and declared, “That’s Vicious Min!” like he could not believe his eyes.

  “The woman who hired him to tail you,” Target reminded me.

  A very large woman in a very sad state of repair sprawled on a big table brought in for the purpose. It was eight feet long and four feet wide. Parts of Vicious Min hung over all the ends and sides. She was a big girl.

  Strafa was on another table, close by. She didn’t look all the worse for wear. I probed the sore tooth socket of emotion. I was in battlefield mode, numb and rigidly controlled, saving the hysteria for later.

  Min had lost gallons of blood. It was all over her, all over the table, and had pooled on the floor. The leakage had stopped. She was still breathing, raggedly, but her color was awful. I said, “Should
n’t somebody be working on her?”

  “I am,” said a guy who had, apparently, had to step away momentarily. He looked like he knew what he was doing. I didn’t recognize him.

  Barate proved he was agile for his age. He kept himself between me and anybody he decided I was bullying unreasonably. He kept reminding me, “Our innings will come after the nosies go. We’ll handle our family responsibilities.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant but did understand that he was well disposed toward me and definitely not so much so toward whoever had hurt his little girl. “Of course,” I said. “You’re completely right.” I noted that Target was sticking close to me. No doubt he had instructions to monitor my every breath.

  Preston Womble had no attention to spare for anything but the big woman. He did stay out of the doctor’s way.

  I could not see what Helenia was up to.

  The doctor beckoned Barate, asked, “You know anything about this woman?”

  “No. She’s a stranger. Ted, this is Garrett. Strafa’s husband.” He left off the to-be part.

  “Nice to meet you.” I pointed. “Preston knows her.”

  Ted deployed that most unhelpful of formulas, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Garrett. I didn’t know Strafa as well as I would’ve liked, but she was a fine woman. A fine woman. What happened here was a crime.”

  Yeah, well. People can’t always get the words out right.

  Ted gave Barate a look I took to mean that his admiration for Strafa did not extend to other members of the Algarda tribe. Barate didn’t surprise me much later when he told me that Dr. Ted had once had a serious crush on Strafa.

  Ted wasn’t over that. He was quite intense when he grilled Preston. He got mad when Preston couldn’t tell him anything about Vicious Min but her name, that her money was good, and that she was generous with it. I chirped in to ask if he thought Elona Muriat could tell us more if we caught up with her.

  Preston didn’t think so. Preston was very smug about our chances of finding his girlfriend.

  Pular Singe lurked in the back of my mind. Singe was the cure for the elusive.

  16

  I stared down at the woman I would bury just days before we were to have celebrated our wedding. Anger simmered inside me without controlling me. I had avoided unreasoning rage, so far. I was more drained by my loss and was now approaching the gates of desolation.

  Barate had traveled further along the sad road. He had started plucking halfheartedly at future plans.

  He eased me farther back into the house, away from other ears. “This had to do with what we were talking about at Mother’s house yesterday.”

  “Did it happen because I went to the Al-Khar?”

  He considered before answering, “That doesn’t seem likely. That creature, Min, evidently caught Strafa coming home. I think she was here to tell Strafa that she’d been designated the Algarda Champion. Instead of Kevans.”

  I had myself under control. My mind was working, some. I wanted to bark, “What?” and maybe something about why the hell Strafa when the whole tournament absurdity was always about kids busting each other up. .? Except I had enough rationality in stock to realize that I knew no such thing, I had just inferred it from what had been said at Shadowslinger’s place. Too, I wondered, “How come you know all that?”

  Barate said, “I was on my way here to see Strafa about Kevans. . I came around the corner while it was happening. If I hadn’t shown up when I did, the big woman would have died, too.”

  “You saw who did it?”

  “No. Strafa was airborne but falling. The big woman was on her knees, cursing, holding her chest and bleeding. We’ll get into all that once Mother gets here. Strafa was still alive then. She begged me to tell you how much she loved you. She tried to guess who did it. Then she stopped breathing and her heart stopped. I couldn’t get anything started again. I don’t have the power. .” He stopped talking, took deep breaths, forced himself to become calm.

  He did have that Algarda talent, an ability to manage emotion. To go cold as death when calm and calculation were needed.

  He exhaled. “That one was still conscious. She tried to talk. She called herself Vicious Min. She looks mixed-breed, maybe groll, but I don’t think she’s from this world.”

  “So that ridiculous tournament thing hasn’t even started and somebody jumped somebody else.”

  Barate nodded. “Yes. I don’t think that breaks the rules. I don’t think you can cheat, the way Mother explains it. But this would come close. The selection of participants has only just begun and the contest is down a probable Champion, maybe has a Dread Companion dying, and has you, if you’re the Mortal Companion, potentially crippled by grief. That has to be an encouraging start for somebody.”

  I tried channeling the young Garrett who crept through snake-filled, croc-infested swamps to find strangers to murder in nightmares gone by. That Garrett was always scared but never out of control. He got on with getting on.

  Once a Marine. .

  17

  Shadowslinger showed up while I was dealing with the notion that I had been tagged to be Strafa’s sidekick by the Operators. Her Mortal Companion, formally.

  There was a lot of formality in this murder game.

  The old sorceress arrived in such a dark mood that those who were not part of the family began clearing off as they found plausible excuses. Her reputation was kingdomwide.

  The red tops faded fastest, including Target, who seemed content to hand me over despite the charge the Director had laid on him. Preston Womble disappeared even earlier, never being missed till I realized that I hadn’t seen him since I’d spotted him leaning over Vicious Min like he meant to kiss her good-bye.

  Dr. Ted was among the last to go. He told Barate, “I did what I could, which wasn’t much. That woman may be something supernatural. You’ll likely have better luck having your own people work on her.”

  His meaning got through. He meant people like Shadowslinger, who went into seclusion as soon as she arrived. Or Bonegrinder, who had come with her. Or Tara Chayne Machtkess. I had no idea where she fit or what dark skills she mastered. Strafa hadn’t explained and it hadn’t occurred to me to ask.

  Dr. Ted’s parting words let me know that, though he lived on the Hill, he wasn’t part of what made the Hill what it was. He was just a physician. Probably one of the best since he served such a select clientele, but not a man tapped into the darkness himself.

  Nor was Barate. He had been skipped by the family knack. I don’t know why. Maybe he had picked the wrong father. Maybe the knack skipped every other generation. Kevans was short on mystical skills, too.

  Once the outsiders thinned out, Shadowslinger reappeared long enough to summon the rest of us into the room Strafa called a library. There weren’t many books there, actually, though they seemed plentiful to me. Singe would go gaga over the ones dealing with economics.

  I have to admit, Strafa’s future husband found books mildly threatening, though he would read one occasionally.

  The dread sorceress was no longer content to sit, bask in fireplace warmth, and let her son do the talking. “I have made the funeral arrangements,” she announced, making it clear why she preferred not to speak for herself. She had a pipey little-girl voice that was completely unintimidating. Put her behind a screen, you’d think a cute eight-year-old was back there chirping. “You will be there. You.” She thrust a long, fat, wrinkled, dark, dry, and crooked finger at me.

  “Ma’am? Yes, ma’am.”

  My response amused Tara Chayne and Richt Hauser. They figured I’d gone chicken because I didn’t have Strafa to run interference.

  There was some truth to that, though less than they thought.

  “Your vows were not legally finalized. However, this family will proceed on the basis that they were in place in practice. Arrangements are being made to complete the legal formalities. You are the husband of Furious Tide of Light now, in fact as well as prospect.” Her ritualistic tone balan
ced the baby voice. In fact, it felt like she was casting a spell.

  She took time to look for someone who wanted to argue. Kevans looked sour but disinclined to object in words.

  Bonegrinder and the Machtkess woman looked puzzled. Barate’s pal Kyoga, silent and nearly invisible today, didn’t understand at all.

  Shadowslinger said, “This could have significant legal implications someday.” She looked me in the eye. “You and I will discuss that later, after the funeral and our war with the people who made this happen.”

  Little-girl voice or no, anyone anywhere with guilty knowledge had to feel Death’s cool breath on the backs of their necks.

  Shadowslinger had one of the darkest reputations on the Hill. Today she made it sound like that reputation was understated and was now headed toward a darkness deeper than any visited before.

  She kept talking to me. “We aren’t going to do anything obvious. You will begin the hunt after the funeral. You will not be subtle, as we discussed yesterday.”

  We did? When? I didn’t remember that. Maybe my knack for getting distracted was betraying me. Or maybe Strafa was supposed to clue me in and never got around to it.

  I needed to find out what Shadowslinger really expected.

  She told me, “You will find out who murdered your wife.”

  All right. “Yes. No doubt about that. I’ll spend the rest of my life on that if that’s what it takes.”

  “Good. But don’t act on it before we have a chance to talk it over. Once you do find out who is responsible, that is. Nothing. Understand?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You’re a good man. Much too good to have what will happen weighing on your conscience afterward.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. I couldn’t imagine anything that awful. Not at that moment, in the emotional state that I occupied.

  She gave me no chance to butt in. She never would. She was that kind of matriarch. In her own mind she was the soul and will of Family Algarda. The rest of us were the feet and fingers that executed the Will.