Angry Lead Skies

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 advantage 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."