Cruel Zinc Melodies

78

They were all gone, including Tinnie, who insisted she couldn’t trust Winger and the Remora to properly chaperone two reekingly hormonal teens. Which made sense. The part about not trusting Winger.

I didn’t remind her that she hadn’t been much older than Kyra when we’d met. Of course, nothing more than a bad case of bugged eyes on my part came of that. Tinnie Tate was my good buddy Denny’s tasty young cousin. Practically family. She and his sister Rose were both off-limits. At the time.

Times changed. Tinnie and Rose grew up. Rose turned wicked. Denny got himself killed, accidentally. Tinnie and I locked horns during the cleanup and got something going that neither of us has shaken since. No matter what distractions turned up.

I drew me a pitcher of Weider’s most potent dark and retreated to the solitude of my little office. Which I share with the memory of one of my most potent distractions, Eleanor.

I filled my mug. I turned my chair. I stared at the magical painting. ‘‘What do you think, sweetheart? Is it time Tinnie and I go to the next page?’’

The artist who painted Eleanor was an insane genius, slave to a powerful inner sorcery. All his work had been charged to crackling with magic. His portrait of Eleanor fleeing the horror of her past was his ultimate masterpiece. He poured bottomless love and hatred on top of everything else that made his works objects of such power and dread.

He’s long gone. The magic in his work began to bleed away the night of his murder. But its connection to the soul of long-lost Eleanor will never fade to nil.

The painting is never quite the same when I come to it.

Eleanor is my moral and emotional coach, crutch, and mirror. More so than the big lump in the other room. Who had troubles of his own tonight.

He’d had almost no luck picking brains. The most interesting people all had the split personality thing going. What he could read made no sense. The heads that were open contained nothing of interest. So now he was sulking and trying to work out what had happened.

Everybody, including my self-proclaimed demigod of a partner, insists that Eleanor doesn’t exist outside my imagination. I’m content with that. It’s even true, in its way.

Their truth or mine, Eleanor does exist. We communicate.

Reflection set some thoughts in motion. Like some multiple-minded Loghyr I fiddled with those while Eleanor helped me weigh the pros and cons of what looked likely to be Garrett’s next big adventure.

I asked, ‘‘How come I always turn melancholy when we get together?’’

She made me understand that melancholy was the price I paid, here, because the only person I could share my inner truths with comfortably was on the other shore.

I couldn’t argue with that. Everybody on this side has the power to judge and down-thumbs me. Even Singe, who comes near being as comfortable as Eleanor.

Note that with me outside his little fiefdom the Dead Man didn’t horn in. Not once. Might not even be eavesdropping.

Probably wasn’t.

Almost certainly wasn’t.

I’ve known Old Bones longer than Tinnie and almost as long as Morley. I live with him. I drown in him, sometimes. Yet I know him less well than my best friend or the light of my life.

Somebody came pounding on the door. I didn’t respond. Singe and Dean had gone to bed. After a while the Dead Man paused in his ruminations long enough to sendOur would-be visitor was Colonel Block. He had business reasonsfor being here, but his principal motive was a need for contact with persons not one hundred percent vile. A lonely man, the colonel.

I had no wiseass response. In my mood of the moment I could only empathize with Westman Block, a good man doing his best in dreadful circumstances. ‘‘So what business reason did he have for an excuse?’’ He’d as much as admitted having rifled the good man’s mind.

No doubt Block had expected that.

The colonel foresees another twist. A further complication, from a direction we haven’t considered.

‘‘And that would be? Details, please.’’

None available. It is an idea he developed during a meetingwith Director Relway where today’s events were the topic of discussion. Evidently those Hill folk who were disinclined to have anyone poke around where their children were playinghave taken a ninety-degree turn and now insist that the Civil Guard deal with Belle Chimes. Whose real name would be Belle Dierber. They also want Lurking Felhske found. Felhske is not involved with any of them. They want to know who set him on their children. And, of course, why.

‘‘The compliance device. Somebody wants it.’’

Forget the compliance device. It is a red herring. I am certain. The secret of creating giant bugs would be far more valuable.

‘‘What’s got you so cranky?’’

This explosion in the population of people whose minds I cannot access. All of whom, even Kip now, seem to have multiple personalities. None of which give up anything of interest.

I could see where that would irk him. He was used to having his way with anybody who came in range. Now his confidence was threatened.

I cannot get a handle on what is happening.

I glanced at my painting. Eleanor seemed more amused than I was.

Old Bones had no humor in him at all. He betrayed the depth of his emotional despond with his suggestion that I take my painting down to the World and let the dragon build me a new Eleanor. Then I could . . .

There’d been a time, not that long ago, when I would’ve considered it, off the wall as it was. Eleanor had been a strong distraction indeed. But now, not so much. Not that much.

Time to back off. I’d never known him to be so juvenile.

The moment passed. He apologized. And reminded me that Block thought we were headed for a surprise.

I hoped it would be revelatory rather than deadly.

Old Bones went away, his despair gently lightened.

After a while longer with Eleanor, because I didn’t want to face the night alone, I did drag me upstairs and put me to bed. Alone.

I tossed and turned and worried about a world in which the landscape of Tinnie’s left hand had changed.