Gilded Latten Bones

71

Furious Tide of Light arrived. She did not look like anyone's mother. She did not look like anyone's wannabe girlfriend, either. She had on the full power of what she was. I had not seen her in that mode before.

Kevans curled into herself, mentally, like an armadillo. You could almost hear bacon crackling when the Windwalker looked at Kip. Kyra gaped, astonished and thoroughly intimidated. Only Penny seemed undisturbed. She stood out of the way, watched, and learned.

The girl was getting scary. I began to picture her as a human version of Pular Singe. It was in the blood. Her father had been Chodo Contague.

She and Belinda had nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

The Windwalker, when she spoke, was gentle, with the conviction of a whip. "Are you two clear on how foul a crime has been committed? What is happening has had no equal for two hundred years."

Strafa considered the drawings and painting. "This isn't a game." She stopped. She didn't want to challenge the kids. Adolescents will push back even when they're dead wrong.

Still, she asked, "What have you been holding back?"

Headshakes I suspected of being less than completely sincere. My sense, though, was that the insincerity had to do with Kip and Kevans rather than with knowledge of horrible crimes. Their friendship might have a more experimental angle than either wanted brought out in front of her mother or his girlfriend. Both lived lonely lives. They had been friends for a long time.

Everyone caught some taste of that possibility. But that wasn't why we had gotten together. I would overrule should the discussion start to slide that way.

I exchanged glances with Singe. If ever there was a time for the Dead Man to be on the job, this was it.

Kevans continued to wilt under her mother's scowl. That the Windwalker was her mother did not matter. What did was that one of the most ferocious and talented magic users alive might be displeased by the behavior of one rogue teen.

The Windwalker demanded, "You're completely sure you don't have anything more to tell us?" I hoped she really was capable of separating Furious Tide of Light from Strafa Algarda.

She stepped in till she and Kevans were nose to nose. She whispered. The girl began to shiver. She was ready to break down but, still, did not have anything to say.

If she did know anything it was something she would not surrender willingly.

I indulged a vain hope that the Dead Man was playing possum.

The Windwalker focused on Kevans but included her audience when making it clear that TunFaire faced a test of right and wrong more terrible than any since the age of uncontrolled experimental sorcery that had produced the ratpeople, plus worse beasts that had been exterminated during the hysterical public response.

Another Time of Troubles might be coming. Ignorance and fear are with us always. Stupid is all-pervasive. TunFaire wallows in bottomless reservoirs of that. A plague of zombies could trigger something way out of proportion to the horrors we had seen.

The Windwalker changed her approach. "Kevans, come with me." She used her Windwalker voice.

They went to my old office. It was quiet over there. Morley eased himself into the more comfortable chair that Kevans had vacated. He struggled to conceal his discomfort. "I hate being like this," he said softly.

"You've been hurt before."

"Not like this. Not this stupidly. Any other time I always knew why. Singe. Anyone find out who paid that healer to drug me?"

"That would have a yes and no answer. The Dead Man saw the woman inside the healer's mind, but only vaguely." She tipped a hand toward Penny's sketches. "Probably her. Miss Contague, with an assist from Mr. Kolda and reluctant cooperation from the Children of the Light, is pursuing that." Then she volunteered, "Other acquaintances are investigating other things. The reports aren't encouraging. It's amazing that so much wickedness can leave so little evidence. These villains are heinous but careful."

I asked a question that had been nagging me. "Why?"

"Garrett?"

"Why are these people doing what they're doing? If we knew that the search range would narrow considerable."

Singe still looked puzzled.

"Come on. These villains didn't just get up some morning and decide, 'Let's have some fun. Let's cut up dead people and build some jigsaw zombies.'"

"They are not zombies, Garrett."

Literal minds! "Whatever. You know what I mean."

"Yes. And you are correct. The question of motive has not come up in so plain a form. The behavior we have seen may have little to do with that."

I said, "It has to do with covering up. A dumb effort to quash something that never got out. That's what attracted attention."

"We may never know why. I expect the Hill people to get to them first. They have the most resources."

Probably. Those people insist.

One of those people came back with her daughter. The daughter was pale. The Windwalker looked grim. "Kevans will tell Barate to come see you. She and Mr. Prose will then meet me at the warehouse in Elf Town. Question Barate, then send him to join us. No excuses. I don't expect that he will know anything so it shouldn't take long. Is there anything else you want from these two?"

"No."

Kyra certainly had something but she kept her mouth shut.

Kip would have some explaining to do later.

Singe handled the door work.

The instant that shut Morley observed, "That woman can be fierce when the mood takes her."

"She didn't think they were telling the whole truth." I turned to Kyra. "So now we need to get you home safely."

TunFaire suffered ever more virulent paroxysms of law and order but a beauty like Kyra still rated an escort, if only to keep the chatter down.

I was about to volunteer. Singe spoke up first. "Dan, please ask Toast and Packer to do the honors." She followed that with burning eye contact. There would be no adolescent bravura on her watch.

I folded.

Were Singe human she would have sneered and told me I was painfully predictable.

She could play me as easily as Tinnie could. Maybe more so because with her my ego did not feel compelled to take stands.

And Kyra never argued.

The apprentice redhead was feeling exceptionally vulnerable.

Toast and Packer turned out to be the ratmen who had come with Dollar Dan.