Wicked Bronze Ambition

51

The rain arrived as drizzle, better than the soaker I’d expected but still enough to leave the cobblestones dangerously slick.

Barate headed for his mother’s house from Moonblight’s place. He had business with her and Kevans both. The rest of us headed for Macunado Street. The dogs were not thrilled with the weather. They would have been happy to grace Moonblight’s house permanently. There was some good eating there.

Tara Chayne wasn’t ready to adopt.

On the upside, Singe was getting along under her own power.

Dollar Dan was disappointed.

“What is that odor?” I asked. Something lurked behind all the ripe aromas stirred up when it rains.

There was a pale fog with something like thin smoke mixed in. I caught notes of sulfur and something metallic. The keen noses around me might be able to explain.

A rat man said, “Something to do with that sorcery from before.” The air wasn’t moving much, but it was drifting from that direction.

Dan and Singe agreed but had nothing to add.

The hired wagon stood in front of the house. Min was not aboard. The owner had to be inside. Likewise, Penny and Ted. The team seemed to have been struck stupider than is usual in the dim and bloody-minded horse tribe. They looked like anybody who wanted could just lead them away.

Only, their barrels-of-rocks dumb and lazy show was happening in front of the house where the Dead Man denned up.

I wondered if Himself wasn’t using them as bait.

I grumbled, “Stinks like wet horse around here.” I followed Singe up to the stoop, she peeking back in case Dollar Dan suddenly could no longer restrain his passion. A questionable concern considering the proximity of the Dead Man.

Old Bones didn’t touch us, but he was awake and aware. Penny knew exactly when to open the door. She had exchanged the stylish outfit for her usual raggedy tomboy look. I heard voices from Singe’s office, as did Singe, who registered alarm. That was her turf. No trespassers allowed when she was out.

Penny told us, “Dean has some potato sausages warming.” Which, tell it true, was what I most wanted to hear right then.

“Those and some beer and I’m down and gone to heaven.”

Singe kicked up a cloud of dust in her haste to go defend her patch. I got there three steps behind.

Her office contained John Stretch, Saucerhead Tharpe, his totally nonromantic roommate Winger, Helenia from the Al-Khar, and a man I didn’t recognize. But no Dr. Ted. And where the hell was the rat man who owned the wagon?

Vicious Min, I assumed, would be in the room next door, which had been my office before I grew up and left home.

Winger, heavier now, more worn, and seedier than ever, fed my ego by reporting, “You look like shit on a stick, Garrett.”

“I feel worse than I look. I haven’t done that much walking since boot camp.”

I stayed in the doorway, watching Penny politely thank Dollar Dan while hinting broadly that he ought to go so the folks who lived here could crash. I checked John Stretch. His ears were good enough to follow the exchange. Dan wasn’t getting the message. But then he loosed a weird squeaking noise caused by the Dead Man’s direct touch. He wasted no time getting gone after that.

I felt Old Bones paging through my memories, suggesting that it would be a good idea to hit the sheets. Tomorrow would be another long day.

Even so, I started to get on Saucerhead and Winger about not having done the work we had given them.

His Nibs showed me a condensed version of their adventures.

They owed their lives to the fact that Deal Relway was a sneaky psychopath driven by an abiding need to know and a further compulsion to meddle.

Specials had been watching most of my closest associates-a matter of public policy nowadays if Old Bones could be believed.

Anyway, both had gotten into tight spots. Both had been rescued by swift Guard responses, leaving them tormented by mixed feelings about the law-and-order outbreak.

Both had been celebrating, using their newly won time to indulge in an effort to empty my beer kegs before somebody named Garrett cut them off.

“Thought you were going on the wagon,” I said to Winger. She had embarrassed herself with her drinking after she and Jon Salvation parted ways.

“Shit, Garrett! Today I foun’ out that life is too goddamn short to waste it trying to be somebody you ain’t. ’Specially, if it’s somebody somebody else wants you to be.”

A sentiment with which I did not disagree-though I had begun to realize that doing only what you feel like will make life unpleasant in the long run. You’ll make a lot of people unhappy.

I asked John Stretch, “Did you find out anything useful?”

“Almost nothing.”

Penny and Dean brought food. Singe chivvied her brother out from behind her desk, cleared clutter enough to make space for her tray. I settled onto a hard wooden chair with mine aboard my lap. “Nothing? That’s amazing.”

“It is. But there are no rumors, even. . Let me start over. Other than the excitement in the families being pulled in-and we identified only two of those-there is an information vacuum. There is no discussion outside the families involved, which they don’t want to be but are afraid that trying to ignore the mess could just make their Champion easier to kill.”

I turned to Helenia, already wilting under Singe’s regard. “Why are you here?”

“The Director sent me.” She sipped from a mug that had the look of one she’d been nursing all night.

You can’t trust sippers. They always have a hidden agenda.

“Why?” After she failed to say anything else.

“To be liaison.”

I pulled in a deep breath, then decided to save the air. I turned to the stranger. “Who are you?”

“I’m with her.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

“Merryman. Clute Merryman. Corporal of the Station for Criminal Statistics. Day watch. I tagged along to look out for Helenia.”

Penny brought in a folding chair. I glowered. She told me, “They were here when I got home. Yell at Dean.” She nodded toward the Dead Man’s room. “Or him.” Letting me know the visitors were here on Himself’s instructions. “They helped with Vicious Min.” Now she nodded toward the small room next door.

“Ah. And what happened to the wagon guy? And the doc?”

“Visiting across the way.”

John Stretch stirred uncomfortably.

There was nothing for me here right now. The Dead Man would get anything worth knowing faster than I could. And I needed sleep.

“I might as well hit the hay, people. Soon as I finish these wonderful sausages. Good stuff, Dean.” I used my fork on the last little chunk, waved it as the old man rolled a cart into the doorway. The cart carried beer pitchers and fresh tea. I wondered when we had acquired the cart.

Dean passed me my favorite mug, so ranked because of its capacity. “Oh my! Select Dark. I’ll hold off wasting time on sleep for now.”

The Weider Select Dark is good stuff. Really good stuff.

Business talk resumed. Other than to wonder what Old Bones might have gotten from Vicious Min, I didn’t concern myself much. It took only one capacious mug to free up thoughts of Strafa that I had been keeping suppressed for several days.