OldTinSorrows

Just when you think you have it all scoped out and you’re riding high, old Fate will stampede right over you and not even stop to say I’m sorry. Happens every time if your name is Garrett. You can make book on it.

I’m Garrett. Sitting pretty in my early thirties, over six feet, brown hair, two hundred pounds plus—maybe threatening to shoot up because my favorite food is beer. I have a disposition variously described as sulky, sour, sarky, or cynical. Anything with a sibilant. Sneaky and snaky, my enemies claim. But, hell, I’m a sweetheart. Really. Just a big, old, cuddly bear with a nice smile and soulful eyes.

Don’t believe everything you hear. I’m just a realist who suffers from a recurrent tumor of romantic pragmatism. Once upon a time I was a lot more romantic. Then I did my five in the Fleet Marines. That almost snuffed the spark.

Keep that in mind, that time in the Corps. If I hadn’t been there, none of this would have happened.

Bone-lazy, Morley would call me, but that’s a base canard from a character without the moral fiber to sit still more than five minutes. I’m not lazy; I’d just rather not work if I don’t need money. When I do, I operate as a confidential agent. Which means I spend a lot of time in the middle, between people you wouldn’t invite to dinner. Kidnappers. Blackmailers. Thugs and thieves and killers.

My, the things kids grow up to be.

It isn’t a great life. It won’t get me into any history books. But it does let me be my own boss, set my own hours, pick my jobs. It lets me off a lot of hooks. I don’t have to make a lot of compromises with my conscience.

Trying not to work when I don’t need money means looking through the peephole first when someone knocks on the door of my place on Macunado Street. If whoever is there looks like a prospective client, I simply don’t answer.

It was a false spring day early in the year. It was supposed to be winter out there but somebody was nodding. The snow had melted. After six days of unnatural warmth the trees had conned themselves into budding. They’d be sorry.

I hadn’t been out since the thaw. I was at my desk reckoning accounts on a couple of minor jobs I’d subcontracted, thinking about taking a walk before cabin fever got me. Then somebody knocked.

It was Dean’s day off. I had to do the legwork myself. I went to the door. I peeked. And I was startled. And, brother, was I fooled.

Whenever the big troubles came, the harbinger always wore a skirt and looked like something you couldn’t find anywhere but in your dreams. In case that’s too subtle, it’s like this: I’ve got a weakness for ripe tomatoes. But I’m learning. Give me about a thousand years and . . .

This wasn’t any tomato. This was a guy I’d known a long time ago and never expected to see again. One I hadn’t ever wanted to see again when we’d parted. And he just looked uncomfortable out there, not like he was in trouble. So I opened the door.

That was my first mistake.

“Sarge! What’re you doing here? How the hell are you?” I shoved a hand at him, something I wouldn’t have dared do when I saw him last.

He was twenty years older than me, the same height, twenty pounds lighter. He had skin the color of tanned doeskin, big ears that stuck straight out, wrinkles, small black eyes, black hair with a lot of gray that hadn’t been there before. No way to pin down exactly why, but he was one of the ugliest men I’d ever known. He looked damned fit, but he was the kind that would look that way if he lived forever. He stood there like he had a board nailed to his spine.

“I’m fine,” he said, and took my hand in a sincere shake. Those beady little eyes went over me like they could see right through me. He’d always had that knack. “You’ve put on a few pounds.”

“On in the middle, off at the top.” I tapped my hair. It wasn’t noticeable to anyone but me yet. “Come in. What’re you doing in TunFaire?”

“I’m retired now. Out of the Corps. I’ve been hearing a lot about you. Into some exciting things. I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in. If you’re not busy.”

“I’m not. Beer? Come on back to the kitchen.” I led the way into Dean’s fiefdom. The old boy wasn’t there to defend it. “When did you get out?”

“Been out three years, Garrett.”

“Yeah? I figured you’d die in harness at a hundred fifty.”

His name was Blake Peters. The guys in the company called him Black Pete. He’d been our leading sergeant and the nearest thing to a god or devil any of us had known, the kind of professional soldier that gives an outfit its spine. I couldn’t imagine him as a civilian. Three years out? He looked like a Marine sergeant in disguise.

“We all change. I started thinking too much instead of just doing what I was told. The beer isn’t bad.”

It was damned good. Weider, who owns the brewery, had sent a keg of his special reserve to let me know he appreciated past favors—and to remind me I was still on retainer. I hadn’t been around for a while. He was afraid his employees might go into free-lance sales again.

“So what’re you doing now?” I was a little uncomfortable. I never had the experience myself—my father died in battle in the Cantard when I was four—but guys have told me they’d felt ill at ease dealing with their fathers man to man when that first happened. Black Pete hadn’t ever been a friend; he’d been the Sergeant. He wasn’t anymore but I didn’t know him any other way.

“I’m working for General Stantnor. I was on his staff. When he retired he asked me to go with him. I did it.”

I grunted. Stantnor had been a Colonel when I was in. He’d been boss of all the Marines operating out of Full Harbor, about two thousand men. I’d never met him, but I’d had plenty to say about him during my stint. Not much of it was complimentary. About the time I’d gotten out he’d become Commandant of the whole Corps and had moved to Leifmold, where the Karentine Navy and Marines have their headquarters.

“Job’s about the same as it was, but the pay’s better,” Peters said. “You look like you’re doing all right. Own your own place, I hear.”

About then I started getting suspicious. It was just a niggling little worm, a whisper. He’d done some homework before he came, which meant he wasn’t just stopping in for old time’s sake.

“I don’t go hungry,” I admitted. “But I do worry about tomorrow. About how long the reflexes will last and the mind will stay sharp. The legs aren’t what they used to be.”

“You need more exercise. You haven’t been keeping yourself up. It shows.”

I snorted. Another Morley Dotes? “Don’t start with the green leafies and red meat. I’ve already got a fairy godfather to pester me about that.”

He looked puzzled, which was some sight on that phiz.

“Sorry. Private joke, sort of. So you’re just sort of taking it easy these days, eh?” I hadn’t heard Stantnor’s name much since he’d retired. I knew he’d come home to TunFaire, to the family estate south of the city, but that was it. He’d become a recluse, ignoring politics and business, the usual pursuits of ranking survivors of the endless Cantard War.

“We haven’t had much choice.” He sounded sour and looked troubled for a moment. “He planned to go into material contracting, but he took sick. Maybe something he picked up in the islands. Took the fire out of him. He’s bedridden most of the time.”

Pity. On the plus side of Stantnor’s ledger had been the fact that he hadn’t sat in an office in Full Harbor spending his troops like markers on a game board. When the big shitstorms hit he was out in the weather with the rest of us.

A pity, and I said so.

“Maybe worse than a pity, Garrett. He’s taken a turn for the worse. I think he’s dying. And I think somebody is helping him along.”

Suspicion became certainty. “You didn’t just happen to be in the neighborhood.”

He was direct. “No. I’m here to collect.”

He didn’t have to explain.

There was a time when we’d gotten caught with our pants down on one of the islands. A surprise Venageti invasion nearly wiped us out. We survivors had fled into the swamps and had lived on whatever didn’t eat us first while we harrassed the Venageti. Sergeant Peters had brought us through that. I owed him for that.

But I owed him more. He’d carried me away when I’d been injured during a raid. He hadn’t had to do it. I couldn’t have done anything but lie there waiting for the Venageti to kill me.

He said, “That old man means a lot to me, Garrett. He’s the only family I’ve got. Somebody’s killing him slowly, but I can’t figure out who or how. I can’t stop it. I’ve never felt this helpless and out of control. So I come to a man who has a reputation for handling the unhandleable.”

I didn’t want a client. But Garrett pays his debts.

I took a long drink, a deep breath, cursed under my breath. “Tell me about it.”

Peters shook his head. “I don’t want to fill you up with ideas that didn’t work for me.”

“Damnit, Sarge . . . ”

“Garrett!” He still had the whipcrack voice that got your attention without being raised.

“I’m listening.”

“He’s got other problems. I’ve sold him on hiring a specialist to handle them. I’ve sold him your reputation and my memories of you from the Corps. He’ll interview you tomorrow morning. If you remember to knock the horse apples off your shoes before you go in the house, he’ll hire you. Do the job he wants done. But while you’re at it, do the real job. Got me?”

I nodded. It was screwy but clients are that way. They always want to sneak up on things.

“To everyone else you’ll be a hired hand, job unknown, antecedents mostly unknown. You should use another name. You have a certain level of notoriety. The name Garrett might ring a bell.”

I sighed. “You make it sound like I might spend a lot of time there.”

“I want you to stay till the job is done. I’ll need the name you’re going to use before I leave or you won’t get past the front door.”

“Mike Sexton.” I plucked it off the top of my head, but it had to be divine inspiration. If a little dangerous.

Mike Sexton had been our company’s chief scout. He hadn’t come back from that island. Peters had sent him out before a night strike and we’d never seen him again. He’d been Black Pete’s main man, his only friend.

Peters’s face went hard and cold. His eyes narrowed dangerously. He started to say something. But Black Pete never shot his mouth off without thinking.

He grunted. “It’ll work. People have heard me mention the name. I’ll explain how we know each other. I don’t think I told anybody he’s gone.”

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t brag about his mistakes, even to himself. I’d bet part of him was still waiting for Sexton to report,

“That’s the way I figured it.”

He downed the last of his beer. “You’ll do it?”

“You knew I would before you pounded on the door. I didn’t have any choice.”

He smiled. It looked out of place on that ugly mug. “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. You were always a stubborn bastard.” He took out a worn canvas purse, the same one he’d had back when, fatter than it had been before. He counted out fifty marks. In silver. Which was a statement of sorts. The price of silver has been shooting up since Glory Mooncalled double-crossed everybody and declared the whole Cantard an independent republic with no welcome for Karentines, Venageti, or what have you.

Silver is the fuel that makes sorcery go. Both Karenta and Venageta sway to the whims of cabals of sorcerers. The biggest, most productive silver mines in the world lie in the Cantard, which is why the ruling gangs have been at war there since my grandfather was a pup. Till the mercenary Glory Mooncalled pulled his stunt.

He’s made it stick so far. But I’ll be amazed if he keeps it up. He’s got everybody pissed and he’s right in the middle.

It won’t be long before it’s war as usual down there.

I opened my mouth to tell Peters he didn’t need to pay me. I owed him. But I realized he did need to. He was calling in an obligation but not for free. He didn’t expect me to work for nothing, he just wanted me to work. And maybe he was paying off something to the General by footing the bill.

“Eight a day and expenses,” I told him. “Discount for a friend. I’ll kick back if this comes out too much or I’ll bill you if I need more.” I took the fifty into the Dead Man’s room for safekeeping. The Dead Man was hard at what he does best: snoozing. All four hundred plus pounds of him. He’d been at it so long I’d begun to miss his company.

With that thought I decided it was time I took a job. Missing the Dead Man’s company was like missing the company of an inquisitor.

Peters was ready to go when I got back. “See you in the morning?” he asked. There was a whisper of desperation behind his words.

“I’ll be there. Guaranteed.”

2

It was eleven in the morning. They’d roofed the sky with planks of lead. I walked, though the General’s hovel was four miles beyond South Gate. Me and horses don’t get along.

I wished I’d taken the chance. My pins were letting me know I spend too much time planted on the back of my lap. Then fat raindrops started making coin-sized splats on the road. I wished some more. I was going to get wet if the old man and I didn’t hit it off.

I shifted my duffel bag to my other shoulder and tried to hurry. That did all the good it ever does.

I’d bathed and shaved and combed my hair. I had on my best “meet the rich folks” outfit. I figured they’d give me credit for trying and not run me off before they asked my name. I hoped Black Pete was on the level and had left that at the door.

The Stantnor place wasn’t exactly a squatter’s shanty. I figured maybe a million marks’ worth of brick and stone and timber. The grounds wouldn’t have had any trouble gobbling the Lost Battalion.

I didn’t need a map to find the house but I was lucky. The General had put out a paved private road for me to follow.

The shack was four storeys high at the wings and five in the center, in the style called frame half-timber, and it spread out wide enough that I couldn’t throw a rock from one corner to the other of the front. I tried. It was a good throw but the stone fell way short.

A fat raindrop got me in the back of the neck. I scampered up a dozen marble steps to the porch. I took a minute to arrange my face so I wouldn’t look impressed when somebody answered the door. You want to deal with the rich, you’ve got to overcome the intimidation factor of wealth.

The door—which would have done a castle proud as a drawbridge—swung in without a sound, maybe a foot. A man looked out. All I could see was his face. I almost asked him what the grease bill was for silencing those monster hinges.

“Yes?”

“Mike Sexton. I’m expected.”

“Yes.” The face puckered up. Where did he get lemons this time of year?

Maybe he wasn’t thrilled to see me, but he did open up and let me into a hallway where you could park a couple of woolly mammoths, if you didn’t want to leave them out in the rain. He said, “I’ll inform the General that you’ve arrived, sir.” He walked away like they’d shoved a javelin up his back in boot camp, marching to drums only he could hear. Obviously another old Marine, like Black Pete.

He was gone awhile. I entertained myself by drifting along the hallway introducing myself to the Stantnor ancestors, a dozen of whom scowled at me from portraits on the walls. The artists had been selected for their ability to capture their subject’s private misery. Every one of those old boys was constipated.

I inventoried three beards, three mustaches, and six clean shaven. The Stantnor blood was strong. They looked like brothers instead of generations going back to the foundation of the Karentine state. Only their uniforms dated them.

All of them were in uniform or armor. Stantnors had been professional soldiers, sailors, Marines—forever. It was a birthright. Or maybe an obligation, like it or not, which might explain the universal dyspepsia.

The last portrait on the left was the General himself, as Commandant of the Corps. He wore a huge, ferocious white mustache and had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were standing on the poop of a troopship staring at something beyond the horizon. His was the only portrait that hadn’t been painted so its subject’s eyes followed you when you moved. It was disconcerting, having all those angry old men glaring down. Maybe the portraits were supposed to intimidate upstarts like me.

Opposite the General hung the only portrait of a young man, the General’s son, a Marine lieutenant who hadn’t developed the family scowl. I didn’t recall his name, but did remember him getting killed in the islands while I was in. He’d been the old man’s only male offspring. There wouldn’t be any more portraits to put up on those dark-paneled walls.

The hall ended in a wall of leaded glass that rose the hallway’s two storey height, a mosaic of scenes from myth and legend, all bloodthirstily executed: heroes slaying dragons, felling giants, posturing atop heaps of elvish corpses while awaiting another charge. All stuff of antiquity, when we humans didn’t get along with the other races.

The doors through that partition were normal size, also filled with glass artwork from the same school. The butler, or whatever he was, had left them ajar. I took that as an invitation.

The hall beyond could have been swiped from a cathedral. It was as big as a parade ground and four storeys high, all stone, mostly swirly browns from butterscotch to rust folded into cream. The walls were decorated with trophies presumably won by Stantnors in battle. There were enough weapons and banners to outfit a battalion.

The floor was a checkerboard of white marble and green serpentine. In its middle stood a fountain, a hero on a rearing stallion sticking a lance into the heart of a ferocious dragon that looked suspiciously like one of the bigger flying thunder-lizards. Both of them looked like they’d rather be somewhere else. Couldn’t say I blamed them. Neither one was going to get out alive. The hero was about one second short of sliding off the horse’s behind right into the dragon’s claws. The sculptor had said a lot that, undoubtedly, no one understood. I told them, “You two want to scrap over a virgin, you should work a deal.”

I headed for the fountain, heels clicking, the walls throwing back echoes. I turned around a few times, taking in the sights. Hallways ran off into the wings. Stairs went up to balconies in front of each of the upper floors. There were lots of polished round brown pillars and legions of echoes. The place couldn’t be a home. Only thing I’d ever seen like it was a museum. You had to wonder what went on inside the head of a guy who would want to build a place like that to live.

It was damned near as cold in there as it was outside. I shivered, checked out the fountain up close. It wasn’t going, or at least I’d have had its chuckles for company. Seemed a pity. The sound would have improved the atmosphere. Maybe they only turned it on when they were entertaining.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the idea of being rich. I guess most people do. But if this was the way the rich had to live, I thought maybe I could settle for less.

My trade has taken me into any number of large homes and every one seemed to have a certain coldness at its heart. The nicest I’d hit belonged to Chodo Contague, TunFaire’s emperor of the underworld. He’s a grotesque, a real blackheart, but his place at least fakes the life and warmth. And his decorator has his priorities straight. Once when I was there the house was littered with naked lovelies. That’s what I call home furnishings! That’s a lot more cheerful than a bargeload of instruments of war.

I dropped my duffel bag, put a foot up on the fountain surround, and rested my elbows on my knee. “You boys go ahead with what you’re doing. I’ll try not to disturb.” Hero and dragon were both too preoccupied to notice.

I looked around. Where the hell was everybody? A place that size ought to have a battalion for staff. I’d seen livelier museums at midnight. Well . . .

All was not lost. In fact, things had started to look up.

I’d spotted a face. It was looking at me around a pillar supporting the balconies to my left. The west wing. It was female and gorgeous and too far away to tell much else, but that was all I needed to get my blood moving again. The woman attached was as timid as a dryad. She ducked out of sight an instant after our eyes met.

The part of me that is weak wondered if I’d see more of her. I hoped so. I could get lost in a face like that.

She did a little flit into the nearest hallway. I got just a glimpse but wanted her to come back. She was worth a second look, and maybe a third and a fourth, a long-haired, slim blonde in something white and gauzy, gathered at the waist by a red girdle. Around twenty, give or take a few, and sleek enough to put a big, goofy grin on my face.

I’d keep an eye out for that one.

Unless she was a ghost. She’d gone without making a sound. Whatever, she was going to haunt me till I got a closer look.

Was the place haunted? It was spooky enough, in its cold way . . . I realized it was me. Might not bother someone else. I looked around and heard the clash of steel and the moans of those who had died to furnish all those emblems of Stantnor glory. I was packing my own haunts in and letting the place become a mirror.

I tried to shake a darkening mood. A place like that turns you somber.

The guy from the front door marched in after the girl disappeared, his heels clicking. He came to a perfect military halt six feet away. I gave him the once-over. He stood five-foot-eight, maybe a hundred seventy pounds, in his fifties but looking younger. His hair was wavy black, slicked with some kind of grease that couldn’t beat the curl. If he had any gray, he hid it well, and he still had all the hair he’d had when he was twenty. His eyes were cold little beads. You could get ice burns there. He’d kill you and not even wonder if he was making orphans.

“The General will see you now, sir.” He turned and marched away.

I followed. I caught myself marching in step, skipped to get out. In a minute I was back in step. I gave it up.

They’d pounded it in good. The flesh remembered and couldn’t hear the rebellion in the mind.

“You have a name?” I asked.

“Dellwood, sir.”

“What were you before you got out?”

“I was attached to the General’s staff, sir.”

Which meant absolutely nothing. “Lifer?” Dumb question, Garrett. I could bet the family farm, I was the only nonlifer in the place, excepting the girl—maybe. The General wouldn’t surround himself with the lesser breeds called civilians.

“Thirty-two years, sir.” He asked no questions himself. Not into small talk and chitchat? No. He didn’t care. I was one of them.

“Maybe I should have come to the tradesman’s entrance.”

He grunted.

“Tough.” The General had my respect for what he’d accomplished, not for who he’d been born.

Dellwood had twenty years on me but I was the guy doing the puffing when we hit the fourth floor. About six wise remarks ran through my alleged brain but I didn’t have wind enough to share them. Dellwood gave me an unreadable look, probably veiled contempt for soft civilians. I puffed awhile, then to distract him said, “I saw a woman while I was waiting. Watching me. Timid as a mouse.”

“That would be Miss Jennifer, sir. The General’s daughter.” He looked like he thought he’d made a mistake volunteering that much. He didn’t say anything else. One of those guys who wouldn’t tell you what he thought you didn’t need to know if you burned his toes off. Was the whole staff struck from the same dies? Then why did Peters need me? They could handle anything.

Dellwood marched to an oaken door that spanned half the corridor on the top floor of the west wing. He pushed the door inward, announced, “Mr. Mike Sexton, sir.”

A wall of heat smacked me as I pushed past Dellwood.

I’d come with no preconceptions but I was still surprised. General Stantnor preferred spartan surroundings. Other than the room’s size, there was nothing to hint that he was hip deep in geld.

There were no carpets, a few straightbacked wooden chairs, the ubiquitous military hardware, two writing desks nose to nose, the bigger one presumably for the General and the other for whoever actually wrote. The place was almost a mausoleum. The heat came off a bonfire raging in a fireplace designed for roasting oxen. Another gink without joints in his spine was tossing in logs from a nearby mountain. He looked at me, looked at the old man behind the big desk. The old man nodded. The fireman marched out, maybe to kill time practicing close order drill with Dellwood.

Having surveyed the setting I zeroed in on its centerpiece.

I could see why Black Pete was suspicious. There wasn’t much left of General Stantnor. He didn’t look anything like the guy in the picture downstairs. He looked like he might weigh about as much as a mummy, though most of him was buried under comforters. Ten years ago he’d been my height and thirty pounds heavier.

His skin had a yellowish cast and was mildly translucent. His pupils were milky with cataracts. His hair had fallen out in clumps. Only a few patches remained, not just gray or white but with a bluish hue of death. He had liver spots but those had faded, too. His lips had no color left but a poisonous gray-blue.

I don’t know how well he could see through those cataracts, but his gaze was strong and steady. He didn’t shake.

“Mike Sexton, sir. Sergeant Peters asked me to see you.”

“Grab a chair. Pull it up there facing me. I don’t like to look up when I talk to someone.” There was power in his voice, though I don’t know where he found the energy. I’d figured him for a graverobber’s whisper. I settled opposite him. He said, “For the moment I’m confident we’re not being overheard, Mr. Garrett. Yes. I know who you are. Peters provided me with a full report before I approved bringing you in.” He kept staring as though he could overcome those cataracts through sheer will. “But we’ll pursue the Mike Sexton fiction in future. Assuming we come to terms now.”

I was close enough to smell him, and it wasn’t a good smell. I was surprised the whole room didn’t reek. They must have brought him in from somewhere else. “Peters didn’t say what you needed, sir. He just called in an old marker to get me out here.” I glanced at the fireplace. They would be baking bread in here soon.

“It takes a great deal of heat to keep me going, Mr. Garrett. My apologies for your discomfort. I’ll try to keep this brief. I’m a little like a thunder-lizard. I generate no heat of my own.”

I waited for him to continue. And sweated a lot.

“I have Peters’s word that you were a good Marine.” No doubt that counted for a lot around here. “He vouches for your character then. But men change. What have you become?”

“A free-lance thug instead of a drafted one, General. Which you need or I wouldn’t be here.”

He made a noise that might have been laughter. “Ah. I’d heard you have a sharp tongue, Mr. Garrett. I should be the impatient one, not you. I have so little time left. Yes. Peters vouches for you today, as well. And you do get mentioned in some circles as being reliable, though headstrong and inclined to carry out your assignments according to your own lights. They say you have a sentimental streak. That shouldn’t trouble us here. They say you have a weakness for women. I think you’ll find my daughter more trouble than she’s worth. They say you tend to be judgmental of the vices and peccadillos of my class.”

I wondered if he knew how often I change my underwear. Why did he need an investigator? Let him use whoever had investigated me.

Again that sorry laugh. “I can guess what you’re thinking. Everything I know is public knowledge. Your reputation runs before you.” Something that might have been a smile in better times. “You’ve managed to do a fair amount of good over the years, Mr. Garrett. But you stepped on a lot of toes doing it.”

“I’m just a clumsy kid, General. I’ll grow out of it.”

“I doubt it. You don’t seem intimidated by me.”

“I’m not.” I wasn’t. I’d met too many guys who really were intimidating. I had calluses on that organ.

“You would have been ten years ago.”

“Different circumstances.”

“Indeed. Good. I need a man who won’t be intimidated. Especially by me. Because I fear that if you do your job right, you may uncover truths I won’t want to face. Truths so brutal I may tell you to back off. You won’t do that?”

He had me baffled. “I’m confused.”

“The normal state of the world, Mr. Garrett. I mean, when I hire you, if I hire you, if you agree to take this job, your commitment will be to follow it through to the end. Disregarding anything I tell you later. I’ll see that you’re paid up front so you aren’t tempted to bend in order to collect your fee.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“I pride myself on my ability to meet the truth head-on. In this case I want to arrange it so I have no choice, however much I squirm and ache. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.” Only in the most literal sense. I didn’t understand why. We all spend a lot of time fooling ourselves, and his class were masters at that—though he’d always had a reputation for having both feet firmly planted in reality. He’d disobeyed or refused orders more than once because they had originated in wishful thinking by superiors who hadn’t come within five hundred miles of the fighting. Each time events had saved him embarrassment by proving him right.

He didn’t have a lot of friends.

“Before I make any commitment, I have to know what I’m supposed to do.”

“There is a thief in my house, Mr. Garrett.”

He stopped because of some kind of spasm. I thought he was having a heart attack. I jumped up and headed for the door.

“Wait,” he croaked. “It will pass.”

I paused midway between my chair and the door, saw the spasm fade. In a moment he was back to normal. I perched myself on my chair again.

“A thief in my house. Yet there is no one here I haven’t known for thirty years, no one I haven’t trusted with my life many times.”

That had to be a weird feeling, knowing you could trust guys with your life but not with your things.

I got a glimmer of why he needed an outsider. A bad apple amongst old comrades. They might cover up, refuse to see the truth, or . . . Who knows? Marines don’t think like people.

“I follow. Go ahead.”

“My infirmity came upon me soon after I returned home. It’s a progressive consumption, apparently. But slow. I seldom get out of my quarters now. But I’ve noticed, this past year, that some things, some of which have been in the family for centuries, have disappeared. Never large, flashy things that would be obvious to any eye. Just trinkets, sometimes more valuable as mementoes than intrinsically. Yet the sum should add to a fair amount by now.”

“I see.” I glanced at the fire. It was time to turn me over so I wouldn’t be underdone on one side.

“Bear with me a few minutes more, Mr. Garrett.”

“Yes sir. Any strangers in the house recently? Any regular visitors?”

“A handful. People off the Hill. Not the sort who would pilfer.”

I didn’t say so but in my thinking the worst of all criminals come off the Hill. Our nobility would steal the coppers off dead men’s eyes. But the General had a point. They wouldn’t steal with their own hands. They’d have somebody do it for them.

“You have an inventory of what’s missing?”

“Would that be useful?”

“Maybe. Somebody steals something, they want to sell it to get money. Right? I know some of the retailers whose wholesalers are people with sticky fingers. Do you want the stuff back or do you just want to know who’s kyping it?”

“The latter step first, Mr. Garrett. Then we’ll consider recovery.” Sudden as a lightning bolt he suffered another spasm. I felt helpless, unable to do anything for him. That was not a good sensation.

He came back but this time he was weaker.

“I’ll have to close this out quickly, Mr. Garrett. I’ll need to rest. Or the next attack may be the last.” He smiled. There were teeth missing behind the smile. “Another reason to make sure you get your fee up front. My heirs might not see fit to pay you.”

I wanted to say something reassuring, like he’d outlive me, but that seemed too cynically a load of manure. I kept my mouth shut. I can do that sometimes, though usually at the wrong time.

“I’d like to get to know you better, Mr. Garrett, but nature has its own priorities. I’ll hire you if you’ll have me for a client. Will you find me my thief? On the terms I stated?”

“No punches pulled? No backing off?”

“Exactly.”

“Yes sir.” I had to force it out. I really was getting lazy. “I’m on it now.”

“Good. Good. Dellwood should be outside. Tell him I want Peters.”

I got up. “Will do, General.” I backed toward the door. Even in his present state the old man retained some of the magnetism that had made him a charismatic commander. I didn’t want to pity him. I really wanted to help him. I wanted to find the villain Black Pete said was trying to kill him.

3

The cool in the hallway felt like high winter in the Arctic. For a second I worried about frostbite.

The General was right about Dellwood. He was there, waiting. The way he did it suggested he’d been scrupulous about not getting so close he might overhear anything. Though I doubted explosions could be heard through that door. I decided I could like the guy in spite of the stick up his spine.

“The General says he wants to see Peters.”

“Very good, sir. I’d better attend to that. If you’ll return to the fountain and wait?”

“Sure. But hold on. What’s wrong with him? He had a couple of pretty fierce attacks while I was in there.”

That stopped him dead. He looked at me, emotion leaking through for once. He loved that old man and he was worried. “Bad spasms, sir?”

“They looked that way to me. But I’m no doc. He cut the interview short because he was afraid another one would be too much for him.”

“I’d better check on him before I do anything else.”

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked again.

“I don’t know, sir. We’ve tried bringing physicians in, but he throws them out when he finds out what they are. He has a morbid fear of doctors. From what they’ve said, I understand that a physician’s care might not do any good. They haven’t done anything but scratch their heads and say they don’t understand it.”

“Good to see you can talk, Dellwood.”

“I believe the General brought you on board, sir. You’re one of the household now.”

I liked that attitude. Most people I meet either stay clammed or tell lies. “I’d like to talk to you some more when you get the time.”

“Yes sir.” He pushed through the General’s door.

I found my way to the fountain. Wasn’t that hard. But I’d become one of the company scouts after Sexton disappeared. I was a highly trained finder of the way. Peters often reminded me how much the Crown had invested in me.

I’d left my bag leaning against the fountain for lack of desire to lug it around before I decided if I was hired. It had seemed safe enough, still as the place was. I mean, I’d visited livelier ruins.

Someone was digging through it when I reached that temple to overstated militarism.

She had her back to me and a mighty fine backside it was. She was tall and slim and brunette. She wore a simple tan shift in imitation peasant style. It probably set somebody back more money than a peasant saw in five years. Her behind wiggled deliciously as she dug. It looked like she’d only gotten started.

I moved out on scout’s tippytoes, stopped four feet behind her, gave her fanny an approving nod, said, “Find anything interesting?”

She whirled.

I started. The face was the same as the one I’d seen earlier but this time it wasn’t timid at all. This face had more lines in it. It was more worldly. That other face had had the placidity, behind timidity, that you see in nuns.

Her eyes flashed. “Who are you?” she demanded, unrepentant. I like my ladies unrepentant about some things, but not about snooping in my stuff.

“Sexton. Who are you? Why are you going through my stuff?”

“How come you’re carrying a portable arsenal?”

“I need it in my work. I answered a couple. Your turn.”

She looked me up and down, raised an eyebrow, looked like she didn’t know if she approved or not. Wound me to the core! Then she snorted and walked away. I’m not the handsomest guy in town but the lovelies don’t usually respond that way. Had to be part of a plan.

I watched her go. She moved well. She exaggerated it a little, knowing she had an audience. She disappeared into the shadows under the west balcony.

“Going to be some strange ones here,” I muttered. I checked my bag. She’d stirred it up but nothing was missing. I’d arrived in time to keep her out of the little padded box with the bottles inside. I double-checked, though, opening it.

There were three bottles, royal blue, emerald green, ruby red. Each weighed about two ounces. They were plunder from a past case. Their contents had been whipped up by a sorcerer. They could get real handy in tight situations. I hoped I didn’t have to use them. I’d brought along more tight-situation stuff than clothing. Clothing washes.

I prowled the hall while I waited for Dellwood. That was like visiting a museum alone. None of the stuff there meant anything to me. Richly storied, all of it, no doubt, but I’ve never been a guy to get excited about history for its own sake.

Dellwood took his time. After half an hour I started eyeballing an old bugle, wondering what would happen if I gave it a couple of toots. Then I spotted the blonde again, watching me from about as far away as she could get and still be in that hall with me. I waved. I’m a friendly kind of guy. She ducked out of sight. A mouse, this one. Dellwood finally showed. I asked, “The General all right?”

“He’s resting, sir. He’ll be fine.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Sergeant Peters will handle the requests you made.” Now he sounded puzzled. “I’m curious, sir. What are you doing here?”

“The General sent for me.”

He looked at me a moment, said, “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you your quarters.” After we’d climbed to the fourth floor east wing and he had me puffing again, he tried another tack. “Will you be staying long?”

“I don’t know.” I hoped not. The place was getting to me already. It was too much a tomb. In the other wing the master was dying and the place seemed to be dying with him. As Dellwood opened a door, I asked, “What will you do after the General passes on?”

“I haven’t given that much thought, sir. I don’t expect him to go soon. He’ll beat this. His ancestors all lived into their eighties and nineties.”

Whistling in the dark. He had no future he could see. The world didn’t have much room for lifers with their best years used up.

Which made me wonder again why anyone in that house would want Stantnor to check out early. Black Pete’s suspicions were improbable, logically.

But logic doesn’t usually come into play when people start thinking about killing other people.

I hadn’t looked at the thing yet. I’d keep an open mind till I’d done some poking and prying and just plain listening.

“What’s the word on meals, Dellwood? I’m not equipped for formal dining.”

“We haven’t dressed since the General took ill, sir. Breakfast is at six, lunch at eleven, in the kitchen. Supper is at five in the dining room, but informally. Guests and staff sit down together, if that presents any problems.”

“Not to me. I’m an egalitarian kind of guy. I think I’m just as good as you are. I missed lunch, eh?” I wasn’t going to be happy here if I had to conform to the native schedule. I see six in the morning only when I haven’t gotten to bed yet. The trouble with morning is that it comes so damned early in the morning.

“I’m sure something can be arranged, this once. I’ll tell Cook we have a newly arrived guest.”

“Thanks. I’ll take a minute to settle in, then get down there.”

“Very well, sir. If anything is not satisfactory, let me know. I’ll see that any problems are corrected.”

He would, too. “Sure. Thanks.” I watched him step out and close the door.

4

I could not imagine things going awry, considering some scenes I’ve endured. Dellwood had installed me in a suite bigger than the ground floor of my house. The room where I stood boasted rosewood wainscotting, mahogany ceiling beams, a wall of bookshelves loaded down, and furniture for entertaining a platoon. A dining table with seats for four. A writing table. Various chairs. Leaded and plain glass windows unfortunately facing north. A carpet some old lady had spent the last twenty years of her life weaving, maybe three hundred years ago. Lamps enough to do my whole house. A chandelier overhead loaded with a gaggle of candles, unlighted at the moment.

This was how the other half lived.

Two doors opened off the big room. I made a guess and pushed through one. What a genius. Hit the bedroom first time.

It was of a piece with the rest. I’d never met a bed so big and soft.

I looked around for hiding places, squirreled some of my equipment good, some so it could be found easily and the rest maybe overlooked. I kept the most important stuff on my person. I figured I’d better hit the kitchen while the staff were still understanding. After I stoked the bodily fires I could wander around like an old ghost.

In better times the kitchen probably boasted a staff of a dozen, with full-time specialists like bakers and pastry cooks. When I dropped in, there was only one person present, an ancient breed woman whose non-human half appeared to be troll. Wrinkled, shrunken, stooped, she was still a foot taller than me and a hundred pounds heavier. Even at her age she could probably break me over her knee—if I stood still and let her lay hands on me.

“You the new one?” she growled when I walked in.

“That’s me. Name’s Sexton. Mike Sexton.”

“Name’s mud you don’t show on time after this, young’un. Sit.” She pointed. I didn’t argue. I sat at a table three-quarters buried in used utensils and stoneware. Plunk! She slammed something down in front of me.

“You served with the General, too?”

“Smartass, eh? You want to eat? Eat. Don’t try to be a comedian.”

“Right. Just making conversation.” I looked at my plate. All kinds of chunks of something I didn’t recognize mixed up in slimy sauce, piled on rice. I approached it with the trepidation I usually reserve for the stuff they serve at my friend Morley’s place, the city’s only vegetarian restaurant open to a mixed clientele.

“If I want conversation, I’ll ask for it. Look around here. It look like I got time to waste jacking my jaw? Been trying to carry it on my own since they threw Candy out on his ass. I keep telling the old skinflint, I need another pair of hands. Think he’ll listen? Hell, no! All he sees is he’s saving a couple marks a week.”

I took a bite here, a bite there. There seemed to be mussels and mushrooms and a couple things I couldn’t identify, and all damned good. “This is excellent,” I said.

“Where you been eating? It’s slop. I got no helper, I don’t got time to fix anything right.” She started tossing pots at a sink, sending sprays of water flying. “Barely got time to get ready for the next feeding. These hogs, you think they know the difference? Feed them hot sawdust mush, they wouldn’t know it.”

Maybe not. But I’d had old Dean cooking for me for a while and I knew good food when I bit it. “How many do you have to take care of?”

“Eighteen. Counting myself. Bloody army. What do you care, Mr. Nineteen and straw that broke the camel’s back?”

“That many? The place is like a haunted house. I’ve seen the General, Dellwood, and you, and some old boy who was stoking the fireplace in the General’s study.”

“Kaid.”

“And two women. Where are the rest? On maneuvers?”

“Wise ass, eh? Where did you see two women? That ass Harcourt sneaking one of his floozies in here again? Hell. I hope he is. I just hope he is. I’ll have the old man put him on KP for a year. Get this cesspool cleaned out. What the hell you doing here, anyway? We ain’t had nobody new here for two years. No honest-to-goodness guests in a year and a half, just in and outs from uptown, their noses in the air like they don’t squat to shit like everybody else.”

Whew! “To tell the truth, Miss . . . ?” She didn’t take the hook. “To tell the truth, I’m not quite sure. The General sent for me. Said he wanted to hire me. But he had some kind of attack before . . . ”

She melted. The vinegar drained out in two seconds. “How bad is it? Maybe I’d better go see.”

“Dellwood’s taken care of it. Says he just needs to rest. He got himself overwrought. This fellow Harcourt. He has a habit of bringing girlfriends home?”

“Not since a couple years back. What the hell you asking all the questions for? Ain’t none of your damned business what we do or who we do it with.”

She had a thought. She stopped dead still, stepped away from the sink, turned, laid a first-class glower on me. “Or is it your business?”

I didn’t say. I tried to slide around it by offering her my empty plate. “Wouldn’t be a little more of that, would there? Just to fill a couple empty spots?”

“It is your business. The old man has another fantasy. Thinks somebody’s out to get him. Or somebody’s robbing him.” She shook her head. “You’re wasting your time. Or maybe not. Long as he’s paying you, it don’t matter if you find something, does it? Hell. Probably better if you don’t. You can rob him yourself, taking money for nothing. Till the fantasy wears off.”

I was confused, but covered it. “Somebody’s been robbing the General?”

“Nobody’s robbing him. The old boy ain’t got a pot to pee in, not counting this damned stone barn. And it’s too damned big to carry off. Anyway, if somebody was robbing him I wouldn’t tell you word one. Not no outsider. I don’t never say nothing to no outsiders. They’re all a bunch of con artists.”

“Commendable attitude.” I wiggled my plate suggestively.

“I got my hands in dishwater up to my elbows and you don’t look like you got no broken legs. Get it yourself.”

“Be happy to if I knew where.”

She made an exasperated noise, made allowance for the fact that I was new. “On the damned stove. Rice in the steel pot, stew in the iron kettle. I worry about the old boy. These fancies . . . More and more all the time. Must be the sickness. Touching him. Though he always did think somebody was trying to do him out of something.”

Wouldn’t say a word to an outsider. I was proud of her. “It isn’t possible somebody might actually be robbing him? Like they say, even paranoids get persecuted.”

“Who? You tell me that, Mr. Smartass Snooper. Ain’t nobody in this whole damned place wouldn’t wrestle thunder-lizards for him. Half of them would take the disease for him if they could.”

I didn’t make the point, but people work kinky deals with their consciences. I had no trouble imagining a man willing to die for the General being equally willing to steal from him. The very willingness to serve could set off a chain of justifications making theft sound completely reasonable.

She’d figured me out in fifteen minutes. How long would it be before word spread? “You ever have a problem with pixies or brownies?” The countryside suffered periodic infestations, like termites or mice. The little people are fond of baubles and have no respect for property.

“We had any around here, I’d put them to work.”

I figured she would. “Dellwood hinted that the General has a prejudice against doctors. In his condition I’d think he’d be ready to try anything.”

“You don’t know that boy. He’s got a stubborn streak a yard wide. He by damned made up his mind when the missus died, he wasn’t never going to trust no quack again. And he stuck.”

“Uhm?”

She wouldn’t talk to no outsider. Not her, no siree! “See, he loved that girl, Miss Tiffany. Such a lovely child she was. Broke all our hearts when it happened. They laughed at him, he was so much older than her. But he was her heart’s slave, him that never loved a thing before. Then Miss Jennifer came. She was in labor so long. He couldn’t stand to see her in pain. He brought in doctors from the city. After Miss Jennifer finally came, one damned fool gave Miss Tiffany a damned anticoagulant infusion. Thought he was giving her a sleeping potion.”

A big mistake and an especially stupid one, sounded like. “She bled to death?”

“She did. Might have anyway. She was a frail, pale thing, but you couldn’t never convince him.”

Mistakes that cost lives aren’t easy to understand or forgive, but they happen. Despite what they want us mortals to believe, doctors are human. And where there are human beings, there’s human error. It’s inevitable.

When doctors make mistakes, people hurt.

Easy for me to be understanding. I hadn’t known and loved the General’s wife.

“Changed his whole life, that did. Went off and spent the rest of it in the Cantard, taking out his grief on the Venageti.” And when generals make mistakes, lots of people hurt. “You going to hang out here all day, youngster, you better roll up your sleeves and get washing. Round here we don’t got no place for drones.”

I was tempted. She had plenty to say. Still . . .

“Maybe later. If it looks like I’m wasting my time, I might as well wash dishes.”

She snorted. “Thought that would get rid of you. Never knowed a man yet with balls enough to wade into a mountain of dirty dishes of his own free will.”

“The lunch was great. Thank you, Miss . . . ?”

Didn’t work this time, either.

5

That fountain in the great hall was a good hub from which to launch exploratory forays. I perched on the surround, digesting Cook’s remarks. I had a premonition. I would get intimate with dishwater before I exhausted that vein of stubborn silence.

I had that creepy feeling you get when you sense somebody watching you. I looked around casually.

There she was. The blonde again, drifting in the shadows, bold enough now to be on the same floor with me. I pretended not to notice. I gave it a minute, got up, stretched. She ducked out of sight. I moved her way pretending I had no idea she was there.

She lit out like a scared pheasant. I bolted after her. “Jennifer!”

I ducked between pillars . . . Where did she go? I didn’t see anywhere she could run. But she wasn’t there.

Spooky!

‘”Hey! Mike. What are you doing?”

I jumped about five feet. “Peters. Don’t sneak up like that. This place has got me believing in spooks already. Where the hell is everybody?”

Peters looked puzzled. “Everybody? Working.”

That made sense. You could lose a lot more than eighteen people in that barn and on those grounds. “You’d think I’d run into somebody once in a while.”

“It does get lonely at times.” He smiled. That made two times in two days. A record. “Thought you might want a tour.”

“I can find my way. I was a scout in the Marines, you know.”

His smile vanished. He looked at me like the old Black Pete. Like I wasn’t bright enough to tie my own shoes. He jerked his head toward the back of the hall, the north end, which was a wall of leaded glass with fifty furious combats going. There was a door back there.

Hey. Mom Garrett didn’t raise many idiots. I got it. “I could use a look at the grounds, though, and somebody to tell me what I’m seeing.”

He relaxed some, did a slick about-face and marched. I hup-two-threed behind him. I didn’t feel a bit of nostalgia for the bad old days.

Peters didn’t say anything till we were out of earshot of the house, clear of the formal garden behind it, away from cover where eavesdroppers might lurk. “You saw the old man. What do you think?”

“He’s in bad shape.”

“You know any poisons that could do that to him?”

I gave it an honest think. “No. But I’m no expert. I know a guy who is. But he’d have to see the General.” Morley Dotes knows whatever there is to know about doing in your fellow man. Or elf, him being a breed with more dark-elfin than human blood.

“I don’t think I could swing that. One outsider here has the place in an uproar already.”

“Yeah. It’s a regular busted-up beehive.” Our walk to isolation hadn’t shown me a single body in motion. “It was just a suggestion. You want to know something, you get the answer from somebody who knows.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“The business about the thefts. Is it real? The cook thinks it’s all in the General’s imagination.”

“It’s not. She’d think that. Back when we first came here he did have a spell when he imagined things. She doesn’t get out of the kitchen much and she has a few loose threads herself. Most of the time she doesn’t know what year it is.”

“She tried to draft me as kitchen help.”

“She would. Gods! I remember your cooking.”

“I remember what I had to work with. Muskrats and cattail roots. And bugs for garnish.”

He grunted, almost smiled again.

“Don’t tell me. You can’t have fond memories of those days.”

“No, Garrett. Even lifers aren’t that crazy. I don’t miss that part.” He shuddered.

“Eh? What?”

“Bad rumor. They may call up the veterans to run Glory Mooncalled down.”

I laughed.

“What’s so damned funny?”

“Best joke I’ve heard in weeks. You know how many people that takes in? Every human male in the population over twenty-five. You think any of them would go without a fuss? A call-up like that would start a revolution.”

“Maybe. You think it could be poison?”

“I suppose. Assume it is. Speculate.”

“I don’t know anything about poisons. How could it be given to him?”

I’m not an expert, but I have a professional interest and keep my ears open when such things are discussed. “It could be in his food or drink. It could be dusted into his bed so it would seep through his skin. It could even be in the air he breathes. Looking for ‘how’ can be a dead end unless you know ‘what.’ Better to look at the people. Who has access?”

“Everybody, one way or another.”

“Take it a step farther. Who’d profit? If somebody’s killing him, that somebody has to have a reason. Right?”

He grunted. “Obviously whoever’s doing it believes he has. I’ve been trying to figure that out from the beginning. And I can’t come up with one.”

I didn’t have any trouble. “What’s the estate worth? Who does it go to?”

“Doesn’t make sense. Jennifer gets half. The other half gets divided amongst the rest of us.”

“Give me a value in gold marks. Just a guess. Then ask yourself what some people might do for a share of that.”

“Three million for the house?” He shrugged. “A million for the contents. Two or three million for the real estate. He was offered three for the two north sections last year. He was tempted because he’s strapped for cash and he wants to set Jennifer up so she’s fixed for life, no matter what she does.”

“Three million for just part of the property?”

“Somebody wanted the land near the city. But the offer was withdrawn because he dithered. They bought a tract from the Hillmans instead. For less money.”

“No bad feelings?”

“Not that I heard.”

I did some rough division in my head. I came up with around a hundred thousand marks each for the minority heirs. I knew guys who’d cut a hundred thousand throats for that kind of money. So there was a motive—assuming somebody was in a hurry to get his share.

“Everybody know they’re in the will?”

“Sure. The old man used to make a big deal of it. How if you didn’t toe the mark you blew your share.”

Ha! “Cook mentioned a Candy . . . ”

“Not him. He’s long gone. He wouldn’t have the balls, either. He wasn’t even human. Wasn’t in the will, either. Wasn’t one of the guys the old man brought home with him. He was one of the crew who managed the place while the General was in the Cantard.”

“She mentioned a Harcourt who got in trouble for bringing girlfriends home.”

“Harcourt?” He frowned. “I guess he got fed up with what he thought were chickenshit rules. He just took off about six months back. The old man cut him out. He’d know that. So there’s nothing for him to gain. Let alone we’d see him around here.”

“We may have to back off and go at this from another angle, Sarge.”

“Eh?”

“What have I got to go on? Your feelings. But every time I ask you a question you make it sound more like there’s nobody who’d want him dead. And nobody who’d profit from it since everybody’s getting a cut anyway. We can’t hang up a solid motive. And means and opportunity are limited.”

“You’re sneaking up on something.”

“I’m wondering if maybe he isn’t just dying of stomach cancer. Wondering if maybe you shouldn’t hire a doctor instead of me till you know what’s killing him.”

He didn’t answer for a few minutes. I was talked out. We walked. He brooded and I studied the grounds. Somebody had farmed the fields last summer. There was nobody in them now. I glanced at the sky. They’d thrown on a few more slabs of lead and added icicles to the breeze. Winter was coming back.

“I tried, Garrett. Two months ago. Somebody leaked it to the old man. The doc never got through the front door.”

The way he said “somebody” I guessed he knew who. I asked.

He didn’t want to say. “Who, Sarge? We can’t pick and choose our suspects.”

“Jennifer. She was in on the plot but she defected. She’s a strange girl. Her big goal in life is to win some gesture of love and approval. And the old man doesn’t know how. He’s scared of her. She grew up while he was away. It doesn’t help that she looks a lot like her mother. Her mother died—”

“Cook told me that story.”

“She would. That old hag knows everything and tells anyone who’ll listen. You ought to move into the kitchen.”

We walked some more, headed south now, circling the house.

Peters said, “Maybe we have a communication problem. The deeper you get in the more you’ll think the mess is imaginary. The old man has crazy spells. He does think people are out to get him when they’re not. That’s what makes this diabolical. Unless somebody sticks a knife in him in front of everybody, nobody’s going to believe he’s in danger.”

I grunted. I had a friend, Pokey Pigotta, in the same line as me. He’s dead now. But once he’d had a case that worked that way. A crazy old woman with a lot of money, always down with imaginary illnesses and besieged by imaginary enemies. Pokey discounted her fears. Her son did her in. Pokey was haunted by that one. “I’ll keep an open mind.”

“That’s all I ask. Stick with it. Don’t let it get to you.”

“Sure. But we could shortcut everything if we could get a few experts in.”

“I said I’d try. Don’t hold your breath. It was hard enough selling you.”

We continued our circuit of the grounds. At one point we passed near a graveyard. “Family plot?” I asked.

“For three hundred years.”

I glanced at the house. It brooded down on us from that point. “It doesn’t look that old.”

“It isn’t. There was an earlier house. Check the outbuildings in back. You can still see some of its foundations. They tore it down for materials to build the outbuildings after the new house went up.”

I supposed I’d have to give them the once-over. You have to go through all the motions. You have to leave no stone unturned, though already, intuitively, I was inclined to think the answer lay inside the big house—if there was an answer.

Peters read my mind. “If I’m fooling myself and we’ve just got an old man dying, I want to know that, too. Check?”

“Check.”

“I’ve spent more time with you than I should. I’d better get back to work.”

“Where do I find you if I need you?”

He chuckled. “I’m like horse apples. I’m everywhere. Catch as catch can. A problem you’ll have with everybody, especially during poacher season. Cook’s the only one who stays in one place.”

We walked toward the house, passing through a small orchard of unidentifiable fruit trees with a white gazebo at its center, climbed a slope, went up the steps to the front door. Peters went inside. I paused to survey the Stantnor domains. The cold wind gnawed my cheeks. The overcast left the land colorless and doleful, like old tin. I wondered if it was losing life with its master.

But there would be a spring for the land. I doubted there would be for the old man. Unless I found me a poisoner.

6

I heard Black Pete’s footsteps fading as I stepped into the great hall. The light was dimming there. The place seemed more deserted and gloomy than ever. I went to the fountain, watched our hero work out on his dragon, thought about what to do next. Explore the house? Hell. I was cold already. Why not look at those outbuildings and be done with it?

I felt eyes on me as I moved. Already habituated, I checked the nearest shadows. The blonde wasn’t there. Nobody was, anywhere. Then I glanced up.

I caught a flicker on the third floor balcony, east side. Somebody ducking out of sight. Who? One of the majority I hadn’t yet met? Why they wouldn’t want to be seen was a puzzle. I’d see everyone sooner or later.

I took myself out the back door.

Immediately behind the house lay a formal garden sort of thing that I’d paid no heed before. Peters had wanted to get away where we could talk. I gave it a look now.

There was a lot of fancy stonework, statues, fountains, pools that had been drained because at that time of year water tends to freeze. Ice would break the pool walls. There were hedges, shaped trees, beds for spring and summer plantings. It could be impressive in season. Right then it just seemed abandoned and haunted by old sorrows.

I paused at the hedge bounding the north end of the garden, looked back. The vista seemed a ghost of another time.

At least one someone was watching me from a third floor window in the west wing.

Keep that in mind, Garrett. Whatever you do, wherever you go, somebody is going to be watching.

Twenty feet behind the hedge was a line of poplars. They were there to mask the outbuildings, so the practical side of life wouldn’t offend the eyes of those who lived in the house. The rich are that way. They don’t want to be reminded that their comfort requires sweaty drudge labor.

There were half a dozen outbuildings of various shapes and sizes. Stone was the main structural material, though it wasn’t stone that matched that in the big house. The stable was obvious. Somebody was at work there. I heard a hammer pounding. There was a second structure for livestock, presumably cattle, maybe dairy cattle. It was nearest me and had that smell. The rest of the buildings, including a greenhouse off to my right, had the look of protracted neglect. Way to the left was a long, low building that looked like a barracks. It also looked like nobody had used it for years. I decided to start with the greenhouse.

Not much to see there except that someone had spent a fortune on glass and then hadn’t bothered to keep the place up. A few panes were broken. The framework that had been white once needed paint desperately. The door stood open a foot and sagged on its hinges. I had trouble pushing it back enough to get inside.

No one had been in there for a long time. The place had gone to weeds. The only animal life I saw was a scroungy, orange, feral cat. She headed for cover when she saw me.

The building next on the left was small, solid, and very much in use. It turned out to be a wellhouse, which explained why it looked like it handled a lot of traffic. A place this size would consume a lot of water—though I’d have thought they’d pipe it in from a reservoir.

The stable was the next building over. I gave it a skip. I’d talk to whoever was there after I finished snooping. Next over was a smaller building filled with a jungle of tools and farm implements with an air of long neglect. There was another cat in there, a lot of mice, and from the smell, a regiment of bats. There’s nothing like the stink of lots of bats.

Next up was the barn and, yes, that’s what it was. Bottom level for the animals, dairy and beef. Top level for hay, straw, and feed. Nobody around but the cows and a few more cats. I figured there must be owls, too, because I didn’t smell bats. The place needed maintenance. The cows weren’t friendly, unfriendly, or even curious.

The day was getting on. The gloom was getting thick. I figured I’d better get on with it and save the detail work for later. Supper would be coming up soon.

The building I’d thought looked like a barracks was probably for seasonal help. It was about eighty yards long, had maybe fifteen doors. The first I looked behind showed me a large, dusty bunkroom. The next opened on smaller quarters divided into three rooms, a bigger one immediately inside and two half its size behind it. The next several doors opened on identical arrangements. I guessed these were apartments for workers with families. Trouble was, there was a lot of waste space between doors, space unaccounted for.

The far end of the barracks had a kitchen the size of the bunkroom. Its door was on the other side of the building. Glancing along that face, I saw more doors, which explained the missing space. The apartments faced alternate directions. I stepped into the kitchen, a windowless, cheerless place that would have been depressing at the best of times. I left the door propped open for light.

There was little to see but dust and cobwebs and cooking utensils that hadn’t been touched in years. Another place nobody had visited in a long time. I was surprised the stuff was still lying around. TunFaire and its environs have no shortage of thieves. All this stuff had some market value.

A gold mine that hadn’t been discovered?

The door slammed shut.

“Damned wind,” I muttered, and edged my way through the darkness, trying to remember what was lying in ambush between it and me.

I heard somebody secure the rusty hasp.

Not the wind. Somebody who didn’t want to be my friend.

Not a good situation, Garrett. This place was far from where anybody had any business. The walls were thick stone. I could do a lot of yelling and nobody would hear. The door was the only way out and the only source of light.

I found the door, ran my hands over it, pushed gently, snorted. I stepped back a few feet and kicked hard.

The hasp ripped out of the dry, ancient wood. I charged through with a ready knife, saw nobody. I roared around the end of the barracks. And still saw nobody.

Damn! I leaned against the building and gave it a think. Something was going on, even if it wasn’t what Black Pete thought.

Once I settled down, I went back to the kitchen door and looked for tracks. There were signs that somebody had been around, but the light was so poor, I couldn’t do anything with them.

So. Nothing to do about it now. Might as well go to dinner and see who was surprised to see me.

7

I was late. I should have explored the house. I didn’t know where we’d eat so I went to the kitchen. I waited there till Cook turned up. She gave me a high-power glower. “What you doing in here?”

“Waiting to find out where we eat?”

“Fool.” She loaded up. “Grab an armful and come on.”

I did both. She shoved through swinging doors into a big pantry, marched through that and out another swinging door.

The dining room was a dining room. The kind where a guy can entertain three hundred of his closest friends. Most of it was dark. Everybody was seated at one corner table. The decor was standard for the house, armor and edged steel.

“There,” Cook said. I presumed she meant the empty place. I settled my load on an unused part of the table, sat.

Wasn’t much of a crowd. Dellwood and Peters and the brunette I’d caught rifling my duffel bag, plus three guys I hadn’t met. And Cook, who planted herself across from me. The General couldn’t make it, apparently. There weren’t any other places set.

The girl and guys I hadn’t met looked me over. The men looked like retired Marines. Surprise, surprise. The girl looked good. She’d changed into her vamping clothes.

Garrett, you dog . . . The thought fled. This one gave off something sour. She was radiating the come-and-get-it and my reaction was to back off. Here was trouble on the hoof. What was it Morley said? Don’t never fool around with a woman who’s crazier than you are?

Maybe I was growing up.

Sure. And tomorrow morning pigs would be swooping around like swallows.

I didn’t plan to outgrow that for about another six hundred years.

Peters said, “This is Mike Sexton. He was with me in the islands about ten years back. Mike, Cook.” He indicated the troll-breed woman.

“We’ve met.”

“Miss Jennifer, the General’s daughter.”

“We’ve also met.” I rose and reached across, offering my hand. “Didn’t get the chance before. You had both of yours in my duffel bag.”

Cook chuckled. Jennifer looked at me like she wondered if I’d taste better roasted or fried.

“You’ve met Dellwood. Next to him is Cutter Hawkes.”

Hawkes was too far off to shake. I nodded. He nodded. He was a lean rail of a character with hard gray eyes and a lantern jaw, middle fifties, tough. He looked more like a fire-and-brimstone prophet than an old soldier. Like a guy with the sense of humor of a rock.

“Art Chain.” The next guy nodded. He had a monster black mustache going gray, not much hair on top, and was thirty pounds over his best weight. His eyes were beads of obsidian. Another character who was allergic to laughter. He didn’t bother to nod. He was so happy to see me he could just shit.

“Freidel Kaid.” Kaid was older than the General, maybe into his seventies. Lean, slow, one glass eye and the other one that didn’t work too good. His stare was disconcerting because the glass eye didn’t track. But he didn’t look like a man who had spent his whole life trying not to smile. In fact, he put one on for me when Peters said his name. He was the guy I’d seen stoking the fire in the General’s quarters.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sexton.”

“Likewise, Mr. Kaid.” See? I can be a gentleman. Rumors to the contrary are sour grapes and envy.

Jennifer didn’t give me a chance to start eating. “What are you doing here?”

“The General sent for me.” Everybody was interested in me. Nice to be the center of attention sometimes. I have to set the Dead Man on fire just to get him to listen.

‘”Why?”

“Ask him. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

Her mouth pruned up. Her eyes shot sparks. They were interesting eyes, hungry eyes, but eyes that had been brushed by a darkness. I couldn’t tell if they were green or not. The light wasn’t good enough. An odd one. Maybe unique. A one in a million beauty and not the least attractive.

“What sort of work do you do, Mr. Sexton?” old Kaid asked.

“You could call me a diplomat.”

“A diplomat?” Surprised.

“Sure. I straighten things out. I get people to change their minds. Kind of like the Corps, only on a small scale. Personal service.”

Peters shot me a warning look.

I said, “I enjoy good conversation as much as the next guy. But I’m hungry. And you folks got a jump on me. How about you let me catch up?”

They all looked at me oddly. Cook more so than the others. She was wondering if maybe she’d missed the mark with her earlier guess.

I stoked the fires some, then asked, “Where’s everybody else, Sarge?”

Peters frowned. “We’re all here. Except Tyler and Wayne. They have the night off.”

Kaid said, “Snake.”

“Oh. Right. Snake Bradon. But he never comes in the house. Hell. He may not be around anymore. I haven’t seen him lately. Anybody seen Snake?”

Heads shook.

Cook said, “He come for supplies day before yesterday.”

I didn’t want to ask too many questions too soon so I let Snake Bradon slide. I’d get Black Pete alone sometime and get a rundown on everybody. I said, “That doesn’t add up. I heard there were eighteen in the house besides me.”

Everybody looked puzzled except Cook. Chain said, “Ain’t been that many people around here in years. You got us guys, Cook, Tyler, Wayne, and Snake trying to keep this barn from falling apart.”

I ate some. I don’t know what it was. As good as lunch but less identifiable. Cook was fond of stuff she could do in a pot.

After a while the silence got to me. I had a feeling it wasn’t just for my benefit. These people wouldn’t talk much more without me there. “What about the blonde girl? Who’s she?”

That got them looking perplexed. Peters asked, “What blonde?”

I looked at him for about ten seconds. Maybe he wasn’t yanking my leg. “About twenty, gorgeous. As tall as Jennifer, even slimmer, hair almost white that hangs to her waist. Blue eyes, I think. Timid as a mouse. Dressed in white. I caught her watching me several times today.” A recollection. “Dellwood. I saw her when you were there. You told me she was Jennifer.”

Dellwood made a face. “Yes sir. But I didn’t see her. I assumed it was Miss Jennifer.”

“I didn’t wear white today,” Jennifer said. “What kind of dress was it?”

I tried my best, which isn’t bad. The Dead Man’s big accomplishment is that he’s taught me to observe and recollect.

Jennifer said, “I don’t have anything like that,” trying to sound bored and failing. They all exchanged glances. I took it none of them knew who I was talking about.

I asked, “Who’s taking care of the General? If you’re all here?”

“He’s sleeping, sir,” Dellwood said. “Cook and I will wake him for supper after we’re finished.”

“Nobody with him?”

“He doesn’t want to be coddled, sir.”

“You sure as hell ask a lot of question,” Chain said.

“A habit I’ve got. I’m working on it. There any beer around the place? I could use some dessert.”

Dellwood explained. “The General doesn’t approve of drink, sir. He doesn’t permit it on the property.”

No wonder they were such a cheerful bunch. I looked at Peters hard. “You didn’t mention that.” If he’d done his homework, he would have known I liked my beer. He smiled and winked. The son of a bitch.

“Not a bad meal, Cook. Whatever it was. You need a hand clearing away?”

The others looked at me like I was crazy. She said, “You ask for trouble, you get it. Grab a load and follow me.”

I did. And by the time I got back for a second load, the rats had scattered.

I was going to have to ask Peters about the disparity between Cook’s head count and everyone else’s.

8

After supper I wandered up to my quarters. As I approached the door, digging for the key Dellwood had left in the primitive lock, I noticed the door was a quarter inch ajar. So.

I wasn’t surprised. Not after Jennifer’s bold peek into my duffel bag and the trick at the old workers’ barracks.

I paused. Go ahead like the cavalry? Or exercise a little caution? Caution didn’t go with the image I wanted to project. But it did contribute to an extended life. And nobody was looking.

I dropped to my knees by the doorframe, examined the lock. There were a few fine scratches on the old brass plate surrounding the keyhole. As I said, a primitive piece of hardware, pickable by anyone with patience. I leaned forward to see what I could glim through the keyhole.

Nothing. It was dark in there. I’d left a lamp burning. Trap?

If so, a dumb one. Especially not getting the door all the way shut. These old boys weren’t pros but I didn’t see them making that basic a mistake. And if not a trap, but just a search, I doubted they’d snuff the lamp. That was a dead giveaway.

The word disinformation trotted through my mind. From the spy game. Provide not just false information but more information than necessary, most of it untrustworthy, so that all information received came under the shadow of doubt.

I backed off, leaned against a wall, nodded to myself. Yeah. That felt like a good intuition. I was going to be allowed to find out all kinds of things, most of which were untrue, useless, or misleading. Hard to put a puzzle together when you’ve got three times too many pieces.

Which still left me faced with a decision what to do right now. It was still possible there was some clumsy idiot hiding in the dark waiting to whack me. So why not play the game right back? The hall was a good twelve feet wide, oversize like everything else in that house, and cluttered up with the usual hardware. Not twenty feet from me was a suit of armor. I got it and lugged it over in front of the door, pushed it up close, backed off, snuffed the nearest hall lamps so whoever was inside wouldn’t see anything but a silhouette. Then I got behind the tin suit, gave the door a nudge, walked the armor ahead a couple of feet, stopped like I was startled.

Nothing happened. I backed out and got one of the hall lamps and took it inside.

Nobody there but me and my decoy. I checked the closets and bedroom and dressing room. Nobody there and nothing obviously disturbed. If the place had been tossed, it had been done by an expert so good he’d noticed and replaced the little giveaways I’d rigged.

So what did we have here? Somebody had gone to the trouble of picking the lock just to snuff a lamp?

I closed the door, patted the armor’s shoulder. “Somebody’s playing games, old buddy. I think I’ll let you stick around.”

I lugged it over and shoved it into a cloak closet just big enough to contain it, lighted my lamps, took the hall lamp back, lighted the lamps there, went inside, locked up, sat down at the writing table to let my dinner digest.

Didn’t work too well. I need a beer or two to get the most out of those occasions. I had to do something about the shortage. In fact, it might be a good idea to vanish for a while and consult some experts.

There was ink and paper and what not in the drawer under the table. I got it out and started making notes. I put down the names of everyone I’d met and hadn’t, and a mystery woman to the side. Peters, Dellwood, the General, Cook, Jennifer. Hawkes, Chain, and Kaid. Tyler and Wayne, who had the night off, and somebody named Snake Bradon, who was antisocial and wouldn’t come in the house. Somebody named Candy who, theoretically, didn’t count because he’d been fired long ago. And Harcourt, who used to sneak his girlfriends in, but who had left six months ago.

Eighteen people here, according to Cook. By my count, eleven, plus the mystery blonde. We had us what the Marines call a manpower shortfall. Someone tapped on the door. “Yeah?”

“Peters, Mike.” I let him in. “What’s up?”

“I brought you a list of the missing stuff. Can’t guarantee it’s complete. Not the kind of stuff you see everyday and notice is gone right away.” He handed me a wad of papers. I sat down and looked it over.

“This is a lot of stuff.” And all small. Each item had a guessed value noted. Stuff like gold medals, old jewelry belonging to Stantnor women long dead, silver serviceware disdained by rough, tough ex-Marines, decorative weapons.

“If you want, I can go through the house room by room and get a better count. Trouble is, it’s hard to tell what’s gone because there isn’t anybody who knows what all belongs.”

“Don’t seem worth the trouble. Unless you could find out about something that could be traced.” Little on the list fit that description. The thief had shown restraint.

Even so, he’d gotten enough so the bottom line made my eyes bug. “Twenty-two thousand marks?”

“Based on my best guess at the intrinsic value of metal and gems. I assume there’d be a big knockdown at a fence.”

“There would be, partly offset by artistic value. A lot of this don’t look like the junk that gets melted down.”

“Maybe.”

“Are we committed to finding the thief?” I was, that being the commission I’d accepted from the General. I was fishing for Black Pete’s feelings.

“Yes. The old man may not have long. I don’t want him going off burdened by knowing somebody got away with betraying him.”

“Right. Then what I’ll do is subcontract a search for the fence. Sometimes it helps to come back at a thief from the other end. Work me up a description of four or five outstanding items and I’ll have somebody try to find them.”

“You’ll have to pay for that?”

“Yes. You going to squeeze the General’s coppers?”

He smiled. “I shouldn’t. But I’m not used to not having to watch every one. Anything you need?”

“I need to know more about the people here.” I looked at my list. “Counting three guys I haven’t met and not counting my ghost lady, I come up with eleven names. Cook tells me eighteen. Where’re the the other seven?”

“I told you she has some loose threads. She’s been here since they built the first place—literally—and she never quite knows what year it is. When we first came here from the Cantard there were eighteen people, counting her and Jennifer. More before the old man finished dismissing the old staff. Now eleven is right.”

“Where did the others go?”

“Sam and Tark just up and died on us. Wollack got on the wrong end of a bull when we were breeding cows and got himself gored and trampled. The others just drifted away. They got fed up, I guess, hung around less and less, then just didn’t come back.”

I leaned forward, got a fresh sheet of paper, divided five million by two and gave two and a half mil to Jennifer, then divided two and a half by sixteen and came up with a hundred fifty-six thousand marks and change.

Not bad. And I never knew anybody who would walk on a hundred fifty thousand, gold or silver.

I did some more math. Nine into two and a half million came out two hundred seventy-seven thousand and change. Damned near double your money.

Was there something else going on here?

I didn’t mention it. It was something to keep in mind, though.

“You onto something?” Peters asked.

“I doubt it.”

Time for some footwork. “Having a little trouble making sense of things. There any way we can find out where those four men are now? Also, I’m going to need to know more about the General’s bequeathal arrangements.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“It’s a large estate. You said he used his bequests as a hammer. Maybe he ran those guys off. Maybe one of them might be trying to get even, either by doing the stealing or slipping him poison.”

“You’ve got me there.” He looked it.

“Two things, then. A copy of the will. And find out if there was a clash between the General and any of those four.”

“You don’t really think they’d be sneaking back?”

I didn’t, no. I thought they were dead. With my confidence in human decency aroused, I was sure somebody was playing a game of last one left—and doing such a damned good job, nobody else was suspicious. But . . . If somebody was, then that somebody was innocent of trying to murder the old man. That somebody would want to keep the General healthy while the field was narrowed. That somebody might even bring in an outside specialist . . . presuming he had a genuine cause for concern.

“Anyone have a spare key or master key for my room?”

That caught him from the blind side. “Dellwood. Why?”

“Somebody picked the lock and got in between the time I left for supper and the time I came back here.”

“Why would . . . ?”

“Hey. That’s a petty one compared to why would somebody want to kill the General. If that somebody exists he might be real nervous about me. What did you all do when you split up after supper?” I was going to play logical puzzle. Eliminate me and Cook because I didn’t do it and she was with me. Take Dellwood off the hook because he didn’t need to pick locks. Peters because he knew about me already. Eliminate anybody who was with them the whole time . . .

“Dellwood would have gone to get the General up and ready for dinner. I assume Jennifer went with him. She usually does. She stays till Cook brings his food and helps him eat if he can’t manage himself. I was in my quarters writing up the list from notes.”

“Uhm.” I thought a minute. “I do have one problem with this, Sarge. And that’s a reason for being here. I need to ask questions. I need to find loose strings I can pull on. Kind of hard to do that when I don’t have a good excuse. Cook’s already told me I’m too nosy.”

“I suppose. I had hopes but I didn’t really think you could manage without giving yourself away.”

“How many people know about the missing trinkets? As opposed to how many know you think somebody’s trying to kill the General? Why not tell the truth? Say the old man hired me to find out who’s stealing from him. They might even find it amusing if they think he’s imagining it. And the would-be assassin should relax. The others might open up after I convince them somebody is stealing from the old man. Right?”

“I suppose.” He didn’t like it, though.

“Figure out a way to let it get out. So everybody knows but it seems like I don’t know they know. Maybe joke about the General having another fantasy.”

“All right. Anything else?”

“No. I’m going to turn in. I’m going to roll out early and make a run into the city to put somebody on the track of the stolen goodies.”

“Is that a hint?”

It was. “I didn’t think of it that way. But I guess it is.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, then.” He went out.

I locked the door behind him, returned to the writing table.

Seemed to me there might be three puzzles here: who was stealing from the General, who was trying to kill him, and who was eliminating his heirs. It seemed reasonable to suppose that each thing—if any were fact—would be going on independent of the others, since the thefts were petty compared to murder and killing the General wouldn’t be in the interest of whoever was trying to enlarge his share of the estate.

I could be up to my neck in villains.

I did hit the sack right away. I doubt Peters believed I would, because he knew the hours I keep. But I did need sleep and I had plans for the wee hours of the morning.

9

At home I usually control my internal clock. Go to sleep when I want, wake up when I want, give or take ten minutes. I didn’t leave the clock behind. I woke right on time.

And was aware of a presence before I opened my eyes. I don’t know how. Some sound so soft I didn’t catch it consciously. Some subtle scent. Maybe just a sixth sense. Whatever, I knew somebody was there.

I was on my left side, facing the wall opposite the door, sunk so deep in eiderdown, I couldn’t move fast if you branded me. I tried sneaky, faking a slow rollover in my sleep.

I didn’t fool, anybody. All I saw was the tail end of the blonde sliding out the bedroom door. “Hey! Hang on. I want to talk to you.” She bolted.

I climbed up out of that bed, tangled myself in the covers, fell on my face, said colorful things. That’s Garrett. Light on his feet. A real gymnast. Has moves like a cat. When I hit the sitting room she was gone and there wasn’t a sign she’d been there. The door was locked.

I lighted a few lamps and surveyed the big room. I hadn’t heard the door. I hadn’t heard a key in the lock. I didn’t like that.

Damned spooky old house was the kind that might come equipped with secret passages and hidden panels and all that stuff, maybe with secret dungeons below the root cellar and bones buried behind false foundations. I was going to have a nice time here, I was, I was. All I needed to make it a real vacation were ghosts and monsters. I went to the window. The sky was clear. A nail paring of moon was headed west.

“Come on. You’re not trying. We need some rain and lightning. Or at least some fog on the moor and something howling in the night.”

Back for a circuit of the room. I didn’t find any secret entrances.

I’d deal with that later, when there was time to measure walls and whatnot. Right now I had to prowl, while at least some of the denizens of the place weren’t keeping track.

I dragged my tinsuit friend out of the closet, into the bedroom. I detached him from the support that held him upright, put him in bed. Better than using pillows to make it look like somebody was home. Looked perfect once I pulled a sheet over his helmet. “Rest easy, buddy.”

I didn’t like the way things were going. Somebody here might be less than friendly. I collected my favorite head-knocker, an oak nightstick with a pound of lead in the business end, then slipped into the hall. I was alone out there. One lamp burned. Presumably Dellwood had been around to snuff the others to save oil. He was the only guy I’d seen working, other than Cook.

I’d have to find out what everybody did. Should’ve asked Peters while I had him.

I went to the east end of the hall where a small window looked out on the grounds. Nothing out there but darkness and stars. The werewolves and vampires were taking the night off. I retreated to the first door on the left.

I seemed to be the only inhabitant of that floor in the wing so I didn’t try for quiet. I picked the lock and marched in, lamp in front in my left hand, head-knocker in my right. I needn’t have bothered. The room was a warehouse for cobwebs. Nobody had been in there in a decade.

I did a cursory inspection, went to the room across the hall. Same story. Every suite on the floor was the same, except the last, which showed signs that someone had visited recently. In that room I noted circles on the mantel where the dust was thinner. Like something had been removed. Candlesticks or small doodads. I tried to get something from the marks left by the visitor’s feet. There’s always hope you’ll find something unique, like maybe feet the size of pumpernickels or only two toes if they run barefoot. It didn’t pay off this time. The intruder had shuffled, probably not intentionally. Not the sort of thing your average thief thinks of.

The search was taking longer than I’d expected. I decided to take a quick tour and leave detail work for later. At least I’d know my way around.

There was a partial floor above mine, reached via an enclosed stair. I went up. That floor was one vast dark room over the great hall. It was stuffed with junk, mostly as dusty as the rooms below. But there was a path beaten from the stairhead across to a stair down to the fourth floor of the west wing. A shortcut. The alternative was to descend to the second floor and cut across on a narrow balcony above the back door, placed there so somebody could address a crowd. Might as well go across, work my way down the west wing, come back on the ground floor and work my way up.

The west wing was inhabited. I didn’t enter any rooms. Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe while I was in town I could have a locksmith check my key to see if he could create a skeleton key for its type of lock.

Fourth-floor hall and a stroll on the balcony there. Nothing. Likewise the third floor and its balcony. The design differed from my wing. The halls were shorter, ending at the doors of the suites of the masters of the estate. Two doors on the third floor showed light underneath. Either somebody was up late or somebody was scared of the dark.

Second floor had only five large suites, probably for honored guests like dukes and counts, firelords and stormwardens, and others a ranking commander might entertain.

The ground floor boasted rooms meant for other purposes. The west wing was where, in times past, the businesses of the estate and its masters had been conducted. The doors to several rooms were open. I invited myself in. I didn’t find anything.

From the west wing I walked across to the east, where I knew I’d be into the kitchen, pantries, dining hall, and whatnot. I’d been through some of that but hadn’t had a chance to pry.

As I passed the brave champion still stubbornly skewering his dragon, I got that creepy sensation. I looked around, saw no one. My blonde admirer? I was beginning to think she was a spook.

Not literally. The place was creepy at high noon. It had fallen from a ghost story, but I didn’t entertain the notion that it was haunted. The world is filled with the strange, the magical, the supernatural, but I didn’t figure I’d need haunts to explain anything here. Any schemes here had been set in motion by the root of all evil amongst the living.

A closer examination of the dining room proved it to be what I’d figured, big, with decorations fitting the theme of the house. I wondered how many battles the Stantnors had fought.

The room had a high ceiling, which suggested that part of the second floor east didn’t exist. True. I found out when I explored the pantry.

A door there opened on stairs. One set went up, another down. It was as dark as a vampire’s heart in there. I went up. The way led to storerooms filled with housekeeping goodies, some of which looked like they’d been laid in before the turn of the century. Some dead Stantnor had saved by buying wholesale.

Nobody swept or dusted but the place was orderly. It was inhabited by moths who found my lamp irresistible.

Why so much room for storage?

I came on stacks of four-inch-thick oak things, bound in iron, each with a number chalked onto the black iron. Curious, I looked closer.

They were covers for the windows, to seal them if the house was besieged. They had to be as old as the house itself. Had they ever been used? Not in the past century, I was sure.

I found a strong room in the southeast corner The door was latched but not locked. It was an armory. Inside were weapons enough for a company—as though there weren’t enough around the house already. Everything steel was covered with grease, everything wood coated with paraffin. Might be interesting to find out what the climate was like when the house was built. Troubled times, apparently.

I spent too much time there. When I descended it was too late. Cook was banging around in the kitchen. I slipped out before she tripped over me.

As I hit the fourth floor I caught a glimpse of white across the way. My lovely mystery lady. I blew her a kiss.

10

I’d had another visitor. This one had left in a hurry. He’d left a key in the lock with the door standing open. I saw why when I went into the bedroom.

My visitor had murdered the suit of armor. He’d walked in, wound up with an antique battle-ax, and had let the poor boy have it. The ax was still there.

I laughed. Bet he drizzled down his leg, thinking he’d walked into a trap.

I sobered quickly. That was twice. Next time more care might go into the attempt. I was way out on a limb here. I had to take steps.

I locked up, pocketed the key—which wasn’t identical to mine, so might be a skeleton key. I got the tin man out of bed and the ax out of him. “Sorry about that. But we’ll get our revenge.” I used the ax to rig a booby trap. Anybody who walked through the bedroom door was in for a rude welcome.

Then I took an hour nap.

I was early for breakfast, first to arrive. Cook was up to her ears in work getting platters ready. “Need a hand?”

“I need ten. I don’t know what you’re up to, boy, sucking up to me, but you better believe I’ll use you. Get over to the oven and see how them rolls are coming.”

I did. “Maybe a minute more.”

“What you know about baking?”

I explained the arrangement at my house, where old Dean handles the drudgery and cooking. He’s a good cook. He taught me. I can put together a decent meal when I want. Like when I give him time off because I want him out while I entertain.

“Don’t know if you’re lying or not. Probably are. I never seen a man yet who could cook.”

I didn’t tell her Dean thought the only good cooks were men. “I should get you together. To watch the sparks fly.”

“Huh. Time’s up. Get them rolls out. Drag that pot of butter over.”

I glanced at the butter. “Fresh?”

“Snake just brung it in.”

“He going to join us?”

She laughed. “Not Snake. He don’t have nothing to do with nobody. Just grabbed him some food and lit out. Not sociable, Snake.”

“What’s his problem?”

“Head got scrambled in the Cantard. He was down there twenty years, never got a scratch. On the outside.” She shook her head, started piling sausages and bacon on a platter. “Sad. I knew him when he was a pup. Cute kid, he was. Too delicate and sensitive for a Marine. But he thought he had to try. So here he is, an old man with his head in knots. Used to draw the prettiest pictures, that boy. Coulda been a great painter. Had him a magic eye. Could see right inside things and drawed what he seed. Any damn fool can draw the outside of things, the way they want we should see them. Takes a genius to see the truth. That boy saw. You going to stand there jawing till lunchtime? Or you going to eat?”

I fixed myself a plate without mentioning the fact that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She rolled right along. “I told the General then—he was just commissioned—it was a raging shame to waste the boy down there. And I told him again when he come back. And the General, he told me, ‘You were right, Cook. It was a sin against humanity, taking him.’ But, you know, he couldn’t have stopped the boy if he’d wanted. Had that damnfool stubborn streak and thought it was his duty to go with the lord to war.”

The rush came while she chattered. There were two new faces, presumably Tyler and Wayne. They looked like they hadn’t slept. The whole crowd took their platters to the dining room.

I asked Cook, “That Tyler and Wayne?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Lucky stab. Anybody else I haven’t met?”

“Who else could there be?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday you said there were eighteen people here. I’ve seen ten, plus this Snake that’s shy and a blonde that only I can see. Comes up short of eighteen.”

“Ain’t eighteen.”

“You said eighteen.”

“Boy, I’m four hundred years old. ’Less I concentrate, I don’t remember where I am in time. I just cook and set table and wash and don’t pay no attention to nothing else. Just sort of drift. Don’t see nothing, don’t say nothing. Last time I looked up they was eighteen, counting me. Must’ve been a while. Hell. Maybe that’s why there’s so many leftovers. Been cooking too much.”

“I didn’t notice too many places set at the table.”

She paused. “You’re right. Part of me must keep track.”

“Been with the Stantnors a long time?”

“Came to them with my momma when I was a kit. Long time back, when the humans hereabouts still had emperors. ’Fore they ever moved out here and built the first house. This one’s only maybe two hundred. Was a sight when she was new, she was.”

“You must’ve seen some sights in your time.”

“Seen some,” she agreed. “Served every king and stormwarden and firelord right there in that dining room.” She headed that way. That ended our conversation.

I stuck my head in. Nobody showed any special disappointment. Nobody turned handsprings, either. They were a depressing bunch.

These guys had spent their whole lives together. You’d think they could make conversation—unless they’d said everything there was to say. I feel that way with some people, sometimes before anything gets said at all.

Tyler and Wayne were cut from Marine lifer cloth. Whatever the physical differences between men, they gain a certain uniformity in service. Tyler was a lean, narrow-faced character with hard brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin, speckled beard trimmed within a half-inch of his skin. Wayne was my size, maybe twenty pounds heavier, not fat. He looked like he could throw cows around if the passion took him. He was six inches taller than Tyler and blond, with icy blue eyes, yet you felt the sameness in them. You even felt the identity with Chain, who had gone to seed.

I’d spent five years in the company of men like them. Any one of them would be capable of murder if he took a mind. Human life wasn’t anything special to them. They’d seen too much death.

Which did present one puzzle.

Marines are straightforward kinds of guys. If one wanted the General dead, chances were he’d just do it. Unless there was some overpowering motive to make it a lingering death.

Like, say, hanging onto a share of the old man’s estate?

Worrying about it was pointless. You can’t force these things. They have to unfold.

I helped Cook clear away, then put on my traveling shoes.

11

I hadn’t been to Morley’s place in months. It wasn’t that we’d had a falling out or anything; I just hadn’t had a need, nor any urge to graze on the cattle food that comes out of his kitchen. I arrived about nine. He’s closed to business then. He’s open from eleven to six in the morning, catering to every sentient species there is, all so warped they try to subsist on vegetables.

It takes all kinds. Some of my best friends eat there. I’ve done so myself. Without enthusiasm.

So. Nine o’clock. The place was locked up. I went to the backdoor and gave the secret knock, which means I hammered and howled till Morley’s man Wedge brought a four-foot piece of lead pipe and offered to move my face to my belly button region.

“This’s business, Wedge.”

“I didn’t figure you was in heat for some bean curd. You don’t come around unless you want something.”

“I pay for what I get.”

He snorted. He didn’t think it was right, me using Morley just because Morley had taken advantage of me, at deadly risk and without my consent, to get out of some heavy gambling debts.

“Cash money, Wedge. And he don’t have to get off his butt. He just needs to have somebody do some legwork.”

That didn’t cheer him up. He’s one of the guys who does Morley’s legwork. But he didn’t slam the door.

“Come.” He eased me in and barred the door, led me through kitchens where cooks were butchering cabbages and broccoli, parked me at the serving bar, drew me a mug of apple juice, “Wait.” He went upstairs.

The public room was naked and forlorn, almost painfully quiet. The way it ought to be all the time, instead of overcrowded.

Morley Dotes is a headhunter. A kneebreaker and a lifetaker. Most of the guys who work for him help. Morley is a deadly symbiote feeding on society’s dark underside. He’s the best at what he does, barring maybe a couple of guys who work for Chodo Contague.

Adding up the account, Morley Dotes is everything I don’t like. He’s the kind of guy I wanted to take down when I decided to put on my good-guy hat. But I like him.

Sometimes you can’t help yourself.

Wedge came down shaking his head. “What’s up?” I asked.

“He’s taking this health stuff too far.”

“You’re telling me? He’s like a born again, trying to save everybody else.” The world’s only vegetarian lifetaker. Wants to save the world from the perils of red meat—before he cuts its throat. I don’t know. Maybe there’s no conflict but it sounds like one to me. “He’s added to the list?”

“Been a few months, right?”

“Last time I was here he’d sworn off gambling and was making it stick. He tried women but couldn’t hold out.”

“He forgot that crock. Say that for him. The thing now is early to bed, early to rise. He’s up. Now. Up and dressed and fed and doing his morning workout. A year ago you wouldn’t have caught him dead out of bed this time of day.”

You could have if there was enough money in it. “Wonders never cease, do they?”

“He said come up. You want a refill?”

“Why not? Fruit juice is the only thing here I can handle.”

He winked. He wasn’t one of Morley’s converts. He topped off my mug. I took it up to Morley’s office, which is the barbican to his personal quarters. I’m about as close to a friend as he has, but I’ve never been past the office. My hair is too short and I don’t wear enough makeup.

Dotes was doing sit-ups, chunking them out like a machine. My stomach hurt just watching.

“You’re in pretty good shape for a guy your age,” I told him. I wasn’t sure what that was. It could be substantial. He’s part dark-elf. Elves can last a long time.

“I take it you’re working again.” He said it while popping up and down. Like there was no strain to what he was doing.

I told myself I had to start doing a few exercises. At my age, when you lose it, it’s hard to get back. “Why do you assume—”

“You don’t come down here unless you want something.”

“Not true. I used to bring Maya in all the time.” That was before she and I had gone our own ways.

“You lost a gem there, Garrett.” He rolled over, started doing push-ups.

His dark-elf blood doesn’t scream out. He looks like a short, slim, dark-haired man in good shape. He’s quick on his feet. There’s an air of the dangerous about him, but not one of menace. Maybe that’s why women find him irresistible.

“Maybe. I do miss her, some. She was a good kid.”

“Pretty, too. So you going on with Tinnie?”

My friend Tinnie Tate, professional high-tempered redhead. Ours is an unpredictable relationship. “I see her. When she doesn’t think I deserve to be punished by not seeing her.”

“Only smart thing you’ve done since I’ve known you is not tell her about Maya.” He completed fifty fast ones, jumped up. He wasn’t sweating. I felt like kicking his behind. “What’s up?”

“You heard of General Stantnor?”

“Used to be Marine Commandant?”

“The same.”

“What about him?”

“A guy who works for him, my old company sergeant, called in a debt. He got me to do a job for the old boy.”

“Don’t you ever work just to be working? I never saw anyone like you.”

“I know. I’m a dog. You never see a dog do anything when he’s not hungry. If I’m not hungry, why work?”

“What about the General? I do work when I’m not hungry. And I’ve got plenty of that here.”

“The old boy is trying to die. My old sergeant thinks somebody is trying to kill him. Slowly, so it looks like a wasting disease.”

“Is somebody?”

“I don’t know. He’s been doing it a long time. You know a way to do that?”

“What’s his color like?”

“His color?”

“Sure. There are poisons you could use in cumulative dosages. The color is the giveaway.”

“He’s kind of a sickly yellow. His hair is falling out in clumps. And his skin has a translucent quality.”

Morley frowned. “Not blue or gray?”

“Yellow. Like pale butterscotch.”

He shook his head. “Can’t tell you based on that.”

“He has seizures, too.”

“Crazies?”

“Like heart tremors, or something.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. Maybe if I saw him.”

“I’d like that. I don’t know if I can arrange it. They’re all paranoid about strangers.” I gave him a rundown on the players.

“Sounds like a bughouse.”

“Could be. All of them, except Jennifer and Cook, spent at least thirty years in the Marines, mostly in the Cantard.”

He grinned. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Good for you. We all make the world a little holier when we resist temptation. One more thing. The old man thinks he hired me to find out who’s stealing the silver and his old war trophies.” I produced the list. Morley started reading. “I’ll pay legwork fees for somebody to make the rounds and see if any of that is moving through the usual channels.”

“Saucerhead needs work.” Saucerhead Tharpe is a friend, of sorts, in a line somewhere between Morley’s and mine. He has more scruples than Dotes and more ambition than me, but he’s as big as a house and looks half as smart. People can’t take him serious. He never gets the best jobs.

“All right. I’ll pay his standard rate. Bonus if he recovers any of the articles. Bonus if he gets a description of the thief.”

“On the cuff?” That was a hint.

I gave him advance money. He said, “I thank you and Saucerhead thanks you. I know you’re doing an old buddy a favor but it seems damned tame. Especially if the old guy is just dying.”

“There’s something going on. Somebody tried to off me.” I told him.

He laughed. “I wish I could have seen the guy’s face when he swung that ax and you bonged like a bell. You’ve still got the luck.”

“Maybe.”

“Why are they after you?”

“I don’t know. Money? That’s the one angle that makes this interesting. The old boy is worth about five million marks. His son is dead. His wife died twenty years ago. His daughter Jennifer gets half the estate and the other half goes to his Marine cronies. Three years ago he had seventeen heirs. Since then two died supposedly natural deaths, one got killed by a mad bull, and four disappeared. A little basic math shows that nearly doubles the take for the survivors.”

Morley sat down behind his desk, put his feet up, cleaned his pearly white teeth with a six-inch steel toothpick. I didn’t interrupt his thoughts.

“There’s potential for foul play in that setup, Garrett.”

“Human nature being what it is.”

“If I was a betting man I’d give odds that somebody is fattening his share.”

“Human nature being what it is.”

“Nobody walks out on that kind of money. Not you, not me, not a saint. So maybe you have something interesting after all.”

“Maybe. Thing is, I don’t see any way to tie it up in a package. If I find out who’s stealing—which makes no sense considering the payoff down the road—I’m not likely to find out who’s killing the old man. That doesn’t make sense for whoever is cutting down the number of heirs. He’d want the old man to hang on.”

“What happens if the daughter checks out before he does?”

“Damn!” A critical point and it hadn’t occurred to me. If everything went to the boys she’d really be on the spot. “The odd thing is, none of them act like they know what’s going on. They seem to get along. They don’t watch each other over their shoulders. I did, and I was only there one night.”

“A marvelous aspect of your species is that most of you see only what you want.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Maybe those guys are old buddies and only one of them realizes that throat-cutting can be profitable. Maybe nobody is suspicious because they all know their old buddies wouldn’t do something like that after all they’ve been through together.”

Could be. I’d kind of had that problem myself. I couldn’t picture me turning on anybody I’d been running with that long. “And the whole thing could be what they say it is. Three dead by explainable cause and four who couldn’t handle the life-style and walked because money didn’t mean anything.”

“And the moon could be mouse bait.”

“You have a dark outlook.”

“Supported every day in the street. The other night a thirty-six-year-old man knifed his mom and dad because they wouldn’t give him money for a bottle of wine. That’s the real world, Garrett. We’re our own worst nightmares.” He chuckled. “You’re lucky this time. You don’t have anything weird. No vampires, no werewolves, no witches, no sorcerers, no dead gods trying to come back to life. None of the stuff you usually stumble into.”

I snorted. Those things aren’t on every street corner, but they’re part of the world. Everybody brushes against them eventually. They didn’t impress me, though I was happy not to deal with them.

I said, “I could have seen a ghost.”

“A what?”

“A ghost. I keep seeing a woman that nobody admits is there. That nobody else sees. Unless they’re pulling my leg. Which they probably are.”

“Or you’re crazy. She’s a gorgeous blonde, right?”

“A blonde. Not bad.”

“You’re daydreaming out loud in your eyes. Your wishful thinking has gotten to you.”

“Maybe. I’ll know before I’m done. There was something else I wanted but it escapes me now.”

“Must not have been important.”

“Probably not. I’d better get back out there.”

“You take some equipment? Hate to think of you up to your ears in killers with nothing but your teeth and toenails.”

“I’ve got a trick or two.”

He grunted. “You always do. Don’t turn your back on anybody.”

“I won’t.”

As I started to close the door, he asked, “What’s the daughter look like?”

“Early twenties. A looker but not a talker. Spoiled rotten, probably.”

He looked thoughtful, then shrugged, got up, dropped down and started doing more push-ups. I shut the door. I can’t stand seeing a man abuse himself.

12

I headed south feeling smug. I knew my Morley Dotes. Curiosity would get him. He’d push his end beyond what I’d hired him to do. He’d go fishing amongst his contacts. If there was something going on involving the Stantnors, he’d find out.

The smugness disappeared after I walked out South Gate.

That’s when the drizzle started. That’s when I started cussing myself for my distrust of horses. Hell, if I couldn’t ride, I could hire a coach. I had a client. I could charge it to expenses. Expenses are wonderfully flexible—especially if the client fails the attitude test.

I got some wet before I reached my destination.

Odd. Most of those big country places have names. The Maples. Windward. Sometimes something that doesn’t make any sense, like Brittany Stone. But this one could have been a squatter’s hut. The Stantnor place. Ancient family seat and museum but not enough of a home for anybody to give it a name.

I was still a quarter mile off when Jennifer Stantnor flew out the front door, headed toward me. She hadn’t put a wrap on. Peters came after her, gaining but not looking like he was trying to catch her.

They reached me at the same time. Jennifer looked irked that Peters had come. Peters looked exasperated at her. I did my best to look puzzled, which isn’t hard. That’s where I am most of the time. I raised an eyebrow way up. It’s one of my best tricks. Jennifer just stood there, panting. Peters, less winded despite being almost three times her age, said, “There’s been a hunting accident.”

I kept a straight face. “Oh?”

“Let’s get in out of the rain.”

I looked at the girl. I think she wanted to talk. Grimly, she said, “I don’t think it was an accident.”

It probably wasn’t, if someone had gotten killed. But I didn’t say that. I just grunted.

Peters talked while we walked. “We’ve had trouble with poachers. There are deer on the grounds. A fair herd.”

Jennifer interjected, “We put out feed. We don’t take many.”

“Three all last year,” Peters said. “Peasants . . . The animals make easy targets. They’re not so wary here. The past month we’ve had six intrusions. That we know of.”

Jennifer said, “Dad gets more upset about the trespassing than the poaching. He has a thing about boundaries. Like they’re lines of steel.”

“After the last incident,” Peters said, as we climbed the steps to the house, “the General ordered regular patrols. He wanted someone caught and an example made. Today Kaid, Hawkes, Tyler, and Snake had the duty. Hawkes apparently caught somebody in the act. He sounded his hunting horn.”

Jennifer said, “When the others got there, he was on the ground with an arrow in him. A gutted deer was hanging in a tree fifty feet away.”

“Interesting. And sad. But why tell me? Sounds like something you people can handle.”

Jennifer looked puzzled. Peters said, “This is going to sound silly. You’re the only scout around here. All these lifers and none of them can follow a trail.”

“Oh.” Maybe. “It’s been years. And I wasn’t that good.” I recalled my stumbling around during a few recent cases.

“Mediocre is better than what the rest of us are.” Peters looked at Chain, who was headed our way. “How is he?”

“I don’t think he’ll make it. He needs a surgeon.”

“You know the old man. No doctors in the house.”

“We can’t move him without killing him.”

Jennifer snapped, “Get a doctor! My father doesn’t have to know. He never comes out of his room.”

“Dellwood will tell him.”

“I’ll handle Dellwood.”

“Go,” Peters told Chain, and Chain got his carcass moving.

I said, “I take it Hawkes is still alive.”

“He’s fighting.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He’s out. Way out. Not much chance he’ll come around unless Chain gets a cutter in time.”

“Show me where it happened before the rain wipes out the sign.”

I got to ride. Lucky me. The horse was hospitable all the way out, but I knew it had heard of me through the grapevine those monsters have. It grinned when it heard my name. It was waiting for a chance.

It was a good ride out. The Stantnors had a lot of land. We didn’t talk much. I took in the countryside, getting the lay, the landmarks. I might need to know them.

I’d developed the habit young. It was my apparent knack for knowing my way around that got me volunteered as a scout when the real Sexton vanished.

“Looks like Snake came back out,” Peters said as we crossed a rise and came to the scene.

I saw a man under an oak near a hanging animal carcass. “Sarge, I never knew any of these guys when I was in. Did any of them know Sexton?”

He looked at me funny. “I don’t think so.”

I dismounted, tied the reins to an oak sapling. My mount got a forlorn look. “Thought I’d just drop them and you’d scurry when I turned my back, didn’t you?”

“What?” Peters asked.

“Talking to the horse. I talk to horses. They make more sense than people.”

“Snake, this is Mike Sexton. Scouted for me in the islands. You probably heard he’s here.”

Snake grunted. He looked me over. I returned the favor.

If Chain had gone to seed, this one had gone a step beyond. His hair hadn’t been cut since he’d gotten out. His beard was a bramble patch. He didn’t change clothes or bathe very often. His pants were covered with curious colored stains. He said, “I heard.”

“You found anything?”

Snake grunted. It sounded negative.

I looked at the carcass. Wasn’t much to it. “Kind of puny, isn’t it?”

“Fawn,” Snake said. “Just lost its spots.”

Yes. A little rusty, Garrett. Why would a poacher take a fawn? If he was after the meat and the herd wasn’t spooky, he’d go for a bigger kill. I gave the carcass a closer look.

It was ten years since I’d done my own butchering, but this job looked amateurish. Like it had been done by someone who’d seen animals butchered but who hadn’t ever done it himself.

“This patrol this morning. Was there a set plan? Specific assignments?”

Peters said, “We had a routine, if that’s what you mean. Routes we’d figured so four men could cover everything.”

Not exactly what I wanted to know. I couldn’t be more specific without giving away more than I wanted. “Where was Hawke when he was hit?”

“Up here.”

I followed Peters. The spot was obvious once you got there. Hawkes had thrashed around after he’d fallen. He’d lost enough blood to draw flies too stupid to go for the bonanza in the tree. The spot was fifty feet from the deer. A blind archer could have made the shot.

I picked out what I thought was Hawkes’ back trail. I followed it, found a place where he’d stopped. “I’d guess this is where he sounded the horn. Then he went down and stopped again there.”

“And the poacher let him have it.”

Somebody did. “What time did it happen?”

“About nine.”

“Uhm.” That fawn had been dead a lot longer than that.

I walked back down. Snake still stood staring at the carcass. I asked, “You look around some?”

He grunted. “Why’d anybody want to do that to a little fawn?” An old buddy getting an arrow through the brisket didn’t bother him. The fawn did.

I took another look at the carcass. I couldn’t find its death wound. “Was there an arrow in it?”

“No.”

Snake wasn’t going to be much good for anything.

The tree where the fawn hung was a loner ten yards from the edge of a wood that followed a creek. That wood was only a hundred yards across. I headed downhill, swinging back and forth, looking for the poacher’s trail

I found it. Somebody in a big hurry had charged straight through the underbrush. Understandable, if you’ve just plinked some guy and you know he has friends coming.

Peters followed me. I asked, “Was there a set pattern to who rode where on these patrols?”

No way to keep him from wondering why I asked. He frowned. “No. We mixed it up so we wouldn’t see the same ground every time.”

Then the sniper hadn’t been after somebody in particular, just somebody. Assuming the arrow hadn’t come from the bow of a panicky poacher but someone who had laid a trap.

I was sure that when Hawkes stopped the second time, he’d seen whoever let him have it. That he’d been startled into halting. Otherwise, he’d have kept moving.

How much of that was Peters figuring out? The man wasn’t stupid.

“How do you get along with your neighbors?”

“We ignore them. They ignore us. Most of them are scared of us.”

I’d be scared if I had neighbors like them.

The sniper had become less panicky after fifty yards of flight. He’d turned onto an old game trail. There were too many leaves down for the ground to take good tracks but I could tell which way he had gone by the way they were disturbed. “Got any dogs? Or know where we could get some?”

“To track with? No.”

The game trail went down to the creek, split. One fork crossed over, the other ran along the bank. My quarry had taken the latter.

A hundred fifty yards along, that path dipped into a wide, shallow, sandy-bottomed section of creek. And didn’t come out the other side. I looked around. “I’ve lost it.”

“God damn it, look again.”

I looked, satisfied that he hadn’t noticed the horse apples in the shallow water. Whoever had come down here had ridden away, down the streambed. No big deal, since the water was never more than a foot deep.

How many peasants forced to poach deer could afford to keep a horse?

“Sorry. There’s nothing.”

“Then I’ll find some damned dogs.”

As we walked back uphill I asked, “Who takes care of the stables here?’

“Mostly Snake, with help from Hawkes and Tyler. I don’t get Snake. Takes care of the animals. Likes to. But you can’t get him on a horse to save his life.”

That made sense to me, though it was a little extreme.

I asked questions that got me curious looks but no answers. Unless they were liars and fast to boot—or in cahoots—none of the men on patrol could have dropped Hawkes. And Hawkes didn’t do it to himself. That narrowed the field of suspects, but not enough. I wanted rid of Snake and Peters so I could prowl down that creek to wherever the sniper had left it.

“Shit!” Black Pete exploded. “We’ve got our heads up our asses.”

“What?”

“What did we do every time we hit the Venageti on the damned island? What did I pound into you guys every damned day we were there?”

He’d gotten it. “Yeah. You don’t leave tracks on water.” Before a raid we’d always made sure we had an escape route crossed by a lot of water.

“The bastard walked down the creek. That’s why you couldn’t find anything.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go.”

“I’ll check it out. No need you taking any more time off.”

He looked at me hard, checked to see where Snake was. “What’re you thinking, Garrett? I’ve seen you like this before. I haven’t forgotten the stuff you pulled.”

“I’m doing my job the best way I know. Nothing personal, but everybody’s a suspect till I prove otherwise. No matter how well I think I know them.”

He started getting angry.

“Can it. You wanted me to find out who’s killing the old man, right? Which one of you guys would do that? None of you. Right? But one of you is. Till I nail it down you get treated like everybody else. If only because I’m supposedly looking for a thief. Get me?”

“You want to play a lone hand. You’re the professional. I’ll put up with it. For a while.”

“Good. You don’t have a choice, anyway. And that’s nothing to get mad about.”

He got mad anyway. They always do. They all think they ought to be the exception to the rule.

He rode off in a huff.

I didn’t care, so long as he rode off.

13

My horse looked forlorn. I got it and led it down along the edge of the wood, looking for tracks. If I didn’t find anything before I reached the property line, I’d work my way back up the far side of the woods.

Our villain had cunning in limited amounts. The stunt would have been sufficient if there’d been no cause for suspicion. But there was.

I found where a horseman had come out of the wood barely far enough away to be out of sight of the place where Hawkes had gotten it. The spacing of hoofmarks said he’d been in no real hurry once he’d gotten away from the woods. Meaning he hadn’t been worried about explaining his presence.

That put Tyler and Chain back on the suspect list. They wouldn’t have been questioned because they belonged out here.

I’d have to question the survivors, find out who said and did what before they set out. Might be some subtle indicator there.

Whoever the killer was, he’d been bold. He’d ridden around behind the rise you crossed to reach the ambush, then had headed home. At least, I presumed that was what he’d done while the poacher-hunters were fussing over Hawkes. I lost the trail.

I circled and circled, quartered this way and that, and couldn’t find it again.The drizzle and the chill breeze overcame my devotion to my craft. I headed for the house.

I was stomping through that museum of a central hall, headed for a change of clothes, when Jennifer fluttered out of nowhere. She looked more feminine and frail and vulnerable than she had. She was flustered and frightened. I waited, though I had no urge to see her.

“Sergeant Hawkes died,” she blurted. “Right there in front of me. He just shook all over and made this funny sound and he wasn’t alive anymore.”

“When?”

“Just a few minutes ago. I was looking for Dellwood when I saw you. I need somebody to tell me what to do.”

If she was looking for comfort she’d come to the wrong man. I didn’t feel like comforting anybody. Not even a gorgeous brunette who had all the right stuff in all the right places, put together to make a dead bishop howl. My late night and early morning had me feeling like I was carrying an extra fifty pounds. Worse, I’d missed lunch.

I’d already determined that Cook was immune to my golden tongue. She didn’t even know what was happening. It went right past her. “Dellwood would be the best man to tell you. And speak of the devil.”

Here he came, moving without the usual sedate deliberation. “Miss Jennifer, you were supposed to stay with Hawkes.”

“He doesn’t need me anymore.”

Dellwood’s eyes got big. “He . . . He . . . ”

“Yes. What do we do now?”

I said, “Dellwood, I need to see the General. At his earliest convenience. I’ll be in my quarters.”

I was going to take a nap. I expected I’d have another long night. I’d better rest while I could.

I glanced back at Jennifer and Dellwood. Maybe they were good actors. Maybe they were genuinely frazzled and upset. Whatever, they had exaggerated just that little bit that told me they wanted me to see them in a favorable light.

I didn’t care if they cried or danced with joy. As far as I was concerned there was only one good guy in the house and his name was Garrett.

14

I woke up in time for dinner. I didn’t feel rested. The floor of my dressing room wasn’t that comfy. But it was safer than the bed. That tin man’s wounds proved that.

I decided I’d set up camp in one of the vacant suites. Make them hunt for me to murder me in my sleep.

Had Hawkes died because of me? I’d fallen asleep wondering. Had my presence nudged somebody into pushing his murder schedule? Things like that, that I can’t control, nag me.

I walked to the end of the hall, surveyed the central chamber. Jennifer was seated by the fountain, leaning against one of the dragon’s wings. Chain and Kaid walked past without acknowledging her. They were headed for dinner.

As I started moving I spotted the blonde on the third floor balcony opposite, in shadow, looking down. “There goes a theory shot to hell.” She glanced up. I waved.

Black Pete stepped out of the hall across the way. He caught my wave, frowned, returned it. I pointed down. He leaned over the rail.

Too late. She’d caught my gesture and drifted into deeper shadow.

I descended the stairs beginning to consider, if only half-seriously, the notion of a resident haunt.

I’d thought the blonde was Jennifer in a wig, making quick clothing changes. Their builds were similar, their faces much alike. My romantic streak made the blonde prettier, barely. I’d never seen them both at once. All I’d needed was some screwy motive on Jennifer’s part to tie the knot.

Sometimes you guess right and sometimes you don’t. I don’t a lot more than I do.

When I hit the ground floor, I’d convinced myself I should’ve known better. The blonde really was prettier. Moreover, she had a lonely, ethereal quality Jennifer couldn’t mimic.

Not that I knew much about Jennifer. I’d been on the job a day and hadn’t gotten close to anybody but Cook, and her not close enough. Chances were I wasn’t going to get close to anybody. These weren’t the kind of people who would let you.

The case looked stranger by the minute. At least it was more low-key than the bloody whirlwinds that had swept me up lately.

Peters met me at the foot of the stair. “You wanted something?”

“The wave? I wasn’t waving at you. The blonde was on the balcony under you. She ducked out when I pointed.”

He looked at me like he wondered if he’d brought in the wrong man. I figured I’d better distract him. “I have a question for you. Completely hypothetical. If you were to kill somebody here and wanted to get rid of the body, where would be the best place on the property?”

His look got stranger. “Garrett . . . You’re getting weird. Or maybe you got weird since you left the Marines. What do you want to know something like that for?”

“Just tell me. Asking questions is what I do. They don’t have to make sense to you. Hell, they don’t always make sense to me. But they’re the tools I use.”

“Can you give me a hint? If I was going to bury somebody . . . ” A little light went on inside. He thought I was looking for a place somebody might cache the General’s goodies. “It would depend on the circumstances. How much time I had. How good a job I wanted to do. Hell, if I had time, I’d put the body ten feet down where nobody would have any reason to dig. If I was in a big hurry I wouldn’t do it here at all. I’d take it up the road to the marsh, tie it to a couple of rocks and throw it in.”

“What marsh?”

“On down the road, the other side of the rise out front. Look out the front door, past the cemetery. You can see the tops of the trees. It’s about a hundred-acre swamp. There’s been talk about draining it because of the smell. Old Melchior, who owns the land, won’t hear of it. Take a look sometime. It’ll bring back memories.”

“I will. Let’s feed our faces before Cook forgets us.”

She was delivering the final load when Peters and I arrived. She looked at me like I’d betrayed her by not showing up to help. Some people. Whatever you do, they expect you to do it forever.

It was a meal like last night’s. No conversation except grumbles about how they might find the poacher and what they could do with him afterward. Nobody seemed suspicious of the circumstances.

Could that be? Somebody was picking them off and they didn’t realize it?

Maybe it was their background, all those years in the war zone. When my company went in, there were two hundred of us, officers, sergeants, and men, who had trained together and been hammered into a single unit. Two years later there were eighteen originals left. Guys went down. After a while you accepted that. After a while you accepted the fact that your turn was coming. You went on and stayed alive as long as you could. You become completely fatalistic.

I asked, “Who took care of the stables today?”

They all looked at me like they’d just noticed me.

Peters said, “Nobody. Snake was on patrol.” He wanted to ask why I wanted to know. So did the others. But they just looked at me.

My glance crossed Jennifer’s. She was thawing. She smiled faintly. With promise.

Dellwood said, “I spoke to the General. He’ll see you after we eat.”

“Good. Thanks. I was wondering if you’d remembered.”

All those eyes turned on me again. They wondered what business I had with the old man. I wondered what their theories were about my presence. It was obvious Peters hadn’t spread the word.

I asked, “What do you guys do for entertainment? This place is pretty bleak.” I’d forgotten to smuggle in some beer. Maybe tomorrow.

Chain growled, “Got no time for entertainment. Too much work to do. And the General won’t hire anybody on. Which reminds me, troops. We got to cover for Hawkes. Which means we have to let something else go to hell.”

Wayne said, “The whole place is falling apart. Even with us hopping like the one-legged whore the day the fleet pulled in. Dellwood, you got to try to get through to him.”

“I’ll try.” Dellwood didn’t sound optimistic.

They went on, now the ball was rolling. I learned more than I wanted to know about how and where the place was falling apart, what had been allowed to slide too long and what had to be done right now to stave off disaster.

Tyler said, “I say we worry about that damned poacher in our spare time. And say the hell with trying to catch the others. The General don’t come out no more. How’s he going to know we’re not wasting time looking for them? They want a few deer, I say let them have them. We need to keep this place from falling apart.”

That debate raged a while.

Jennifer contributed not a word. She seemed more interested in me. My fatal charm. My curse. Or maybe she just wondered how I’d gotten those old boys so animated.

15

I helped Cook clear away. Dellwood helped me help. He didn’t seem inclined to let me out of his sight. Cook was as tight-lipped as she claimed with a third party present.

Dellwood wanted to talk. He started as soon as we left the kitchen. “I hope you have some progress to report. It would be a good time to give the General an emotional lift.”

“How come?”

“He had a good day today. He’s been alert. His mind has had a keen edge. He managed to eat his lunch without help. Your presence seems to have motivated him. It would be nice if you could give him something to keep him feeling positive.”

“I don’t know.” What I had to tell the General wasn’t positive. “I’ll try not to bring him down.”

We were watched going up. This time I wasn’t wrong about it being Jennifer. A strange woman. Pity. She was gorgeous.

I didn’t get it. When was the last time a woman like that left me cold? I couldn’t recall. Female is my favorite sport. Wasn’t anything obviously wrong with her, either. Maybe it was bad chemistry. The opposite of lust at first sight.

“Who raised Jennifer?”

“Cook, mostly. And the staff.”

“Oh. What became of them?”

“The General released them to make room for us. We should’ve been able to manage the place, putting the cropland out for rent. Hasn’t worked out, though.”

“He kept Cook. Why her?”

“She’s a fixture. Been here forever. Raised him, too. And his father before him, and his father, too. He has his sentimental streak.”

“That’s nice.” He hadn’t been sentimental when he’d been my supreme commander. Of course, I hadn’t gotten to know him.

“He takes care of his own.” Dellwood opened the General’s door, seated me in the room where I’d met the old man before. Old Kaid was stoking the fire. “Wait here. I’ll have him out in a few minutes.” The temperature was obscene.

“Sure. Thanks.”

It was more than a few minutes but the old man was worth seeing when he came out. He had a smile on. His cheeks had gained some color. He waited till Dellwood and Kaid departed. “Good evening, Mr. Garrett. I take it you’ve made progress?”

“Progress, General, but I don’t have any good news.” Had his health improved because the poisoner had backed off with me around?

“Good news, bad news, better get on with it.”

“I went into the city this morning. I put some acquaintances to work tracing the missing items through those people who deal in articles that stray from home. They’re competent. If the thief disposed of anything through those channels, they’ll find out and get a description of the seller. I do need instructions. Should they recover the articles? If they’ve been sold, you could be at the mercy of the new owners.”

“Very good, sir. Very good. Yes. By all means. I want to recover whatever I can. I expect you’ll have problems getting them back from someone who’s taken a fancy to them.” He smiled.

“You seem in good spirits, sir.”

“I am. I am indeed. I haven’t felt this well in months. Maybe years. Not your doing but it did start after your arrival. You’re good luck. If I keep improving at this rate, I’ll be dancing within the month.”

“I hope so, sir. Sir, that brings me to the bad news. But first a confession. I didn’t come out here just to unmask a thief.”

“Ah?” There was a sparkle in his eye.

“Yes sir. Sergeant Peters believes someone is poisoning you slowly. He wanted me to find out who. If it’s being done at all.”

“And? You’ve found something?” He seemed troubled now.

“No sir. Nothing like that.”

That pleased him.

“On the other hand, there’s no negative evidence. And one has to wonder about your recovery. It pleases me but I’m suspicious by nature.’

“And this is your bad news?”

“No sir. That’s nastier. More pervasive, if you will.”

“Go on. I’m not one to slay the bearer of ill tidings or to ignore them because they aren’t what I want to hear.”

“Let me preface this by saying I’d like to read your will.”

He frowned. “Peters asked for a copy. Was that your doing?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“I’m afraid it may be written so as to encourage villainy.” I was starting to sound pompous. But it was hard to be one of the boys with General Stantnor. “If the number of heirs decreases, does the take for the survivors increase?”

He gave me the fish-eye.

“I gather half goes to Jennifer and the rest to everyone else. Sixteen people originally. After this morning, only eight. Meaning the take for survivors has doubled.”

He looked at me hard. I thought he might throw me out, earlier protests to the contrary. “Support your suspicions, Mr. Garrett.”

“I don’t think the four men who left you could have. One, maybe. Two at the most. But people aren’t built to walk away from so much money. Four?”

“I can see that. Maybe. What else?”

“Whoever put the arrow into Hawkes set it up ahead of time. The deer was too long dead to be a fresh kill. The sniper rode away on a horse. Would a peasant who has to poach have a horse? And the horseman headed this way after the ambuscade. Though that’s circumstantial. I lost the trail part way here.”

He was quiet for a long time. His color deserted him. I pitied him then.

“On a more personal level, two attempts have been made on my life since I’ve been here. I don’t know by who.”

He looked at me but didn’t say anything.

“Unearthing that wasn’t part of my brief. But I thought you should know what I think is happening. Should I pursue it?”

“Yes!” He paused. “It doesn’t add up. Theft that’s almost petty. Someone possibly trying to poison me. Someone trying to kill everyone else.”

“That’s true. I can’t make it add up.”

“I don’t want to believe you, Mr. Garrett. I know those men better than that . . . Two attempts on your life?”

I told him about them.

He nodded. “I don’t suppose you . . . No. I believe you. Get Dellwood.”

I rose. “A question first, General?”

“Go ahead.”

“Could an outsider be responsible? Do you have enemies vicious enough to try to set your house against itself?”

“I have enemies. A man my age, who’s been what I’ve been? Of course I have enemies. But I don’t think any of them would try for the pain in something like this . . . There’d still have to be an inside man, wouldn’t there?”

I nodded, opened the door. Dellwood was in the hall a decorous distance away. “The boss wants you.”

16

I’ll say this for that old man: He took the bull by the horns. I didn’t think he was doing the smart thing, but it was his house, his life, his sanity, and his choice to take the risk.

He had Dellwood bring everybody in and get them seated. He had me stand beside him, facing them. They looked at him and me and wondered while Peters and Chain looked for Snake. Kaid tossed logs on the bonfire. I sweated.

Nobody said a word.

Then Jennifer tried. She barely got her mouth open. The General said, “Wait.” One word, softly, that stung like a whip’s bite.

Snake ambled in with Chain and Peters. He’d tried to clean himself up. He hadn’t done a great job but passed inspection well enough to be given a seat. Stantnor said, “Close the door, Peters. Lock it. Thank you. Hand me the key, please.”

Peters did so. The others watched with varying expressions, mostly in the frown range.

“Thank you for coming.” As if they’d had any choice. “We have a problem.” He reached out. I put his will in his hand. He’d let me read it while we waited. It was an invitation to mayhem, incredibly naive.

“My will. You know the details. I’ve hit you over the head with them often enough. They seem to have created the problem. Therefore.”

A candle sat on the table before him. He shoved the end of the will into the flame, held it till it caught, laid it on the table, and let it burn.

I watched them watch it. They were shocked. They may have been disappointed or outraged. But they didn’t move, didn’t protest, didn’t fall down and confess.

“That instrument has been a murder weapon, sure as any blade. But I won’t make a speech. There’s the fact. Motive has been eliminated. The will has been abrogated. I’ll write a new one in a few days.”

He looked them in the eye, one by one. Nobody shied away. Everybody looked baffled and dismayed.

Dellwood said, “Sir, I don’t understand.”

“I certainly hope you don’t. Those of you who don’t, be patient. It will become clear. First, though, I want to introduce the man next to me. His name is Garrett. Mr. Garrett is an investigative specialist, amongst other talents. I employed Mr. Garret to find out who’s been stealing from me. His efforts have been quite to my satisfaction so far.”

The old boy was a chess player.

“Mr. Garrett found evidence of more heinous crimes. He’s convinced me that some of you have been killing your comrades to gain a larger share of my legacy.”

“Sir!” Dellwood protested. The others stirred, looked at each other.

“Mr. Garrett was a scout during his service, Dellwood. He tracked today’s poacher back to our stable.”

He wasn’t maundering or speaking imprecisely. He wanted them to think I’d done just that, not lost the trail in the fields. He wanted somebody to feel pressed.

“Mr. Garrett has an excellent reputation for handling these things. I’ve asked him to find the killer. He’s agreed. I have every confidence in his ability. I tell you all this by way of letting you know where you stand. If you’re innocent, I want you to cooperate with him. The sooner it’s wrapped up the better. If you’re guilty, maybe you ought to put on your running shoes. Be advised that I shall hunt you as implacably as the hounds of hell. You’ve betrayed my trust. You have done me a hurt I can’t forgive. I’m going to have your head and heart when I find you.”

I didn’t look at him, though it was hard not to. The old devil had gone farther than I’d expected.

By burning the will he’d eliminated the threat to the innocent. Nobody stood to gain now. If he died intestate, the estate could go to the Crown, which meant everyone lost. Even the poisoner ought to want to keep him alive till he wrote a new will.

A clever man, General Stantnor. But he’d left me swinging in the breeze.

“You understand your positions,” he said. “Mr. Garrett. Ask what questions you like.”

Chain said, “Sir—”

“No, Sergeant Chain. Mr. Garrett will ask. You’re not to speak unless spoken to. We’ll stay here till Mr. Garrett is satisfied.”

I said, “Mr. Garrett doesn’t think he can stay awake that long.”

I’m not the kind of guy who can pull all the suspects together and expose a villain by weaving a web of clever questions. My style is bull in the china shop. It’s jump in the pond and thrash till the frogs start jumping. I wished I had the Dead Man handy. One of his more useful talents is an ability to read minds. He could settle this in minutes.

I still entertained the possibility of an outside force with motives unfathomable. The arguments against these people being involved had to be answered before I could discard that possibility.

They looked at me, waiting. The General turned his gaze on me as though to say, show us the old Garrett razzle-dazzle, boy.

“Anybody want to confess? Save us time and let us get to bed?”

Nobody volunteered. Surprise, surprise. “I was afraid you’d be that way.”

Chain cracked, “I swiped a piece of rock candy from my sister when I was nine.”

“There’s a start. A criminal mastermind in the budding. I don’t think we need to go back quite that far, though. Let’s confine ourselves to this morning. What did you do today, Sergeant Chain? Account for your time and movements. Tell us who you saw doing what, and who saw you doing what you were doing.” This would get tedious before we finished nine stories. But it might do the job. Each story would add a color to the portrait of the morning. Every tale told true would leave our villain less room to hide.

Chain got pissed. But before he could do more than grumble, Stantnor said, “I demand cooperation, Chain. Do exactly as Mr. Garrett says. Answer his questions without reservation. Or get off the estate. Followed by the knowledge that you’ve made yourself the prime suspect.”

Chain swallowed his protests. He didn’t look at me like a guy who wanted to become my drinking buddy.

I said, “Try to attach times to the major events of your day.”

“I don’t pay no attention to what time it is. I’m too busy doing what I got to do. I mean, I do as much as I can. Ain’t possible to get done everything that needs doing.”

“Thanks to our killer, who keeps taking away pairs of hands. Estimates will do. Once we’ve heard from everybody, it should be pretty clear who did what where and when. Go ahead. Just ramble along. Take all the time you need. You can’t go into too much detail.”

Clever, clever Garrett sets himself up for an excruciating night. It took Chain forty-five minutes to tell me he hadn’t done anything interesting and that, between breakfast and lunch, he’d seen only five other members of the household. Excepting Dellwood and Peters, those had been on the patrol.

“Anybody disagree?” I asked. “Anybody want to call him a liar?”

Nobody volunteered.

“All right. Snake. You’re uncomfortable here. How about we get you off the hook? Go ahead.”

Snake’s story wasn’t any more interesting than Chain’s. He’d seen nobody in anything but innocent circumstances. Dellwood before they’d ridden out. The other hunters during the hunt. Peters when he’d come out with me. Then he’d gone back to his stables to get away. “I don’t like people that much anymore,” he confessed. “I ain’t comfortable around them. Can I go now, General?”

The old man had begun to doze, apparently. But he was alert enough. “You aren’t concerned about what somebody might say if you’re not here?”

“No sir. I ain’t got nothing to hide. And I’m getting awful uncomfortable.” He looked like he was about to suffer a panic attack.

The General looked at me. I shrugged.

Stantnor handed me the key. “Up to you.”

I unlocked the door, held it for Snake. “Good night.”

As he passed me he whispered, “You come out when you’re done. Maybe I can guess who done Hawkes.”

It didn’t seem a good time to get hardassed. I just added him to a lengthening list of things to do while everybody slept. I closed the door, turned, glanced around, wondered if anyone had overheard. Their faces revealed nothing. But it had been a loud whisper.

I took Wayne next. He was a bust. Cook would’ve talked all night and next day if I hadn’t gotten her to edit some. She’d seen everybody and they’d seen her.

Four down. Three hours gone. Five to go. A pattern had begun to develop. A trivial one, but a pattern. Dellwood had been seen too often to have had time for a ride in the country.

I hadn’t thought him much likelier than Cook, anyway.

I had Peters go next. He resented having to be a suspect but he did what he had to do. The General seemed to be dozing again, but that meant nothing.

Peters didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

He’d barely finished when Jennifer came to life. “Mr. Garrett. If that isn’t a false name, too. How about me next? This’s really wearing me down.”

“Welcome to the club. Go ahead.”

She hadn’t done a damned thing all morning. She’d sat in her room knitting. Dellwood could attest to that. He’d found her there when he’d brought the news about Hawkes.

Fine.

“Can I go? I’m tired and I have a splitting headache.”

I could empathize. I was developing one myself. It was part of an oncoming cold that seemed to be a legacy of the weather. “Not yet. Bear with me I’ll try to hurry it along. Anyone want to go next?”

No volunteers. I picked Tyler. He didn’t bother to conceal his resentment as he described the events of his morning. They were dull. They dovetailed. They didn’t point a finger. He added another Dellwood sighting to the list. “Kaid?” I said. “How about you?” Another dull tale, mostly to do with the patrol. The idea wasn’t working out. Only Dellwood and Cook—ninety percent—were out of the noose. “Dellwood, it’s probably a waste of time but go ahead.”

His report was only slightly less detailed than Cook’s. He didn’t put me on anybody’s trail. Most everyone had had time to go do it to Hawkes. Well, you can’t leave the stones unturned. “Thank you all for your patience and cooperation. I’ll talk to you again, for as long as it takes. No killer is invulnerable. If you think of anything, let me know. I’ll hold your name in confidence. You can go.”

They headed for the door in a pack, forgetting that I had the key. Jennifer remembered first. She hollered for it, as ladylike as a wolverine in a bad temper. I tossed it to her. “One thing, folks. I’ve seen another woman around the house.” I described her. “I want to know who she is. Secret or not.”

Mostly they gave me baffled looks. A couple looked like they wondered about my sanity. They all went out except for Dellwood, who brought the key to the writing table. “I’ll put the General to bed now, sir. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t if he doesn’t.”

“Go, Garrett,” the old man said, proving he hadn’t been asleep. “I’m not alert enough to continue. See me after breakfast.”

“Yes sir.” I got up and went out. It was after midnight. I was tired. Should I grab a few hours? Sleeping would be a real problem now the old man had made me a target.

No. Snake first. The way things were going, he probably didn’t have anything I could use. On the other hand, he might. If he did I might not have to worry about getting the ax in my sleep anymore.

I headed down the hall. And got distracted immediately.

I spotted that woman again. She was on the balcony across from the head of the General’s hall. My balcony. I froze, watched her just sort of drift along in a daydream. She didn’t notice me. I darted to the stair leading to the fifth floor, stole to the east wing, crept down to the balcony below.

All for nothing. She was gone.

I’d have to trap her if I wanted to talk to her.

I wanted to.

The mind plays games. She was getting a grip on that part of me inexplicably immune to Jennifer’s fetching charms.

17

As long as my room was just down the hall, I figured it would be wise to stop for some extra equipment. A sap and a sheath knife might not be enough if tonight’s party got somebody excited.

The bit of paper between the door and the doorframe was the way I’d left it. But it was a decoy, meant to flutter down and catch the eye. The real telltale was a hair I’d left leaning against the door two inches in from the handle side frame. It couldn’t be replaced by somebody who stayed inside.

The hair was out of place.

Go on in? Or just walk away? I presumed somebody was waiting. There hadn’t been time for a comprehensive search since the adjournment.

I considered getting comfortable and waiting them out. But every minute I wasted was a minute longer before I heard from Snake.

How about we just surprise the surprise party?

I got a shield off the wall, a mace, dug my key out, turned it in the lock, kicked the door in hard enough to mash anybody waiting behind it, went in with the shield up to take the blow of somebody against the wall on the other side.

Nobody. And it was dark in there. Someone had snuffed the lamp again.

I backed into the hall fast, not wanting to stand there in silhouette. A man with a crossbow could fix me up good.

Someone came toward the doorway, just far enough to be seen. “It’s me.” Morley Dotes.

I glanced along the hall. Nobody. I went inside.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I shucked the shield and felt around for a lamp.

“Curiosity. Thought I’d see what was happening.”

I got the lamp going and the door shut. “You just walked in?”

“Anybody could. They don’t lock the doors.”

“How’d you find my suite?”

He tapped his nose. “Followed my honker. We elves have a good sense of smell. Your suite is so heavy with the stink of meateater, it’s easy to pick out.”

He was putting me on. “You’re here. What do I do with you?”

“Any developments?”

“Yeah. There’s another dead one. While I was in town this morning. So tonight the old man calls a meeting, tells everybody who I am and says I’m going to nail hides to the wall. Meantime, he burns his will. Anything from town?”

“Saucerhead made some rounds. Didn’t find much. Some of those medals, you know how many they handed out? Every hock shop in town has a bucket full. The only ones worth anything are the silver ones. People on the Hill are worried about their silver supply.”

The Hill is TunFaire’s heart. All the biggies live there, including a gaggle of witches and wizards and whatnot who have to have their silver if they want to stay in business. Silver is to sorcery as wood is to fire. Since Glory Mooncalled whipped up on everybody in the Cantard, prices have soared.

But that was of no concern now. “What about the candlesticks and stuff?”

“He found a couple of things. Maybe. The people who had them didn’t remember where they got them. Literally. You know Saucerhead. He can be convincing.”

Like a landslide. You didn’t talk when he said talk, chances were you would real quick. “Great. There’s a dead end.”

“He’s going to try again tomorrow. Pity your thief didn’t take something special so somebody would remember him.”

“Thoughtless of him. Look. I’ve got an appointment with a man who says he knows the killer. Maybe. I’d like to see him before he changes his mind about talking.”

“Lead on, noble knight.” Morley rags me about being romantic and sentimental. He has his moments himself—like turning up here. He’d never admit he was concerned about me swimming in a school of sharks. He’d just claim he was curious.

“This is a real haunted house,” he muttered as we stole downstairs. “How can they stand it?”

“Maybe they’re right when they say there’s no place like home. Maybe you don’t notice after a while.”

“Who’s the brunette I spotted when everybody charged out of the hall across the way?”

“That’s the daughter, Jennifer. A dead loss, near as I can tell.”

“Maybe you don’t have what it takes.”

“Maybe not. But I think it’s bad chemistry.” We hit the bottom of the stairs. Nobody was around. We headed for the back door. There was a sliver of moon out, just enough to keep me from stumbling over things. Morley had no trouble. His kind can see inside a coffin.

“At least it’s straightforward. No dead gods. No vampires. No killer ogres. Just greedy people.”

I thought about the woman in white and hoped she wasn’t supernatural. I didn’t know how to deal with spooks.

Morley grabbed me. “Somebody moving over there.”

I didn’t see anything.

Somebody tripped over something.

“Heard us,” Morley said. He took off.

I went to the stable, called, “Snake? Where you at? It’s Garrett.”

No answer. I stuck my head inside. I didn’t see anything. The horses were restless, muttering in their sleep. I decided to circle around outside before I risked the inside.

Wavering light spilled between boards on the north end, near the west corner. It was feeble, like the light of a single guttering candle. There was a narrow door. I’d found Snake’s hideout. “Snake? You there? It’s Garrett.”

Snake didn’t answer.

I opened the door.

Snake wouldn’t be answering anybody in this world again. Somebody had stuck a knife in him.

It wasn’t a good job. The thrust had gone in on the wrong side of his breastbone, piercing a lung. The tip of the dagger had lodged in his spine.

Morley materialized. “Lost him.” He looked at Snake. “Amateur work.” Always a student, Morley. And always a critic.

“Pros make mistakes if they’re in a hurry with somebody tough. This guy was a commando, way I hear. Be hard to take him clean.”

“Maybe.” Dotes dropped to his haunches, toyed with a cord twisted around Snake’s neck. The killer had finished it the hard way. “Interesting.”

I’d started looking for physical evidence. A killer in a hurry could have dropped something. “What’s that?”

“This is a Kef sidhe strangler’s cord.”

“A what?” I squatted beside him.

“Kef sidhe. They have strict religious injunctions against spilling blood. They think if you spill blood, the murdered man’s spirit can’t pass on till he’s been avenged. So they kill without spilling blood because murder is part of their religion, too. Using the cord is an art with them.”

I looked at the cord. It wasn’t just a piece of rope.

Morley said, “The master assassin makes his own cords. Making your own is the final rite of passage to master status. Look. The knot is like a hangman’s knot, except the noose is round so it can be drawn with the hands pulling apart. These knots in the cord aren’t really knots, they’re braided over cork cones. They work like barbs on an arrowhead. The cord can be pulled through the knot in only one direction.”

It only took a second to see how that worked—with an example right there. I felt one of the tapered bulges in the cord. Morley said, “The cork crushes down going through the knot, expands again on the other side.”

“How do you get your cord off?”

“They don’t. They use it only once, then it’s tainted. I’ve only ever seen one before. Cut off his own throat by a man I knew years ago. Excepting you, he was the luckiest guy I’ve ever known.”

I looked around, less interested in Snake than he was. If our killer wasn’t good he was lucky. There wasn’t a spot of physical evidence. “Kind of sad,” I said.

“Death usually is.” Which was a surprise, considering the source. But Morley has been full of surprises as long as I’ve known him.

“I mean the way he lived.” I gestured at our surroundings. He’d lived like his horses. He’d slept on straw. His only piece of furniture was a paint-stained table. “This was a professional soldier. Twenty years in, mostly spent in the Cantard. Combat pay. Prize money. A man careful enough to stay alive that long would be careful about his money. But he lived in a barn, like an animal. Didn’t even have a change of clothes.”

Morley grunted. “Happens. Want to bet he came out of the worst slum? Or off a dirt farm where they never saw two coppers the same month?”

“No bet.” I’d seen it. Raised poor, they can get pathological about squirreling it away for a rainy day—and death comes before the deluge. Sad way to live. I touched Snake’s shoulder. His muscles were still knotted. He hadn’t relaxed when he’d died. Curious.

I recalled what Cook had told me about him. “Put it on his tombstone, he was a good Marine.” I rolled him over in case there was something under him. There wasn’t, that I could see.

“Morley. It takes a guy awhile to strangle. Maybe whoever killed him tried that first, then stuck him. Instead of the other way around.”

He glanced around at the damage, which wasn’t all that obvious, considering the state of the place. “Could be.”

“You ever try to strangle somebody?”

He gave me a look. He didn’t answer questions like that.

“Sorry. I have. I was supposed to take out this sentry during a raid. I practiced before we went in.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“That was me then. I don’t like killing and I didn’t like it then, but I figured if I had to do it and wanted to get out, I’d better do it right.”

He grunted again. He was giving Snake’s former downside the once-over.

“I did it by the book. The guy was half-asleep when I got him. But I blew it. He threw me around like a ragdoll. He beat the shit out of me. And all the time I was hanging onto that damned rope. Only good I did was keep him from yelling till somebody could stick a knife in him.”

“The point?”

“If you don’t snap a guy’s neck, he’s going to fight you. And if he breaks loose, even with that Kef sidhe thing around his neck, he sees you and you got to make sure of him any way you can.”

“What you’re sneaking up on is this Snake guy was stronger than whoever hit him. Like that Venageti soldier.”

I hadn’t said the Venageti was stronger than me, but it was true. “Yes.”

“Somebody in the house probably has bumps and bruises. If someone from the house did this.”

“Maybe. Damn! Why couldn’t I have had some luck this once?”

“What do you mean?” He thinks my luck is outrageously good.

“Why couldn’t the killer leave something? A scrap of cloth. A tuft of hair. Anything.”

“Why not just wish for a confession?” Morley shook his head. “You’re so slick, you slide right past yourself. He left you a dagger and a Kef sidhe strangler’s cord. How exotic do you want to get? I told you how rare the cord is. How many daggers have you seen like this one?”

It had a fourteen-inch polished steel blade, which was unusual, but the hilt made it especially interesting. It was black jade, plain except for being jade. But at its widest point, where the middle finger of the hand would rest, there was a small silver medallion struck with a two-headed Venageti military eagle.

“A war souvenir?” Morley suggested.

“An unusual one. Venageti. Nobody lower than a light Colonel would carry it. A battalion commander in their elite forces or a regimental commander or his second in the regulars.”

“Couldn’t be a lot of those around, could there?”

“True.” It was a lead. Tenuous, but a lead. I looked down at Snake. “Man, why didn’t you blurt it out when you had the chance?”

“Garrett.”

I knew that tone. Morley’s special cautionary tone he saves for when he suspects I’m getting involved. Getting unprofessional, he’d call it. Getting bullheaded and careless, too.

“I have it under control. I just feel for the guy. I know what his life was like. It shouldn’t have ended like this.”

“It’s time to go, Garrett.”

“Yes.”

It was time. Before I got more involved emotionally.

I walked away thinking the old saw, There but for the grace of the gods . . . Over and over.

18

Morley wanted a crack at tracking whomever we’d heard fleeing. I gave him his head. He didn’t accomplish anything.

“It’s not right, Garrett.”

“What?”

“I’m getting a bad feeling. Not quite an intuition. Something beyond that. Like an unfounded conviction that things are going to turn real bad.”

Just so I couldn’t ever call him a liar, somebody screamed inside the house. It wasn’t a scream of pain and not quite one of fear, though there was fear in it. It sent those dread chills stampeding around my back. It sounded like a woman, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d heard men scream like that in the islands.

“Stay out of sight,” I told Morley, and took off.

The screams went on and on. I blew inside. They came from the west-side, third-floor balcony. I hit the stair running. Two flights up I slowed down. I didn’t want to charge into something.

The stairsteps were spotted with water drops and green stuff in bits and gobs. Under one lamp lay what looked like a dead slug. I poked it. It wiggled and I recognized it. It was a leech. I’d become closely acquainted with its relatives on that one swampy island.

There was an awful smell in the air. I knew it from that island, too.

What the hell?

There was all kinds of racket up there now. Men yelled. Peters shouted, “Get one of those spears and shove it back down.”

Dellwood, with a squeak higher than the screaming, asked, “What the hell is it?”

I moved upward carefully. I saw men against the head of the stairs, a couple with spears jabbing at something heaving on the stairs. There wasn’t enough light to show it clearly.

I had a suspicion.

Draug.

I got a lamp.

I didn’t want to see what I saw. That thing on the stair was something nobody ever wants to see, and whoever made it least of all.

It was a corpse. One that had been immersed in a swamp. What folklore called a draug, a murdered man who could not rest in death while his killer went unpunished. There are a million stories about draugs’ vengeance but I’d never expected to be a player in such a tale. They’re apochryphal, not concrete. Nobody ever really saw one.

Funny how the mind works. The thoughts you’d expect didn’t come to me. All I could think was: why me? This shot hell out of my simple case.

Peters yelled, “What do we do, Garrett?”

Besides puke? “I don’t know.” You can’t kill a draug. It’s dead already. It would just keep coming till it wore them out. “Try to cut it up.”

Dellwood did upchuck. Chain shoved him aside, flailed away with the ax part of a halberd. A couple of fingers came wriggling down where I stood. They didn’t lose their animation.

“Hold it there. I’ll come around the long way.” I backed down to the balcony.

As I retreated to the stair to the first floor, I spied the woman in white watching from the top balcony east, from a spot where she wouldn’t be seen by the bunch above me. She looked more interested and animated than usual. Like she was enjoying herself. I tried to sneak up on her but she wasn’t there when I got there.

I wasn’t surprised.

I crossed through the loft, went down. The guys were hard at work, poking and hacking and stumbling over each other. Peters said, “This is getting old, Garrett.”

“I’ll buy that. Who’s it after?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Who did the screaming?”

“Jennifer. She ran into it down there somewhere. It followed her up here.”

“Where is she now?”

“In her suite.”

“Hang in there. You’re doing a great job.” I started down the hall. Then came back. Kaid and Chain cursed me. I asked, “Who was it when it was alive?”

Peters bellowed, “How the hell should I know?” He needed to work on his vocabulary. He was in a rut.

“Catch you in a minute.” I headed for Jennifer’s suite, which was identical to her father’s, apparently, one floor below. I tried the door at the end of the hall. Locked and barred. I pounded. “Jennifer. It’s Garrett.”

I heard vague movement sounds. They stopped. She didn’t open up.

I wondered if I’d have the nerve, considering all the tricks the stories say draugs and haunts try.

I tried again. She wasn’t receiving callers. I rejoined the boys. They were hanging in there. Chunks of corrupt, stinking flesh were everywhere. And the draug kept coming. Stubborn cuss. I found a spot from which I could kibbitz. “Figure out who it was yet, Peters?”

“Yeah. Spencer Quick. Disappeared two months ago. The clothes. Nobody dressed like Quick. Lots of black leather. Thought it made the women swoon. You bastard. You just going to stand there?”

I rounded up a five-foot broadsword, the kind they’d used in knighthood days to bash each other into scrap metal. I tested its edge. Not bad, considering. I took up position out of the way, behind where the thing would emerge onto the balcony. “Let it come.”

“You’re crazy,” Kaid told me.

Maybe. “Go ahead. Back off.”

“Do it,” Peters said, trusting me way too much.

They skipped away.

The dead man came in a cloud of stench, dragging what was left of him, lurching into the wall. “What’re you waiting for?” Wayne shrieked at me.

I was waiting for the draug to jump its murderer, that’s what. But it didn’t.

Of course.

They all panicked, grabbed axes and swords, and started swinging. Six of them in a crowd like that, it was a miracle they didn’t kill each other.

I stood back and watched to see if anybody took advantage of the confusion to eliminate another heir.

Now that they had room, they carved the draug into little frisky pieces. Didn’t take them long, either. They were motivated. Wayne, Tyler, and Dellwood kept hacking away long after that was necessary.

They backed off finally, panting. Everybody looked at me like they thought I ought to be next. I got the impression they weren’t satisfied with my level of participation.

“Well, then. That takes care of that. Be smart to collect up the pieces and burn them. Peters, you want to fill me in on this Quick? Who was he and how did he happen to go away without anybody thinking that was strange?”

Chain exploded. Before he could get out a coherent sentence, I said, “Chain, I want you to come with me and Peters and Tyler. We’re going to backtrack that thing.”

“Say what?” Chain gulped air. “Backtrack it?”

“Yes. I want to see where it came from. Might tell us something useful.”

“Shit,” he said, and started shaking. “I want to tell you, I’m scared. I don’t mind admitting it. All my years in the Cantard I wasn’t scared like I am now.”

“You never ran into anything like this. Not to worry. It’s done.”

Peters said, “We have some other men missing, Garrett. Suppose more of those things turn up?”

“Doesn’t seem likely. Draugs don’t run in packs. Usually.” I recalled a couple of stories. There was the Wild Hunt, a whole band of dead riders who hunted the living. “You saw how slow it was. Stay alert. You can outmaneuver them. The thing to remember is, don’t get excited. We might have wrapped this mess up if we’d let the draug go after whoever killed it.”

“Shit!” Chain swore. “It didn’t care. It just wanted to get somebody. Anybody.”

“Maybe. So let’s hit the trail.” I tried to sound perky. “Another glorious night in the Corps.” I didn’t feel perky, not even a little. I was scared stiff. “Arm up if that makes you feel better. And get lanterns.”

Peters grumbled, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Garrett.”

I didn’t have the faintest. I was just rattling around, hoping something would shake loose.

19

“Tyler, move out to the left about ten yards. Chain, you go to the right. I don’t see much of a trail. Keep an eye out.” I disposed myself and Peters between them so we spanned thirty yards. We started from the base of the front steps. “Let’s go.”

Peters said, “It was walking when it came. Wouldn’t leave much of a trail.”

“Probably not. You going to tell me who Quick was before we carved him up?”

“We?” Chain bellowed. “Will you listen to that shit?”

“Calm down,” Peters told him. “I know what he was doing. He was right. You should have told us, Garrett.”

“And warn the villain?”

“He’s pretty well warned now.”

“Safe, too. Oh. Add a name to the victim list. Somebody did it to Snake.”

Peters stopped, held his lantern overhead, glared at me. “You aren’t kidding. Snake? Why the hell Snake?”

I tried to recall who’d been sitting where when I’d let Snake out that door. Hell. Anybody with good ears could have heard. He’d used a stage whisper. Maybe he’d wanted the killer to know. Maybe he’d had something planned and it had turned in his hand. I wouldn’t let a known killer get close enough to put a noose around my neck.

“Here,” Chain said. We moved over. A strip of rotten leather hung on a bush. We redeployed.

I said, “You going to tell me about Quick?”

“I can’t,” Peters said. “I didn’t know him. He was almost as spooky as Snake. Stayed to himself, mostly. You had to use a pry bar to get three words out of him. He did fancy himself a lover. You want to find out about him, talk to the gals at the Black Shark. All I can tell you is he was somebody the General knew and thought he owed. Like all of us.”

I’d passed the Black Shark on the way to the Stantnor place. It was an evil-looking dive. I’d been considering taste-testing the house brew. Now I had business reasons to visit.

“Chain. You know anything about him?”

“Not me. Hell, sour as he was, I wasn’t surprised when he walked. Him and the old man feuded all the time. He never gave a shit about the money, far as I know. He just didn’t have nowhere else to go.”

“Tyler?”

“I didn’t know him, except he played a big role at the Black Shark. Guy was a werewolf, the way he changed personality when a woman was in sight. I figured he found somewhere he wanted to be more than he wanted to stay here.”

Great. The live ones were weird and the dead ones weirder.

We were spread out just enough. We kept finding another trace just before we lost the trail. We adjusted and kept on. It was slow going.

“Who do you think is doing it, Garrett?” Peters asked.

“I don’t have a clue.”

Chain said, “He’ll pass the word when there’s only one of us left.”

“That would work,” I admitted.

Tyler kicked in, “I’d have put money on Snake. He was kill-crazy in the islands. He’d go hunting alone if he went too long without action.”

I’d known a few like that, guys who got hooked on the killing. They hadn’t made it through. Death has a way of devouring its acolytes.

“Here,” Peters said. He’d found a place in tall grass where the draug had stopped. The trail was easy now. The grass was trampled down.

The trail pointed toward the swamp Peters had mentioned.

I asked, “You ever heard of Kef sidhe?”

“Kef she? What?”

“Sidhe. As in the race sidhe. Kef sidhe are professional killers. Religious assassins.”

“No. Hell. The nearest sidhe are a couple thousand miles from here. I’ve never seen one.”

Neither had I. “They’re something like elves.”

“What about them?”

“Snake was strangled with a Kef sidhe strangler’s cord. Not exactly a common item in these parts.”

Peters just looked baffled, near as I could tell by lantern light. Damn, he was ugly.

“How about a Venageti colonel’s dress dagger? Were there any souvenirs around?”

“Black-handled thing with a silver medallion? Long blade?”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask why?”

“You can. I won’t tell you till I know more about the knife.”

“Snake had one he took off a Venageti colonel that he snuffed during one of his private excursions,” Chain said.

“Damn!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Somebody stuck it in him when the strangler’s cord didn’t work fast enough.” Wouldn’t you know it? Stuck with his own sticker. Hell, next thing I knew I’d find out he committed suicide.

Our villain was probably more lucky than clever, full of tricks that were working out by accident.

Chain said, “Holy shit,” in a soft voice. “We got trouble.”

“What?” Peters demanded.

“Look at this.”

We joined him. He held his lantern as high as he could.

Now there were two trails through the grass, one a yard to the side of the other. Peters and I exchanged glances, then looked at Chain. “Tyler! Get over here.”

Tyler hadn’t come. His lantern hung about two feet off the ground as he knelt to study something. “Wait a second.”

I asked, “What have you got?”

“Looks like . . . ”

Dark movement behind him. “Look out!”

The draug grabbed Tyler by the throat and hoisted him into the air. His neck snapped. He made a sound like a rabbit’s scream; his lantern fell and broke. Fire splashed the draug’s feet. It lifted Tyler overhead, heaved him into the darkness, turned on the rest of us.

“Spread out,” I said.

“You damn well better do more than watch this time,” Chain told me.

The fire blazed till the lantern’s fuel was gone. The grass didn’t catch. Neither did the draug. Both were too wet.

“We’ll cut it up,” I said. “Like the other one.”

Chain said, “Let’s don’t talk, let’s do.”

I didn’t want to. But this draug wasn’t particular about whom it stalked. It hated life. If it had been after Tyler specifically, it would have fallen down, done, revenge complete. But it wanted the rest of us, too.

It didn’t have much chance against three of us. We were faster and armed. But it kept coming. And coming. And coming. It’s hard to cut a body up when it’s chasing you.

The horror and fear subsided after a few minutes. I got my head working. “Either one of you know who this was?”

“Crumpet,” Chain said. He concentrated like a clockmaker, making every move and stroke count.

“Crumpet? What kind of name is that?”

“Nickname,” Peters said. “Real name was Simon Riverway. He didn’t like it. Crumpet was all right. The ladies hung it on him in Full Harbor. Said he was a sweet bun.”

Weird. I unleashed a roundhouse cut at the draug’s neck. It got a hand in the way. My stroke sheered halfway through its wrist, one bone’s worth. The thing kept turning toward me while I was off balance, grabbing with its other hand.

It grabbed hold of my sleeve. I thought I was a goner. Chain came in with a two-handed, overhead stroke, all his weight behind it. It hit the thing’s shoulder hard enough to shake its hold. “I owe you one, Chain.” I danced back a few yards, decided I’d follow Chain’s example, and set my lantern down.

The draug kept after me—which was fine with Peters and Chain. Peters jumped in behind and took a wild cut at its right Achilles tendon, hamstrung it on his backstroke.

And it kept coming, though not as fast as it had.

It seemed to take forever, but we wore it down. It fell and couldn’t get up. We carved it up good to make sure, spending a lot of fear energy. Once we were finished, I recovered my lantern, said, “I think we’d better hole up till dawn. If there were two of them there might be more. We can explore later.”

“You said they don’t run in packs,” Peters said.

“Maybe I was wrong. I don’t want to find out the hard way. Let’s get out of here.”

“First smart thing I’ve heard you say,” Chain said. He examined Tyler. “Dead as a wedge. You think he’s the one that killed them?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t bet on it. That one didn’t care who it killed. It just wanted to kill somebody.”

“Like the old joke about the hungry buzzard? Let’s go. Before Tyler gets up and comes after us, too. I couldn’t take that.”

I didn’t argue. Draugs are supposed to be dead a few months before they get up, but I wasn’t ready to field test the folklore.

20

As soon as we reached the house I went to check on Dellwood, Kaid, and Wayne. They were out back. They’d gotten a roaring bonfire going and were feeding it pieces of the first draug. I told them, “Throw it all in and get inside.”

“Sir?” Dellwood asked. He had his color back.

“There may be more of them out. We ran into one who used to be called Crumpet. It killed Tyler. Let’s not find out what else is waiting in the dark.”

They didn’t fool around. They didn’t ask questions. They pitched the draug in the fire and headed for the house. I glanced around as I followed, wondering what had become of Morley.

The survivors gathered at the fountain. They were chattering about Snake and Tyler when I joined them. Wayne and Kaid held the opinion that the second draug had gotten the right man.

I told them, “I’m not so sure. It just wanted to kill. It wasn’t satisfied with Tyler. Dellwood, check the doors. Peters, are there other ways to get in?”

“Several.”

“Take Chain and Kaid and check them out. We stay in threes till the sun comes up.”

“How come?” Chain asked.

“I think the killer is working alone. If we’re stuck with him, we’ll outnumber him two to one.”

“Oh.”

Peters said, “Ask these guys about that sidhe thing.”

Right. “Dellwood. Wayne. Kaid. You know anything about Kef sidhe? Especially a Kef sidhe strangler’s cord?”

They frowned. Dellwood, puffing from his hasty trip to the doors, asked, “What’s that?”

I described the thing I’d found around Snake’s neck.

“The General had something like that in his study.”

Peters brightened. “Yes! I remember it. It was with a whole bunch of junk, whips and stuff, in the corner by the fireplace.”

I recalled the whips. I hadn’t paid much attention. “Dellwood, next time you’re up there, see if it’s gone. Ask the General where it came from. And where it went if it’s not there.”

Dellwood nodded. I hated to turn loose but I couldn’t keep him on my suspect list. He just didn’t seem capable. If I discounted Peters, who’d have to be crazy to hire me if he was guilty, I didn’t have many suspects left.

The others were thinking the same way. Chain, Kaid, and Wayne started giving each other plenty of room.

Peters started to go.

“Wait,” I said. “There’s one question I should’ve asked before. I’ve been too busy with murder to worry about theft. Does anybody have a drug habit? Or gamble? Or keep a woman on the outside?” All of those might explain the thievery.

Everybody shook their heads.

“Not even Hawkes or Snake or Tyler?” Three in one day. The old man wasn’t going to be happy about the job I was doing, though he hadn’t exactly hired me to keep people alive.

“No,” Peters said. “You don’t stay alive in the Cantard if you’re the slave of your vices.”

True. Though vice had been rampant in places like Full Harbor, where we’d taken our rare leaves and liberties. A hellhole for a kid, Full Harbor. But you learned what life was like there. You had no illusions when you left.

Karenta hadn’t yet evacuated Full Harbor, though Glory Mooncalled said they had to go. His deadline had passed. Something would happen down there soon. A really big explosion. And Glory Mooncalled wouldn’t have his usual advantages. You can’t outrun, out-maneuver, or even sneak up on a fortified city waiting for you. I doubted he had friends inside the walls. His enemies there would include Karenta’s top sorcerers, against whom he had no defense.

I didn’t think he could take Full Harbor. But he had to try. He’d shot off his mouth one time too many. He was committed.

The fate of Full Harbor meant nothing now, of course. We had our own siege here, a siege of horror.

Peters’s group split to make sure the house hadn’t been penetrated. The rest of us stayed at the fountain, in reserve. After a while, I asked, “Dellwood, what do you figure on doing after the General passes?”

He looked at me funny. “I never really thought about it, Mr. Garrett.”

That was hard to believe. I said so.

Wayne chuckled. “Believe it, Garrett. This guy isn’t real. He ain’t here for the money. He’s here to take care of the old man.”

“Really? And why are you here?”

“Three things. The money. I got nowhere else to go. And Jennifer.”

I lifted an eyebrow. I hadn’t gotten much chance to show off my favorite trick lately. “The General’s daughter?”

“The same. I want her.”

Pretty blunt, this one. “What’s the General think?”

“I don’t know. I never brought it up. I don’t intend to before he goes.”

“What do you plan to do with your share of the money?”

“Nothing. Let it sit. I won’t need it if I have Jenny, will I?”

No, he wouldn’t.

“Which is why I ain’t your killer, Mister. I don’t have to skrag anybody to get half the estate.”

A point. “What’s Jennifer think about this?” She hadn’t shown any interest in Wayne.

“Straight? She ain’t exactly swept away. But she ain’t got no other offers and she ain’t likely to get none. When the time comes, she’ll come around.”

What an attitude. He sounded like a guy who could work his way up a hit list fast.

“What do you think about that, Dellwood?”

“Not much, sir. But Miss Jennifer will need somebody.”

“How about you?”

“No sir. I haven’t the force of personality to deal with her. Not to mention the fact that she isn’t a very pleasant person.”

“Really?” I was about to probe that when Wayne jumped up and pointed.

There was a vague shape at the back door, not clearly visible through the glass. It rattled the door. I figured it was Morley. I walked toward the door slowly. Make him wait.

Halfway there a face pressed against the glass. I was able to make out decomposed features. I stopped.

“Another one. Don’t panic. I don’t think it can get in. If it does, stay out of its way.” I returned to the fountain, settled, disturbed but not afraid. The draugs weren’t particularly dangerous when you were ready for them.

One in a night was unpleasant enough, but not that unreasonable—except for the assault on reason. In this world almost anything can happen and it does, but I’d never seen the dead get up and walk before. I’d never known anybody who’d seen it—unless you counted vampires. But they’re a whole different story. They’re victims of a disease. And they never really die, they just slip into a kind of limbo between life and death.

Once was unpleasant, twice was doubly unpleasant, but three times was just too much to have been animated by hatred and hunger for revenge alone. Not all in the same night.

Mass risings of the dead, in story and legend, were initiated from outside, by necromancers. By sorcerers.

“Hey, uh, Dellwood. Anybody around here a trained sorcerer? Or even an amateur?”

“No sir.” He frowned. “Why?”

I lied. “I thought we could use a little help laying some restless spirits.”

“Snake,” Wayne said. “He could do some spooky stuff. Picked it up from a necromancer. He was her chief bodyguard for a while. He painted her picture and she taught him some tricks.” He snickered. Must have been a variety of tricks. “He wasn’t much good at it.”

“And he’s dead.”

“Yeah. That’s how you get off the hook around here.”

But . . . “Suppose he could think like a sorcerer?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I . . . ? Let me reach. I was supposed to meet him. He was going to tell me who the killer was. He seemed sure he knew. He’d be wary. But somebody got to him despite his training and precautions. Suppose he knew that might happen? Suppose that, if he had a mind to, he could turn himself into a booby trap.”

“Somebody’s a booby.”

“Flatterer. Look, it’s in stories all the time. The curse that gets you after you kill a sorcerer. Suppose he fixed it so that, if he got killed, everybody else the killer killed would get up and go after him?”

Wayne grunted. “Maybe. Knowing that spooky, paranoid bastard, he’d rig it so they’d get up and go after everybody.”

That fit, too. Sometimes I’m so brilliant I blind myself.

So what? Suppose that was true? It explained the draugs but didn’t settle anything. There was a killer on the loose—if that hadn’t been Tyler. No way to know unless he struck again.

If he had an ounce of brains, he’d retire while he had the chance to get out free.

I have such confidence in human nature. “Gents, I’m bone tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Sir!” Dellwood protested.

“That thing isn’t going to get in.” It was still trying.

And getting nowhere. “Our killer, if he’s still alive, has got a great out now. He can let Tyler take the rap.”

What you call planting a seed for the slow of wit.

I was so tired, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I needed to set myself up with some safe time. “Good night, all.”

Book Four of The Garrett Files

Contents

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2

3

4

5

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