Angry Lead Skies (27 page)

The other elf woman, the elder and senior woman — judging by wrinkles — seemed terrified, though no one even spoke to her. I got the feeling she’d never seen the inner workings of a Karentine household.

Fear or no, she did appear to me immensely curious about everything.

Kip was a shuddering zombie, controlled by an increasingly exasperated Dead Man. Kip never stopped fighting him. Something was missing in that boy’s makeup. I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to stay alive this long.

Singe and I removed to the Dead Man’s room as soon as I’d had enough to eat. She brought a platter along with her, loaded with seconds or thirds. Having no better idea what to do with herself, the slimmer elf woman tagged along. She wouldn’t sit when I offered her my chair because that would leave me standing between her and the door. The other one stayed with Dean, exploring the wonders of the kitchen.

“So where do we stand, Old Bones? Have we learned anything?”

Perhaps. At the first instance, probably that we should not have allowed emotion to sweep us away and get us involved in this. As I see it now, we have stormed into the middle of something that was none of our business. We have done nothing but trail chaos and dismay wherever we have gone.

“What do you mean, ‘we,’ Big Daddy Homely? You can’t really talk about someone else in the royal plural, can you?”

Do not become tedious. I am struggling to translate what little recognizable material I find in the thin creature’s mind. This is truly an alien intelligence, Garrett. I have encountered nothing like it in all my years. Nor have I ever heard of such creatures... Unless... There may have been similar folk here when I was a child. Visitors, they were called then. They were all murdered for their secrets. Inasmuch as they did not reveal anything they were soon forgotten.

I am having difficulty communicating not just because of what you would call a language barrier but also because of her fear. She is awash in fear, not just of us, here, whom she finds terrifying enough, but of being cut off from her own people. She is completely unmanned by the possibility that she may never be able to return home. And least of all, but still there in the mix, is a fear of the consequences of the failure of her mission.

“And that would be?”

I do not know. That is in a sealed part of her mind.

“What about the other one?”

She is frightened, too. And her mind is more closed. But behind her fear there is a hint of her seeing this personal disaster as a potential opportunity for... I do not know what. Something compulsive. Possibly obsessive. Possibly something wicked. Worms of temptation have begun to awaken way down in the black, mucky deeps...

I hate it when he meanders off on a free association, poetic ramble. I guess because I can’t ever figure out what the hell he’s babbling about. “What about Kip? Did you get anything new out of him?”

Yes. Once I became aware that there was something that should be there. But it is not much. And I do not know if we can justify hunting down Lastyr and Noodiss.

“Of course we can.” But I couldn’t think of any reasonable argument in favor of that. “Is there any chance some of those elves might’ve put a compulsion into my head somewhere along the way? Like one of those times when I was knocked out?”

At the moment I am unable to investigate. All of my mental capacity is occupied by the boy and these foreign women.

“They definitely are both women, then.”

By birth. You unclothed them. You saw.

“I didn’t see much.” But what I had seen had been curiously interesting. “The one in the kitchen at least raised a crop of lemons.”

Many human women are not as voluptuous as those in the range you usually find interesting. This one’s primary sexual characteristics are somewhat atrophied. I would expect that to be true of the others, as well.

“I did notice that.” In the women it all added up to a sort of virginal innocence that was attractive in its own fashion.

Singe hissed at me. I think it was supposed to be laughter.

I suspect that this is not an individual aberration. I suspect that we would find the males even more atrophied.

“Weird.” I shuddered. “The ones I stripped down out there definitely weren’t built to boogie. Maybe I ought to introduce this old gal to Morley.”

The pixies out front launched one of their racket shows, which wakened the Goddamned Parrot.

She may be beyond seduction, Garrett. They may have tried to breed the sexual impulse out of themselves. The same madness has been tried by countless cults in our part of the world in a shortsighted effort to shove all those distractions aside.

“How the hell do they get little elves, then?”

Exactly. No such cult lasts more than a generation. Perhaps the silver elves have found a way around that limitation. Possibly they have a separate breeder caste. I do not know. I do know that no living creature I have ever encountered, save the rare mutant, has lacked desire, however distorted the core impulse might have become because of stresses upon the individual. I would suspect them to be present in these elves. But buried deep.

“So have you gotten anything out of the kid concerning his two weird pals?”

Truly, he does not know how or where to find them. He does not have a reliable means of attracting their attention. His method worked only two times in five tries. The rest of the time they just turned up at their own discretion, almost always when he was alone. It has not occurred to Kip to wonder but they almost certainly knew that he was alone before they visited.

Dean stuck his head in. “That racket out front is because the wee folk have spotted Bic Gonlit.”

Dean was talking to the pixies now? Times change. I gave him the fish-eye, on general principles. He wouldn’t be feeding them, too, would he?

“Now why would Bic...?”

I have him. Go bring him in, Garrett.
He flashed me a pixie’s-eye view of the spot from which Bic was watching the house. I noted that it was farther away than the Dead Man had shown he could reach before when trying to manipulate a human being.
After that, take Kip home to his mother. He is nothing but a distraction here.

“This is the real Bic Gonlit?”

The genuine article. Evidently determined to be foolish. Help me find out why. He will not run this time. He will not see you leave the house.

54

Though he was mad as hell Bic couldn’t get his body to move. He couldn’t do anything but flinch when my hand settled on his shoulder. “Bic, my man, here you are again. Lurking. Let’s go for a walk.”

Gonlit stood up and zombie-walked over to the house with me. I talked to him all the way, mainly in an admonitory tone. There was no need to get any other watchers overly excited.

I did blow Mrs. Cardonlos a kiss. She was out on her porch, keeping her eyes open. She needed her reward.

Mr. Gonlit is after Miss Pular again. Now on behalf of a ratman who calls himself John Stretch.

“You get the joke, Singe? John Stretch?”

“No. Why would the name John Stretch be a joke?” The notion seemed to irritate her.

“John Stretch is what they used to call the hangman, before we got civilized and started lopping off heads instead.”

“Is that true? I wonder who he could be.” Singe had almost no accent left, despite her vastly different throat and voice box. Scary how talented the girl was. But her tone was so controlled even I knew she was dancing around something. I was surprised the Dead Man didn’t get after her. Although, sometimes, he just doesn’t pay attention to anything but himself.

Mr. Gonlit does not know who John Stretch is. He does not care. One of the hard-nosed youngsters with ambitions toward Reliance’s throne, if you care to call it that. A somewhat naive youngster willing to pay part of Mr. Gonlit’s fee up front.

Mr. Gonlit enjoyed a wonderful gourmet dinner last night. He followed it with a bottle of TunFaire Gold and a deep pipe filled with the finest imported broadleaf tobacco. Probably a Postersaldt. Now Mr. Gonlit finds himself in a position where he has to deliver something that will please John Stretch.

“Hey, Bic. You know we warned you to back away from us.”

Gonlit shrugged. “People warn
you
off, pal. I don’t recollect you ever running away.”

That stuff is pretty obnoxious when somebody else is throwing it into
your
face.

“Must be the boots talking, Bic. Making you braver than you ought to be.”

“What’re you gonna do, pal? Send me to the Cantard?”

Bic tried hard not to betray his interest in the silver elf woman. Her interest in Bic, however, was both frank, blatant, and troubled. The manly posturing thing seemed both to excite and repel her. She was eager to see what happened next.

“There’s an original question, Bic. Well, I have work to do. Errands to run. I hope you took that John Stretch for a potful of gold. By the time I get back home you’ll probably be unemployed. Kip! Where the hell are you? Get your sorry ass ready. I’m taking you home.” With a side trip to The Palms along the way, of course.

I needed to see my old buddy, my pal, Morley the celery stalker and carrot killer.

55

I passed the word to Morley. “The number one boy out to scrub Reliance is a rat who calls himself John Stretch.”

“That’s cute. What’ve you been up to?”

“I thought Reliance might be interested. What do you think? How do you mean, up to? Why do you want to know?”

“We’ve had some unusual people turn up here the last couple of nights. They’re the sort who dress up in black and manage to suck all the joy out of a room just by entering it.”

“Why would they come here?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“Not a clue here.” And I really didn’t have one.

“That the kid you were looking for?”

“The very one. Am I good, or what?”

“So you got him back.”

“Damn me with faint praise if you want. I’m taking him home to his mother now.”

“You think he’s smart enough to make it there, then?” Kip had just done something to test Sarge’s patience.

“I have hopes. I’m counting on his ego. And once I’m shut of him I’ll be the happiest boy in town. I’d go on a toot if I didn’t have work to do.”

“Ooh! You have another job lined up already?”

“Nope. Just studying the excesses of the rest of you. I’m considering entrepreneur stuff. Because I’m going into business for myself.”

Morley looked at me for a while. “All right. This ought to be entertaining.”

“What? You don’t think I can be a serious businessman?”

“No. Because a serious businessman has to stay sober most of the time. A serious businessman has to make his decisions untouched by emotion. And, most of all, a serious businessman has to
work.
All day, every day, enduring longer hours than the most dedicated character on his payroll.”

I took a deep, cleansing breath, sighed. “O ye of little faith.”

“Exactly. Tell me everything you’ve left out about your adventures, Garrett.”

When I got to the part about the Michorite messenger Morley began to laugh. He said, “I guess that explains the kid who turned up here a few hours ago.”

“What?”

“He was a dark-haired boy of draft age, as handsome as they come, some mother’s son, wearing nothing but a loincloth. But he stank like an alley in the drought season.”

“How long did you fiddle with the words to put that together?”

“Then till now. Sounded good, didn’t it? He couldn’t remember why he was supposed to see me. The boys in the kitchen gave him some leftovers and sent him on his way.”

I grunted sourly. “Hey, Sarge, no need to hold back on my account. The kid asks for it, smack him. Probably won’t do any good. But he’s got to learn somehow, someday.”

Though I was just about convinced that Kip never would.

Only seconds later,
Smack!

Kip bounced off Sarge’s fist, slammed into a wall, folded up into a very surprised pile of dirty laundry.

Morley said, “Sarge wasn’t just a medic. He did one tour training recruits.”

I asked, “How’d you teach that kind when you were in the army, Sarge?”

“Ain’t dat hard, Garrett. But foist ya do got ta get dere attenshun.”

Excellent, in theory. But we were dealing with Cyprus Prose who, I feared, could not be reached by mortal man.

The kid got up, still looking surprised as he shook his head. He started to say something.

Sarge popped him again. Harder.

And, moments later, again, harder still.

And that was all it took. Kip looked right at Sarge, as though really seeing him for the first time.

“Dere. Dat’s better. Let’s you an’ me talk, boy.”

Then a miracle occurred.

Kip paid attention.

Morley opined, “I believe it has to do with Sarge having no emotional investment. Everyone else who ever tried to teach the boy manners didn’t want to hurt him. Down deep he always knew they’d pull their punches. And they’d give up after they’d failed a few times. So he learned to outlast them. Sarge doesn’t have an investment. He doesn’t care if the kid lives or dies. He’ll just keep on hitting, harder and harder, until he gets results. People sense that. They give him their direction. The way the boy has.
Ouch!
”

Sarge had smacked Kip again, this time turning him ass over appetite.

“A smart mouth always calls for a little reminder. Let the master work a while. You’ll be glad you did.”

So I did. I kept one ear turned Sarge’s direction while Morley and I tried to figure out what the hell I’d gotten myself into this time. Sarge talked to Kip softly, gently, probing his core knowledge of courtesy and the social graces. Kip knew the forms. What he lacked was any understanding. Sarge managed to pound a few insights into his thick, young-adult skull.

I told Morley, “That sonofabitch just went up about ten notches on my approval board. He had me fooled. You think he could do anything with a blasphemous parrot?”