Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) (21 page)

“So let me see if I understand correctly. We get to rescue a knight, save
the Holy Grail
, and track down the murderer responsible for killing Kozlov and those officers?” Ferraro asked. “I got into the wrong line of work. Does Fate have an internship program?”

I wasn’t entirely sure if she was joking or not.

Fortuna just smiled, a big goofy grin that looked strange on a being as powerful as Lady Luck. “I’m glad someone realizes what an honor this is,” she said after a beat.

“Yeah, honor,” I said. I turned and looked at Ferraro. “Before you get all gung ho and sign up for the mailing list, Ms. Smitty McSmiterson, you should really look at the fine print. It’s all fine and dandy to say,
Yeah sure, we’ll get your cup
. But here’s the thing—Fortuna, here, wouldn’t ask us to do it if she could do it herself. Which means getting the holy drinking flask back isn’t gonna be a school trip to the art museum.” I turned and stared at Fortuna. “So how do we find it and what are we up against?”

Fortuna smiled, her narrow face pinching up, the grin mischievous and telling. “Perhaps you’re not quite as dumb as you look. Finding it won’t be so difficult, just ride east from here—toward the Salt Marsh—and into the Bog Fog.”

“The Bog Fog.” My voice was flat, unamused, which mirrored my face and general attitude perfectly. “The Mists of Fate. You’re sending us into an alternate Time Lap.”

“Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically, apparently not picking up on my obviously bad attitude. “In legend, Galahad is purportedly taken to Heaven, but in reality, he was transported to the Mists of Fate, wandering through endless dimensions, always guarding the Grail. He has been trapped in a possible future, which is becoming increasingly more probable due to the presence of the Grail. You see, the Grail is extra real, granting the holder—and thus his reality—more weight, more pull on the present.”

She reached back into the folder and withdrew a small printed map, apparently taken from Google, showing a few square city blocks in Seattle. “Finding the Grail should be the easy part. Ride into the Mists, Lady Fate will exert her will and bring you to the right Time Lap, and then you do your part from there.” She pointed at a little red X drawn on the map.

She stuck a hand into her pocket and rooted around for a moment, before bringing out a smooth stone, carved with an ancient rune that shimmered like a trapped moonbeam. “Once you have freed Galahad and have used the Grail, weave a little spirit into the rune—Lady Fate will extract you from the Time Lap and send you on your way. Easy, really. You won’t even have to travel back through the Hinterlands or the Hub.”

“I hate you,” I said, staring at the map, tracing my finger along the streets. “If it was easy you wouldn’t need us. What else haven’t you said?”

“Well …” She shrugged. “You might find a
little
resistance. A small army of genetically altered zombies. An insane cult led by a mutated psycho named Cannibal Steve. Just a few minor details, nothing you can’t handle.” She offered a small apologetic smile. “I’m sure you’ll both do fine.”

The loud
crack
of a gunshot rang out, followed by a brief shriek, before the bar grew silent—the gentle background piano music gone and the barroom chatter stilled.

“Sakes alive!” The bartender shouted. “Now why in the Sam Hill did you go and shoot ol’ Sappy? You know damn well how hard it is to get a musician out in these parts, Fast Hands.”

A gruff, stocky man—though only a man in the most liberal sense of the word—with a blunt flat face, complete with a flickering snake’s tongue and matte black eyes, grinned at the barkeep. His fangs were sharp and deadly looking. He flexed massive arms covered in copper scales, muscles rippling, and twirled a six-shooter back and forth in rapid arcs. Back and forth it went, the weapon passed from hand to hand in a blur of movement. Eventually, he tucked the revolver back into a black leather holster at his hip.

“All right,” Fortuna said, “I’ll leave you to it. Best of luck.” She quickly stood, popped her folder back into her briefcase, and ducked out of the bar, all without garnering a hint of unwanted attention. Lucky her.

“Come on,” I said to Ferraro, “let’s beat feet, huh?” I nodded toward the door.

The gunman, Fast Hands, belched and swayed a little. “That ol’ queer fish been past his prime for a long while now. Couldn’t even play me ‘The Piano Man’
by Billy Joel. What kinda piano-man can’t play ‘The Piano Man’?” He turned his flat reptilian gaze on Ferraro and I just as we were standing to go. “‘Sides, who cares ‘bout Ol’ Sappy, we got us a new Song-Slinger.”

“Sorry, Slick,” I said, offering my most winning smile, “but we were just going.”

In a blur of movement, his gun was out of the holster and leveled at my chest. “That ssso?” he asked, his voice a raspy thing that drew the sss’s into a hiss. He ambled up to me, his face mere feet from my own, his black eyes staring into mine, his flickering tongue inches from my skin—guy obviously didn’t know about personal boundaries. He also didn’t seem to know about dental hygiene since his breath was rank with the smell of fetid meat.

“And it ain’t ‘slick,’ name is Fast Hands Steve … You smell wrong,” he said, his tongue whipping around.

“Funny,” I replied, “I was thinking the same thing.” I backed up a step, keeping my hands low, but preparing to draw my hand cannon—tucked away beneath my coat—if needed.

“Some kinda of comedian, huh?” More men—some humanoid, other clearly halfies of one variety or another—stood, taking the scene in with suspicious eyes, hands moving uncomfortably close to weapons of all shapes and sizes. Bad odds, those. Folks out here could be a little twitchy; a lot of them had records, many were fugitives, and most just didn’t trust a soul. “You smell like
magic
, like
Vis
. Sick though, polluted. What are you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Just another halfie—a changeling,” I said trying my damnedest to play things cool. Just needed to be cool. “Pop was a fir darrig, outta the Spring Court. I got a touch of the fae in my blood is all.”

He flicked his tongue out once more, breathing deeply through silted nostrils. “You don’t look like no fir darrig I ever saw.”

He was right about that—fir darrig were about five and a half feet tall, all whipcord muscle, and burnt red hides of tough leather. No fir darrig would ever grace a model runway, that was for damn sure. But as a halfie? I could pass for a halfie. There was never a “standard” way for a halfie to come out: sometimes they looked like Mom, sometimes like Dad, sometimes it was a little bit of a mix. And sometimes—like with Fast Hands himself—halfie babies popped out looking like nothing no one had ever seen before (though my guess was that Fast Hands had a dash of naga somewhere in his lineage).

“What can I say, I got all of Mom’s good looks,” I replied.

He stepped closer, now half a foot from being chest to chest with me. “Could be, could be.”

“Look, bud,” I said, “I’m glad we had a chance to talk about my folks—really, I am, but like I was saying, partner, we’re going.”

He pressed his gun into my chest, its barrel digging in even through the fabric of my shirt. “How ‘bout instead of doing that, you shut yer cock holster and play me ‘The Piano Man.’”

Ferraro reached toward her waistband where she had her Glock secreted away. Couldn’t say that I blamed her, the guy was obviously drunk and clearly dangerous, plus he’d told me to “shut my cock holster,” which warranted a punch to the nose on general principle. I waved her down though—she was a good shot, sure, but I didn’t think she could draw, shoot, and kill Fast Hands before he did us both in.

Well … maybe she could draw, shoot, and kill him before he shot
her,
but I’d be shit outta luck. He’d moved that pistol awfully quick and he already had gun in hand. Plus, there had to be a damn good reason why his nickname was ‘Fast Hands.’ Challenging him to a fast draw would be like challenging a four hundred-pound guy named Eating-Machine Doug to an eating competition. Just not a prudent move.

Sometimes holding your tongue is the very best policy, though damn if my pride didn’t take a licking. As I’ve said before, though, it’s better to let your pride take a hit, than to actually get hit—in this case hit with a bullet. Plus, what’s the point of coming up with a clever and elaborate cover story if you’re just gonna blow it right out the gate?

“Hey, whatever you say, boss. Whatever you say.”

TWENTY:

Dangerous Game

Ferraro sat at our table by the stairs, back to the wall while keeping her eyes on me and one hand cautiously close to her waistband. But I didn’t let the situation get the best of me, I was actually having a pretty good time, considering I was being held hostage at gunpoint while a scale-covered, human-viper played a game of cards and got crazy drunk. Believe it or not, this was actually kind of par for the course, I felt on familiar ground here. Even though I’ve been a lot of different things over the years—Marine, mage, fix-it man—at my heart, my core, I’m just a rambling, gambling bluesman.

So I smoked cigarettes and played tune after tune, ‘The Piano Man’ followed by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Gimme Three Steps’, then on to the Allman Brothers Band’s ‘Ramblin’ Man’, trailed by Memphis Slim’s ‘Let the Good Times Roll Creole’. Saloon-goers bought me cheap beer by the bucket and dropped tips into an old copper bowl, which sat next to me on the piano bench. I took requests, as any proper Song-Slinger would, and hammered out tunes on the black and whites while belting out the songs amidst the hubbub of the room: glasses clinking, the scrape of chairs on wooden floors, rough laughter, and coarse shouts, followed, occasionally, by a gunshot or two.

No one else died though, and despite Fast Hand Steve’s earlier threats and posturing, he seemed more than content to go back to his table and his drink once I’d played his request.

He still kept an eye on me though, taking long, calculating glances over every time I stopped for a break or needed to grab a drink. He’d smelled my power, even through the sickness raging in me—and I had the distinct impression that he’d never completely bought my changeling story. I could practically see the doubt in him.

But those glances were coming fewer and fewer as the hours stretched on and the night grew late.

The more he drank—shit, the more everyone drank—the less I seemed to draw eyes. All to the good. Something I’ve learned from all my years of gambling is this: sometimes, it’s best to play real conservative, so that when it’s time to make your big play, folks don’t even see it coming.

My time was getting close, but it wasn’t quite right, not yet. If I just held out a little longer, played a little harder, let those fools drink themselves into a stupor—or into liver failure—I’d be that much better off when it was time to go. Another ten or fifteen minutes and I could probably slide away under the guise of taking a piss, grab Ferraro, and just slip right out the back with no one the wiser. With the crew being as drunk as they were, no one would probably notice until the next morning.

So I pounded out ‘The Man Comes Around’, by Johnny Cash, and killed more time. Patient as a mouse, hunkered down, waiting for the pesky cat to lose interest.

I saw my carefully laid plan start to fall apart about thirty seconds later, halfway through my Cash set. No good, shit-faced, scale-covered Fast Hands was up and lumbering his way toward Ferraro. She glared at him so hard, I thought his serpent blood would’ve frozen right in his veins, but he didn’t seem to notice. Not a lick.

Too friggin’ drunk to see trouble staring him right in the face like an ill-tempered tiger.

He pulled his shooter from its holster and twirled it back and forth, demonstrating a surprising amount of dexterity considering his current level of shit-facedness. I’d seen him put down a fifth of the sludgy brown whiskey the barkeep was serving. I’d had a few pulls and let me tell you, that shit was strong enough to strip paint and turn you blind.

Fast Hands bumped into the wall, eyes dull and glazed, though his pistol never stopped its frantic twirling.

“Hey
ssssweet
heart,” he hissed, “how’s ‘bout you head up to one of the rooms wit’ me—I’ve had my fill of gambling and liquor. But I sure haven’t had my fill of you.” Then he belched, a long gurgling noise. Classy to his toes, this guy.

Ferraro smiled, a sultry look as far from demure as the light was from the dark. But I knew Ferraro, and that sultry look never touched her eyes—the look in her eyes said,
I’m about to unleash a world of hurt on you
. “Okay,” she practically purred, standing slowly, straightening her back so her breasts strained against the fabric of her undershirt. She snaked her left arm through the crook of his elbow—Fast Hands, apparently thinking easy game was afoot, spun his piece one last time before sliding the heavy iron back into its holster.

“You big city girls are just as easy as I heard tell.” He smiled, his fangs gleaming in the low light, his forked tongue flickering out then in.

“No, you’re the easy one,” she said as she slipped her right hand to the small of her back, bringing out the Glock in a quick no-nonsense draw, pressing it hard into the tender flesh surrounding his throat.

“Feisty little bitch,” Fast Hands said, apparently not too terribly concerned. “What’s a city woman like you, travelin’ around with some Song-Slinger, packin’ iron for?” His eyes flickered over toward me.

I stopped playing and stood, getting ready to draw, to shoot, to run and dodge and hide. Dammit. I had a pretty good feeling how this was gonna play out.

The room had grown strangely still, I looked around—the laughter had died away, no cards hit the table, no beer glasses clicked, no one moved … the air was heavy with anticipation, pregnant with impending violence. This was the eye before the storm—the calm before everything went to shit and people started dying—and that eye seemed to be staring at me. Everyone in the saloon watched on, glancing between Ferraro with her prisoner and me, as though unsure what to do. Unsure who the threat was.