Gilded Latten Bones

Garrett.'

'Serve?' Crush asked.

'I opened the grand parlor to the Civil Guards. Serving tea and sweet rolls. A goodwill gesture.'

'Always helps to be on good terms with the local red tops.'

'It is. Move along, ladies. Garrett, before you pig out totally, hand me that glass and the long spoon.'

'That glass' contained a greenish sludge made from something a starving pig probably would refuse but which might be good for a guy full of knife holes. Miss Tea said, 'Some water, too.'

That got to Morley via a reed, Miss Tea trapping a small quantity by holding a thumb over the reed's upper end, then releasing the dribble into Morley's mouth. It worked better when he was awake.

He was very thirsty.

Miss Tea fed him patiently, in little bits. 'There was more excitement last night.'

'So I heard. The neighborhood is overrun by red tops.'

'They're everywhere. Half my people can't get to work. I try to make the tin whistles comfortable while they waste their time. And mine.'

'What happened?'

'The night visitor came back. The Capa had a specialist waiting. And Director Relway had a team of Specials in the area, too.'

'I thought I heard an explosion but I didn't see anything when I looked out the window.'

'There was an explosion. Why don't you go down and see for yourself while I do this?'

'Sounds like a plan.'

'Here.' She pulled a slip of parchment from its nest in her cleavage. It was warm and lightly scented.

'What's this?'

'An employee pass. It will get you in and out if you have to deal with people who don't know you.'

'Thank you. That should be useful.' For a moment I wished I could spread the brag amongst my circle. I had written proof that I was a bona fide employee at a top-level brothel.

On reflection, though, it might be better to keep it to myself. I would hear every possible bad joke from people determined to undermine my dignity. Towel boy would be the most generous accusation I'd hear.

20

The pass proved unnecessary. Several tin whistle sergeants remembered me and had been tipped that I had semiofficial standing. This one time only, my presence within sight of a crime scene was to be tolerated.

Barry Berry was a humorless man but a good guy. He attached himself to me like that was his special assignment. He took me on a tour. 'Everything is right where it fell. The Director and General Block want to see it all for themselves before we start the cleanup.'

There would be some of that to do. The neighborhood had been blessed with five corpses. Two had been Civil Guards. Another had been one of Belinda's men. The remainder were unknowns presumed to have been companions of the perpetrator. They wore tattered gray wool. They had wooden helmets encasing their heads.

I observed, 'Somebody believes in living on the edge.'

'The prevailing theory is that it's somebody who can't make the connection between actions and consequences. We got a sicko out there, Garrett. A huge sicko.'

A race was on, now, between the Outfit and the Guard. Honors to the winner would be first chance to have a long, painful sit-down with whoever was behind these deaths.

The mystery men in gray had fallen in the street on a line from under Morley's window to the place where Belinda's watcher had perished earlier. The force of the bang had hit them from behind, hurling them a dozen yards across cobblestones. A blood trail said one crawled twenty feet before expiring. The broken remains of a cart and roasted carcasses of two goats marked the beginning of his brief trek. Against the brick wall, below the window, lay a chunk of something that put me in mind of squid. There were no tentacles or anything, it was just that the skin on the uncooked side had a texture that stirred the squid notion.

Berry said, 'Most of the guys were reminded of snails. I guess because of the crust on the brick.'

'No shell.'

'No tentacles, either.'

'That's true. Do we know what happened?'

'We know exactly what happened, minute by minute.'

'Give me the highlights. If you would be so kind.'

'The goat cart showed up just like it did before. Like whoever was bringing it had no idea that we might be watching.'

'But with two thugs along.'

'Stupid. Totally overconfident stupid. Miss Contague had a friend off the Hill tucked in to watch, same place as the guy who got waxed. He used a stealth spell that wasn't completely effective. The villain didn't notice him right off. When he did the Hill guy unleashed the lightning.'

'And that caused all this?'

'It did. Miss Contague used somebody from the first string.'

'Where's the villain?'

'Got away. Come over here.' Berry led me past the wreck of the cart to a patch of what looked like candle black fifteen feet across. At its center was a circle of perfectly pristine cobblestones a yard across. The black around the circle was an eighth of an inch thick. Small footprints left, passed all the casualties, and headed toward downtown. 'There was a running fight. That's when we lost our guys. And the Outfit soldier.'

'No wounded. Just dead.'

'Yep.'

'And the sorcerer?'

'The one who made the bang? Too old and fat to keep up.'

Surrounding buildings were too tall for me to see far but I thought the villain's line of flight might parallel a crow's toward the Hill. I didn't mention that. I didn't need to. That angle would be getting a hard look already, not just by the red tops and Outfit but by key people on the Hill. They don't like rogue behavior likely to attract more animus than they already enjoy.

'This is a puzzlement, Sergeant.'

'It is indeed. Dotes said anything yet?'

Ha. Here was why I had my very own red top tour guide. 'Not yet. Believe me, though, I'll have a book full of questions when he does wake up.'

'If he does?'

'He's my oldest friend, Sergeant. I'm bound to think positive.'

'Was I you, I'd do my best to be positive. After last night people all the way up to the Crown Prince are going to want to ask him what's going on.'

I made one of those intuitive leaps for which I'm not well-known. 'I'll bet an angel right now that he won't have any idea.'

'He's going to clam and try to handle it himself?'

Morley's mind would work that way. 'Not what I meant. I mean I'm willing to bet he knows less about what's going on than you or me.'

'But somebody wants to kill him.'

'Maybe. But maybe the somebody who was here wasn't the same somebody who turned him into a pincushion. Maybe this somebody wants to find out what that somebody was up to.' I was brainstorming. That notion arose from the fact that there had been no sorcery involved in the attack on Morley. 'Mistaken identity might be involved. Or somebody thinks Morley knows something that he doesn't. I could come up with this stuff all day. It's just speculation.'