Glen Cook - Red Iron Nights

Had the Dead Man finally taken that long last step across to the other shore? I got no sense of his presence.

"Go on!" Belinda snapped.

"Be careful." I edged forward, my heart in my throat. I'm not ashamed to admit I was scared. This had the same feel I recalled going into the worst raids we pulled back when I was one of Karenta's brave young Marines. I crept along the wall to the Dead Man's door, nudged it open.

I whirled inside, ready for anything.

Nobody there but my partner.

He looked unchanged, but there was a difference. I felt a tension unlike any I'd encountered before. I sensed that he was safe and awake but way too focused to spare me a thought.

Which meant the trouble was still in the house. And he was a nightmare.

Upstairs. He had to be upstairs. Candy was upstairs.

But we already had Winchell...

I felt for the Dead Man, seeking confirmation. He did not respond. Of course.

"Whoever did it is still here," I told Belinda. "And he's so strong he's fought the Dead Man to a standstill. I think he's after Candy. I'm going after him. But I'm afraid if I go upstairs he won't be there. He'll grab you and take off."

"So check down here first." She was calm and practical. Maybe it was hereditary.

"I guess Old Bones can hold out a few minutes more."

"Nothing in here," Belinda said, having entered the kitchen boldly. "And the cellar door is locked from this side."

A shriek came from above, from Candy's room in Candy's voice. "Could be bait." Something thumped the floor. It sounded like a body falling. Belinda grabbed my arm. I asked, "You reckon it's a trap?"

"Garrett!"

"Right. This is no time to make light." Tell me a better time.

I told me to pretend I was Morley Dotes. This might be a job that called for Morley's legendary cool. If my honey didn't just have a guy up to play... Morley's cool. I was tempted to send out for it. Only...

Only what the hell was going on here? I did my part. I got Winchell sewn up and delivered. It was time to collect my reward and ride off into the sunset. What was all this mess?

My office was clean. I traded looks with Eleanor. That calmed me. It reminded me that I'd gotten through bad times before, that calm was my most potent weapon. "A little reason would help too, sweetheart."

The small front room contained nothing but an odor cat haters know well. "You little shit. You blew it."

I jammed my rain hat onto my head, set course for the kitchen. I banged around in there till I found the cheesecloth Dean bought the time he had a blue-sky idea about saving money by making his own cheese. I told him: did I want to cut financial corners, I'd do without a housekeeper. Anyway, to date we were out the cost of cheesecloth without no cheese to show. I hacked off a few yards, folded the cloth over my rain hat, and tucked the edges under my collar, front and back.

"What in the world are you doing?"

"Beekeeper trick. You might want to try it yourself."

"You're insane, Garrett." But she followed my example. She even made herself crude mittens.

I dug through drawers and poked into closets till I found my sulfur candles. "Try not to breathe the fumes once I light these things. They'll knock you on your ass."

Belinda shook her head, muttered obscenities, but went along. "You're completely paranoid. You know that, don't you?"

"I have been ever since I found out they were out to get me. Anyway, I couldn't stand it if you was to get butchered now."

"You're a born romantic too."

"That's me. The man of a thousand faces." All this was punctuated by repeated thumps and yells from above. Then the yelling stopped. The silence seemed particularly ominous.

"I think you better get on your horse, Garrett."

"Yeah." I checked Dean. He was doing as well as could be hoped. He had his hairball buddy to look out for him. I wished we had time to send out for reinforcements, but the silence upstairs told me I was all out of time. "White knight to the rescue. Well, it was white back before the rust set in."

"Let's do it, Garrett."

No style, this one. But one hell of a set of legs.

"I knew it!" I moaned. "It had to be something impossible." There were butterflies on the second floor. They were big and green and unpleasantly carnivorous but blessedly few and stupid. "Watch those things. I got a feeling if they nip at you it could spread the curse the way mosquitoes spread yellow fever." People in TunFaire didn't generally know that, but in the islands you learned from the natives. If you were smart enough to listen when they told you something.

"So light some candles."

Belinda wasn't exactly supportive. Pushy, even. It wasn't time to light candles.

First I visited my goody closet, dug out a nasty knife, offered it to her. "Whoever he is comes near you, carve your initials on him with that." For myself I chose a knife with a blade nearly long enough to qualify it as a shortsword. I used it to point toward Candy's room.

I went first, macho clown that I am. And there was our interloper, a monster of a man, moving almost imperceptibly as he hoisted Candy toward the ceiling. He had rigged a block and tackle on a beam we'd exposed while rehabbing. He was ruled by the curse and he was going to do a girl on the spot.

"It really is multiplying," Belinda whispered.

I kept my mouth shut. My throat was too dry for chatter.

The man kept moving against all the Dead Man's power. What incredible strength the curse gave!

Why hadn't Candy run out on him? With the Dead Man slowing him down, he couldn't hardly keep up with her.

"Huh! Belinda. Don't look this clown in the eye. I have a feeling that if he lays the green eye on you you're a goner."

"Right." She wasn't nervous. Not my gal Belinda. She was as cold as her daddy. "You want to do some candles before the bugs carry me off?" They tended to leak from the corners of the villain's mouth.

I lighted a sulfur candle off the tallow candle Belinda had thought to bring, set it on the floor just inside the doorway to Candy's room. As I set out the second candle, the bad boy realized he had company.

Gods, he was huge! He looked like Saucerhead Tharpe's big brother. Where did Winchell find him? Nothing that big should have been running loose. He turned his head slowly.

"Why don't you stick him, Garrett? You want to make a career of farting around, don't you?"

I do. It's because I have this hyperactive conscience. In this case it was also because I was completely lost. This wasn't suppose to be happening. The girl-killer problem was supposed to have been solved at Hullar's place. I was supposed to be in bed now, if not asleep.

The big guy had Candy hoisted up till only her head was touching the floor. He let go the rope. It squealed through the block. Down she crashed. She started making noises behind her gag like she was trying out my name.

I really hoped she wasn't trying to relay a warning. I didn't have time to fish it out of her. The big guy had begun to get him a case of the green eye. He was barfing butterflies. Most of those were green too. Old Drachir had had a thing about green.

The big man was aging before my eyes. He'd put on a year or two in the past few minutes. He'd gotten shorter, too, though I wasn't ready to jump in for fifteen rounds.

He got a good look at Belinda.

He charged like he was headed into a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. He puffed and snorted. Moths leaked from his nostrils. They were pretty stupid moths—or the curse controlling them was pretty dumb. They mostly went after him.

I held a lighted sulfur candle in front of him. He roared out butterflies that couldn't get me because of the cheesecloth. He didn't seem to care, though. He had eyes only for Belinda.