Faded Steel Heat (20 page)

Gilbey said, “That’s the man we asked to look out for Tom.”

I said, “The change happened before that.”

“Change?” Weider muttered.

“They were replaced by shapeshifters,” Gilbey said.

I added, “It looks like Black Dragon is a shapeshifter cover. It claims to be a rights group but it’s really something else.” Non-humans wouldn’t be interested in human rights. Not quite the way The Call is.

Weider sighed. “I’m tired, Garrett,” he told me. He
sounded
tired to the marrow. “Sit down, Manvil. Garrett.” He indicated chairs. “I just want to put my burdens down. I want to take a long, long rest. I don’t have any fight left. If there was anybody to surrender to, I’d let destiny make me a prisoner of war.”

“You did your share, Max,” Gilbey said. “Take it easy. Garrett and I will handle it.” Gilbey glanced at me. I nodded. He asked, “Should we enlist Lance?”

“Lance strikes me as more the executive sort.”

Gilbey smiled. “Not far from wrong, Garrett. Though the man can surprise you sometimes.” He twisted, looked beyond me. His eyes gleamed for an instant.

“I’ll help,” Belinda said. I’d almost forgotten she was back there, listening.

I didn’t argue. Neither did Gilbey. I was beginning to develop a suspicion that Gilbey would be incapable of arguing with Belinda. He told us, “That junk in the corner there was mostly for decoration but there was a time when all of that was real weapons. Help yourselves.”

Without hesitating Belinda selected a wicked fourteen-inch blade, examined it with a professional eye. Gilbey chose a bronze gladius sort of thing and added a small, coordinated buckler for the left wrist. “Stylish,” I observed, sighing. Now that I was sitting down I didn’t want to get back up.

Gilbey didn’t smile. Except for Miss Contague he was all smiled out for the century. Nobody else smiled, either.

I miss the old days. Nobody grins into the face of the darkness anymore.

You need a sense of humor when the going gets grim.

Seldom do I lug lethal hardware but I couldn’t find a simple headknocker anywhere. At least nothing sure to stand up to harsh commercial-grade use. A small crossbow, intended for use by cavalrymen or centaurs, caught my eye. I used to be pretty good with one of those things, though I hadn’t had one in hand for a while.

Marengo North English considered the choices. Gilbey suggested, “Why don’t you stay with Max? He’s a little distracted.”

North English relaxed visibly.

Obviously the great champion of humanity volunteered only because of Belinda. Oh, what to do when the delicate flower chose danger without thought?

Gilbey picked up a light, thin-bladed antique. “I’ve heard you were well regarded as a fencer.” He extended the weapon to North English.

“When I was young.”

“Good,” I said. “Then we won’t have to worry about Max while we’re gone.” I gave his shoulder a comradely pat. He puffed up like he’d been handed the key role in the mission. Maybe, in his mind, that’s what happened. He seemed incapable of seeing himself anywhere very far off center.

46

We slipped into the back stairs. I told Belinda, “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know. And you didn’t have to warn me. Don’t waste your breath.”

I wasted no breath. I’d argued with her before. And the stairs were steep.

I was shaky when we reached the fourth floor. I’d been pushing my luck a lot lately and Fate wouldn’t give me time off for bad behavior. It was one damned thing after another, too often involving me getting hit over the head.

You can’t roll the bones with the sickle-toting guy without crapping out sometime.

I controlled the shakes. I learned that trick in the Corps. The hard way. I took a deep breath, held it a moment, asked Gilbey, “Is there more than one way out of Tom’s suite?”

“Possibly. There’re servants’ passages all through the house. But if we hurry, that shouldn’t be a worry.”

Indeed. And maybe I should have had Relway’s guys stick with me, just in case.

Belinda said, “If I knew where we were going, I’d leave you behind just to make you stop thinking, Garrett.”

All my life I’ve been told I think too much. Except at girl time, when I’m told I don’t think enough.

So it goes. You can’t win.

I stepped into the hallway.

The Luke replacement was standing guard right where Luke was supposed to be. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. I pasted on a big grin. Belinda and Gilbey marched along behind me. I said, “Hey, Luke. The Old Man says bring Tom down. He wants the whole family there for the announcement.”

Whoever Luke was really, he couldn’t argue without giving himself away. He couldn’t let Tom out without courting disaster. And I didn’t give him time to consider his options.

A crossbow isn’t a customary accessory when you’re just going to escort somebody somewhere inside his own home.
Faux
-Luke figured that out almost quickly.

He flung himself back just as I started to pop him with my free hand. He tried to run into Tom’s suite. We didn’t let him. But he did make a big racket not getting there.

He went down. Belinda had a knife pricking his throat before he stopped bouncing.

Gilbey and I burst into the suite.

And I said, “Well, there
is
more than one way out.” It stood open.

There was no light behind the panel except what ambled in from Tom’s apartment. That was just enough to show us that the shapeshifter could only head downstairs. This almost qualified as a secret passageway. It was barely wide enough for a grown-up my size. The stairwell was just slightly less steep than a ladder. I thundered down to the floor below. Another door stood open, exiting through a broom closet. The main hall lay beyond it. Gilbey stayed with me. We couldn’t let the shifter get a big lead. It would change faces on us again.

A door stood open down the hall, still moving. My mother would have been all over this guy. He was a wonderful bad example. We blew into the room — and froze.

It was Hannah Weider’s bedroom. It smelled of sickness and despair. The dying woman had been confined there for ages. Her face brightened when she saw us. She tried to say something.

Hannah Weider was so withered and liver-spotted she looked more like Max’s grandmother than his wife.

Words wouldn’t come. She wiggled a finger.

Gilbey got it. “It’s under the bed.”

Trace Wendover scooted out. He headed for the door, realized that I could get there first, flung himself back at the bed. He snagged Hannah, dragged her in front of him as a shield. A knife appeared. He didn’t need to voice the threat.

Alyx appeared in the doorway. “Mama, I brought you some of Ty’s — Shit! What the hell?”

Trace turned, startled.

Mama tried to admonish her baby about her language.

I shot Wendover in the forehead.

I used to be pretty good with one of those things. Evidently I still had the knack.

47

“She’s gone!” Alyx wailed. “It was too much for her.” There was no vinegar in her now. She was about to fall apart. She shook her mother like that might bring her back.

Belinda arrived. She had her changer under control. She looked at Alyx, shrugged, gave me a don’t-look-at-me stare.

I didn’t expect her to do any comforting. She wouldn’t know how. I doubt that anyone ever comforted her.

“Get Tinnie,” I suggested. She knew Tinnie. “Or Nicks.”

Trace had a bolt in his head but he remained active. His shape shifted continuously until the bolt popped out. It clunked on the floor.

“There’s a neat trick,” I muttered. “Sure like to learn that one.”

Alyx jumped on the thing.

It tossed her across the room.

I shot it as it got up. This time I followed up. I pushed a silver groat into its new wound.

The changer lost control of its muscles.

I asked, “Gilbey, you want I should tell the Old Man this one?”

“Still my place, Garrett. But this time might be the one too much. Hannah was the reason he kept going.”

Belinda’s changer kept sliding out of his restraints. He oozed like a slug. By trial and error I found that a whack on the side of the head would do to them what it did to me. “A few yards of silver wire would come in handy about now.”

Nicks appeared on cue. “Here, Garrett.” She shed silver chain necklaces. “Tinnie will be here in a minute. Alyx? You all right?” Then Nicks realized that Hannah really was dead. The look she gave the changer made me glad she was on my side.

I asked, “How come you’re here?”

“Your vampire girlfriend told me to come.” She had a sharp tongue on her, Nicks did.

I used her chains to bind the guy I’d bashed. He started shaking and flopping. I thought he’d break the chains easily but he didn’t.

Gilbey knelt beside me. “Gag them. We don’t want to upset anybody downstairs.”

Tinnie marched in. Belinda was right behind her. The redhead said, “Ty will be here as soon as Lance gets somebody to help.”

Gilbey shook his head. “He doesn’t need to do that. Better he should meet us in his father’s study. If you ladies will see to Hannah’s dignity? Garrett. Let’s drag this garbage downstairs.”

“We have another one running loose still,” I said as I gathered my share.

“I know. I know. We’ll deal with it.”

I wondered. If Relway was right, that one would know that something had gone wrong.

48

Max surprised us all. Horrible news piled atop horrible news prodded him back to life instead of finishing him. Maybe the pain was just too big to encompass. Or maybe he was too long in the habit of meeting Fate head-on. He glared at our captives but did not touch. He would take a practical, businesslike approach to revenge.

Both changers still twitched and flopped. They would’ve screamed if not for their gags.

Gilbey left to divert Ty and Lance.

Marengo North English, Belinda, and Nicks had been asked to step out. Max didn’t want to share this with them.

Lance followed Ty into the study. Ty was on crutches. You didn’t see that much. He was pale and angry. “Fuck up again, Garrett?”

“Be quiet,” Max said. His voice was calm and flat and cold. Ty responded instantly. “Sit down.”

Ty sat. Likely he hadn’t heard that voice in a decade.

“This isn’t Garrett’s fault. He wanted me to be more careful. Somebody meant to murder us all tonight. Who knows why? We’ve stymied them. Because we let Garrett do a little. Blame the mess on me. We did capture five shapeshifters.” He hadn’t been surprised to hear that the secret police were watching the house. “Manvil. What about the other one?”

Gilbey nodded. He must have been up to something.

“Five?” Ty croaked. He stared at the two squirming in front of the fire. That had burned down some now but still put out a lot of heat. The changers didn’t like that.

“Garrett dealt with three more outside the house.” He didn’t mention Tom or Kittyjo. Yet. He looked at me. “We’ll get their story?”

“If it can be gotten.”

“There’s another one here in the house, Ty,” Weider said. “I expect to deal with it momentarily.”

So Gilbey
had
been up to something. I should’ve warned him that the creatures could feel one another’s distress.

“That we know about,” I reminded. “Changers are almost mythical around here. We don’t know anything about them. We see the giant meat-eating thunder lizards more often.” It was a bad time for thunder lizards, though. “Worst case I know of, and that’s probably a fairy tale, involved a family of changers that operated in the forest north of town during the last century. I didn’t figure out what was going on here just because changers are so rare. I wouldn’t have thought of them at all if weird stuff didn’t happen to me all the time.”

I headed for the door. Weider frowned but understood when I leaned against the wall where I’d be out of sight when the door opened.

My timing was impeccable. The pseudo-Kittyjo walked in barely a minute later, insufficiently suspicious of a summons from the Old Man. That surprised me.

She didn’t seem to sense the distress of the two we had collected already. Was the silver responsible?

Gilbey stepped over to hold the door. When it swung shut there were two of us behind her. She didn’t understand till she got a look at me.

Ty broke the hard silence. “What’s going on, Dad?”

“This isn’t your sister. It’s something that murdered her and took her shape.”

“Dad?”

“Kittyjo is dead, Ty. Believe it. Tom is dead. Lucas Vloclaw is dead. They were murdered. They were replaced by these monsters.” He indicated the roasting shapechangers.

I had my little crossbow ready. I let the changer have a look.

“What did you things want?” Weider demanded.

Ty didn’t get it. “Jo, what is this crap?” He did see that there was something strange about her, though.

She seemed stranger by the second.

She was changing! She was maintaining the outward appearance of Kittyjo Weider but inside she was doing something that would, probably, improve her chance of escape. Or, if she was bloody-minded enough, she was becoming something fast and deadly.

I said, “It’s changing, people.”

The Kittyjo thing glared at me. Gilbey moved. The changer turned his way. I poked it. Felt like I’d slammed my fist into a leather bag full of rocks, too.

The shapechanger didn’t go down. It just turned on me. Evidence was accumulating: Shapeshifters were not overly endowed with intelligence.

I ducked a blow like a lightning bolt. Gilbey applied a couple of kidney punches. Neither had much effect. He barked in pain. His knuckles leaked blood.

Ty hollered something about leaving Jo alone.

I plinked the thing with my crossbow, in the throat. My bolt penetrated barely an inch. The changer stopped to fiddle with it.

Gilbey was nearer the weapons collection. He seized a ferocious antique mace, topped the changer a few times. I readied another quarrel. The shifter decided it didn’t want to play anymore. It left. Without bothering to open the door.