Faded Steel Heat (36 page)

“No.” Mr. Nagit barked at the freecorps fighters gradually pushing into the grove, wanting to sneak a peek at disaster. He finger-pointed half a dozen. “You men go up to the house. Grab Stucker.”

“But —”

“If you see Stucker it won’t
be
Stucker. Stucker’s right there. Already starting to ferment. Get moving.”

I observed, “That’ll teach those guys to get so close an officer notices them.”

Nagit smiled again. This had to be a record day. “I suppose it will.” He glared around like he was thinking of something else that had to be done. Men backed away.

There was a lot of soldier in those guys still.

“Settle down!” I snapped at the Goddamn Parrot. Having decided he didn’t love Tinnie anymore, he had jumped to my shoulder where he was practicing some weird tribal fertility dance.

Lieutenant Nagit said, “Looks like he’s trying to see the body but you keep moving.”

He was taking up for the bird? “Maybe he’s hungry. He’s a vulture in disguise. Venable. Think he could play with your pets?”

No?

That wonder buzzard is so damned useless I can’t even turn him into lizard bait.

83

There was no sign of pseudo-Stucker. Surprise, surprise. The shifter was somebody else now.

So I was not surprised when I spied one Carter Stockwell, known shapechanger, drifting behind the crowd, moving toward the front gate. Evidently it never occurred to anyone else to wonder why an unfamiliar fellow would be wearing the same clothes Stucker had had on for the past two days.

“There’s our man,” I told Nagit. “Right there. That face is the one he wears whenever he’s not replacing someone.”

Nagit looked at me narrowly, briefly
 
—
then gestured several men closer. “How do you know that, Mr. Garrett?”

“I’ve run into this shifter before. He always collapses into this shape.” Did that make sense?

It did to me.

The creatures really did have to be psychic when it came to threats. Carter looked at me suddenly, as though responding to my interest. He lengthened his stride immediately.

“He knows I’ve made him, Mr. Nagit.”

The lieutenant gave orders quickly, softly. Everyone hurried to execute them. These freecorps boys took their military stuff seriously.

The mob took off after Stockwell, determined little turtles vainly coursing a hare. Stockwell changed as we watched, his legs lengthening until a foot of calf showed below each cuff. He bounded away, gaining ground fast. He circled the tent city and disappeared into the woods beyond.

“Wow,” Mr. Nagit said. “That’s what I call putting on a burst of speed.” He kept a straight face.

Stockwell dwindled into the distance. What was his connection with the centaurs?

There had to be one. Tinnie and I had run into centaurs just up the road. Minutes later the Stucker look-alike, still buttoning his trousers, comes out of the very copse where later we find what’s left of the real Stucker. Just downhill from a lot of ruined pasture. “The torn-up turf. The way it was torn up. Those centaurs helped catch the real Stucker for the changer.” Which meant that there must be a common mission between the centaurs and shapeshifters. Which I thought the Dead Man, with his special interest in things and personalities out of the Cantard, would find very intriguing indeed. I might even tell him about it. Someday.

The Goddamn Parrot took flight. That little traitor would give the news away first chance he got. For free. Apparently out of practice flying, he had trouble staying straight and level getting across to Tinnie.

“How do I spot one of those things if they come back? Or if there’re more of them around?”

“I’m trying to find out. That’s why I was in the library. But I hadn’t found anything yet. I do know they don’t like silver. Not even a little. You could whap everybody with a solid silver ugly stick every once in a while. Why would they replace a low-level guy like Stucker?”

Nagit looked at me like he had sudden doubts about my smarts. “He was on the gate eighteen hours a day. He saw everyone who came and went. Valuable information to a lot of people, I’d think. Plus he had the run of the house in his free time. He could’ve dug around in there whenever he wanted.”

“The perfect spy. He was good, too. I didn’t know him so he had no trouble with me but he did fool Miss Montezuma at dinner last night.”

“Stucker was the perfect target. He was a loner. Nobody knew him very well. Everybody knew he was totally committed to the movement, though. He did everything possible, in spite of his social handicaps. So the boss always said. You’d never suspect him.”

Unless the replacement Stucker never got a chance to bury the man he replaced deeply enough. On account of that meddlesome Garrett turning up. I shivered, thinking a dark wing had brushed my soul. In Stockwell’s place I might have paid me a deadly visit during the night.

I assumed the boss was right about the original Stucker. “You had doubts?”

“About Stucker? Never. The man had a minor job. He did it well. I notice people only when they don’t do their jobs well.”

“I see.” I also saw that Tinnie was headed our way, oblivious to the moon-eyes around her. The woman put a definite strain upon these superior beings’ commitment to correct behavior.

Every man in sight hated my bones the instant she slipped her arm inside mine.

She purred, “How much longer are you going to be?”

“I don’t know, darling. This’s another shapeshifter incident. The gatekeeper was a changeling.”

“Too bad. He seemed nice.”

“We only met the shifter. The real gatekeeper was dead before we got here.”

Tinnie glanced that way. She flushed.

I said, “It isn’t pretty. Wild dogs got after him. Then Venable’s little pals got after the wild dogs.”

“I know that, Garrett. What about you being much longer?”

I wasn’t looking forward to facing Uncle Willard. “Mr. Nagit, I’m going to take the lady home. I’ll be back.”

Mr. Nagit wasn’t completely thrilled. “Do what you need to do. I’ll leave word to let you in.”

In parting I suggested, “Venable might try to set his pets on that shifter’s trail. If you do catch him, I definitely want to talk to him.”

Nagit scowled. “I suppose
 
—
Now what?”

The soldiers had begun to stir.

“Looks like somebody’s coming.”

Yes, indeed. And it was somebody who liked his ceremony. He had outriders out, fore and aft, in numbers sufficient to stave off small armies. A guy who didn’t look old enough to be a veteran hobbled up. “It’s Colonel Theverly, Lieutenant. He’s coming.”

And he’d be in a bad mood after last night, too, I expected.

Tinnie scrunched up close. “This looks like a real good time to start hiking, boyfriend.”

“Probably.”

“Uncle Willard won’t be the only one mad at you if these people suddenly get all paranoid about us.” Which, on reflection, seemed entirely possible. The returning freecorps people we were about to encounter had no way of knowing that we were accepted guests. And good old Colonel Theverly always had been one to leave a lot of unfamiliar bodies around for the gods to sort out.

Renewing acquaintances with Theverly could wait. I expected to be back before nightfall. We could get together then.

Tinnie and I got out of the gateway to The Pipes only moments before the leading horsemen turned in. We stood across the road and gawked at the cavalcade. Quite a few cavaliers gawked right back at the redhead. Me, I just stood there wrapped in my cloak of invisibility.

Once we did start toward town the Goddamn Parrot began to get excited. He sounded like he was trying to talk again. What language wasn’t clear, however.

“He can’t stand country life,” I explained to Tinnie. “Heh-heh. Maybe I can lose him in the woods.”

84

“Speaking of woods,” Tinnie said. She gestured to indicate the last copse we’d traversed before we’d gotten to The Pipes coming out. “What became of all those people you said were following us?” She’d seen the feather of smoke leaning above the treetops.

“A question definitely worth consideration, my dear,” I said. “Perhaps I should’ve offered to borrow something sharp before we left your new uncle’s establishment.”

“You sure should’ve. It’s obvious we can’t rely on your rapier wit.”

“How sharper than a frog’s tooth. I shouldn’t have run so fast when that goddess wanted to be my girlfriend.”

“You? Run from anything female?”

“She was green and had four arms. And teeth like one of Mr. Venable’s pets. But she was affectionate.”

“I’ll bet. There’s somebody in those trees.”

Her eyes were better than mine. I didn’t see anything. But I took her word. She wouldn’t joke about danger. Much. I picked up a stick. “This would be handy if it wasn’t rotten.” It would shatter the first time I knighted somebody. But if I carried it maybe folks would be discouraged from getting close enough to find out that it was mostly decorative. I mused, “I need to stop by the house and arm up.”

“I’d help but I really need to go home. Uncle Willard’s probably going crazy.”

I told the Goddamn Parrot, “The lady’s a gold seam of straight lines but I’m a gentleman.” I spotted movement at the wood’s edge. Someone wasn’t good at sitting still. Then I spotted more movement elsewhere. “I hope those people aren’t all working together.”

They weren’t, apparently, but they were aware of one another and wanted to stay out of each other’s way. Which made for a lot of rustle and scurry as Tinnie and I strolled through the wood.

“These are the people you never noticed before?”

“They’re city boys. They don’t do quite as well when they’re surrounded by a whole lot of country.”

“A not uncommon problem, evidently.”

“Hey!”

“I’m starting to think that you’ve been telling tall tales about you and the Marines. Tell the truth. You were really the guy who mopped the floors at expeditionary headquarters, weren’t you?”

“You found me out. Don’t tell anybody. They’ll kick me out of The Call. Then what would I do for entertainment?”

“You could always harass yourself.”

“Wouldn’t want to horn in on your only hobby.”

Tinnie took my hand. We ambled. We strolled. She didn’t appear to be in a real hurry to ease Uncle Willard’s anxiety.

Those following me didn’t intrude. Guess they just wanted to play follow the leader.

85

“It’s a different city.”

Tinnie felt it, too, though nothing was immediately obvious to the eye. There were ample crowds of all ethnic persuasions working hard doing the things that need doing to keep a city going. “Nobody’s talking to anybody.”

She was right. And it wasn’t just that. People were being careful to give one another room and especially careful not to expose their backs to anyone not of a like ethnic conviction.

It was a wary city. Everybody expected something big to happen. Probably sometime soon.

The Call’s adventure hadn’t been quite the disaster the boys at The Pipes imagined. The world was waiting for the other shoe to fall. When Marengo figured that out...

I was alert, yet not paying close attention. If you can figure that. I ran everything through my head again, trying to find a thread of sense to pick at. But it wouldn’t hang together in one big, stinky lump no matter how much I twisted and shoehorned and ignored the usual rules. I could only get it going if I assumed two or more things were going on at the same time. But something down inside me wanted it to be just one big thing that I wasn’t seeing right.

“You’re the common factor,” Tinnie said.

“Huh?” I looked around. We were approaching the Tate compound.

“You were muttering. Doing pretty good, too. You might have a future as a street character. You’ve already got the wardrobe.”

The Goddamn Parrot released a startled blat more like crow slang than the king’s parrotese. He flung himself into the air and flapped away. I barked, “What the hell?” Couldn’t be my luck turning good.

Tinnie asked, “How did you wake him up?”

“I don’t know.” But I had a suspicion what was behind his excitement. What’s big and sits in the dark and doesn’t breathe a lot? “I’m a common thread but I came in after the fact.” The Goddamn Parrot disappeared between buildings. “The way my luck runs nothing will get him.”

“You going to come inside?” Tinnie asked. She grinned. She knew I didn’t want to deal with Uncle Willard.

“I have to get back into that library.” We crossed the street. I noted that most people moved around in large groups and that more weapons than usual were in evidence, some of them quite illegal.

“Can’t stay away from Tama Montezuma’s bony butt, eh?”

“Has she got a bony behind? I never noticed. I see no one else but you.” I damaged my case by noticing a devastating set of twins exiting the Tate retail outlet.

“When you stop shaking and get your heels off your tongue you might try for something a little more convincing.”

“Damn.” Right behind the twins, chattering at them, came Tinnie’s cousin Rose. Rose is a brunette as gorgeous as her cousin but she’s got snakes and spiders for brains. Her face lit up like a bonfire when she saw me. “Here comes trouble,” I said.

“She’s not bad if you understand her,” Tinnie said. “She’ll try to make something out of me being with you but Uncle Willard will say, ‘So what?’ and she’ll go off and have a good pout.” She planted a long, unsisterly kiss on me. “Be careful. Come see me. And stay away from strange women.”

“Make up your mind.” I kissed her back. Rose was scandalized and excited. “I won’t be gone long.” I hoped circumstance wouldn’t make a liar of me. It did have a habit of doing so.

86

I moved carefully homeward. I hadn’t spotted a tail since we left that woods, but I was getting used to the idea that I could be followed without being able to catch somebody doing it. I didn’t like it, though.

I was more concerned about the new malice in the streets. Trouble has a way of finding people who look like they’re vulnerable.