Angry Lead Skies

84

"What happened?" I mumbled. I was the last one to wake up. The delouser's effects were cumulative for sure.

"How about you tell me," Block growled, dragging me into a seated position with my back against a wall.

"I've got a notion I don't have a lot of fleas anymore. Gods, my head is killing me! Hit me and put me out again." I meant it at the moment.

"No. I want you to get up. I want you hurting while you explain what just happened. You won't be able to concentrate enough to bullshit me."

"I don't know what just happened. You were here. You were paying attention. You probably got a better look than I did."

"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. I can't shake the feeling that there wasn't a pea under any of the shells."

Nausea overcame me as I tried to stand. Beer and my last meal beat me to the floor.

"Godsdammit! That just tops my whole day off, Garrett!"

I tried to climb the nearest chair. It was occupied. I gasped, "Get me some water. Wasn't somebody supposed to go after water?" And, "What happened to him?"

The man in the chair was one of the sorcerers. His eyes were open but nobody seemed to be at home behind them.

The look was worse than the thousand-yard stare. With that you knew your guy would probably come back someday. Seeing this, you knew he wouldn't, ever.

"I don't know, Garrett. He seems to have turned into a vegetable. They all have. But nobody else was hurt." He stepped carefully, avoiding my mess.

Wow. Casey must've done that deliberately. He wasn't a nice guy after all. Unless he hadn't been aware what they were and this was a by-product of them owning their talent in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Block declared, "I think their intelligence was deliberately and systematically destroyed."

"That would make our Casey a vindictive little bastard, wouldn't it? Completely without a sense of humor about being misused. Why do you suppose he let you and me and the rest of these guys slide? Because we're like him, just battling the darkness the best we know how?"

"Gift horses, eh? You could be right." He didn't say anything for a while. I seized the opportunity to concentrate on feeling sorry for myself. I wondered if Lastyr and Noodiss had gotten away before they gave Kip an idea for a miracle headache cure. I'd better check. Then Block told me, "I'd better have you taken home. I want you to stay inside your house until I get this sorted out. There'll be questions. Some of you men want to get this mess cleaned up? Can't anybody around here do something without waiting to be told?"

It didn't seem likely. Not when everybody was preoccupied with a killer headache.

"This is bad shit, Garrett," Block whined. "This's real bad shit. I'll be lucky to get out of this just losing my job."

"Aren't you being a little too pessimistic?" I clamped down and pushed the pain back. But not very far. "Man, you let yourself get way too impressed by people off the Hill. Did Hill people give you your job? I thought Prince Rupert did that. And what were these guys trying to pull, anyway? They were trying to cut the rest of those witch doctors up there out of the jackpot. You watch. The rest of their kind will take one quick look at the facts and figure they had it coming."

"You do have a knack for looking on the bright side, Garrett. I sure hope it's as easy as all that."

First I'd heard of me being a brightside kind of guy. But what the hell, eh? If I played to that maybe Block would forget to nag me about Casey's getaway.

I reminded the good colonel of his obligations. "I thought you were going to take me home."