Deadly Quicksilver Lies

34

Wixon and White were open. I told Ivy, "You stay out here. You're the lookout." I went inside. Slither followed me. I wished I was as bad as I tried to look.

Both Wixon and White were on board, but no other crew or passengers were. "Bless me," I murmured, pleased to have something go my way. And, "Bless me again. More fierce pirates."

The guys eyeballed us and took just an instant to decide we weren't the sort of customers they hoped to attract. Neither mislaid his manners, though. Neither failed to notice that between us Slither and I outnumbered them by two hundred pounds.

"How might we help you?" one asked. He made me think of a begging chipmunk. He had a slight over-bite and the obligatory lisp. He held his soft little hands folded before his chest.

"Robin!... "

"Penny, you just hush. Sir?"

I said, "I'm looking for somebody."

"Aren't we all?" Big smile. A corsair comedian.

Penny thought it was funny. Penny tittered.

Slither scowled. Garrett scowled. The boys got real quiet. Robin looked past us, toward the street, as though he hoped the answer to his dilemma might show up out there.

"I'm looking for a girl. A specific girl. Eighteen. Red hair. So tall. Freckles, probably. Put together so nice even fierce pirates might take a second look and maybe shed a tear about choices made. Probably going by either Justina or Emerald Jenn."

The guys stared. My magic touch had turned them into halfwits.

Outside, Ivy told a dowager type that the shop was closed, only for a little while. She tried to disagree. The Goddamn Parrot took exception and began screeching crude propositions.

I moved around the shop, fingering whatever looked expensive. The boys had a lot of square feet and plenty of bizarre furnishings. "That description ring any bells?" I couldn't read their reaction. Its schooled neutrality gave nothing away.

Penny sneered, "Should it?" I could tell him from Robin only by the size of his mustache. Otherwise, they could have passed as twins. A strong strain of narcissism united these wild and woolly buccaneers.

"I think it's likely." I described the black magic stuff I'd found in Emerald's rooms. My descriptions were faultless. The Dead Man taught me well. Those studied neutral faces betrayed teensy cracks.

Penny for sure knew what I was talking about. Robin probably did. Robin was a better faker.

"Excellent. You guys know the items. Presumably, you provided them. So tell me to who." I picked up a gorgeous dagger of ruby glass. Some true artist had spent months shaping and carving and polishing it. It was one beautiful, diabolic ceremonial masterpiece.

"I wouldn't tell you even if... Stop that!"

The dagger almost slipped from my fingers.

"What? You were going to say even if you knew what I was talking about? But you would tell me, Penny. You'd tell me anything. I'm not nice. My friend isn't as nice as I am." I flipped the dagger, barely caught it. The boys shuddered. They couldn't take their eyes off that blade. It had to be worth a fortune. "Boys, I'm that guy in your nightmares. I'm the guy behind the mask. The guy who'd use a priceless glass ceremonial dagger to play mumbletypeg on a tempered oak floor. The guy who'll vandalize you into bankruptcy. Unless you talk to me."

I put the dagger down, collected a book. At first glance it seemed old and ordinary, shy any occult symbols. No big thing, I thought, till the boys started squeaking answers to questions I hadn't asked.

They babbled about the man who'd bought the stuff I'd described. Puzzled, I examined the book. And still saw nothing special.

Why had it loosened their tongues so?

Its title was The Raging Blades. That made it the central volume of the semi-fictional saga trilogy No Ravens Went Hungry. The Raging Blades was preceded by The Steel-Game and followed by The Battle-Storm. The whole related the glamorized story of an historical character named Eagle, who plundered and murdered his way across two continents and three seas nearly a millenium ago. By today's standards, the man was a total villain. Friend or foe, everyone eventually regretted knowing him. By the standards of his own time, he'd been a great hero simply because he'd lived a long time and prospered. Even today, they say, kids in Busivad province want to grow up to be another Eagle.

I asked, "Might this be an early copy?" Early copies are scarce.

The boys redoubled their babble. What was this? They were ready to confess to murder.

"Let me check this. You say a man with red hair, some gray, green eyes, freckles, short. Definitely male?" Nods left me with one theory deader than an earthworm in the noonday sun. Not even these rowdy reever types would mistake Maggie Jenn for a man. "Around forty, not eighteen?" That fit no one I'd encountered so far, unless maybe that nasty runt in the warehouse. "And you don't have any idea who he was?" I hadn't caught the colors of Cleaver's hair and eyes. "You know anything about him?"

"No."

"We don't know anything."

Eyes stayed stuck to that book while their owners tried to pretend everything was cool.

"He paid cash? He came in, looked around, picked out what he wanted, paid without quibbling about inflated prices? And when he left, he carried his purchases himself?"

"Yes."

"A peasant, indeed." Smiling, I put the book down. "You see? You can be a help when you want. You just need to take an interest." Both men sighed when I stepped away from their treasure. I asked, "You don't recall anything that would connect all that junk together?" It had seemed of a sort to me when I'd seen it, but what did I know about demon stuff? Mostly, I don't want to know.

I got headshakes.

"Everything had its silver star with a goat's head inside."

Penny insisted, "That's generic demon worship stuff. Our stock is mass-produced by dwarves. We buy it in bulk. It's junk with almost no intrinsic or occult value. It isn't fake, but it doesn't have any power, either." He waved a hand. I stepped to a display box filled with medallions like the one I'd found in Justina's suite.

"You know the girl I described?"

Headshakes again. Amazing.

"And you're sure you don't know the man who bought the stuff?"

More of that old shaka-shaka.

"You have no idea where I might find this guy?"

They were going to make themselves dizzy.

"I might as well go, then." I beckoned to Slither.

Wixon and White ran for their lives for their back room. I don't know what they thought I meant to do next. Nothing pleasant. They slammed the door. It was a stout one. We heard a heavy bar slam into place. Slither grinned as he followed me outside.