Dread Brass Shadows

30

For some hours I'd entertained the notion that Chodo had eliminated Morley and Saucerhead in order to deprive me of resources should I discover he'd become interested in the Book of Dreams. Sometimes you get that way, thinking you're the center of the universe. But once I ran into Crask, the speculation collapsed under the weight of reason.

You grab straws when nothing makes sense.

Morley had dropped out before Chodo could have discovered the book's nature. Even now I had no real reason to suspect he knew about the book. Him looking for a missing Sadler only made everything murkier.

Who might be making people disappear? The Serpent shouldn't be interested in those guys. She was after the Book of Dreams. Headhunting wouldn't help The same reasoning applied to happy old Fido Easterman.

So who had reason to eliminate my acquaintances?

Plenty of people, if you took them individually. But nobody was the only answer when you considered them as a group. They didn't share many enemies

Crask agreed.

We trudged along, me leaning into the bitter wind and grumbling about not having a clue. Then about having so many clues I didn't know which had to do with what.

"Where we headed?" I asked. This wasn't helping me any yet. I glanced back I still felt the presence of that shadow that had been with me off and on. I didn't see anything. Like I'd maybe expected I would?

"Tenderloin," Crask mumbled. The wind was getting to him, too. He was trying to shelter his injured arm. "Got an appointment with some dwarves."

Ah. So, "Why didn't I think of that?"

The Tenderloin is sin's homeland in TunFaire. Anything goes, nobody asks questions, nobody interferes with anybody else. Missionaries not welcome. Reformers enter at your own risk. Likewise everybody else. The Serpent's whole gang could hide there in plain sight easy, despite everyone and everything being owned by Chodo. They'd just need to remember not to run in a pack.

I really should have thought of it. The Tenderloin isn't far from Dwarf Fort. It's just a few blocks past the Bledsoe and I'd been told the renegade dwarves had fled that way after one of their skirmishes with Gnorst's bunch. Had I been from out of town and needed to hide, that's where I'd have gone to ground.

So why hadn't I thought to come poke around? I must be getting senile

The Tenderloin never sleeps, it just slows down late. When we arrived, lamplighters were out snuffing lights, conserving oil. During peak hours the area is awash with light, a carnival, but the management doesn't waste a copper that won't return ten. This was the hour of the diehard, when light and darkness were irrelevant.

The Tenderloin is like the whores who are its chief commodity, all paint and makeup on the outside. Behind the flash lies rot and stink and human despair. Even where they could, they don't put makeup on that. By the time you look it in the eye, they've already gotten your money and are interested only in processing you through as fast as can be managed.

The wind grew more bitter by the minute. Maybe that was why the morCartha had taken the night off. Their native valleys are much warmer. The lamplighters hunched inside their ragged coats and cursed into their beards. The barkers for various establishments watched the street through doors cracked scant inches, waited till we drew abreast to jump out and wax rhapsodic about wonders unimaginable available within. They retreated when we signaled Jack of interest. Nobody pressed. They all recognized Crask.

I let him show the way, wandered off inside me in search of one good reason why I kept charging around looking for the Book of Dreams. I'd begun to distrust me. I feared there was a part of me that wanted it the way the Serpent and Easterman wanted it. The way maybe even the local prince of dwarves wanted it.

There was a new idea. It deserved a look. It might explain why Gnorst was uncommunicative. He might be thinking of trying on Nooney Krombach's shoes.

"Uh-oh " While I was scouting the badlands within, the outer landscape had changed. The streets had emptied. Crask had stopped hurrying. Now he tred softly, clung to shadows.

Something was about to go down.

Crask had a few steps on me. I zagged to the side, up stairs that climbed the face of an old tenement He didn't notice His attention was focused ahead. I flattened out on the landing in front of a second-story doorway.

I trust my hunches, usually I'd had a sudden, strong one that this was no time for Garrett to be out in the open and a worse one to dive into shadowed alleys. I thought shadow and tried to become one with the chilly darkness, nothing but watching eyes

My hunch was good. I'd barely flattened myself out when every alley in sight barfed hard boys. Crask made hand signals. They all headed for the place that was the target of Crask's good hand.

About then he noticed I wasn't with him anymore. He looked around, startled, spat, cursed, and I knew I'd come one step short of stepping into a big pile of it, maybe.

Had he been leading me to the slaughter?

Joining his party sure didn't look like a brilliant move. I stayed where I was and froze my tail and wondered.

What was wrong with the Serpent9 I'd been told and told that somebody who could make a book of shadows was a real heavyweight in the sorcery game. But she didn't act like a heavyweight. Her sort, when they have any weight at all, aren't bashful about throwing it around. But she did her pushing and shoving with second-string hired hands. It was confusing.

The state TunFaire was in, with all our witches and wizards and whatnot off to chase Glory Mooncalled, somebody like the Serpent ought to be able to do whatever she damned well pleased. But she was going about her search like she had no more power than crazy Fido.

Had she put it all into her book, then let that get away?

Sounded good. Sounded like she would be one desperate witch, cranky as a dragon with bad teeth.

Chodo's hordes swept silently toward a tenement. The silence didn't last. A big uproar broke out as soon as a couple got inside. There were enough illegal weapons in evidence to arm a company. The uproar inside reached battle pitch. People were getting hurt in there.

It didn't last. The kingpin's men started dragging captives outside, began forcing them to undress

Uh-oh. The Dead Man's prophecy had come true.

I couldn't hear the orders and threats Crask issued but didn't need to. He had to be looking for tattoos.

I didn't see the Serpent among the prisoners. Neither did Crask. He stomped around and cussed theatrically. I rested my chin on my forearms, shivered, and wondered how he'd known about the tattoos. Had I mentioned them? I couldn't recall. I guess I must have when I was trying to direct Chodo's attention toward the Serpent.

Crask didn't accept defeat. He had his troops drag out the dead and wounded, lined everybody up, started his inspection all over again. The prisoners shivered and whimpered. The wind was merciless.

He found her. She'd assumed the form of a ratman. Short fur hid her tattoo. The second he made her he popped her upside the head, got a gag stuffed in her mouth and about forty-three miles of rope wrapped around her. She looked like a mummy. He wasn't going to take no chances with a witch.

He barked orders, The wind stole them away I didn't need to hear them. The hard boys started marching prisoners toward the river. I had a suspicion their life expectancies weren't those of immortals.

Chodo isn't a forgiving sort. These people had stomped on his toes, sort of... . He has no trouble conjuring justifications.

A half-dozen thugs shuffled off with the Serpent. Crask and a few buddies hung around.

Well. I thought to me, I thought, I guess this means Chodo wants him a little light reading, just to pass those chilly winter rights. A little something to peruse beside the fire.

He wouldn't get the book from the Serpent. She didn't have the foggiest where it was. But he'd get something. He always did. And she had managed to become a credible ratman... Ah There Crask went, back into that tenement, shoulders set like he meant to find something.

That would have been a good time to stroll on out of there—if about four of Crask's buddies hadn't been hanging out, keeping a wary eye.

I got me comfortable in a good position for shivering and thought about Holme Blaine. Why had he come to me as Carla Lindo? Why had he come at all? How had he known to come to me? Through contact with Easterman I could pursue that. Come morning. After a good sleep. If I thawed out enough. Sure be nice to head for bed. Why wouldn't Crask's clowns clear the street?

They didn't do me any favors. In fact, I was getting suspicious that they had something on their pea brains besides the Serpent and her improbable book. They spread out, started poking into shadows and alleys. So.

Crask passed below me, massaging his arm. He muttered something about the cold and "I don't get it. One second he's right there beside me, the next he's gone. He ain't no spook. How'd he disappear?"

Who? Bet you guessed as fast as I did, What a bunch of guys.

I'd suspected it for a while. The kingpin's boys don't generally do you many favors I'd tried setting it aside because I didn't want it to be true. But there it was. Chodo had something special in mind for a guy named Garrett. Maybe just a fancy dinner, a dip in the inside pool he's got out to his place, with the hot and cold running blondes Maybe. Maybe Just a friendly chat, old times, like he'd mentioned in the coach. I didn't want to find out. The streets aren't filled with guys who have had chats with Chodo.

One of Crask's boys came over and mumbled something I couldn't catch Crask cussed and growled. "Keep looking!" Then he did an odd thing, for him. He went and perched on the steps of the raided tenement, rubbed his arm for a minute, rested his chin on his good fist, went away somewhere inside. If he hadn't been Crask of the Crask and Sadler torture show, I'd have pegged him for a man wrestling with his conscience.

He stuck with it till all his boys had given up and gone away. Naturally, I stayed put. Me and my frozen fanny Ever have yours up in the air with a winter breeze tickling it? I wasn't in any shape to outrun or outfight Crask, or even somebody's granny, had no interest in trying and even less interest in visiting Chodo or maybe checking out the attractions on the bottom of the river. Frostbite can have its attractions.

Garrett is tough and patient. I outstubborned Crask. He finally had enough and went away. I pried my stiff bones loose from that porch and did the same. In another direction.

Boy, was I glad people never think to look up