Dread Brass Shadows

44

We were on the highest of three floors. Crask and Sadler insisted on checking every room there before we started down. They didn't want to leave anybody behind us. Winger and I took one end of a long hail, those two the other half. We met again at the head of a stair in the center.

"Find anybody?" Sadler asked.

I told the truth. "A few drunks so far out of it they're barely alive." I'd recognized some and had been surprised by a couple supposedly honest men, big in business or society. Chodo's reach seemed infinite.

"Same over there. Nobody who has the balls to do anything but squeal, anyway. Party must really have roared before the shit came down."

"Head downstairs now?"

He nodded. "Stay low. Part of the stair can be seen from the ballroom."

I'd never visited this wing before. I'd never been off the ground floor, up front, except to visit a guy locked up in what passed for Chodo's dungeon.

We listened before we moved. There was a racket toward the front of the house. Men cursed down below, angry and scared. It had nothing to do with us.

Crask led off, still encumbered with his arsenal. It seemed impossible that he should move silently carrying all that clutter, but he managed. As did Sadler and even Winger. Me, carrying next to nothing and a trained Marine sneak, I felt like I was banging a drum.

We found no one on the second floor, just plenty of small sleeping rooms with no one home. "Bodyguards and staff," Sadler explained. "They'll be sober and near Chodo—if they're still alive."

"Where'll he be?" "In his office."

Meant nothing to me. I'd never visited his office.

Crask dropped. I did, too, pushed my nose against the banister. A half-dozen colorful, shaggy dwarves light-footed past below, headed toward the front of the house. An uproar broke out as soon as they disappeared. Crask chuckled. "Ambushed them little shits."

One dwarf hustled back bent over, holding his guts in A limping man overtook him, cut him apart with a heavy naval sword. I asked, "Can we get around that ambush?"

"Nope."

"You're a Marine," Sadler said. "Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle."

That didn't sound any more appetizing now than it had back then.

Crask said, "The runts used it up. Or there'd have been more guys after the dwarf."

We moved down to the ground floor, passed the dwarf, headed toward the ballroom and possible ambush. To our right were kitchens and laundries and whatnot. To our left, too, I assumed. I'd heard, during one of my visits, that such took up most of the ground floor, except the showy stuff up front and the ballroom and pool area

The ambush was pretty basic. Crask and Sadler sprang it entering the ballroom. The guy who'd slaughtered the dwarf was the healthier of the two trying to hold the fort. Crask bopped his head with the haft of his spear.

Winger whistled. "Some party room. Some party, too." The ballroom was a cozy eighty—by—one-hundred feet and three stories high. Party detritus lay everywhere. Looked like the celebration had run its course before the bloodletting started.

Crask and Sadler tied the victims They were going to need soldiers when they took over. Sadler said, "Straight to the pool."

"I'll take rearguard," Winger said When I glanced back, she was slipping something inside her shirt.

The pool room dwarfed the ballroom. The pool itself was that big. There was nobody there. Except Chodo's dead. Had to be thirty of those laid out amidst the party debris. We skirted the flotsam-covered pool and headed for the reception hall.

That hall runs to the front door through the front wing of the house, though wing isn't the right word. The house is a huge box with the center, inner court roofed to form the ballroom and pool areas. We took turns peeking into the hall. Several men were guarding the front door. They were all scared and they were all injured.

"Not many left," Sadler observed.

I grumbled, "Maybe we've Just jumped into a trap with the kingpin."

"Maybe. Let's check his office." He trotted to a closed door that would let us into the east wing, leaned against it, listened. "Not that way. Mob in there." He headed for the rear of the house. Back the way we had come.

I looked at Winger, shrugged, followed. But I was considering fading away. Things had gotten too deadly and mysterious.

We entered the east wing by means of second-floor halls built for the cleaning staff Sadler led us into a residential suite. "Chodo's kid uses this when she's in town."

"Nobody's home now." I wondered if most of the house was a mystery to Chodo. He wouldn't get to see the upper floors unless his men carried him.

"Don't look like."

Crask and Sadler started poking around in closets and tapping walls. They found what they were hunting before I became mystified enough to ask. A panel opened beside a fireplace Of course. Chodo would have his hidden passages and whatnot. Sadler said, "We're going down to a room hidden off Chodo's office. Be real quiet." Like we needed warning.

Our destination was big for a secret room, a good eight by twelve. Winger's eyes bulged when she saw it. Stacks of moneybags lay against one wall. She gulped air and chewed it. Impressive pile, I thought, but only Chodo's day-to-day working capital His petty cash.

A racket developed while we were crawling through the walls, the mob from outside attacking again.

Crask and Sadler moved directly to a wall, opened peepholes Crask indicated one I could use. I'd always suspected that the kingpin employed hidden watchers during his meetings. I pulled a cork out of a hole, peeked into a room about twenty-five by forty. There were only two men in the room, Chodo and a character who provided the power to move the kingpin's chair. Chodo sat in the middle of the room, facing an open door. He looked content, not afraid. Behind him, piled furniture barricaded two outside windows.

I pictured Chodo as a big trapdoor spider calmly awaiting a victim.

Sounds of fighting came from elsewhere in the house. Chodo's pusher tensed up. Then he relaxed as two men entered the room. They supported a naked, bound woman between them.

"Ha!" I muttered. "That's her."

"Who?" Winger asked.

"The Serpent. Check out that tattoo." It was uglier than I'd imagined. The witch herself was not a disaster, but she'd begun to show the ravages of time. More evident were the ravages of stubbornness. It looked like Chodo had asked a few polite questions, and when it had come time to answer, she'd demurred.

She was lucky he'd had a birthday party to preoccupy him. He might have gotten serious otherwise.

Chodo examined her critically from a few feet away. "Five pages? These are all?" He strained to lift several sheets of brass out of his lap. He seemed unaware that his place was being invaded.

"That's it, old man." The Serpent wasn't bothered by her situation, either. It seemed.

"They're damaged. Useless."

"Of course."

"Where is the book?"

A huge thug leaned in the door. "They're in the house." My heart jumped. But he didn't mean us. "Too many of them. Can't hold them off."

"Hold them in the hall out there, then You ought to be able to handle a few dwarves. Don't kill Gnorst. I need him alive."

"Yes sir." Like if Chodo said do it, it could be done.

I watched the witch Damned if she wasn't happy about the way things were going.

So was Chodo.

Interesting.

The kingpin eyed the witch again "Where is the book? I won't ask again."

"Fine. Then I won't have to listen to you anymore."

Chodo didn't get mad. He smiled, said, "Take her into that corner there." He murmured something to the man behind his chair, who moved him over behind a big barricade of a desk to my left I couldn't see him anymore.

Crask gave Sadler a thumbs-up

The uproar from the rest of the house had been moving closer Now the huge thug stumbled into Chodo's office. "I'm sorry, sir " He collapsed Chodo still didn't get upset.

A bunch of dwarves galloped in, Gnorst in their midst. He took in the setup, barked orders in dwarfish. For a moment there were a good thirty of them in there. Then some started drifting out. Most didn't want to go and a few flat refused Gnorst smoldered. I guessed he didn't want anyone figuring out that he had visions of becoming the new Nooney Krombach.

There were a dozen left when the flow stopped. Gnorst strutted over to the kingpin. His beard waggled like he was fixing to say something.

Chodo trampled his line. Amazing Put a little pressure on that old boy and he found all kinds of energy reserves. "Looks like six of one and half a dozen of the other, eh, Chet?"

Chet was one of the guys holding the Serpent. "Maybe seven to five."

The dwarves were baffled. Chodo was supposed to be dribbling in fear.

"I've waited a long time, Gnorst," Chodo said. "But patience pays. Today I get to see you die."

Dwarves peered around nervously. Gnorst's wicked little eyes went squinty. He wondered if he'd walked into a trap.

Chodo managed a little chuckle. "You're going to do it to yourselves. Because half of you are her creatures and half are Gnorst's." He continued, stirring them up. The old boy had balls that dragged the ground. And he was telling the truth. That was obvious. You could tell as soon as the short folks started eyeballing each other.

The witch yelled, "Don't!"

Chodo laughed.

The fur started flying

How'd he set them off so easy? One second they were calculating their chances, the next flying around hooting and hollering and stabbing.

The men holding the witch eased along the outside wall, toward Chodo. She didn't look so chipper now. Chet paused once to stick a shiv into some short guy who thought he'd be a hero and rescue the maiden not so fair.

It wasn't all dwarf hacking dwarf into chop meat, though. Chet got his before he could get behind the desk with Chodo and his coolie.

Crask made another thumbs-up sign. He and Sadler moved over some, got set.

Gnorst's loyalists were getting the best of the witch's boys. The last two broke for the doorway. The rest whooped in pursuit. I heard Chodo laugh again, softly, now through a gap opening in the wall of the secret room.

Gnorst caught on a step too late. Chodo made good his escape... . Only it wasn't so good, was it?

Crask and Sadler bopped the two guys with Chodo, cracked the witch a good one, made sure the wall was solidly in place. Gnorst had him a fit on the other side.

Crask said, "Hi, Boss."

Chodo was fresh out of good humor. He sighed. "You place your bets and take your chances, don't you, Mr. Garrett? But you can't beat the house forever. The wheel is fixed"

"You ought to know."

"I've rigged it often enough. I knew I should have tried harder to find that missing stone."

I tossed it into his lap. "I didn't need it. They killed all your pets." I nodded toward the wall. The dwarves out there had gotten awful quiet. I went to peek.

They were quiet, but there were a good forty of them out there now. Most just stood there staring at Gnorst. Gnorst didn't look a whole lot like Gnorst anymore. He was scared shitless.

His buddies had caught onto him. He'd been using them so he could grab the Book of Shadows and turn himself into another Nooney Krombach. And he'd given himself away here. His pals had fallen into what you might call an unforgiving mood.

He'd told me what dwarves though about Nooney and his book.

He started trying to yak his way out, but there was no hope in his voice and nobody was listening. Short folks started edging toward him, growling. I put the plug back in the wall.

"Well?" Chodo said, like he was in a hurry to get it over. Like he wanted to see if I had what it would take.

The witch wobbled to her feet. "Let's get a leash on her," I suggested. "Chodo asked a question I never heard answered. I'd like to know myself."

Chodo smiled feebly. "I knew you had a price, Mr. Garrett. It's a high one, admittedly, but it turns out you're human."

"I want to destroy it. If I have to lug it up to thunder-lizard country and dump it into a volcano."

He eyed me while Crask and Sadler rummaged for a choker for the Serpent. His smile faded, then returned. "You really would." He shook his head. "You understand about this afternoon?"

‘‘Not really."

"I believe you. My error. I appear to have been misinformed and thereby have moved to a false conclusion. But more than one source suggested you knew the whereabouts of the book. I wanted to ask about that. All I accomplished was to activate your enmity. Well. You can't beat the house."

"Why the hell would anybody think I'd know where the damned book is? I've been running myself crazy trying to get a lead on it."

Winger muttered, "We going to stand around jawing all night? We're going to have those runts out there after us real soon now. Let's do what we got to do and get."

"I think they're done. I don't think they'll be any more trouble."

She went to check through the peephole.

I looked at Chodo.

I couldn't do it. And he knew I couldn't. He smiled. And not like he'd won some victory but like I'd won one and he was pleased. He smiled even knowing he wasn't going to get out of anything. Crask and Sadler didn't have my sensibilities. They wouldn't forgive and forget.

Bigger smile on a devil's ugly face. "Look out for my baby, Mr. Garrett."

I nodded.

"She'll be fine," Crask said. And she would. That's the way those people worked. They counted women and children out, untouchable.

"Gods," Winger said from the peephole. She turned away pale, shocked. I decided I didn't want to see anything that would shock Winger.

Crask and Sadler eyed her, responding to the grim awe edging her voice...

The Serpent let Crask have it in the crotch. He folded up. She leaped at Chodo...