Old Tin Sorrows

17

As long as my room was just down the hall, I figured it would be wise to stop for some extra equipment. A sap and a sheath knife might not be enough if tonight's party got somebody excited.

The bit of paper between the door and the doorframe was the way I'd left it. But it was a decoy, meant to flutter down and catch the eye. The real telltale was a hair I'd left leaning against the door two inches in from the handle side frame. It couldn't be replaced by somebody who stayed inside.

The hair was out of place.

Go on in? Or just walk away? I presumed somebody was waiting. There hadn't been time for a comprehensive search since the adjournment.

I considered getting comfortable and waiting them out. But every minute I wasted was a minute longer before I heard from Snake.

How about we just surprise the surprise party?

I got a shield off the wall, a mace, dug my key out, turned it in the lock, kicked the door in hard enough to mash anybody waiting behind it, went in with the shield up to take the blow of somebody against the wall on the other side.

Nobody. And it was dark in there. Someone had snuffed the lamp again.

I backed into the hall fast, not wanting to stand there in silhouette. A man with a crossbow could fix me up good.

Someone came toward the doorway, just far enough to be seen. "It's me." Morley Dotes.

I glanced along the hall. Nobody. I went inside.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I shucked the shield and felt around for a lamp.

"Curiosity. Thought I'd see what was happening."

I got the lamp going and the door shut. "You just walked in?"

"Anybody could. They don't lock the doors."

"How'd you find my suite?"

He tapped his nose. "Followed my honker. We elves have a good sense of smell. Your suite is so heavy with the stink of meateater, it's easy to pick out."

He was putting me on. "You're here. What do I do with you?"

"Any developments?"

"Yeah. There's another dead one. While I was in town this morning. So tonight the old man calls a meeting, tells everybody who I am and says I'm going to nail hides to the wall. Meantime, he burns his will. Anything from town?"

"Saucerhead made some rounds. Didn't find much. Some of those medals, you know how many they handed out? Every hock shop in town has a bucket full. The only ones worth anything are the silver ones. People on the Hill are worried about their silver supply."

The Hill is TunFaire's heart. All the biggies live there, including a gaggle of witches and wizards and whatnot who have to have their silver if they want to stay in business. Silver is to sorcery as wood is to fire. Since Glory Mooncalled whipped up on everybody in the Cantard, prices have soared.

But that was of no concern now. "What about the candlesticks and stuff?"

"He found a couple of things. Maybe. The people who had them didn't remember where they got them. Literally. You know Saucerhead. He can be convincing."

Like a landslide. You didn't talk when he said talk, chances were you would real quick. "Great. There's a dead end."

"He's going to try again tomorrow. Pity your thief didn't take something special so somebody would remember him."

"Thoughtless of him. Look. I've got an appointment with a man who says he knows the killer. Maybe. I'd like to see him before he changes his mind about talking."

"Lead on, noble knight." Morley rags me about being romantic and sentimental. He has his moments himself—like turning up here. He'd never admit he was concerned about me swimming in a school of sharks. He'd just claim he was curious.

"This is a real haunted house," he muttered as we stole downstairs. "How can they stand it?"

"Maybe they're right when they say there's no place like home. Maybe you don't notice after a while."

"Who's the brunette I spotted when everybody charged out of the hall across the way?"

"That's the daughter, Jennifer. A dead loss, near as I can tell."

"Maybe you don't have what it takes."

"Maybe not. But I think it's bad chemistry." We hit the bottom of the stairs. Nobody was around. We headed for the back door. There was a sliver of moon out, just enough to keep me from stumbling over things. Morley had no trouble. His kind can see inside a coffin.

"At least it's straightforward. No dead gods. No vampires. No killer ogres. Just greedy people."

I thought about the woman in white and hoped she wasn't supernatural. I didn't know how to deal with spooks.

Morley grabbed me. "Somebody moving over there."

I didn't see anything.

Somebody tripped over something.

"Heard us," Morley said. He took off.

I went to the stable, called, "Snake? Where you at? It's Garrett."

No answer. I stuck my head inside. I didn't see anything. The horses were restless, muttering in their sleep. I decided to circle around outside before I risked the inside.

Wavering light spilled between boards on the north end, near the west corner. It was feeble, like the light of a single guttering candle. There was a narrow door. I'd found Snake's hideout. "Snake? You there? It's Garrett."

Snake didn't answer.

I opened the door.

Snake wouldn't be answering anybody in this world again. Somebody had stuck a knife in him.

It wasn't a good job. The thrust had gone in on the wrong side of his breastbone, piercing a lung. The tip of the dagger had lodged in his spine.

Morley materialized. "Lost him." He looked at Snake. "Amateur work." Always a student, Morley. And always a critic.

"Pros make mistakes if they're in a hurry with somebody tough. This guy was a commando, way I hear. Be hard to take him clean."

"Maybe." Dotes dropped to his haunches, toyed with a cord twisted around Snake's neck. The killer had finished it the hard way. "Interesting."

I'd started looking for physical evidence. A killer in a hurry could have dropped something. "What's that?"

"This is a Kef sidhe strangler's cord."

"A what?" I squatted beside him.

"Kef sidhe. They have strict religious injunctions against spilling blood. They think if you spill blood, the murdered man's spirit can't pass on till he's been avenged. So they kill without spilling blood because murder is part of their religion, too. Using the cord is an art with them."

I looked at the cord. It wasn't just a piece of rope.

Morley said, "The master assassin makes his own cords. Making your own is the final rite of passage to master status. Look. The knot is like a hangman's knot, except the noose is round so it can be drawn with the hands pulling apart. These knots in the cord aren't really knots, they're braided over cork cones. They work like barbs on an arrowhead. The cord can be pulled through the knot in only one direction."

It only took a second to see how that worked—with an example right there. I felt one of the tapered bulges in the cord. Morley said, "The cork crushes down going through the knot, expands again on the other side."

"How do you get your cord off?"

"They don't. They use it only once, then it's tainted. I've only ever seen one before. Cut off his own throat by a man I knew years ago. Excepting you, he was the luckiest guy I've ever known."

I looked around, less interested in Snake than he was. If our killer wasn't good he was lucky. There wasn't a spot of physical evidence. "Kind of sad," I said.

"Death usually is." Which was a surprise, considering the source. But Morley has been full of surprises as long as I've known him.

"I mean the way he lived." I gestured at our surroundings. He'd lived like his horses. He'd slept on straw. His only piece of furniture was a paint-stained table. "This was a professional soldier. Twenty years in, mostly spent in the Cantard. Combat pay. Prize money. A man careful enough to stay alive that long would be careful about his money. But he lived in a barn, like an animal. Didn't even have a change of clothes."

Morley grunted. "Happens. Want to bet he came out of the worst slum? Or off a dirt farm where they never saw two coppers the same month?"

"No bet." I'd seen it. Raised poor, they can get pathological about squirreling it away for a rainy day—and death comes before the deluge. Sad way to live. I touched Snake's shoulder. His muscles were still knotted. He hadn't relaxed when he'd died. Curious.

I recalled what Cook had told me about him. "Put it on his tombstone, he was a good Marine." I rolled him over in case there was something under him. There wasn't, that I could see.

"Morley. It takes a guy awhile to strangle. Maybe whoever killed him tried that first, then stuck him. Instead of the other way around."

He glanced around at the damage, which wasn't all that obvious, considering the state of the place. "Could be."

"You ever try to strangle somebody?"

He gave me a look. He didn't answer questions like that.

"Sorry. I have. I was supposed to take out this sentry during a raid. I practiced before we went in."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"That was me then. I don't like killing and I didn't like it then, but I figured if I had to do it and wanted to get out, I'd better do it right."

He grunted again. He was giving Snake's former downside the once-over.

"I did it by the book. The guy was half-asleep when I got him. But I blew it. He threw me around like a ragdoll. He beat the shit out of me. And all the time I was hanging onto that damned rope. Only good I did was keep him from yelling till somebody could stick a knife in him."

"The point?"

"If you don't snap a guy's neck, he's going to fight you. And if he breaks loose, even with that Kef sidhe thing around his neck, he sees you and you got to make sure of him any way you can."

"What you're sneaking up on is this Snake guy was stronger than whoever hit him. Like that Venageti soldier."

I hadn't said the Venageti was stronger than me, but it was true. "Yes."

"Somebody in the house probably has bumps and bruises. If someone from the house did this."

"Maybe. Damn! Why couldn't I have had some luck this once?"

"What do you mean?" He thinks my luck is outrageously good.

"Why couldn't the killer leave something? A scrap of cloth. A tuft of hair. Anything."

"Why not just wish for a confession?" Morley shook his head. "You're so slick, you slide right past yourself. He left you a dagger and a Kef sidhe strangler's cord. How exotic do you want to get? I told you how rare the cord is. How many daggers have you seen like this one?"

It had a fourteen-inch polished steel blade, which was unusual, but the hilt made it especially interesting. It was black jade, plain except for being jade. But at its widest point, where the middle finger of the hand would rest, there was a small silver medallion struck with a two-headed Venageti military eagle.

"A war souvenir?" Morley suggested.

"An unusual one. Venageti. Nobody lower than a light Colonel would carry it. A battalion commander in their elite forces or a regimental commander or his second in the regulars."

"Couldn't be a lot of those around, could there?"

"True." It was a lead. Tenuous, but a lead. I looked down at Snake. "Man, why didn't you blurt it out when you had the chance?"

"Garrett."

I knew that tone. Morley's special cautionary tone he saves for when he suspects I'm getting involved. Getting unprofessional, he'd call it. Getting bullheaded and careless, too.

"I have it under control. I just feel for the guy. I know what his life was like. It shouldn't have ended like this."

"It's time to go, Garrett."

"Yes."

It was time. Before I got more involved emotionally.

I walked away thinking the old saw, There but for the grace of the gods... Over and over.