Old Tin Sorrows

19

"Tyler, move out to the left about ten yards. Chain, you go to the right. I don't see much of a trail. Keep an eye out." I disposed myself and Peters between them so we spanned thirty yards. We started from the base of the front steps. "Let's go."

Peters said, "It was walking when it came. Wouldn't leave much of a trail."

"Probably not. You going to tell me who Quick was before we carved him up?"

"We?" Chain bellowed. "Will you listen to that shit?"

"Calm down," Peters told him. "I know what he was doing. He was right. You should have told us, Garrett."

"And warn the villain?"

"He's pretty well warned now."

"Safe, too. Oh. Add a name to the victim list. Somebody did it to Snake."

Peters stopped, held his lantern overhead, glared at me. "You aren't kidding. Snake? Why the hell Snake?"

I tried to recall who'd been sitting where when I'd let Snake out that door. Hell. Anybody with good ears could have heard. He'd used a stage whisper. Maybe he'd wanted the killer to know. Maybe he'd had something planned and it had turned in his hand. I wouldn't let a known killer get close enough to put a noose around my neck.

"Here," Chain said. We moved over. A strip of rotten leather hung on a bush. We redeployed.

I said, "You going to tell me about Quick?"

"I can't," Peters said. "I didn't know him. He was almost as spooky as Snake. Stayed to himself, mostly. You had to use a pry bar to get three words out of him. He did fancy himself a lover. You want to find out about him, talk to the gals at the Black Shark. All I can tell you is he was somebody the General knew and thought he owed. Like all of us."

I'd passed the Black Shark on the way to the Stantnor place. It was an evil-looking dive. I'd been considering taste-testing the house brew. Now I had business reasons to visit.

"Chain. You know anything about him?"

"Not me. Hell, sour as he was, I wasn't surprised when he walked. Him and the old man feuded all the time. He never gave a shit about the money, far as I know. He just didn't have nowhere else to go."

"Tyler?"

"I didn't know him, except he played a big role at the Black Shark. Guy was a werewolf, the way he changed personality when a woman was in sight. I figured he found somewhere he wanted to be more than he wanted to stay here."

Great. The live ones were weird and the dead ones weirder.

We were spread out just enough. We kept finding another trace just before we lost the trail. We adjusted and kept on. It was slow going.

"Who do you think is doing it, Garrett?" Peters asked.

"I don't have a clue."

Chain said, "He'll pass the word when there's only one of us left."

"That would work," I admitted.

Tyler kicked in, "I'd have put money on Snake. He was kill-crazy in the islands. He'd go hunting alone if he went too long without action."

I'd known a few like that, guys who got hooked on the killing. They hadn't made it through. Death has a way of devouring its acolytes.

"Here," Peters said. He'd found a place in tall grass where the draug had stopped. The trail was easy now. The grass was trampled down.

The trail pointed toward the swamp Peters had mentioned.

I asked, "You ever heard of Kef sidhe?"

"Kef she? What?"

"Sidhe. As in the race sidhe. Kef sidhe are professional killers. Religious assassins."

"No. Hell. The nearest sidhe are a couple thousand miles from here. I've never seen one."

Neither had I. "They're something like elves."

"What about them?"

"Snake was strangled with a Kef sidhe strangler's cord. Not exactly a common item in these parts."

Peters just looked baffled, near as I could tell by lantern light. Damn, he was ugly.

"How about a Venageti colonel's dress dagger? Were there any souvenirs around?"

"Black-handled thing with a silver medallion? Long blade?"

"Yes."

"Can I ask why?"

"You can. I won't tell you till I know more about the knife."

"Snake had one he took off a Venageti colonel that he snuffed during one of his private excursions," Chain said.

"Damn!"

"What's the matter?"

"Somebody stuck it in him when the strangler's cord didn't work fast enough." Wouldn't you know it? Stuck with his own sticker. Hell, next thing I knew I'd find out he committed suicide.

Our villain was probably more lucky than clever, full of tricks that were working out by accident.

Chain said, "Holy shit," in a soft voice. "We got trouble."

"What?" Peters demanded.

"Look at this."

We joined him. He held his lantern as high as he could.

Now there were two trails through the grass, one a yard to the side of the other. Peters and I exchanged glances, then looked at Chain. "Tyler! Get over here."

Tyler hadn't come. His lantern hung about two feet off the ground as he knelt to study something. "Wait a second."

I asked, "What have you got?"

"Looks like... "

Dark movement behind him. "Look out!"

The draug grabbed Tyler by the throat and hoisted him into the air. His neck snapped. He made a sound like a rabbit's scream; his lantern fell and broke. Fire splashed the draug's feet. It lifted Tyler overhead, heaved him into the darkness, turned on the rest of us.

"Spread out," I said.

"You damn well better do more than watch this time," Chain told me.

The fire blazed till the lantern's fuel was gone. The grass didn't catch. Neither did the draug. Both were too wet.

"We'll cut it up," I said. "Like the other one."

Chain said, "Let's don't talk, let's do."

I didn't want to. But this draug wasn't particular about whom it stalked. It hated life. If it had been after Tyler specifically, it would have fallen down, done, revenge complete. But it wanted the rest of us, too.

It didn't have much chance against three of us. We were faster and armed. But it kept coming. And coming. And coming. It's hard to cut a body up when it's chasing you.

The horror and fear subsided after a few minutes. I got my head working. "Either one of you know who this was?"

"Crumpet," Chain said. He concentrated like a clockmaker, making every move and stroke count.

"Crumpet? What kind of name is that?"

"Nickname," Peters said. "Real name was Simon Riverway. He didn't like it. Crumpet was all right. The ladies hung it on him in Full Harbor. Said he was a sweet bun."

Weird. I unleashed a roundhouse cut at the draug's neck. It got a hand in the way. My stroke sheered halfway through its wrist, one bone's worth. The thing kept turning toward me while I was off balance, grabbing with its other hand.

It grabbed hold of my sleeve. I thought I was a goner. Chain came in with a two-handed, overhead stroke, all his weight behind it. It hit the thing's shoulder hard enough to shake its hold. "I owe you one, Chain." I danced back a few yards, decided I'd follow Chain's example, and set my lantern down.

The draug kept after me—which was fine with Peters and Chain. Peters jumped in behind and took a wild cut at its right Achilles tendon, hamstrung it on his backstroke.

And it kept coming, though not as fast as it had.

It seemed to take forever, but we wore it down. It fell and couldn't get up. We carved it up good to make sure, spending a lot of fear energy. Once we were finished, I recovered my lantern, said, "I think we'd better hole up till dawn. If there were two of them there might be more. We can explore later."

"You said they don't run in packs," Peters said.

"Maybe I was wrong. I don't want to find out the hard way. Let's get out of here."

"First smart thing I've heard you say," Chain said. He examined Tyler. "Dead as a wedge. You think he's the one that killed them?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't bet on it. That one didn't care who it killed. It just wanted to kill somebody."

"Like the old joke about the hungry buzzard? Let's go. Before Tyler gets up and comes after us, too. I couldn't take that."

I didn't argue. Draugs are supposed to be dead a few months before they get up, but I wasn't ready to field test the folklore.