Red Iron Nights

58

"I knew it!" I moaned. "It had to be something impossible." There were butterflies on the second floor. They were big and green and unpleasantly carnivorous but blessedly few and stupid. "Watch those things. I got a feeling if they nip at you it could spread the curse the way mosquitoes spread yellow fever." People in TunFaire didn't generally know that, but in the islands you learned from the natives. If you were smart enough to listen when they told you something.

"So light some candles."

Belinda wasn't exactly supportive. Pushy, even. It wasn't time to light candles.

First I visited my goody closet, dug out a nasty knife, offered it to her. "Whoever he is comes near you, carve your initials on him with that." For myself I chose a knife with a blade nearly long enough to qualify it as a shortsword. I used it to point toward Candy's room.

I went first, macho clown that I am. And there was our interloper, a monster of a man, moving almost imperceptibly as he hoisted Candy toward the ceiling. He had rigged a block and tackle on a beam we'd exposed while rehabbing. He was ruled by the curse and he was going to do a girl on the spot.

"It really is multiplying," Belinda whispered.

I kept my mouth shut. My throat was too dry for chatter.

The man kept moving against all the Dead Man's power. What incredible strength the curse gave!

Why hadn't Candy run out on him? With the Dead Man slowing him down, he couldn't hardly keep up with her.

"Huh! Belinda. Don't look this clown in the eye. I have a feeling that if he lays the green eye on you you're a goner."

"Right." She wasn't nervous. Not my gal Belinda. She was as cold as her daddy. "You want to do some candles before the bugs carry me off?" They tended to leak from the corners of the villain's mouth.

I lighted a sulfur candle off the tallow candle Belinda had thought to bring, set it on the floor just inside the doorway to Candy's room. As I set out the second candle, the bad boy realized he had company.

Gods, he was huge! He looked like Saucerhead Tharpe's big brother. Where did Winchell find him? Nothing that big should have been running loose. He turned his head slowly.

"Why don't you stick him, Garrett? You want to make a career of farting around, don't you?"

I do. It's because I have this hyperactive conscience. In this case it was also because I was completely lost. This wasn't suppose to be happening. The girl-killer problem was supposed to have been solved at Hullar's place. I was supposed to be in bed now, if not asleep.

The big guy had Candy hoisted up till only her head was touching the floor. He let go the rope. It squealed through the block. Down she crashed. She started making noises behind her gag like she was trying out my name.

I really hoped she wasn't trying to relay a warning. I didn't have time to fish it out of her. The big guy had begun to get him a case of the green eye. He was barfing butterflies. Most of those were green too. Old Drachir had had a thing about green.

The big man was aging before my eyes. He'd put on a year or two in the past few minutes. He'd gotten shorter, too, though I wasn't ready to jump in for fifteen rounds.

He got a good look at Belinda.

He charged like he was headed into a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. He puffed and snorted. Moths leaked from his nostrils. They were pretty stupid moths—or the curse controlling them was pretty dumb. They mostly went after him.

I held a lighted sulfur candle in front of him. He roared out butterflies that couldn't get me because of the cheesecloth. He didn't seem to care, though. He had eyes only for Belinda.

"Don't look the bastard in the eyes," I reminded her, sliding to one side. I dropped to hands and knees, scooted forward while the villain continued his glacial charge. I cut the tendons behind his right knee and left ankle. It took a while for his brain to get the word, but he fell. Then he started to lift himself up again. I drove my knife through his right hand, pinning it to the floor.

Belinda did his other hand. "You might try to get a gag on him, Garrett." She did have the Contague flair.

The cumulative pain and damage shocked the man enough that the curse slipped control. The Dead Man jumped on that. The villain became as rigid as stone.

Like a far, far whisper on a contrary wind, came, You took your sweet time.

I got Candy loose. "How come you keep fooling around with these perverts?" I asked. "What's wrong with a nice straight guy like me?"

She threw her arms around me. She didn't say anything, even when Belinda cracked, "Maybe she figured you were taken." She just clung like she didn't plan to let go during this lifetime.

Butterflies zoomed around drunkenly. The sulfur fumes were getting to me too. The bugs discovered bare areas on Candy. They called their friends. I didn't know but what the curse could be carried by the little devils. "Let's get out of here. Lock them in with the candles." I considered sliding a few candles into the Dead Man's room while he was preoccupied, just for effect.

Belinda helped with Candy, though with poor grace.

I glanced at my unwanted guest. Butterflies still crawled out of his open mouth. Belinda said, "We can't leave him here."

"Why not?"

"He'll croak."

"Ask me if I care."

"Think, genius."

Indeed. Boggle us with a first.

"You keep out of this." I grunted, disgusted. If the villain died, I'd be the only place for the curse to migrate. I didn't think that was such a great idea. "We do need to keep him unconscious. He might commit suicide." I had a sudden conviction that the curse had driven Winchell into Hullar's place to provide a diversion from the attack here.

The Dead Man sent, I can keep the man under control.

"Like you were doing when I got here?"

Bind him if that makes you more comfortable.

"Right." I peeked inside Candy's room. The big guy's breath problem had improved. The floor was covered with fallen butterflies. Only a few showed any life. I said, "I've got an idea. Get the curse to jump to the Dead Man. Then it wouldn't—"

"Then it would be able to talk to you direct."

"Miss Practical." I rounded up a ball of linen cord and went to work on our villain. I used it all, then gagged him good. Then I saved him from the fumes. I gave Belinda my nightstick. "Bop him if he even twitches."

"Where are you going?"

"To get Block. To get this character out of here."

I didn't get that far. Not right away.