Wicked Bronze Ambition

45

Kyoga Stornes trotted through the pedestrian gate, halted a dozen feet away, surprised by the crowd. He looked unhappy with a misery that had come with him, not because he had plunged into a mob.

“Is Barate here?”

“He’s up with his mother,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Moonslight. She’s been kidnapped. Maybe killed. But maybe they wanted Moonblight and got the wrong sister.”

“Eh?” I noted then that he was wet in spots, dirty in spots, and his clothing had come the worse for wear. “They go after you, too?”

“Uh. . Hell. Maybe so. I never considered that. If they’d hit us ten minutes earlier, they could’ve gotten Bonegrinder, too. He took off because one of his grandkids came after him. Family emergency.”

Singe gave me a look. So did Penny. They waited to see what I would do, for different reasons. I asked Singe, “You want to get started?”

“I’m on my way.” She started moving.

Kyoga blurted, “Hey! What’s that about?”

“She’ll backtrack you to where this happened. Then she’ll follow Moonslight, whose odor she remembers from Strafa’s wake. And she will be very careful not to attract attention.” That I said loud. I didn’t want her to miss it. She waved a hand in a “yeah, yeah” gesture.

Penny and Dollar Dan decided they wanted to tag along. I yelled. Penny held up, scowled back at the interfering fuddy-duddy. Dollar Dan ignored me and Singe did not tell him to go the hell away.

“Well,” Kyoga observed. “Well. That was intriguing.”

Dr. Ted began checking him over and cleaning his abrasions-while giving Penny a more appreciative exam.

I ground my teeth.

The girl was not hideous, but. . Mostly, I was just used to having her underfoot, considering her the Dead Man’s pet kid.

Kyoga grumbled, “I’m gonna live, Ted! Let me go see Barate.”

“Barate has come to see you.”

Indeed he had arrived, alerted by Mashego. Kyoga told his story in detail. We listened attentively. Barate asked the question that had occurred to me right away. “Why was Mariska there instead of Tara Chayne?”

“Not sure. Something to do with Tara Chayne needing to be somewhere else. Her youngest daughter was having her first baby.”

Wow. Hill folk could get excited about the same stuff as real people.

Kyoga said, “You know those two. They figure they’re interchangeable to the rest of us. Even if they feud all the time.”

Suddenly, I realized that Strafa and I would never see grandkids of our own. . I shook it off. It could consume me. “Barate, one reason I’m here. . I almost forgot. . I was hoping Constance would be getting it back together, some, because. .” I explained what we’d learned at Flubber Ducky and from Trivias Smith. “It’s a solid, genuine lead.”

Kyoga was disappointed because my belated news topped his. Still, he was encouraged. “Bonegrinder or Moonblight-either one can make a tracer you could hide inside a sword’s hilt.”

“And Mother won’t be making anything but poop for a while,” Barate said. “You trust this smith, Garrett?”

“Not really. No reason to.” But I wasn’t always sure about me. You get cynical in a racket where everybody lies to you, the majority are psychotic, and you run into them during the worst days of their lives. “But I got as good a feeling as I have from anybody lately. Belinda will check his background.” I doubted that she would find anything bleak.

I should get Trivias together with the Dead Man.

Singe came shambling back, mumbling to herself. “I need something to track that woman after all. I can’t separate her scent from her twin’s.” Of course. Maybe. Or maybe she just wanted to stall to keep an eye on Penny.

Dollar Dan looked miserable. It took only moments to figure out that Singe had changed her mind about letting him tag along.

Kyoga looked confused.

I promised him, “She really is the best. But even she has limits. If we get her started before the rain comes back, she’ll find Moonslight.” That should hold off till evening, though.

“Oh. All right.” Kyoga let Singe take him aside. He kept one distracted eye on Penny. Penny’s body language suggested that she was aware but not particularly conscious of his scrutiny.

Barate called Dollar Dan over to ask what it would take to surround Kevans with a cloud of ferocious rat men.

Mashego bent down to whisper, “Not to worry on Master Kyoga’s account, sir. He would never attempt anything of that sort.”

Barate overheard. “That’s right, Garrett. It’s not what you think, anyway. What’s got him going is, she’s a dead ringer for Scatura at the same age, wearing that outfit.”

“Who is Scatura?”

“His wife. She died a long time ago. I find the resemblance uncanny myself.” He considered Penny so intently that I got uncomfortable all over again. Barate Algarda did have flaws where relationships with females were concerned. “Any chance there could be some connection?”

I couldn’t see how. “I doubt it. We have stuff to do.”

“Yes. We do. Ted. Take another look at Mother before we go. Update Mashego and Bashir about anything special they need to be doing. What about you, Garrett? Want to check on her one more time?”

We? “Well. .”

Dollar Dan announced, “Here comes Fire Este, meaning we are about to hear something concerning Vicious Min.”

A rat man hovered in the pedestrian gateway, unsure if he ought to come ahead without a specific invitation. Dollar Dan beckoned impatiently. I backed him up.

This Este was new to me. He turned out to be a stutterer. It worsened around people he didn’t know. He needed several minutes to tell us what Dollar Dan had predicted.

“What do you think?” Barate asked, since the plan had been to go see Moonblight about her sister and the tracker inserts for the swords. I preferred her to Bonegrinder for those.

“The man is creepy,” Barate admitted. “It’s his special charm. Don’t take it personal.”

“If you think he’ll do better, I’ll defer to your wisdom.”

“No. Moonblight it is. For professional acumen, not personality.”

Acumen? That was one from the Dead Man’s lexicon.

Algarda awaited further remarks. I had none. Nor did anyone else. He added, “She can be quirky, too.”

“Really? Well. . She should act her age. . What? What did I say?”

Penny snickered behind her left hand. She pointed an indicting finger, also left-handed.

Yeah. She was a southpaw. So many artists are.

“Girl, I liked you better when you were scared of me.”

She still was, enough not to banter.

She had a point, though. I wasn’t being gritted teeth and steely eye enough. We had twenty things in the air and I had no control. I was letting stuff happen when I should be out kicking down doors.

If I just had some idea where to start kicking. .

Nobody could do better than me right now. Shadowslinger was in a coma. The Dead Man was still dead-though he did have people out looking for likely doors. Likewise, Belinda, Morley, and Director Relway.

I felt useless, even so.

Barate tapped me on the spot that Belinda had pounded into bruise pudding. “What’s on your mind?” I kept my scream to a girlish bark.

“I’m trying to throw a saddle on all this chaos.”

How clever was that, bundling horses and bedlam?

It went right on by him. “You should plant yourself in a safe place and mastermind things from there.”

Probably the sensible course, but I found it emotionally barren. “I don’t know how to sit. I have to do stuff.”

“Running in circles, flapping your arms and shouting. Then getting killed. That’s sure to help.”

I could argue honestly, “It’s pretty much always worked. Except for the getting killed part. You bang on things long enough and loud enough, the bad guys will try to do something about you. Then you nail them.”

“Unless they’re smart enough to nail you before you know they’re there. How long do you suppose that’ll take this time?”

“Huh?” I puffed up like a big old toady frog, ready to argue: Look at me, still standing after all these years! But I had had tons of unreasonably good luck, as recently as this morning.

Even Brownie had a comment, a small doggie whimper. She leaned against the outside of my right thigh. Yeah. I started scratching ears.

Those beasts have selectively bred us for thousands of years.

Realization: I almost totally depend on friends to manage parts of my life. I cannot make it on my lonesome.

Old Bones might claim that, while not hive insects, humans are social animals who have to belong in order to function properly.

“He was kind of a loner.”

“Nobody knew him very well. He stayed pretty much to himself.”

“He always seemed like a nice guy, quiet, but he never had no friends that I ever seen.”

The neighbors, as the red tops start dragging the bodies out.

Crueler, though, is when they’re winkling the tortured girls out of their shallow graves and the guy showing them where his playthings are stashed is a good family man, five kids, a deacon in the church.

Pain exploded down my right arm. For half a second I thought it was the Big One, swooping in a couple of decades early, out to reunite me with my beloved. Then I realized, wrong arm, and noticed Penny Dreadful backing off, anxious and smug at the same time.

She had delivered the strike with military precision.

“What the hell? Why did you do that?”

“You were spacing out again. Singe says we don’t want to lose you. She told me not to let you go drifty. Do whatever it takes, she said.”

Everybody had a fierce grin on, including Mashego but excepting the rat men, who lacked grins only because they weren’t made for grinning. They expressed their grand amusement by wiggling their whiskers, the sort of laughter that, in a human, would have looked like somebody choking on a chicken bone.

Part of me wanted to drag the kid across my lap and get to paddling, but I’m supposed to be too mature to yield to impulse. Besides which, that was sure to be misinterpreted, and beyond which, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Penny had won a lot of hearts with one slick move.

She’s also a nasty infighter.

The hidden story of my life. Always a plaything of women.

Even Brownie’s sympathy was entirely pro forma.