Wicked Bronze Ambition

98

“The ballista is in your cellar. It is broken down into parts and stuffed in among the rest of the lumber. Under your house on the Hill.”

The dogs were so close in that I couldn’t move without tripping. Morley, pale and puzzled, took hold of my left arm, in case. A good grip, I suppose to keep me from raging off somewhere without a plan, bereft of further facts.

Thinking that, but frozen otherwise, I started to lift my gaze to the sky. Toward the realm of whatever god it was who entertained himself with my misery. To see the little blonde on a rooftop up ahead, but paying her little immediate attention. “And, of course, I have an expert artilleryman on my household staff. And his alibi for the time of the killing has never been tested.”

Morley observed, “The news sheds light on questions that have puzzled everyone.” Never relaxing his grip.

He was right.

The first weak shakes began in my arms and shoulders.

Dollar Dan said, “Unfortunately, the critical question remains unanswered. Who? This has been checked and rechecked, Mr. Garrett, by all the best noses but Singe’s, because the truth is so important. One indisputable truth is that neither Race nor Dex ever visits any part of the cellar but the wine storage. That is a separate cellar accessed by its own stair, the door to which is kept locked. None of the rats in the house-and there aren’t many because Race and Dex are aggressive about not sharing the living space-have seen either man visit the lumber cellar. But they cannot recall any other intruder, either. Stipulating that their memories become hazy quickly even when dramatic events occur. The ballista itself appears to have been stored there forever, as rats see time. So. They cannot tell us who removed it, assembled it, used it, took it apart again, and put it back where it came from. They know that happened only because whoever used it did not cover up the fact that all the working mechanisms were freshly oiled.”

Morley seemed thoroughly intrigued. A smile kept tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

Dan’s report was registering with me but without the crushing impact I would have predicted if asked to assess a similar situation beforehand.

Morley said, “Somebody knew the ballista was there. Mr. Justice, by some chance did your creatures see any old-time iron crossbow bolts?” Because, of course, once upon a time, residents of the house had been connected to a scandal having to do with wartime armaments contracts.

Interesting, but now my attention had locked on to that little blonde. She was standing on an impossible slope, making no effort to hide-nor was she doing anything to attract attention. She was just there, counting on the fact that people don’t look up much. I didn’t see her big ugly sidekick.

Morley sighted her, too. Clever fellow, he asked, “Mr. Justice, have you been able to find out anything about that girl?”

She knew that she had been spotted when Dan turned. She began walking up the slope of the steep metal roof. A sharp eye, though, would note that there was air between her soles and the verdigris.

I learned another interesting fact about John Stretch’s lieutenant. He had better eyes than the average rat man. As a tribe, ratfolk are nearsighted and much more scent-reliant than vision-dependent.

Dollar Dan announced, “We think she is a ghost.”

I consulted my recollections. “She and her friend supposedly have hideouts on top of several buildings.”

“That may be, yes. Such places have been found but may not in fact be actual hideouts.”

He sounded close to plaintive, which confused me. He tried to explain. “She leaves no scents behind. Not the right scents. Except for possibly. . She is a ghost, Mr. Garrett.”

Perhaps. Maybe. But she’d been one solid spook that one time I got close enough to touch her.

My turn to plaint. “That could mean she’s not part of the tournament.” The Operators wouldn’t put ghosts on the player roster. Spooks and zombies wouldn’t work because of the unfair advantage factor.

So I started trying to recall every detail about the girl and her companion. Especially her companion.

Dollar Dan was not happy. He had handed me the solution to the mystery of the vanishing artillery piece, opening a pony keg of worms, and I was just getting infatuated with a little twist not yet ripe enough to split. .

I hustled back from way out there in the wanderlands, focused on Dan, mildly aghast. Had I tapped into his secret thoughts? Or was I daydreaming something offensive because of my own obscure prejudice?

Whatever, I felt creepy and creeped out.

“What are we doing?” Morley asked. “Besides standing in one place long enough for trouble to find us? That wasn’t happy news, but how does it change what we’re doing now?”

“You’re right. Dan did everything that could be already. Chasing Race and Dex down would just eat time better spent finding Vicious Min.” So there I committed to checking on her before seeing Trivias Smith.

“What?” Morley demanded. He and Dollar Dan eyeballed me like I’d just turned weird. Meaning I’d hidden it damned well before.

“Thinking about Vicious Min. Thinking about the little blonde’s sidekick. Wondering. There are differences but big similarities, too. They could be related. The variances could be simple sex differences. Like, who would believe that Strafa and I were the same species?”

“You have a profound point. She was an angel. You. . You’re. . You’re Garrett.”

Dan probably agreed but was too civilized to say so.

I confessed, “I always suspected that the weaseling romance gods laid Strafa on me because they wanted me to become the punch line to the universe’s saddest shaggy dog story.”

“Shaggy dog stories don’t have punch lines. They end with a whimper. Or a groan.”

“Bing! And we have a grand prize winner, folks.”

“That’s my pal Garrett, eternal optimist, everybody. Mr. Sunshine himself.”

Somehow the possibility of a connection between Vicious Min and the blonde’s sidekick troubled me more than did questions raised by discovery of the ballista in the basement.

We did get moving again before divine mischief brought us to grief.

I relaxed some, actually, certain that the baddies had squandered their resources for mayhem and would now be especially short, Mariska having stepped back, depriving her boyfriend of any Machtkess connection with the grays.

I was convinced that the Machtkess history explained the gray involvement.

I hoped Moonslight had not destroyed a whole people with her bad behavior.

Grown people will amaze you with childish stupid sometimes.