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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 aragdoll . 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 Kefsidhe 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 thatVenageti soldier."
I hadn't said theVenageti 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.
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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 Kefsidhe
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-headedVenageti 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.
18
Morley wanted a crack at tracking whomever we'd heard fleeing. I gave him his
head. He didn't accomplish anything.
"It's not right, Garrett."
"What?"
"I'm getting a bad feeling. Not quite an intuition. Something beyond that.
Like an unfounded conviction that things are going to turn real bad."
Just so I couldn't ever call him a liar, somebody screamed inside the house.
It wasn't a scream of pain and not quite one of fear, though there was fear in
it. It sent those dread chills stampeding around my back. It sounded like a
woman, but I couldn't be sure. I'd heard men scream like that in the islands.
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"Stay out of sight," I told Morley, and took off.
The screams went on and on. I blew inside. They came from the west-side,
third-floor balcony. I hit the stair running. Two flights up I slowed down. I
didn't want to charge into something.
Thestairsteps were spotted with water drops and green stuff in bits and gobs.
Under one lamp lay what looked like a dead slug. I poked it. It wiggled and I
recognized it. It was a leech. I'd become closely acquainted with its
relatives on that one swampy island.
There was an awful smell in the air. I knew it from that island, too.
What the hell?
There was all kinds of racket up there now. Men yelled. Peters shouted, "Get
one of those spears and shove it back down."
Dellwood, with a squeak higher than the screaming, asked, "What the hell is
it?"
I moved upward carefully. I saw men against the head of the stairs, a couple
with spears jabbing at something heaving on the stairs. There wasn't enough
light to show it clearly.
I had a suspicion.
Draug.
I got a lamp.
I didn't want to see what I saw. That thing on the stair was something nobody
ever wants to see, and whoever made it least of all.
It was a corpse. One that had been immersed in a swamp. What folklore called
adraug , a murdered man who could not rest in death while his killer went
unpunished. There are a million stories aboutdraugs ' vengeance but I'd never
expected to be a player in such a tale. They'reapochryphal , not concrete.
Nobody ever really saw one.
Funny how the mind works. The thoughts you'd expect didn't come to me. All I
could think was: why me? This shot hell out of my simple case.
Peters yelled, "What do we do, Garrett?"
Besides puke? "I don't know." You can't kill adraug . It's dead already. It
would just keep coming till it wore them out. "Try to cut it up."
Dellwooddid upchuck. Chain shoved him aside, flailed away with the ax part of
a halberd. A couple of fingers came wriggling down where I stood. They didn't
lose their animation.
"Hold it there. I'll come around the long way." I backed down to the balcony.
As I retreated to the stair to the first floor, I spied the woman in white
watching from the top balcony east, from a spot where she wouldn't be seen by
the bunch above me. She looked more interested and animated than usual. Like
she was enjoying herself. I tried to sneak up on her but she wasn't there when
I got there.
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I wasn't surprised.
I crossed through the loft, went down. The guys were hard at work, poking and
hacking and stumbling over each other. Peters said, "This is getting old,
Garrett."
"I'll buy that. Who's it after?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Who did the screaming?"
"Jennifer. She ran into it down there somewhere. It followed her up here."
"Where is she now?"
"In her suite."
"Hang in there. You're doing a great job." I started down the hall. Then came
back.Kaid and Chain cursed me. I asked, "Who was it when it was alive?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]