Dread Brass Shadows

After deliberating, Winger told me, "I don't know where they come from, Garrett. But I got a good idea where they went."

"Ah?" Turn up the charm and cu

"Twenty marks. Silver. After you see Lubbock."

I'm nothing if not adaptable. "I'll give you three." I wasn't carrying much more than that.

"It's your ass. You don't figure it's worth twenty marks, I'm not going to argue with you."

Some of these rubes have a certain low cu

She didn't say anything, just led me on toward the Hill. All right. She'd come around. Five marks was a lot of money to a country girl.

A couple of dwarves ambled across an intersection ahead. I blurted, "Ten." And they hadn't even looked our way. Hell, they never did. They were just a couple of short businessmen.

Winger ignored me.

All right. I know. I gave myself away there. But I was nervous. You'd be nervous if you had dwarves trying to poop you every time you stuck your head out of the house.

Dean doesn't let me do the marketing, either.

I didn't let up on keeping a lookout. Not for a second. I didn't see anything disturbing, either, except once I caught a glimpse of a guy who could have been Crask, but he was a block away and I couldn't be sure. I did grin, though. That might be something to bargain with.

24

I stopped, studied our destination.

"Come on, Garrett. Quit farting around."

"I want to look it over first." The place looked like some nut's idea of a haunted castle, in miniature, a hangout for runt werewolves and vampires too limp of wrist to fly. It was a castle, all right, but no bigger than the surrounding mansions. About quarter scale. All black stone and dirty. "Cheerful little bungalow. This where Lubbock lives?" I'd seen the place before but hadn't paid attention. Just another hangout for some nut on the Hill. I knew nothing about it.

"Yeah. He owns it. Only, tell you the truth, I don't think his name is really Lubbock."

"No! Really?"

She gave me a double dirty look.

"What do you know about him?"

"He's in metals smelting. That's his business, I mean. Royal contracts. Very rich. I picked that up keeping my ears open. He's a little peculiar."

"I'll say."

"Try to keep a straight face."

I started moving again. Slowly.

I expected zombie guards at the gate. Maybe gnome zombies, since the place was so shrunk down.

Black steel bars covered its few windows. A toy drawbridge spa

A guy who goes to live on the Hill usually buys or builds his dream house there

I stopped, considered the morCartha. They seemed lethargic beyond what was to be explained by the fact that it was daytime. Winger said, "Let's don't stand around in the street." She crossed the drawbridge without a qualm. "You coming?"

"Yeah. But I'm begi

She laughed. "Stop worrying. It's all for show. He's a crackpot. He likes to dress up and play sorcerer but the only magic he can do is make food disappear."

Probably so. If he had any real talent, he'd be in the Cantard trying to outwaltz Glory Mooncalled.

A cadaverous old guy met us. Without a word he led us to a small, spooky receiving room. The walls were decorated with whips and chains and antique instruments whose function I didn't even want to guess. By way of art there was a rogue's gallery of demonic portraiture. Also a couple of real people I probably should have known, did I pay much attention to history. They looked like they'd shaped our past.

Lubbock joined us.

He made the Dead Man look slim and trim. He had to go six hundred pounds if he went a stone. He wore a silly black wizard's outfit that looked like he'd made it himself. It had enough material in it to provide tents for a battalion. The powers that be got wind of it, they'd have him up on charges of hording.

Lubbock smiled a smile that got lost in the ruddy landscape of his face. It made me think of the wax dripping down around the top of a candle. "Ah, Winger. You've managed to get the man here at last. Pay her, Pestilence." A woman who looked like she might be the old guide's grandmother brought Winger a small leather bag. Winger made it disappear fast.

"Mr. Garrett." Lubbock tried to bow. I tried to keep a straight face. Neither of us was completely successful, though I managed well enough.

That old boy had one spooky voice. It sent chills scampering around my back. I bet he spent hours practicing to get that effect. "I had begun to wonder if I hadn't made a mistake employing you."

I thought she'd made the mistake, taking him on as an employer. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep body and soul together. I asked, "How you doing, Lubbock?"

He threw up his hands and crossed his wrists in front of his heart, palms toward me. He made fists but left his little fingers standing. He waggled his pinkies furiously. He had nails almost two inches long. I guessed that was some kind of sorcerer's move. I think I was supposed to be impressed.

And some people I know say I belong in the Bledsoe cackle factory because I don't have a firm grasp on reality.

Winger whispered, "At least pretend to be courteous, Garrett."

"I asked him how he was when I don't care, didn't I? What more do you want?" Blame it on nerves. When people give me the creeps, I get flip. "Get him talking." I wanted answers from Lubbock but had the heebiejeebies bad enough to think of walking.

He got himself started. "Mr. Garrett," again. "Good day. I have awaited our meeting anxiously."

"Pleased to meet you. Whoever you are." See? Courteous. I could have said whatever you are.

Another smile tried to break through and died young, smothered by fat. "Yes. As you surmise, my name is not Lubbock. No sir. That is merely wishful thinking, the heartfelt desire to walk the same path as the great Lubbocks of centuries past."

He rolled his fists over heel to heel with their backs toward me, looked at me between raised forefingers that, more or less, made the ancient sign against the evil eye. "Unfortunately, my dream is denied me by harsh reality."

I recalled Willard Tate mentioning a couple of dead double nasties named Lubbock. Sorcerer types. This guy obviously had less talent than I do. His harsh reality. So he was playing some whacky game.

If you're rich enough, you're allowed.

"As you surmise, sir," he repeated, "my name is not Lubbock. Hiding the truth from a man of your profession would be foolish. You need but poll the neighbors to learn that madman Fido Easterman lives here."

"Fido?" People don't even name their dogs Fido anymore.

"It means Faithful. Mr. Garrett. Yes sir. Faithful. My father, rest his soul, was an aficionado of imperial history. Fido was an imperial honorarium. Rather like a knighthood today. Though it could be bestowed upon anyone, not just those nobly born. Yes sir. The man whose name I took in vein, like a momentary domino, my kinsman Lubbock Candide, attained that very distinction. He was an ancestor of mine, you know. The glittering star atop my family tree. Yes sir. But the power in the blood failed after his daughter, Arachne. I know I abuse the gods for that jest."

Man. This clown was a one-man gale. "What's that got to do with me?" Trying to get to the point. "Why am I here?" I tried to figure the color of his eyes. I couldn't make them out behind all that fat