The Sword-Edged blonde (28 page)

Suddenly Gretchen stepped forward and yanked the bolt from the back of his neck. It popped free with a wet smacking sound. He spun to face her as blood gushed from both holes. She stood with the bolt in her hand, fresh tears soaking the bandage around her blazing eyes.

Canino lunged toward her and she made no move to evade him. I never saw him draw the knife, but he drove it into her belly and then ripped it upward with all his fading strength until the bone of her sternum blocked it. He pulled her close and worked the blade deep into her, probing for her heart. He found it.

They stayed motionless for a long moment, two lifeless bodies propped together like tent poles. Their mingled blood pooled at their feet. At last they collapsed, smacking into the wet patio stone beneath them. Droplets of red splashed into the moat and vanished into the night-black water.

This whole lethal encounter had taken less than three minutes, and occurred in almost total silence. I sheathed my sword, slipped the crossbow back in its tube and quietly stepped into the shadows. The door through which the Dwarf had entered the house remained open, and no light showed anywhere inside. I listened intently, unable to believe the little freak was really alone inside the huge dark house. Where were the other guards, or the additional strong-arm thugs like Canino? Did he really feel so secure?

I wouldn’t learn anything standing on the patio like some kid selling cookies. No one appeared to check on Canino, and no one moved about inside. I slipped through the open door into the main room, and waited until my eyes adjusted enough so that I wouldn’t trip over the furniture. The light from the patio torches reflected from an enormous chandelier over a long, elegant dinner table that ran lengthwise toward the door. Along the walls were overstuffed sofas, and beside each a little footstool to allow the Dwarf access.

Huge paintings covered the walls, all with an identical motif: horses in agony. Some were drowning, some being burned alive, some simply ridden to the point of exhaustion. The styles were as varied as the subjects were similar. I recognized some of the artists, masters from across the world, and was impressed with the Dwarf’s resources, if not his taste. An original Finkelman must cost a damn fortune.

Near the front of the room, a huge staircase swept upward in a graceful arc around the foyer’s entire perimeter. This puzzled me, until I saw that a smooth ramp ran alongside the steps, and explained the need
for such a gradual slope. The Dwarf, unable to use steps, would need something like this to reach the upper floors.

I took the steps silently, listening for any movement around me. The house was deathly quiet; I could even hear the pool rippling outside, and the occasional crackle of the torches. The staircase did not creak, but I felt it shift under my weight, and knew it might give me away. It made me, if possible, even tenser.

I reached the second floor landing. To my right, the hallway stretched away into darkness, but down the opposite hall I saw the same faint glow I’d observed from outside. It came from under a door halfway down the corridor. No other goal presented itself, so I crept toward it. I passed several other closed, silent rooms before I reached the lit one.

I paused. I had no idea what to expect, so I could really prepare for nothing. I could only hope that the clues and hints that led me here would see me through whatever happened, for the sake of my best friend and his wife. I put my hand on the knob, opened the door and stepped into the room.

T
he smell of incense surged over me the moment the door opened. I slipped in and closed it behind me, wincing at the hinges’ faint protest in the silence. Then I looked around.

The dim light came from a dozen small candles on a tiny altar. It reminded me of the little girl praying in the mines below Poy Sippi. The place was filled with bizarre objects, some displayed on tables and shelves, some propped against the walls. Each had a vaguely equine theme, although there were as many winged stallions and unicorns as there were depictions of everyday horses. Some, I suspected, were parts of actual animals, preserved in all the arcane ways people use to hang on to the dead.

I methodically scanned the room. The Dwarf was so small he could have found a dozen easy hiding places in the flickering shadows. I saw no sign of him, so I walked over to the altar. I wondered what sort of things he would offer to his apparent horse deity.

I should’ve known. The central icon was a horse skull impaled by a golden spike. Vicious spur wheels covered in dried horse blood marked the four cardinal directions.
A riding crop lay where a ceremonial knife normally rested. The Dwarf’s hatred of horses extended even to his religion. Hell, apparently it
was
his religion.

As I stood by the altar, the door creaked open behind me. I froze. The polished side of a ceremonial bowl reflected a squat, furry shape about waist high. It had a peaked head, wide shoulders and long arms.

I had a knife up my sleeve, probably my easiest weapon to draw in a hurry. But I didn’t. I slowly turned, careful not to make any abrupt motions. Whatever this creature was, I didn’t want to startle it.

The light was too dim to make out any details, but the general shape was unmistakable. It was an ape, standing very still just outside the door. I could hear its breathing in the silence. I didn’t know much about these animals, so I had no idea whether I should be quiet, make noise, bluff an attack or fall to the ground and cover my head. So I just stood there.

A long moment passed. Then the ape shuffled forward into the room. I may not have been an expert on gorillas and such, but I’d seen a lot of animals move, and this was all wrong. I crossed my arms and said, “Very funny.”

The Dwarf laughed. The costume allowed most of his face to peek through, so I saw his big smile. “I couldn’t help it, I love wearing this thing. People never worry about what the monkey might hear.” He pulled back the furry hood and bent his head far to the side so his hands could smooth down his hair.

In the candlelight, he looked younger than he had from a distance. His features seemed normal, even friendly. I knew better. He said, “Tried having a suit like this built to give me normal human proportions,
but the technology just isn’t there yet. I have to settle for a chimp. It’s actually more useful than you might think.”

“So you wear it around the house a lot?”

“Nah. I just put it on to light the candles. My hands aren’t really good with fire.” I heard the slight squeak of wires and cables as the fake hands closed around a taper, lit it from one of the burning candles and then touched the flame to some others that had gone out.

“So, here you are in my house,” he continued. “You trespassed onto my property and, if you got this far, killed two of my friends outside. I’m guessing that you’re not here collecting for charity.”

“I only killed one of your friends. And I can really only take half the credit for that.”

He waved one of the monkey-suit arms dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Canino was useful, but they all go quick eventually. There’ll be another one along.” Apparently satisfied with the number of lit candles, he snuffed the taper and wriggled out of the costume. Its framework kept it upright, so he resembled a molting insect. He wore a tunic cut to his odd proportions. I recalled Epona Gray’s description of the damage she’d wrought on the unfortunate sailor Andrew Reese:
I snapped every bone in his arms and legs, then pushed them up into his torso. I twisted him into human jetsam, Eddie, and cast him back to the sea.
This man certainly looked as if such a thing had happened to him. “Who knows? Maybe even you. Need a job?”

“I prefer being self-employed.”

He shrugged. The gesture made his whole body wobble. “Then I can assume you’re here on business?”

“Yeah.”

I watched his every move. I sensed he was dangerous far out of proportion to his appearance. “Buying or selling?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“What else is there?”

“Insurance. I’m taking out a policy on a friend’s life.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re a smart guy to get this far. Don’t turn stupid by threatening me. You think I’d be able to live here all alone if I didn’t know how to protect myself?”

“I’m sure you can. I’m no slouch myself. I took out Stan Carnahan once, too.”

It was small, but I saw the muscles in his cheek tremble as he clenched his teeth. “Who?”

“Let’s move this along. Once upon a time, you washed up on an island and, like most sailors, behaved very badly to the lady who lived there. Bad luck for you that she turned out to be a goddess. She made you into what you are now, and I’m betting you’ve been waiting for your chance to get her back for it ever since. You knew she’d reappear somehow, somewhere, so you kept your eyes and ears open. Maybe that was the whole reason you developed this underground criminal network of yours. You eventually caught wind of her little experiment in the Ogachic Mountains, and paid a bad man a lot of money to insinuate himself into the group. Then you sent a nice girl named Cathy to deliver your little ‘gotcha’ present. And you did get them, all of them, including the goddess who let herself be human enough to die.”

In the candlelight, his expression changed from amusement through anger until, at last, he seemed
about to cry. “How do you know all this?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.

“Because I was there, too, on the night it happened. And I made sure your bad man didn’t walk away.”

“But she died, didn’t she?” he whispered. “She did die?”

I nodded.

He sighed with relief. “For a minute I thought . . . well, it doesn’t matter. She died.”

I shook my head a little. “You’re a freak in more ways than one. One lethal revenge wasn’t enough for you. Because the lady really
was
a goddess, she showed up again, as the queen of Arentia. You weren’t going to trust proxies like Stan Carnahan this time, so you wangled an invitation to a state function in Arentia City. I know how it works, with enough money and a couple of connections it wouldn’t have been too hard. Canino was the actual guest, though; he took you along in your monkey suit.”
Blond man with the ugly chimpanzee
, Vogel had written in his report. “When the queen left the banquet, you slipped away after her. You confronted her somewhere between the main hall and the nursery.”
You’re right, though, it couldn’t possibly take that long
, Rhiannon had said. “But after all that time, all that effort, she didn’t even remember you, did she? She saw the same thing I do right now: some little, pathetic monster. That must have pissed you off no end.”

I could imagine his rage, confronting the woman he believed had done this to him and having his grand moment of revenge spoiled by her amnesiac blankness. He swallowed hard, and his eyes grew shiny. “I just wanted her to kill me,” he said softly. “I thought that when she died before, I would, too. But I didn’t.”

“Sure. You had a ‘plan B,’ though,” I continued. “You drugged her and got her loopy enough to let you into the nursery. You took her baby out hidden in the suit; you probably doped him up a little as well, just to keep him quiet. You took advantage of what was at hand in the castle to set up the murder scene, and used the meat and bones of one of your pet monkeys as the final touch. Then you disposed of the baby until Rhiannon decided she remembered you. But that never happened, and never will.”

He shook his head, and it dislodged one tear down his cheek. “I’m no baby killer,” he said.

“I never said you killed him.”
Andrew was a decent man, with a kind heart and the ability to feel love
, Epona had said. “I know exactly where you left him. You see, I can count to six, even when someone says it’s five.”

“Then why haven’t you told the bitch?” he snapped petulantly. He sounded for all the world like a teenager caught out past curfew. “I’m sure she’d be just delighted to know her brat wasn’t really murdered.”

“I will. Once I take out that insurance.”

He laughed chillingly, shook his head, then suddenly his eyes opened wide. He snapped his fingers and stared at me. “Wait. I know who you are. Yeah. King Philip’s childhood friend, let me think . . . LaCrosse. Edward, the current Baron LaCrosse.”

This bothered me a lot more than I let on. How the hell could he know that?

His demeanor changed almost at once, and his smile grew vicious. “I know a fair bit about you, too. Golden boy gone bad, as I recall. You let a bunch of trail raiders rape and murder the princess of Arentia.”

I tried to minimize it. “Old news.”

“To some, maybe. But a fellow like you doesn’t get over something like that, ever.” He waddled toward me, and the candlelight illuminated his cold, malevolent grin. All trace of the hurt victim had vanished. “When you’re built like me, you learn pretty quickly that the only thing stronger than muscle or steel is information. And I know something about that day I just bet you never told anyone.”

I barely got out the words, “Nothing to do with this.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You’re more responsible for the death of the late Princess Janet than you ever let on. See, there were over a dozen thugs involved that day, and by the time they were finally chased down, a couple of them had left and been replaced by new men. One of those veterans ended up working for me, and he told me a very interesting story.”