______ LII ______

 

Our timing was perfect. We were near the edge of the clearing when Morley appeared out of nowhere. "Not bad for a city boy," I told him. Crask and Sadler popped up as suddenly. If we'd been unfriendly, we would have been in big trouble. "Anything happening over there?"

"Lot of screaming."

"What?"

"Started right after I got here. Somebody's asking some questions. Somebody else isn't giving the answers they want to hear."

I wasn't surprised.

Crask said, "Something's happening."

I joined him. From where he stood the farmhouse could be seen plainly. Ogre breeds boiled out, raced across the weedy field toward the gap where the road left the woods. "Their lookout must have spotted the Storm-warden."

Someone grunted.

"They been doing any patrols? Or just watching the road?"

"Watching the road," Sadler said. "They're ogres."

"Stupid. The Stormwarden may have overestimated herself. They might kill first and ask questions later."

"They're distracted now," Saucerhead said. "Be a good time to move up. If we keep low along the downhill side of that swale there, we can get pretty close. Maybe up to the foundation stones where the barn used to be."

I recalled a deer trail through the high grass that followed the route Saucerhead recommended. I looked but I couldn't see the stones. "You've been over there?"

"Yeah. I had to look in and make sure."

"Let's go."

Saucerhead went first, then Crask, then Morley. I told Amber to keep down and sent her next. I followed her. Sadler brought up the rear. We were halfway across when the brouhaha broke out in the woods. We stopped. I said, "That doesn't sound like ogres running into surprise sorcery." "No."

"Let's move."

As we crouched among the stones, thirty yards from the rear of the house, Skredli's gang emerged from the woods uphill. They had five or six prisoners.

"Gameleon," I said. "What happened to the Storm-warden?"

"There are twelve breeds up there, Garrett," Morley said. "In a minute they won't be able to spot us behind the house. Why don't we make our move? Be waiting for them inside when they get there?"

I didn't like it. But the odds weren't going to get any better. I checked the others. They all nodded. "Amber, stay put. I'll holler when it's safe."

She had developed a case of deafness. When we moved toward the back door, she moved with us. I cursed under my breath but there was nothing I could do short of bopping her and laying her out. We reached the house unnoticed. Morley volunteered to lead. Nobody argued. He was the best. We moved. Inside there were three ogres, one woman and Karl daPena, Senior. Morley creamed two of the ogres before they knew they were in trouble. The third tried to yell and only got out a bark before Crask stuck a knife through his throat. Sadler finished the other two. Amber dumped her breakfast.

"I told you to stay out." I ground my teeth and examined our prizes. Neither seemed particularly pleased to see us.

"Frying pan into the fire, eh, Baronet?" Both were strapped into chairs. DaPena was gagged. The woman wasn't, but she was yelled out. Both had been tortured, and with little finesse.

"You must be the marvelous Donni Pell. I've been anxious to meet you. Right now you don't look like something that men would kill for."

"Cut the sweet talk, Garrett," Morley said. "They're coming."

I peeked. "That clown Skredli must have raised an army."

"We can take them. They have to keep hold of their prisoners."

"I like a man with a positive attitude. Why don't I slide out the back way and you holler when you've got them?”

"You going to mouth your way through the gates of hell or are you going to decide what to do?"

"Crask, Sadler, you guys get out of sight down that hall. Saucerhead, wait behind the door. Let four or five get in, then slam it and bolt it. Morley and I will jump out from the kitchen. We ought to polish off the bunch before the rest bust in. Amber, you get out back."

This time she did what I told her. Nothing like a good scare.

"And you call me a tactical genius," Morley grumbled. But he ducked into the kitchen without offering a suggestion of his own.

Even tactical geniuses stumble. When Saucerhead went to slam the door, Skredli and two other breeds were on the transom. He had the strength to bounce two of them back into the yard, but the third got caught between the edge of the door and the frame. He did a lot of yelling and flailing while Saucerhead grunted and strained, trying to shut the door right through him. And Tharpe did manage to hang on while we thumped the five he'd let in.

Morley chuckled. "Seven to go. Let them in, Saucerhead."

Tharpe jumped back. Skredli and the guys stomped in.

We did expect them to have their cutlery out, ready for carving. We didn't expect Gameleon's brunos to help them. They did. "We been suckered, Garrett," Saucerhead said as he stumbled back past me. Long knife in one hand and head-thumper in the other, fending off two ogres and a man, I fell past a window and shot a quick look to see if help was coming. No stormwarden.

Had the gang dealt with her already? Had they caught her in a pincer up in the woods?

I kicked one guy in the groin but not good enough to slow him much. The three pushed me toward the kitchen, keeping me too busy staying alive to keep track of what was happening to everybody else. Win or lose, Skredli and his bunch would get hurt. They were up against the best TunFaire offered.

Small consolation.

I got in a solid thump to an ogre's head as I backed through the kitchen doorway. He reeled, stalling his companions. I whirled and dove through a window. I did not land well. The breath went out of me and didn't want to come back. But I got my feet under me in time to lay a whack on the skull of a guy trying to climb after me. It was no head-breaker, but it discouraged him.

I limped to the front door, wound up and flung one of the witch's crystals. Then I held up a wall while my breath caught up with me and the crystal did its deed.

The uproar inside died.

When I went in, everybody was folded up puking. I shambled around thumping heads. When I had the bad guys down I scrounged what I could and tied them up. I got done just before the spell wore off. Sitting against a wall, Morley glared and croaked, "Thanks a bloody bunch, Garrett. I'm ruined."

"Ingrate. You're alive."

I don't dare describe the looks the ingrates Crask and Sadler gave me. It was a good thing they had stomachs and a few wounds to patch. I heard sounds outside. I went to the door.

The Stormwarden was coming. Finally. She left the carriage and strode toward me. I stepped out of her way. She entered, scanned the battleground, sniffed, looked at me suspiciously. I said, "We're all here now. I'll get things sorted out and we'll start."

"All right." She marched over to the Baronet. His chair had overturned during the struggle. She stared down at him briefly, then turned to Donni Pell. "Is this the infamous whore, Mr. Garrett?"

"I didn't ask yet. I think so."

"She doesn't look like much, does she?"

"With females you never know. She might be a whole different act cleaned up and set down where she thought she could work her magic."

That got me the darkest look she'd given yet. Meanwhile, Domina Dount just stood in the doorway, for the first time in our acquaintance, at a loss.

"Saucerhead. Why don't you get Amber?"

He gave me a look as loving as the Stormwarden's, but nodded and went out back. I said, "Stormwarden, I don't know if it's within your expertise, but if you can, we'd all appreciate a little healing magic here."

"Everyone who faces the Warlords of Venageta must learn elementary field medicinal spells, Mr. Garrett."

"Maybe everyone of a certain class." Amber came in. Her face went gray. I thought she was going to upchuck again. "It gets rough sometimes, Amber. Gut it out. You all right, Saucerhead?"

"I'll live, Garrett. Why the hell don't you ever warn anybody when you're going to pull something out of your sleeve?" He winced and clapped one hand to his stomach.

I didn't bother explaining that if I'd warned him I'd have warned the bad guys too.

 

______ LIII ______

 

We dumped the ogres and Brunos in the weeds, live or dead. The farmhouse was still as crowded as a rabbit warren. We found seats for everybody. Only Amber and I remained standing. She leaned against the doorframe, too nervous to sit. Though the Stormwarden's perch was no better than anyone else's, her manner turned it into a throne.

She said, "Proceed, Mr. Garrett."

"Let's start with my old buddy Skredli. Skredli, tell the nice people the story you told me at Chodo's place. Keep in mind that the lady there can make you hurt a lot worse than Chodo ever did."

Skredli got fatalistic again. He told his story. The same story.

Donni Pell was the villain of his piece. She was a wonder to watch as she tried working on him so he would cast her in a better light. Gameleon and daPena were worth watching, too. And Domina Dount, for that matter, as she learned that some things she'd heard but not gut-believed were true.

When Skredli finished, I looked at Gameleon. "You think you can talk your way out of here?"

"I'll have your head."

Morley asked, "You want me to knock him around a little to improve his attitude, Garrett? I always wanted to see if blue-blood bones sound different when they break."

"I don't think we'll need to."

"Let me twist his arm a little. How about you, Saucerhead? We could hang him up by the ankles and break him like a wishbone."

I snapped, "Knock it off!"

Raver Styx lifted her left hand and extended it toward Gameleon, palm forward, fingers spread. Her face was bland. But lavender sparks danced between her fingers.

Gameleon yelled, "No!" Then he screamed a long, chilly one. I wouldn't believe anybody had that much breath in him. He went slack.

"So much for him. For now. Baronet? How about you? Want to sing your song?"

Hell no, he didn't. His old lady was sitting right there. She'd have his nachos on a platter.

She said, "Karl, whatever you're thinking, the alternative will be worse." She raised her left hand again. A few sparks flew. He flinched, whimpered. She dropped her hand into her lap, smiled a cruel smile. "I'd do it, too, you know." And she would. I was convinced.

There were some bleak faces in that place.

I looked at Gameleon, at daPena, at Domina Dount, at Amber, who sincerely regretted having come. Poor old Skredli was damning himself for not running instead of trying to make a last score.

Donni Pell . . . Well, I concentrated on the spider woman for the first time. I had avoided that because even I, a bit, was subject to whatever made her so dangerous.

She didn't look dangerous. She was a small woman, fair, well into her twenties, but with one of those marvelous faces and complexions that make some small, fair women look adolescent for years beyond their time. She was pretty without being beautiful. Even ragged, filthy, and abused, she had a certain something that touched both the father and the lech in a man, a something that made a man want to protect and possess. I don't play with little girls, but I know the feeling a man can get looking at a ripening fifteen-year-old.

In my time I have encountered several Donni Pells. They are conscious of what they do to men—manipulate it like hell. The sensual frenzy is balanced by manipulating the fatherly urge as well. Usually they come across as being empty between the ears, too. In desperate need of protection.

Donni Pell, I suppose, was an artist, having turned an essentially patriarchal society's stereotype of a woman's role into a bludgeon with which she worked her will upon the male race. She was still trying to do it, bound and gagged. Under it all she was tough. As hard and heartless as a Morley Dotes, who might qualify as the male counterpart of a Donni Pell. Skredli and his boys hadn't broken through.

The Stormwarden said, "Will you get on with it, Mr. Garrett?"

"I'm trying to decide where to poke the hornet's nest. Right now these people have no incentives."

"How about staying alive?" She rose and joined me. "Somebody here had Amiranda killed. Somebody here had my son killed. Somebody here is going to pay for that. Maybe a lot of somebody’s if the innocent don't convince me of their lack of guilt. How's that for motivation, Mr. Garrett?"

"Excellent. If you can convince a couple men who figure their place in the world entitles them to immunity from justice."

"Justice has nothing to do with it. Stark, bloody, screaming, agonizing vengeance is what I'm talking about. I'm not concerned about political repercussions. I no longer care if I get pulled down."

Her intensity convinced me. I looked at her husband and Gameleon. DaPena was convinced, too. But Gameleon was holding his own. Softly, I said, "Courter Slauce."

Equally softly, the Stormwarden replied, "I haven't forgotten him. Continue."

I scanned them all again—then turned on Domina Dount. "You feel like modifying anything you've said before?"

She looked blankly at me.

"I don't think you're directly responsible for any deaths, Domina. But you helped turn a scam into something deadly."

She shivered. Willa Dount shivered! She was ready to break. The blood had reached her when she'd had to see it firsthand. Amber sensed it, too. Despite the state of her nerves, she glared at me. I winked.

"Nobody wants to kick in?"

Nobody volunteered to save himself.

"All right. I'll reconstruct. Correct me if I get it wrong, or if you want somebody else to get the shaft."

"Mr. Garrett."

"Right, Stormwarden. So. It started a long time ago, in a house on the Hill, when a woman who shouldn't have had children did so."

"Mr. Garrett!"

"My contract is for a job done without interference, Stormwarden. I was going to walk lightly. But since you're impatient, I'll just spit it out. You made life such hell for them that your whole family was ready to do anything to get away. Nobody worked up the guts to try till you went to the Cantard, though. It's unlikely anybody would have then if your husband hadn't, in the course of continued unwanted attentions, gotten Amiranda pregnant."

Amber glared daggers. Domina Dount squeaked. The Stormwarden glared, too, but only because I was making public something she already suspected. The Baronet fainted.

"As soon as she knew, Amiranda went to the only friend she had, your son. They cooked up a scheme to save her from shame and get them both away from a house they loathed. Junior would get kidnapped. They would use the ransom to start a new life.

"But they couldn't work it out by themselves. They wanted it to look so real the Stormwarden Raver Styx would believe that her son had been done in by dishonorable villains. Why? Because whatever else they felt, the daPena brats loved their father and didn't want him crucified. They wanted to cover for him."

"Mr. Garrett—"

"I'm going to do it my way, Stormwarden." I faced Donni Pell. "They couldn't pull it off without help. So Junior went to his girlfriend. She said she'd arrange everything. And things started going wrong right away, because Donni Pell can't do anything straight.

"She told the guys she hired what was happening, figuring she could work it for a profit. She told the Baronet, figuring she could get something out of him. She told Lord Gameleon, maybe. Or maybe he got it from another direction. There are several ways he could have known.

"Donni planned to do the stunt using ogres who were stealing from the daPena warehouse and selling to Gameleon. That was a big screw-up. Domina Dount already had Junior investigating shortages at the warehouse." I spoke directly to Donni. "And you knew it.

"Meanwhile, Karl Senior let Domina Dount in on the news."

Willa Dount registered an inarticulate protest.

"Karl got grabbed on schedule and taken here, where Donni grew up. Then Willa Dount, to keep it looking good at her erid, asked me to put my stamp of approval on what she was doing to get him back. The kidnappers thought I'd been hired to poke into the warehouse business. They tried to convince me to keep out.

"Now it gets confusing as to who did what to who and why. None of the principals understood what they were doing because they were all being pulled in several directions. Everybody at the Stormwarden's house thought they had a chance for a big hit and a break with Raver Styx. Everybody outside saw the big hit. But the pregnancy and warehouse might come out if the kidnapping was investigated. Junior had to be sent home and kept quiet so the trails could get stale before the Stormwarden got back. But then I was suddenly in the middle of the thing. Nobody knew what I was doing, and I wouldn't go away.

"So. The ransom demand was made. The delivery was set. Domina raised the money. And Amiranda, who sensed that it wasn't going according to plan, headed for her rendezvous with Junior.

"But Donni had gotten other folks involved. And they fancied a hunk of ransom. The hell with the kid. What could he do? Go cry to his mother?

"But Karl Senior, who figured to get half of Donni's half of the ransom, warned her that Ami was tough enough to blow the whole thing." I glared at the Baronet. He was awake now, and bone white. "So Donni arranged for Ami to do what she had planned: disappear forever. I guess Junior was supposed to think it was Ami who left him without his share."

Donni Pell made noise and shook her head. The Stormwarden stared at her with the intensity of a snake sizing up supper. I didn't know if I had that part right. Amiranda's death, otherwise, benefited no one but the Baronet. But I couldn't figure him for the order. He wouldn't have done it for his piddling share of the ransom. Or maybe he never got it, because he hadn't made tracks when he should have had cash in hand.

I glared into Donni's eyes. "You going to tell us who wanted the girl killed? Or are you just going to tell us it wasn't you?"

She had a very dry throat. I don't think anybody heard her but me. "It was the kid. He said—"

I don't bash women often. When I backhanded her I told myself it was because she wasn't one. Not in the lady sense. With her talent she might have sold the idea to somebody. But I'd been back and forth with it from the beginning, and if there was one thing I'd learned from it all, it was that the son wasn't guilty of that one. His big crime was stupidity compounded by gutlessness.

"Better come up with a more likely sacrifice, kid. Or you're it."

The trouble with Donni Pell was that she had no handles. She knew exactly where she stood and exactly what her chances were. She was the only person alive who really knew what had happened. I could guess, and spout, and maybe come close, but I couldn't get more than seventy-five percent.

 

The Stormwarden said, "Mr. Garrett, I'm willing to be patient in the extreme, but this approach isn't unmasking anything. With what you've already given me I've reached several conclusions. One: that my brother-in-law, Lord Gameleon, for reasons he considered adequate, had my son killed. In his instance my only interest is to determine the extent to which my husband had knowledge of that and was involved in the effort to financially weaken me by siphoning my sources of income."

She wasn't stupid. And just because she wasn't in the trade didn't mean she had to be blind. "All right. I would've gotten to that eventually. I was hoping friend Donni would nail it down when the flood started."

"There won't be a flood with her, Mr. Garrett. You know that. The woman has the soul of a ... a ..."

At a loss for words? I would have suggested "Stormwarden" to fill her metaphor, but she was already unhappy with me. It was no time to press my luck.

She said, "I'm also certain that my husband killed Courter Slauce. That much detecting I could manage myself. He was away from the house when it happened. He left on Slauce's heels, in a panic according to the men on the gate."

The Baronet tried to protest. Nobody listened. I asked,

"Why?"

"Slauce knew something. Karl was frightened enough to murder him to keep him from telling you. Courter would have been easy for him. Comparatively. Karl hated the man, and Slauce wouldn't have felt he was in any danger from such a coward. That leaves Amiranda."