Darla saw it too. “She’ll never go back to the pig-pens,” she whispered, as Mary and Gertriss giggled and chirped in front of a tall mirror.
“Not dressed like that,” I agreed, chuckling. “Mama is going to have a spitting fit.”
“Seven o’clock sharp,” said Darla. “I’ll be here. Someone put me behind in my work today.”
“Seven sharp,” I said. We stole a kiss, and I got Gertriss out of there before she bought anything else.
Visiting my halfdead friend Evis is a little more complicated than just walking up and knocking.
House Avalante is monstrous. I often wondered how long it would take me to jog around the thing, even if fences and gardeners and butlers would allow it. And that’s just the five stories above the ground—most of Avalante is well below that, and even though I’m privy to Evis and his inner sanctum I’ve never seen the bottom of the subterranean House.
I make sure I wear my Avalante pin, and even then I introduce myself a half a dozen times to a half a dozen blank-faced minions. They know me by now, but the questions and the hard looks never change. I’m frisked for weapons, I’m told to sit and wait, once I even brought a bag with an apple and two sandwiches, and they searched that too.
Evis always apologizes, and I always shrug it off—my reception at most of the other halfdead Houses would be far worse, and would most likely culminate in unpleasantness of the fatal variety. So being patted down for knives or siege-engines doesn’t upset me too much.
Evis was sleepy-eyed and yawning that afternoon, and by his standards, he was hardly dressed—his jacket was unbuttoned, his shirt was wrinkled and his tie was draped across the back of his chair.
“Long night?” I asked, settling back into his luxurious leather reclining chair.
“Annual House financial meeting,” said Evis, with a toothy yawn. “Takes forever. Boredom would have killed me, if I weren’t already dead. Cigar?”
“Certainly,” I said. Evis grinned and produced a pair of Southlands, and we cut and lit and puffed.
“I doubled my staff today,” I said, once we got the stogies going and the brandy decanted. Evis lifted an eyebrow and chuckled.
“Did Three-leg Cat take a wife?” he asked.
I explained about Gertriss and Mama. Evis guffawed and grinned throughout.
“You’re a soft touch, Markhat,” he said. “Mama’s got you wrapped around her little finger, and you know it.”
I nodded. It’s never wise to argue with the man who just poured you a snifter of brandy older than all your grandparents. “She’s a good kid,” I said. “I’m letting her stay on for one case. Then we’ll see.”
“Bring her around,” said Evis. “She’s got to be better to look at than you.”
I nodded. “When we get back,” I said. “We’re heading out of town tomorrow on a case. Probably be in Wardmoor for a few days.”
Evis frowned. “That’s almost Troll country,” he said. “Past the old walls, isn’t it?”
I nodded and sipped. “House is called Werewilk, place is called the Banshee’s Walk. Ever heard of it?”
Evis frowned. “Crazy artist lady, is that her?” he said. “Offed her fiancé a few years back?”
I sat up straight. “I heard there was an accident. Something about a horse.”
“Word was she put a bur under his saddle,” said Evis. Then he shrugged. “But who knows. It was just gossip. Rich man falls off a bucking horse. Woman doesn’t attend the funeral. Tongues wag.”
“How rich was he?”
“He was the eldest son of Horave Elt. Heir to the Elt foundry empire.” Evis raised his cigar. “He can afford more of these than I can.”
I whistled. “Did father Elt take it hard?”
Evis shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that, Markhat. That’s all I know.”
I sighed, turned my attention back to my cigar and Evis’s brandy.
“That’s some strange country, Markhat,” noted Evis, after a while. “Lots of stories about Wardmoor.”
“Every house is haunted, every shaded lane infested with ghouls,” I agreed. “But don’t worry, I’ll sleep with the sheets pulled up way over my head.”
Evis chuckled. “Just a lot nonsense, those stories. People probably say the same about the Heights.”
I shrugged. People actually said a lot worse, and Evis knew it, but it wasn’t worth pointing out.
“Still, that reminds me, Markhat. There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you, ever since you made the acquaintance of Encorla Hisvin. I’ll be back in a moment, help yourself to another glass.”
Evis rose and padded silently out of the room. I poured, sniffed and drank, alone in a dim chamber deep in a house full of vampires and oddly and completely at ease.
I heard a door click, and Evis was back, a narrow wooden case in his hands.
“Mind you don’t wave this around at the Watch,” he said, handing me the case. “It’s not legal, in the strictest sense, unless you’re a city employee.”
The catch wasn’t locked, so I opened it.
Inside was a sword. A shortsword, about the length of my forearm, with a double-edged silver blade that gleamed with the promise of ready mayhem and a dark wood grip already stained here and there with something that was not applesauce.
“It’s ensorcelled,” said Evis. “Blows struck against reanimated corpses will be particularly efficacious.”
I took it gently from the case. The edges glowed a faint ghostly silver in the candlelight.
Just perfect when dealing with someone named the Corpsemaster, I thought. I wondered briefly if it was also intended for use against the halfdead.
“The spellwork will also be potent against halfdead,” said Evis, very quietly. “It’s the same one we use on our crossbow bolts. Though of course I hope you will use it carefully in that instance.”
I put the sword back in its velvet-lined case and closed it firmly shut.
“I’m always careful with big butter knives,” I said. “And thanks.”
Evis sat. “Don’t thank me,” he replied, grinning. “I have no idea where you got that, never seen it before, anyway I prefer a crossbow myself.” He produced a deck of cards from somewhere in his desk, shuffled them with an expert’s ease and let his dirty white eyes meet mine.
“Surely you have time for a few hands,” he said. “Luck might be with you, tonight.”
I laughed. “Luck lost my address years ago.” I am a lousy card player, and Evis knows it, which is why we never play for real money. “But who knows. Deal, and we’ll see if she’s found me tonight.”
Evis shuffled, and I cut. By the end of the night I was down another four hundred and fifty crowns.
It seems Luck gets lost as easily as I do, in Rannit, these days.
Chapter Five
I’m never late for a date with Darla. She’d be more likely to forgive dirt under my fingernails or Evis’s brandy on my breath than a lack of punctuality.
So I was at her door, with a cab no less, before the Big Bell clanged out seven. We were dining by seven thirty, back at her tiny walk-up by Curfew, and if you want to know anything more than that you’ll have to ask Darla, and good luck.
My Avalante pin on my lapel, I walked home well after midnight. Evis’s magic sword hung beneath my jacket, the tip of it shining every now and then in the moonlight. Darla had frowned and turned away at the sight of it.
“Every sword needs a name,” I said aloud, as I walked. I heard boots scrape somewhere behind me, heard a furtive whisper.
I yanked out the sword, held it high, let it glitter. Boots and whispers withdrew. Rolling Curfew-breaking drunks is one thing, I suppose, but tackling a gleaming sword is something else entirely.
“I dub thee Toadsticker,” I said. “Slayer of miscreants, opener of packages, occasional carver of baked turkeys. Let all men hear, and know mild caution.”
I swear the steel flickered.
I slipped Toadsticker back under my belt. The reason the Army never bothered with hexed weapons was their legendary lack of reliability. It was too easy to turn a hideously expensive magical dingus into a mundane lump of metal by turning it north and sneezing, or by unknowingly performing some other random act that unlatched the hex. Even the mighty wand-wavers occasionally found themselves betrayed by their own fickle handiworks. Like the time old Hooler’s famous iron staff melted right in the face of a Troll charge. They said later the wizard had spilled salt on it while eating supper. A pinch of salt goes astray, and a city falls. Hurrah for modern sorcery.
But you never know when a good sharp length of steel will come in handy, as I’d just demonstrated. I patted Toadsticker’s hilt and hurried home.
Three Leg Cat got me up way before I meant to rise. I groaned and threw pillows, but Three Leg merely shouldered them airily aside and insisted I serve him breakfast.
I was up and shaved and bathed and packed before Mama and Gertriss darkened my door.
“Morning, ladies,” I said, motioning them inside. Mama held a basket that smelled of hot biscuits, and Gertriss carried a big pot of coffee.
Mama merely grunted as she shuffled inside. Gertriss was all smiles, and dressed in the blouse and pants she’d worn home yesterday. She’d also dabbed something fragrant behind her ears, and was making sure I caught a whiff of it by leaning close and fussing with breakfast.
They do learn fast.
“Did you sleep well, Mr. Markhat?” she asked.
“I did indeed,” I answered, rifling through Mama’s basket and selecting a huge biscuit stuffed with thick slabs of ham. “You?”
Gertriss nodded while Mama glared. I grinned and sat.
“You seem a bit quiet this morning, Mama,” I managed, between mouthfuls. I winked at Gertriss, and she perched on my desk and took dainty bites. Mama stood and huffed and refused to sit in my chair. “Run out of bats for the cauldron?”
“You know damned well why I ain’t happy, boy,” she grumbled, with a sideways glance at Gertriss. “Weren’t no need for such things.”
I swallowed and lifted a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong, Mama. You want Gertriss to learn finding, she’s got to look the part. No one is going to open up to a swineherd, much less hire one for finding, and you know it.” I wiped my chin. “That’s how us city folk dress. You don’t have to like it, but if she’s going to work for me that’s what she’ll wear, and that’s final.”
Mama made snuffling noise that might have been grudging assent or a sign of early pneumonia and sat.
I tried not to let too much triumph creep into my tone.
“All packed, Miss?” I asked. “I figure we’ll be there two days, maybe three.”
“All packed, Mr. Markhat,” said Gertriss. She made no effort to conceal the glee in her voice, and I felt a brief stab of sympathy for Mama, who appeared to be learning that young-uns plucked from the country and given a taste of city life might be harder to keep in wholesome, modest burlap than she’d ever dreamed. “Are we leaving soon?”
“As soon as we’ve finished eating and I’ve laid out a few things I learned yesterday.” I launched into a retelling of my gallery visit and the interrupted strangling at the Hemp house and my talk with Evis. Mama lost most of her huff and forgot to pretend she wasn’t listening.
“And that’s all I know right now,” I said, draining the last of my coffee. Gertriss was nodding, taking it all in, and Mama was trying to choke down a hunk of ham so she could speak.
“People just told you, all that?” Gertriss asked. “You didn’t even ask them much, sounds like.”
I nodded. “The trick is just to get them talking, most of the time. You come up to a stranger and start hammering them with questions, usually what you’ll get is silence or a blow to the head. Best thing to do is draw them out. Let them decide to show off by telling you something they think you don’t know.”
Mama guffawed. “Same as with card-readin’,” she said. “Half the time, the real trouble is getting ’em to shut up long enough to say anything yourself.”
Gertriss tilted her head in question. “Is that what we’ll do at House Werewilk?”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “We’ll go, we’ll listen. We won’t start pushing until and if we get the lay of the land and haven’t heard anything suggestive in the first day or so. But I’ll handle most of the talking, this time out. I mainly want you to be another set of ears, another set of eyes.”
“She can do more’n that, boy,” said Mama. “She’s a Hog in more than name. She’s got the Sight, all right, and don’t you forget it.”
Gertriss rolled her eyes. She stopped herself when she realized she was doing it, and Mama didn’t see, but I did.
I let it lie, though. Provoking more of Mama’s familial wrath wasn’t what I had in mind for the start of my day.
So I just nodded sagely. “Noted, Mama,” I said. The light through my door was good and strong, and I had a belly full of ham, and as much as I hate working even I have to admit that’s a good place to start.
“So what about you, Mama?” I asked. “Got any mystical warnings for us, before we head out? Surely a place called the Banshee’s Walk rates an eldritch utterance or two.”
Mama snorted. “Boy,” she said, “don’t think I don’t know what goes on in that thick head of yours. I know you pretends you don’t believe a word I say—but I also know he listens,” she added, with a nod at Gertriss. “’Cause he knows my cards can see what others can’t, sometimes.”
I rose and stretched and yawned. “So spill it, Mama. We need to get moving. Wardmoor is a long way, and part of it on foot.”
“I seen a sword, boy,” snapped Mama. “Ain’t no ordinary sword, neither. Got magic all around it.”
“Have you ever seen me carry a sword, Mama?” I asked.
“I ain’t,” said Mama. “But I reckon you’re carryin’ one now. It’s in your rucksack, ain’t it? I can see it clear from here.”
I frowned. I hadn’t mentioned Toadsticker, wasn’t going to. Sometimes the best weapon is the hidden one.
Maybe Mama saw me with it coming home the night before. Or maybe not. “Keep going,” I said. Mama saw my look and shrugged and dropped it.
“I seen secrets,” she said. “Secrets, and men screaming. Army men. I seen the sky fill with smoke. Fire and death, boy. Lots of it. All around.”
Gertriss looked at me, questioning. I lifted my hand for quiet.
“The Army is nowhere near Wardmoor,” I said. “You know that.”
“I’m tellin’ you what I seen, boy, not what I know,” snapped Mama. “And I seen Army men and fire and death. Might be what’s done happened. Might be what’s to come. Ain’t for me to say.”