Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 (11 page)

“Works for me.”

Silver flashes red in the last rays of twilight. Twin impacts sound, so close together they merge into one: half meaty
thunk
, half loud
crack
. Helmut screams, in a much higher pitch than his brother did, and both his arms go limp. Charlie’s shattered the elbow on the arm that was around my throat, while Silverado’s knife now juts from the meaty part of Helmut’s other forearm. I dive forward, out of his grasp, and resist the urge to shoot him just for good measure.

“You still got legs,” Silverado tells him. “You wanna keep on usin’ em, I wouldn’t run.”

I spit, trying to get the taste of unwashed pire out of my mouth, and holster my pointless gun. “Jace Valcheck,” I say to Silverado, and pull out my ID. “And this is Charlie Aleph. NSA.”

“Silverado, bail enforcement agent. But that probably don’t come as much of a surprise.” He’s already got Helmut in cuffs, and yanks his knife casually out of the pire’s arm as he hauls him to his feet. He wipes the blood off on Helmet’s jacket, then slides the knife into a leather bandolier across his chest that holds half a dozen more.

“We know who you are,” Charlie says. He picks up the ball bearing from the ground, clicks it back into its spring-loaded holster up his sleeve.

I nudge Julian with my foot, but he’s still out. “Nasty kick that knife of yours has.”

Silverado regards me, expressionless—or rather, with the one expression he has. “Magic don’t like silver much, Shinto or not.”

“You don’t disrupt an animist spell of that power by sticking it with a shiny piece of metal,” I say. “Not even high-grade silver.” Two months ago I wouldn’t have known that, but I learn from my mistakes.

Charlie crosses his arms. “Not unless the blades have a little magic in them, too.”

“Everything’s got a
little
magic in it,” Silverado says. “That’s what magic’s all about—that bit of spirit in each and every thing. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Or in your case,” said Charlie, “seven things.”

The bounty hunter pauses. “Uh-huh. I can see you folks want to talk. How about I secure my commission here and we do this somewhere civilized?”

“I’ll go with you,” Charlie says. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

“And I’ll deal with Mr. Wet N’ Wild,” I say. “I think he’ll be a lot more reasonable when he comes to with a headache and his brother gone.”

“I need a doctor!” Helmet abruptly wails. “I’m wounded!”

“Relax,” Silverado says. “I got some first-aid supplies in my car—I ain’t about to let you bleed all over my seats, anyway. And you’re a pire, ain’t you? Just pretend you dropped your tray at the buffet or somethin’.”

He leads his prisoner away, Charlie following close behind. “I’ll call you when we’re squared away,”

Charlie says.

I nod, then kneel beside the comatose Shinto priest. I hope he’s in a better mood when he wakes up.

He is—better being a relative term, of course. For instance, he’s in a better mood than a mother grizzly who’s watching you use one of her cubs as a soccer ball. He’s even in a marginally better mood than he was when Silverado short-circuited his brain.

A
good
mood being in, he is not.

“Where is my
brother
?” he thunders at me. Literally; lightning bolts are dancing around his skull, arcing from eye to eye behind his head like an electric halo that was put on too loose and slipped down.

I stare at him coolly, my arms crossed. “On his way back to prison, where he belongs. You can join him, if you like—I don’t think your little April showers routine will impress them much at Stanhope.”

He glowers at me, but after a moment he takes a deep breath and then lets it out. The lightning fades. He looks more sad than angry now.

“Look,” I say. “I understand you were only looking out for family. You weren’t actually harboring him, and you attacked me before I’d clearly identified myself. All that is forgivable—
unless
I find out you and your brother were in business together.”

Now he looks more shocked than shocking. “Absolutely not! I
begged
him to change his life—even got him accepted at the school! And then he was arrested for making that
poison
. . .” He looks away, ashamed.

I nod. “Okay. But if it turns out you’re lying to me, and you and your brother wanted to turn this campus into your own private pharmaceutical outlet, my partner and I will be back. Count on it.”

He doesn’t reply, just hangs his head. Pretty convincing, but I’m the cynical sort. I’ll have Gretch go over his history with a microscope, see if he holds up. “I’ll be in touch,” I say, and walk away down the path.

By the time I find the parking lot where we stashed the car, I’ve persuaded myself that Julian Wiebe is on the up-and-up. Not because I have any faith in the honesty of the religious establishment, but because magic’s involved. Shinto is all about connecting to nature, and there’s no way the introduction of an artificial element like Cloven into the environment could go unnoticed by the other high-level shamans running the place.

I’ve been waiting in the car for about five minutes when my cell rings. Charlie gives me directions to a diner on the outskirt of Granite Falls, where he and Silverado will meet me.

There are only three vehicles parked at the diner when I pull in: a white minivan with a car seat and a BABY ON BOARD sticker, a flashy two-door Honda sports car, and a dusty black ’68 Mustang with a loud thumping noise coming from the trunk. Guess I know where Silverado stashed his paycheck.

The diner’s one of those places with lots of fake log paneling and deer heads on the walls, rows of booths down either wall and skinny little tables for two people at a time in the middle. I spot Silverado and Charlie at a booth in the far corner, two cups of coffee cooling in front of them. Lems don’t eat or drink; their server must have made them order something. I slide into the booth beside Charlie and grab his—no sense letting it go to waste.

Silverado watches me without saying a word. He’s taken his straw hat off, revealing something I haven’t seen before: a lem with hair. It’s short and curly, made of copper wire fine enough that it’s been used for his eyebrows, too. His eyes are silver, his bronze features molded into permanent sternness. From this close, I can see that not only is his jaw hinged, but his lips are made of painted rubber. The paint is peeling, making them look chapped.

“Nice little mobile hoosegow you got out there,” I say.

“Gets the job done.”

The waiter, a pale, tubby pire with a combover, shuffles over and asks me if I’d like to order.

“Already have, thanks. But you only had to bring one coffee.” I push the other one over to him. “This one’s a mistake. Take it back.”

Tubby blinks and says, “These two ordered those.”

“I think you’re confused,” I say pleasantly. “That makes no sense.
Here’s
what makes sense: My two friends came in to wait. They ordered a coffee for me, because they’re considerate and thoughtful. You brought two by mistake, but they were far too polite to mention that. Then I showed up.”

I put that special little edge in my voice that every law enforcement professional knows. “But I am
not
a polite person. I’m a cop. And I’m telling you that only
one
coffee should appear on our bill, not two. You following me?”

“Uh, yeah.” He swallows. “You—you want anything else?”

“No, thank you.” He grabs the coffee and turns tail, scuttling back to the kitchen where he can regale the cook with tales of his horrifying experience and how
those people
shouldn’t be allowed in here.

“Mr. Silverado,” I say. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us.”

“Talk’s cheap. So is coffee, for that matter.” He sounds more amused than impressed by my little blow for golem rights, but I don’t care—it makes me crazy when people don’t treat Charlie like a person.

“Silver isn’t. Especially not enchanted silver—like the Seven Teeth of the Moon.”

“Uh-huh. Or Excalibur, I guess. Or maybe that big mallet Thor uses for croquet when he ain’t whipping up hurricanes.”

“The Seven Teeth aren’t myths, Silverado. You’ve got them right there on that bandolier.”

He hasn’t moved anything other than his lips; even though I’m used to Charlie, the bounty hunter’s complete stillness is a little unnerving.

“Let me save you some time,” he says. “First off, the only magic these here blades have in ’em are what sharpness spells I can afford on a bounty hunter’s wage. And second, they ain’t for sale.” He pauses. “Sentimental value.”

“Right,” Charlie says. “You seem like a real sentimental guy.”

“I cry at the movies.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says levelly. “Me, too.”

“We’re not interested in your knives. We’re here to talk about the Bravo Brigade.”

“That so.”

I resist the urge to say
yep
. “Doctor Transe is dead.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I have no idea what he’s thinking. “That’s a shame,” he says at last. “What’s it to do with me?”

“You fought alongside him. Don’t you care?”

“I’m just an old lem trying to make a living. I don’t know about—”

“Stop. You’re the Quicksilver Kid and we both know it. Talk to me straight or I’ll make sure no law enforcement agency ever works with you again.”

Another pause. He turns his head slightly to look at Charlie. “She any good?”

“Best I’ve worked with,” Charlie says.

“You’re still young. Me, I’ve worked with legends. But then, I guess you two know that.” He looks back at me. “And I’d kind of like to keep on working. So ask me what you’re here to ask me.”

I ask him where he was on the night of the murder; he tells me he was here, trying to pin down Helmut Wiebe. I ask him if he can prove it and he produces gas receipts from a battered leather wallet. Not conclusive, of course—he didn’t stay in a motel, and Seattle’s an hour’s drive away.

“Transe was killed with something sharp and silver,” I say. “Sound familiar?”

“You have a shaman study the body, I take it?”

“Of course.”

“Then you know it wasn’t one of my knives did the deed. They got an energy all their own, one as singular as a fingerprint. Your shaman find anything like that?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t mean much, though. Could have used another weapon, couldn’t I?”

“Let’s assume you didn’t kill Transe. Who do you think did?”

“I’d put my money on John Dark, myself.”

I frowned. “Who’s that?”

“You don’t know about John Dark? I guess you’re not as far along the trail as I thought.” He puts his elbows on the table and leans forward slightly. “John Dark was Wertham’s second in command. He vanished at the same time Wertham did, but with one big difference: He’s been seen alive since.”

“Cali Edison told me she was the only survivor.”

“Yeah? Well, you shouldn’t take everything ol’ Cali says at face value. She’s got a nasty way of turning on you.”

“I noticed.” There’s an odd smell coming off Silverado that I haven’t been able to identify; I abruptly realize it’s sewing machine oil, like the kind my grandmother used to use on her old Singer. “What makes you so sure that Dark survived and Wertham didn’t?”

“Saw him die. Right in front of me, in fact.”

“Yeah? Who killed him?”

“Don’t see how that matters now. Wasn’t me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then who?”

“You got any other questions, or are we done?”

Interesting. I get the feeling that he’d own up to it in a second if it were him, but he’s protecting someone. “Tell me about John Dark.”

“John Dark was the real boss of the cult. Wertham had the ideas, but Dark had the clout. Still does, in fact.”

“Yeah? You know where he is?”

“Funny you should bring that up. I been hunting Dark a long time . . . kind of a hobby of mine, you might say. I understand he’s somewhere in Washington State, maybe even Seattle. And then you two show up.”

“Dark didn’t send us,” Charlie says.

“That may or may not be so. But even if he did, you might not be aware of it. Just the thing to slow an old cowboy down . . .”

“You don’t seem too slow to me,” I say.

“Slow, no. But old? When I replace a part, I could sell the worn-out piece as an antique.”

“You sure could,” said Charlie. “Except your parts don’t wear out, do they? You’re factory original, right down to your refill plug.”

“Not true. I’ve got more patches than an old tire.”

“Maybe so,” I say, “but when you leak, it’s not sand that comes out. It’s quicksilver—which is how you got your name. And somehow, I don’t think your mind is any slower than your draw.”

“So I’m not stupid. Thanks, I guess.”

“I didn’t say you were a genius. I just meant you think like a cop.”

He turns his head ever so slightly to study me. “That I do,” he says. “Some folks say I think like a rattler, all speed and venom, but that’s not the truth. I was built to be a lawman, and that’s what I am.”

“Laws change,” Charlie says.

“That they do. Me, I try to stick with what I know; they might call me something different now, but I’m still doing the same job. Tracking down bad men and bringing them back to face justice.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what we do. Takes a lot of patience, doesn’t it? People don’t get that—they think about cops, they think about bravery, alertness, determination. They don’t understand how much of the job is just about
waiting
.”

“That’s true.” He pauses, a pause that gets longer and longer. I don’t say anything to break it—that would contradict what I just said.

“There was this one time,” he says, “when I was set up watching an old barn. Young girl had been kidnapped, and I thought she might be inside. Problem was, I didn’t know if the kidnapper was, and he had detection spells rigged to let him know if anyone came snooping around. I tripped one of those, I could scare him off and cost the girl her life.

“So I waited.” A fly lands on his face, crawls to the corner of his lip. He ignores it completely. “It was a hot day. She’d been missing a few days already, and I wondered if she was on the main floor or up in the hayloft. Ever been in a hayloft on a summer day? Heat rises up, gets trapped against the rafters. Like a big oven.