Why so much room for storage?

I came on stacks of four-inch-thick oak things, bound in iron, each with a number chalked onto the black iron. Curious, I looked closer.

They were covers for the windows, to seal them if the house was besieged. They had to be as old as the house itself. Had they ever been used? Not in the past century, I was sure.

I found a strong room in the southeast corner The door was latched but not locked. It was an armory. Inside were weapons enough for a company-as though there weren't enough around the house already. Everything steel was covered with grease, everything wood coated with paraffin. Might be interesting to find out what the climate was like when the house was built. Troubled times, apparently.

I spent too much time there. When I descended it was too late. Cook was banging around in the kitchen. I slipped out before she tripped over me.

As I hit the fourth floor I caught a glimpse of white across the way. My lovely mystery lady. I blew her a kiss.

10.

I'd had another visitor. This one had left in a hurry. He'd left a key in the lock with the door standing open. I saw why when I went into the bedroom.

My visitor had murdered the suit of armor. He'd walked in, wound up with an antique battle-ax, and had let the poor boy have it. The ax was still there.

I laughed. Bet he drizzled down his leg, thinking he'd walked into a trap.

I sobered quickly. That was twice. Next time more care might go into the attempt. I was way out on a limb here. I had to take steps.

I locked up, pocketed the key-which wasn't identical to mine, so might be a skeleton key. I got the tin man out of bed and the ax out of him. 'Sorry about that. But we'll get our revenge.' I used the ax to rig a b.o.o.by trap. Anybody who walked through the bedroom door was in for a rude welcome.

Then I took an hour nap.

I was early for breakfast, first to arrive. Cook was up to her ears in work getting platters ready. 'Need a hand?'

'I need ten. I don't know what you're up to, boy, sucking up to me, but you better believe I'll use you. Get over to the oven and see how them rolls are coming.'

I did. 'Maybe a minute more.'

'What you know about baking?'

I explained the arrangement at my house, where old Dean handles the drudgery and cooking. He's a good cook. He taught me. I can put together a decent meal when I want. Like when I give him time off because I want him out while I entertain.

'Don't know if you're lying or not. Probably are. I never seen a man yet who could cook.'

I didn't tell her Dean thought the only good cooks were men. 'I should get you together. To watch the sparks fly.'

'Huh. Time's up. Get them rolls out. Drag that pot of b.u.t.ter over.'

I glanced at the b.u.t.ter. 'Fresh?'

'Snake just brung it in.'

'He going to join us?'

She laughed. 'Not Snake. He don't have nothing to do with n.o.body. Just grabbed him some food and lit out. Not sociable, Snake.'

'What's his problem?'

'Head got scrambled in the Cantard. He was down there twenty years, never got a scratch. On the outside.' She shook her head, started piling sausages and bacon on a platter. 'Sad. I knew him when he was a pup. Cute kid, he was. Too delicate and sensitive for a Marine. But he thought he had to try. So here he is, an old man with his head in knots. Used to draw the prettiest pictures, that boy. Coulda been a great painter. Had him a magic eye. Could see right inside things and drawed what he seed. Any d.a.m.n fool can draw the outside of things, the way they want we should see them. Takes a genius to see the truth. That boy saw. You going to stand there jawing till lunchtime? Or you going to eat?'

I fixed myself a plate without mentioning the fact that I couldn't get a word in edgewise because I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She rolled right along. 'I told the General then-he was just commissioned-it was a raging shame to waste the boy down there. And I told him again when he come back. And the General, he told me, -You were right, Cook. It was a sin against humanity, taking him.' But, you know, he couldn't have stopped the boy if he'd wanted. Had that d.a.m.nfool stubborn streak and thought it was his duty to go with the lord to war.'

The rush came while she chattered. There were two new faces, presumably Tyler and Wayne. They looked like they hadn't slept. The whole crowd took their platters to the dining room.

I asked Cook, 'That Tyler and Wayne?'

'How'd you guess?'

'Lucky stab. Anybody else I haven't met?'

'Who else could there be?'

'I don't know. Yesterday you said there were eighteen people here. I've seen ten, plus this Snake that's shy and a blonde that only I can see. Comes up short of eighteen.'

'Ain't eighteen.'

'You said eighteen.'

'Boy, I'm four hundred years old. 'Less I concentrate, I don't remember where I am in time. I just cook and set table and wash and don't pay no attention to nothing else. Just sort of drift. Don't see nothing, don't say nothing. Last time I looked up they was eighteen, counting me. Must've been a while. h.e.l.l. Maybe that's why there's so many leftovers. Been cooking too much.'

'I didn't notice too many places set at the table.'

She paused. 'You're right. Part of me must keep track.'

'Been with the Stantnors a long time?'

'Came to them with my momma when I was a kit. Long time back, when the humans hereabouts still had emperors. 'Fore they ever moved out here and built the first house. This one's only maybe two hundred. Was a sight when she was new, she was.'

'You must've seen some sights in your time.'

'Seen some,' she agreed. 'Served every king and stormwarden and firelord right there in that dining room.' She headed that way. That ended our conversation.

I stuck my head in. n.o.body showed any special disappointment. n.o.body turned handsprings, either. They were a depressing bunch.

These guys had spent their whole lives together. You'd think they could make conversation-unless they'd said everything there was to say. I feel that way with some people, sometimes before anything gets said at all.

Tyler and Wayne were cut from Marine lifer cloth. Whatever the physical differences between men, they gain a certain uniformity in service. Tyler was a lean, narrow-faced character with hard brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin, speckled beard trimmed within a half-inch of his skin. Wayne was my size, maybe twenty pounds heavier, not fat. He looked like he could throw cows around if the pa.s.sion took him. He was six inches taller than Tyler and blond, with icy blue eyes, yet you felt the sameness in them. You even felt the ident.i.ty with Chain, who had gone to seed.

I'd spent five years in the company of men like them. Any one of them would be capable of murder if he took a mind. Human life wasn't anything special to them. They'd seen too much death.

Which did present one puzzle.

Marines are straightforward kinds of guys. If one wanted the General dead, chances were he'd just do it. Unless there was some overpowering motive to make it a lingering death.

Like, say, hanging onto a share of the old man's estate?

Worrying about it was pointless. You can't force these things. They have to unfold.

I helped Cook clear away, then put on my traveling shoes.

11.

I hadn't been to Morley's place in months. It wasn't that we'd had a falling out or anything; I just hadn't had a need, nor any urge to graze on the cattle food that comes out of his kitchen. I arrived about nine. He's closed to business then. He's open from eleven to six in the morning, catering to every sentient species there is, all so warped they try to subsist on vegetables.

It takes all kinds. Some of my best friends eat there. I've done so myself. Without enthusiasm.

So. Nine o'clock. The place was locked up. I went to the backdoor and gave the secret knock, which means I hammered and howled till Morley's man Wedge brought a four-foot piece of lead pipe and offered to move my face to my belly b.u.t.ton region.

'This's business, Wedge.'

'I didn't figure you was in heat for some bean curd. You don't come around unless you want something.'

'I pay for what I get.'

He snorted. He didn't think it was right, me using Morley just because Morley had taken advantage of me, at deadly risk and without my consent, to get out of some heavy gambling debts.

'Cash money, Wedge. And he don't have to get off his b.u.t.t. He just needs to have somebody do some legwork.'

That didn't cheer him up. He's one of the guys who does Morley's legwork. But he didn't slam the door.

'Come.' He eased me in and barred the door, led me through kitchens where cooks were butchering cabbages and broccoli, parked me at the serving bar, drew me a mug of apple juice, 'Wait.' He went upstairs.

The public room was naked and forlorn, almost painfully quiet. The way it ought to be all the time, instead of overcrowded.

Morley Dotes is a headhunter. A kneebreaker and a lifetaker. Most of the guys who work for him help. Morley is a deadly symbiote feeding on society's dark underside. He's the best at what he does, barring maybe a couple of guys who work for Chodo Contague.

Adding up the account, Morley Dotes is everything I don't like. He's the kind of guy I wanted to take down when I decided to put on my good-guy hat. But I like him.

Sometimes you can't help yourself.

Wedge came down shaking his head. 'What's up?' I asked.

'He's taking this health stuff too far.'

'You're telling me? He's like a born again, trying to save everybody else.' The world's only vegetarian lifetaker. Wants to save the world from the perils of red meat-before he cuts its throat. I don't know. Maybe there's no conflict but it sounds like one to me. 'He's added to the list?'

'Been a few months, right?'

'Last time I was here he'd sworn off gambling and was making it stick. He tried women but couldn't hold out.'

'He forgot that crock. Say that for him. The thing now is early to bed, early to rise. He's up. Now. Up and dressed and fed and doing his morning workout. A year ago you wouldn't have caught him dead out of bed this time of day.'

You could have if there was enough money in it. 'Wonders never cease, do they?'

'He said come up. You want a refill?'

'Why not? Fruit juice is the only thing here I can handle.'

He winked. He wasn't one of Morley's converts. He topped off my mug. I took it up to Morley's office, which is the barbican to his personal quarters. I'm about as close to a friend as he has, but I've never been past the office. My hair is too short and I don't wear enough makeup.

Dotes was doing sit-ups, chunking them out like a machine. My stomach hurt just watching.

'You're in pretty good shape for a guy your age,' I told him. I wasn't sure what that was. It could be substantial. He's part dark-elf. Elves can last a long time.

'I take it you're working again.' He said it while popping up and down. Like there was no strain to what he was doing.

I told myself I had to start doing a few exercises. At my age, when you lose it, it's hard to get back. 'Why do you a.s.sume-'

'You don't come down here unless you want something.'

'Not true. I used to bring Maya in all the time.' That was before she and I had gone our own ways.

'You lost a gem there, Garrett.' He rolled over, started doing push-ups.

His dark-elf blood doesn't scream out. He looks like a short, slim, dark-haired man in good shape. He's quick on his feet. There's an air of the dangerous about him, but not one of menace. Maybe that's why women find him irresistible.

'Maybe. I do miss her, some. She was a good kid.'

'Pretty, too. So you going on with Tinnie?'

My friend Tinnie Tate, professional high-tempered redhead. Ours is an unpredictable relations.h.i.+p. 'I see her. When she doesn't think I deserve to be punished by not seeing her.'

'Only smart thing you've done since I've known you is not tell her about Maya.' He completed fifty fast ones, jumped up. He wasn't sweating. I felt like kicking his behind. 'What's up?'

'You heard of General Stantnor?'

'Used to be Marine Commandant?'

'The same.'

'What about him?'

'A guy who works for him, my old company sergeant, called in a debt. He got me to do a job for the old boy.'