Angry Lead Skies



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84

“What happened?” I mumbled. I was the last one to
wake up. The delouser’s effects were cumulative for sure.

“How about you tell me,” Block growled, dragging me
into a seated position with my back against a wall.

“I’ve got a notion I don’t have a lot of fleas
anymore. Gods, my head is killing me! Hit me and put me out
again.” I meant it at the moment.

“No. I want you to get up. I want you hurting while you
explain what just happened. You won’t be able to concentrate
enough to bullshit me.”

“I don’t know what just happened. You were here. You
were paying attention. You probably got a better look than I
did.”

“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. I can’t shake
the feeling that there wasn’t a pea under any of the
shells.”

Nausea overcame me as I tried to stand. Beer and my last meal
beat me to the floor.

“Godsdammit! That just tops my whole day off,
Garrett!”

I tried to climb the nearest chair. It was occupied. I gasped,
“Get me some water. Wasn’t somebody supposed to go
after water?” And, “What happened to him?”

The man in the chair was one of the sorcerers. His eyes were
open but nobody seemed to be at home behind them.

The look was worse than the thousand-yard stare. With that you
knew your guy would probably come back someday. Seeing this, you
knew he wouldn’t, ever.

“I don’t know, Garrett. He seems to have turned into
a vegetable. They all have. But nobody else was hurt.” He
stepped carefully, avoiding my mess.

Wow. Casey must’ve done that deliberately. He wasn’t
a nice guy after all. Unless he hadn’t been aware what they
were and this was a by-product of them owning their talent in the
wrong place at the wrong time.

Block declared, “I think their intelligence was
deliberately and systematically destroyed.”

“That would make our Casey a vindictive little bastard,
wouldn’t it? Completely without a sense of humor about being
misused. Why do you suppose he let you and me and the rest of these
guys slide? Because we’re like him, just battling the
darkness the best we know how?”

“Gift horses, eh? You could be right.” He
didn’t say anything for a while. I seized the opportunity to
concentrate on feeling sorry for myself. I wondered if Lastyr and
Noodiss had gotten away before they gave Kip an idea for a miracle
headache cure. I’d better check. Then Block told me,
“I’d better have you taken home. I want you to stay
inside your house until I get this sorted out. There’ll be
questions. Some of you men want to get this mess cleaned up?
Can’t anybody around here do something without waiting to be
told?”

It didn’t seem likely. Not when everybody was preoccupied
with a killer headache.

“This is bad shit, Garrett,” Block whined.
“This’s real bad shit. I’ll be lucky to get out
of this just losing my job.”

“Aren’t you being a little too pessimistic?” I
clamped down and pushed the pain back. But not very far.
“Man, you let yourself get way too impressed by people off
the Hill. Did Hill people give you your job? I thought Prince
Rupert did that. And what were these guys trying to pull, anyway?
They were trying to cut the rest of those witch doctors up there
out of the jackpot. You watch. The rest of their kind will take one
quick look at the facts and figure they had it coming.”

“You do have a knack for looking on the bright side,
Garrett. I sure hope it’s as easy as all that.”

First I’d heard of me being a brightside kind of guy. But
what the hell, eh? If I played to that maybe Block would forget to
nag me about Casey’s getaway.

I reminded the good colonel of his obligations. “I thought
you were going to take me home.”



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