Part I Part 100 (2/2)

”Like I care.” I pushed a pen at him with the other hand. ”Just sign it and I'll get going.”

This time he glared at the pen, then at me. Then he set the satchel on the coffee table. ”Whatever.”

”Great.” I stepped past him and put the flower box down on the table. He clutched the pen in his fist and scrawled on the bottom of the paper. I reached down with one hand as he did, plucked a piece of paper a little bigger than a playing card from the satchel, and palmed it. I got my hand back to my side just before he finished, growled, and shoved the clipboard at me.

”Now,” he said, ”leave.”

”You bet,” I told him. ”Thanks.”

I turned to go, but his hand shot out and his fingers clamped on to my arm like a steel band. I looked back. He narrowed his eyes, nostrils flared, and then growled, ”I don't smell flowers.”

The bottom fell out of my stomach, but I tried to keep the bluff going. ”What are you talking about, Mr., uh”-I glanced down at the clipboard-”Grum.”

Mr. Grum?

He leaned down closer to me, and his nostrils flared again, this time with a low snuffling sound. ”I smell magic. Smell wizard.”

My smile must have turned green to go with my face. ”Uh.”

Grum took my throat in one hand and lifted me straight up off the ground with a strength no human could duplicate. My vision reduced itself to a hazy tunnel, and the clipboard fell from my fingers. I struggled against him uselessly. His eyes narrowed, and he bared more teeth in a slow smile. ”Should have minded your own business. Whoever you are.” His fingers started tightening, and I thought I heard something crackle and pop. I had to hope it was his knuckles instead of my trachea. ”Whoever you were.”

It was too late by far to use my s.h.i.+eld bracelet, and my blasting rod lay out of reach on the coffee table. I fumbled in my pocket, as my vision started to go black, for the only weapon I had left. I had to pray that I was right in my guess.

I found the old iron nail, gripped it as best I could, and shoved it hard at Grum's beefy forearm. The nail bit into his flesh.

He screamed, a throaty, ba.s.so bellow that shook the walls. He flinched and spun, hurling me away from him. I hit the door to Reuel's bedroom, slamming it all the way open, and got lucky. I landed on the bed rather than on one of the wooden pillars at its corners. If I'd hit one of those, I'd have broken my back. Instead, I hit the bed, bounced, fetched up hard against the wall, then tumbled back to the bed again.

I glanced up to see that Grum looked very different than he had a moment before.

Rather than the film noir tough-guy getup, he wore a loincloth of some kind of pale leather-and nothing more. His skin was a dark russet, layered with muscle and curling dark hair. His ears stood out from the sides of his head like satellite dishes, and his features had flattened, becoming more b.e.s.t.i.a.l, nearly like those of a gorilla. He was also better than twelve feet tall. He had to hunch over to stand, and even so his shoulders pressed against the ten-foot ceiling.

With another roar, Grum tore the nail from his arm and flung it to one side. It went completely through the wall, leaving a hole the size of my thumb. Then he spun back to me, baring teeth now huge and jagged, and took a stalking step toward me, the floor creaking beneath his feet.

”Ogre,” I wheezed. ”c.r.a.p!” I extended my hand toward the blasting rod and focused my will.”Ventas servitas!”

A sharp and sudden torrent of air caught up the flower box and hurled it straight toward me. It hit me in the chest hard enough to hurt, but I s.n.a.t.c.hed it, brought out my blasting rod, and trained it on Grum as he closed on me. I slammed more will through the rod, its tip bursting into scarlet incandescence.

”Fuego!”I barked as I released the energy. Fire in a column the size of my clenched fist flashed out at Grum and splashed against his chest.

It didn't slow him down, not by a second. His skin didn't burn-his hair didn't even singe. The fire of my magic spilled over him and did absolutely nothing.

Grum shouldered his way through the bedroom door, cracking the frame as he did, and raised his fist. He slammed it down at the bed, but I didn't wait around to meet it. I flopped over to the far side of the bed and tumbled down to the s.p.a.ce between the bed and the wall. He reached for me, but I rolled underneath the bed, b.u.mped against his feet, and scrambled toward the door.

I almost made it. But something heavy and hard slammed against my legs, taking them out from under me and knocking me down. I only had time to realize, dimly, that Grum had picked up an antique Victorian chair that resembled, more than anything else, a throne, and hurled it at me.

The pain kicked in a second later, but I crawled toward the door. The ogre's feet pounded in rapid succession, and the floor shook as he grew closer and closer to me.

From the hall, a querulous female voice demanded, ”What's all that racket? I have already called the police, I have! You fruits get out of our hall, or they'll lock you away!”

Grum stopped. I saw frustration and rage flicker over his apelike features. Then he snarled, stepped over me, and picked up the satchel. When he headed for the door, I rolled out of his way. He was big enough to simply crush my chest if he stepped on me, and I didn't want to make it easy for him.

”You got lucky,” the ogre growled. ”But this is not over.” Then his form blurred and s.h.i.+fted, growing smaller, until he wore the same appearance he had a few moments before. He settled his bowler with one hand, then stalked out the door, aiming a kick at me in pa.s.sing. I cringed away from it, and he was gone.

”Well?” demanded that same voice. ”What's it going to be, you fruit? Get out!”

Police sirens wailed somewhere outside. I got up, wobbled for a moment, and put my hand against the wall to help myself stay up. I turned the other hand over to look at the piece of paper I'd stolen from Grum's satchel.

It wasn't paper. It was a photograph. Nothing fancy-just an instant-camera shot. It showed old white-haired Reuel, standing in front of the Magic Castle at one of the Disney parks.

Several young people stood beside him and around him, smiling, sunburned, and apparently happy. One was a tall, bull-necked young woman in faded jeans, with her hair dyed a shade of muddy green. She had a wide smile and a blunt, ugly face. Standing beside her was a girl who should have been in a lingerie catalog, all curves and long limbs in her brief shorts and bikini top, her hair also green, but the color of summer gra.s.s rather than that of pond sc.u.m. On the other side of Reuel was a pair of young men. One of them, a short, stocky fellow with a goatee and sungla.s.ses, had his fingers lifted into aV behind the head of his companion, a small, slender man with his skin sunburned to the color of copper and his blond hair bleached out to nearly white.

Who were they? Why had Reuel been with them? And why had Grum seemed so intent on removing their picture from Reuel's apartment?

The sirens grew closer, and if I didn't want to get locked up by some well-meaning member of Chicago's finest, I needed to leave. I rubbed at my aching throat, winced at the wrenching, cramping pain in my back, wondered about the photograph, and stumbled out of the building.

Chapter Twelve [image]

I got out of the old apartment building and back to the Blue Beetle without being mugged by any attackers, inhuman or otherwise. As I pulled out, a patrol car rolled up, blue bubbles flas.h.i.+ng. I drove away at a sedate pace and tried to keep my shaking hands from making the car bob or swerve. No one pulled me over, so I must have done all right. Score one for the good guys.

I had time to think, though I wasn't sure I wanted to. I'd gone to Reuel's apartment on a simple snoop, not really expecting to find much, if anything. But I'd gotten lucky. Not only had I shown up at the right place, I'd done it at the right time. Someone obviously wanted to hide something there-either more pictures like the one I'd found or other papers from somewhere in the place. What I needed to determine now was what Grum had been trying to collect or-nearly as good-why he was trying to make some kind of evidence vanish. Failing that, knowing who he was working for would do almost as well-ogres aren't exactly known for their independent initiative. And given what was going on, it would be ludicrous to a.s.sume that one of the heavyweight thugs of the lands of Faerie just happened to be doing an independent contract in the home of the recently deceased.

Ogres were wyldfae-they could work for either Winter or Summer, and they could have a range of personalities and temperaments running the gamut from jovially violent to maliciously violent. Grum hadn't seemed to be on the cheerful end of that particular scale, but hehad been both decisive and restrained. The average walking mountain of muscle from Faerie wouldn't have held back from beating me to a pulp, regardless of what the neighbors shouted. That meant that Grum had more savvy than the average bear, that he was dangerous-even if I didn't take into account how easily he had ignored the spells I'd hurled at him. been both decisive and restrained. The average walking mountain of muscle from Faerie wouldn't have held back from beating me to a pulp, regardless of what the neighbors shouted. That meant that Grum had more savvy than the average bear, that he was dangerous-even if I didn't take into account how easily he had ignored the spells I'd hurled at him.

All ogres have an innate capacity for neutralizing magical forces to one degree or another. Grum had grounded out my spells like I'd been scuffing my feet on the carpet to give him a little static electricity zap. That meant that he was an old faerie, and a strong one. The quick and thorough shapes.h.i.+fting supported that a.s.sessment as well. Your average club-swinging thewmonger couldn't have taken human form, complete with clothing, so ably.

Smart plus strong plus quick equals bada.s.s. Most likely he was a trusted personal guard or a highly placed enforcer.

But for whom?

At a stop light I stared at the photograph I'd taken from Grum.

”d.a.m.n,” I muttered, ”who are these people?”

I added it to the list of questions still growing like fungus in a locker room.

Ronald Reuel's funeral had already begun by the time I arrived. Flannery's Funeral Home in the River North area had been a family-run business until a few years before. It was an old place, but had always been well kept. Now the carefully landscaped shrubbery had been replaced with big rocks, which were no doubt easier to maintain. The parking lot had a lot of cracks in it, and only about half of the outdoor lights were burning. The sign, an illuminated gla.s.s-and-plastic number that readQUIET ACRES FUNERAL HOME, glared in garish green and blue above the front door. glared in garish green and blue above the front door.

I parked the Beetle, tucked the photo into my pocket, and got out of the car. I couldn't casually take my staff or my blasting rod into the funeral home. People who don't believe in magic look at you oddly when you walk in toting a big stick covered with carvings of runes and sigils. The people who know what I am would react in much the same way as if I had walked in draped in belts of ammo and carrying a heavy-caliber machine gun in each hand, John Waynestyle. There could be plenty of each sort inside, so I carried only the low-profile stuff: my ring, mostly depleted, my s.h.i.+eld bracelet, and my mother's silver pentacle amulet. My reflection in the gla.s.s door reminded me that I had underdressed for the evening, but I wasn't there to make the social column. I slipped into the building and headed for the room where they'd laid out Ronald Reuel.

The old man had been dressed up in a grey silk suit with a metallic sheen to it. It was a younger man's suit, and it looked too big for him. He would have looked more comfortable in tweed. The mortician had done only a so-so job of fixing Reuel up. His cheeks were too red and his lips too blue. You could see the dimples on his lips where thin lines of thread had been st.i.tched through them to hold his mouth closed. No one would have mistaken this for an old man in the midst of his nap-it was a corpse, plain and simple. The room was about half full, people standing in little knots talking and pa.s.sing back and forth in front of the casket.

No one was standing in the shadows smoking a cigarette or looking about with a s.h.i.+fty-eyed gaze. I couldn't see anyone quickly hiding a b.l.o.o.d.y knife behind his back or twirling a moustache, either. That ruled out the Dudley Do-Right approach to finding the killer. Maybe he, she, or they weren't here.

Of course, I supposed it would be possible for faeries to throw a veil or a glamour over themselves before they came in, but even experienced faeries have trouble pa.s.sing for mortal. Mab had looked good, sure, but she hadn't really lookednormal . Grum had been much the same. I mean, he'd looked human, sure, but also like an extra on the set of . Grum had been much the same. I mean, he'd looked human, sure, but also like an extra on the set ofThe Untouchables . Faeries can do a lot of things really well, but blending in with a crowd generally isn't one of them. . Faeries can do a lot of things really well, but blending in with a crowd generally isn't one of them.

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