Cold Copper Tears

"That's a comfort, Morley." Peridont getting it bothered me bad. I had this feeling I'd lost my last best ally.

"You think I want to go tell Chodo I blew it?"

I knew what he wanted to say, but he was saying it so clumsily it was worse than if he hadn't said any­thing. For Morley, the actual expression of concern or friendship is next to impossible.

"Never mind," I told him. "Quit while you're ahead. Was there anything else?" His friend was tick­ling his neck with a fingernail. He wouldn't keep his mind on business long.

"No. Go home and stay there. We won't have to pick up pieces of Garrett if you keep your head down." "Right. I'll think about it." "Don't think. Do." "Come on, Maya. Let's go home." Morley and I both knew I wouldn't give it a thought.

40

It started when we were two blocks from my house, a roaring and grumbling hurrying up from the south. Lightning zigged around it. I pulled Maya into a door­way.

"What is it?"

"Something we don't want to notice us." A big, red nasty bobbed in the middle of the cloud.

People stuck their heads out windows, got a look, and decided they didn't want to know.

The micro storm headed straight for my place.

Wouldn't you know it?

This time there was no roof busting. A nasty red spider strutted down out of the night—and something swatted it right back.

"Old Chuckles is going to pay his rent tonight," I muttered.

"You're shaking."

I was, worse than if I'd been in the thick of it. Yet my mind wasn't working right. I didn't think about Dean or the Dead Man. All I could think about was what might happen to my house. It was all I had in the world. I'd gone through hell to get the money to pay for it. I was getting too long in the tooth to start over.

The storm whooped and hollered. The spider headed in again, scarlet swords of fire leaping from its eyes. Bam! They hit an invisible wall. The spider bounced back.

"I didn't know he had it in him."

The Dead Man had a lot more than I'd suspected. He never tried to hurt the spider, but he turned every assault. The more its efforts were stymied, the more ferocious the monster became. It didn't worry about damaging the neighborhood.

This was going to make me popular with my neigh­bors.

You can only stay keyed up so long. When I began to settle down I had a thought. "This doesn't make sense. I may have been a pain in the ass to those guys, but not this big a pain. There's something else going on."

The flash and fury distressed Maya less than it did me. Maybe it was her lack of experience with sorcery. "Analyze it, Garrett. This is the second time your place has been attacked. You weren't home either time. Maybe it doesn't matter if you are. Maybe it's the house."

"Or something in it."

"Or something in it. Or someone."

"Besides me? Nobody …" The Dead Man? But he'd been dead too long to have enemies left. "Know what I think? I got started on the wrong foot at the beginning. I've been trying to get it to make sense."

Maya looked at me weird. "What the hell are you yapping about?"

"I'm trying to make sense of something that isn't rational. I knew from the beginning that religion was involved. Several religions, maybe. You can try from now until the end of the world and you're not going to make sense out of that. I shouldn't be attacking it that way. I should be going with it, going after who's doing what to who and not trying to figure out why."

Her look got weirder. "Did you get hit on the head? You're raving."

Maybe I was. And maybe somewhere in my non­sense there was a kernel of wisdom. That business down the street looked like a good argument for reas­sessing my place in the excitement. "Ever been to Leifmold, kid?"

"What?"

"I'm starting to think the smart thing would be to get out of town. Let this thing take care of itself."

She didn't believe me for a moment. And she was right. Maybe it's a lack of common sense. Maybe I just have a feeble survival instinct. I'd hang in until the end.

I mean, what kind of reputation would I get if I backed off just because that was the safe thing to do? Somebody hires you, he wants you to stick. You want to work, you got to do that—at least until moral re­vulsion forces you out. You don't let a little thing like fear slow you down.

The thing with eight limbs was on the ground now, stomping around the house, making the earth shake, roaring, grabbing up cobblestones and throwing them. I told Maya, "Every living city flunky will be around to pester me now." I didn't look forward to that. I'm not at my best with those people.

One of my angels darted through the shifting witch light. I recognized Wedge.

"Remind me I don't want to get into your line of work, Garrett." He looked up the street. "What the hell is going on?"

"You got me. I'm not sure I want to know."