"Ingrate. You're alive."
I don't dare describe the looks the ingrates Crask and Sadler gave me. It was a good thing they had stomachs and a few wounds to patch. I heard sounds outside. I went to the door.
The Stormwarden was coming. Finally. She left the carriage and strode toward me. I stepped out of her way. She entered, scanned the battleground, sniffed, looked at me suspiciously. I said, "We're all here now. I'll get things sorted out and we'll start."
"All right." She marched over to the Baronet. His chair had overturned during the struggle. She stared down at him briefly, then turned to Donni Pell. "Is this the infamous whore, Mr. Garrett?"
"I didn't ask yet. I think so."
"She doesn't look like much, does she?"
"With females you never know. She might be a whole different act cleaned up and set down where she thought she could work her magic."
That got me the darkest look she'd given yet. Meanwhile, Domina Dount just stood in the doorway, for the first time in our acquaintance, at a loss.
"Saucerhead. Why don't you get Amber?"
He gave me a look as loving as the Stormwarden's, but nodded and went out back. I said, "Stormwarden, I don't know if it's within your expertise, but if you can, we'd all appreciate a little healing magic here."
"Everyone who faces the Warlords of Venageta must learn elementary field medicinal spells, Mr. Garrett."
"Maybe everyone of a certain class." Amber came in. Her face went gray. I thought she was going to upchuck again. "It gets rough sometimes, Amber. Gut it out. You all right, Saucerhead?"
"I'll live, Garrett. Why the hell don't you ever warn anybody when you're going to pull something out of your sleeve?" He winced and clapped one hand to his stomach.
I didn't bother explaining that if I'd warned him I'd have warned the bad guys too.
______ LIII ______
We dumped the ogres and Brunos in the weeds, live or dead. The farmhouse was still as crowded as a rabbit warren. We found seats for everybody. Only Amber and I remained standing. She leaned against the doorframe, too nervous to sit. Though the Stormwarden's perch was no better than anyone else's, her manner turned it into a throne.
She said, "Proceed, Mr. Garrett."
"Let's start with my old buddy Skredli. Skredli, tell the nice people the story you told me at Chodo's place. Keep in mind that the lady there can make you hurt a lot worse than Chodo ever did."
Skredli got fatalistic again. He told his story. The same story.
Donni Pell was the villain of his piece. She was a wonder to watch as she tried working on him so he would cast her in a better light. Gameleon and daPena were worth watching, too. And Domina Dount, for that matter, as she learned that some things she'd heard but not gut-believed were true.
When Skredli finished, I looked at Gameleon. "You think you can talk your way out of here?"
"I'll have your head."
Morley asked, "You want me to knock him around a little to improve his attitude, Garrett? I always wanted to see if blue-blood bones sound different when they break."
"I don't think we'll need to."
"Let me twist his arm a little. How about you, Saucerhead? We could hang him up by the ankles and break him like a wishbone."
I snapped, "Knock it off!"
Raver Styx lifted her left hand and extended it toward Gameleon, palm forward, fingers spread. Her face was bland. But lavender sparks danced between her fingers.
Gameleon yelled, "No!" Then he screamed a long, chilly one. I wouldn't believe anybody had that much breath in him. He went slack.
"So much for him. For now. Baronet? How about you? Want to sing your song?"
Hell no, he didn't. His old lady was sitting right there. She'd have his nachos on a platter.
She said, "Karl, whatever you're thinking, the alternative will be worse." She raised her left hand again. A few sparks flew. He flinched, whimpered. She dropped her hand into her lap, smiled a cruel smile. "I'd do it, too, you know." And she would. I was convinced.
There were some bleak faces in that place.
I looked at Gameleon, at daPena, at Domina Dount, at Amber, who sincerely regretted having come. Poor old Skredli was damning himself for not running instead of trying to make a last score.
Donni Pell... Well, I concentrated on the spider woman for the first time. I had avoided that because even I, a bit, was subject to whatever made her so dangerous.
She didn't look dangerous. She was a small woman, fair, well into her twenties, but with one of those marvelous faces and complexions that make some small, fair women look adolescent for years beyond their time. She was pretty without being beautiful. Even ragged, filthy, and abused, she had a certain something that touched both the father and the lech in a man, a something that made a man want to protect and possess. I don't play with little girls, but I know the feeling a man can get looking at a ripening fifteen-year-old.
In my time I have encountered several Donni Pells. They are conscious of what they do to men—manipulate it like hell. The sensual frenzy is balanced by manipulating the fatherly urge as well. Usually they come across as being empty between the ears, too. In desperate need of protection.
Donni Pell, I suppose, was an artist, having turned an essentially patriarchal society's stereotype of a woman's role into a bludgeon with which she worked her will upon the male race. She was still trying to do it, bound and gagged. Under it all she was tough. As hard and heartless as a Morley Dotes, who might qualify as the male counterpart of a Donni Pell. Skredli and his boys hadn't broken through.
The Stormwarden said, "Will you get on with it, Mr. Garrett?"
"I'm trying to decide where to poke the hornet's nest. Right now these people have no incentives."
"How about staying alive?" She rose and joined me. "Somebody here had Amiranda killed. Somebody here had my son killed. Somebody here is going to pay for that. Maybe a lot of somebody's if the innocent don't convince me of their lack of guilt. How's that for motivation, Mr. Garrett?"
"Excellent. If you can convince a couple men who figure their place in the world entitles them to immunity from justice."
"Justice has nothing to do with it. Stark, bloody, screaming, agonizing vengeance is what I'm talking about. I'm not concerned about political repercussions. I no longer care if I get pulled down."
Her intensity convinced me. I looked at her husband and Gameleon. DaPena was convinced, too. But Gameleon was holding his own. Softly, I said, "Courter Slauce."
Equally softly, the Stormwarden replied, "I haven't forgotten him. Continue."
I scanned them all again—then turned on Domina Dount. "You feel like modifying anything you've said before?"
She looked blankly at me.
"I don't think you're directly responsible for any deaths, Domina. But you helped turn a scam into something deadly."
She shivered. Willa Dount shivered! She was ready to break. The blood had reached her when she'd had to see it firsthand. Amber sensed it, too. Despite the state of her nerves, she glared at me. I winked.
"Nobody wants to kick in?"
Nobody volunteered to save himself.
"All right. I'll reconstruct. Correct me if I get it wrong, or if you want somebody else to get the shaft."
"Mr. Garrett."
"Right, Stormwarden. So. It started a long time ago, in a house on the Hill, when a woman who shouldn't have had children did so."
"Mr. Garrett!"
"My contract is for a job done without interference, Stormwarden. I was going to walk lightly. But since you're impatient, I'll just spit it out. You made life such hell for them that your whole family was ready to do anything to get away. Nobody worked up the guts to try till you went to the Cantard, though. It's unlikely anybody would have then if your husband hadn't, in the course of continued unwanted attentions, gotten Amiranda pregnant."