"Think we got here in time, Garrett?"
I'd taken our lives in my hands and cut through the Bustee, following the most direct route. "She doesn't know the city. Even if she hired a coach, she couldn't have gotten here first." True, logically, but I was whistling in the dark. After recent events, logic didn't seem very trustworthy
I mean, the Dead Man getting swindled not once but three times? That was damned hard to swallow, though for the sake of peace in the house I'd take his word.
I suspected wishful thinking had helped Carla Lindo sucker him. He'd been exposed long enough to have smelled something. He'd overlooked it because she'd charmed him...ell. I should talk?
"She have any money?" Winger asked.
"I don't think so. Why?"
"I wondered if she could hire a coach or buy a horse."
"She gave us everything she had to hire us."
"She'll be walking, then. Can she read?"
"Why?"
"If I was her and I could read, I'd open that book and turn me into somebody else in case somebody came after me."
I hadn't thought of that. I couldn't recall if she could read or not My memory plays tricks when I'm tired. "Assume the worst. Watch for anybody with something that might be the book."
"How big?"
I made gestures, as best I could recall what I'd seen in the naked woman's arms
Winger scrunched down in the shade of the wall, ignoring the glower of the beggar next to her. She closed one eye like she was going Halfway to sleep. "Think there'll be trouble because of what sour sidekick did to Easterman?"
"Nah. Shit happens. Pretty often around our place. The neighbors will be happy it was just entertaining this time. One time half the houses got busted up. That's why all the new brickwork and stuff. People that don't like excitement moved out. Nobody else gives a damn. They don't own, they rent."
"I noticed that about TunFatre. Nobody gives a damn about anything but themselves."
Not entirely true, but close
Nothing happened for a while. I got into a discussion with a bum who was a fellow ex-Marine, mostly about Glory Mooncalled's exploits in the Cantard. During the night, while I was preoccupied, word had come that Mooncalled's magnificent maneuver down there hadn't panned pure gold. Our fearless leaders had, in fact, anticipated it. They'd gone ahead and jumped into a brawl with the Venageti but had held back powerful reserves. Those had continued the pursuit of Mooncalled and had carved him up pretty good.
From the sound of it, once the dust settled there would be no predominant force in the Cantard. We'd be back to the old endless terror, only now with the balance teetering three ways instead of two. That should make the situation there crazier than ever.
I was glad I was past all that.
Winger nudged me.
One gorgeous redhead had come hiking out the gate She was dressed for rough travel and carried a big pack.
She was in a hurry. Literate or not, she hadn't changed her appearance.
She was in too much of a hurry. Thus, she didn't notice us or know that she'd acquired other admirers, city thugs who thought they had them an easy mark. They cruised along behind, knowing the road ahead would provide ample opportunity. Three miles past west gate you're into wild country already. The hills out there are better suited to raising sheep than to grape growing.
Winger rose with me. She understood the situation without my pointing it out "1 got a suggestion you ain't going to like."
"Which is?"
"Let those three clowns have first crack, then take the book from them."
"You're right. I don't like it."
"Think about it. No telling what's up her sleeve. Right? So why not let somebody else take the lumps?" She did have her own style of thinking She had a point, too.
I was in a foul enough temper to accept it. "You come to TunFaire this way?"
"Yeah. So?"
"There's a big curve in the road a couple miles ahead. Runs around the end of that ridge yonder, to a town called Switchback."
"I remember."
"If somebody was to go over the ridge, they could save a mile and a half, get ahead, arid come back this way. We could come at them from two directions. My guess is they'll jump her at the knee of the ridge, Maiden Angel Shrine, or the spring just past there."
"Does somebody mean me9"
"There's a thought."
"Here's another one. She going to be watching behind her or ahead? She running to or from? Who's she going to recognize?"
Damn her black heart. She was right Carla Lindo would recognize me in a second. I bellyached a lot, but when the time came I headed uphill, cussing all the way.
It wasn't so bad going down the far side. I tripped and rolled part of the way. No work at all, that. But I didn't make the time I should have. I was late getting to the Shrine of the Maiden Angel.
The bad boys had had time to catch Carla Lindo and Winger had had time to catch them in an indelicately exposed posture. When I came puffing along, one was dead and another working on it while the third was unconscious. Winger had just finished tying a half-naked Carla Lindo to a sapling. "You stop for a couple of beers, Garrett?"
"My pins aren't short enough for running down hills." A westbound peasant family studiously ignored us. They would report us at Hellwalker Station, the cavalry barracks two miles beyond Switchback. Riders would come to investigate. Highwaymen aren't tolerated the way criminals are in the city.
Carla Lindo had gotten batted around some. It took her a while to recognize me and turn on the heat. I gaped. Winger spat, shook her head, grabbed Carla Lindo's pack in one hand and my arm in the other. "You going to stand there drooling or are you going to haul ass?"
I shuddered and shivered and broke the spell. "Haul ass. One minute." I squatted, told Carla Lindo, "The cavalry will be here soon, sweetheart. They'll turn you loose. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life explaining to every firelord and stormwarden there is, tell the soldiers that these guys jumped you, then some travelers came along and broke it up. But they took off before anybody thought of cutting you loose."
"Garrett! Please." Could she ever turn on the heat. She wasn't human. I turned to hot wax. "I have to have the book. I can't go home without it."
I repeated my shudder-and-shiver routine. I can withstand them when I have to. "No way, darling. It's too wicked. It's killed too many people already. It's got to be destroyed. And I don't trust anybody to do that. Maybe not even me." I wasn't tempted anymore, though. I'd suffered too much. I Just wanted to put an end to the damned thing.
I touched Carla Lindo's cheek. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. It could have been something."
"Garrett, you can't do this to me. You loved me. Didn't you?"
"Maybe I did, some. That don't mean I'll let you use me. That don't mean I'm going to go to hell for you. I wouldn't do that for anybody "Except maybe Tinnie. I'd skipped through a suburb of hell for her trying to get this straightened out. I had to go see her again.
Carla Lindo changed. She stopped being that delicious little morsel, turned into a wildcat with a mouth like a dock walloper, speaking the true shadows in her heart. She became the real Carla Undo Ramada, no better than the other two who'd worn her face.
Winger grumbled, "You ready now? Or you want to hang around and put yourself through some more punishment?"
Right. I put a cap on my hurt, turned my back on Carla Lindo Ramada, walked toward TunFaire Winger and I didn't talk much. Wasn't much to say. I told myself it could have been worse. I could have gotten involved with Carla Lindo. That wouldn't have been hard. But events had conspired to keep me distanced. Lucky me, I'd ended up just getting another lesson revealing the basic blackness lying below the human heart. Once again I'd seen that, given incentive and opportunity, most anybody will jump at the chance to turn wicked. And the wicked will turn wickeder still.