"Brill. He"s dead."
"So his wife told me. Well, I guess he"s no loss. Incidentally she thinks a lot of you. Told me that you were a good man."
Dumarest toyed with his mug. "It shows how wrong some people can be."
"Meaning?"
"Nothing. It"s none of my business. So what if you did promise to help? A dying woman and a mute kid-what kind of bargain is that?"
He saw the face alter, anger giving life to the eyes, and darted out his left hand to grip Fenton"s right as it moved toward the gun hidden under the jacket. Beneath the fat was muscle and Dumarest tightened his grip as Fenton strained.
"You want to carry on with this?" Dumarest kept his voice low as he lifted the mug in his other hand. "Relax or you"ll get this in the face." His expression made it no idle threat. "And don"t signal to any of your help. If anyone comes close you"ll regret it."
"Who the h.e.l.l are you?"
"No one you need worry about." Dumarest eased his grip as he felt the muscles beneath his fingers relax. Dropping his hand he revealed the welts marking the skin. "All I want is some information. Where can I find the boy?"
"With his mother.""He isn"t there. He must be hiding out somewhere. With a friend, maybe. Someone he knows. You could tell me where to look."
"I"m not sure." Fenton rubbed at his wrist. "I don"t see much of him since Brill went. Susan-dying you say?"
"Forget her." Dumarest let irritation edge his voice. "What about the boy? Who was close to his father?"
Anton would have known the man and the places he frequented. Fenton knew of the lad as others would have and they, in turn, would have recognized his value. Some could have used him in the brush.
"She moved," said Fenton abruptly. "Susan, I mean. I offered help but when she didn"t ask I figured she was making out. The boy said nothing-how the h.e.l.l could he? Where can I find her?"
"She"s sick," said Dumarest. "Dying, as I told you. Give her a few months and she"ll be gone. All you have to do is wait."
"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
"Jarl," said Dumarest. "Let"s start with Jarl. He knows Anton.
Where can I find him?"
"Jarl who?" Fenton shrugged as Dumarest remained silent.
"It"s a common name. Can you describe him?" He scowled as he listened. "That sounds like it could be Jarl Cap.r.o.n. How the h.e.l.l did the kid get mixed up with sc.u.m like that?"
"Maybe he was lonely. The address?"
"Scorelane. Number seventy-nine. That"s all I know."
Scorelane was a slash across town in what had once been the fashionable quarter. Now the houses looked like raddled old women dressed in rotting finery; windows dull, paint flaking, the whole looking drab and soiled beneath the cold light of the stars.
Some places fought back with the use of lights and colored pennons and blaring music; small casinos, eating places,brothels, drug emporiums. Refuges for the optimistic, the hungry, the lonely, the desperate. Number seventy-nine was a hotel.
"A room? You want a room?" The crone behind the desk looked sharply at Dumarest with faded blue eyes. "That isn"t easy to provide at this time of year. We"re pretty full and our regulars like to retain their quarters even while working away. But I"ll see what can be arranged. You"ll pay in advance, of course, and I shall need the highest references."
The woman was lost in illusion, believing the place was what it had never been. Finding escape from reality in a game as she fussed over ledgers she could no longer read.
Dumarest looked beyond her to the wall which held a row of boxes each with a hook for its key. Most were cluttered with a.s.sorted debris and all were dusty and grimed. He said, "I"m looking for Jarl Cap.r.o.n."
"Jarl?" Her face became blank. "You mean Mister Cap.r.o.n?"
"Yes."
"Supervisor Cap.r.o.n?"
"Is he in?" A stupid question; the keys visible belonged to empty rooms. "Which is his room?"
"I can"t tell you that!"
"It"s important." Truth followed with a facile lie. "I"ve been sent to collect him and some important papers. An emergency at the workings. Only the supervisor can handle it. The room?"
"Two flights up. Turn right. Number twenty-eight." Her hand went to her mouth. "Be careful not to make too much noise."
An unneeded warning; Dumarest moved like a ghost as he climbed the stairs, keeping to the wall so as to avoid creaking treads. The first flight yielded a dusty landing soiled with dried mud and a wad of crumpled, b.l.o.o.d.y tissue. A solitary wad andthe dirty carpet showed no stains. From behind a door down the pa.s.sage he heard a woman"s voice. "Hold still, you fool!"
A deeper tone, "That hurts!"
"Serves you right. The next time you come heavy with me I"ll take out an eye. Now let me finish fixing that cheek."
The second landing held more dust and a patch of dampness which could have been water spilled from a jug or seepage from a leaking tank. Dumarest skirted it and stepped softly down the length of the pa.s.sage. A window opened on a narrow metal ladder which in turn ran to the street below. Touching it he felt a crusted dryness and, looking at his hand, saw the brown flakes of dried blood.
Jarl"s?
Quietly he stepped back down the pa.s.sage and halted outside room twenty-eight. The door was scarred, the number blurred, no light showing through the keyhole or beneath the lower edge of the panel. Pressing his ear to the wood, he heard a moaning susurration as of wind in a chimney. Frowning, he stepped back and moved to the head of the stairs as sound came from below.
On the lower landing he caught a glimpse of a woman with a man whose cheek was covered with a plaster. He was younger than his companion and bore no resemblance to Jarl. Back at the door of room twenty-eight Dumarest pushed his foot against the door above the lock. A snap and it was open.
Beyond lay darkness broken only by starlight filtering through the uncurtained window. A low moaning. An acrid stench.
Then, suddenly, madness.
It came with a gust of sound and a blur against the pale oblong of the window. A snarling roar as if a beast had broken free and a shape which lunged forward, hands extended like claws, curved to rip and tear, to strike like hammers from the gloom.
Dumarest dropped as something slammed against his temple,breaking open the minor laceration and sending blood to wet his cheek. Stars flashed before his eyes as he rolled, feeling the numbing impact of a hard-driven boot, rolling again as it stamped on the spot where his head had rested. As he rose he knocked aside a clutching hand, ducked to let the other pa.s.s over his shoulder, stepped in and drove his fist hard against a solid body. Blow followed blow in quick succession. All driven with the full force of back and shoulders-none seeming to have any effect.
Before him the thing gibbered, roared, flailed at the air, swayed and came in with lowered head and raking feet, rose to spit and tear at Dumarest"s scalp and shoulders with jagged shards.
Falling back, he hit the wall beside the door, felt the impact of the switch against his shoulder, threw it to bathe the room in brightness.
Jarl stood blinking at him from before the window. But Jarl was no longer a man.
The vials lying beside the soiled bed gave the answer; a.n.a.logues taken to relieve boredom, used now as an anodyne against pain; the compounds used by degenerates addicted to b.e.s.t.i.a.l forms. With their aid a man could think himself a snake, a goat, a dog. He would emulate one, act like one, be as unpredictable as any creature of the wild. Jarl had ceased to be human.
He stood like a gorilla, stooped, shoulders hunched, the thorn-ripped parody of his face distorted into a snarling nightmare. In each hand he now held the neck of a broken bottle, the jagged shards reflecting the light in vicious gleams. His mouth was open, slavering, his eyes mere glints between puffed lids. He stank of sweat and rage.
He rushed without warning, hands lifted to raise the crude weapons high. Held like daggers, they swept down to slice the air, missing Dumarest by a fraction as he threw himself to one side. Again, the thing which had been a man moving with the furious speed of a predator, gla.s.s opening flesh above Dumarest"sear, shards ripping at the tunic, slicing through the plastic to bare the metal mesh imbedded as a protection in the material.
Before they could strike again, Dumarest had thrown himself clear, coming to rest before the window, steel flashing as he jerked the knife from his boot, metal which glinted with mirror-brightness as he twisted it. He guided it into the creature"s eyes, hypnotic, commanding. As they followed the lure he stepped forward, boot lifting, the heel slamming against the jaw. The blow would have knocked an ordinary man unconscious but the surrogate beast only shook its head, snarled, lunged forward in a paroxysm of maniacal fury.
To trip over Dumarest as he dropped before it. To plunge through the window. To be impaled on the railings which stood like rusty spears below.
Chapter Three.
"He"s dying." Carina was blunt. "You carrying him up here didn"t help." She looked disdainfully about the room. "G.o.d, what a sty!"
Dirt aggravated by blood, the wreckage of the fight, the whole compounded by his search-which had yielded nothing but items of little value: a gun, some papers, a knife, torn and bloodstained clothing. If Kelly had contacted his partner, he hadn"t pa.s.sed over any of the loot.
"A compliment," she said bitterly. "You leave me to go out and kill a man. All right, so he isn"t dead yet, but that"s splitting hairs. There"s nothing I can do for him. Those railings tore him all to h.e.l.l inside and you weren"t exactly gentle. And why send for me?"
"You"re a doctor-or were you lying?"
She said, "One day, maybe, you"ll realize just how insultingthat question was. Yes, d.a.m.n you, I"m a doctor and because of that I carry some gear, but only emergency stuff. He needs ma.s.sive corrective surgery, regrowths, an amniotic tank, months of subjective in slowtime. And before that-oh, to h.e.l.l with it!
What do you want me to do?"
"Make him talk." He met her eyes. "He was in a.n.a.logue and could still be for all I know. If he is, I want you to snap him out of it and make him conscious and aware. And do it fast-if he"s dying as you say then we haven"t long."
"a.n.a.logue-are you certain?" For answer he handed her the vials.
"The fool. A double-shot which could blow his mind." She reached for her bag. "I"ll do what I can but you realize the risk?"
His eyes told her of the stupidity of the question. "You don"t care," she accused. "You don"t give a d.a.m.n if he goes insane or turns into a vegetable. All you want is for him to talk."
"That"s right." He looked beyond her at the figure rec.u.mbent on the soiled bed. "Now let"s stop wasting time."
The door was shut again, held by a chair propped beneath the k.n.o.b. A barrier against the inquisitive who had thronged the pa.s.sage and could still be outside. As the woman worked Dumarest looked again at what he"d found. The gun was a copy of that used by the man he had killed, a weapon designed to fire a ma.s.s of shot and lethal at short range. He broke it and checked the load, frowning at what he saw.
With his knife he slit the cartridge and tipped the load into his hand.
Not shot as he"d expected but a powder as fine as talc. Fired, it would have thrown a cloud over the area immediately before the gunner and that was about all. The fine dust would have held little kinetic energy and that little would have been quickly lost.
It could sting the eyes, perhaps, but little else. Unless it was more than what it seemed.
Dumarest stooped, lifting the powder to his nostrils, taking acautious sniff. Immediately he lowered his hand and leaned back, fighting the numbing paralysis which had locked his eyes, his jaw, the muscles of his neck. For a moment he felt helpless while the light seemed to revolve with slow deliberation, the glow haloed with glittering rainbows.
Why hadn"t Jarl used that instead of the club?
The boy, perhaps? Anton had stood close and the man could have had fears as to the result of the powder fired at one so young. And the other? Both had tried to use clubs- had they thought the loads were more lethal than they really were?
Luck had been with him; had they used the guns he would have been left helpless to freeze in the brush. Had Jarl not used the a.n.a.logue he could have fired as Dumarest burst into the room. Then, if not before, he would have been willing to kill and there had been no boy to safeguard. No threat to future prosperity.
"Earl!" Carina straightened from the supine figure. "It"s going to be close."
"Do your best."
"What I"m doing is killing him."
"He"s as good as dead already." Dumarest put aside the gun and picked up the papers. "And unless he talks others might follow him."
Himself, who would be a natural target if Kelly wanted to make himself safe. Anton for fear he might betray his whereabouts. Fenton, even, for having given the address.
The papers held nothing of value; a letter from a woman, a circular, an old notification of dismissal but the reason was closure of the workings and he could not be blamed. The reason why he had taken to haunting the brush, perhaps, but the basic liking for the way of life would have always been present. The desire to hurt, to bully, to rob and terrorize. How many victims had he and his kind left to die."Earl!"
The eyes were still bloodshot and the jaw now bore the purple of bruises but the bone was unbroken and the man could talk.
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You stinking b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Jarl moved against the torn sheets which held him to the bed. "We should have killed you."
"Where"s Kelly?"
"Go to h.e.l.l!"
Dumarest pushed the woman aside and leaned over the dying man. Light glittered from the knife he lifted, the point slowly descending until it touched the throat.
"Where"s Kelly?" The knife pressed harder. "Tell me where to find Kelly!" Harder still, the needle point finding the selected nerve. Carina gasped as Jarl reared in pain.
"G.o.d! No! G.o.d!"
Dumarest eased the pressure. "Just talk," he said. "Do that and I"ll leave you alone. I won"t trouble you again and that"s a promise. And why protect him? You"re hurt and could have died while he"s living easy. Why do you think he didn"t hand over your share? How do you think I found you?" The knife glittered again as he moved it across the other"s field of vision. "All I want to know is how to find him. From you or someone else it"s all the same to me." His tone deepened, became feral, "But, for you, man-you"ll suffer h.e.l.l!"
"No!" Sweat ran from the bruised features and the eyes rolled in their sockets. A man in torment from the promptings of his own imagination; the tip of the knife hovered well above his skin.
"Dear G.o.d, no!"
"Earl!" Carina recoiled at the look he gave her then said, quickly, "Don"t be silly, Jarl. Why not talk? Just a few words and it"ll be over."
"Stop him!""I can"t!" The truth and she knew it. "Talk, you fool! Do you think I want you to suffer? Tell him what he wants to know!"
For a moment the bloodshot eyes followed the gleaming menace of the knife, then: "The Durand. He stays at the Durand.
Runs a table in part return for bed and board."
"Why work the brush?"
"I don"t know. Kicks, I guess. He"s smooth." Jarl swallowed, choked, fought for breath. "My guts! G.o.d, it hurts!"
"Who was the other man?" Dumarest leaned closer. "Who was he?"
"Berge."