Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves Read online

  He caught a glimpse of motion at the edge of his searching light—something long and sinuous that seemed to squirm. Thinking snake, he took a step back and put the beam directly on it, weapon ready. It wasn't a snake. It wasn't moving, either. In fact, it didn't seem to be quite there.

  "Hagen?"

  "Find something?"

  "You tell me."

  They found that they could see the thing best when the light wasn't fully on it. It appeared to be a sculpture of some sort, a serpentine shape faceted into segments. Charley had never seen anything quite like it.

  "Quetzal's?"

  "Likely." Hagen restrained Charley when he reached down to pick it up. "Not wise."

  "This some kind of magic thing?"

  "A powerful one, I think. Quetzal wouldn't have let it go. He must be dead."

  Charley didn't see that the connection was inevitable. "What do we do with it?"

  "I don't think that's going to be our problem. Look."

  Charley looked back the way they had come, as Hagen was doing. There were half a dozen men with lights advancing toward them. In the backglow, Charley could see that they were wearing federal-issue field rigs. Charley and Hagen turned to face the newcomers. Light swept across them.

  "Freeze!" an amplified voice ordered. "Put your weapons down!"

  Very slowly and carefully, Charley and Hagen did as they were told.

  A trio of suits came up behind the field agents. Two of them were cookie-cutter feds, but the third wore clothes too fancy to be government. That guy wore a corporate affiliation lapel pin, but Charley couldn't make out the logo. The fancy suit pushed his way past the field agents and went straight to the artifact, crouching down to examine it.

  One of the fed suits stepped forward. "I'm Inspector Fletcher, and I want answers. We'll start with who you are."

  "Charley Gordon, NEC Special Investigations Unit."

  "Hagen, Yamabennin Security Services."

  Charley was glad to see that Hagen understood that there was no messing with these kinds of guys.

  The fancy suit looked up. "Gordon, eh?"

  "You know him, Van Dieman?" Fletcher asked the man.

  Van Dieman shrugged. "Heard the name before." He went back to examining the artifact. Fletcher didn't seem perturbed by the minimal response. He indicated Charley's shield and held out his hand. Charley handed the wallet over. The fed pointed his comp at the shield and flashed the code.

  "Badge checks out," Fletcher said as he handed back Charley's shield.

  No reason it shouldn't have.

  "Your captain know about this operation?" Fletcher asked. "The aircraft outside belong to Yamabennin Security Services."

  "This is an emergency pursuit situation," Hagen said. "To the shame of Yamabennin and all our corporate family, the detective discovered one of our clients in the commission of a crime. The detective called upon us to aid in the pursuit of our client, an armed and dangerous person. In compliance with statute 232 of our incorporation papers, Yamabennin is supplying supplementary personnel and equipment to Detective Gordon in performance of his duty. It is a community service."

  Fletcher looked down his nose at Hagen, easy enough given the disparity in their heights. "You're pretty heavily armed for a public relations lawyer."

  "Yamabennin prefers well-rounded employees, Inspector," Hagen said almost cheerfully.

  "Yeah? Well, be a good employee and get your corporate butt back to your protected turf and out of here. I don't see any more need for 'supplementary personnel.' "

  "Yamabennin is always pleased to cooperate with the authorities." Hagen gave Fletcher a corporate bow.

  "I'm sure," Fletcher said, with exactly the same amount of sarcasm that Charley would have used if that line had been handed to him.

  "You may as well go with him, Detective Gordon," Van Dieman said. "You're not needed here anymore either."

  Charley looked to Fletcher. "This isn't a federal matter."

  "Just remember to file your report," Fletcher said. "We'll be expecting to see a copy. We're in charge now."

  Part 1

  TIME FOR THINGS TO CHANGE

  CHAPTER 1

  "Master Jack," piped the three voices, all off-key and out

  of sync.

  Sleep-fuddled, John didn't realize at once that the voices were calling for him. John Reddy didn't use his real name much anymore. On the streets of old Providence he was known as Tall Jack, Lanky Jacky, Mucho Blanco Jacko, or just Jack. Street names for a street life. His mainline straight-line life was behind him, his old home in Rezcom Cluster 3 a memory.

  "Master Jack!"

  Some called him that, too, but plain, unadorned Jack was what John preferred, although he had to admit that there was a certain attraction to the air of mystery that having a multitude of names gave him. Only Faye still called him John, but most of the people who could hear Faye were John's friends, so he didn't worry about it too much.

  "Waken, Master Jack!"

  Something snatched away his blanket, exposing him to the chill of the morning air. Hidden by the purloined mound of cloth, the thief scooted for the far side of the loft that John had claimed for his bedroom. The frenetic mound was the right size to be one of the bogies, and the voices were shrill enough to fit as well. They were being uncharacteristically bold, to disturb him.

  Dirty windows grayed the light striking them. Only the broken panes showed the true color of the day's sky. Still

  morning? It seemed so. He hadn't been asleep long. If he were more awake, he'd be tired from his long nighttime prowl looking for Spillway Sue. There were no other blankets, but his leather jacket was within reach. He snagged it, dragging it over himself. The jacket was a poor substitute for the blanket, but he felt warmer. He had been exhausted when he'd hit the slump, totally whipped out, and had crashed hard. He wasn't ready to be up and about.

  "Go away," he snarled at his tormentors, wishing that they'd picked someone else, like maybe Bear, to annoy. But he knew that they wouldn't bother Bear this way; Bear made no secret of his dislike for the Faery folk sharing John's slump, and the bogies stayed as far away from Bear as they could.

  "But Master Jack—" "We can't." "He's here." The bogies wailed. "He will be upset." "After all—" "I'll tell him." "No, me!" "I said I'd tell—" "No you won't!"

  "You two shush," said the deepest of the voices. That would be Kesh. "Master Jack, he has come to see you."

  John didn't want to see any visitors. He just wanted to get more sleep. "Tell him I'm dead."

  Which was true, according to the public records database. John Reddy was dead, killed in an accidental fire at the Woodman Armory Museum where he had worked as a guard. The datafiles were right that someone had been killed the night that John's life changed, but that was about all they had right about that night. The fire hadn't been set accidentally, and John wasn't the person who had died, although someone wanted the world to believe so, going so far as to alter the data records by substituting the dead man's physical description for John's in all public files. The substitution was a mystery John had yet to solve. But mysteries were for people who were awake.

  "Master Jack, you must come!" Kesh pleaded. "He will not be pleased if you don't! Take it out on us, he will."

  The bogies' continued importuning threatened to shatter John's fragile grip on sleep. If they would just shut up, he could go back to his dreams. He groped around the floor near his mattress until his hand encountered something small and throwable. He threw it, without aim or any concern. "I'm not pleased. Go away!"

  That cowed them, but only for a moment. The shrill voices tumbled forth in chorus, chasing away John's last hope of returning to sleep. "Master Jack, you must rise." "The prince lias come to speak with you. He sent us to get you." "He is waiting." "He doesn't like to wait." "Oh, no, he doesn't like to wait. The great ones never like to be kept waiting." "Have pity, Master Jack. The prince—"

  John could only think of one prince who would simultaneously p
ut such fear into the bogies and still wait upon their tumbling. Bennett. "Bennett is here?"

  "Is it true?" asked a deep voice, Bear's voice.

  John wanted to know himself. The bogies gave no vocal answer. Prying open an eye, he looked at them. All three had lound niches that put them out of Bear's line of sight, but not John's. All three nodded vigorously. John looked to Bear. "So it seems."

  "The elf is not to be trusted," Bear said with firm conviction.

  Though Bear had regained his strength and self remarkably fast, he had been taciturn, keeping to himself since his rough time beneath the mountain. His disorientation from the dwarves' botched attempt to help him assimilate into the twenty-first century was gone, only the slightest trace of wasting he'd suffered while lying inactive in the dwarves' strange medical machines remained. Like a legendary hero— which was understandable since he happened to be one— Bear had recovered from his ordeal. Although relieved, John hadn't been surprised by Bear's resilience. As long as John had known Bear, the man had shown remarkable facility in recovering from wounds and fatigue. "A knack I picked up while I was sleeping in the otherworld," had been Bear's explanation. It was a knack that Bear described as "useful," as close as Bear ever came to saying he was grateful for anything that ever came out of Faery.

  Bear harbored a lot of hate and distrust for Faery folk. What was it about Bennett's arrival that had brought Bear upstairs for the first time?

  "Did you call Bennett here?" Bear asked suspiciously.

  Did his tone imply distrust of John? Was this a sign that Bear's distrust of elves was extended to John? There were questions still unasked and unanswered between him and Bear. There had been little opportunity for a private talk since their reunion. For all that the old factory that was John's slump was huge, the building offered few private places these days, and the shadow that lay between John and Bear was one that John wanted to deal with privately. So far Bear had not so much as admitted that he knew John was an elf. So far it had been easier—for both of them—to pretend that things hadn't changed, that their relationship was still as it had been while they had both been members of the Downtown Dons, in the days before either of them had learned of John's true parentage. The few conversations they'd had revolved around current events in the world outside the slump, a world that Bear had yet to reenter.

  "Have you seen him?" John asked, expecting that he already knew the answer. Bear and Bennett were a volatile combination. If they had already met, John would have been woken by the fireworks.

  "No." Bear's answer was clipped. "Did you call it here?"

  "I don't know why he's here," John answered honestly.

  "Send the elf away. Tell it that there is no welcome for it here."

  Bear was right: there was no welcome for Bennett here, but not just because he was an elf. Bear's hatred for Bennett touched on other, more personal issues. John had a few of his own. Though he didn't look it, John was an elf himself and allegedly Bennett's own son, though Bennett had shown him no fatherly care and concern, abandoning him to a life among the humans as a changeling. That accident of birth had come between John and Bear, but now was not the time lo deal with their strained relationship.

  Right now they had Bennett to deal with. It was tempting to take Bear's attitude toward Bennett, but John found himself considering more than the emotional angles. The elf prince was no casual visitor. What had brought him here? Trouble, no doubt, but what kind of trouble? Could they afford to let irrational feelings keep them from finding out? For the moment, at least, they had to put the problems of the past behind them. John didn't know the history between Bear and Bennett, but figured that his own reasons for hating the elf had to be at least as strong. If John could look beyond that, why couldn't Bear?

  "Bennett's not your enemy anymore, Bear. You wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for him. Without his help we never would have escaped from the dwarves."

  Bear scowled. "I didn't need to escape."

  Clearly Bear still believed that the dwarves were his friends, as they apparently had been in his earlier life. John had tried to explain to Bear that the dwarves were responsible for his deteriorated condition. If Bear still refused to understand, there wasn't anything new John could add to the arguments. "You just don't want to accept that they duped you. They are not our friends. They've got their own agenda."

  "I know that they have their own concerns. So do we ail. 1'he dwarves are staunch allies. They are too much like the rock in which they dwell; they will not have been changed by the years, as you claim. Their memories are long, their sense of honor keen. I have no doubt that there is deception in this matter, but it is not theirs. They have always been men's friends against the el—" Bear stopped short, displaying an uncharacteristic moment of discomfort. "Against those like Bennett."

  "If you mean elves, say elves."

  Bear said nothing.

  John had hoped that his remark would bring a denial from

  Bear, an affirmation that Bear did not lump John in among the elves that Bear hated. But it didn't come. John had to have been crazy to think that Bear could find an exception in his hate, that Bear could think of John as he had before he'd learned of John's parentage. Bear was what he was: a self-important, bigoted fossil, an unenlightened product of his age. All that John had done for Bear didn't seem to be enough to prove to this man that John was not like Bennett.

  "You didn't come up here because of Bennett," John said, almost making the statement an accusation.

  "I came to return this."

  Bear held out the combox that John had spent the first part of his long night scrounging, then getting cut into the slump's pirate tap. Just yesterday Bear had asked for the combox as a supplement to the net access John had already arranged for the slump, mostly for entertainment channels dumped to the monitor down on the main floor—the bogies were especially partial to the Nostalgia Comedy Channel™— but also to provide Bear with access to the news and documentary programming that fascinated him.

  When John had returned from his prowling, he had logged on to check on the system's usage and seen that Bear had placed a call to Wilson, the dwarf who had kidnapped John and Spillway Sue while pretending that he was acting as Bear's agent. John hadn't realized that Bear knew how to contact the dwarf. Hell, he hadn't imagined that the dwarf might have a com code. Suddenly Bear's comments about the dwarves had a context.

  "Are you going back to them?"

  "I mislike staying here," Bear replied.

  The slump was hardly a palace, but it was better than most of the places John had stayed since leaving Worcester. It was an island in the midst of the urban chaos of the sprawl, a refuge born of abandoned industrial decay, but a refuge nonetheless. And peaceful—if you discounted the disorder that occasionally erupted from the bogies and John's other "guests." A motley crew of Faery folk had followed him home from his last foray into the otherworld and moved into his slump as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do. And who was to say it wasn't? He didn't have many grounds to complain. Most of the Faery folk knew enough to leave you alone when you wanted to be left alone, which was more than John could say for the human neighbor he'd had over the years. Besides, since the folk had moved in, there had been no incursions from anybody else. Not even the Beasts, the biggest and most belligerent of the local gangs, had bothered them here.

  "I thought I was your comes? Aren't I supposed to provide hospitality to you?"

  hear wouldn't meet John's eyes, but whether it was because of some discomfort or because the man was looking to a past long gone, John couldn't tell. Bear sighed. "The comitatus is a thing of the past. This is a new age. There are new ways."

  "Meaning the old values aren't worth holding to?"

  "1 thought you knew better than that."

  "Just what do you mean, then?"

  Bear was quiet for a moment, but slowly he turned to John and met his stare. Bear's eyes were cold and distant, hard. Softly he said, "I can't stay here
. You should come away liom here as well. This place is ... unwholesome."

  John felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. This slump was the closest to a home John had known since Worcester. He didn't like anyone disparaging it, not even Bear. "This place is mine. Are you saying I'm unwholesome?"

  Bear didn't answer. He just looked away.

  Damn him! Just being an elf didn't make John a bastard, even if he was an elf's bastard. Why couldn't Bear see that? "So we're quits?"

  "Will you come away from this place?" Bear asked without looking at John.

  John could be stubborn, too. "No."

  Bear looked down at the combox, forgotten in his hand, then held it out to John once more. John spurned the box, folding his arms across his chest. Bear set the combox on the floor and turned away. At the door he stopped long enough to say, "You have my thanks for everything you've done."

  Then he was gone.

  If Bear couldn't accept John for who he was, John was better off without the man around. What business did Bear have expecting John to follow along and do whatever Bear asked of him? It's not like Bear was still the king. Any kind of a king. Hell, Bear wasn't even warlord of the Dons anymore. Here, John was in charge.

  Maybe that was Bear's real problem.

  Something tugged at John's pants leg. A bogie, Lep, the smallest of the three. Lep looked up plaintively and said, "Master Jack, the great one is waiting."

  Ah, yes. Bennett. Another one who thought of John as some pawn in his game. Something would be motivating the elf to come here. Likely John wouldn't care for it, but he wanted to know what it was; or at least what Bennett would claim it was. The two would be different and, he was sure, almost equally interesting.

  "Master Jack?" It was Metch, the third bogie. Offering John's jacket, Metch quavered. "He doesn't like to wait."

  John took the jacket and slung it over his shoulder. Waiting would do Bennett nothing but good. John resolved to be polite and stay calm, figuring that courtesy and cool would give Bennett less to work with when he tried to manipulate John. Whistling Bard Taliesin's The Elf at the Well, John started down the stairs.