Book 02 - Bitter Gold Hearts Read Free Page B

another
decade. He was a little short, I thought, but that didn’t
hold him back. He looked like a fancy man, and word was that he did
night work best.
    Age had apparently not slowed him down. Those looks, a smooth
tongue, his toy title, those magical eyebrows, and soulful big blue
eyes all conspired to drop into his lap the sort of soft morsels we
ordinary mortals have to scheme and fight just to get near.
    It was a certainty he was no use in a crisis. He danced and
twitched like a desperate kid awaiting his turn at the loo. He
would have panicked if Domina Dount would have let him. He was a
member of the royal house, those wonderfully firm and decisive
folks who had blessed the Karentine people with their war against
the Venageti.
    Natural son or not, Karl Junior was a seed that had not fallen
far from the tree. He was the image of Karl Senior in body and
character, and to that menace to feminine virtue, he had added a
generous helping of arrogance based on the fact that his mommy was
the Stormwarden Raver Styx and he was her precious one and only,
whose misdeeds would never be called to account.
    Senior didn’t like my being there. Maybe he didn’t
like me. If so, the feeling was mutual. I’ve been busting my
butt since I was eight and I don’t have any use for drones of
any sort, and those from the Hill least of all. Their idleness got
them into the kind of mischief that resulted in sending a whole
generation south to fight over the silver mines of the Cantard.
    Maybe Glory Mooncalled would turn on his Karentine employers
once he polished off the Venageti Warlords. It wouldn’t
hurt.
    I said, “If you’ve had your way with me, then
I’ll be running along. Best of luck getting the boy
back.”
    Her expression said she doubted my sincerity. “You can
find your way to the street?”
    “I learned scouting when I was in the Marines.”
    “Good day, then, Mr. Garrett.”
    Karl Senior exploded the second I closed the door. It was a good
door. I couldn’t decipher his yells even when I put my ear to
the wood. But he was having a good time working the panic and
frustration out.
----

V
    Amiranda caught me just before I reached the gate. I
caught my breath, then chewed on my tongue a little so I could
still fake being a gentleman. She’d changed from the show
ensemble she’d worn to fetch me and now, in her every days,
looked like something I find only under the covers of midnight
fantasies. She looked good, but she also looked worried. I told
myself this was no time for one of my routines. My
sometime-associate Morley Dotes tells me I’m a sucker for a
damsel in distress. He tells me many things about myself, most of
them wrong and unwelcome, but he has me on the damsels. A
good-looking gal turns on the tears and Garrett is a knight ready
to tilt with dragons.
    “What did she say, Mr. Garrett? What does she want you to
do?”
    “She said a lot of not much at all. What she wants me to
do is nothing.”
    “I don’t understand.” Did she look
disappointed? I couldn’t tell.
    “I’m not sure I do, either. She said she wanted the
kidnappers to see me around the edges of the thing. So my
reputation will shade him and maybe give him a better
chance.”
    “Oh. Maybe she’s right.” She looked relieved.
I wondered what her stake was. I’d formed a suspicion and
didn’t like it. “So do you think he’ll be all
right, Mr. Garrett?”
    “I don’t know. But Domina Dount is a formidable
woman. I wouldn’t want her on my back trail.”
    A black-haired looker of the late teens or early twenties
variety left a doorway about thirty feet away, caught sight of us,
gave me a once-over she followed up with a come-and-get-it smile,
then walked off with a sway to still the tumult of battles.
    “Who was that?” I asked.
    “You needn’t pant, Mr. Garrett. You’d be
wasting your time. You don’t dare touch her with your
imagination. That’s the Stormwarden’s daughter,
Amber.”
    “I see. Yes. Hmmm.”
    Amiranda