The Mister Trophy Read Free Page A

saw a shadow.
    I looked up and my door was opening and there it was, tall and thin and pale. Filmy eyes that looked like dirty marbles met mine.
    I put down the knife.
    Blue lips pulled back from wet white teeth. “You are the finder Markhat?”
    I nodded. The Trolls might as well have been a million miles away.
    “I am Liam. I come on behalf of Haverlock.”
    I found my voice. “Nice to meet you. Pull up a chair. I’ll have the butler bring us drinks.”
    Liam sat, dead eyes boring into mine like he could see secret things written on my bones. “No wise-cracks, Finder,” he said. “I was sent here to kill you. Rip you apart, specifically. I’m trying to do this another way. You aren’t helping. So again I ask—why did you come to Haverlock today?”
    I gave up trying to keep up with his unblinking half-dead stare. “I came on behalf of a client,” I said. “A Troll client. He wants to know if a dead relative wound up decorating your master’s trophy room. I came to Haverlock to see. I believe I explained all that to your domestic staff, before they cited a dress code and showed me to the curb.”
    “What did you see,” it said, leaning a hair’s breadth closer. “And what did you tell?”
    “I told my Troll friend I was tossed out,” I said, adding a little emphasis to the word “friend”. “I told him I saw no Troll heads. I also told him I think it’s there, somewhere.”
    It lifted a pale eyebrow. “You told the Troll that?”
    “I did.” I forced my eyes back toward his. “And I was right. It’s there, or you’d be out grabbing breakfast instead of sitting here making spooky eyes at me.”
    It grinned. Just for a heartbeat, but it grinned a crooked grin and I saw the ghost of the man it once was.
    “You got a mouth, Markhat,” it said. “Reminds me of me, once upon.”
    I guess I ogled. It shook its head. “Surprised I’m still human?” it asked. “I’m full of surprises tonight. First, I’m not going to kill you, so that Troll next door can put down his axe and relax.”
    “He likes holding his axe,” I said. “Keeps him from getting fidgety.”
    Liam grinned again. “We wouldn’t want that. In fact, we don’t want any trouble at all. So what if—and this is just a what if—what if I gave you a certain Troll artifact that may have mistakenly wound up here after the War? What if I apologized, and handed it over, and walked away? What then?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Is this you talking, or old man Haverlock?”
    “Doesn’t matter to you. Answer the question.”
    “It does matter, and you answer mine. You or Haverlock?”
    He ground his teeth. “Do you know what happens to us when we get old?”
    “Fancy dentures?”
    His fist hit my desk, and the mask of humanity fell away. “Some go insane. Haverlock is insane. He wants you dead and your Troll friend dead and he’ll risk the whole House over a moth-eaten curio nobody has seen for ten years. Some of us don’t share his mania. Now answer my question.”
    I shrugged. “I just don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the Troll will walk. I doubt it—Trolls don’t work that way. The honor of the clan has been besmirched. One of their cousins spent twenty years wandering around the Happy Hunting Ground without a head to whistle with.”
    “What about wereguild? We could pay.”
    “Trolls don’t want your money.”
    It ground its teeth again. “I’ll ask my Troll,” I said. “But not with you sitting here. You’re a Haverlock—he’s honor-bound to start the War again if you two wind up in the same room.”
    “I’ll be back.” Liam rose, and a man with a proper skeleton never moved like that. “I hope you have good news.”
    “Sit back down,” I said. “You’ve left out a few things.”
    He kept standing, but cocked an eyebrow and stood still.
    “You haven’t told me how I stay alive after I wave goodbye to my Troll pal, if he takes your offer,” I said. “Say Haverlock goes to cuddle his favorite