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look smart. He was only a kid by their standards. The rest of them rode him "
"Whoa! Stockwell? For sure?"
"He was another one that got called what his name sounded like. Most of them
did. We turned this one into Carter Stockwell. It was kind of a joke, too, on
account of "
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Couldn't be the same clown. Could it? After all these years? "I've been
butting heads with a bunch of shifters. Believe it or not, one of them calls
himself Carter Stockwell."
"Really?" Trail asked. For the first time he seemed completely interested.
"Ain't that interesting, Will?"
"Sure is. I'd like to run into Carter Stockwell again some time. When I have
a sack full of hot irons and silver knives. You know it's almost impossible to
hurt them unless you use something silver?"
I nodded. "I noticed."
Trail said, "Always been my pet theory that silver is the reason they got
involved in the war in the first place. That they never was on nobody's side
but their own. If they could glom onto the silver mines, they'd control the
best weapon that could be used against them."
"You could be right," I said, though that sounded like a stretch to me.
"Interesting. Have some beer, gents. Keep talking. Name some more names." Not
that I believed their Carter Stockwell was mine. He might be a grandson,
though. "Talk to me about tattoos."
That drew blank looks and puzzled grunts.
"The changers I'm running into all have a dragon tattoo right here. It's
about six inches long but hard to see when they're alive."
Storey shook his head. "I don't remember nothing like that."
"Me neither," Trail said.
"I do," Miss Trim told me. She was well sloshed now, sliding out of focus.
She wore a lopsided, trollish leer. Was she making it up to get my attention?
"It's a dragon squeezing the commando insignia in its claws."
I grunted. "We're onto something, Quipo."
"They were commandos. Mercenaries. I didn't know they were shapechangers,
though. They called themselves the Black Dragon Gang. Said they came from
Framanagt."
"Which is an island so far east of nowhere that nobody would ever check. Was
anybody named Norton involved?"
"Colonel Norton was their commander. But he was Karentine."
Stockwell and his pal had expected me to know something about their crew.
"What did Black Dragon do to get famous?"
"Nothing. It was the other way around. They did everything they could to hang
aroundFullHarbor . They only went out when they couldn't avoid it. You don't
make a name doing that."
"That's where you were?FullHarbor ?"
"For nine wonderfully miserable years."
FullHarborwas where I'd had my only previous encounter with a shapeshifter, a
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Venageti agent masquerading as a Karentine spy-master. Was there a connection?
Should I have made one? "When did you separate?"
"Six years ago." Quipo didn't want to talk anymore. She wanted to act but the
only guy around young enough wasn't interested.
Six years was long before my own encounter.
I reminisced silently, trying to discover if I knew something I didn't know I
knew. Apparently I did. Or Black Dragon didn't realize that I didn't know.
"Was there ever any suspicion that the Black Dragon Gang might not be
trustworthy?"
"Uh?"
The beer was hard at work now. I was about to lose Quipo. "Is there any
chance those guys were really working for Venageta?"
Miss Trim's eyes focused momentarily. She gave it a good try. "Uhm? 'Dwould
'splain a lot. Never fought a dat."
Plop! She melted on the spot.
The Cranky Old Men became excited. Only the fact that Quipo had a few sober
sisters chaperoning saved her from a catalog of minor indignities and
vengeances.
I became the crowd favorite. I was an ear that would listen. Every old man
wanted to tell his life story. None of those had anything to do with
shapeshifters.
Part of the cost of doing business. I might have to come back someday.
I hung in there bravely, almost as long as the moon did, but eventually the
beer ran out and I fell asleep.
66
I had a hangover. Again. Surprise.
It was not yet a classic. It was just an infant. But it had potential. This
was practically the middle of the night still. Dawn was only a hint of color
in the east.
Victor nudged me with a toe in a spot that the ogre had thumped yesterday. I
woke up sprawled under an olive tree, supported by cold, damp stone. The
Goddamn Parrot was on a branch overhead, muttering. He made no sense but
occasionally my name entered the mix. "Get up, Garrett," Victor insisted. Pain
blazed through my side. Oh, no! Not another cracked rib. "Some guy is looking
for you."
Some guy? That didn't sound good. I hadn't mentioned Heaven's Gate to
anybody, ever. Nor had I noticed anybody following me. Not that I'd made much
effort to keep track. Crask and Sadler were in the tank. The shifters ought to
be licking their wounds. Nobody else should be interested.
"Get up, damn you!" Victor let me have it again, in the identical spot,
harder. He knew what he was doing.
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Victor was a teetotaller, a member of TunFaire's smallest and most viciously
bizarre cult. He was the only born-again alcohol hater at Heaven's Gate. He'd
let me know again and again what he thought of me dispensing the devil's
sweat.
"Victor, you do that again, you'll need to get fitted for a wooden leg."
Victor chose discretion. "Your party is outside the front gate."
My party was Ritter from Relway's deck of jokers. Brother Relway was looking
like a mojo man who sees all and knows all. I asked, "Don't you guys ever
sleep?"
"Sleep? What's that? Wait! Yeah! I remember. They used to let me do that when
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