Book 13 - Gilded Latten Bones by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

over, studied the window close up. That allowed her some dignity at the same time. “A big snake? Really?”
    “Not exactly. You saw real giant snakes when you were off in the islands. You probably wouldn’t have been impressed. But that’s what it looked like to me.”
    “It went away once it realized you were awake.”
    “After I hit it about twenty times with your club.”
    The woman was gorgeous and brilliant and evil, but she was no connoisseur of personal-use nonlethal defensive instruments. I carried nothing so mundane as a club.
    “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
    “I hollered. You didn’t even roll over. Then I was busy slamming the slime out of that damned thing.”
    “You should’ve poked me with the stick.”
    “I was distracted. I didn’t think of that.” And that was right in character. She hardly ever asked for help, even when she had no choice. This thing with Morley was a wonderment.
    “All right. Tell me how it happened. In order. Exactly.”
    “I told you. There was this snake thing. I pounded on it till it pulled back. The shiny stuff is what it left. And, yes, I know we have to move Morley now because we can’t totally protect him here.”
    Morley made a noise. I thought he wanted to say something. I was wrong. He had a problem with phlegm.
    “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
    “I think so.” For a few seconds Belinda was the woman she could have been if she had chosen different parents and wasn’t a flaming sociopath.
    “You got anybody set up around here besides me?”
    “Outside. You’re my inside guy. You’re the one I trust.”
    Somebody tapped on the door. I couldn’t help myself. “What’s the password?”
    “How about ‘Breakfast,’ nimrod?” That sounded like DeeDee.
    Belinda collected my head knocker and got ready to brain an intruder clever enough to mimic DeeDee’s twang.
    I cleared the bowl and pitcher off the nightstand. DeeDee parked the tray she carried. She turned on Dotes. “It worked! He looks a thousand percent better. He’s coming back. He’s going to be all right.” She bounced and clapped her hands like a girl younger than Crush, then bolted out.
    I asked, “What’s the story there?”
    “I don’t know. It may be best that I don’t.”
    I hadn’t meant DeeDee’s connection to Morley. I’d meant DeeDee and Hellbore. On reflection, though, there was no reason for Belinda to know anything about employees so far down the food chain that they dealt direct with the folks whose money fueled the Combine engine.
    “She brought food enough for us and our childhood invisible friends. Let’s do some damage.” I hadn’t eaten since I left Macunado Street.
    DeeDee came back with Crush before we were done. Crush jumped all over me. “You weren’t supposed to eat the cream of wheat!”
    “The what?”
    “The mush, nimrod! That was for him. The heavy stuff was for you.”
    The invisible friends must have gotten that. I hadn’t seen anything I considered part of a hearty breakfast. “The nearest thing to a real breakfast . . .”
    Belinda squeezed my left elbow. She had some grip for a girl. “Garrett, your job is to keep your mouth shut, look pretty, and break the legs of anybody who tries to hurt Morley.”
    I could do two out of three blindfolded but the mouth thing has been a lifelong challenge.
    “Belinda, silence is too hard.” I was always chock-full of words that want to be free. Some even coagulate into rational . . . somethings.

16
    Good thing Crush and DeeDee were dedicated to Morley’s welfare. I was still wondering if I had what it took to feed him when they finished that and got to work dealing with the consequences of giving an unconscious man food and drink.
    He needed bathing. His bed needed changed. I opened the window to the max during the process.
    Belinda said, “You have to get more water into him. He’s hot but he isn’t sweating the way he should.”
    What would she know about dark elf fevers and sweats? Shrug.