Read Online Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 by DD Barant - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: DD Barant
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy, Fantasy - Contemporary, Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Vampires, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Mystery & Detective - General, Romance - Fantasy, Criminal profilers, Comic Books; Strips; Etc., Fantasy Paranormal, English Canadian Novel And Short Story
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of good old human fear . . .”
I can still hear her chuckling as I leave.
I leaf through the comic book Dr. Pete dropped off until I come to a panel depicting the Quicksilver Kid in action. He’s the one who looks like a robot wearing a cowboy hat, though in fact he’s a golem made largely out of brass. In my world he’d be shown blazing away with a pair of six-guns, but his weapons of choice are a bandolier of gleaming silver throwing knives. Most of the knives designed for throwing that I’m familiar with have a leaf-shaped blade, weighted toward the head to ensure it strikes point-first; in the comic, the artist has drawn them more like a traditional, bowie-style hunting knife.
The Kid himself supposedly has a brass outer shell, filled with mercury—hence the Quicksilver name. I always thought the reasons lems were filled with sand or made from clay had to do with malleability, but apparently a fluid and metallic medium is necessary even in a body where the joints are hinged and soldered. The Kid is said to be animated by the spirit of a “hundred rattlesnakes,” which I guess makes him not only fast but mean. And probably noisy.
Charlie walks into my office without knocking. It’s not much of an office, just a windowless room with a door, a desk, and two chairs, but it was one of the things I demanded from Cassius when it turned out my stay here was going to be a little longer than I’d expected. I don’t care whether Charlie knocks or not; I’m more concerned about whether or not he breaks the furniture by sitting on it. Fortunately, Charlie seems just as happy standing as he does sitting—which is to say, not very.
“How was prison?” he asks.
“Vaguely informative and mostly made from rock. Kinda like you.”
“How vague?”
“We’re chasing a lem from the Old West. Supposedly a bounty hunter now.”
Charlie nods. He’s wearing a midnight-black fedora today, which makes his already black features virtually disappear. “The Quicksilver Kid, right?”
“Yeah. You know about this guy?”
“Sure. Even lems have legends.”
“So what’s his story?”
Charlie shrugs. “Built by a mad shaman type to be sheriff of some small town in the late 1800s. Town was razed by a pack of thrope banditos , and the Kid spent the next few years hunting every one of them down. No one was faster or more accurate than he was with a throwing knife, and he packed a bandolier full of them: enchanted silver blades called the Seven Teeth of the Moon. People said he could pin a firefly to a toothpick at a hundred feet with one of them.”
“What happened to him?”
“Disappeared after he killed the last bandit. Wasn’t seen again until that comic you’re holding came out.”
“How about since?”
Charlie hesitates, which is something he almost never does. “I don’t know. You hear stories, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Like I said, we have our legends. Doesn’t mean we believe they’re true—just means we enjoy a good story as much as the next guy.”
“Stop worrying about looking stupid and tell me the damn story, already.”
“Some lems say he walled himself up in a cave and just let himself rust. Others say he learned how to disguise himself and is still out there today, working as a mercenary or a cop or a spy. Half the war stories you hear have the punch line ‘and it turns out Captain Feldspar was really the Quicksilver Kid!’
But they’re just stories—though one company making lems did produce a ‘Quicksilver’ model for a while in the 1960s. Didn’t last.” He shakes his head. “Faulty joints. And of course they were actually filled with sand, not mercury—that just doesn’t work.”
“Except in comic books.” I toss the issue down on my desk. “Well, I got a tip he may be hauling in bail jumpers somewhere in the Midwest. Could be a dead end, but it’s what we have to go on at the moment.”
“I know some people in Kansas City. I’ll ask
I can still hear her chuckling as I leave.
I leaf through the comic book Dr. Pete dropped off until I come to a panel depicting the Quicksilver Kid in action. He’s the one who looks like a robot wearing a cowboy hat, though in fact he’s a golem made largely out of brass. In my world he’d be shown blazing away with a pair of six-guns, but his weapons of choice are a bandolier of gleaming silver throwing knives. Most of the knives designed for throwing that I’m familiar with have a leaf-shaped blade, weighted toward the head to ensure it strikes point-first; in the comic, the artist has drawn them more like a traditional, bowie-style hunting knife.
The Kid himself supposedly has a brass outer shell, filled with mercury—hence the Quicksilver name. I always thought the reasons lems were filled with sand or made from clay had to do with malleability, but apparently a fluid and metallic medium is necessary even in a body where the joints are hinged and soldered. The Kid is said to be animated by the spirit of a “hundred rattlesnakes,” which I guess makes him not only fast but mean. And probably noisy.
Charlie walks into my office without knocking. It’s not much of an office, just a windowless room with a door, a desk, and two chairs, but it was one of the things I demanded from Cassius when it turned out my stay here was going to be a little longer than I’d expected. I don’t care whether Charlie knocks or not; I’m more concerned about whether or not he breaks the furniture by sitting on it. Fortunately, Charlie seems just as happy standing as he does sitting—which is to say, not very.
“How was prison?” he asks.
“Vaguely informative and mostly made from rock. Kinda like you.”
“How vague?”
“We’re chasing a lem from the Old West. Supposedly a bounty hunter now.”
Charlie nods. He’s wearing a midnight-black fedora today, which makes his already black features virtually disappear. “The Quicksilver Kid, right?”
“Yeah. You know about this guy?”
“Sure. Even lems have legends.”
“So what’s his story?”
Charlie shrugs. “Built by a mad shaman type to be sheriff of some small town in the late 1800s. Town was razed by a pack of thrope banditos , and the Kid spent the next few years hunting every one of them down. No one was faster or more accurate than he was with a throwing knife, and he packed a bandolier full of them: enchanted silver blades called the Seven Teeth of the Moon. People said he could pin a firefly to a toothpick at a hundred feet with one of them.”
“What happened to him?”
“Disappeared after he killed the last bandit. Wasn’t seen again until that comic you’re holding came out.”
“How about since?”
Charlie hesitates, which is something he almost never does. “I don’t know. You hear stories, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Like I said, we have our legends. Doesn’t mean we believe they’re true—just means we enjoy a good story as much as the next guy.”
“Stop worrying about looking stupid and tell me the damn story, already.”
“Some lems say he walled himself up in a cave and just let himself rust. Others say he learned how to disguise himself and is still out there today, working as a mercenary or a cop or a spy. Half the war stories you hear have the punch line ‘and it turns out Captain Feldspar was really the Quicksilver Kid!’
But they’re just stories—though one company making lems did produce a ‘Quicksilver’ model for a while in the 1960s. Didn’t last.” He shakes his head. “Faulty joints. And of course they were actually filled with sand, not mercury—that just doesn’t work.”
“Except in comic books.” I toss the issue down on my desk. “Well, I got a tip he may be hauling in bail jumpers somewhere in the Midwest. Could be a dead end, but it’s what we have to go on at the moment.”
“I know some people in Kansas City. I’ll ask
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