The Broken Bell by Frank Tuttle

Author:Frank Tuttle [Tuttle, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781609288211
Google: iLeBbvn4A7oC
Amazon: B005OVZ59G
Goodreads: 12951778
Publisher: Samhain
Published: 2011-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

The smoke got so thick it nearly choked me, and it did manage to blind me. I would never have found my carriage had the driver not come looking for me, and I’d never have made it inside had he not shoved my ass in.

I told him to head for Darla’s. Her house, not the shop. It couldn’t be good for business to have soot-stained finders coughing and hacking all over the fabric. I was hoping she’d pop home for lunch as I knew she often did, and by that time I ought to have coughed my lungs clear again.

I sent the carriage home, and I sat on her tiny porch and watched a pair of bluebirds build a nest in the little house she’d hung out for them. When my eyes quit burning I opened the binder and leafed through the papers, but all I saw were rows of cryptic abbreviations and columns of numbers that might have been crowns or counts of Troll toenails, for all I could tell.

I hoped Darla would see more. Because if she didn’t, Master Sergeant Burris had died for nothing.

Traffic on Darla’s quiet street picked up. Snatches of conversation drifted my way. War, and rumors of war. The columns of smoke from the Barracks were easily visible, even from that distance, and I saw more than one person point and heard more than one person wonder if the smoke was the first sign of the coming invasion.

Even the ogres that passed through had their hackles up. By the time I spied Darla walking briskly down the sidewalk toward home, I’d witnessed half a dozen people trying to decide whether to flee their homes or start boarding up the cellars.

The peace, I reflected, was well and truly dead.

Darla saw me and waved. I forced a smile and waved back and lifted my butt off her steps, but I didn’t fool her, even for an instant. Her smiled died on her lips and she broke into a run and within moments she caught me up in a fierce hug and then pulled back, eyeing me for fresh holes or broken bones, I suppose.

“You’ve been to the fire.”

“I have. Got there too late. You heard it was the Barracks?”

She pulled herself close again.

“I heard. I hoped it wasn’t true. Sergeant Burris?”

I shook my head. She didn’t see, but she felt it, and she began to cry.

“Because we were there?”

“I don’t know.” I knew in my heart that wasn’t true. But some lies are worth the telling. “The Sergeant. He got out. Almost. He was holding a binder. I have it. On your porch.”

It took her a moment to speak. “Have you looked at it?”

“I have. Numbers, letters. Didn’t make any sense.”

“He died holding it?”

“He did. Maybe it was just in his hand when the fire broke out. But, hon, if it wasn’t—do you think you’ll be able to tell me what it was?”

“I’ll try.” She gripped me fierce and tight. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Someone afraid of their past.

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