The Reluctant Assassin

by Eoin Colfer

  Riley saved her, tipping the entire table over on his master. The boy, too, was stronger than he seemed. The table’s edge landed squarely on Garrick’s shin, splintering the bone.

  “What?” said Chevie. “You’re on my side now?”

  Riley held up his left hand and Chevie saw blood congealed on the thumb.

  “Always,” he said, and Chevie understood. The boy was a magician’s apprentice. He had pierced his own flesh, not Duff’s, risking Garrick’s wrath to save the agent’s life.

  “We should go, Agent,” said Riley urgently.

  “Yeah,” said Chevie, then rubbed her throat and coughed. “Yep. Going would be good.”

  She tucked the Timekey inside her blouse and ushered Riley toward the door.

  Shots punched through the table and into the ceiling. Garrick was still fighting, in spite of the terrible agony he must be feeling.

  “We should have killed him,” said Riley. “Killing the devil cannot be a sin.”

  Until quite recently, Chevie would have scoffed at this statement for its superstition and dubious morality, but now she was coming around to the idea.

  “Later,” she said. “Later.”

  They were close to the stairway when half a dozen shots ripped into the bannisters, showering them with wood chips. Chevie grabbed Riley’s collar and shunted him behind the sofa.

  Riley fell and saw between the sofa legs that the lady was recovering her senses and had rolled onto her elbows. “Victoria is alive.”

  “Good. I doubt Garrick will spend a bullet on her when we are the ones breaking his bones with furniture.”

  The broken bone did not hurt Garrick as much as it would a normal person. The quantum magician instructed his nerve endings to hush their messages to the brain, which took a little of the white-hot pain from his injury. He was perfectly aware of the damage done to his limb. His internals were clearer to him than the calcium tungstate photographs those Frost brothers had used to see inside mice. He was suffering from a compound fracture of the tibia inflicted by his own boy. He tried to heal himself, but the process was infuriatingly slow, and he could feel it draining his energies.

  Garrick felt the injustice like rising nausea.

  “Riley!” he called. “Riley.”

  Riley ducked low behind the sofa as if the word could harm him.

  “We need to be leaving,” he whispered to Chevie. “You’re the expert in these matters, being some form of agent. Lead on, I says.”

  Chevie did not feel like much of an expert.

  I am only seventeen, she wanted to say. I shouldn’t even be here. I am not even a legitimate FBI agent, and my program was canceled. But she didn’t voice these thoughts. Agent Chevron Savano considered herself a teenage professional, and Riley was depending on her.

  She wiggled past him, making sure to keep her head down.

  “We need to help Victoria.”

  “Draw Garrick away and that will save her life—he don’t care a fig for her. It’s us and that Timekey he wants. Garrick will follow his target every time.”

  Riley was right.

  “Okay. We go out the back way.”

  There had to be a yard, or a doorway. If she could make it to a phone, then Garrick was dead and buried, no matter how many faces he had.

  Then I am going to home to California, where the sun shines and there are no death-dealing magicians from the past.

  Garrick took a few more shots, but he was firing blind, just trying to corral them to the kitchen.

  Chevie squatted on her hunkers, pulling Riley’s face close to hers.

  “Here’s the plan. We run to those back stairs and see where they go.”

  “Is that a plan?” asked Riley. “Strikes me more as a notion, or a smidge of an idea. Plans have stages and steps. Jinky twists and the likes.”

  “Zip it, chatterbox. You ready for the plan?”

  Riley nodded.

  “Right. After three. Run like the devil himself is on your tail.”

  Which in a way he was.

  Chevie counted to three, then hurled a handy vase toward the wall, where she thought it would smash and distract Garrick.

  She thought wrong.

  Garrick shot the vase out of the air as it twirled, being a practiced marksman from his years in Her Majesty’s army.

  Perhaps this is not a brilliant plan, thought Chevie, but it was too late, as Riley had already bolted for the stairs. Luckily the boy kept himself low and out of Garrick’s sight line.

  He won’t have a restricted sight line for long, she realized. Once he gets that leg free, we’re as good as dead.

  Chevie raced after Riley, feeling the gunfire impact the wall over her head before she heard it. They ran pell-mell down the stairs, barely managing to stay upright in their haste. The staircase was narrow and dim, but with familiar-looking thick power lines running along the skirting board.

  No, thought Chevie. No, no, no.

  The steps led down to a small basement. Chevie and Riley tumbled into the room, instinctively searching for an exit. There was none. The only natural light came from barred windows at pavement level. The legs of shadowy pedestrians threw stick shadows on the wall.

  Chevie actually stamped her foot. “No way out! I don’t believe it.”

  Riley patted the walls with his palms, hoping for a secret passage.

  Chevie cast around the room, searching for something, anything, that could be of use to them.

  Riley pointed to a blocky shape under a tarp in the corner. “I would wager that if we remove that waterproof sheet . . .”

  “I know what it is!” shouted Chevie. “I know. But . . .”

  Riley glanced anxiously toward the stairwell. Victorian oaths and grumbling echoed from above.

  “My master is not happy.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “He is coming.”

  Chevie paced a little. “Yeah, I know. Death the magician is coming.”

  “Should I zip it?”

  “Yeah . . . No.” Chevie balled her fists in frustration. “I’m not even a proper agent, kid. I was supposed to keep an ear open in the lunch hall, that’s it. No one ever said anything about time travel.” Chevie slapped her head. “This is insane. I can’t do this.”

  A shot smashed into the bannisters, then there was a guttural roar—no words, simply emotion.

  Riley twisted a splintered banister free, brandishing it like a stake.

  “Chevie. I’ll guard the stairs, perhaps even get a lucky blow in. You must activate the machinery.”

  Chevie knew the boy was right. She dragged the tarp, revealing the WARP pod underneath.

  From upstairs: “Riley! You broke my leg.”

  “That ain’t a happy man,” said Riley, pointing with his makeshift stake.

  He grabbed another corner of the tarp with his free hand, and soon the pod was uncovered. “Make it work, Chevie.”

  Riley decided to get the show on the road himself and began pounding buttons on the computers rigged up to the pod.

  “No, no,” said Chevie, elbowing him out of the way. “You need this.” She took the Timekey from around her neck and slotted it into a computer drive on a console that was smaller than the one in Bedford Square.

  Perhaps it will be too complicated, she half hoped. Maybe I won’t be able to fire it up.

  No such luck: as soon as the Timekey clicked into place, the pod shuddered into life, expelling steam from various vents, setting the power lines humming. Damper barrels vibrated on the floor.

  This one is smaller, realized Chevie. Version 2.0.

  The Timekey activated a tiny screen with yellow graphics that wobbled every few seconds. The screen crackled.

  That sounds like wires burning.

  No. Don’t think about that. It’s just warming up. To confirm this thought, a little cartoon bird appeared on the screen. The bird was without feathers and shivering. A speech bubble popped out of his beak: I’m just warming up.

  Chev
ie gave Riley a thumbs-up. “All systems go. No problems.”

  Slowly the bird sprouted feathers. It seemed as though Charles Smart had had a sense of humor.

  From the top of the stairway there came a meaty slap as something lurched across the entrance.

  “Riley,” cried a rasping voice that seemed full of pain, both emotional and physical. “My son, no longer. My partner, never again.”

  Four shots blasted chunks from the brick walls of the basement. A series of thumps and curses followed. If Garrick was sliding down the stairs, he would soon be able to take a clear shot at them.

  “Get your old battered self down here,” called Riley, attempting bravado. “I have a nice sharp gift waiting for yer organs.”

  Garrick fired another shot in reply and fragments of brick stung Chevie’s cheek.

  This is like Star Wars, thought Chevie. We’re the rebel base and Garrick is the Death Star.

  The bird sprouted more feathers.

  “Chevron? Agent, hurry,” said Riley urgently.

  “Coming.” Chevie fought the urge to slap the alt-tech computer. “Get into the pod.”

  “Inside?”

  “Yes. Get in.”

  Riley did not like the idea of backing himself into an even smaller corner, but the only way out was in.

  Legs flashed by on the pavement outside. More thumps on the stairs. Chevie thought she saw a scrabbling hand out of the corner of her eye.

  “Riley! You cannot escape me.”

  In the pod, Riley sat on the bench, hands clenched on his knees.

  The bird was fully clothed in feathers now, and the speech bubble said: i am all warmed up.

  Then the bird disappeared, and a menu began loading on screen.

  “Yeah, yeah, what are my options?” shouted Chevie, as though that could speed up the ancient computer.

  There were two choices: systems check or activate wormhole.

  She selected activate wormhole and, after a few fizzling seconds of nothing much, the familiar corona of orange light bloomed inside the pod.

  “No!” came a voice from the stairs. “I forbid it!”

  Two shots plowed into the concrete floor, throwing up sharp chips.

  Almost in his sights, thought Chevie, and she realized that she would have to run the gauntlet to reach the pod herself. For two seconds Garrick would have a clear shot.

  The longer I wait, the sooner he shoots me.

  Chevie was prompted to remove her key, and the bird reappeared with a countdown in his speech bubble. Thirty seconds. Chevie had half a minute to get herself into the past.

  Thirty seconds. No time to think.

  “Run!” called Riley from inside the orange glow. “Run!”

  She did, diving the last few feet into the belly of the pod. She noticed immediately how cold it was in there. Freezing. Her breath burst from her in clouds, then crystallized immediately. There was frost on Riley’s hair and brows.

  “When do we go?” he asked. “Why are we still here?”

  Chevie did not answer, just turned to face the pod’s doorway. Through the orange light she could see Garrick dragging himself down the stairs like a corpse that refused to lie down and die.

  “Infernal time machine!” declared Riley, striking the bench. “Let us away!”

  Garrick’s head was cocked and his skeletal face pointed their way. From the depths of sunken sockets, his eyes were locked on them, beaming malevolence into the pod.

  Chevie stood and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Wake up, Victoria! Wake up and run.”

  Garrick raised his weapon to fire but thought better of it, unwilling to risk damaging the WARP pod. Instead he continued his grim crawl.

  The pod began to beep. The complicated series of whoops and whistles was matched by small lights on the fuselage.

  Chevie suddenly remembered something from Orange’s time lecture. The tests were pretty successful, he’d said. There was a small number of aberrations, usually on the return trip, but less than one percent, so acceptable in a scientific sense.

  Oh, my God, she thought. We haven’t been taking bisphosphonates. I don’t even know what those are. We could come out the other end with monkey parts or dinosaur heads.

  But she didn’t say anything to Riley, because her voice had been snatched away by the orange light. She didn’t lay a warning hand on his shoulder either, because her hand was gone, whisked away as though she were made of sand.

  I am sand in the wind, she thought.

  As am I, replied Riley in her mind.

  The last thing to go was their sight, so they completed their dematerialization watching Garrick reach the bottom step and begin his lurching hop across the floor.

  He’s going to make it, thought Chevie. We’re not rid of Albert Garrick yet.

  She would have closed her eyes and bowed her head, but her head was gone, and now so were her eyes.

  The Battering Rams

  HALF MOON STREET. LONDON. 1898

  Riley felt himself go and initially presumed that the going would be similar to his previous journey through the tunnel of time. It was not.

  In fact, this trip was the opposite of his first in almost every way. At the most basic level, he was going back as opposed to traveling forward. Just as a physical journey changed according to a person’s direction, so too did a quantum one. Where he had felt propelled, now he felt somehow suctioned into his own past life.

  Riley had heard of primal recollection occurring when a subject was under hypnotism—indeed, Garrick had mesmerized him on occasion—but Riley could never remember anything that had happened while in the trances, probably because Garrick had bolstered his own mesmeric talents by swabbing the boy’s upper lip with an ether-soaked sponge.

  But now vignettes from his life played out before him, projected on the shifting surface of the wormhole.

  The ginger-haired boy. He is Tom. Ginger Tom, Ma always called him. We are half brothers. I remember now.

  Teenage Tom looked down on little Riley, holding out a hand. Come on, brother. I have a penny for lemonade. We will share a bottle.

  Tom ran down a beach, and Riley felt himself trot after, following footsteps in the sand. The brothers ran toward a pier, and Riley could hear the plinky-plonk music of a barrel organ.

  Brighton. I live here.

  Tom turned his head and called over his shoulder. Ma loves ’er bulls-eyes. Shall we bring her a twist?

  The scene flickered, and now little Riley was a baby in the arms of a lady, gazing up into her kind, soft face. His mother wore a plain blouse and her hair in braids.

  Tom is named for his sadly departed Da, and will be a heartbreaker like him, she said, tickling his chin. But you, my little shillelagh, will carry the name Riley, like your dad. And your Christian name shall be the name of my family, the proudest clan in County Wexford.

  Riley would have cried if he could. She was Irish. I remember now, he thought, and, The name? What is my name?

  But then the picture changed, and Riley saw his father looming large and warm above him. The similarity of his face to Riley’s own was instantly apparent.

  This is a secret, his father was saying. I am only showing this to you because you can’t speak yet and you won’t remember. He opened up his hand, and lying on the palm was a golden shield with letters embossed on its face. And the letters were F, B, I.

  Those letters mean I have to protect people. One person in particular. Funny little Mr. Carter. Look, he’s outside waiting.

  The infant Riley followed his father’s pointing finger to see a man pacing beyond their front door. His legs flashed past, and all Riley could make out were shining black ankle boots and a horseshoe signet ring.

  Riley’s father shook his head. This guy is a pain. A royal pain. He’s trying to weasel out of testifying after all this time. But no matter how much of a jerk he is, I have to thank him, because, without Carter, I wouldn’t have you, or your mother, or your half brother, Tom, for that matter. Without hi
m, and this gadget.

  The gadget Riley’s father referred to was a Timekey slung around his neck on a thick cord.

  With this, I can take you to see my home. We will all go one day. It’s a new world, my dear son.

  Another scene change, and this time Tom was beside him in the bed they shared, whispering. “I’m off for a gentlemen’s engagement on the pier,” he said. “Just between us, eh, Riley boy? No need for Mater and Pater to be informed. On my return there will be barley sugar for you, and perhaps tales of a kiss from pretty Annie Birch.”

  Riley watched his half brother slip through an open window and heard an oof and slap of feet as Tom landed on the street below.

  Moments later the toddler Riley felt a presence in the room and a low-tide stink of rotten fish wafted through the window. A man stood in the shadows, a blade jutting from his fist. It seemed to the child that the man had simply appeared on the spot.

  “Magic,” he said. “Magic man.” The man moved so quickly that the shadow cast by the hall lamp seemed to lag behind.

  It was Garrick, come on business, and he leaned over the small boy, knife hand raised overhead, on the point of ensuring his silence, when Riley spoke again.

  “Magic man.”

  Something strange happened to Garrick’s face: it warred with itself until a smile broke out. Not a happy smile; rather a momentary relaxing of his features.

  “Magic man,” he said, repeating the toddler’s mumbled words. “Once upon a time . . .”

  On hearing this phrase, young Riley burbled happily, certain that a story was forthcoming. And this innocent mumbling saved his life, for Garrick found himself judged a magical storyteller by this little fella and decided not to do away with him until after the main job.

  When Garrick returned barely a minute later with blood on his blade, the boy Riley still expected a bedtime story and met him with a broad grin of baby teeth.

  “Story, magic man,” demanded the three-year-old. “Story.”

  Garrick sighed, shook his head, and blinked at the fanciful notion that had popped unbidden into his mind. Then, with only a moment’s hesitation, he tucked the boy inside his greatcoat and left through the same window he had come in by.