The Reluctant Assassin

by Eoin Colfer

  Percival mounted the stage bridge and crept across the orchestra pit, enjoying the weight of the ax in his hand, relishing the thunk it would make chopping a wedge out of the mark’s skull.

  Four more steps, then it’s mutton stew for me and the lads. Three more steps.

  Percival sprang onto the stage proper, and he knew that at this distance there was not a man or animal on earth who could escape the deadly arc of his swing.

  I could fell a bear from this distance, he thought.

  He raised the ax high and brought the blade down with terrific force. It struck nothing but chair, slicing through the padding and biting deep into the wooden backrest.

  Percival’s brain could not understand how certainty had become uncertain.

  “Magic,” said a voice. “All is not as it seems.”

  Percival yanked the ax free and whirled toward the source of these mysterious words. There in the corner stood the mark himself, Garrick, wrapped in his conjurer’s cape.

  “Do you approve of my cloak? It’s a little theatrical, but this is a performance, after all.”

  He don’t know about the others, thought Percival. Else he would not be blathering on.

  Percival whistled two notes, high and low. The signal for Turk to advance from the folds of velvet curtain that concealed him.

  Turk made even less noise than Percival, as he wore silken slippers, which he called his murder shoes. He came up on Garrick from the rear and reached out for a shoulder, to steady the magician for the scimitar’s blade, but his questing fingers skinned themselves on glass instead of flesh and bone.

  A mirror, thought Turk. I have been misled.

  Terror sank into his gut like a lead anchor—he had the wit to know that he was done for.

  The mirror image of Garrick reached out through the mirror and plucked Turk’s own sword from his hand.

  “You will not have need of this,” said Garrick’s image, and he plunged it directly into Turk’s heart.

  Turk died believing a phantasm had killed him. His final wish was that he could return as a spirit to this place in order to decipher the events leading up to his death, but unfortunately that’s not the way the afterlife works, especially for blackhearted killers.

  Percival would have attacked then, but he was uncertain of his enemy’s position. He heard an ominous creaking behind him and turned to see a large set piece being lowered from the flies. The piece was circular and constructed of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. On the front were circles painted within circles.

  “Stone me,” breathed Percival. “A target.”

  “Stone you?” came a voice from the blackness of the stalls. “I fear you are missing the point, but not for long.”

  Percival backed up until his shoulder blades bumped the target and his head sat squarely in the bull’s-eye. Before he could twig the implications, a veritable hail of blades hissed from the darkness.

  I am done, thought Percival, and closed his eyes.

  But done he was not; instead the various knives, forks, swords, and bayonets pinned him tightly to the target, drawing no more than a pint of blood from minor wounds.

  Was this by accident or design? Percival knew not, but he took advantage of his still-pumping lungs to call to his final confederate.

  “Damn the blades, Pound. Plug this cove.”

  Pound rushed from his place of concealment and waved the barrel of his pistol around, searching for the mark. “Where are you, Garrick? Show yourself!”

  By some device, Garrick appeared where he had not been a second before, his face pale in the stage lights, dark hair rippling over his shoulders.

  “I am insulted by this attack on my home. Insulted, I say.”

  “Quite yer jittering and stand still,” ordered Pound.

  “That you may shoot me dead? An odd request. However, as you wish. Pull your blasted trigger, but take care—if you miss, I shall not.”

  The cards were apparently all in Pound’s hands, but with his boss pegged to a target, he was nervous.

  “Shoot him, man!” Percival urged. “A monkey could make the shot.”

  Garrick spread his arms wide. “Make your shot, Scotsman. Unto dust.”

  Pound blinked the sweat from his eyes, wondering how this job had turned into such a dog’s dinner.

  “On yer knees, Garrick.”

  “Oh, no, I kneel for no man.”

  Percival strained against the knives that secured him. “Shoot him, Pound! Pull the trigger.”

  “You are weak,” said Garrick mockingly. “A coward!”

  Pound fired his pistol and a flute of blue smoke billowed from the barrel. The noise was deafening, and for a moment Garrick’s upper torso was wreathed in a flickering cloud.

  When the smoke cleared, Garrick was revealed, hale and hardy, with no changes to his appearance but for the blood on his teeth and the bullet between them.

  “Oh, my God,” breathed Pound. “He caught the bullet. This is no mortal man.”

  “Shoot again, you fool!” cried Percival. “You hold a revolver in yer hand.”

  Garrick spoke between his teeth. “One chance only. Now, you must stand still for my bullet.”

  Pound was so confused that his feet were like anchors and tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks. “But you are without a pistol.”

  Garrick rubbed his fingers before his mouth as though warming them, then spat out the bullet with such force that it penetrated Pound’s forehead and dropped him where he stood.

  Percival realized then how deep in the mire he stood.

  “Please, mister. We have cash in our pokes. Take it and let me go. I will be on the next boat to America.”

  Garrick’s eyes held no hint of mercy. “I need the name of the man who pulls your strings.”

  Percival ground his teeth. “I cannot. I swore an oath.”

  “Aha, an oath,” said Garrick, meandering toward the massive target. “That in itself is a telltale sign.”

  “I’ll say no more,” said Percival, stubbornly. “Do your worst, you devil.”

  “That, sir, is quite an invitation,” said Garrick, removing one by one the knives sticking Percival to the target. “You may have surmised that I was once an illusionist of some fame. Some called me the Great Lombardi, but notoriety bestowed upon me another name.”

  Garrick paused and Percival could not take it. “What name? In God’s name, stop toying with me.”

  Garrick whipped a covering sheet from a coffin-shaped box stage left. “I was known as the Red Glove.”

  Percival’s eyes rolled back and he fainted where he stood, held aloft only by a cleaver and a stiletto.

  “You’ve heard the legend, I see,” said Garrick, plucking out the remaining blades.

  Percival woke in the box, strapped down tight, bare feet poking from the end. Garrick leaned over him, dressed now in full evening wear, with silken hat and dinner gloves, one white, one red.

  “This is my most famous illusion,” he said. “A somewhat irksome truth, as it is the only illusion that ever went fatally awry.”

  “Awry?” said Percival, his head fuzzy. “Does that mean wrong, sir?”

  “Oh, it does. And do you know what fatally means?”

  Percival searched his vocabulary, which consisted of little more than two hundred words, most of them food related. “Dead, sir—is it that someone was killed?”

  “You are more educated than you look, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Percival, guv’nor.”

  “Percival. A good strong Welsh name.”

  “Welsh, yes. Perhaps you have Welsh kin and will spare me?”

  Garrick ignored the question, drawing from behind his back with quite a flourish a large, wooden-handled, square blade.

  “This is the key to the illusion, Percival: the blade. The audience assumes it is a fakement, but I assure you it is of the finest steel and will cut through flesh and bone with barely a stutter.”

  And, with great panache and dexterity, Garrick tossed
the blade into the air, caught it, then rammed the tempered steel square into the leg slot, appearing to sever Percival’s feet from his legs.

  “Mercy!” screamed Percival. “Kill me and be done. This is torture, sir. Pure torture.”

  Garrick clicked his fingers and from somewhere overhead came the sound of an orchestra.

  “You must indulge me, Monsieur Percival. I so rarely have need of the old togs.”

  Percival’s face seemed to swell with fear. “I ain’t no blower. The judges could never make old Percival blab, and neither will you.”

  “Why so hysterical, Percival?” asked Garrick innocently. “I have done you no harm. Look.”

  Percival saw that there was a large gilt-edged mirror suspended above the proscenium arch. He commanded his toes to wiggle and was mightily relieved to see them do it in the looking glass.

  “But the light is so bad in here, Mr. Percival. I should afford you a closer spy.”

  And with that Garrick separated the lower box from the main body, and Percival screamed as his feet rolled away from him, toes wiggling furiously.

  “My little piggies,” he howled. “Oh, come back, piggies.”

  “Who sent you?” demanded Garrick, brandishing a second blade.

  “No. Never.”

  “I admire your stoicism, Mr. Percival, really I do, but this is a battle of wills, so you leave me little choice . . .” Garrick steadied himself against the saw-box, then drove the second blade into its slot.

  Percival gibbered, tears flowing from eyes to ears, and he unconsciously began to sing the ditty of freemasonry loyalty that he had warbled in many a public house with his tattooed brethren.

  We stabs ’em,

  We fights ’em,

  Cripples ’em,

  Bites ’em.

  Garrick was not surprised. “Ah, Mr. Malarkey, would you insert yourself in my affairs? Thank you, faithful Sir Percival. You have done all I asked of you. So I will inflict no further harm upon your person.”

  Percival was beyond rational thinking now, and continued to sing.

  No rules for our mayhem.

  You pay us, we slay ’em.

  If you’re in a corner,

  With welshers or scams.

  Garrick sang along for the last two lines, inserting a clever harmony.

  Pay us a visit,

  The Battering Rams.

  Garrick applauded, his red glove flashing in the lights. “You have a fine tenor, Percival. Not professional standard, but pleasing. Won’t you delight me with an encore?”

  Percival obliged, his voice becoming more tremulous with each note, dissolving entirely into a terrified, burbling scream as Garrick took hold of the head box and sent it twirling across the stage.

  Percival’s last sight was his own receding torso and the wiggling tips of his fingers, straining to be loose from their bonds.

  Garrick could have told him that it was all done with mirrors and prosthetics, but a good magician never reveals his secrets.

  He danced a quickstep jauntily across the orchestra pit bridge.

  “‘Pay us a visit,’” he sang, deciding to sing high for the last phrase, “‘The Battering Raaaaaaams.’”

  And he thought, I intend to do just that.

  The magician stamped on a powder bomb hidden beneath a patch of carpet in the center aisle and disappeared in a magnesium flash and a ball of smoke.

  Golgoth Golgoth

  THE BATTERING RAMS' HIDEY-HOLE. ROGUES' WALK. LONDON. 1898

  It had occurred to special agent Chevron Savano that she might be the victim of some massive sting operation. There were files from World War II that told stories of prisoners in war hospitals who had been convinced that the war was over by English-speaking enemies and allowed themselves to be debriefed, but they were high-ranking prisoners and the operations were hugely expensive. She was barely more than a FBI wannabe with a tin badge. No one was going to go to such fantastic lengths for the piddly secrets in her brain.

  Any lingering doubts that she might not actually be in nineteenth-century London disappeared the moment Chevie emerged from the dungeon into Otto Malarkey’s den of thieves, cutthroats, and wastrels.

  Riley grabbed her elbow.

  “Agent . . . Chevie, let me be the mouthpiece in the Rams’ Hidey-Hole. I know these people.”

  “Relax, kid, I can talk for myself.”

  Riley’s expression was pained. “I know. Your impetuous nature seems to land you in hot water no matter what the era.”

  “It’s psychology, Riley,” said Chevie defensively, though she knew it was only half true. “You wouldn’t understand it.”

  The Battering Rams’ Hidey-Hole did not seem much like a hole, nor did it seem like they were hiding from anyone. The storeroom’s rickety stairs opened into the entire ground floor of a wide house with no dividing walls to hold up the ceiling, which sagged alarmingly and would have collapsed entirely but for the brick chimney breast. The grand room was crammed with so many lifelong thieves that such a concentration of criminality would have been difficult to achieve elsewhere outside of a prison compound.

  Animals roamed freely through the hall, including chickens, hounds, and actual rams, tangling their impressive horns to the encouragement of the two-legged Rams.

  There were several makeshift stages constructed from barrels and planks where burlesque ladies sang drinking songs or street conjurers ran thimble games. At least four parrots hid in the crystal chandeliers, swearing in as many languages. “Wow,” said Chevie, feeling the room revolve kaleidoscopically around her. “This is unreal.”

  “Say nothing,” Riley hissed. “I may still be able to slip us out of here.”

  He dodged between a monkey and its handler to catch Malarkey. “Mr. Malarkey, Your Majesty. I have some conjuring skills. Doves, rabbits, that kind of thing. Think of a card, any card.”

  Malarkey strode into the center of the room. “No. We agreed on a bout, lad. Save yer politicking. Wasn’t it you who suggested I bet on the battling lady?”

  This was a good point.

  “Yes,” admitted Riley. “But that was . . .”

  Malarkey stepped over an unconscious sailor clutching a roasted leg of pork. “That was when you was belowdecks in the killin’ basement, with blood on the floor and waste seeping through the walls, and you thought you would spout off whatever it took to see the light of day, but now you see said light of day and are thinking to yerself, Maybe I can stall poor old simple Malarkey and finagle a way out of here for me and the pretty lass.” Riley had a shot at arguing. “No. I have genuine top-notch skills. Watch.” He snatched a vicious dagger from the belt of a nearby sailor and jammed it between the ribs of a man who, for some reason, wore a striped swimming costume. The blade stuck but did no apparent harm.

  “See?”

  “Not a bad effort,” said Malarkey. “But I have my mind set on a fight.” A thought struck him and he stopped abruptly, turning to Chevie. “Do you know the Marquess of Queensbury Rules?”

  Chevie was stretching out her shoulders. “Nope. Can’t say that I do.”

  Malarkey tapped her on the head with his riding crop.

  “Capital. Neither do we. No holds barred is all the legal we have here.”

  With a single bound, Malarkey mounted a central platform where there was a squat wooden and velvet throne, resplendent with a mightily horned, shaggy ram’s fleece. He aimed a kick at a monkey who sat in the king’s spot, then twirled on his heel, falling neatly into the throne. Malarkey smiled for a moment with paternal indulgence at the various forms of criminal mayhem unfurling all around, then snagged a brass speaking trumpet from its leather holster on the arm of his throne. “Listen, Rams,” he called, his voice projected yet tinny.

  “Who among you fine sporting gents fancies a wager with your king?”

  The word spread like the plague through the assembled rabble, and soon they were clamoring for sport at the feet of their king.

  “Very well, Rams,” sai
d Malarkey, rising to his feet. “I have a belter for you this evening, to delay you indoors awhile when you should be outside performing your customary honest labors.” A raucous laugh rose to the very roof at the partnering of the words honest and labors.

  “I, your chosen monarch, in sight of the sacred fleece, offer you a wager. And I am telling you coves right from the off that you won’t be taking a ha’penny of my hard-earned. So, who’s got the bottle?”

  Many hands went up, and some even tossed coins to the foot of the dais.

  “Not so fast, my eager bucks. Let me fill you in on the details, lest there be accusations of cheatin’ flying around laterwise.” Malarkey leaned over, plucking Riley and Chevie from the crowd. “So, my people, what we have here are two possible recruits. A fine little grifter with fast ’ands, and his Injun princess. I’ve instructed ’em only one fights, and that one fights for two.”

  “I’ll take him,” said the knifed swimmer.

  Malarkey waved him away. “No, you ain’t heard the best bit. The one that’s stepping up is the young lady.”

  This announcement was met with pandemonium. “We can’t have a lady on the canvas,” objected the challenger, backing into the throng.

  Malarkey stamped a foot. “You have beheld my champion, Rams. Now, show me yours!”

  There was no immediate response to this challenge. It was not a matter of cowardice; it was the left-footed awkwardness of tussling with a female in public.

  But not all were awkward: one man soon skipped to the front of the line.

  “I will crack her skull for her.”

  The contender was a bald six-footer with bandy legs from carrying his beer gut.