Twig

by wildbow

  I kept to the grass as I approached, moving quick and low to the ground.

  “Get the little fuckers!” the one on the ground said. “Devil’s gonna be happy we finally found some.”

  He was leaning forward, resting one foot on one of the arms of the wagon that would be strapped to the horse’s side. His focus was on what was happening above.

  It would be so handy if the girls I’d situated on the roof were looking over and I could signal them. Jamie’s idea for the timed distractions had been invaluable, turning heads and drawing attention at just the right times, allowing me to dart across a street I’d normally be spotted on, or giving me the freedom to strike.

  I looked for Pierre and didn’t see him. He’d studiously avoided the places where the killing was happening.

  As it was, I had to do this myself.

  The one that was climbing onto the shed was trying to manage the climb while holding a pitchfork. I had only a few moments. After that, I faced the chance that he would simply get onto the roof and take the girls hostage.

  I approached the man at the lower part of the wagon without making a sound. Hamstringing would do.

  At just the last second, I saw the bulge at the side of his overalls. Gun, a concealed one.

  I grabbed his arm with one hand, and sliced through his armpit with the knife as he wheeled to face me. As he turned, he took his weight off of the arm of the wagon. His buddy, still trying to make the climb onto the shed’s roof from the end of the wagon, was dropped to the ground, pitchfork coming down on top of him. Unfortunately, it didn’t come down pointy end first.

  The one I’d sliced tried and failed to reach for the gun at his side, but his arm was injured. He looked for a moment like he would go for the awkward fumble using the wrong hand, but caught me off guard when he instead decided to throw a punch, smacking me right in the mouth.

  This was bad. Any confrontation I couldn’t resolve in the opening move was a lost fight, as far as I was concerned.

  I staggered back a fair distance, one hand going to my mouth. The one who’d punched me drew a blade from a sheath he’d attached to his overalls, between the shoulderblades. A machete.

  While he drew the machete, I drew my gun. I aimed and fired it, putting a bullet through one corner of his eye socket and into his skull cavity. I winced at the noise of it.

  Pitchfork scrambled to his feet, but with the wagon to one side of him, the shed to the other, he didn’t have much of anywhere to go. I fired once, putting a bullet through his gut, then, on judging his reaction, put another one through his gut for good measure.

  Round bullets, low velocity gun. The shot would make a ruin of his midsection. He would die, and it wouldn’t be fast.

  “You’re safe now,” I spoke, loud enough that the girls on the roof could hear.

  The man I’d shot groaned.

  The girls were fourteen or so. It hadn’t been long ago that Lillian had resembled them. The Lillian of almost two years ago had worn a similar expression. Haunted and tear streaked.

  Her specter appeared next to me. I could smell her. I could feel her warmth and that tightness in my chest I felt when she clung to me in that way she did.

  I’d mentally classified the two fourteen year old girls as being grittier than they were, being older than they’d seemed to be. They were trying to put on a brave face, but I could see the tracks of tears from when they’d believed the man with the pitchfork was going to get them, and I could see the lingering fear.

  I looked at Lillian, and I saw her plea.

  I put another bullet in the man who’d been climbing onto the shed, turning the slow death into a fast one. I heard a yelp from the roof.

  I put the gun away and looked up.

  “I made noise,” one of the girls on the roof said. “They heard.”

  “It’s fine. You signaled, right? For help?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you did everything perfect,” I lied. “Noise can’t be avoided, sometimes. You’re okay? Unhurt?”

  Nods.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just stay hidden for now. No need to worry about signals. The sound of the gunshots might bring more attention, so keep your heads down for now.”

  It would hurt, not having the girls as part of the network, but they were in a bad state, and it would only be downhill from here.

  I saw one nod. A moment later, they retreated.

  I approached the bodies, already looking to see what I could take off of them, when I sensed someone approach. I turned, gun in hand.

  Jamie.

  I lowered the gun.

  He shot a glance up toward the roof. He’d been close enough to maybe see or hear the tail end of that interaction. That, or he’d drawn conclusions from the scene.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said.

  “Won’t,” he said, quiet. “Your ‘system’ has its kinks, but it’s working so far. There’s something to be said for that.”

  I nodded.

  He moved closer, and looked down at the guy who’d punched me. “Lieutenant.”

  “Is he? Bastard had a gun and a machete.”

  “He also hit you, looks like,” Jamie said. He reached out to touch my face, and I pulled away, annoyed.

  “Does it look bad?” I asked.

  “Not too bad. You’ll be bruised in the morning unless we get you some medicine. I think there are some syringes in the luggage back at the orphanage. Will work, unless we wait too long.”

  “We might. We’re playing the long game here.”

  Jamie nodded.

  “Other group said they’re fine,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “We’re cutting down their numbers, but this won’t decide anything,” Jamie said. “We have to make a move on the train station sooner or later.”

  “I sent Pierre out to take a look,” I said. I finished searching the bodies, pocketing another gun, and then straightened. I fixed my clothing a bit, and gingerly touched my lip. “They’re agitated. They might have heard some of the screams, and they’ll definitely have heard the gunshots just now. People they were expecting to come relieve them haven’t. So they’re doing tentative patrols around the train station. I told Pierre to look at houses near the train station that had a vantage point to see anyone coming and going, and he thinks there were some suspicious people.”

  “Keeping watch?”

  “A direct approach doesn’t work. The people on either side of the street who are watching from nearby buildings come out and fold in behind us. Targeting the people in the buildings gets messy—”

  “—because while we handle that discreet job, patrols move to the train station, or to the same building you’re trying to clear.”

  I nodded. “And they get reinforcements, fresh eyes, information, and reassurance.”

  “Can’t have that.”

  I shook my head. “No siree. Which means we wait it out. Apply the pressure until something breaks.”

  “Or the Devil makes his move.”

  “He will,” I said. “Unless he’s a completely separate entity from Mr. Colby, then he’s got some logistician in him.”

  “He’ll know those people he’s moving from here to there aren’t getting to their destination.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Pierre stepped out of the shadows, shaking his head. Quietly, he said, “You’re a strange pair.”

  I diplomatically chose not to say the obvious to the rabbit-headed man with the bulging eyes.

  “Something going on?” I asked him.

  “What you were talking about. The Devil is making his move. The lookouts were trying to signal, but the group closest to him didn’t want to stick their heads up. The chain of communication was broken.”

  “He’s here?” I asked.

  “He’s here,” Pierre said. “The signals. they came in so fast and with so many different numbers I couldn’t keep track.”

  “A lot of people?” Jamie asked.

 
“A lot of people,” Pierre said. “Nine or ten, from the furthest group away. Then a number I can’t remember, but more than five, and then seven, then ten, then—”

  “An army,” I said.

  “Too many to be the Devil alone,” Jamie said.

  “The Apostle. They’ve figured out we’re here, probably figured it a little while ago, if they’ve brokered this deal to join forces,” I said. I leaned against the wall, thinking. “Forces fanned out, then?”

  “Which group didn’t report in?” Jamie asked.

  “Third group out.”

  “And the Devil was near there?”

  “Something like that, from what I could get from them,” Pierre said.

  Jamie nodded, processing that.

  “They know what we want and they’re hellbent on keeping it from us. They’re going to get to the train station,” I said. “If they don’t find us on the way, they’ll reinforce the group that’s already there.”

  “Most likely,” Jamie said. “Unless you’ve got a weapon of war.”

  I shook my head.

  “The strategy could still hold,” Jamie said. “Siege them.”

  “You default to being too cautious,” I said, still thinking. I had a good mental picture of where the groups were, now. It was a vague picture, but I’d quickly picked up my own system. When I saw that ‘three’ pop up to suggest the message had come from three groups away, I had an almost instinctive sense of where the people in question were.

  Now I was doing that with the Devil, and I was having to admit to myself that it wasn’t worth the risk to keep the system in place. Not during this stage of things.

  “Pierre.”

  “Mm hmm?”

  “Remind me to give you that raise.”

  “Will do.”

  “And, without putting yourself in danger, do your best to get to the children. Communicate to them. No more signals. Just hide.”

  “I can do that.”

  Somewhere, a third of the way across the country, the Lambs had already boarded a train, and were on their way here. They were discussing Jamie and I, formulating a strategy, talking about the situation in West Corinth and what they might expect. I imagined some nostalgia, some heightened emotion.

  I thought about that heightened emotion getting cut short in a few instants of violence, the Lambs outnumbered and cornered from the get-go.

  “Sylvester,” Jamie said, cutting in.

  I raised my eyes from the point in the ground I’d been staring at. I looked up at Pierre.

  “Thank you, Pierre. That’ll be all for right now.” I said, gesturing much as I’d seen Noreen do. He ran to see to his task.

  The gesture reminded me… “Noreen’s close?”

  “Close enough,” Jamie said. “Why?”

  “We’re going to have to get creative,” I said. “And I got the impression she wanted to get her hands dirty at some point tonight.”

  Previous Next

  Dyed in the Wool—12.9

  “Horse and cart, or horse and wagon, or horse and carriage, to start with,” I told Jamie. I paused. “Preferably a stitched horse. Where?”

  “I saw one stationed outside a house a few blocks away.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Thinking about getting out and away?”

  “Not in the slightest,” I said. “Just the opposite.”

  As Jamie turned to me to check my expression, I flashed him a grin.

  “That worries me,” he said. “Invasion?”

  “Attack,” I said. “Some invasion involved. In a sense. A keg of something flammable would be great, but I won’t hold out hope.”

  “Haven’t seen anything nearby,” Jamie said.

  “Too bad. Explosives?”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “Alright,” I said.

  We approached the spot where I’d positioned Noreen. I beckoned for her to come down from her roost.

  “Assuming you’re handling that, where do you need me?”

  “Thinking about that. Feeling up to shooting, with your shoulder being wonky?”

  “It’s not too bad.”

  “Assist me, then. We’ll maximize the damage we do, working together. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible to keep them from getting to the train station. Once they’re there, they’ll want to fortify that position. I want to make that as painful as possible. So… horse and carriage to start. Then we see what we can do in cleanup, and then see what we need to do from there.”

  Jamie nodded.

  Noreen had made her way down to the ground. She looked between Jamie and I.

  “You know each other,” she said.

  “We’re attacking,” I said. “Want to help?”

  “You know each other,” she said, again.

  I sighed.

  “We do,” Jamie said.

  “Is there something going on that I need to know?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, annoyed. “And we’re short on time. Want to help?”

  “You’re keeping secrets from the people who are working for you,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m getting into.”

  “You can leave if you aren’t confident,” I said. “I’m asking you if you want to help as a matter of courtesy.”

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said. “You burned my home down. I’m not leaving, but I’m not going to help unless you answer my question.”

  I kept utterly still, my face like stone, while I very seriously considered the fact that I had several guns and Maurice was likely the only person who would really miss her.

  Not that I could, or would. Not really.

  “Is he the person who burned down my home?” she asked.

  “I’m not,” Jamie said. “I’m a fellow fugitive, a member of Sylvester’s old team. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’m dead. I joined tonight because I could blend into the crowd.”

  She looked suspiciously between Jamie and I, before giving Jamie a small nod.

  “You being alive is the worst kept secret,” I commented.

  “You told her who you were,” Jamie said.

  “I’m alive, though. You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “The secret is bound to get out. When it does, we can tell them I’m useless for caterpillar. The only place where it matters is when our… guests arrive.”

  “They know about these guests? That’s why they’re taking the train station?” Noreen asked.

  “Tell her more, why don’t you?” I told Jamie.

  “Old friends of ours,” Jamie said. “Ex-teammates. The Devil knew about them. their existence might be why he targeted you and your home, if he thought you were harboring them, or that you were them. But they’re not in the city. They’re coming, soon, he knows this now, and they’re serving as unwitting bait in the confrontation against the Devil. It’s why everything is happening here.”

  He’d done a nice job of reinforcing my lies. I added another layer of deception by beating her to the punch in responding to Jamie. “When I said you should tell her more, I was being sarcastic.”

  “We should keep her in the loop,” he said.

  “It’s your fault,” Noreen interjected, very simply. “We’re fighting to protect people we don’t know.”

  “It was a war that was bound to happen,” Jamie said. “Do the math. If we didn’t challenge him, how many children would suffer each year? How much damage would be done? Would your headquarters really have been left alone, or would someone have tried to take it?”

  Noreen frowned, but she didn’t disagree.

  “Can we go?” Jamie asked. “This next part is pretty key, when it comes to timing.”

  “Which direction?” Noreen asked.

  Jamie indicated a direction. We walked briskly as a trio.

  High overhead, clouds and smoke churned in the sky, blown by wind that seemed to be coursing forth at high altitudes but not really touching us much on the ground. The city itself felt stale, hot,
and had the worst elements of being smoky and being humid. It was a good balance of light and dark, however, making it clear enough to see things that were out in the open while providing shadows to lurk within.

  The smoke was the worst part. Just enough to make my eyes sting, and to clog my sense of smell. My sweat felt dirtier than normal sweat, as if rubbing at my brow might leave faint gray streaks.

  “Noreen,” Jamie said. “They experimented on you.”

  Noreen turned her head.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m not prying. I’m wondering.”

  “They experimented on me,” Noreen said. “The Witch arranged it.”

  I gave Jamie an annoyed look. Was he actually getting answers out of her? Why? How? I understood people, I could pick relationships and psychology apart, and I wasn’t even seeing any special tool that Jamie had drawn on.

  “What was the experiment?” Jamie asked.

  “Drugs. Something to affect my mind.”

  I raised my eyebrow at that, but Jamie, behind Noreen’s back, gestured for silence. I kept my mouth shut, looking away, remaining detached from the conversation.

  Build familiarity, I thought. Shared experience. Tell her about Wyvern, how close it is to what she had.

  “Did it work?” Jamie asked.

  “Yes. Everything became sharper, brighter, and clearer. Sights, sounds, feelings. The world seemed alive. They read me words, and the words had colors and a taste to them. I did tests before and after, they liked the results, I think. They kept promising to let me go ‘soon’, and soon never came. But when they gave me the pills, I lost something.”

  “You gained something, and you lost something?”

  “Yes. But when the pills wore off, the things I gained went away, and the things I lost didn’t come back,” Noreen said. “They gave me more. The drugs got less effective, and I kept losing things. When I wouldn’t swallow any more, they used a machine and a tube to give me more. I tried to stop eating, and the tube stayed in my throat, so they could make me take food and water with the pills.”

  They hollowed her out, I thought.