He was looking at her as he spoke; Scarlett knew it, even though she couldn’t see his eyes. And he was talking about Albert—poor strange, hapless Albert. Wicked and ungodly…. Yeah, this was the way the Mentors always talked about deviation, how they justified the cruelty, the weeding out of undesirables from the towns. The babies quietly removed, the children led into the forests…The cold fury she habitually felt when thinking about the Faith Houses crystallized deep in her stomach, hardening her sense of purpose and her will to survive. She gauged the position of her gun in the black grass. Her chance was coming. Her muscles ached from being tensed and ready for so long.
“Truth is, chums,” Mr. Shilling went on, “she’s harboring a dangerous individual here in Lechlade. Not your common deviant, either. A boy who may bring destruction to you all.”
Scarlett gave a start. “What? Albert? Are you sure?”
“My employer and I have traveled a long way to hunt him down,” the man said. “The killings have already started in Lechlade. Which is why I’m happy to let you two gentlemen walk away. No questions, no trouble. It’s not too late for you. But you need to go now.”
Killings? Scarlett’s mind was awhirl. For a moment, she lost focus. Furiously, she mastered her thoughts, swallowed her confusion down. No! No time for that! Relax. Watch the men’s hands and stay alive. It would be only a matter of seconds.
At her side, Lee was a hulking statue in the dark. He made no response to Shilling’s offer. But a hiss of indignation had issued from Pope’s lips. “I like your cheek, mister,” he said. “We’re not walking anywhere. No, what happens here is: we shoot you dead and lay you out alongside this girl. Simple as that.” His chin jutted; the words faded in the air.
“That’s a strong statement,” Shilling said softly.
Pope smiled at him. Shilling smiled back. Lee didn’t smile at anyone, but a grimace flashed across his face, as if in premonition of pain.
“Well, then,” Shilling said.
Pope’s gun moved.
As if from nowhere a pistol appeared in Shilling’s hand. He fired at Pope, twisted sideways, avoiding the bullet from Lee’s swiveling weapon. Pope gave a ragged cry.
Scarlett was already jumping, rolling across the grass, aiming for the spot where her own gun lay; she passed through Pope’s shadow as he toppled backward.
Lee had dropped to one knee. Arms outstretched, gun in both hands, he fired three times—once at Scarlett, twice at Shilling.
A bullet sang between Scarlett’s boots; she came out of her roll, started to run.
Pope hit the ground, his limbs undulating like rubber, his hat spinning clear.
Shilling was leaping too, aloft and horizontal, his coat billowing in midair. One of Lee’s bullets passed through his coat; the other missed. Shilling landed, rolled, shot Lee from under the crook of his arm.
Scarlett scooped up her revolver, lying hard and cold on the midnight earth. She kept running, ducked behind the nearest tree.
Pope’s hat stopped spinning and lay still.
Scarlett peeped back round the trunk of the tree. Lanterns shone softly in the trees of the park. Pope was dead. Lee was hit in the chest. He had blood in his mouth. He was attempting to rise, trying with a series of small, tortuous movements to reach the gun that had fallen from his hand. It was inches away. He couldn’t reach it.
Mr. Shilling was on his feet, bending for his hat and the little round glasses that had dropped to the ground. Scarlett raised her revolver. Without looking, Shilling fired two warning shots in her direction, causing her to jerk back out of sight. She returned fire round the trunk of the tree, knowing instinctively that he would already have changed position.
Which she needed to do as well. The park gates were close, the high street waiting beyond. Before moving, she stole a final glance. As predicted, Shilling was unhurt. He had stepped over Pope’s body and was walking over to Lee, his gun ready in his hand.
Scarlett put her head down, sprinted across the grass to the entrance of the park. She skidded to a crouch behind the brick pillar of the gate, brushed hair out of her eyes.
A gunshot sounded behind her, unanswered in the night. The park fell silent. Crouching at the pillar, Scarlett peered back between the iron railings, staring at the interlinking planes of shadow, the surface subtleties of the dark.
He was coming. Where would he be?
A stocky form broke briefly from concealment in the trees. It was much closer than she had expected. Scarlett fired twice. The shape ducked sideways and was gone.
Scarlett launched herself down the street, the cloth bag bouncing on her back. A mist was rising. Store signs swung above her, advertising hats, newssheets, cakes and confectionary…There was a postbox not far away. As she ducked behind it, a bullet shattered the window of the hardware shop beyond.
Dogs had woken; all along the high street, lamps were coming on. Sitting on her haunches, pressing back against the metal, Scarlett opened her revolver, fed three bullets from her belt loops into the empty chambers. She snapped the gun shut, closed her eyes, put herself in Shilling’s shoes. He would be at the park gate now, watching the postbox, waiting for her to break cover. But the mist made it hard for him—that and his need to take her alive. He’d have to aim low, and running legs were a lousy target. He might easily miss from that distance. So he’d find a closer position—and soon, before anyone else arrived. He would keep away from the lights, stick to the shadows, which meant he would work his way quietly along the opposite side of the road. Not too far, not enough to expose himself…
She gave him a few more seconds, just in case he’d stopped to pick his nose or something. Then she took a deep calm breath. Stepping up and out from behind the postbox, she fired six shots blind at an angle across the street. Four bullets struck stone and concrete; two hit Shilling as he crept in the darkness beside the confectioner’s store, lifting him bodily off his feet and through the plate glass of the window beyond. He collapsed on his back amidst a shower of sweets and bottles, rock candy and rolling gobstoppers. Groaning, he sought to rise. Scarlett stepped toward him—and at that moment a door opened in a house close by. There was a hoarse and angry challenge. Scarlett gave up on Shilling. She tucked her gun back in her belt and sprinted off along the road.
* * *
—
At the river gate, the arch was a deep ring of black cut through the high earth wall. The gate was open. As she ran toward it, Scarlett could glimpse the quay beyond, the threads of mist, the moonlight dancing like beads of fat upon the water. This was the meeting place. There was no sign of Albert at all.
She stopped at last, stood with her lungs burning, hands wedged against her heaving sides. Hair waterfalled down her face. Away back along the high street, she heard shouts, dogs barking, telltale sounds of the town being mobilized. Five minutes, they’d be here.
“Hey there, Scarlett. You were quick!”
A figure stepped from the darkness of the river gate. A spare, slight form, thin as a reed, silhouetted against the water beyond. The arm of an overlarge jumper waggled as he waved.
“Gosh, I never thought you’d get the job done so soon,” Albert said. “But that’s Scarlett McCain—smooth and sure and professional to the last. Why are you so out of breath?”
Scarlett straightened. “Because I didn’t get the job done. I’ve still got the money. I was double-crossed. Two Brothers tried to kill me, now the whole town is up in arms, and if we don’t get out of here now, we’ll be burned in iron tumbrels before the night is out.”
“Oh, so it was an utter balls-up, then?” Albert passed her the bags. “Ah, well. Here’s your cuss-box—sounds like you might be needing that. Shall we go to the boat?”
Scarlett held up a hand. “Wait. Little question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Are you sure we’ve got time?”
“It’s just a quickie.” She stepped closer to him. “Albert.”
“Yes?”
“Have you killed anyone while we’ve been here in Lechlade?”
The shape at once became still. His face was shadowed. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Sure about that? Just, I wonder if it’s the kind of thing you might forget.”
“Yes! I’m sure!” He paused. “Well, no one significant.”
“Go on.”
“There might have been a couple of slavers….”
“I bloody knew it.”
“But they were trying to chain me up, Scarlett, put me in a cage! And it wasn’t really me that did it, anyway. The Fear came, and I maxed out, and when that happens—”
Scarlett gave a whoop of rage. “I bloody knew it. I knew you were hiding something from me. It might interest you to know, Albert, that thanks to you, your friends from Stonemoor are right back on our heels. I’ve just had a shoot-out with one of them all across town, and he’s not the only person here. I’m pretty sure that—”
He wasn’t listening. He was transfixed, looking beyond her up the road, an expression of such unmitigated horror on his face that even Scarlett, who’d seen the Burning Regions, who’d walked by night through the feeding grounds of the Tainted, couldn’t help but catch her breath. She turned to follow his gaze. She didn’t read minds, as Albert did—yet she guessed correctly what she’d see.
A woman was walking through the mists down the center of the road. She came swiftly and silently, black coat flapping behind her, pale face gleaming, pale hair swept behind. She carried no visible weapon, but even at a distance there was a sureness and a vigor about her that made the mind recoil.
“Albert…” A soft voice sounded on the air. “Come to me.”
It is death to go near her. She will laugh in your face as you spin and burn.
For a moment, Scarlett didn’t move.
The mists parted. There behind the woman, limping extravagantly: a stocky man in a bowler hat and long gray coat, gun held ready at his side.
“Albert,” Scarlett said. “You need to come with me.”
There was no response when she grabbed him by the sleeve. He was inert, a spent battery, a broken spring. He was still staring back toward the woman as Scarlett wrenched him into action, pulled him with her toward the arch, sweeping up her bags as she did so.
Under the earth wall, out onto the wharf, where mists curled around bollards and the moored boats floated on the moonlit water. A few dim oil lanterns hung from stanchions along the edge of the quay. A wooden watchtower yawned above them on four stilt legs. Beside it rose the pyramid of petrol drums behind its barbed-wire fence.
Cobblestones became wooden slats as they passed the empty guardhouse. The boardwalk rang hollow beneath their feet, like a round of sparse applause.
Scarlett scanned the jetties ahead, looking for signs of life.
“Old man!” she called. “Old man! Where are you?”
No one answered. Scarlett cursed; she tried again.
“Do you see him, Albert? Where’s his boat?”
She glanced at Albert, drifting beside her with stiff, uncertain steps. She still had him by the arm. Albert Browne, in his sagging jumper, his slacks and big trainers. He looked as helpless, as hopeless, as harmless as ever, his face blank, his black hair flapping.
Slavers, respected citizens…Three people…Hard to know, they’re in so many pieces…
“Old man!”
Maybe a beast got into the town.
From the mists up ahead, a querulous inquiry. “Who calls?”
“Your passengers! In a state of some distress!”
“I thought you were never coming. I was just making cocoa before going to bed.”
“We need to leave! We need to leave now!”
“I’ll need to see the color of your money first. I want my deposit.”
“Yes, in a moment! Just start the bloody engine!”
They reached a turn in the boardwalk. Scarlett sensed the woman and Mr. Shilling coming out through the arch behind them. She halted, thrust Albert on ahead of her. To her frustration, he came to an immediate stop. He was still in shock; all life had drained out of him.
“Snap out of it!” she snarled. “Get to the boat!”
He didn’t respond. She looked back across the water. The woman was walking toward them along the wharf. Shilling had stopped. His face was blank, the glasses panes of nothingness. For a second, he and Scarlett stared at each other. Then he put one hand in the pocket of his long gray coat, drew out a cylinder. Before she could react, he bent his arm and threw.
As the cylinder disappeared against the sky, Scarlett saw everything as a snapshot: Shilling, the woman, the dappled moonlight, the earthen walls of Lechlade; the high stars overtopping everything, bright and clear and cold…
A clink, a chink, a rattle. The nearest sailboat disappeared in a blast of fire.
The explosion knocked Scarlett against the bollard next to her. She fell and struck her head. For a moment she saw nothing; then she blinked light into her eyes.
There was blood running down her face, and Albert standing over her.
“Scarlett!”
“Oh, you’re back with us, are you? I’m all right. Get in the boat.”
“They’ve killed you!”
“No, they haven’t. Where’s the old man? Don’t fuss—we haven’t time.”
But he was no longer looking at her; instead he was glaring through the smoke at Shilling, at the approaching woman, his fists clenched, teeth bared, a vision of puny indignation.
He was in plain sight, a clear shot. He might as well have had a giant flashing arrow pointing to his head. Scarlett clawed at his jumper, sought to get to her feet. “Get down, you fool!” she cried. “He’ll shoot—”
At that point, something happened.
Across the jetty, beside the watchtower, there was a vast concussion—a silver flash in the pile of petrol drums that was at once swallowed by the multiple ignition of the stack. For an instant, a dozen fiery chrysanthemums bloomed; then the far end of the wharf was blown apart. Scarlett went flying along the quay in a blizzard of burning matchwood. Missiles of fire tore through masts, incinerated sails. The watchtower flexed back with the force of the blast, rearing like a horse. Its legs splintered; the platform slumped, toppled to the side. It crashed down against the earth wall by the river gate, where Mr. Shilling and the woman in black had just been standing, engulfing it in a sea of fiery kindling.
Scarlett rolled and bounced against the boardwalk. She landed on her back. Splinters of wood, the size of children’s fingers, fell on top of her like rain.
She got to her feet. Thick, acrid smoke filled the air. She could not see. The sailboats were burning. There was a roaring and a crackling all about her, and strange, high-pitched pops and whistles as dry wood burned with extreme heat.
The end of the wharf was a dome of flames. Silhouetted against it, a stocky figure was pulling itself upright, adjusting a bowler hat upon its head.
Holy Shiva. Where was Albert? Where was the old man?
Part of the wharf buckled. Scarlett almost lost her footing. She felt the whole structure list beneath her. Ducking below missiles of charcoaled wood, propelled from the still-exploding petrol dump, Scarlett ran back along the steepening dock. And there—Albert’s outline, showing black and thin against the inferno! He was below her, standing on some kind of craft and beckoning. A bony shape showed that the old man was at his side.
Scarlett jumped down beside them. As she did so, the quay collapsed altogether, sending out a high black wave. The craft they were on rose and bucked and shot away into the night. It bumped against the open wharf gates, then passed through into the waters of the Thames.
&
nbsp; Scarlett’s legs gave way; she subsided to the unseen deck. Close by, she could hear Albert coughing. Numbed, half senseless, she looked back toward the river walls of Lechlade. The wharves were a tableland of smoke and fire. Ships burned, masts toppled. Flames as tall as fir trees danced and spun against the sky.
The boat drifted on into the dark.
Smoke rolled after them. Soon it had blanketed the stars.
It was the kid with the quiff who loosened the window, the morning he maxed out, blowing up the dayroom and taking with it a nurse, two warders, and himself. Ordinarily when you were maxing, you didn’t get a scratch on you; but it was different for the kid this time because the ceiling fell on him.
Old Michael told Albert it was a lesson to the rest of them to control their anger, but it was evidently a lesson to the authorities at Stonemoor too. After that, anyone got twitchy, anyone so much as sent a milk glass spinning unexpectedly across the refectory table, they got six guards jumping on them and a syringe jammed in their backside with enough sedative to knock out a horse. Those syringe needles were a yard long and blunt as your finger. Lined up in the guards’ belt holsters, they had a cooling effect on the emotions. Just the look of them made you get all English and rein your passions in.
They left the kid’s bed alone for a week, the cell door open, his leather jacket still hanging on his chair—like everything was normal, like the kid had just nipped off to the lavatory block or something and wasn’t buried in a hole out on the back field. Albert knew it was another lesson. He said this to Mo in the next cell, and Mo conceded it was possible, but he was taking his evening pills at the time and afterward he couldn’t remember the conversation. They were giving Mo a lot of pills around then. Two weeks later, he couldn’t remember the kid.
The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne Page 16
