The Connicle Curse (20 page)

M
y back was aching as I shuffled toward the next table, the one our young scout Paul had nodded toward the moment I'd entered this, our third, tavern stop of the evening. The cuff of my pants were dragging on the floor, occasionally sliding under my well-worn shoes, ensuring that I moved at nothing more than the ponderous pace of a beggar. And so I was. Garbed in a set of worn, ill-fitting, dirty clothing forever resigned to the cellar by Mrs. Behmoth but kept for just such occasions, I was limping from table to table with the street's detritus smudged on my face, seeking whatever handouts I could get. Thus far I had already received what added up to seven shillings for my evening's work. Perhaps there was hope for humanity after all.

Colin, who had arrived some fifteen minutes before me, was slouched in a corner by himself, his head hanging low under a drooping hat, a bottle of whiskey nearly empty in front of him. Paul had gotten booted from the pub shortly after my arrival for running a con with a deck of cards in a back booth. That he was also underage seemed irrelevant to the owner. Paul's sin had been distracting the patrons from ordering more liquor. Which was why I was quickly making my way to the table of the man Paul had pointed out. I knew it was only a matter of time before I too was tossed to the street.

“Ya seem like a fine gentleman,” I muttered to the swarthy man, getting my first good look at him. “Could ya spare a bloke a bit a change?”

He glanced up at me with coal-black eyes, his broad face pocked and weathered, though I determined his age to be about the same as mine. He had a scruffy, misshapen beard, and as his lips parted in more of a leer than a smile they exposed yellowed teeth and a few vacant spaces. “Piss off, ya filthy shite.”

“Prussian?” I asked, eager to engage him in any way I could, given that he clearly wasn't about to show me a slip of kindness.

He took a sip of his ale and stared at me over the rim of his tankard, revealing a deep-set malevolence bristling behind his eyes that made me falter slightly. “Makes no matter now, do it? 'Cause I'll sooner cut yer throat as give ya a squat farthin'.” He slipped a large butcher's blade halfway out of a coat pocket and gave a mirthless snicker that came out low and cruel.

I shuffled back a step, anxious to move out of range should he decide to lash out with the knife, but not before catching sight of the coppery residue on the dark silver blade. Given the vibrancy of the color, I could see it had been recently used and that he'd not bothered to wipe it clean. It proved he wanted me, and anyone else he showed it to, to know it. “Sorry,” I mumbled, continuing to back away until there was a table between us. With my heart hammering in my chest I endeavored to commence my charade of entreaty, keeping watch on the man as he returned to his stein, having secreted the blade back into his coat. Men like him were thick down here. They placed little value on life amongst those who responded far more rapidly to fear than kindness. For down here a life well lived meant little more than beating the odds.

Having collected a smattering more of pence, I finally made it back to where Colin was seated in the corner. His hat was pulled so low he looked as likely to be asleep as not and was listing ever so slightly to one side, his shoulders hunched and his chin appearing to be headed for the tabletop. “It didn't look like your charms had much of an impact on him,” he said in a low, husky voice.

“He's foul. Flashed a butcher's knife at me with a residue of fresh blood still on the blade.”

“Blood?” Colin made a motion of waving me off as I shook my handful of change at him. “Are you sure?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

He abruptly lurched to his feet and stared over my shoulder. “He's moving. Don't lose him. I'll head out the back and come around.” I started to turn away when I felt Colin seize my arm. “Be careful, Ethan,” he hissed under his breath. “I'll not have you hurt.”

“The same to you,” I said as he pulled away. I glanced back just as the man disappeared out the front door, the tails of his black coat snapping with a finality that sent my heart leaping up to my throat. Without hesitating I straightened up and hiked my pants so I could move properly, rushing to the front of the tavern and earning myself several stern glances from the more generous of the patrons. I slapped my bounty of change onto the end of the bar and stepped out into the night.

The streets were a frenzy of activity. Night had brought out the nocturnal creatures, those who counted on the darkness to earn a living. Prostitutes meandered about in pairs or trios until it became necessary to go their separate ways. Swindlers hovered in the mouths of alleys, beckoning one and all to take their chances in a game of dice or trying to guess under which of three shells a half crown had been concealed. Most catered to the throngs of factory men and dockworkers looking for any reason to delay returning home to their disgruntled wives and copious children forever reminding them of how woefully inadequate they were. Their night's revelries would be conducted through a haze of alcohol and opium, sometimes one or the other, very often both. Life appears better through their shroud, though the morning's light is ever the harsher for it. Even still I can remember that.

The noise and laughter added to the bedlam of humanity lunging past, making my heart race faster as I frantically scanned the crowds, cursing myself when I could not find the Prussian man. I spotted Colin at the mouth of the alley several doors down to my left staring straight at me. In spite of the distance between us, I was certain he could see that I had already failed. He tilted his head toward the street and shifted his eyes sideways, and as I followed his gaze I caught sight of the man, his long, black coat flapping about him like the broken wings of a crow as he barreled up the far side of the street with his shoulders hunched and his head down.

I hurried across the road and fell in some distance behind him, determined to neither lose him nor be noticed should he glance back over his shoulder. But he never did. He seemed intent to move with focused ease and dexterity, winding through the throngs with the practiced ease of a sea creature who had swum these waters a thousand times before.

I attempted to settle into a rhythm behind him, mimicking his pace, but it was nearly impossible, as he frequently shot out into the street and continued down the other side where Colin was keeping pace, before just as abruptly blasting back over to where I held steady. Each of his diagonal forays forced me to slow my step as he nimbly traversed the horses, carts, and carriages clogging the thoroughfare. Twice, when he suddenly burst out from behind an idled carriage, I'd had to turn on the person trying to press past me and beg for a handout to keep him from seeing my face. Had Colin and I not both been working to keep him within our sights he would have been impossible to follow. And I was certain that was what he intended.

He cut around another corner, and when I realized we were back in Fairclough Street I understood that he had doubled back in a great, circuitous arc. My spirits soared as I realized that he was not only a shrewd man, but also that he was very much up to something. I wanted to signal Colin, to let him know that he had been right, but he was nowhere near me, and then, in the draw of a single breath, the Prussian man was gone.

My stomach dropped and my heart seized so that in spite of the cacophony going on around me I was no longer registering a sound. It was as though my ears had suddenly ceased to process the slightest noise, leaving me to frantically search the surrounding masses of people even as my eyes felt like they were moving through a glaze of aspic.
You've lost him,
my brain screeched,
not once, but twice
. I spun around even as I continued to move forward, searching for Colin to see if he would again prove my salvation, and that's when a flicker of movement caught the periphery of my left eye. Black, quick like a scurrying mouse, the bottom flap of the man's jacket.

An alley had just slid past me and it was the light from the moon that had caught the tiny movement of the Prussian making his way down it. I immediately turned back and threw myself behind a group of garbage barrels at the mouth of the alley. My breath came rapidly as I struggled to rein in my fluttering heart and at some point my hearing also returned, as I found myself concentrated on the steady clicking of the man's shoes echoing down the alleyway. I had no idea where Colin was, but I told myself it didn't matter; I had found the man again and I was not going to lose him.

I crept farther down the alley with the stealth of a cat, keeping on my toes to stop my boots from making any sound. The man glanced back over his shoulder once, but I knew the darkness of my clothing would offer me what protection the alley's shadows could not. As it was, I could hardly see the Prussian and had to remain vigilantly attuned to the sound of his footfalls, grateful for the echoing confines of the space. Yet, as I struggled to remain silently on my toes, I knew those echoes would just as likely undo me.

The man's pace slowed and then halted, and as I too came to a stop I was suddenly gripped by the realization that he might have recognized me from the pub and led me here on purpose. That perhaps I hadn't been nearly as artful a tail as I had thought. If I'd been good at it once, that had been twenty years past and many pounds lighter. And then I heard a voice; “. . . time . . .” it said. It was a man, but not with the accent of my quarry.

I knelt down on the cobbles and quickly untied my boots, carefully sliding them off my feet. The stones were cold and damp as I started to move forward in my stockings, but the effect was perfect. I only hoped I would not stumble upon anything predatory or sharp.

“. . . money”—it was the Prussian man this time—“and I vill never be late.” I heard him give a low, lecherous cackle, but the other man did not join in.

As my eyes tried to adjust to the great slashes of shadows and refracted moonlight in the depths of the alley, I saw another man step out from the far side of what I'd thought was the alley's end but could now see was an intersecting passage. The second man was much taller than the Prussian, looking at least my height. He was wearing a thick, black cloak that swept nearly to the ground, leaving little to be gleaned about his body beyond its stature. He wore a black hat with an oversized brim, not unlike the one Colin had been hiding beneath in the tavern, and for an instant I wondered if Colin was pulling off some sort of elaborate charade. But though Colin's shoulders were as broad as this man's, he could claim nothing of his height.

The Prussian moved forward with an unmistakable cockiness and I imagined an oily smirk on his face as he did so. It was evident he was pleased with himself, just as I could tell by the stiff bearing of the tall man that he was the person in charge. “Our friend died in hospital this afternoon,” he said in a menacing tone.

“Tol' ya.” The other man chuckled.

“It was no thanks to you,” came the muffled reply, and as I stole forward to try to get a better look I saw that the taller man had a black scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face as if hiding from the cold in spite of the night's mildness.

“I put 'im dere.”

“If he hadn't succumbed I would've put
you
there!” the tall man growled. “Did you take care of the last package tonight?”

The Prussian chuckled darkly, sending an icy shiver up my spine. “It's done. Dey von't find de little scruff.”

“No?” The tall man's voice remained icy calm.

“Dey never look under dere own noses. Am I wrong?”

“You had best not be,” the tall man answered, the note of threat unmistakable.

“You pay me,” came the indifferent response. “You vill be happy.”

“Yes.” The taller man plunged a hand into a pocket of his cloak and pulled out something that glinted silver by the slender beams of the moonlight.

I realized before the Prussian that it wasn't crowns the taller man had extracted, so he was caught completely unawares when the first crack from the revolver flashed in a spit of fire. A second shot ripped out almost before the first had found its mark, dropping the Prussian to his knees before he crashed over onto his face.

The tall man looked ready to take a third shot when the sound of someone running toward us from the side alleyway caught his attention. He shoved the gun back into his pocket and came rushing in my direction. For an instant I thought I should tackle him as he tried to flee past me, but my saner mind—or greater fear—screamed that it would only get me shot as well. And then he was hurtling past, leaving me cowering against the wall in my stocking feet.

I heard the voice before I realized it was Colin.
“Here,”
I called toward the crux of the two passageways, where he suddenly appeared.

“Thank god.” He heaved a sigh. “Thank god. What happened? I couldn't see a bloody thing.”

“That man . . .” I pointed toward the mouth of the alley just as the tall man skidded around the corner and out onto the thronging street. “He shot the Prussian man. He's over there—”

“Help him.” Colin jumped up and bolted for the mouth of the alley. “Get him to talk.” And then he too was gone.

I sucked in a quavering breath, aware of the cold, musty smell of the alley as I listened for a second to the scratch and scamper of tiny feet: rats. It was enough to make me push myself off the wall. The man was gurgling, drowning in his own blood, and I knew I had to do something. I fumbled over to the black hulk of his crumpled body and knelt by his head. “Can you hear me?” I heard myself ask.

The only response I got was the continuing scamper of those tiny feet steadily, bravely moving closer. I leaned forward and muttered, “I'm going to turn you over,” to the back of his head. He didn't respond, but then I hadn't expected him to. I meant only to warn him, to get him to gird himself if he was capable of such a thing.