Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

The Colt was lying on the floor only two steps away from the passage, its burnished steel glittering as if it was winking at Senka: Well, Speedy, how about it?

Ah, to hell with it, he could only die once, it had to happen some time!

Senka dashed to the revolver, grabbed it and yelled: ‘Stop, Deadeye! I’ll take your life!’

Deadeye swung round and his sparse eyebrows inched up in surprise.

‘Bah, the seventh coming. That Speedy again. Why have you come back, you stupid little goose?’

‘Hey, kid!’ shouted the superintendent, pressing himself back against the wall. ‘Don’t even think about it! You don’t know! You can’t shoot in here! The whole place will collapse. We’ll be buried alive.’

‘L-Landslide!’ Erast Petrovich suddenly shouted out at the top of his voice.

Instantly there was a low rumble and the heap of earth and stone blocking off the doorway shuddered and collapsed. The superintendent screamed desperately as a solid, stocky figure dressed in black forced its way out through the rubble. It came tumbling out into the middle of the chamber like a rubber ball, and threw itself at the Jack, screeching like a warrior.

Masa!

Now that was a real miracle!

Erast Petrovich immediately took advantage of his enemies’ confusion: the Prince went flying off in one direction, the Ghoul in the other. But the engineer still couldn’t break the grip of Boxman’s huge hands and, after a brief struggle, they collapsed on the floor, with the constable on top, pinning Mr Nameless down and still holding on tight to his wrists. The Ghoul and the Prince didn’t help Boxman this time – the two bandits’ hate was too strong. They grabbed each other and started rolling across the floor.

Deadeye flung a knife at Masa, but the Japanese squatted down in good time, and he dodged the second and third knives just as easily. But the Jack didn’t stop once he had exhausted the arsenal in his sleeve. He threw back the skirt of his long frock coat, and Senka saw a wooden cane attached to the belt of his trousers.

Senka remembered what Deadeye had in that cane – a big, long pen that was called a ‘foil’. And he hadn’t forgotten how smartly the Jack handled that terrible shiv either.

Deadeye put his left hand behind his back, moved one foot out in front and started edging forward, tracing out glittering circles with his whistling blade. Masa backed away. What else could he do, with only his bare hands!

‘I’ll fire! I’ll fire right now!’ Senka shouted, but no one even looked round.

So there he was, standing like a fool with a loaded revolver, and no one giving a rotten damn about him; everybody was too busy with their own business: Boxman was sitting on the engineer and trying to butt him in the face with his forehead; the Prince and the Ghoul were growling and screeching like two crazy dogs; Deadeye was driving Masa into a corner; Death was trying to drag the constable off Erast Petrovich (but what could she do against a great brute like that?); the superintendent was gazing around like a loony and holding his flick-knife out in front of him.

‘Don’t just stand there, yerbleedinonner!’ Boxman wheezed. ‘Can’t you see I can’t hold him? Stick him! We’ll settle things between us afterwards!

The villainous superintendent – and him supposed to be a servant of law and order! – went running across to stab the man on the floor. He threw Death aside and raised his hand, but she grabbed hold of his arm.

‘Look at me, you lousy bastards,’ Senka shouted in a tearful voice, waving the Colt. ‘I’m going to fire now and bury the damn lot of you!’

Solntsev shifted the knife to his left hand and stuck the blade in Death without even a sideways glance. She sat down on the floor with a look of sudden surprise on her face. In fact, her elegant eyebrows rose up in a strange expression of joy. She carefully put her hands over her wound, and Senka was horrified to see blood streaming out between her fingers.

‘Move over, damn you!’ the superintendent gasped, going down on his knees. ‘I’ll stick him in the neck!’

Senka stopped worrying about the Holy Trinity crushing everyone. Let it, if this was the way things were. He held the revolver out in front of him and pulled the trigger without even taking aim.

He was deafened straight off, didn’t even hear the shot properly, his ears were suddenly blocked, and that was all. A tongue of flame leapt out of the barrel, the superintendent’s head jerked to one side in dashing style, as if he was pointing out some direction, and his body instantly followed instructions by falling that way.

After that the end came very quickly, in a terrible, hollow silence.

The ceiling was all right, it didn’t collapse, it just dropped a scattering of dust and that was all. But Erast Petrovich managed to pull his left hand out from under Boxman, who had glanced round at the thunderous roar. The engineer made use of this hand by squeezing it into a fist and delivering a short, sharp blow to Boxman’s chin. The constable snorted and flopped over on his side like a bull at the slaughterhouse.

Senka turned in the other direction to shoot Deadeye as well, before he could jab that foil of his through Masa. But Senka’s help wasn’t needed. After driving the sensei into a corner, the Jack sprang forward, the arm with the foil uncoiled like a spring, and by rights he should have pinned the Japanese to the wall, but the blade just clattered against the stone as Masa skipped to the left and flicked his wrist. Something small and shiny flew out of his hand and Deadeye suddenly swayed like a floppy stuffed doll. He reached up feebly for his throat, but his hand never reached it. The Jack’s arms dropped limply, his knees buckled and he collapsed flat on his back. His head tipped backwards and Senka saw a steel star with sharp edges that had bitten deep into Deadeye’s throat. There was dark blood bubbling out around it, but Deadeye just lay there quietly, twitching his legs.

The Prince and the Ghoul had stopped rolling around and creating a ruckus too. Senka looked at them and saw that the back of the Ghoul’s head was all smashed in, it was covered in dark dents and bruises from the knuckleduster. And the smashed head was lying just where the Prince’s throat was supposed to be. The eyes of the man who had hated Senka so much were staring rigidly up at the ceiling. Would you believe it – all those times he’d threatened to rip someone’s throat out with his teeth, and someone had ripped his out for him. The Ghoul had drunk his fill of the Prince’s blood. The two spiders had devoured each other . . .

Senka thought about all this, so he wouldn’t have to think about Death. He didn’t even want to look in her direction.

When he did finally glance round, she was sitting propped up against the wall. Her eyes were closed and her face was white and stiff. Senka turned away again quickly.

The resounding silence gradually receded. Senka could hear Boxman hiccuping and Masa grunting as he pulled his magic star out of the Jack’s throat.

‘The ceiling didn’t collapse,’ Senka told the engineer in a trembling voice.

‘Why should it c-collapse?’ Erast Petrovich asked hoarsely, climbing out from under the constable’s heavy carcass. ‘The stonework here will st-stand for another thousand years. Oof, he must weigh three hundred p-pounds at least . . . Don’t just stand there, S-Senya! Help the l-lady up.’

So Mr Nameless hadn’t seen the superintendent stick his knife in her.

‘Won’t he come round?’ Senka asked, and pointed at the hiccuping Boxman – not because he was worried, just playing for time. He could pretend to himself that Death was just sitting there against the wall: she wasn’t dead, just sleeping, or maybe she’d fainted.