James McGee - Resurrectionist

A splintering crash rose from below as a door gave way. Hawkwood knew it was Jago starting to go through the rooms. Lomax was correct. They had lost the advantage and speed was now the overwhelming factor.

Hawkwood tried the first door. It was locked.

A second pistol shot sounded from downstairs. Micah and Hopkins keeping the rest of the Hanrattys at bay, or so Hawkwood hoped.

Hawkwood drove his boot against the door lock. It took two kicks for the door to give way. The room was empty. Hawkwood backed out, just in time to hear the click of a latch and see a slim silhouette emerge from a doorway at the other end of the landing. He had a brief glimpse of a halo of dark hair framing a small, pale face and an arm coming up from behind the angle of a petticoat.

He heard Lomax yell, then there was a gleam of moonlight on metal and even as he brought his own pistol up and squeezed the trigger and saw the figure flung backwards against the side of the door by the force of the impact, there was a simultaneous flash of powder and a dull crack and he heard Lomax grunt and spin away.

As Sal started to go down, a second figure, which Hawkwood knew had to be Sawney, reached out, grasped her about the waist and, using her body as a shield, raised a pistol and fired. Hawkwood felt the wind from the ball as it ploughed past his ear and struck the wall behind his head.

A muttered curse came from below and to his left and a pistol roared. Hawkwood saw Sal’s body slump and then he was bringing the second pistol up. The gun jerked in his hand as the explosion filled the landing, then Sal’s body dropped to the floor and the figure sheltering behind her fell away, feet slithering.

At that moment, Hawkwood knew they’d failed. They had needed Sal Bridger and Sawney alive. Just one of them would have done. He cursed his stupidity. Sawney had only the one pistol. There had been no opportunity for him to reload and therefore there had been no need for Hawkwood to shoot a second time. He hadn’t thought it through. Everything had happened too fast.

Hawkwood looked down. Lomax was half sitting, half lying against the wall, holding his shoulder. He rewarded Hawkwood with one of his macabre grins and then his attention shifted to the end of the landing and Hawkwood saw him stiffen. Following Lomax’s gaze, Hawkwood saw movement close to the floor. One of the bodies was twitching.

Gripping the spent pistols, he walked forward. As he did so, a monstrous shadow arose from a second stairwell at the end of the landing.

Maggett erupted out of the darkness, the cleaver high in his fist. Hawkwood had a fleeting impression of a vast form filling his vision and then the massive hand was reaching for him and there was a flash of steel above his head and the blade was curving towards him with appalling speed.

And then there was a second shadow, which seemed to come from nowhere, and the world exploded with a roar as Jago slammed the muzzle of the blunderbuss against Maggett’s jaw and pulled the trigger.

Maggett’s face disintegrated as his corpse was blown sideways by the blast. The cleaver thudded on to the floor as the sound of the gun reverberated along the landing like the voice of God.

Jago stared down at the weapon, an expression of awe on his face. “Good thing I went back for it. Jesus! She does kick like a mule.” Jago nodded down at Maggett’s corpse. “Lizzie wasn’t wrong. He was a big bastard.”

Sawney groaned.

Hawkwood, ears ringing, looked down. Sawney was clutching his chest. The pistol ball had struck him an inch below the ribcage. The blood that was welling over his shirt and waistcoat looked black in the moonlight.

He stared up at Hawkwood. “Bastard,” he whispered hoarsely. “Knew we should have killed you.”

Hawkwood squatted down. “Where’s Hyde?”

“And Molly Finn,” Jago said.

“Sal?” Sawney tried moving his head to see.

“She’s dead,” Hawkwood said. “Same as you. You’ve been gut shot, Sawney. All the surgeons in the world can’t save you from dying. Not even Colonel Hyde. Where is he? And where’s Molly Finn?”

Sawney’s chest rose and fell. His brow puckered. “Molly Finn? The little cow Sal picked up? You came here lookin’ for her?” Sawney tried to laugh and then coughed suddenly. Blood bubbled from between his gritted teeth.

“Where is she?” Jago grated.

“That’s what’s funny. She was never here, you stupid sods. We delivered her to ’im.”

“Who?”

“Colonel bleedin’ Hyde. Who’d you think?”

“What?” Hawkwood said, not understanding.

“You deaf? He wanted a live one, so we gave her to ’im.” Sawney coughed again. Blood burst out of his mouth. His hands began to flutter across his chest, fingers tapping against his waistcoat. His eyes rolled in his head.

“Jesus!” Jago spat. He reached down and grabbed Sawney’s collar. “Where are they, you bastard?”

For a moment, Sawney seemed to recover from his convulsions. His eyes regained their focus and he frowned. “You Jago? Hanratty told me about you. Said you were king o’ the castle? That right? That’s bleedin’ funny. That’s a riot.” Another spasm took him and he coughed once more.

“Christ,” Jago said. “For once in your miserable life, do something right, you piece of shit!”

Sawney’s eyes widened. He stared at Jago and then at Hawkwood. He moved his hand across his belly. His fingers began to play with the pocket on his waistcoat. Then they lay still and his lips parted.

“Why the bleedin’ ’ell should I?” he hissed, and died.

“God Almighty!” Jago released his grip and stared down at the corpse in disbelief. “God All bloody Mighty!”

A shadow blocked the moonlight coming through the skylight above them; Lomax stood with his neck cloth, dark with blood, pressed against his right shoulder. “Is it over?”

“It is for that bastard,” Jago said. “God damn him to Hell!”

Lomax gazed down at Sal Bridger’s corpse. There was a hole in the middle of her forehead and blood on the front of her petticoat. “She’d have been a pretty little thing once,” he murmured to no one in particular.

Hawkwood wasn’t listening. He was still crouched over Sawney, wondering where they went from here. They were no nearer to finding Hyde or Molly Finn. The night’s enterprise had turned into a bloody mess. Literally.

His eyes travelled down from the lifeless eyes to the bloodstained clothing. He noted how Sawney’s left hand was clamped over the wound, while the right looked as if it was still reaching into the waistcoat pocket. In fact there was a slight bulge there, he saw. Half curious and yet not really knowing why, he moved Sawney’s hand and reached inside.

Hawkwood tugged the object free. It was a silver cross. A strange thing for Sawney to own, Hawkwood thought. As he eased it out, a piece of paper came with it; a folded page from a notebook. Hawkwood opened it out. There was writing, he saw, in a small but neat hand. It was almost too dark to read clearly, but a word caught his eye. Hawkwood held the page up to the moonlight.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

In the taproom, the women were still clustered together, while Micah and Hopkins stood guard over a glowering Hanratty and his son, who were seated back to back, hands on their heads, legs crossed, on the floor in front of the fire.

“You!” Hanratty said, as Hawkwood entered. His eyes opened wider when he saw Jago and Lomax follow behind. His attention settled on Jago. “I know your face, too, cully.”

Jago ignored him. “Micah?”

“We’re good,” Micah said.

“There’s a girl upstairs. The Raggs were usin’ her.” Jago turned to the women. “I don’t know her name.”

“Callie,” one of them said.