Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

Someone down below barked an order. Each of the four drew a pistol from under his coat.

One of the girls screamed. At the same time, shouts rose from the main floor, then cut off all at once at the sharp report of a pistol.

“I am Captain Richard Brack,” boomed a voice, carrying beautifully through the high-vaulted chamber. “Of the Ministry of Information, Special Branch. And everyone in this room is under arrest!”

“Everybody on the floor!” drawled one of the four ahead of them. “All you girls, get down now !”

“Get back !” Winter shouted, pushing the screaming Becks up the stairs. The other girls needed little encouragement to flee, stairs creaking under their panicked footsteps. “Cyte! Go that way !” She gestured frantically to the right.

“I said stop !” one of the men repeated, stepping forward of the line and lowering his pistol to point directly at Winter. “We’re with the Special Branch. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Winter met his gaze, and there was a moment of contemplation. He held the pistol awkwardly, and his sword belt looked brand-new and poorly fitted. And there was something in his eyes-a bit of fear , she thought. This wasn’t one of Orlanko’s trained killers, Winter was certain. She doubted he’d ever fired the weapon he held.

Special Branch must mean the reserves. Not the regular Concordat agents, but some cadre of thugs and mercenaries summoned into service for emergencies. Men who were more used to bullying helpless civilians than to actual combat, who expected to command respect simply by virtue of having a weapon, without having to use it. .

If she’d been facing an experienced soldier, what she did next would have been suicidal. But an experienced soldier would never have stepped so close to her in the first place. Winter’s left hand shot out and grabbed the pistol around the hammer. The Special Branch man gulped and pulled the trigger, convulsively, but he’d hesitated too long, and the flint slammed down hard on the back of Winter’s hand. This hurt like hell but produced no sparks. The thug’s eyes broadened in comical surprise, and Winter brought her right hand up and delivered a hard blow to his wrist. His fingers opened automatically, and she plucked the weapon from his grasp. Before his companions realized what was happening, she reversed it, clicked the hammer back, and leveled it at his forehead. He froze.

“Fucking Beast,” one of the others said, and three other pistols swung to bear on her.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Winter stepped back, carefully maintaining her aim, and climbed toward the shaky wooden walk. She desperately wanted to look over her shoulder, but if she took her eyes off the Special Branch men, the fragile moment could shatter. Five steps? Four? Three?

“There’s no way out,” said the man whose weapon she had taken. “We’ve got the building surrounded.”

“No reason for you to get shot, then,” Winter said.

That seemed to be the general opinion. They held their aim but didn’t fire, and she kept backing up. Something creaked beneath her, and her groping foot couldn’t find the next stair, throwing her dangerously off balance. Before she could trip, though, someone caught her from behind, and she heard Cyte’s soft grunt. Winter steadied herself on the top step.

“The first head that comes up those stairs,” she said, “gets a lead ball through the ears. Got it?”

Without waiting for an answer, she ducked around the corner, dragging Cyte with her. Jane’s girls waited in a huddle against the wall. Down below on the main floor, she could see more of the Special Branch men moving through the crowd with weapons drawn.

“Come on,” Winter said, shivering all over with released tension. She gestured with the pistol at the second-floor exit. “We may be able to get out that way. There has to be a back staircase.” When none of Jane’s girls moved at once, she let a touch of army sergeant into her voice. “Move!”

Floorboards creaked behind her as the Special Branch men came up the stairs. If she fired, they’d know she was unarmed and rush her; she closed the lock on the pistol, thrust it into her waistband, and ran for it. Cyte ran beside her, and together they chivvied the girls down the length of the Widow’s Gallery like dogs herding a flock of geese.

The motion attracted some notice from the Special Branch men on the ground floor, but they had their hands full for the moment with the unruly crowd. Winter could hear several deputies competing to shout the loudest denunciation of Orlanko’s “illegal and treasonous” actions.

They’re brave, Winter thought. Stupid, but brave. Brack barked an order, and his thugs closed in around the offenders. Whatever reluctance they might have had to use their pistols did not apply to their fists, and the opposition was soon silenced.

By then Winter had reached the doorway at the end of the walk, stepping off the creaky wood onto the solid stone floor of the cathedral’s upper stories. A corridor ran in both directions, with several doorways leading through it into dimly lit spaces, and Winter wasn’t sure which way to go.

“Out, out, out,” she muttered. “Which way is out?”

“Toward the back,” Cyte said. “I know there’s a door by the old kitchens, but they’ll be watching it.”

“Maybe we can get the drop on them.” Winter gestured the girls to clear the doorway, and looked back down the walk. The four Special Branch men were following, but cautiously.

Someone tugged at her sleeve. It was Becks, red-faced but looking determined.

“I’m sorry I screamed,” she said. “I was just surprised.”

“It’s fine-”

“But we can’t leave! Not yet.” Becks looked at her companions and got a round of nods. “We have to help Danton first.”

“Help Danton ?” Winter blinked. “Why?”

“He’s up this way.” Molly, standing behind Becks, pointed down the corridor. “We have to get him out of here.”

“Orlanko let him get away once,” Becks said, with a fifteen-year-old’s certainty. “If they catch him this time, they’ll kill him.”

“Danton can take care of himself,” Winter said. “I-”

“She’s right,” Cyte said. She met Winter’s eye.

“You said yourself he’s just a symbol,” Winter said, quietly.

“Symbols can be important,” Cyte said. “If we can get him out of the cathedral, Orlanko hasn’t won yet.”

The Special Branch men were getting closer. Winter hesitated a moment, then sighed. “All right. Stay close. They may have sent someone up from the back.”

“I can see two of them,” Cyte whispered.

“It sounds like there’s at least one more inside,” Winter said. “Maybe two.”

“Three or four, then.”

“Yeah.”

Cyte swallowed. “We dealt with four at once in the Vendre.”

“We were lucky.” Winter looked down at the pistol in her hand. One shot. No way to reload, even if I had time. “And we were armed.”

They stood in a narrow stone corridor, outside the entrance to a suite of rooms that had once served as some priest’s living quarters. A couple of mismatched chairs and a folding table stood in the outer room, and a single lantern hung from a wall bracket. Another doorway led deeper into the suite, flanked by two men-not the Special Branch thugs, but real Concordat black-coats. As Becks had guessed, Orlanko was taking no chances with Danton. Beyond that doorway, some kind of altercation was taking place, and Winter could hear a muffled female voice shouting.

“We might be able to take one of them,” Molly said. She and Becks had followed Winter and Cyte to peek into the suite, while the rest of the girls waited at the end of the corridor to watch for the Special Branch. “We could work together.”