Chris Moriarty - The Inquisitor's Apprentice

Sacha turned away, his shoulders slumping in defeat. But Lily grabbed the growler from him and stepped up to the bar as if walking into a Hell’s Kitchen whiskey dive were all part of an ordinary day for her.

“But we’re not from Commissioner Keegan,” she said with a winning smile. “We’re Inquisitor Wolf’s apprentices. And he said you’d fill up his — grumbler — snarler — whatever you call it.”

The bartender’s face cracked into a grin that displayed both rows of coat pegs right down to their massive roots. “Inquisitor Wolf!” he exclaimed. “Well, and why didn’t you say so in the first place? Hey, Sean! Fire up Big Bertha! Wolf’s sent down for his morning coffee!”

Across the room, the apron-clad man leapt into action at the massive coffee machine. Minutes later, Lily and Sacha were trudging back toward the Inquisitors headquarters, their growler brimming with the strongest, blackest coffee Sacha had ever seen. Sacha was so busy feeling relieved and embarrassed that he only realized they’d turned the wrong way when a baseball whizzed out of the abandoned lot and hit him smack in the side of the head.

Lily caught the ball in midair as it bounced off his head, but before he had time to be amazed by this, they were surrounded by a jeering circle of boys.

They weren’t real Hexers, Sacha realized, just aspiring gangsters. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t beat up two skinny kids. One of them — a potato-nosed teenager who looked like he was about five pounds short of being able to sign onto the fireman’s local ladder company — jabbed Sacha in the chest, sending him stumbling backward. Another one was there to catch him, and for a while the two of them entertained themselves by batting Sacha back and forth like a tetherball. But they soon got bored with that and began casting around for something better to do.

“Let’s sell him a raffle ticket!” one of them cried.

“Yeah! a raffle ticket!”

“Who’s got a ticket?”

“Who’s got a hat fer him to pull it out of?”

“Whew! Your hat stinks, Riley! Don’t you never take a bath?”

“Bathin’s fer girls!”

Soon the hat was proffered and the tickets — grubby scraps of newspaper — were tipped into it for Sacha to draw. Sacha had been shaken down by street kids many times before, so he sighed in resignation and prepared to do his part. Lily, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know the script at all.

“Aren’t you going to tell us how much it costs?” she demanded. “And what’s the prize? And why should we buy anything from you in the first place?”

“’Cause we’re the Hexers.”

“So?”

The boy’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Hey, Ratter,” he called without taking his eyes off Lily. “Why don’t you show her what you can do.”

A scrawny boy stepped out from the little cluster of Hexers, grinning nervously. “What d’you want, Joe? Hives or Boils?”

Joe hesitated. But before he could answer, a third boy chimed in. “Aw, can’t you do any better’n that, Ratter? It’s been nothin’ but hives an’ boils all month long. We’re gonna be the laughingstock of the neighborhood if you don’t come up with some new hexes soon!”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Joe said scathingly. He turned back to the scrawny hex caster. “Give ’er the hives, Ratter!”

“Now, look,” Sacha interrupted, putting his hands up. “I’m sure we can work this ou—”

But it was too late. even as Sacha spoke, angry red welts were spreading across Lily’s perfect peaches and cream complexion.

“Oh!” she cried, putting her hands to her face as if she was desperately trying not to scratch at them.

“Now, now, boys,” said a voice from over Sacha’s shoulder. “Is that any way to treat a lady?”

Their rescuer turned out to be a handsome boy a few years older than Lily and Sacha, with an open, friendly face and impossibly blue eyes that sparkled with barely contained laughter. He looked like the kind of nice Irish boy even Sacha’s mother would approve of.

When Sacha looked back over at Lily, her hives had vanished and she was practically swooning in gratitude. He would never have imagined she could act so silly.

“Thank you!” she fluttered. “Thank you so much, Mr. … well, I don’t even know your name, do I?”

The young man sketched a humorous bow. “Paddy Doyle at your service, miss.”

Sacha frowned. he was sure he’d heard that name before. But he didn’t have time to remember where, because the Hexers were exploding into wails of outrage and frustration.

“Paddy!” Joe yelped. “You ain’t gonna let ’er off buyin’ a ticket just ’cause she’s a girl, are you?”

“For sure I’m not.” Paddy turned his bright blue gaze on Sacha, and though he was still smiling, he didn’t look nearly as friendly as he had just a moment ago. “I believe the tickets are a nickel apiece. Or ten cents, if you’d prefer to pay for the young lady.”

“What?” Lily spluttered. “You’re not going to stop these — these— hooligans? ”

“Actually,” Paddy explained in his charming Irish brogue, “I’m with the hooligans.”

He flashed Sacha and Lily a conspiratorial wink, as if to say they were all good friends and there was nothing to worry about. Sacha didn’t have any illusions, though. he shrugged in resignation and reached into his pocket for his subway money. But before he could fish out the coins, Lily opened her mouth again.

“How can you be such a cad?” she demanded, squaring off against Paddy with her hands on her hips.

“That’s the way of the wicked world, darlin’.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment she looked almost as formidable as Paddy Doyle. “Maybe so,” she snapped. “But I’m still not buying any stupid lottery ticket.”

Paddy’s smile broadened into an outright grin. “You got a better idea?”

“Actually, I do.”

Lily was still holding the Hexers’ baseball, and now she slapped it into the grimy hand of the closest Hexer and grabbed the bat from his slack-jawed neighbor. “One pitch. If I miss, we each owe you a nickel. If I hit a homer, you owe us a nickel. Every one of you.” She counted heads. “That makes sixty cents total.”

“But — you can’t! ” Sacha said.

“Why not?” Lily asked curiously.

Sacha stared at the shiny blond hair, the immaculate white stockings, the frothy lace petticoats peeping out from under her dress. “Because you’re a girl! ”

“I’ll have you know that Smith and Vassar have both fielded baseball teams for at least the last twenty years,” she declared as if that settled the matter beyond all question.

“And which professional league do Smith and Vassar play in?” Sacha asked sarcastically.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, what hole did you crawl out of? Haven’t you ever heard of Lizzie Arlington? Or the Bloomer Girls? Or — oh, never mind!” She broke off in disgust at the depths of his ignorance and stalked off across the vacant lot toward the upturned tin can that served the Hexers for home base.

Meanwhile, the Hexers had clearly accepted Lily’s bet. They were running out to take up their fielding positions — or maybe, Sacha thought cynically, just to cut off the escape routes.

Lily limbered up at the plate, spitting on her palms and kicking at the packed dirt of the empty lot like some tobacco-chewing slugger from the heart of the Yankees lineup. Sacha groaned inwardly at the thought of what the Hexers would do to them if Lily actually won. But then he told himself not to worry. She’d just swing and miss. And even if she didn’t miss, how hard could a girl really hit the ball?