Original: "Trafalgar & Boone," Chapter Two
More story! And the first part that doesn't have a direct connection to the first stories I wrote. I have a completely different plan for how Trafalgar and Boone team up this time around, so this chapter is full of 100% new information and new scenes. And new characters! I've never rebooted one of my own series before (well, sort of with adapting Riley Parra for Tello Films, but that's a different animal ;D). It's fun! Not as frustrating as I originally feared it would be. ;)
Chapter Two
The Pierce-Arrow landau turned off the main drag not far from Threadneedle and onto the narrow streets of Spitalfields, narrowly avoiding the debris littering either side of the lane. Trafalgar sat in the backseat next to Leola and wondered if she could brush her fingers along the brick buildings by stretching her arm out the window. The streets of London were poorly designed to handle modern automobiles, and she feared what would happen to her adopted city if they were forced to make adjustments. Then again, if the march of progress meant slums like this one were eliminated, perhaps it would be for the best.
“And then where would the residents go?” Adeline asked from the front seat. “The undesirables, those who live here because they have no other choice?”
Adeline was a precognitive telepath, a gift that made her exceptionally skilled behind the wheel but an awkward compatriot. She received a constant barrage of what people intended to say, often whether they eventually spoke them aloud or not. She said it was like trying to watch a play while the people behind her constantly whispered amongst themselves. She saw aspects of the future including whether an intersection would be clear or congested in thirty or fifty seconds’ time.
Trafalgar couldn’t deny the question had merit. “I’ve told you how disconcerting that is.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Yes. I am.” Trafalgar sighed. And ignoring the plight of the people forced to live in these slums made her a hypocrite. She had made her home in far less desirable neighborhoods in the past twenty years. When she first arrived in Cairo she dismissed the crew who still believed she was possessed by some sort of demonic entity. She couldn’t very well quiz them about who she was supposed to be, so she kept her distance and tried to appear consumed by her thoughts. Her first order upon dry land was for the crew to take care of the other children. She didn’t want them sold or bartered away into a life of slavery, so she ordered them to be taken to the police at once. The men balked, but she threatened them with “all the power I can muster” if they failed her.
She set off alone with only the items in Solomon’s pockets to guide her. She sold the items she couldn’t identify but kept the obvious weapons just to be on the safe side. She found maps and journals, the latter of which had pages devoted to Solomon’s allies with their contact information. Trafalgar didn’t know if they had any way of knowing she was the one chosen for his ritual. If they did, they have a way to finish what she interrupted. She found urchins and paid them to deliver messages on her behalf. If Solomon’s associates wanted his papers they would pay dearly for them.
She had no idea how much it would cost to travel from Cairo to London, but she had overheard enough on the boat to know that was where she had to go. London, England, the capital of the world. She had no life back home, no one to give her shelter in this loud and boisterous new world she found herself a citizen of, and London seemed like it would allow her the possibility to find a new path.
The only thing Trafalgar kept was Solomon’s coat. It was far too big for her but she had faith she would grow into it. Years passed but soon she was able to wear it without trailing the hem along the ground behind her. She still had it, the pockets now filled with her own tools of the trade. She kept her journal in a pocket of her suit jacket underneath, however. She figured it would be much harder to lose if she kept it close to her body.
Adeline parked in front of a dilapidated building flanked on either side by trash-strewn alleyways where there lurked vermin of both the rodent and human variety. The front steps were cracked and weed-choked but the front door was an impressive barrier of thick oak with shining new fixtures. Trafalgar knew from experience that the building was nigh impenetrable, knew the crumbling facade hid a steel box full of traps set to dissuade the curious.
Trafalgar climbed out of the backseat and took a moment to adjust her goggles. They had brass frames, the leather strap resting snugly against her temples. Her silk-smooth black hair fell straight down her back to rest on the mantle of her coat. She tugged her gloves on more securely and stretched out her fingers to make sure she had freedom of movement. The real reason for her dawdling was so she could scan the street for anyone who might be watching the building.
Confident that she could approach unseen, she tugged the lapels of her coat and continued up the fractured stairs. Adeline and Leola would remain behind to watch the car, as the neighborhood was rough and their host didn’t particularly like multiple guests. Trafalgar gave the prescribed knock and stepped back to count off thirty-three seconds. Then she turned, went down the steps, and entered the alley. A rust-devoured fencing protected a staircase leading down to a basement entrance. Trafalgar descended, knocked again on this hidden door, and twisted the knob to find it was unlocked.
She removed her goggles as she entered the darkened room. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust before she ventured deeper. Shapes took form in the shadows to either side of her; dust cloths and tarps creating unusual landscapes and vistas in the cluttered basement. After a few yards the aisle widened to reveal a staircase leading back up to the ground floor.
The entire level had been cleared, save for a few columns left to bear the load of the upper floors. Though the windows had been covered, there was enough early-afternoon light filtering through the seams that Trafalgar no longer had to strain her eyes to see. No matter how many times she visited the Crafter’s workshop she was always in awe of its inventory.
The walls were lined with bookshelves that overflowed with calipers, micrometers, shears, clamps, gauges, tap and die sets, hammers, mandrels, and any number of other tools she couldn’t hope to identify. Half-formed objects in the vague shape of arms, legs, torsos, and faces lined the many tables of the room. Tools and parts orbited these incomplete items, sometimes draped with oily rags or wrinkled sheets of paper with blueprints scrawled on them.
Threnody emerged from the back of the house with a wooden case cradled under her right arm. She wore a collarless blue mandarin vest and a flowing dress that looked like an inverted black tulip as it swayed with her movement. Her hands were hidden by kid gloves, but the most remarkable aspect of her ensemble was the plague doctor’s mask, its avian beak extending out like a dark brown hook made of oiled canvas. The two round eyepieces were filled with opaque lenses to prevent anyone from seeing even a glimpse of her face. Trafalgar had once seen what the Crafter was hiding beneath the mask, and it was an experience she wasn’t soon to forget.
“You’re early.” Threnody’s voice was filtered through her mask and came out muffled, hollow, as if she was speaking through a radio. “I don’t like early.”
“I overestimated the travel time. It won’t happen again.”
“Hm.” Threnody cleared a space on her worktable and put down the case. She opened it and withdrew a pair of long slender blades connected at their base by a thin golden ring. At first glance they looked like the hands off a clock face. Threnody adjusted the blades until they lined up against each other, then she turned and held the item out to Trafalgar. “Your emei piercers. Traditionally the blades are rigid, sharpened on either end. But this allows you to collapse and conceal the blades up your sleeve until you are ready to use them.”
“Interesting.” Trafalgar slipped the ring over her middle finger and flicked her wrist. The blades snapped into place, stretching out several inches to either side. She held her arm out and moved her hand to the right, and the blades turned. She folded her index and ring fingers down and the blades folded. Easy to conceal, just as easy to put them into action. They were long enough to extend past her fingers when they were deployed but short enough that they didn’t scrape her elbow when hidden.
Threnody said, “It should do nicely for yours close-quarter purposes.”
“Yes, quite. Thank you, Threnody.” She withdrew a small pouch of money from her coat pocket and handed it to the Crafter. “How are you progressing on the electrical weapon I inquired about?”
“Ah, slowly. Slowly. I am consumed with work for other clients.”
Trafalgar sneered. “Lady Boone, no doubt.”
Threnody chuckled. “No jealousy, Miss Trafalgar. I can’t play favorites with my clients. Besides, if I did, you would be the one left out in the cold. Lady Boone was referred to me by her grandmother. If I was the sort to let petty rivalries dictate my business, her preference would take preference and you would be forced to find a new Crafter.”
“Heaven forfend,” Trafalgar said. “Very well. I shall be in touch.”
Threnody folded her hands in front of her chest and bowed slightly before she turned back to her work table. Trafalgar practiced with the emei piercers a bit more as she left the building, determining how best to manipulate her wrist and the movement of her hand to get the most out of the weapon. Leola pushed away from the car and straightened her jacket when Trafalgar emerged from the alleyway.
“Did you get your new toy, mum?”
Trafalgar smiled and replaced the goggles over her eyes as she climbed back into the car. “When has Threnody ever disappointed us? Take us home, Adeline, and when we arrive I will show you how to use our new weapon.”
#
A handful of airships buzzed above the Thames as they crossed London Bridge, fat bumblebees scooting from one side of the river to the other. Some of them were taking longer journeys and used the river as a shortcut to avoid the uneven skyline. The gondola of one low-hanging ship buzzed them, its gondola swaying like a metallic dragonfly. Once off the bridge they turned right into Bankside, past the brothels and workhouses to the tenement they called home. The windows were barred and the brick was crumbling. It looked like any number of buildings in London, and a fair sight better than some that had suffered from night raids during the war.
Like Threnody’s workshop the decay of their home was a carefully orchestrated deception. Trafalgar had spent every moment of her adult life trying to discover the truth behind Solomon and his organization. She knew the men on the boat were nothing more than hired goons, sent out into the world to find victims for their dark experiments. She wondered how many other girls hadn’t been as fortunate as her, how many had their minds erased and their bodies stolen for some monstrous being. Her investigations revealed a cabal of powerful men seeking ancient artifacts with which they could gain even more power.
The spoils of her career were stored in the reinforced basement of the tenement. She, Adeline, and Leola lived in a proper home surrounded by the shell of the crumbling brick. They had all the amenities of those who lived in the more elite parts of the city without drawing attention to themselves. She often thought of Lady Boone and her extravagant townhouse, the sprawling three-property fortress which all but beckoned thieves to try their luck.
Adeline parked the car in the only alley on the street wide enough to accommodate it, then Trafalgar and Leola helped conceal it using bins and empty wooden crates. Most people in the neighborhood knew Trafalgar, knew to trust her and that she was willing to fight for them as tirelessly as she fought for herself. They left her things alone for the most part but there was no sense in tempting fate. Adeline led them back to the street, and Leola took the rear for the walk back to their building. Adeline started up the front steps but froze halfway up. She turned and scanned the street with an odd expression on her face.
“Is everything all right?” Trafalgar asked.
Adeline nodded slowly and allowed her expression to break into a full smile. “It’s quiet. All the noise. The chatter? It’s stopped. For the first time, I can’t hear anything. The future has finally gone quiet.”
Trafalgar had a moment of intense fear for what that meant before the bullet caught Adeline just above her left eyebrow. Her blood sprayed across the front of the building and drops of it landed on Trafalgar’s face as her friend fell back onto the stone steps. Leola grabbed Trafalgar’s shoulders and hauled her to the side as another bullet chipped the masonry of their building. Leola pushed Trafalgar into the shadows next to the stairs and draw her own revolver. Trafalgar started to lean forward but Leola pushed her back.
“Where is it coming from?”
“I can’t see,” Leola said. Another bullet sank into Adeline’s body with a sickeningly flat sound, like a blackjack thudding against a speed bag. Tears burned the corners of Trafalgar’s eyes, a mixture of anger and grief at the thought of her friend being violated in that manner. Leola straightened slightly and fired at a window across the street.
“The butcher’s,” she said. “The second floor of the butcher’s. On the north side.”
Trafalgar pushed away from the wall and remained crouched as she moved to the kerb. She doubted a shooter from the vantage point Leola had given her would be able to hit a target at that angle, and she risked a quick dash across the street without cover. Bullets chipped the brickwork of the road but not even the chips got close enough to harm her. The alley door was locked, a fact she only discovered after she had used her shoulder as a battering ram to shove it open. The shrapnel from the destroyed lock pelted harmlessly off her coat as she took a moment to get her bearings. Large industrial sinks to the right, with grisly cuts of meat hanging from hooks just beyond. To the left a wooden cage that constituted the manager’s office and a staircase leading up.
She flicked her wrist as Threnody had demonstrated and the emei piercers fell into her hand. She pounded up the stairs, her coat flaring behind her as she reached the second floor landing and nearly collided with someone attempting to escape. He was a small man wearing a wool mask that covered his whole face save for an hourglass shape over his eyes. She grabbed the shooter’s arms and used her forward momentum to swing them both around, letting herself fall and hurling her opponent back the way he had come from. He dropped his weapon and it clattered out of reach across the floor as Trafalgar got to her feet and advanced on him.
“You killed my friend,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“I was aiming for you.”
“You’ll die slowly, wishing you had better aim.”
He threw himself at her and Trafalgar spun her piercers. The motion made him believe she’d thrown something and he ducked to one side to avoid a projectile. His attempt to evade threw him off balance, and Trafalgar caught his shoulder with the edge of one blade. He cried out and reared back to free himself, tearing flesh and muscle in the process. He stumbled from the pain and Trafalgar withdrew a quarterstaff from a deep inner pocket of her coat. She swung it underhand, catching the man on his chin and lifting him off his feet.
When he fell, Trafalgar pounced on him. He fought to get free but she pinned his arms to his sides and placed one blade against his throat.
“You will never know what a precious life you extinguished today.” She felt tears on her cheeks but refused to acknowledge them. “Adeline Okoro. Say it.”
He stared at her through the opening in his mask and she applied pressure to his throat.
“Adeline Okoro.” The lower half of the mask moved with his lips.
“Who sent you to kill me?”
“Dorothy Boone.”
Trafalgar set her lips in a firm line and pulled her arm to the side. The blade slit the sniper’s throat, and she held him down until every twitch of life was gone from his body. His blood pooled around her on the floor and, when she stood, she saw it had stained the tail of her coat. It wouldn’t be the first blood she had washed from the leather, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She touched the sleeve to her cheek and smeared Adeline’s blood with her tears, then began searching the assassin for clues as to his identity. She found nothing but a few pounds, some extra ammunition, and a dangerous looking blade. Whoever he was, he was smart enough not to carry anything that would identify him. She took off his mask and made note of his features, then left him to finish bleeding out in the abattoir.
Her feet were heavy as she returned to the ground floor, her hands shaking as she collapsed the emei piercers and concealed them back up her sleeve. She crossed the street and saw that Leola, rather than coming to her aid to capture the sniper, had taken the time to retrieve Adeline’s body and carry it into the house. Trafalgar looked at the blood that had been spilled all over the entry of their home and stared. Adeline, the scared girl who heard voices in her head, who spoke to ghosts and frightened the other children by answering questions they hadn’t asked. Adeline who had been quickly pushed out of three foster homes by asking about her new parents’ deepest and darkest secrets. Her mind had been opened to the world on a level others couldn’t hope to achieve, and the bastard across the street had silenced her voice with a single stupid bullet.
Inside, Leola was already sitting vigil over their fallen friend. She had stretched Adeline out on the parlor table, a piece of cloth wrapped around her head to keep the blood from spilling out onto the floor. The stomach of her blouse was also torn open by the postmortem bullets. Leola looked up, her face streaked with dark tracks of her tears, and her lower lip trembled.
“He’s dead.”
“Did he suffer?”
“Not enough.” Trafalgar slipped off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. She knelt at the end of the table and framed Adeline’s head with her hands. She bent forward and placed a tender kiss between her eyebrows. “I am sorry for doing this to you, Adeline. I... I am glad you heard the silence for once before you went. I know you dreamed of what it would be like to hear only the now. I am grateful you were given that gift.”
Leola, a woman Trafalgar had once seen take a nail through her hand without making a sound, choked back a sob.
“We will punish the one who did this to you.”
“Who?” Leola asked. “Who hired the shooter?”
Trafalgar’s lip curled, her eyes darkening as she forced her lips to frame the disgusting words. “Lady Dorothy Boone. The man across the street died swiftly, and rightly so. He was only a tool. But Lady Boone shall suffer for the life she took today. I shall see to it personally.”
Chapter Two
The Pierce-Arrow landau turned off the main drag not far from Threadneedle and onto the narrow streets of Spitalfields, narrowly avoiding the debris littering either side of the lane. Trafalgar sat in the backseat next to Leola and wondered if she could brush her fingers along the brick buildings by stretching her arm out the window. The streets of London were poorly designed to handle modern automobiles, and she feared what would happen to her adopted city if they were forced to make adjustments. Then again, if the march of progress meant slums like this one were eliminated, perhaps it would be for the best.
“And then where would the residents go?” Adeline asked from the front seat. “The undesirables, those who live here because they have no other choice?”
Adeline was a precognitive telepath, a gift that made her exceptionally skilled behind the wheel but an awkward compatriot. She received a constant barrage of what people intended to say, often whether they eventually spoke them aloud or not. She said it was like trying to watch a play while the people behind her constantly whispered amongst themselves. She saw aspects of the future including whether an intersection would be clear or congested in thirty or fifty seconds’ time.
Trafalgar couldn’t deny the question had merit. “I’ve told you how disconcerting that is.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Yes. I am.” Trafalgar sighed. And ignoring the plight of the people forced to live in these slums made her a hypocrite. She had made her home in far less desirable neighborhoods in the past twenty years. When she first arrived in Cairo she dismissed the crew who still believed she was possessed by some sort of demonic entity. She couldn’t very well quiz them about who she was supposed to be, so she kept her distance and tried to appear consumed by her thoughts. Her first order upon dry land was for the crew to take care of the other children. She didn’t want them sold or bartered away into a life of slavery, so she ordered them to be taken to the police at once. The men balked, but she threatened them with “all the power I can muster” if they failed her.
She set off alone with only the items in Solomon’s pockets to guide her. She sold the items she couldn’t identify but kept the obvious weapons just to be on the safe side. She found maps and journals, the latter of which had pages devoted to Solomon’s allies with their contact information. Trafalgar didn’t know if they had any way of knowing she was the one chosen for his ritual. If they did, they have a way to finish what she interrupted. She found urchins and paid them to deliver messages on her behalf. If Solomon’s associates wanted his papers they would pay dearly for them.
She had no idea how much it would cost to travel from Cairo to London, but she had overheard enough on the boat to know that was where she had to go. London, England, the capital of the world. She had no life back home, no one to give her shelter in this loud and boisterous new world she found herself a citizen of, and London seemed like it would allow her the possibility to find a new path.
The only thing Trafalgar kept was Solomon’s coat. It was far too big for her but she had faith she would grow into it. Years passed but soon she was able to wear it without trailing the hem along the ground behind her. She still had it, the pockets now filled with her own tools of the trade. She kept her journal in a pocket of her suit jacket underneath, however. She figured it would be much harder to lose if she kept it close to her body.
Adeline parked in front of a dilapidated building flanked on either side by trash-strewn alleyways where there lurked vermin of both the rodent and human variety. The front steps were cracked and weed-choked but the front door was an impressive barrier of thick oak with shining new fixtures. Trafalgar knew from experience that the building was nigh impenetrable, knew the crumbling facade hid a steel box full of traps set to dissuade the curious.
Trafalgar climbed out of the backseat and took a moment to adjust her goggles. They had brass frames, the leather strap resting snugly against her temples. Her silk-smooth black hair fell straight down her back to rest on the mantle of her coat. She tugged her gloves on more securely and stretched out her fingers to make sure she had freedom of movement. The real reason for her dawdling was so she could scan the street for anyone who might be watching the building.
Confident that she could approach unseen, she tugged the lapels of her coat and continued up the fractured stairs. Adeline and Leola would remain behind to watch the car, as the neighborhood was rough and their host didn’t particularly like multiple guests. Trafalgar gave the prescribed knock and stepped back to count off thirty-three seconds. Then she turned, went down the steps, and entered the alley. A rust-devoured fencing protected a staircase leading down to a basement entrance. Trafalgar descended, knocked again on this hidden door, and twisted the knob to find it was unlocked.
She removed her goggles as she entered the darkened room. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust before she ventured deeper. Shapes took form in the shadows to either side of her; dust cloths and tarps creating unusual landscapes and vistas in the cluttered basement. After a few yards the aisle widened to reveal a staircase leading back up to the ground floor.
The entire level had been cleared, save for a few columns left to bear the load of the upper floors. Though the windows had been covered, there was enough early-afternoon light filtering through the seams that Trafalgar no longer had to strain her eyes to see. No matter how many times she visited the Crafter’s workshop she was always in awe of its inventory.
The walls were lined with bookshelves that overflowed with calipers, micrometers, shears, clamps, gauges, tap and die sets, hammers, mandrels, and any number of other tools she couldn’t hope to identify. Half-formed objects in the vague shape of arms, legs, torsos, and faces lined the many tables of the room. Tools and parts orbited these incomplete items, sometimes draped with oily rags or wrinkled sheets of paper with blueprints scrawled on them.
Threnody emerged from the back of the house with a wooden case cradled under her right arm. She wore a collarless blue mandarin vest and a flowing dress that looked like an inverted black tulip as it swayed with her movement. Her hands were hidden by kid gloves, but the most remarkable aspect of her ensemble was the plague doctor’s mask, its avian beak extending out like a dark brown hook made of oiled canvas. The two round eyepieces were filled with opaque lenses to prevent anyone from seeing even a glimpse of her face. Trafalgar had once seen what the Crafter was hiding beneath the mask, and it was an experience she wasn’t soon to forget.
“You’re early.” Threnody’s voice was filtered through her mask and came out muffled, hollow, as if she was speaking through a radio. “I don’t like early.”
“I overestimated the travel time. It won’t happen again.”
“Hm.” Threnody cleared a space on her worktable and put down the case. She opened it and withdrew a pair of long slender blades connected at their base by a thin golden ring. At first glance they looked like the hands off a clock face. Threnody adjusted the blades until they lined up against each other, then she turned and held the item out to Trafalgar. “Your emei piercers. Traditionally the blades are rigid, sharpened on either end. But this allows you to collapse and conceal the blades up your sleeve until you are ready to use them.”
“Interesting.” Trafalgar slipped the ring over her middle finger and flicked her wrist. The blades snapped into place, stretching out several inches to either side. She held her arm out and moved her hand to the right, and the blades turned. She folded her index and ring fingers down and the blades folded. Easy to conceal, just as easy to put them into action. They were long enough to extend past her fingers when they were deployed but short enough that they didn’t scrape her elbow when hidden.
Threnody said, “It should do nicely for yours close-quarter purposes.”
“Yes, quite. Thank you, Threnody.” She withdrew a small pouch of money from her coat pocket and handed it to the Crafter. “How are you progressing on the electrical weapon I inquired about?”
“Ah, slowly. Slowly. I am consumed with work for other clients.”
Trafalgar sneered. “Lady Boone, no doubt.”
Threnody chuckled. “No jealousy, Miss Trafalgar. I can’t play favorites with my clients. Besides, if I did, you would be the one left out in the cold. Lady Boone was referred to me by her grandmother. If I was the sort to let petty rivalries dictate my business, her preference would take preference and you would be forced to find a new Crafter.”
“Heaven forfend,” Trafalgar said. “Very well. I shall be in touch.”
Threnody folded her hands in front of her chest and bowed slightly before she turned back to her work table. Trafalgar practiced with the emei piercers a bit more as she left the building, determining how best to manipulate her wrist and the movement of her hand to get the most out of the weapon. Leola pushed away from the car and straightened her jacket when Trafalgar emerged from the alleyway.
“Did you get your new toy, mum?”
Trafalgar smiled and replaced the goggles over her eyes as she climbed back into the car. “When has Threnody ever disappointed us? Take us home, Adeline, and when we arrive I will show you how to use our new weapon.”
#
A handful of airships buzzed above the Thames as they crossed London Bridge, fat bumblebees scooting from one side of the river to the other. Some of them were taking longer journeys and used the river as a shortcut to avoid the uneven skyline. The gondola of one low-hanging ship buzzed them, its gondola swaying like a metallic dragonfly. Once off the bridge they turned right into Bankside, past the brothels and workhouses to the tenement they called home. The windows were barred and the brick was crumbling. It looked like any number of buildings in London, and a fair sight better than some that had suffered from night raids during the war.
Like Threnody’s workshop the decay of their home was a carefully orchestrated deception. Trafalgar had spent every moment of her adult life trying to discover the truth behind Solomon and his organization. She knew the men on the boat were nothing more than hired goons, sent out into the world to find victims for their dark experiments. She wondered how many other girls hadn’t been as fortunate as her, how many had their minds erased and their bodies stolen for some monstrous being. Her investigations revealed a cabal of powerful men seeking ancient artifacts with which they could gain even more power.
The spoils of her career were stored in the reinforced basement of the tenement. She, Adeline, and Leola lived in a proper home surrounded by the shell of the crumbling brick. They had all the amenities of those who lived in the more elite parts of the city without drawing attention to themselves. She often thought of Lady Boone and her extravagant townhouse, the sprawling three-property fortress which all but beckoned thieves to try their luck.
Adeline parked the car in the only alley on the street wide enough to accommodate it, then Trafalgar and Leola helped conceal it using bins and empty wooden crates. Most people in the neighborhood knew Trafalgar, knew to trust her and that she was willing to fight for them as tirelessly as she fought for herself. They left her things alone for the most part but there was no sense in tempting fate. Adeline led them back to the street, and Leola took the rear for the walk back to their building. Adeline started up the front steps but froze halfway up. She turned and scanned the street with an odd expression on her face.
“Is everything all right?” Trafalgar asked.
Adeline nodded slowly and allowed her expression to break into a full smile. “It’s quiet. All the noise. The chatter? It’s stopped. For the first time, I can’t hear anything. The future has finally gone quiet.”
Trafalgar had a moment of intense fear for what that meant before the bullet caught Adeline just above her left eyebrow. Her blood sprayed across the front of the building and drops of it landed on Trafalgar’s face as her friend fell back onto the stone steps. Leola grabbed Trafalgar’s shoulders and hauled her to the side as another bullet chipped the masonry of their building. Leola pushed Trafalgar into the shadows next to the stairs and draw her own revolver. Trafalgar started to lean forward but Leola pushed her back.
“Where is it coming from?”
“I can’t see,” Leola said. Another bullet sank into Adeline’s body with a sickeningly flat sound, like a blackjack thudding against a speed bag. Tears burned the corners of Trafalgar’s eyes, a mixture of anger and grief at the thought of her friend being violated in that manner. Leola straightened slightly and fired at a window across the street.
“The butcher’s,” she said. “The second floor of the butcher’s. On the north side.”
Trafalgar pushed away from the wall and remained crouched as she moved to the kerb. She doubted a shooter from the vantage point Leola had given her would be able to hit a target at that angle, and she risked a quick dash across the street without cover. Bullets chipped the brickwork of the road but not even the chips got close enough to harm her. The alley door was locked, a fact she only discovered after she had used her shoulder as a battering ram to shove it open. The shrapnel from the destroyed lock pelted harmlessly off her coat as she took a moment to get her bearings. Large industrial sinks to the right, with grisly cuts of meat hanging from hooks just beyond. To the left a wooden cage that constituted the manager’s office and a staircase leading up.
She flicked her wrist as Threnody had demonstrated and the emei piercers fell into her hand. She pounded up the stairs, her coat flaring behind her as she reached the second floor landing and nearly collided with someone attempting to escape. He was a small man wearing a wool mask that covered his whole face save for an hourglass shape over his eyes. She grabbed the shooter’s arms and used her forward momentum to swing them both around, letting herself fall and hurling her opponent back the way he had come from. He dropped his weapon and it clattered out of reach across the floor as Trafalgar got to her feet and advanced on him.
“You killed my friend,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“I was aiming for you.”
“You’ll die slowly, wishing you had better aim.”
He threw himself at her and Trafalgar spun her piercers. The motion made him believe she’d thrown something and he ducked to one side to avoid a projectile. His attempt to evade threw him off balance, and Trafalgar caught his shoulder with the edge of one blade. He cried out and reared back to free himself, tearing flesh and muscle in the process. He stumbled from the pain and Trafalgar withdrew a quarterstaff from a deep inner pocket of her coat. She swung it underhand, catching the man on his chin and lifting him off his feet.
When he fell, Trafalgar pounced on him. He fought to get free but she pinned his arms to his sides and placed one blade against his throat.
“You will never know what a precious life you extinguished today.” She felt tears on her cheeks but refused to acknowledge them. “Adeline Okoro. Say it.”
He stared at her through the opening in his mask and she applied pressure to his throat.
“Adeline Okoro.” The lower half of the mask moved with his lips.
“Who sent you to kill me?”
“Dorothy Boone.”
Trafalgar set her lips in a firm line and pulled her arm to the side. The blade slit the sniper’s throat, and she held him down until every twitch of life was gone from his body. His blood pooled around her on the floor and, when she stood, she saw it had stained the tail of her coat. It wouldn’t be the first blood she had washed from the leather, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She touched the sleeve to her cheek and smeared Adeline’s blood with her tears, then began searching the assassin for clues as to his identity. She found nothing but a few pounds, some extra ammunition, and a dangerous looking blade. Whoever he was, he was smart enough not to carry anything that would identify him. She took off his mask and made note of his features, then left him to finish bleeding out in the abattoir.
Her feet were heavy as she returned to the ground floor, her hands shaking as she collapsed the emei piercers and concealed them back up her sleeve. She crossed the street and saw that Leola, rather than coming to her aid to capture the sniper, had taken the time to retrieve Adeline’s body and carry it into the house. Trafalgar looked at the blood that had been spilled all over the entry of their home and stared. Adeline, the scared girl who heard voices in her head, who spoke to ghosts and frightened the other children by answering questions they hadn’t asked. Adeline who had been quickly pushed out of three foster homes by asking about her new parents’ deepest and darkest secrets. Her mind had been opened to the world on a level others couldn’t hope to achieve, and the bastard across the street had silenced her voice with a single stupid bullet.
Inside, Leola was already sitting vigil over their fallen friend. She had stretched Adeline out on the parlor table, a piece of cloth wrapped around her head to keep the blood from spilling out onto the floor. The stomach of her blouse was also torn open by the postmortem bullets. Leola looked up, her face streaked with dark tracks of her tears, and her lower lip trembled.
“He’s dead.”
“Did he suffer?”
“Not enough.” Trafalgar slipped off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. She knelt at the end of the table and framed Adeline’s head with her hands. She bent forward and placed a tender kiss between her eyebrows. “I am sorry for doing this to you, Adeline. I... I am glad you heard the silence for once before you went. I know you dreamed of what it would be like to hear only the now. I am grateful you were given that gift.”
Leola, a woman Trafalgar had once seen take a nail through her hand without making a sound, choked back a sob.
“We will punish the one who did this to you.”
“Who?” Leola asked. “Who hired the shooter?”
Trafalgar’s lip curled, her eyes darkening as she forced her lips to frame the disgusting words. “Lady Dorothy Boone. The man across the street died swiftly, and rightly so. He was only a tool. But Lady Boone shall suffer for the life she took today. I shall see to it personally.”