Avon Calling! Season One

by Hayley Camille

  Suddenly, the little boy went still. His limbs relaxed and he lay unconscious, tinged with blue, his eyes closed.

  “What do I do?” she begged, desperately, in great heaving sobs.

  The answer came from inside of her.

  Nancy’s body reacted.

  Offered her a solution.

  It changed.

  A great rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins.

  Within her girlish frame, every muscle stretched and contracted with unrealized potential.

  Her heart raced, her senses heightened.

  Every beat that passed felt like a lifetime of opportunity, as if she could catch the dust dancing in the air and use it, before it swirled away. Time slowed. Her mind sped up.

  An innate power built up inside, desperate to break free.

  There was no thought.

  No decision.

  Only action.

  Nancy scooped up her five-year-old brother in her arms and clutched him against her chest like a sleeping baby.

  And she ran.

  Fast.

  Out the door, leaving it creaking in her wake.

  Up the leafy streets.

  Faster.

  Beyond the corner where a closed sign rattled on the greengrocers’ window as she passed.

  Faster.

  Faster than she’d ever run before.

  Faster than any girl should be able.

  Faster than any ambulance could have sped.

  Nancy wove and ducked past blinding headlights, barely aware of them against the growing dark.

  Suburbia broke into city center where the subways rumbled beneath the roads under her feet.

  Buildings whipped past, almost too blurred to see.

  And on Nancy raced, without thought or pause.

  To where the hospital glittered on the far outskirts of the city.

  Because there was only one thing that mattered anymore.

  Save him.

  Smash!

  The chair flew out from under Betty as she kicked it, dragging the broken chains along the cement floor as it travelled. Donny reeled, falling backward as Betty’s forehead ricocheted off his own. He lay stunned for a moment on the cement floor, and in that micro-second of stillness, Betty looked up. Felix’s eyes grew comically wide as if in slow motion, and then he grimaced and threw back his head.

  “Kill her!” he screamed.

  There was an outbreak of noise and men poured in from their hidden places in the maze of crates.

  “Get out!” Betty screamed at the cowering boys behind the packing table. They didn’t need to be asked twice. The orphans scrambled in a dozen directions at once like mice from a broken cage. They dived under boxes and scuttled between the legs of the goons running toward Betty, heading for the staircase that would take them up and away from the basement.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Felix yelled. He’d leapt after the children, grabbing one by the scruff of the neck, and dragging him painfully back into the center of the room. It was Vince Junior’s little tag-along, a boy of about nine years old, Sam. Felix had a gun in his other hand. “You’re stayin’ with me, kid,” he growled as he pushed away toward the back of the warehouse. Betty knew she’d have to get through Felix to save Sam. Collateral.

  Thump!

  The first fist landed against her jaw and Betty heard a roar of protest from George. She grabbed the goon’s hand and forced her left arm through their embrace, then wrenched her elbow back into his face, snapping his neck. One down. As he crumpled to the floor, she caught the foot of a second man as he kicked out. Betty twisted, spinning him around on the spot, holding two other men at bay with his floundering arms and knocking the gun from one’s hand as he aimed. A bullet flicked by her and caught the metal screw of her upturned chair, sending it skidding it back another foot, and narrowly missing George, who was still bound in his own. With a mighty flick of her wrist, she sent the spinning goon crashing into a pile of crates.

  Donny was scrambling to his feet, pale in the face. The basement was bedlam.

  Through the shouts and stampede, Betty could make out the music of the wood tube radio somewhere up the back of the room, now piping a fast-paced swing. Serenade to a Savage was pulsing through the air with Artie Shaw at the helm of a brass orchestra. Betty let the jungle drums swell inside her as she punched and kicked through the onslaught of men piling toward her to the beat. A whining trumpet siren sang out and she caught a glimpse of her husband through the bodies. His mouth was hanging open, slack with disbelief. He wasn’t even struggling anymore. Oh dear.

  Betty’s head snapped back as a well-aimed hit caught her cheek. She recoiled, stumbling back. She grabbed the throat of its source with one hand while the other lifted her skirt, searching for the familiar warmth of metal in her garter. Her heart skipped a beat. Her knives were missing.

  “You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you?” Donny jeered, above the din. He was over behind the packing desk now, where the orphans had been before, content to let his trigger-men take their turn first. But a twitch of his eye gave him away and Betty pulled what she needed from his mind. In a lidded crate, with my coat, behind the table. That’s where he’d thrown them before they’d chained her to the chair. Betty shuddered reflexively at the thought of Felix’s filthy hands frisking her and peeling off her jacket as she’d lain unconscious. His filthy fingers pulling her knives from her garters. She’d make sure he regretted it later. Her fingers found a ladder at the top of her nylon hose and Betty’s eyes glinted furiously. Stockings were a precious commodity these days, thanks to the donation drives to collect them for the gunpowder boys and parachute silk. In a cry of rage, Betty swung at a hatchet-man heading her way and cracked his jaw, sending him sprawling to the floor in a spray of blood and teeth.

  “That’s for ruining a perfectly good pair of stockings!”

  Betty ducked her head at a hurl of intention inside the mind of someone behind her. Bang! A bullet flew over her head. The smell of cordite caught her, as she twisted to the side, dislodging his gun that was now pressed to her shoulder blade. Throwing herself forward into the arms of a lanky black-haired thug closing in, she redirected his knife with his arm still attached until the blade sank deep into the gun-wielder’s heart. He fell to his knees with a scream of surprise. Two down. Betty round-housed her right leg to kick his Colt from his hand as he fell. It clattered to the floor. She dropped to her hands under the lanky thug as he stumbled forward, skidding through his open knees. Betty’s fingers found the gun. Before he turned around, she had rolled onto her back and shot him up through his gullet. Three down. An empty click. Betty detached the box magazine and let it spin away under the maze of supply crates as she scrambled to her feet.

  She heard a strangled yell of anguish from behind her. George was struggling again, rocking back and forth on the legs of his chair, still tightly bound. A string of near-obscenities were tumbling from his mouth.

  “Confounded son-of-a-sea-cook!” George spluttered, as the chair rocked too far backward. He fell with a thud, smacking the back of his head against the concrete floor.

  “My poor darling,” Betty gushed, breaking away from the fray. She grabbed the chair with one hand and pulled it to rights with George still tied on. He looked dazed, but despite it all, tried to yell over the din. His eyes were as wide as silver dollars.

  “How did you –? I don’t understand –” George was frantic, his face red with exertion and a tinge of betrayal behind the fear in his eyes.

  “I don’t – I don’t know what to do – or how, how you can –?” he stopped midsentence, lost for words.

  “I can’t explain it, darling, not now!” Betty pleaded. “Please leave, George. You must get out now!”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” George huffed, as Betty wrenched her arm backward into a goon’s chest and sent him smashing onto his back beside her.

  “I’m so sorry, George.” The thug was at her feet, a knife in his fist. As h
e stabbed it toward her calves, Betty grabbed his wrist. She heard the sickening crack of his bones as she twisted the knife from his grip. With tears in her eyes, she looked down at the hitman, then back up to meet her husband’s eyes. The hitman grimaced and lunged toward her with his good fist clenched. With a shuddering sigh of resignation, Betty stabbed the man directly into the heart. Four. Droplets of blood spray stained the perforations in the beige leather of George’s two-toned spectators. Betty tried to smudge it away with her hand, but only made it worse. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, climbing to her feet. “I never wanted you to see any of this.” With a quick slice, Betty cut through the ropes that bound George to the chair and they fell away to the floor.

  “Leave. Now,” she demanded, unable to look him in the eye.

  “But I think –” he stammered, “I think you just killed that man –” George gawped at the body by his feet, a bloody knife protruding from the man’s heart like a monument, his eyes wide and glassy.

  George’s face was almost as ashen as the dead man.

  Words tumbled from his mouth. “How did you know to do that?” George got unsteadily to his feet, trying not to step on the corpse sprawled in front of him. He was trembling, one hand over his mouth, as if he was going to be sick.

  “Girl Scouts,” Betty growled impatiently, knowing full-well how ridiculous she must sound. “It’s a long story, my darling, but you really have to leave. Now. There’s a door that way that leads upstairs,” she nodded toward the entrance she’d found on her reconnaissance visit weeks ago. “Behind all of the crates. Please, go!” She cracked her elbow backward in a sharp blow and caught a balding ginger in the Adam’s apple. He fell backward, choking.

  “I just – but I feel like I don’t even know who you are –” George stuttered, clearly in shock. “What Pinzolo was saying – and all this fighting – and this dead man –” George stumbled backwards over his chair, trying to put distance between himself and the body.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Betty said, kicking the ginger over and picking him up by the seat of his pants then smashing him headlong into a wooden crate. “But I had to do it, dear. He was an absolute scoundrel – shot two railway guards last month after he held up a woman on the subway!”

  “How on earth would you know that?” George asked, weakly.

  “Well –” Betty began, distractedly. It was no good trying to explain that she had read the criminal’s mind before stabbing his heart, or in fact, that she could read the stains that every man in the room wore on his soul before she killed them. Betty suddenly realized she still had the chance to keep at least one of her gifts a secret. “I saw his picture in the newspaper!”

  A spray of bullets ricocheted off the cement and Betty threw her husband to the ground behind a pile of crates.

  “The newspaper?!” George spluttered, from the floor.

  “Please!” Betty begged, “Just leave, George! Go home.” She couldn’t bear to hear where his naïve questions would take him, or where they would leave her. She couldn’t bear to let her heart break. Not here. Not now.

  “But I can’t leave you!” George growled, obstinately, getting to his feet. “I’m not going anywhere until I know what the blazes all this is about!”

  “Then I’m sorry, George,” Betty cried, as another wave of men hurtled toward her, “but you’ll have to keep out of my way!” She leapt past the men and grabbed an empty ammunition crate. She tore the hinged lid from its frame, leaving a meter-cubed hollow inside. She heaved it up onto her shoulder. “Get down!” she yelled to George and he fell back to the floor in fright as she ran toward him and brought it down over his head, trapping him inside on his hands and knees.

  Betty turned to another crate, nailed closed and full of ammunition. Wincing with effort, Betty picked the full crate up onto her shoulder and stacked it on top of the one George was trapped underneath. He’d be furious, but at least, for now, he was safe.

  “Let me out of here!” George screeched through the small hole cut into the side as a handle, his fingers poking through in a ridiculous attempt to grab hold of something.

  “It’s for your own good, dear” she yelled back, turning away into an oncoming horde.

  Betty threw herself down onto her hands and kicked her legs out violently behind her, knocking a pistol from a thatch-chested thug as he ran in, bullets flying ahead of him. She kicked out again in a swish of petticoat, wrapping him in her outstretched thighs and pushed her arms up and away from the floor with all her strength. They both crashed back down, Betty’s legs still wrapped securely around his fat chest. She grabbed the gun from the floor and shot him straight between the eyes. Five.

  Flecks of blood sprayed her face, staining her red polka-dot tea dress with spots that didn’t belong. She shoved the gun into her garter with gritted teeth as two more men came running toward her, firing. Betty jumped up, her eyes ablaze with fury.

  “This. Dress. Was. From Macy’s!” she yelled.

  Betty grabbed the first, a rotten-toothed beer-belly, and threw him over the wall of crates into the maze beyond with a scream. Her fist found the second man’s jaw, hard, in a spray of blood. This one was scrawny, with dark hair and an ill-fitting pin-striped suit.

  “The hound? Is that what they call you, dear?” Betty breathed, grabbing him by the tie and wrenching it up in the air. The Hound’s toes dragged on the ground and his mind spilt murder like a broken pail. Arson. Aggravated Assault. Rape. Like some of the others hidden in the shadows of the basement, this one was a contract killer for the Chinese mafia on the other side of town. Donny had recruited further than ever before. Smelling his desperation was satisfying. Betty narrowed her eyes, considering the man in front of her with distaste.

  “Well, Qing, darling,” she said darkly, as he spluttered, face turning purple. “I happen to think that you give dogs a very bad name. You should have worked in the fish market with your brothers, like your good mother wanted. Such a disappointment.”

  Betty dropped him onto his feet then pulled him up straight, finding the man’s gut, hard, with her fist. He doubled over, groaning and gasping. Betty sent his meagre weight stumbling back into the goon coming up behind, sending them both sprawling. She whipped the ginger’s gun from her garter. Six. Seven. She spun and gave a bullet to the unconscious redhead while she was at it. Eight.

  Betty looked up. Felix had long disappeared into the chaos with Sam. Fat splinters of wood exploded from the edge of the crates to her right as a new wave of bullets hit. Betty dove, throwing herself behind a wall of crates, desperate to redirect the flow of ammunition from where George was trapped.

  “All together!” Donny was yelling from somewhere ahead. “Attack together, you imbeciles! Don’t let her pick you off!”

  “What’s the matter, boys?” Betty goaded, crawling between the piles of crates, machinery and supplies. “You’re not scared of a little housewife, are you?” Her dress was torn now, and blood-splattered, her petticoat filthy under her knees. Cautiously, she stood up and poked her head out from her hiding place. A barrage of bullets flew in and she ducked back out of sight. The crate that Donny had stashed her knives in was only meters away. A thick-necked gunsel stood beside it, eyes keen, with a Tommy gun at the ready.

  Betty slid back down to the floor, her back against the stack of crates. Bullets flew hard and fast. She slid the magazine out of the Colt she still held. One bullet left. I really need those knives.

  The chaotic actions and intentions of Donny’s men streamed into her mind from every corner of the room. There was dark amusement from some, uncertainty from others. A handful were only here for the money, others for revenge of their comrades she’d cut down in the past. Most though, were just blind fools, ready to die for a man that moved them like pawns on a chessboard.

  Somewhere in the darkest corner, Betty could sense Felix waiting, calm and detached, his mind a hive of cold strategy. His ambition had led him here, but Betty knew Felix held only disdain for Donny an
d his business. It was the promised reward and the threat to Tilly that kept the fire burning under his skin. Felix saw himself in Donny’s shoes. In control of a pulsing city and the network of arteries underneath that kept it alive. Donny’s closest were already dead, his caporegimes diminished. Betty had done that dirty work already. Felix now saw himself as Donny’s right-hand man, ready to step sideways into his shoes as soon as Donny himself had been dispensed with. Felix’s thoughts were confident and quick. He had faith that Betty would complete the inconveniency of Donny’s murder for him tonight. If not, he would continue to play the loyal consigliere until he did the honor himself. Letting Betty rid him of Donny, then ridding himself of her, was now Felix’s play. And the orphan boy, apparently, was his insurance to see it through.

  Her head felt stifled. Overflowing.

  Too many voices all at once.

  Betty closed her eyes for a moment, blocking them all out. The shouting and gunfire fell away.

  Silence.

  She pictured her silver box with its small treasures inside, each one an embodiment of its original owner’s super-human skill.

  Strength. Telepathy. Speed. Agility.

  Her birthright.

  Each woman had carried a blessing and curse in her gift. All had borne it in secret.

  Mothers. Sisters. Grandmothers. Daughters.

  They had fought with their gift. Nurtured with it. Protected with it.

  My blood, Betty thought, with gritted teeth.

  The desire to live up to their legacy caught aflame and burned inside her chest like a raging inferno, until even the tips of her fingers felt ablaze. But there was one more gift running through her blood. The one that had brought others’ secret thoughts and pain inside her mind. An Achilles heel that could douse that flame.

  Empathy.

  The source of her mother’s greatest strength and agony.

  The two-headed snake.

  It was Donald Pinzolo who had taken that gift and twisted it into something terrible. He’d raped compassion to breed deceit and murder and built his empire on an abomination of love. Turned strength into weakness. Into hopelessness.