Devil Take Me

by Jordan L. Hawk

  Charles opened his mouth but said nothing, just held up the paper and the pen, obviously at a loss.

  Silas turned his attention to Phebe, and the child flinched.

  “Bend!” Silas commanded, and Phebe immediately bowed. “There! Sign using that.” He waved a hand at Phebe’s bent back. When Charles didn’t move, Silas reached out to Mike and was handed his pistol back. Silas leveled the gun at Phebe’s head. “If the thing isn’t to your liking, dear Charles, I will dispose of it immediately.”

  “No!” Both Agatha and Nurse Fuggas cried out.

  Nimble started forward, but Archie stilled him again. Silas wouldn’t kill the child until she’d served her purpose—Archie knew his uncle well enough to be certain of that. Only after the marriage license was signed by all parties could he afford to murder Phebe, Charles, or Agatha.

  “He’ll come nearer to get Agatha’s signature. We move then,” Archie whispered.

  Nimble simply nodded in response.

  Charles rushed to Phebe and laid the wedding license across her thin back. His hands shook visibly as he signed his name. After he handed the paper and pen back to Silas, he remained at Phebe’s side.

  “I’m sorry,” Charles murmured as Phebe straightened. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why, are those tears in your eyes, Charles?” Silas laughed. “I admit, I do feel rather moved by the beauty of it all myself.” Genuine pleasure seemed to light Silas’s face as he strode down the dock toward Agatha. Nate stepped out of his way.

  Archie tensed. Beside him, Nimble flexed, warming the muscles of his legs. Silas proffered Agatha his fountain pen, and in turn, Agatha handed the signal lamp to Nurse Fuggas. Then without any warning, Agatha launched herself at Silas. She clutched his throat as a murderous shriek wrenched from her mouth. Nate stepped back a step in astonishment and nearly toppled off the dock.

  There couldn’t have been a better moment to charge.

  Archie bounded over the low gate and Nimble leapt after him.

  Ahead of them, Nate regained his balance and swung his pistol toward Agatha’s head. Archie tore across the wooden planks, and Nimble charged behind him so fast and hard that his footfalls rocked the dock. But neither of them were close enough to stop Nate from firing his gun.

  Nurse Fuggas swung the signal lamp into Nate’s side. He stumbled and fired wide. Then he spun back and slammed his gun across the side of the nurse’s face. She fell to the dock.

  “Get off me, you mad hag!” Silas heaved Agatha against a wooden dock support. She hit with a loud crack, swayed, and then sank to the dock.

  Silas lifted his pistol as if to shoot her but stilled in horror as he caught sight of Archie and Nimble. The pleasure drained from his expression.

  “Kill them!” he shouted to Mike and Nate as he turned his own pistol on Archie. Nimble launched himself forward and the entire dock shook. Silas fired but the bullet ripped into the planks to Archie’s right.

  “Where the hell—” Nate’s exclamation ended in a sickly, wet noise as Nimble plowed his fist into Nate’s chest with bone-crushing force.

  Archie hurled his storm lantern into Silas’s gun hand. The pearl-handled pistol fell. Archie had no idea where. But without it, Silas bolted back. Agatha kicked out a foot and sent Silas sprawling. Then Archie pounced on him.

  Out of the corner of his eye Archie saw Nimble charge Mike. Another gunshot sounded.

  Cold dread seized Archie, but he didn’t turn his attention from Silas. The old man nearly slid a belt knife between Archie’s ribs. The blade slashed through Archie’s coat and scraped his skin like a shaving razor. Fortunately Archie had learned the same trick from Silas years before, and he practiced it through three years of warfare. He punched Nimble’s boot knife deep into Silas’s chest.

  Silas jerked and swore as Archie bore down on the blade. Then Silas went still.

  Archie wrenched his knife free of Silas’s dead heart and sprinted across the dock, desperate to reach Nimble. His pulse pounded wildly, and the sound of the single gunshot seemed to play again and again in his mind. He hardly noticed Charles hunched over Phebe, shielding her body with his own. All he saw was Nimble swaying over Mike’s prone body. Mike was past posing any threat. His head twisted to the side, his neck wrung around like a chicken’s.

  “Are you hit?” Archie caught Nimble’s shoulder, offering his strength if Nimble needed it.

  “Not a scratch.” Nimble lifted his arm to expose the singed hole, shot through the left side of his scarlet coat. Powder burns blackened his pinstriped waistcoat. “But this is the second of my fancy suits ruined.”

  Relief swept through Archie like a giddy rush. From the arena upstairs, he heard a roar of cheers.

  THE NOISE from the floors above quieted. The pretense of great battles ended, while on the swaying dock their small group worked on, cold, tired, and battered. Archie saw to it that the river carried Silas and the Smith twins’ corpses away. The unremarkable weapons that had belonged to Nate and Mike, he tossed into the river. The pearl-handled pistol he would clean and lock away in one of the many lovely gun cases that he’d inherited from his grandfather.

  When—if—the remains came to the attention of the Inquisition, the simple alibis that Nimble, Agatha, and Charles concocted would serve them all. Agatha had invited them up to her private rooms to show that there were no hard feelings concerning her engagement. Nimble had regaled them with a few amusing poems, and they had all entertained themselves, playing cards.

  “I won the majority of the hands,” Agatha stated.

  “Certainly,” Nimble agreed. “But we could all see that dear lovestruck Archie didn’t have it in his heart to better you.” Oddly that won a hearty laugh from Agatha and Nurse Fuggas both.

  Then Nurse Fuggas raced up the stairs and returned with medical supplies from the infirmary. The six of them settled on the worn steps of the stairs with the green glow of Archie’s battered storm lamp lighting them. Nurse Fuggas saw to Charles and Agatha, while Archie washed Nimble’s hands and bandaged his knuckles. Then Agatha looked to the nurse’s scrapes and bruises. Phebe wore Charles’s coat to keep off the night winds.

  Somewhere in the midst of it all, Nimble reassured the Wedmoors and Nurse Fuggas that neither he nor Archie had any intention of exposing them or the Prodigals whom they ferried away to greater freedom. It also became abundantly clear that Phebe was Charles’s child, the daughter he’d been parted from during the war. He spoke haltingly of his despair after he’d lost her and her mother in a prison camp and of how he and Agatha had searched for years afterward.

  “This entire pretense of a club was first conceived of as a sanctuary for Phebe, though it grew into much more.” Agatha made an attempt to smooth her wild hair from her face. Then she gingerly dabbed some balm over the ugly bruise already darkening Nurse Fuggas’s cheek. Archie wondered how she would explain it away and then remembered that the nurse had ready access to stage makeup, as well as the latest fashion of veiled hats to fall back on.

  Charles’s injuries would be chalked up to his boxing club.

  “Those of us on her mother’s side were searching for Phebe as well. That’s how Agatha and I found each other.” Nurse Fuggas and Agatha gazed at each other briefly, but with such tender affection that an altogether new aspect of their relationship suddenly occurred to Archie.

  Well…. No wonder the two of them had received his pretense of courting so very coldly.

  For just a moment, he pondered what, if anything, the two of them might have perceived in the way he and Nimble stood together and how they exchanged familiar smiles.

  “Somehow Silas found out. He got to her before any of us.” Charles glanced at Phebe, and she studied him in return. They were not close, that was obvious. But a hopefulness showed in both their expressions. They wanted to care for each other and to be loved in return. That was a start, Archie supposed.

  “At first all he wanted from me was my money. I was happy to pay him anything to have my daughter
back with me,” Charles said. “But as he spent more time in the club, he came to suspect that he could threaten far worse than the ruin of my reputation. He began to demand more and more. Until I feared that I was losing myself utterly to his wishes. His requirements became unbearable.”

  “Like having someone take a shot at me?” Archie inquired without any real feeling of betrayal. What sort of father wouldn’t have sacrificed a veritable stranger’s life for that of his daughter?

  “I was meant to do more than that. He’d ordered me to get you on your own in the north side of the city where his men could murder you and pass it off as a mugging.” Charles looked wretched. “But then you didn’t want to go gaming and Mr. Hobbs couldn’t be convinced to leave your side.”

  “So what, then? You shot at us out the club window as a sign of good faith to Silas?” Nimble sounded as skeptical as Archie on that count. Charles couldn’t have seen them through the gloom, and he’d been on entirely the wrong story of the building.

  “Of course he didn’t.” Nurse Fuggas replied crisply. “Anyway the shots were meant to be a warning. To scare you away from the club and keep you both out of Silas’s horrid grasp. No one would have been hurt if you, Mr. Hobbs, hadn’t thrown yourself out to shield Lord Granville, here. I hadn’t expected that.”

  “It was only a scratch,” Nimble assured her with a shrug. Then he turned a smug smile in Archie’s direction. “Told you it was Fuggas who fired on us.”

  “As I recall, you also thought she was trying to shoot you, not me,” Archie responded.

  Nimble shrugged again as if that was a minor detail. Moths fluttering in the glow of the storm lamp cast odd shadows across the dock. Archie could see Agatha considering him and Nimble.

  “So what is it that you actually do, Mr. Hobbs?” Agatha asked at last.

  Nimble produced his card—albeit a rather damp one—and offered a sanitized version of the events that had brought him to the Dee Club. He cast Archie as a mere army acquaintance with a soft heart and too much time on his hands, and himself as a fellow more accustomed to locating lost cats and love letters than a man who readily faced down gunmen with just his fists.

  “So, Thom hired you? And he’s well? Thank God for that.” Agatha sounded truly relieved. “When he disappeared, I was quite worried that Silas had snatched him up. I tried to locate him myself, but I don’t have too many contacts in certain quarters of Hells Below.”

  “You asked the reverend to look for him.” Nimble sounded certain of it.

  Agatha nodded. “I’ll do what I can to see that he receives a letter from Nancy. She is quite fond of him.”

  They all quieted as a red rowboat neared the dock. Recognition lit the face of the silver-haired woman at the prow as she caught sight of Agatha and Nurse Fuggas. The strapping young man at the oars slowed his stroke. Archie, being both uninjured and more than eight years old, rose and assisted in mooring the boat. Then he stepped aside as Agatha and Nurse Fuggas said tearful goodbyes to Phebe. Charles begged her to write him, and she agreed.

  Agatha assured her that her Nornian great-aunt would adore her and had already made a place for her in her home. “You’ll be free to walk through the meadow and visit any city you like, my darling.” Agatha gave her a last embrace and helped her into the rowboat.

  Then to Archie’s surprise, Agatha turned to Nimble.

  “Mr. Pugg mentioned that you hoped to one day escape the city,” Agatha said. “After all you’ve done for us, I would love to help you. If not right this moment, then whenever you’re ready.”

  Nimble looked startled and then so hopeful that it made Archie’s heart ache. He didn’t want Nimble to go and yet he knew that Nimble deserved the freedom to wander where he wanted. To walk under open skies and visit all the wonders of the world.

  “Thank you,” Nimble replied after a moment. “But as much as I’d love to go, well, I’m afraid my heart is still here.”

  Epilogue: Leave-Taking

  ARCHIE REMAINED a member of the Dee Club but didn’t attend regularly any longer. He still saw Charles, Neet, and Lupton, but not so often, in part because they each moved on in their own interests. Charles largely abandoned boxing in favor of painting, Neet met a young woman who appeared to appreciate his interest in her and his taste in poetry, and Lupton spent more and more time with his brandy.

  For a month, Archie kept clear of Agatha, but when an overbearing young earl began courting her too enthusiastically, Archie once again stepped into the role of her most ardent admirer. He made himself a stumbling block to the earl’s pursuit, and with Nurse Fuggas’s aid, he contrived to frustrate the man into eloping with a saucy widow. While foiling the earl’s various romantic overtures, Archie discovered that Agatha did in fact possess a wonderful sense of humor. They got on rather well and soon grew used to sharing company and shielding each other from matchmakers and gossipmongers alike.

  Of course, the Inquisition did come in search of Silas. Happily, Nurse Fuggas was able to warn Nimble away from Archie for the many months that the investigation dragged on. Inquisitors in their deathly black uniforms rifled through Archie’s papers and shot him hard, cold glares as they pointed out that he did not seem unduly troubled by his uncle’s prolonged absence. He acknowledged that he and his uncle were not close. He neither knew nor cared where the old goat had gone off to.

  “Would it bother you to learn he was dead, then?” the Inquisition captain asked.

  “Of course it would,” Archie replied. “I look terrible in mourning colors. And in addition to that, I’d find myself saddled with his monstrous debts.”

  The captain looked annoyed but thoughtful as well and then angled his further inquiries in the direction of Silas’s finances. Archie provided the names of moneylenders and gaming houses. After an hour of getting nothing more from Archie or his townhouse, the Inquisitors withdrew, though the captain assured Archie that he would hear from them again.

  Archie pretended to find it all rather amusing and suggested they meet at the captain’s residence next time. In reality the encounter filled him with a dread that didn’t lift for days. Archie missed Nimble and longed to chat with him, but so long as he knew that the Inquisition watched him, Archie didn’t dare lead them anywhere near Nimble.

  Instead Archie kept himself occupied at Lords’ court in the day and at the card tables most evenings. In both domains he conspired to win votes for the repeal movement. He ensured that gentlemen who had fallen into debt to him developed a sudden, passionate support for his cause. Agatha championed it as well and even managed to win the Queen’s public endorsement.

  As weeks passed into months, visits from Inquisitors grew rare. The captain took on a weary appearance, which Archie found reassuring. One Inquisitor admitted to Archie that the captain’s exhaustion didn’t stem from too few leads to chase down but far too many.

  Over half a century, Silas had managed to make so very many enemies that Archie soon became only one of a multitude of suspects. (In fact, Archie was a rare individual who actually had something to lose by Silas’s demise.) There were veritable generations of women whom Silas had conned and jilted, illegitimate children he’d abandoned, and numerous men he’d swindled. Rumors circulated that he’d stooped to blackmailing his fellow peers on more than one occasion. Silas’s creditors numbered into the dozens and included the infamous Bastard Jack.

  Summer passed and leaves began to change color. The dour Inquisition captain called on Archie to inform him that they now suspected that his uncle had fled the country of his own volition. Interviews with a boy called Thom Chax had revealed Silas’s numerous inquiries about smuggling people in and out of the country. The entire case was dropped.

  Two rainy days later, Archie and his fellow lords cast their votes and at last overturned the Prodigal Restriction Codes. Fireworks lit the night skies and illuminated the crowds of people dancing in the streets. Inquisitors halfheartedly attempted to suppress the weeklong celebrations by posting bans and issuing two-p
enny fines. The crowds were too numerous and too jubilant to be curbed. And the fact was that even natural citizens enjoyed the outpouring of song and revelry.

  Archie half-expected Hells Below to empty out in a matter of days, but the exodus proved much more slow. Many families had lived there for generations and desired no other homes, only the right to do business and vacation elsewhere. But the young and the adventurous steadily departed.

  It didn’t surprise Archie, though it did shake him a little, when Nimble called upon him, carrying a suitcase and dressed for the road—plain brown coat, boots, and all. Even so, Archie’s sedate drawing room and refined furnishings seemed too small and too dull to confine him. A bright blue feather adorned the green satin band of his hat, and turquoise satin flashed from his waistcoat.

  “All set to take on the world?” Archie asked.

  “Well, there are a few corners I wouldn’t mind having a go at,” Nimble replied. He cocked his head and studied Archie as if expecting him make some sudden realization. But what was there to wonder at? Nimble had always longed to leave; now he could go as he pleased. Archie only hoped he would come back.

  “Your girl didn’t tell you?” Nimble asked.

  “Agatha, you mean? What should she have told me?” Archie asked.

  “Well, there’s this friend of hers living out on some sprawling country estate. A very charming fellow, or so she says.” Nimble grinned. “And it seems he’s got himself something of an intractable problem. If you take my meaning.”

  Archie remembered then that Agatha had taken Nimble’s card.

  So, Nimble had been hired. Archie wondered about the nature of the trouble that it merited Nimble’s intervention. What would Nimble find himself up against on that country estate? A family curse? Bandits? Blackmail? Or perhaps something altogether more mysterious.