Canon in Crimson

by Rachel Kastin

  “Marrakesh,” Alger clarified, when he was satisfied that we were thoroughly confused.

  Of course. Marrakesh, the semi-mythical market at the center of the world. That made sense; the box wasn’t likely to end up there, but it would certainly change hands there are some point. Felix Madden, Julius Rowles, Patrick McManus, Yvonne Devereaux, Tony Signorille, John Cyrus Kingston, I remembered involuntarily. Well, none of those leads was going to get us anywhere now—Marrakesh was as good as good a place to start as any.

  “Can we still afford to take a boat?” asked Shifty.

  “Easily,” Alger told him nonchalantly. “But we won’t need to. A fellow in Monaco still owes me a favor.”

  “Alright,” he replied dubiously, turning to leave. Then he stopped, remembering something. “Hey, kid,” he said. “The word is that you had a close one last night. Is that right?”

  I felt Alger’s arms tense just barely at that. Maybe he didn’t want me to say anything? I wasn’t sure if that’s what it meant, but…the truth was, after our tiff in Vienna, I wasn’t feeling too keen on Shifty anyway. And besides, it did make for a pretty unbelievable story.

  “It’s true,” I answered. “I was really lucky.”

  Shifty waited, and when he realized that was all he was going to get, he shrugged.

  “Well, maybe you two’ll feel like telling me what really happened one day,” he muttered as he left the room.

  When I heard his footsteps travel far enough away, I turned back to Alger.

  “So you didn’t tell them?”

  “It’s your secret, not mine,” he confirmed, leaning back against the cabin wall and settling me against him. “You can give it out as you see fit.”

  My secret, I mused, turning in his arms to face him.

  “I don’t know what I’d say, anyway,” I admitted, absently touching the spot on my skin where the bullet had hit me. “I don’t know what happened. He—the Collector really shot me, didn’t he? I didn’t imagine that?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Alger said. He reached into his pocket and produced the misshapen little piece of metal that should have killed me. I took it, turning it over in my fingers and thinking.

  “But why would it bounce off me? What does it mean?”

  Alger shook his head.

  “I know you have a tendency to believe otherwise, my dear, but I’m not actually in possession of all the world’s information.” I gave him an exasperated look, and he smiled. “In any event,” he said, “what I’m certain it means is that in spite of all odds, you’re safe and sound, and I can’t object to that result.”

  “I guess,” I agreed, letting him gather me closer.

  “Well then,” he said, “before we were interrupted a moment ago, where were we, exactly?”

  I grinned wickedly as my worries vanished again, and I reminded him.

  §

  After a few perfect days of traveling together, we arrived in Monaco, and Alger’s friend paid back the favor he owed by getting us passage on a ship to Tangier. Three quick days after that, we made port. In the midst of the nervous darkness that gripped Europe, Morocco flourished in its rebellion; free from the Spanish stranglehold, spirits were high, and it was easy to hitch a ride with a caravan traveling south. So in a couple of long, sandy days, we reached Marrakesh.

  When we got there, Alger took Shifty and left the twins with instructions not to let me out of their sight. Immediately overwhelmed by the tumult of color and sound, I said goodbye and followed them into the thick of it without objecting.

  The market was a maze of covered alleys lined with two stories of tightly packed shops and stands. We wove through the bustling crowd to the harmony of musicians’ festive flutes, strings, and drums, the calls of eager vendors, and the symphony of voices chattering in every language you can imagine. The scent of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves entwined themselves with the smoke and dust meandering through the air. Everywhere we turned, we were eye to eye with a new and irresistible wonder. But after a little while, we started to adjust to the chaos of our surroundings, and we fell comfortably into conversation.

  “So,” Big Six began, as we were leaving a fruit stand, “you and the Boss, huh?”

  I barely stopped myself from choking on a bite of mango.

  “What about us?”

  “Come on, Vic,” the Torpedo said, plucking a hat from a nearby rack and putting it on my head. “It’s no secret. You’ve been joined at the hip since Budapest.”

  “Plus, he kissed you in front of everyone just a minute ago,” Big Six pointed out helpfully. Oh, hell. I hadn’t thought about that. “And I heard on the train that—”

  “Okay, okay,” I muttered, futilely willing myself to stop blushing. “So?” I shoved the hat back into the seller’s hands and made the twins chase me a few steps through the crowd and over to a rug shop.

  “So, nothing,” the Torpedo answered as I picked through a rainbow of fabric. “Except you won us a bet, is all.”

  “A bet?” I looked up at them both sharply, digging my fingers into a bolt of soft red and gold cloth. “What kind of a bet?”

  “You didn’t know?” Big Six asked, prying my fingers loose and pulling me down the alley, past a giant stack of person-sized baskets and a cluster of painters. “We wagered on when you’d catch him the first time we met you.”

  I stopped in the middle of the street, forcing a man on a camel to dodge me at the last second and almost making a juggler drop his knives.

  “You’ve been betting on us for a year and a half? And nobody told me?”

  They looked at each other helplessly, and after a moment, I started walking again, making them duck to follow me into a covered pavilion full of animals.

  “So. You thought it would take this long?” I eventually said.

  “Sure,” the Torpedo told me, clearly not seeing what the big deal was. “You know the Boss. He doesn’t let anybody in.”

  “But anyway, that’s settled now,” Big Six said placatingly, lifting me onto an Arabian horse’s back with his one good arm. “Actually,” he went on, looking up at me for once, “we all wanna know what happened back in Budapest. The Boss only said the fella you went to see was…well, you know.”

  I scratched the beautiful race horse behind the ears and climbed off before heading out of the enclosed area with the twins in tow. It was my secret, to give out as I saw fit, Alger had said. I mean, if I could trust anyone, it was these fellas, right?

  “Well, to tell you the truth—”

  But then I got distracted. As we rounded the corner, we were coming up behind a richly dressed man with a saber hanging from his belt, giving an earful to a terrified-looking goatherd, who couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen.

  “This is my area,” he shouted in Spanish. “Do you understand me, you good-for-nothing rat? I should have you whipped right now for trying to sell that thing around here!”

  The goatherd, likely scared beyond speech, was staring at his toes. I took a look at his animal: a poor, emaciated creature with big, mournful eyes. And the kid didn’t look much healthier or happier. There he was, minding his own business, just trying to get by. That goat was probably all he had.

  Anger simmered in my stomach as I watched them, and I felt the sudden urge to intervene. No one should be able to get away with acting like that, and bringing arrogant, self-important men like that to their knees was kind of what we did, wasn’t it? And if he couldn’t hurt me, then why not?

  My mind made up, I grabbed the twins’ arms and ducked back into the pavilion before Saber Man noticed us. Pulling them into a corner where we wouldn’t be overheard, I beckoned them closer.

  “Listen,” I whispered. “I have an idea. Can you stay hidden for a minute?”

  The Torpedo looked at me suspiciously.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Nothing!” I told him innocently. “Just a little fun. I promise.”

  He looked at his brother and back.

&n
bsp; “Okay, but we have to watch.”

  “We promised not to let you out of our sight,” Big Six reminded me.

  “Yeah, yeah. Just stay here. I’ll let you know when to come out, alright?”

  They didn’t look too happy, but they grudgingly agreed. I mean, other than holding me down, what were they going to do? So I walked out of the pavilion again while they stood just inside the entryway, and I crept up behind Saber Man, who was still berating the poor kid. As I approached him, I slid the polished ebony clip Alger had given me out of my hair and flicked out the hidden knife. In one quick motion, I slit the man’s belt, caught the saber by the hilt with my left hand, and shoved the hairclip back into place.

  My mark wheeled around as his belt slithered to the ground, and when he realized what I’d done, his face contorted with fury. I smiled at him, backing away slowly and drawing him away from the goatherd like a fish on a hook.

  “Is something wrong?” I baited, mimicking his refined Castilian accent.

  “You brazen little fool,” he snarled, advancing. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Nothing much. Just passing the time. Why?” I asked, toying with the saber and taking another step back.

  He glared daggers at me, nostrils flaring.

  “Listen to me,” he warned. “This is your last chance. I know plenty of good uses for tarts who have nothing better to do than annoy their betters.”

  That last tirade had gotten us the rest of the way to the pavilion, and I was standing right next to its entrance. I shook my head sadly.

  “You really shouldn’t have said that,” I told him.

  And just as Saber Man was about to close on me, the twins walked out to stand at my back. I smiled pleasantly while they stared him down.

  Surprised, my mark took a second to recover his wits, and I took the opportunity to hand his sword to the Torpedo. As my large friend started to tap the blade and bend it, Saber Man’s temper overcame his wariness.

  “You’ll give that back this instant if you know what’s good for you!” he exploded. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Unconcerned with who he was, I translated his tantrum to the Torpedo. He looked at Big Six.

  “He wants it back,” he told his brother. “What do you think?”

  Big Six grinned while Saber Man looked on furiously.

  “Well, I guess you should give it to him,” he said.

  The Torpedo shrugged. Then, with his bare hands, he held out the saber and snapped off the blade at the hilt.

  “You can have this part,” he said happily, tossing the hilt back to my shocked mark.

  Saber Man stood there for a second, gaping at us, and then he spat in the dirt.

  “You can bet you’ll be seeing me again,” he growled. And he stalked off, livid and humiliated.

  When he was safely gone, I tossed the rest of my mango to the goatherd, who was still staring in open-mouthed amazement. I winked at him, and he giggled and scampered off, dragging his sad little goat behind him. Satisfied, I hugged the twins and started down the next alley.

  “See?” I asked. “Wasn’t that fun? He was about to have kittens!”

  “Sure,” Big Six admitted. “But…next time, can we do something safer?”

  “Oh, hush. He couldn’t touch you,” I answered dismissively, sifting through an assortment of spices and moving on.

  “Not us,” the Torpedo said. “But you could have gotten hurt. Then we’d be in big trouble, and you’d be…well, you’d be hurt.”

  That was right, I remembered. I hadn’t gotten around to telling them. I stopped in front of a cage full of lions and tigers, which were certain to get more attention than this conversation, and turned to face them.

  “Fellas,” I said soberly, “he couldn’t have hurt me either. I’m—well, I think I’m kind of—” I broke off, not even sure how to describe it, and sighed. “Listen,” I went on. “What happened in Budapest was that Vidrai shot me.”

  Big Six frowned.

  “That explains why the Boss bumped him off,” he said, “but what else?”

  “Well,” I explained, “the bullet bounced off me.”

  He looked skeptical.

  “That’s impossible. What’d he shoot you with?”

  “This,” I told them proudly, taking the expended round from my pocket. The Torpedo took it from me and examined it, and then he chuckled.

  “Vic, this is a .22,” he said, handing it back. “If it didn’t hit you in the head, it probably wasn’t gonna kill you.”

  “But it should’ve broken the skin!” I protested. “And look, it just squished!”

  “It must have hit something else first,” he said. “You were probably just too scared to remember right.”

  “No way,” I said, getting annoyed. “Alger saw it. You can ask him what happened.” Then I had a great idea. “Better yet…”

  I spun on my heel and headed down the street towards a candlemaker’s shop. The twins looked worried, but they came along, dodging a couple of carts to follow me.

  “If you don’t believe me,” I told them when they caught up, “then watch this.”

  I turned around resolutely and, taking a deep breath, I picked out a large, burning candle and stuck my hand into the open flame.

  Intense and immediate pain consumed my hand. I waited, biting my tongue while tears filled my eyes. It had hurt last time, too. But when I saw the skin start to crack and blister, I finally pulled it out just as Big Six was reaching out to stop me himself. Horrified customers backed away as I gasped in agony, clutching my wrist and staring at my scorched hand. Trying to avoid a ruckus, the twins hurried me away from the shop.

  “What did you go and do that for?” the Torpedo scolded me. “We’re trying to keep you safe, and you have to burn yourself up?”

  “I know,” I muttered, more upset by the wound to my dignity than the one to my hand. “I just thought…” Well, what did I think, anyway? Did I really think because I got lucky once, I couldn’t be hurt?

  I sighed.

  “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” I apologized.

  “Trouble’s gonna be a lot worse if we don’t get you to the Doc in a hurry,” said Big Six. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the hotel before you break anything else.”

  Chapter 30—Off The Rails

  The Doc patched up my hand, smearing some kind of cooling ointment over the burn and wrapping it in gauze with firm instructions not to remove the bandage. Of course, the instant Alger got back to the hotel, I did exactly that as I told him the story of how it had happened.

  “Well, I can’t dispute your decision to trust the twins,” he said, taking my hand gently as he sat down beside me on the bed, “but this method of taking them into your confidence does strike me as reckless.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, shrinking a little in chagrin. “But I had to try.”

  “Of course you did,” he murmured, examining my hand with his eyebrows drawn together. “And are you satisfied now?”

  I sighed, looking at my hand and thinking about the agony of the flame consuming my hand—and the flattened bullet.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I know I’m not invincible, I guess, but…I don’t know. I think my hand might be a little better already. What do you think?”

  He traced a delicate finger over the reddened, sensitive skin of my palm, and his eyes flitted to my face for a reaction. I shrugged; it stung, but much less than I would’ve imagined a few hours ago. Carefully, he placed my hand back in my lap and put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer.

  “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to judge,” he told me. “But I can say for certain that I recommend against any further testing.”

  I sighed and nestled against him, leaning my head on his shoulder.

  “I know,” I said quietly. “I know it’s reckless. But if I don’t try…well, how am I ever going to find out anything about myself?”

  “You, my dear, are an absolutely
incorrigible but tolerably clever and exceedingly lovely young thief,” he told me, punctuating his description by kissing the top of my head. “What else do you need to know?”

  I smiled, but that wasn’t enough for me this time.

  “My name,” I whispered. “My parents, my past. Whether this—this thing with the bullet is something or not, and why. I used to hope…but, now I know I’m never going to remember who I really am.”

  “But that’s what gives you your freedom, Victoria,” he said, sweeping the errant strands of hair out of my eyes with his free hand. “You can be whoever you choose to be.”

  Leaning against him and listening to his steady heartbeat, I knew that, as always, he was right. The last time I’d spent any time thinking about it, over our game of Go in the kitchen so long ago, I’d decided the same thing, hadn’t I? Who I might’ve been before that fire wasn’t as important as the future I wanted to build with Alger and the Gang. The family I’d lost was gone forever, but I adored the family I’d become part of now. I might never know my real last name, but I’d chosen to be Victoria Crimson, the Queen of Spades, and I liked that a hell of a lot.

  And if I really was somehow bulletproof, how and why didn’t matter as much as what it might mean: that maybe, at last, Alger would stop worrying about keeping me safe and let me take my place as his partner. That was what I wanted more than anything—and maybe it was finally within reach. True, things might have been difficult lately, but surely that would pass soon.

  All we had to do was find that damn box.

  “Alright,” I said with a sigh. “So. How did today go?”

  “Productively, I’m pleased to say,” he said, back to his usual glib self. “Tomorrow night, we’ll be meeting with someone who I believe might give us a lead.”

  “We?” I asked hopefully.

  “Indeed,” he said. “It’s obvious I’ll have to keep an eye on you myself, after your rather spectacular stunt today.”

  “But I’m fine!” I protested, opening my hand again. Was it even less red, now?

  “That may well be,” he said, pulling my hand up to kiss my palm, “but I was actually referring to the fact that someone has to make sure you don’t ruffle any more merchants’ feathers, my dear.”