by Simon Hawke
"First we get your ass outta here," the orderly said. "Man, I never shoulda let you talk me into this! Thank God I got a second key."
He inserted his spare key into the elevator lock and hit the call button, fidgeting nervously while they waited for the elevator to come back.
"Bad enough she got away, but if the duty nurse comes out and catches you here, I'm really screwed," the orderly said anxiously.
"She won't be able to get out, surely," Colin said. "They'll catch her in the lobby."
"I sure as hell hope so," said the orderly. "I can probably cover myself with some kind of story, but not if you're around. Let's have the money, man, and make it quick. I gotta get you outta here."
Colin counted out the bills as they rode down to the basement, where the orderly quickly took him through the maintenance corridors and then up a short flight of stairs and outside to the parking lot.
"All right, man, you're on your own," the orderly said. "I gotta get back and make up some kinda story about how she got past me. You were never here, you got it?"
"Right," said Colin. "Thanks again."
"Just get outta here, all right?"
Colin hurried toward his car while the orderly went back into the hospital. He got into the rented car and took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then rolled down the window, lit up a cigarette, and opened up the folder that contained the pirated photocopy of Megan's file.
No last name. No known address. No known living relatives. She was a complete Jane Doe. Nothing was known about her at all, just like with all the others. And, just like with all the others, there were no surgical scars, no innoculations, and no dental work whatsoever. No ID, no records, no history at all. It was as if she'd simply dropped in from another world.
There had to be an answer, Colin thought. All these strange cases were connected somehow. The same thread ran through all of them. Sooner or later, if he kept following this up, he'd have to run into the one clue that would make everything else fall into place. It was the most baffling story of his entire career, and he was not about to let go of it. Not for anything. One way or another, he would find the answer. And then he'd bust this whole story wide open.
He started to reach for the ignition, but suddenly his lap was full of girl. A very naked girl, squirming through the window and across his lap.
"Jesus!"
Megan crawled across him to the passenger side of the seat and said, "Quickly, drive your magic chariot, Colin! Hurry!"
"Nothing doing, love," said Colin. "You're not going anywhere with me."
"Oh, but I am," Megan replied. "Else I'll tell everyone 'twas you who helped me to escape. And I'll scream and say you tried to have your way with me and-"
"All right, all right!" said Colin, panicking as he reached for the ignition key. "Just don't scream, all right? And for God's sake, get down so nobody can see you!"
He started the car and pulled out of the lot, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. Great, he thought, just bloody great. Now I've got a naked crazy woman in my car and if I'm caught, they'll lock me up and throw away the key.
He heard a throaty giggle and glanced to his right, where Megan was huddled down on the floor of the car, her legs drawn up to her chin.
"Oh, Colin, isn't this marvelous?" she said. "We're having an adventure!"
"Right," said Colin as he drove. "And I'm having a bloody nervous breakdown."
The orderly had said she was nonviolent, Colin told himself. But judging by all the other cases he'd investigated, that made her the exception to the rule. He desperately hoped she was the exception to the rule. What in God's name was he going to do now?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the basement of The Stealers Tavern, among the wine and ale barrels by the flickering light of candles, a conspiracy was brewing. It was only a few hours till dawn, and the tavern had been closed for several hours. The doors upstairs were bolted and the lights were all extinguished. However, in the dank and musty basement, the senior members of The Stealers Guild were meeting in a secret convocation.
"I tell you, 'tis past time for action!" Ugly George was saying. "Our people are being clapped in prison left and right, and soon there will be no one left to pay the dues!"
"Ugly George is right," said Ferret Phil. "Not only are his alleymen all bein' imprisoned, but my footpads, too. And the members of your local are all bein' pinched as well, Fingers."
Fingers Frank agreed. "Aye, we've had ten cutpurses thrown in the slam this past fortnight alone."
"You've gotten off easy, all of you," said Lady Donna, known to one and all among The Stealers Guild simply as "La Donna," and though she was a commoner, she affected an aristocratic manner and liked being referred to as "the Lady" by the members of her local. " 'Tis my girls who've suffered worst at the hands of Waylon and his deputies. 'Tis no longer enough that they freely bestow their favors on demand. The moment any of the deputies fall below their quota, my girls are the first to be arrested, as they are the most vulnerable and the easiest to pinch."
"Aye, I've pinched a few in my time," Ugly George said with a leer.
"You may jest, you lout, but 'tis no laughing matter," said La Donna. "Revenues are falling off, and with the edicts driving citizens out of town in droves, business is bad for everyone, not just for us, but for all the guilds in Pittsburgh."
" 'Tis true," said Fingers Frank. "With taxes raised and raised again, and business fallin' off, mere's hardly any point to cuttin' purses, for there ain't no money in 'em!"
"What say the assassins?" asked Dirty Dan, the tavern keeper and proprietor of The Stealers Tavern, and also secretly Director of The Stealers Guild, though it wasn't really all that much of a secret.
Mike the Mace shifted uncomfortably on his keg. He was a big man, feared and respected throughout all the twenty-seven kingdoms as the second-top-rated assassin in the Guild, but administration had never been his strong suit.
"Well, by rights, it should be MacGregor sittin' in on this here meetin' and not me, but Mac's off on a job someplace and out of reach."
"Aye, we understand that," Dirty Dan replied. "But in his absence, the leadership of the assassins in Guild matters falls to you. What is the feeling among the members of your local?"
"Well, they're none too happy with the situation," Mike the Mace replied. "With Sheriff Waylon clampin' down on lawbreakers, folks are thinkin' twice before they put a contract out on anyone. Times are gettin' lean."
"And the mood among the populace is grim," said Gentlemanly Johnny, the senior member of the Swindlers local. "King Billy keeps ignoring the petitions and rarely even ventures out in public anymore. The people believe he doesn't care about them. They believe the rumors that the royal wizard is merely acting upon his instructions, conjuring some great spell at his behest. They believe the king has given his allegiance to the powers of darkness. And the sheriff, his brother, is aiding him and Warrick in these diabolical, black rites."
"So we are all agreed, then, that something must be done," said Dirty Dan. "Yet no one here has yet dared speak the one word that is foremost in our minds."
"Regicide," La Donna said.
"Insurrection," Fingers said.
"Revolution," said Ugly George.
"A coup d'etat, said Gentlemanly Johnny.
"What?" the others all said together, staring at him.
"All of the above," said Gentlemanly Johnny with a shrug.
"Then we are all agreed upon a plan of action," Dirty Dan said. "The king must die. And his royal wizard with him."
"And don't forget the royal sheriff," added Fingers.
"And the queen," said Ugly George.
"The queen?" La Donna said.
"Well... sure, why not? Might as well make a clean sweep."
"Oh, well, all right, the queen, too," said Dirty Dan.
"We must foment revolution," Gentlemanly Johnny said.
"What's 'foment' mean?" asked Ferret Phil.
"Incite the people t
o revolt," Johnny replied.
"Oh. Right, then. What he said."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Fingers asked.
" 'Tis very simple, my friends," said Gentlemanly Johnny. "We make the aristocracy our targets."
"The who?" said Ugly George.
"The nobles, you great oaf," La Donna said. "Go on, Johnny. You have a plan?"
Gentlemanly Johnny got up and made a little bow. "A good swindler always has a plan, my lady. Our first step must be to prepare the good citizens of Pitt for an uprising. We shall begin here, in the capital, and once we've made a good beginning, it will spread of its own throughout the kingdom. All we need do is gently nudge our plan along. Each time the sheriff's deputies make an arrest, our people must be there, to stir up dissatisfaction after the fact. Each time a new edict is posted, our people must be there, to encourage resentment of the sheriff and the king. Each time a noblewoman purchases a brand-new dress, our women must be there, to comment on how the common folk cannot afford to clothe their children or themselves because of the new taxes. Each time a nobleman buys a horse, someone must be there to complain about their worn-out shoes. Each time an armorer receives an order for a brand-new sword or knife, someone must observe how it is meant to be plunged into the backs of the common people of the kingdom.
"In time, and not a very long time, I will wager, resentment of the king, the sheriff, and the upper classes will be at a fever pitch, and when we judge the time to be just right, we shall proceed to the next step of the plan."
"And what shall that be?" Ferret asked, his eyes aglow with eagerness.
"Only this, my friend. We shall arrange for one of our people to be arrested."
"Well, now, what's the bloody point of that?" asked Ugly George. "Our people are already bein' arrested by the score! You'd have us help the sheriff?"
"Aye, but only so that we might help ourselves," said Gentlemanly Johnny, "for this will be no ordinary arrest. It shall be planned carefully, by us, so that we control the time and place, and so it occurs in public, with many people present. We shall make certain that our people are in among the crowd, and that the sheriff's men are greatly outnumbered. When they make their move to apprehend the culprit that we shall provide for them, we make our move, and overwhelm them, setting free the prisoner as if it were a spontaneous action of the crowd. And mark my words, there will be those among the crowd who'll join us in the act, caught up in the fever of the moment.
"From that point on," Gentlemanly Johnny continued, "each time the sheriff and his men try to arrest someone, we shall interfere with them, and set free the prisoners, without ever identifying who we are, so that it will appear the people are rising up against the forces of the king. And once we start it, the people will continue of their own accord and follow our example. Then we proceed to the third stage of the plan."
"Go on," said Fingers eagerly. "What's the third part?"
"An organized campaign of harassment of the nobility," said Gentlemanly Johnny. "Each time a noblewoman drives by in her carriage, someone must be there to start the people jeering. Each time a nobleman sets foot out into the streets, someone must be there to start pelting him with dirt clods and pieces of manure. At every turn, their dignity must be affronted, and they must be made the scapegoats for the edicts of the king. Not only shall it arouse the people's ire, it shall arouse the anger of the nobility, as well, and they shall direct it at the king."
"Then we take over and start the revolution!" Fingers said excitedly.
"Nay, my friend, that would never do," said Gentlemanly Johnny. "We must remain behind the scenes, for in no way can this revolt be made to appear as an uprising of the criminals in Pittsburgh. It must be an uprising of the good, honest, common, working people of the kingdom."
"Then who shall lead the revolt?" asked Dirty Dan.
"Ah, that is the beauty of the plan," said Gentlemanly Johnny. "Once the flames of the revolution have been fanned, the fire shall burn freely of its own accord. The leaders will rise up among the people. Never fear, at such times, there are always men who are quick to take advantage of the situation. And if anything goes wrong and the revolt should fail, why, 'tis the leaders who'll be blamed and hauled off to the execution block, not us. All we need to do is make a small investment of our time and energies to start the venture, then sit back and profit from it." He smiled. "And business should be brisk, indeed. What say you, my friends and colleagues?"
"I move we adopt Gentlemanly Johnny's plan!" La Donna said.
"I second the motion!" cried out Ugly George.
"All in favor say 'aye,'" said Dirty Dan.
"Aye!" they chorused unanimously.
"Motion carried!" Dirty Dan said, slamming his truncheon down upon a keg. "I propose a toast! To the revolution! Down with Bloody King Billy!"
"To the revolution!" they all cried as one. "Down with Bloody King Billy!"
" 'A punishment most vile,' she said," moaned Fifer Bob. " 'A punishment most vile.' I told you she'd be mad, I told you, but did you listen? Oh, why did I let you talk me into it? It's all your fault, Bill, all your bloody fault!"
"Oh, shut up," Long Bill said in a disgusted tone.
Silent Fred said nothing, but then, that was not unusual. He looked utterly miserable, with his lower lip stuck out, and his face completely encrusted with filth. All their faces were covered with filth, and they looked a sorry sight, indeed, bent over and locked into the stocks in front of One-Eyed Jack's. They could move their heads a little, and they could wiggle their fingers and their toes, but otherwise they were immobilized. They were numb, and cold, and utterly degraded. All day, they'd been locked up in the stocks, tormented by the Awful Urchin Gang, who took great delight in pelting them with dirt clods, horrid muck scooped up from the hog pens, sticks and stones and anything else that came to hand (don't ask). They cut switches from the bramble bushes and whipped them on their backsides, and when they tired of that, they sat in front of them, making faces at them, spitting, and pinching their cheeks and noses painfully. Tomas de Torquemada, in his most diabolically creative moods during the Spanish Inquisition, could not have held a candle to the Awful Urchin Gang for devising painful and humiliating tortures.
"When I get out of here, I'm going to strangle each and every one of those miserable brats," Long Bill said.
"When I get out of here, I'm going to strangle you," said Fifer Bob.
"What if she never lets us out?" said Silent Fred, and the shock of hearing him speak a complete sentence was almost as great to the others as the horrifying possibility he had brought up.
" 'Twould only be a fitting reward for the likes of you three," Shannon said, and the three of them glanced up, as much as they could crane their heads back in the stocks, to see her standing in the street before them, legs spread apart and her hands on her hips. "Well?" she said. "Have you nothing to say for yourselves?"
They all looked down morosely.
"By rights, I ought to let you rot in there," she said, "remain as playthings for the urchins till they stripped the hides right off your backs. But Doc has asked me to be charitable and I must be getting soft, for I agreed to let you go."
They all looked up, unable to believe that they were getting a reprieve.
"The next time, I shall not be so merciful," she said.
"There will never be a next time, Shannon, we all swear it, don't we lads?" said Fifer Bob.
"Aye, Shannon, we so swear," Long Bill said contritely.
Silent Fred merely looked down at the ground and nodded.
"Well, I think perhaps you've learned your lesson," she said. "Never let it be said that Black Shannon is unjust."
She bent over to unfasten the stocks, then the three imprisoned brigands heard a soft thunk, followed by a grunt, and Shannon fell down in the dirt in front of them, unconscious.
"Shannon?" said Long Bill. And then he saw a pair of high leather boots in front of him.
"Well, well. What have we here?"
&n
bsp; They looked up into the grinning face of Black Jack. Behind him, a group of rough and surly looking men rode up on horseback. Jack crouched down and grabbed Long Bill by the hair, jerking his face up. "This one of "em?" he said.
"Aye," said one of the men on horseback. "I remember him stopping at the inn and arguing about a chess game with another."
"This one?" said Black Jack, jerking Silent Fred's head up by the hair.
"That's him."
Black Jack knelt in front of Fifer Bob, who looked up at him wide-eyed with fright.
"Aye, and this third one matches the description. What a pleasant surprise. All trussed up and waitin' for us, meekly as you please." He stood and turned Shannon over on her back with his foot. "So. This is the infamous Black Shannon, eh? She lays so sweetly in repose."
"She can lay sweetly with all of us tonight," said one of the ruffians behind him, and the others laughed unpleasantly.
"I won't be having none of that," Black Jack snapped.
"Why not, Jack? Where's the harm? You got what you came for. What 'bout the rest of us?"
"The rest of you signed on for a share of the bounty, and there's a right handsome bounty on this lass, as well as on the others. It won't do to bring her in as damaged goods. By all accounts, she fights like the very Devil and you'll like as not have to kill her before she'll give you what you want. Nay, lads, we'll deliver her unharmed, and the money she'll bring in will let you buy your fill of pretty wenches back in Pittsburgh. Aye, Black Shannon brought in by Black Jack. It has a proper ring to it, it does."
"Now, just a moment," said Long Bill. "Can't we talk about this?"
"Silence, dog!" Black Jack said, smashing him in the face with his gloved fist. "Release them, then bind them up together." He saw Shannon start to stir. "And tie up the lass, as well. Be quick about it. We'd best be off before we are discovered."
MacGregor crouched down as Bloody Bob held up the lantern. "Aye, there's been trouble here," he said, studying the ground. "Men with horses. At least a dozen, I'd say. They all reined in right here. Bring that lantern closer, Bob."
He moved forward, peering intently at the ground. "One man stood here. Crouched down before the stocks." He crouched down in the boot prints. "Aye, so he could see their faces." He looked around. "And here, right here someone fell. The body was moved and... Bob, come closer with that lantern!"