Resurrectionist

“Jesus,” Samuel said, wincing, his hand in his lap. “Bleedin’ smarts a bit.”

“Means it’s workin’,” Lemuel said. He lay back against the pillow and closed his eyes.

The door crashed back on its hinges.

Lemuel’s eyes snapped open. He tried to raise himself but in his haste only succeeded in entangling his feet in the bedclothes. Samuel, also slow to react, found himself caught with one hand on the grog bottle, the other round his cock. Snatching his hand away from his crotch he fumbled for a corner of the sheet to cover his nakedness.

“You’ll be the Ragg boys,” Jago said, stepping over the threshold. He had a pistol in one hand and his cudgel in the other. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” His eyes dropped to the tumble of bedclothes and the unmoving form beneath and his face turned to stone. “On your feet, you bastards. Don’t bother with your breeches. We ain’t strong on formality. Billy! Get in here!”

Billy Haig sidestepped through the door, his hands gripping the blunderbuss. His eyes darkened when he saw the small, blonde figure curled foetally on the bed. He stepped forward quickly and turned the girl’s face gently towards him. He stared up at Jago and shook his head. “It’s not her.”

Shite, Jago thought. He turned to Lemuel, who had managed to extricate his feet and was trying to sit up. “Molly Finn. Where is she?”

Lemuel blinked. “Who the ’ell’s Molly Finn?” He looked towards his brother for guidance, only to see Samuel’s confusion mirroring his own.

It suddenly occurred to Jago that the Raggs might not know. He had no proof the brothers were involved in the girl’s disappearance. He had assumed they were complicit by virtue of their association with the Bridger woman. Maybe their professed ignorance was genuine.

“She’s the girl Sal Bridger picked up this morning. Don’t bloody tell me you don’t know what’s happened to her.”

And then he saw it; at the mention of Sal’s name, a flash of understanding in Samuel Ragg’s eyes that disappeared so fast he could have been forgiven for thinking it had been a trick of the light. But it had been enough.

At that moment, the girl on the bed groaned and opened her eyes. She did it slowly, as if every movement was an effort of will.

“All right, darlin’,” Billy said and looked back at Jago with a mixture of anger and pity.

Which was when Lemuel brought his left hand from beneath the pillow and slashed the open razor across the side of Billy Haig’s throat. As blood from Billy’s severed artery fountained across the bedclothes, Samuel threw the corner of the sheet aside and clawed for the pistol that lay on the nightstand by the side of the bed.

Jago saw Billy go down and slammed the cudgel towards Lemuel’s wrist. But he had been caught off guard and the swing failed to connect. As Lemuel twisted out of reach, Jago shot Samuel through his right eye. The ball exited from the back of Samuel’s skull sending a cascade of blood and brain across the wall behind him.

As the sound of the gunshot echoed around the room, Lemuel came off the bed with a howl of rage and scythed the razor towards Jago’s face. Jago jerked his head back. The razor missed him by a hair’s breadth. Such was the force of Lemuel’s attack that he almost overbalanced, which gave Jago his opening, enabling him to regain the initiative and smash the cudgel against the outside of Lemuel’s forearm. Lemuel shrieked as the bone snapped. The impetus of Lemuel’s forward motion, allied to Jago’s counter-attack, drove Lemuel to his knees. The razor fell from his fist. Wielding the expended pistol like a second club, Jago, with massive force, drove the butt hard against the back of Lemuel’s skull. There was a sound like eggshells splintering. With no change of expression, Jago followed through with the blackthorn and watched dispassionately as Lemuel Ragg’s nude corpse collapsed across the floorboards.

Jago stuck the pistol in his belt and moved quickly to the bed, knowing he was far too late. “Jesus, Billy,” he breathed. Billy Haig’s eyes were still open. There was a look of bafflement on his face. His lips moved soundlessly as he tried to speak. His body arched and his hands scrabbled helplessly at the wound in his neck. Blood was pouring between his fingers. Suddenly, he shuddered. His body sank back on to the bed and his hands grew still.

There was a moan and for a second Jago thought it was Billy and the hairs rose at the back of his neck, until he realized it was the girl. He drew back the edge of the blood-drenched sheet. A pair of green eyes looked beseechingly back at him. Jago reached out, saw the instinctive self-defensive withdrawal as the girl cringed away from his touch.

Moving Billy’s body aside, Jago lifted the girl from the bed. The quilt was on the floor. Hastily, he wrapped the compliant girl in its folds and carried her over to one of the room’s two chairs. “Don’t know if you can hear me, girl, but they ain’t going to harm you any more. You’ve Nathaniel’s word on that. Rest here. I’ll be back for you, I promise.”

Jago patted the girl on the shoulder. Then, with a last despairing glance at Billy’s blood-splattered body, he retrieved the cudgel, grabbed Samuel Ragg’s pistol from the nightstand, and ran from the room, leaving the smell of death behind him.

Hanratty was behind the taproom counter with his son, Lorchan, when he heard the gunshot. The sound of a door slamming had preceded it, but Hanratty hadn’t deemed the noise significant. Slamming doors weren’t an uncommon occurrence in the Dog and he put it down to the usual reason: a drunken argument. But a pistol shot was different.

“Christ!” Hanratty spat. “Bloody Raggs feudin’ again. I’ll have their guts.” Instructing Lorchan to hold the fort, he reached under the counter, where he kept his own pistol primed and loaded.

“Leave it,” a voice said. The order was accompanied by a sound Hanratty recognized as a pistol hammer being cocked. He straightened and turned slowly.

Micah was standing less than five paces away. He was holding a pistol in each hand. One was pointed at Hanratty’s chest; the other covered the taproom. Standing next to him was another, younger man with unruly hair and a pistol aimed at Lorchan’s heart.

“Hands on the counter,” Micah said. “Either of you moves, you die.”

Micah surveyed the room out of the corner of his eye. At this hour, the pub wasn’t full. It wasn’t pay night, so there was no line of sullen men queuing for wages. The cold winter weather had kept many of the Dog’s regulars at home. There were maybe a couple of dozen people in the taproom all told, and that included the molls and the serving girls. Several drinkers, having seen the brandished weapons, were already pushing their chairs back.

“On your way, gentlemen.” Micah’s voice, while not loud, penetrated all corners of the taproom.

“Who says?” a slurred voice enquired belligerently.

“He does.” Micah nodded towards Hopkins.

Heads swivelled. With his free hand, Hopkins placed his police hat on his head and unfastened the remaining buttons on his jacket to reveal his other immediately recognizable badge of office, his bright scarlet waistcoat. Raising the pistol, he took a deep breath. “By the order of the Chief Magistrate, everyone is to vacate the premises.” The constable prayed no one could hear the quaver in his voice.

There were several sharp intakes of breath and a muted chorus of derogatory remarks.

“Now,” Micah warned, and fired one of his pistols into the ceiling.

One of the serving girls let out a scream.

The explosion and the scream had the desired effect. So much for the authority of the uniform, Hopkins thought, as he watched several chairs tip over in the scramble for the exit. I could have been togged up like a bloody general, and it would still be the guns that gave the orders.

The three house molls and the two serving girls remained. Sensing there’d be safety in numbers, they were huddled by the fire.

“What’s your game, cully?” Hanratty lifted his hand from the countertop. His eyes, while reflecting anger, also carried a calculating gleam.

“Did I say you could move?” Micah levelled his pistol at the bridge of Hanratty’s nose. He caught Hopkins’ eye and motioned towards the door.

Hopkins went to the door and locked it.

“Now you can move,” Micah said. “You can join the ladies by the hearth. That way I don’t have to worry about what you’re up to behind my back. Leave the pistol.”

“If you’re after the takings, you’ll be bleedin’ lucky.” Hanratty eyed Hopkins’ uniform, his brow furrowing.