Dead Men Stalking 8: Conflagration
He looked down at the silent street some forty feet below and he knew he had no choice. He gripped the bayonet and dived head first through the window into the night.
Welcome to part eight of my MI7 Assassin origins story! If you missed part one, read it here:
And if you’re new to MI7 Assassin, I’ve also written two earlier standalone stories:
My paying subs get the hot thrill of reading MI7 Assassin the Sunday before it goes out to everyone else on Wednesday, but whenever you get your hands on it, I would really appreciate your feedback on this story!
Eventually we’ll publish these origins stories as novellas and I want them to be as good as they possibly can be when we do! So if you have any suggestions, something you particularly like or don’t like, want to see more or less of, let me know in the comments below!
Dead Men Stalking 8: Conflagration
Now, in the hotel room, Pollard thrust again and again at Stone. Stone couldn’t see his eyes, but he had seen the gleam in them when he held the knife in daylight and he knew they would be gleaming now. It was as if something was triggered by the Ripper’s knives, awakening some dark side of his character, nourished by the monstrous crimes the blades had committed.
Pollard was surely a most suitable recipient of these dreadful weapons. Stone was so shocked to see Pollard using the knife that he had lost his own killer edge. He barely avoided a slash that would have cut through his wrist, drawing back just in time, so the knife drew a glittering line across his upper arm instead.
The pain and the blood soaking his arm brought him to his senses. He lashed out with a roundhouse kick. The heel of his foot connected with Pollard’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground and his blade spun away. Pollard scrabbled blindly on the floor for his precious dagger, keenly aware that all the assassin had to do was jump onto him and stab him through the heart.
For the first time since Stone had decided to assassinate Röpell, the voices of his dead comrades filled his head, urging him to finish off the traitor Pollard. Duncan’s voice especially was seething with righteous rage. But it was not who Stone was.
Now Stone had the advantage over Pollard and could mercilessly use his bayonet on him as he had with Röpell. But he was the one in control – not his dead comrades.
Instead, he ran to the fourth story window. There was no time to descend by the stone quoins or edge across to the safety of another window on the same floor. Nemesis, in the shape of a vengeful Captain Pollard, was right behind him. He looked down at the silent street some forty feet below and he knew he had no choice.
He gripped the bayonet and dived head first through the window into the night.
Pollard groped for his precious knife, finding it near his lost pistol, entangled in Röpell’s bloody blanket. He clambered to his feet, gingerly working his jaw, relieved to find it in one piece. His two fellow Frontiersmen were still groaning and writhing on the ground. He barely glanced at them.
‘Fucking incompetents.’
Down on the street, Stone landed on the inflated gasbag tethered to the roof of his Ford, breaking his fall. It was parked exactly where it needed to be, in case he needed to make a quick escape. It was more effective than any safety net below the high wire. Still, he’d had a moment of fear as he jumped, wondering if he’d misjudged the trajectory. He bounced briefly on its tough canvas surface, then slid over the side and dropped down to the pavement.
He leapt inside the car and discarded the bayonet. Turned on the ignition key to retard the spark and pulled the gas lever down. Then jumped out, went to the front of the vehicle, pulled on the choke and the crank. He felt his scalp prickle and resisted the urge to look up at the window, bracing himself for a pistol shot to ring out. Fortunately, the engine sputtered into life at first pull. He ran back to the driver’s side, climbed in, moved the spark lever up and pulled away from the kerb using the accelerator control to the right of the wheel. He had barely gone twenty yards towards the junction with Fleet Street when a bullet cracked through the back window and smashed into the seat beside him.
If he kept driving he knew he’d never get out of range in time. Not only was Pollard a top marksman, but the gasbag was a ridiculously huge target. He had no choice.
Pollard settled into a crouch at the fourth floor window as the Ford T sped down Farringdon Street. That kick on the jaw had disoriented him, but now his head was clear. He rested his arm steady against the windowsill, lining up the car in his sights. He wouldn’t miss a second time. He breathed out. Squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit the gasbag and it exploded in a ball of orange flame that lit up the street like a pre-dawn artillery barrage on the Western Front.
In the hot glare of the explosion the Ford T reared up on its front wheels and spectacularly deconstructed. Window panes in nearby shops and offices shattered in the force of the blast. Headlamps and pedals, shards of hot metal and glass, were flung into the air like shrapnel. The crank handle embedded itself in the brickwork above the entrance to James How & Co. Chemist and the front grill sailed high into the sky, never recovered. A blazing Catherine wheel of a tyre landed on the awning of M. J. Curtis Butcher’s, which caught fire with alacrity.
The twisted and blackened chassis crashed back onto the road and the engine block followed. A short distance away, the curved leather driving seat lay on its side, burning brightly.
Pollard regarded the conflagration with satisfaction. He felt something of its heat on his forehead, even though he was a good two hundred yards away. He smiled thinly. His work was done.
Some three seconds after Pollard’s first bullet had sunk into the seat beside him, Stone yanked open his driver’s door and leapt from the car, curling himself into a tight ball. He rolled across the pavement and then hugged the ground, as if he was back in the trenches. His car drove on and then the night turned orange and there was a sound like an enormous thunderclap followed by the scream of torn metal. He pressed his face into the ground and squeezed his eyes shut as sharp metallic debris flew overhead.
As the sounds of destruction slowly subsided, he pushed himself upright and surveyed the damage. Belching black smoke and gusts of hot air rolled across from the mangled, metallic, burnt-out mess that had been his most prized possession. Now it was sprawled on its side, a skeletal carcass.
He limped to the mouth of one of the side alleys that criss-crossed behind the publishing houses in Fleet Street and looked back up at the distant Farringdon Hotel. He could just make out the tiny figure of Pollard at the fourth floor window. A bullet smacked into a wall close by, confirming that Pollard was aware he had survived. He could imagine Pollard’s anger and his impotence, but resisted the temptation to provoke him further by giving him a one-finger victory salute.
In the distance was the sound of a police bell, drawing nearer. He turned into the darkness of the warren of back alleys and was lost to sight.
Tossing the balaclava into a bin behind a restaurant, Stone set off for home. It took him two hours because he kept to the back streets and out of sight of patrolling policemen. It would be easy enough to explain his utilitarian boiler suit, but not so easy to explain the knife wound to his right arm or what he was doing out at two o’clock in the morning. If the police made a note of whatever explanation he gave them, it might then be later cross-referenced with the events in and outside the Farringdon Hotel.
Safely back in the gravedigger’s cottage, he cleaned the wound on his arm, which thankfully was not deep, but still needed stitches. After a few slugs of brandy, he sewed up the wound in the way he had learnt in the trenches. He considered the possibility of infection from the Ripper’s dagger, although he decided that Pollard would have lovingly cleaned and polished it before taking it on its little adventure.
He also thought about his bloodstained boiler suit. It was potentially incriminating. He really should burn it that night. But once he’d finished stitching up the wound he fell onto his bed, so exhausted he fell into a dreamless sleep before he could worry about anything else.