CHAPTER TEN
The endless expanse that was the sky was a deep, dark indigo. Cold, unblinking stars littered the black heavens like insignificant glittering diamonds that some god had just carelessly pitched to the ground. It was a breathless night, an odd night. It was the prime of the summer, and a disgusting humid residue remained from the smoldering morning star of the day.
Her clothing adhered to her sweat-slicked body. The ripped, filthy white long-john shirt, the charcoal gray trousers that had a rip down one side, and the mud-stained, blood-stained boots clung to her body in a sheet of perspiration. The hair that was pulled back by the tattered ribbon felt slovenly and dirty. But her insides contradicted her. Inside, in her veins, in her fibers, she felt unbelievingly cold and frigid. The combination of the two warring sensations made her feel somewhat lightheaded and woozy. There was a definite sway to her gait, like the times she had swayed while totally drunk. She was oblivious to the uproarious voices of the males around her.
Her gaze only stayed on the deep night sky and her grasp around the cold key in her pocket.
Angel's dreamlike trance was shattered only when she felt cool finger tips dance over the crook of her bare elbow, before a clammy, calloused hand lightly clamped down on it. She turned her head to find Rylie Lyner strolling next to her. Her insides began to boil.
Her eyes narrowed and she immediately relinquished her hold on the key. She abruptly yanked her elbow of his hold with a great passion. "Leave me alone," she hissed softly.
A dangerous smirk alighted upon his thin lips as his dark eyes glittered malevolently behind his spectacles. "Alone, Angel? I was to have you alone you know at The Hideaway, but then you just had to show up belated-and with that nasty stitch in your leg." His voice was silky, low, and calculating. It was the inflection that the most ruthless spoke in, her brother included.
A shiver ran forcefully down her spine as she closed her eyes to stop from feeling sick. Alone. Of course he was to have her alone. How could it have escaped her mind that Oliver was not above bargaining anything and everything for the alliance with Rylie Lyner?
The Lyners were the dictators of nonetheless Queens. The whole tale of how Rylie assumed power over the district's newsies and drove it straight to straight to the ground was a most popular legend in the annals of newsboy lore. Rylie had murdered his closest friend to assume the title, and soon transformed Queens into an unspeakably ruthless place.
Just like Oliver Haddox had done with Midtown.
Her brother needed the alliance with Queens, just as Brooklyn needed the alliance with Manhattan. Although, Angel mused, Kelly would come to Conlon's aid, even though he did not wish too, because Conlon was his friend.
Oliver did not have friends. Neither did Rylie Lyner. They had enemies, and they had partners. Oliver and Rylie were partners, business partners, and when Rylie scratched Oliver's back, Oliver scratched Rylie's back. It wasn't necessarily a business transaction that Rylie was dealing with; it was more of a favor. If at all possible, Angel knew that Rylie had taken a liking to her brother for they were both alike in many of the same ways. They both relished in the shedding of blood; their fever increased when they got to torture the innocent. But they became nearly orgasmic with lust when they were able to persecute their mortal enemies.
Like when Rylie had murdered his friend, Jimmy Sprites, to take control of Queens; or when Oliver would no doubt murder Conlon just for being an excruciating pain in his ass.
Of course Oliver must sacrifice something to have Lyner's solemn promise that he would stand behind him in his relentless quest to burn Brooklyn to the ground. And that pawn was to be her, Angel. It was not that her brother considered her a whore to do his own bidding with, it was just that he did not give a damn about who he had to step over to finally acquire the brass ring he wanted to dearly-Conlon's head on a platter. Oh, it had happened before; Oliver would give his partners his sister in exchange for their loyalties. Not that she had ever let any of them take her-she would brandish her revolver and threaten to blow their heads off if they even laid one finger on her.
Of course, Rylie Lyner was different. All of the others that Oliver had dealt with had been utterly moronic and easily provoked into pissing their pants when faced with an enwrathed Angel and her notorious revolver. Horance Lyner, Rylie's brother, she could perhaps make do with if confronted with. He was a great lumbering oaf, but equipped with no lights on upstairs.
Yet, Rylie Lyner was different. For he was one of the people on the face of the earth that she was absolutely frightened of.
They continued walking the darkened chipped cobblestone ways that would soon lead them to Gulliver's Inn in the Bronx where they would rendezvous with Spot Conlon and his band of Brooklyn girls.
Angel became acutely aware of her surroundings when she became in tune with the environment just so that she could perhaps pretend that Rylie Lyner was not casually strolling beside her as though they were two blissful lovebirds flirting around Central Park.
When they had left The Hideaway, the bloody sun was only beginning to dip behind the western horizon. It had been black as pitch for the last hour or so that they had been trekking. Oliver had of course specified for Conlon to meet him at dusk. As always, he was a prick as usual and must make a flamboyant late appearance.
Up ahead, a gunshot ripped through the muggy night sky, causing Angel's reverie to shatter. She jumped in her skin and her heartbeat and respiration immediately increased as she looked at the group before her. Horance Lyner and Bull, Bones, and Thor-three massive, moronic hulks that Oliver had brought for intimidation-had gotten hold of a pistol and had shot it towards the sky. All four were obviously utterly blasted, and giggled wildly at the loud noise.
Thor had the gun, and stifled his idiotic guffaws long enough to straighten himself and point the weapon skyward in preparation to shoot it off again. This only caused the other three to break into maniacal, drunken laughter and double over forward.
Angel ceased to see what was so amusing.
Thor cocked the trigger and was about to fire another shot when she saw Flynn's figure stalk past her from behind her and angrily stride over to the four. His bright hair silver in the moonlight and revolver palmed at his side, he finally reached them.
"Just what in the blue fuck do you think you are doing?"
His sonorous bellow was akin to the fire-shot in that it ruptured the stillness of the night air. She watched as Horance, Bull, and Bones's laughter abated and as they straightened to regard Thor receive a scolding as though Flynn was his mother reprimanding him for taking a lick of pie cooling on the windowsill he shouldn't have. Thor dumbly lowered the pistol in front of him and blankly stared at Flynn as her assassin partner's shrill, cursed-lace yells echoed off the deserted streets.
Angel once more felt smooth fingers find her elbow and she turned to find Rylie Lyner was still beside her. Her stomach dropped. She turned her gaze forward once more, desperate to ignore his evil, burning eyes and the constant shudders that wrought down her spine.
"I sure hope Night will be fine."
Angel turned towards him, utterly stunned by the direction of conversation. It was deliberate, she wildly thought as she read his light smile and glittering eyes. It was deliberate for he knew that she had been lying all along.
She only tossed her head and stared forward, intently surveying the dark silhouette of a crumbling building. "I really wouldn't give a damn."
Rylie chuckled softly and the laugh sent a cold shiver through her. "But at least you put all your animosity aside for one moment to help him get away from that nasty man who was trying to rob him."
She dare not look at him-she could not look at him-for she could feel his victorious gaze boring down upon her at that moment. Those malicious eyes, she knew, could see past the fallacy she had conjured and could discern what had truly happened. Those eyes could see her crouched behind the door. Those eyes could see Conlon and Kelly heatedly arguing. Those eyes could see what could have been the termination of possibly the greatest alliance of the districts. And those eyes could see her sharing those passionate kisses with Conlon that she had fought with all her will with not to succumb to.
She glanced at him, feeling the weight of the summer night against her sticky flesh. "Night doesn't carry a gun. Only Oliver, Flynn, and I do. The man was beating the living shit out of him and I-"
Lyner's smile intensified. "You need not explain yourself, Angel," he said, his voice sweet and restrained. He knew, she reasoned. There was no way that he could not know. The lie had been paper-thin, and he knew it. She could not play it off as though Night had in reality been mugged. She turned to him and looked at him square in the eye, nearly shaking with fear.
"What do you want?" she asked softly.
Lyner's smile intensified. "What do I want?" He looked at her in such a way that Angel closed her eyes and shuddered. He elicited an amused laugh. "Oh, I can see where you'd get such an idea as that, Angel. You are a very beautiful, er, assassin and I'm sure that there aren't many men who wouldn't give their right arm to fuck you." She bestowed upon him a smoldering glare and he continued. "But you are admitting that you lied about what you saw at the Brooklyn lodging house?"
Angel stared at him, her rage dissipating into fear. If she indeed conceded and confessed what she witnessed, then Rylie Lyner could easily saunter over to her brother who was only feet away conversing intently with Night and claim that she had lied to them all. Oliver would be of course enraged with her, and she could not even fathom how much she would utterly dread to be under his wrath-
"Haddox, I don't give a damn what you saw at the lodging house. I do not hold grudge against Spot Conlon the way your brother does. Much as I hate the son of a bitch, I wouldn't out rightly kill him just so that my mind would be appeased. Whatever you saw at the lodging house is between you-and whoever else was there. I don't care what happened; I just need to know if you lied about what you saw."
While he had been talking, Angel had been staring intensely at her feet as she walked. She had been scrutinizing a stain on the tip of her slovenly boot that resembled something akin to dried blood-but it had been too dark to tell. After he finished, she raised her eyes to his.
His charlatan amiable smile and amused glitter in his eyes were gone. Now his visage was somber, serious, and he gazed at her intently, his eyes burning under his spectacles and greasy strands of hair that fell across his brow. She looked away from him and to her brother, who was conversing privately with Night a few paces ahead of them. She turned back to Lyner. She reckoned he could read her mind immaculately.
"Of course you know I have ulterior motives, Angel, but you don't know what they are, nor do you have a choice in what they are. If you try to shrug it off and pass it off on me that it is actually true that Night was mugged and that's how he acquired the nasty gash in his head, then I will be forced to go to your brother and tell him that his dear sister has been sweet-talking him with lies. He won't believe you, Haddox; he's too enamored by me not to believe anything I say. If of course you tell me that you witnessed something else at the lodging house, well then I won't say a peep and Nero Night will just have to go on assuming that the loss of memory of the incident was caused by a mugger."
Angel suddenly felt incredibly nauseous and lightheaded. Her knees buckled from under her and Rylie appropriately caught her, both of his hands clamped on either of her elbows and stabilizing her on her feet. The action had caught the eye of Flynn who had still been endlessly scolding the four oafish newsies for firing the gun. He turned in mid-curse to regard her. His visage was lined with utter suspicion and his green eyes focused intensely on her, glittering violently with mistrust.
Angel knew that Flynn Finesse did not trust Rylie Lyner as far as he could spit, and she knew that she even so much as blinked, he would be over there in a moment to shoot Lyner in the head. Instead, she gave him the only look she could muster as though to forewarn him not to approach them.
She saw Flynn's eyes flicker from her to Lyner, before he begrudgingly turned once more to Thor, who had raised the gun aloft once more and was preparing to shoot it into the sky while Flynn was preoccupied. Flynn's audible hollers once more punctuated the sultry summer night.
She stared unblinkingly at Flynn, who was now unconsciously waving his palmed revolver around with his reprimanding hand gestures. Her insides felt as though she had just taken a grand, extensive trip on a ship and had come down with a fantastic case of seasickness.
She felt Lyner's hot breath play in her ear canal. "So, Angel, what did you really see?"
She abruptly broke away from him and turned to stare him in the eye. She did not realized that in their midst of their conversation they has stopped walking. "What's it to you, Lyner? Why do you give a damn what I saw at the lodging house? You said yourself that you wouldn't out rightly kill Conlon, so why do you care what I saw? Or are you just so eager to bribe me so you can slip your hands down my pants?"
Lyner's lips curled so that his teeth were bared. They had a deep yellow- tinge to them and were very pointed-almost like the teeth of a cannibal. His black eyes sparkled. "What do I want?" he asked, raising an arm and forcefully grasping the back of her neck with a hand. "It's not just your body I want, Haddox, but your trade. I want you as an assassin. I want you to kill those stupid bastards that are still loyal to Sprites and who still revolt against me every chance they get. Leave Midtown and come to Queens. Your brother doesn't give a damn about you, but if you come to Queens you'll be treated well. Come to Queens with me and what you-" He released an ironic laugh. "-did not hear will be safe with me." He paused and regarded her, his eyes glittering like black diamonds. "All that I ask if for a little fuck once and again. Though, I don't think that will be too hard for you, Haddox. You and Finesse have always seemed more than 'assassin' partners-"
All throughout Lyner's words, an intense heat had been flooding Angel's veins and a peculiar buzzing had been resonating in her ears. She realized it as rage. As each passing word slipped from his thin, cracked lips, the heat had ignited and burned trough each and every fiber of her body. The ringing had grown until it was nearly deafening. Her stomach had also been churning, and as he finished, an utterly ferocious ball of pure hate had passed up her throat and out her mouth, like lava erupting from a volcano.
She spat viciously in Lyner's face. His maliciously benevolent expression quickly faded as his face blanched and then turned a scorching shade of scarlet. His eyes glittered violently as he quickly, almost disbelievingly, wiped the spit off of his face with the back of his hand. His eyes shifted to her and his grip on the back of her neck constricted like an unbelievable vice. His thin lips trembled with suppressed rage and his voice was whispery with fury, "You bitch!"
Her eyes were hard and matched Lyner's. Her lips were pulled back in a sadistic sneer. "Go tell my brother, Lyner; you can't blackmail me. I'd rather become Spot Conlon's personal slut then become your assassin."
She fiercely pulled from his inhumanly tight grip and spun on her heel. Her hand involuntarily went to her trouser-band and she pulled out her revolver with a flourish, holding it tight in her grasp. She stalked past her brother and Night, not paying them any heed whatsoever. Her heart thumped in her chest like someone playing a maniacal cadence upon a drum. Her cheeks scorched almost to the point of erupting into flame. Her breathing was broken and labored.
She could never remember of ever being so infuriated in all of her years.
A deep red veil now blinded her blurry vision. It only dissipated when she felt a sharp smack upside the head. The world seemed to crash before her and she immediately halted to hear her name being called out.
"Angel. Angel. Haddox, what in the name of Christ is your deal?"
The anger abruptly dissolved to render her with a sensation of mystification. She turned to find Flynn standing beside her, his green eyes glowing with amusement and a hint of worry. She shook her head to rid herself of the lightheadedness that plagued her. She turned him and offered the best forced smile she could.
"Lyner" was all she could murmur, as she experienced the after-thought of the white-hot rage that had coursed through her only moments before.
Flynn's visage immediately darkened and his eyes glinted dangerously. "What the hell did he do this time, Angel?" he implored in a low voice, unconsciously holding aloft his revolver.
Angel opened her mouth to tattle all that Lyner was blackmailing her with, yet she halted when she stared at Flynn. His eyes were not fixated on her, alas; they were focused to his right, focused on Rylie Lyner who walked in the shadows somewhere behind them. She immediately recognized the alien murderous gleam in the bright green irises. It took her thoughts back to the time when Flynn had so hungrily slaughtered Charley Cicatrice.
It caused her skin to chill and gooseflesh to appear. The look in her partner's eyes reminded her that no matter how much verbose and well- thought prose he would lecture on why he was an assassin; the bottom line was that he was a killer. Perhaps he need not be cold-blooded, but he still butchered his victim's at Oliver's whim-and without a care in the world.
The thought depressed her abysmally. As much as she had been trying sweetly to convince herself that she was simply a misunderstood girl, an innocent Helena Haddox that had been coerced into performing her brother's bidding, all the praying and wishful hoping meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. The horrible dream she experienced the previous night with Conlon everlastingly being her assassin in Hell seemed clearer and more pristine as her future as each moment passed.
She finally turned away from Flynn's eyes, not being able to behold their deadly glint. She almost wished that she could turn about and become Rylie Lyner's personal assassin with all the benefits of a personal whore. Then she would not have to ever deal with Oliver Haddox, Flynn Finesse, or-Spot Conlon ever again.
And what of Conlon?
She elicited a hybrid of a groan and sigh and began lethargically walking once more. For the life of her she did not know. She did not know why she was nearly on the brink of orgasm when she closed her eyes and saw his crystalline cobalt ones boring into hers. She did not know why she had so passionately returned his kisses with a vengeance. Yet she did not know why she had such an itching sensation to brandish her revolver upon him and murder him only to be in favor with her brother.
She was a mess, a complete and utter mess. She had been an abysmal wreck sine the first time that one newsie-she supposed it had been Nero Night-had laughingly bestowed the name Angel of Death upon her after she had seduced her first victim and then shot him. How in the hell was she to elucidate the highs and lows of the emotions she felt when she could not even begin to understand who the hell she had become?
Oh, of course the answer was simple. She could recite the Lord's Prayer until she was blue in the face and then stick the murderous bitch that was her revolver in her mouth and pull the trigger and blow her brains out. Then she could see if all the incessant spouting of prayers had made her right with Him or not, or if she was forced to endure the Inferno dream for all eternity.
Yes, it was quite an agreeable proposition-when she was to enter Gulliver's in and lay eyes upon the man that was her mortal enemy and who she had explicit dreams of copulating with at night. Yet she could not bring herself to take the easy route out.
Why, she did not know. Why the hell don't you just sneak into an alleyway and blow your brains out, she asked herself with a snort as her fingers caressed the handle of her revolver.
I know why, another voice responded from deep within her mind. Because there's still time. There's still time to save your soul.
Angel released a chuckle and became aware of her surroundings one more. The nine of them were still travailing along the endless expanse of cobblestone ways, one melting into another, that would bring them finally to Gulliver's Inn.
Behind her, a gunshot ripped through the sultry dusk sky, and without missing a single beat, Flynn's angry voice rose right up behind it. Obviously he had forgotten about her long ago.
She smiled and shook her head. The neighborhood they roamed now was run down, part of the slums of the Bronx. She looked around, admiring the decrepit burned-out shells of buildings that made up Ace Forrester's territory. Besides the fact that the leader of the Bronx acquired his name for being able to kick the ass of nearly anyone at poker, even that damn gambler in Manhattan, Angel knew very little of him or his boys. The Bronxies (as they were commonly called) always played the neutral card, like Forrester always played the ace in poker. Their tranquility was the likeliest reason that Oliver had decided upon Gulliver's.
Gulliver's was like what The Hideaway was to Midtown; what Tibby's was to Manhattan; and what Fianella's was to Brooklyn (she and Flynn had dared service the café after a few shootings, not all that hot but they did have pretty damn good apple pie.) But unlike The Hideaway and more akin to Tibby's and Fianella's, Gulliver's was a good-natured place where the booze, poker, and laughter never ran dry.
As she crested a hill, she espied a bright orange light radiating from a curtained window of a building that resembled a lone firefly against the night sky. She involuntarily quickened her pace, as her breathing became more rapid. She knew the building where the light came from without even thinking twice-Gulliver's Inn.
As the glowing orange hue beckoned her, her mind's eye hurriedly wandered to what was caged inside the Inn. Would Conlon be there with Kelly and the boys that she had witnessed in his room that morning? Would they be sitting in barstools, their impatience growing with each and every passing moment as they stared unhappily into their dirty mugs filled with varying amounts of whisky? Or would Conlon have decided that he would rather sell his soul to Satan with a contact in blood than wound his pride and apologize to Kelly? Would the Brooklyn leader be there only with his boys and Ace Forrester as the nervous referee?
As she pictured the lanky leader sitting slumped over at the bar counter with that ridiculous slingshot sticking out of his back pocket and the glittering silver key that was missing from its everlasting position about his neck, his words came back to her.
There's still time.
He had just lost nine of his friends that day in a bloody massacre and was most likely drunk out of his mind, though why had he sought out her room and wept to her and told her to save her soul?
She shook her head and elicited a laugh that was drowned out by Flynn's shrill bellows at the three oafs and the one that wielded the weapon. "Yes, Hel, there's still time to save your soul," she whispered under her breath, disbelieving every word she uttered, as she dropped the hand that was caressing her revolver to her side. "You'll save your soul and your ass from going to hell on the day that you fuck Spot Conlon and fall madly in love with him."
It was exactly as she uttered the final word that she felt the arm wrap about her waist in an iron grip that was to rival the one Lyner had imposed upon her neck. She was too utterly stunned to release any sort of noise as to alert the others, and she was hindered from doing so when a strong hand was tightly clamped over her mouth. As the hand covered her hand, her muffled screams began only to end in futility.
She felt her assailant purloin her from the cobblestone way and flee into an alleyway. As he swiftly disappeared between two run-down buildings holding her writhing, bucking body, she was turned momentarily so that she could regard the dim figures of the others bathed in silver moonlight. They had all halted walking. Bull, Bones, Horance Lyner, and Thor formed a half moon around Flynn who was still screaming at the top of his lungs over their utter stupidity. Oliver stood beside Flynn, agreeing in his fear- inducing low inflection with every word he said. Night stood a few paces from Oliver, his shoulders shaking with laughter and his hands clamped over his mouth. Lyner stood on the outskirts of them all, looking sullen and his spectacles reflecting the light of the moon.
And then they disappeared as blackness consumed her. It was quite easy to deduce that her attacker had pulled her into an alleyway for a strong odor assaulted her nostrils that was only indigenous to long-forgotten alleyways. She would know for she and Flynn had committed many of their hits in alleys. She could also hear the faint skitter of rats.
It was as though her frantic mind finally was able to herald messages to her body once more for she began so squirm and jerk violently to break free. The attacker held her around the waist and was dragging her backwards. Though she bucked so ferociously that she managed to slide out of his grasp-his arms raising to her breasts-before the hold broke all together.
She heard a shrill male voice in the darkness behind her. "Jesus Christ, Shady, she's getting away! Don't let her get away!"
Angel fell to the damp, dirty ground on her spread palms and knees. Her breathing was labored, heart felt as though it was in her mouth, and hair came undone from the ribbon which fluttered to the ground, yet she picked herself up and pushed herself forward; though she was soon brought harshly to the ground once more as her assailant-the name Shady burned furiously in her mind-lunged and caught her round the ankles.
As she felt her writhing form being pulled backwards, she released a hoarse scream and blindly thrashed her legs around. She heard the crack of the bone as her boot collided with her assailant's nose and as he released a howl of agony.
"Jesus fucking Christ! She broke my nose! The bitch broke my fucking nose! Get her, Clem!"
The one with the shattered bridge's voice she recognized undeniably as Shade's (the son of a bitch who tried to kill you) and she would have felt a rush of sick satisfaction if the quick spikes of anxious fear weren't jolting her insides. The initial attack had left her badly shaken-after all, she had only been strolling vulnerably down the street not harming anyone.
Angel pulled herself to her feet, panting like a broken dog and stared down the long stretch of darkened alley that lay before her and her companions. She picked her legs up and began cantering down to the mouth of the alleyway, the stitch in her side from the fall out of the Brooklyn lodging house returning with a vengeance, rendering each step as though her leg was on fire.
She heard Shade's partner's thudding footsteps-the one he had addressed as Clem-as the glitter-shot glass bottles crunched under his weight. She glanced rapidly over her shoulder as she ran, her loose hair blowing in her face and impairing her vision. She opened her mouth to scream, to shriek, to utter any sound at all yet found she was unable to. It was as though her master-control volume had suddenly been muted. Instead, she reached to her side and brandished her revolver. Her hands trembling as she ran, she aligned the weapon as best she could with Clem's silhouette and cocked it. Just as she pulled the trigger, allowing a bullet to rip through the velvety darkness, she saw his form lunge with a great groan and wrap his arms around her ankles. This hindered her stride, and he pulled her awkwardly to the glass-strewn ground. The revolver skittered to a halt, the impact causing another shot to be fired.
She kicked her legs furiously as she desperately attempted to writhe out of his grasp. Yet Clem's grip around her only tightened like a constrictor devouring its prey. She parted her lips to allow her yells to ring down the alley when a hand was clamped brutally over her mouth. She tasted a faint metallic taste on the tip of her tongue-one she soon deduced as being fresh blood.
Her lower limps utterly paralyzed by Clem's vice-like grasp, Angel tried viciously to flail her arms about only to have the soles of heavy boots step on her hands, causing sparring bolts of pain to pulse to the tips of her fingers up her arms. The other hand, the one she could only guess to belong to Shade found its way in a stranglehold upon her neck as his shoe had after he had found her concealed behind his trunk.
The great pressure of his slovenly, mud-slicked boot was relieved from her hands as he quickly brought her to a standing position. He then slammed her harshly into a damp brick wall that made up one of the two barriers of the alleyway. The back of her head brutally collided against it with the impact and for a moment her knees buckled and bursts of cream-colored stars invaded her vision.
"Clem, hold her arms," Shade commanded in a low growl and Clem must have readily agreed for Angel soon felt her arms being pinned above her head, Clem holding them tightly at the wrists. Clem still had one hand firmly around her neck and the other over her mouth. She could only guess that the blood she tasted was his from his shattered nose.
Angel attempted one last futile motion to wriggle from their grasp, yet Shade's strangle hold over her neck became so that she was gasping for breath. She abruptly halted, conceding defeat.
"Good girl," Shade said in a sardonic tone. She could only imagine that in the darkness that blinded his visage from her that he was laughing at her. His voice soon became rough and hard. "Clem, go get her revolver. Those bastards will be over here soon and we need it if we want this plan to go off without a hitch."
She knew that Clem had left for the grip on her wrists immediately loosed and she brought her arms to her sides again. She was about to put up one hell of a fight once more, yet her breath was immediately purloined from her when she felt the cool barrel of a pistol being pressed against the soft flesh of her right temple. Her body immediately grew rigid and she would have elicited a gasp if the leeway allowed.
The pressure applied on the barrel grew as he pushed it deeper into her skull.
"Here it is, Shade," Nightshade said through the darkness. Angel could only assume that he had retrieved her revolver.
"Good, Clemmy. Hold my pistol for me, will you," Spade asked in a casual tone.
She felt the gun switch hands to Clem and she felt the barrel waver against her flesh. Clem was shaking. As the exchange was taking place, Angel found this as a window of opportunity and began to buck viciously under Shade's body that was pressed tightly against hers.
In response, Shade's grip on her neck tightened until it felt as though her trachea would crush under his fist. She released a broken wheeze and immediately fell silent.
"If you're the stupid bitch I think you are you better not do that again. I should have blown your stupid whore head away that day but the boss told me not too. Well guess what? He's not here. This is the only way to get revenge against stupid goddamn Midtown murders like you-to blow your fucking brain to bits. Clem, cock the trigger."
Clem cocked the trigger.
In the blackness, Angel heard what sounded curiously like a flint being struck just to the side of her head. A moment later, a pale orange match roared to life, revealing the faces of her Brooklyn attackers.
She stared into the same horrible face that had been suspended over her just a few days before. Shade's eyes as dark as ink wells reflected the pale orange light. His flesh was a hideous mixture of blood and sweat. His black hair was matted across his brow and his nose was a shattered atrocity-oozing blood down his chin. She wriggled in his grasp, horrified at his appearance.
He smiled, a grim smile, as she stood regarding him with held breath and wide eyes. He turned to Clem who stood to his left. "So what do you think we should do with her Clemmy before we shoot her? Do you think we should have a quick fuck with her up against this wall like the slut she is?"
She released a muffled cry, her lips parting and tasting more of his coppery blood. Shade smiled. Clem's grip on the pistol tightened. "Trying to say something, sweetheart?"
Shade unclamped his hand from her mouth and loosed his grip on her neck. Angel's knees immediately buckled from under her as she inhaled a deep sum of air, trying to collect her breath.
"Were you trying to say something, Angel of Death, or were my ears deceiving me?"
She raised her eyes to his, her respiration still heavy and labored. Her steel-hued eyes cast him an impossibly hateful glare. "What-what do you want?"
A smirk crossed Shade's lips under his mangled nose and he exchanged glances with Clem. "She wants to know what we want, Clem." He abruptly turned on her and tightened his grip on her neck, chocking her once again. His dark eyes glittered with a malevolent fire. "I want you dead. We all want you dead. Every single last newsie in Brooklyn once you dead-but he won't let us. No, good old Spot Conlon thinks it best not to partake in any rash behavior. He actually attended this little war-council with no weapons. Can you believe it? No damned weapons whatsoever. But do you know what? I'm taking things into my own hands. Once I murder you it's gonna prove what a brave leader Sam Shade will make. Braver than any Spot Conlon for sure. Don't you dare give me that look, sister. You know damned well you deserve this. Do it, Clem."
Staring at Shade's face in the quivering flame, Angel felt the pistol tremble against her temple. She stared defiantly at him. "Looks like your boy Clem here is too much of a fucking pansy to shoot a girl."
Shade's expression twisted into an expression of utmost hatred in a heartbeat. "Give me the gun, Clem; I'll shoot the stupid bitch myself."
In a moment's span, Angel felt the gun being retracted from her temple as Shade's hand temporarily left her throat; she collapsed against the damp wall slightly and inhaled deeply in the glorious, warm air. Yet, she was up in a second, and a look crossed her face-a face not indifferent to Flynn's murderous gleam-as she gathered saliva in her mouth and spat viciously in Shade's face.
Shade was still bickering with Clem when he felt the spit and turned on Angel, releasing a protesting curse. Yet Angel had already taken off. She ran furiously down the alleyway, glass shattering under her shoes and grimy rats skittering around her. Her bad leg felt as though she flesh was searing with each step. Her neck pulsed angrily due to the wake of Shade's impossible grip. She ran, the night air blowing back her sweaty, blood stained hair; she ran as though in a surreal day dream (night dream,) only keeping her gaze fixated to the mouth of the alley.
And then she saw it-the heavenly form of Flynn. As she drew closer, she could see the utter shock laced into his handsome face as he stood frozen to the ground, as though unsure what to do.
She was nearly to the mouth, nearly to Flynn, when she heard the irrefutable shot of a gun rip through the bellows of Sam Shade and Clem. A heartbeat after, she felt the pain in her lower left calf. It was as though a piece of white-hot metal had been embedded in her flesh, only to bloom into a full-blown inferno. Her entire leg felt as though it was on fire; the pain was indescribable and excruciating. It radiated from the bullet and pulsed through her entire body.
Angel struggled to make it to the end of the alley, though the intense pain was too great and she collapsed heavily to the ground, a shard of broken glass cutting the flesh of a palm.
"ANGEL!"
She was on the ground, doused in a cold sweat besides the blatant heat of the night, when she heard the scream that was undeniably her assassin- partner's. Though her eyes were closed and she felt the black world swirling violently before her, she could not mistake the pure terror that was in his voice.
The blackness swam before her, as though it was some morbid replica of the river behind the Brooklyn lodging house that she and Flynn carelessly fed their victims to. As she felt her mind slowly slipping from her, she heard a great rise in voices; voices that were just not talking at conversation intonation, but voices, voices she had not heard the likes of since the Armageddon.
A groan involuntarily escaped her lips as she heard a quick rain of fire. What she heard around her was not what Conlon and Oliver had agreed on-they had agreed on a peaceful war-council to discuss when they would annihilate each other. Now it just sounded as though they had causally decided to skip the war-council altogether, bare their weapons (slingshots against guns) and just get down to the basis of what was bound to happen-kill each other in an all out bloody massacre.
Audible, raw voices shouting chaotically at each other with no real purpose, Angel felt a pair of strong hands slide under her arms and lift her to her feet. For all the world that was feverishly tossing before her in the blackness, she released an unearthly howl in pain as she was propped on her injured leg. She immediately felt herself crumple to the ground once more over the blinding pain.
A semi-conscious realization dawned upon her that she had not just collapsed voluntarily to the ground, but the person that had been holding her collapsed. A cold wash of panic immediately rolled over her, gratefully subduing the pain for a moment, as she opened her eyes.
The very first thing that she realized was that she was sprawled on the cobblestones in front of Gulliver's Inn. The second thing she took notice of was them; they stood before her before the façade of Gulliver's-all that had rendezvoused in Conlon's quarters previously that day. Granted, she knew it was them, but she took them in as a blur. For she only saw Conlon.
The bellows had long since subsided and all that remained was a ghastly silence, the only sound recognizable that of a dog baying faintly in the distance. She stared up at Conlon. She stared into his azure eyes that glittered so ferociously that they must have had a life of their own. Her gaze wandered his flesh that had turned a deathly ashen hue, making the eyes even starker. And then her gaze wandered down to his mid-torso to view the ebony pistol that was held out from him in a downward angle.
Impossible sickness washed over her, and she had to control herself from retching where she was crumpled on the cobblestones. She slowly turned her head, and already knew what she expected to see. Though, the actual physical sight of it caused her stomach to drop, the world to spin, her heart to sear, and the tears that had for so many days welled inside her to spill forth liberally.
Flynn Finesse, her only friend in the world, lay sprawled on his back beside her. The moonlight caught the vacant eyes that glimmered no longer; caught the bright hair that was a pale silver in the night; and caught the oozing dark black stain that spread rapidly, soaking the material of his gray shirt.
She stared at him a moment longer in silence as she tried desperately to comprehend it. He was dead. Flynn, dear sweet Flynn who had told her that she wouldn't always be Oliver's assassin, that she would lead a wonderful life, was dead. He was dead and had been killed—by him.
A hand on Flynn's chest being doused with blood from the wound in his chest and her own pain forgotten, Angel slowly turned her head slowly to regard Conlon once more. He still stood erect and lanky in the moonlight, his blue eyes sparkling madly, and the pistol still held in front of him.
Her eyes fell to the pistol that had taken the life of her friend. The silver moonlight reflected upon its shiny black surface, causing it to grin ghastly under the bone-smooth face of the full moon.
And then something clicked within her. The desperation that she had felt over Flynn's death was soon replaced by more powerful emotion-hatred. This primordial slowly pumped itself to every fiber in her body, slowly fanning, slowly growing. It was tenfold more passionate than the fire she had felt in her leg due to the bullet. It welled and sweltered inside her, causing her blood to heat and her heartbeat to thump madly. Gazing unblinking into his indifferent, murderous eyes only gave it more potency.
He had shot Flynn. Midtown had not even started it this time-it had been that goddamned Brooklyn, that goddamned Shade and Clem (who, it she would have looked were dead at the foot of the alley with Flynn's signature bullet-hole-to-the-head.) Flynn had only been trying to protect her from them, and here their heartless, ruthless son-of-a-bitch leader had shot and killed him so thoughtlessly.
As these thoughts streamed nonsensically through her mind, her blood boiled, and a white-hot, blinding rage overtook her. Uttering an incomprehensible scream, Angel lifted herself off her knees and grasped behind her at the nearest weapon at her disposal. It happened to be her brother's black pistol, a weapon which had seen a fantastic string of deaths on its behalf, and somehow seemed fitting for Conlon. She pulled it from his outstretched hand before he had time to protest and immediately turned on Conlon again.
Without thinking twice, she blindly aimed the murderous pistol at him and pulled the trigger. It was only a fraction of a second before the bullet found him-somewhere in his shoulder at that. The impact and sheer shock drove him backward and some of those quickest that were near him were able to catch him.
This was the catalyst that brought upon the bloody war that Oliver Haddox was yearning for. Never mind such frills as elementary war-councils; he wanted to pass right on over to the good stuff. He would have his sister to later thank for that.
As the leader of Brooklyn's feet gave way from under him and he collapsed-hopefully mortally wounded, she thought at the time-the scene outside Gulliver's Inn dissolved into complete and utter chaos. Cries and sobs were elicited for those loyal to Conlon as others broke into bellowing war-cries that echoed down the desolate street.
Leave them be to fight. Angel dropped the weapon that had added one more tally to its infamous list of lives taken-and the fantastic rage passed as quickly as it had come. She turned to Flynn. All she was left with in the wake of the supreme hatred was cold, brutal reality. She could only stare into his once beautiful green eyes that sparkled no more as they stared unblinking into the cold moon.
She didn't give a damn if every last one of them around her died; the damage had already been done. Flynn was dead. Her only friend in the world was dead. Flynn had always said that she would someday get out of Midtown, and when he spoke of her new life she could never think of spending it without him. He had been her only saving grace in her brother's district; without him she surely would have killed herself ages ago.
But now he was gone. And now she was sure she would never be able to leave Midtown.
She collapsed over the fallen assassin, wondering whether he was in heaven or in hell right now. She buried her cheek next to his cool one, her tears cascading onto his lifeless flesh. Her hair fell around her, the ends tinting a deep red due to the blood that still pooled from his wound.
She did not know how long she sat over his cadaver, sobbing more animally than humanly, and rocking back and forth on her knees. She did not know how many were dead around her, and did not care.
She only cared that Flynn was dead.
It was only when she was brutally struck upside the head by the base of a gun that consciousness left her and her cries were murdered, as she collapsed onto the corpse of Flynn Finesse.