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"The Crimson Pearl"
"The Crimson Pearl"
11/11/2003
I.
"This is not a partnership. I'm in charge. You're going to go through with it or else!" Alvarado smirked cruelly as he delivered his ultimatum. Across the table from him Ruffian clenched her white hands in barely repressed rage. Alejandro Alvarado was tall and darkly handsome in a ruthless way. Many women looked on that hawklike face with its thin mustache with appreciation. Ruffian hated him, with as good reason as she feared him.
But she had been an independent adventuress since her teen years, and could not repress a flare of rebellion. "I've decided against the impersonation! It's too risky!"
"Not half as risky as defying me!" he reminded her. "Your safety is hanging by a thread, Ruffian. How would you like to have me tell the police why you left that apartment complex in such a hurry? Or tell them my version of what happened that night in Duffault's apartment—"
"Hush!" she begged. She was trembling more from repressed anger than fear as she glanced uneasily about the little curtained alcove in which they sat. It was well off the main floor of the Bordeaux Cabaret. Even the music from the orchestra came only faintly to their ears. They were alone, but the words he had just spoken were dynamite, not even safe for empty walls to hear.
"You know I didn't kill him," she snapped.
"So you say. But with your reputation, who'd believe you if I swore I saw you do it?"
She bent her head in defeat. This was the price she must pay for a single moment of bad judgement. In Marseille she had been indiscreet enough to visit the apartments of a certain important Ministry official. It had been only the harmless escapade of a thrill-hunting girl who loved building connections with people who might be able to help her larcenous career.
She had found more thrills than she wanted when the official had been murdered, right before her eyes, by his servant who she was sure was a Russian spy. The murderer had fled, and so had she, but not before she had been seen leaving the house by this Alvarado, a henchman of the slain official. He had kept silent for the moment. But the murderer had taken important documents with him in his flight, and there was hell to pay in diplomatic circles.
It had been an international episode, that almost set government upheaval roaring in troubled Europe. The murder and theft remained an unsolved mystery to the world at large, a wound that still rankled in the capitals of the Continent.
Ruffian had fled the city in a panic, realizing she could never prove her innocence if connected with the affair. Alvarado had followed her to this town of Benoit and laid his cards on the table. If she did not comply with his wishes, he'd go to the police and swear he saw her murder the minister. With sinking certainty, she knew his testimony would send her to a firing squad, for a various government was eager for a scape-goat with which to conciliate the wrathful French public.
Seeing no choice, Ruffian submitted to the blackmail. And now Alvarado had told her the price of his silence. It was not what she had expected, though, from the look in his eyes as he devoured her trim figure from glossy black hair to delicate feet in high heels, she felt it would come to that eventually. But here in the Bordeaux Cafe, a shabby rendezvous in the shadowy borderland between the respectable and the shady, he had reminded her of a project she had abandoned as too risky.
He had commanded her to steal the infamous Crimson Pearl, a rare gem belonging to the vile Alchemist named Courbet. That pearl had amsassed a long list of victims who had died violently trying to possess it.
"So many men have tried," she argued. "How can I hope to succeed? I'll be found floating in the river with my throat cut, just as they were."
"Your chances are good," he retorted. "They tried simple direct force. We'll use a woman's subtle strategy. I've learned where he keeps it. Informatiom from former employees can be bought. and he learned that much. He keeps it in a wall safe that looks like a dragon's head, in the inner chamber of his antique shop, where he keeps his rarest goods, and where he never admits anybody but wealthy women collectors. He entertains them there alone, which makes it easy."
"But how am I going to steal it, with him in there with me?"
"Easy!" he snapped. "He always serves his guests tea. You watch your chance and drop this knock-out pill in his tea." He pressed a tiny, translucent sphere into her hand.
"He'll pass out like a candle getting snuffed. Then you open the safe, take the pearl and skip. One reason you're perfect for this job is you have a natural gift for unraveling trick box puzzles. The safe doesn't have a dial. You press the dragon's teeth in some sequence. That's for you to find out."
"But how am I going to get into the inner chamber?" she demanded.
"That's the essence of the scheme," he assured her. "Did you ever hear of Lady Simone Beaufort? Well, every antique dealer in the Europe knows her by reputation. She's never been here to Benoit, though, and I don't believe Courbet ever saw her. That'll make it easy to fool him. She's a young Frenchwoman with esoteric tastes and she spends her time wandering around the world collecting rare Midnight War treasures. She's worth millions, and she's a free spender.
"Well, you look enough like her in a general way to fit in with any description Courbet's likely to have heard. You're about the same height, same color of hair and eyes, same kind of figure... And you can act, too. You can put on a posh accent that would fool genuine nobilty, and seem the high-born lady to a queen's taste.
"I've seen Lady Simone's cards, and before I left Paris I had one made to match. You see I had this in mind, even then." He passed her a curious slip of paper-thin pasteboard, embossed with elegant characters.
"Her name, of course. She spends a small fortune on cards like that alone. Now go back to your apartment and change into the clothes I know you had made up...scarlet silk dress, dark red hat, slippers with ivory heels, and a jade brooch. That's the way Lady Simone usually dresses Go to Courbet's shop and tell him you want to see the ivory Laughing Mask. He keeps it in the inner chamber. When you get in therem go into your act, but be careful! They say Courbet worships that Crimson Pearl in a literal religious way, and burns incense to it. But you'll pull the wool over his eyes, all right, if anyone can."
Ruffian made no comment.
"Go out by the back way. When you get the pearl, meet me at room Number 7, in the Rue Bon Fortune. You know the place. This town is already too hot for you, and we'll have to get you out into the countryside in a hurry. And remember, sweetheart," his voice grew hard as his predatory eyes, and his arm about her waist was more a threat than a caress, "if you double-cross me, or if you flop on this job, I'll see you stand before a French firing squad if it's the last thing I do. I won't accept any excuses, either. Get me?"
His fingers brushed her chin, trailed over the soft curve of her throat, to her shoulder, and as he voiced his threat, he dug them in like talons, emphasizing his command with a brutality that made Ruffian bite her lip to keep from crying out with pain.
"Yes, you've made yourself very clear."
"All right. Get going." He roughly pushed her toward a door opposite the curtained entrance beyond which the jazz music blared.
II.
The door opened into a long narrow alley that eventually reached the street. As Ruffian went down this alley, seething with rebellion against the task forced upon her, a man stepped from a doorway and stopped her. She eyed him suspiciously, though concealing a sudden jolt of recognition.
He was tall, wide-shouldered but lean, with cold grey eyes under feral black brows. As always, he dressed all in black.There was no mistaking Jeremy Bane, feared as the Dire Wolf in more than one kind of Underworld.
"You again! Will you stop getting in my way?" she demanded.
"It's what I do," He barred her way with a sinewy arm, and his eyes narrowed as they ran over the fear under the bland face. "You're in over your head, Ruffian."
"It would be a better world if people would mind their own business," she retorted.
"That's never going to happen. You are dealing with a triple crosser like Alejandro Alvarado," he growled resentfully. "He's already planned how to betray you."
She flinched at the name of her master, but answered spiritedly, "What I do is none of your business. Now let me pass!"
But instead he caught her arm in a grip that hurt. "Come with me."
"You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed. "I'll scream."
A powerful hand clapped over her mouth put a stop to that."Nobody interferes with anything that goes on in alleys behind places like the Bordeaux," he said in low tones, imprisoning her arms and easy lifting her off her feet, kicking and struggling. "Just be grateful it's me who's intervening."
He kicked open the door through which he had reached the alley, and carried Ruffian into a dim hallway. Traversing this with his writhing captive, he shoved open a door that opened on it. Ruffian, crushed against his rock-had chest, felt the tumultuous pounding of her heart, and experienced a momentary thrill of the presence of sheer physical strength.
If only she could trust him. Bane was the one adventurer in the Midnight War she felt had a chance against both Alvarado and Coubert. e carried her into a sparsely furnished, cobwebby room, and set her on her feet, placing his back against the door.
"Take two seconds and listen to me...." he began.
"Let me out of here, you beast!" She kicked his shins vigorously.
He ignored her attack as if he couldn't feel it. "You're teasing a dangerous enemy, Ruffian. I've found Coubert is close to one hundred years old. Alchemy keeps him vital. He has forbidden knowledge you can't handle. The Crimson Pearl is a Darthan sigil. It's supposed to have been on the crown of Tollinor Kje himself."
For answer she bent her head and bit his wrist viciously, even though discretion warned her it was probably the worst thing she could do.
"I'm losing patience with you," he grumbled, shoving her back against the wall. "Maybe I should let you put your neck in a beartrap, if that's what you're determined to.."
"My back! Something's stabbed me! Like a dagger."
"Now what?" Bane whirled her about to see what the problem was, but she had her hands pressed over the small of her back, and was writhing and moaning in well-simulated pain.
"Everything would be easier if you'd cooperate once in a while..." he began to say, scanning the wall and trying to find what had hurt her. As he turned his back, she snatched a heavy pitcher from the wash-stand and smashed it over his head as hard as she possibly could.
Not even Jeremy Bane could stand up under a clout like that. He dropped straight down as if struck by lightning. Ruffian darted through the door and down the hall.S She had heard of his enhanced healing. Bane had been known to bounce back rapidly from severe bodily trauma such as being run over by a truck or falling off a five story high roof. A smack on the head, no matter how lethal to normal Humans, would not delay him long. She sprang along the alley toward Rue Sardonic, not stopping to arrange her garments.
As she emerged into the street, a backward glance showed her Bane recovering already, propping his upper body on stiffened arms. But she was striding quickly away, ducking from one narrow alley into another and getting out of sight within seconds. After a few blocks, she slowed to a more sedate pace, arranging her dress as she went. A few loungers had seen her run from the alley, but they merely smiled in quiet amusement and made no comment. It was no novelty in that quarter to see a girl emerge from a back alley with her skirt pulled awry.
But a few deft touches smoothed out her appearance, and a moment later, looking cool and unruffled as though she had just stepped out of a salon, she was headed for her apartment, where waited the garments she must don for that night's dangerous masquerade.
III.
An hour later she entered the notorious antique shop of Etienne Coubert, which huddled in the midst of a squalid neighborhood as if it did not wish to be discovered. Outside it was unpretentious, but inside, even in the main chamber with its display intended to catch the fancy of tourists and casual collectors, the shop was a colorful riot of rich artistry.
A treasure in jade, gold, and ivory was openly exhibited, apparently unguarded. But the inhabitants of the quarter were not fooled by appearances. Not one would dare to try to rob Coubert. Ruffian fought down a chill of fear over tales she had heard.
A Chinese clerk bowed his head to greet her, hands concealed in his wide silken sleeves. She eyed him with the languid indifference of an aristocrat, and said, with a refined accent any Continental would have sworn she was born with, "Tell Coubert that Lady Simone wishes to see the ivory Laughing Mask." The eyes of the impassive Chinese widened just a trifle at the name. With an even lower bow, he took the elegant calling card, and ushered her to an ebony chair with lion-claw feet, before he disappeared through the folds of a great dark velvet tapestry which curtained the back of the shop.
She sat there, glancing indifferently about her, according to her role. Lady Simone would not be expected to show any interest in the trifles displayed for the general public. She believed she was being spied on through some peephole. Coubert was a mysterious figure, suspected of strange activities, but so far untouchable, either by his many enemies or by the authorities. When he appeared, it was so silently that he was standing before her before she was aware of his entrance. She glanced at him, masking her curiosity with the bored air of a Gallic noblewoman.
Coubert was a big man, broadly built, yet above medium height. His square, leathery tinted face was adorned with a thin wisp of drooping mustachios, and his bull-like shoulders seemed ready to split the seams of the embroidered black silk robe he wore. He had come to France from North Africa, and there was more hardened toughness in him as emphasized by his massive forearms, impressive even beneath his wide sleeves. He bowed, politely but not obsequiously. He seemed impressed, but not awed by the presence of the noted collector in his shop.
"Lady Simone does my humble establishment honor," said he, in perfect English, sweeping his eyes over her without any attempt to conceal his avid interest in her curves. There was a natural arrogance about him. He had dealt with wealthy spoiled women before, and strange tales were whispered of his dealings with some of them. The air of mystery and power about him made him seem a romantic figure to some European women.
"The Laughing Mask is in the inner chamber," he said. "There, too, are my real treasures. These," he gestured contemptuously about him, "are only a show for tourists'. If milady would honor me..."
She rose and moved across the room with the assured bearing of a woman of quality, certain of deference at all times. He drew back a satin curtain on which gilt lions reared, and following her through, drew it together behind them. They went along a narrow corridor, where the walls were hung with black velvet and the floor was carpeted with thick Isfahan rugs in which her feet sank deep.
A soft golden glow emanated from bronze lanterns, suspended from the gilt-inlaid ceiling. She felt her pulse quicken. She was on her way to the famous inner chamber of Coubert, inaccessible to all but wealthy and beautiful women, and in which, rumor whispered, Coubert had struck strange bargains. He did not always sell his antiques for money, and there were feminine collectors who would barter their virtue for a coveted relic.
Coubert opened a bronze door, worked in gold and ebon inlay, and Ruffian entered a broad chamber, over a silvery plate of glass set in the threshold.
He closed the door and bowed her to an ornate mahogany chair."Please excuse me for a moment, milady. I will return instantly."
He went out by another door, and she looked about her at a display whose richness might have shamed any ancient emperor's treasure-house. Here indeed were the real treasures of Etienne Coubert. Here were what looked like the plunder of a thousand archaeological digs and looting by armies of pagan temples. Dozens of curved swords, ornate sacrificial daggers, jade breastplates, bizarre helmets shaped like animal heads. There were idols in obsidian, gold, and ivory, ranging from a few inches tall to life size. A less sophisticated woman would have blushed at some of the figures depicting priapism and amorous poses reflecting great flexibility.
Even her eyes dilated a trifle at the sight of the ominous monstrosity that was the ivory Laughing Mask, looted from some nameless monastery deep in the forbidden realm. Then every nerve tingled as she saw a gold-worked dragon head jutting from the wall beyond the figure. Quickly she turned her gaze back to the god, just as her host returned on silent, slipper-shod feet.
He smiled to see her staring at the satyr idol and the female figure in its arms.
"That is only one of the conceptions of the god, rather carnal in nature. It is worth much to any collector.but let us delay business talk until after tea. If you will honor me?"
With his guest seated at a small round ebon table, the Alchemist struck a bronze gong, and tea was served by a slim, light-footed Chinese girl, clad only in a filmy jacket which came a little below her budding hips, and which concealed none of her smooth-skinned charms. Ruffian knew that Coubert had so many Asian servers because of his Red Crane connections.
The slave girl bowed herself humbly out with a last genuflection that displayed her full breasts beneath the low-necked jacket, and Ruffian's nerves tightened. Now was the time. She interrupted Coubert's polite trivialities.
"That little bronze horse, over there on the higher shelf," she said, pointing. "Isn't that a piece of the poet Jean-George Bouchard's work?"
"Indeed, the founder of Those Who Remember. I will get it!"
As he rose and stepped to the shelf, she dropped the knock-out pellet into his tea-cup. It dissolved instantly, without discoloring the liquid. She was idly sipping her own tea when the Alchemist returned and placed the tiny figure of a jade warrior before her.
"Genuine Bouchard ," said he. "It dates from 1919." He lifted his cup and emptied it at a draught, while she watched him with a tenseness which she could not wholly conceal. He sat the cup down empty, frowning slightly and twitching his lips at the taste.
"I would like to call your attention, milady..." he leaned forward, reaching toward the bronze figure but then slumped down across the table, out cold. In an instant she was across the room, and her tapering fingers were at work on the teeth of the carved dragon's head. There was an instinct in those fingers, a super-sensitiveness such as skilled cracksmen sometimes have. Ruffian sometimes said she had been born to be a thief.
In a few moments the jaws gaped suddenly, revealing a velvet-lined nest in the midst of which, like an egg of some fabled bird of paradise, burned and smoldered a great, smooth, round jewel.
She caught her breath as awedly she cupped it in her hands. It was that rarity, a pearl of such deep crimson that it seemed to reflect fire. the blood that flows near the heart. It looked like the materialization of a purple nightmare. She could believe now the wild tales she had heard that Coubert was leader of a cult that worshiped it as a god, sucking madness from its sinister depths, that he performed terrible sacrifices to it....
"Lovely, is it not?"
The low voice cracked the tense stillness like the heart-stopping blast of an explosion. She whirled, gasping, then stood transfixed. Etienne Coubert stood before her, smiling dangerously, his eyes slits of black fire. A frantic glance sped to the tea-table. There still sprawled a limp, bulky figure, idential to the Alchemist in every detail.
IV.
"What—?" she gasped weakly.
"My double," the Alchemist smiled. "I must be cautious. Long ago I hit upon the expedient of having a servant made up to resemble me and fool my enemies. When I left the chamber a little while ago, he took my place, and I watched through the peep-hole. I knew you were after the Crimson Pearl."
"How did you guess?" She sensed the uselessness of denial.
"Is it not obvious? Has not every thief in Europe tried to steal it?" He spoke softly, but his eyes shone, and he was breathing more rapidly. "As soon as I learned you were not who you pretended to bde, I knew you had come to steal something. Why not the Pearl? I set my trap and let you walk into it. But I must congratulate you on your cleverness. Not one in a thousand could have discovered the way to open the dragon's jaws."
"How did you know I wasn't Lady Simone?" she whispered, dry-lipped; the great ruby seemed to burn her palms.
"I recognized you from pictures! You are too careless with being photographed. Someone in your shady trade needs to remain undescribed."
"Wait! What are you going to do?" she gasped, as he stalked toward her.
A light akin to madness burned in his eyes. "You have defamed the sacred Crimson Pearl by your touch! It must be appeased in the suffering of all who touch it except myself, its rightful owner! If a man, his blood and broken bones! If a woman..."
No need for him to complete his abominable decree. The Pearl fell to the thick carpet, rolled along it like a revolving, demoniac eyeball. She shrank back, shrieking, as the no longer placid Courbet caught her by the wrist. Against his thickly muscled arms her struggles were vain. As in a nightmare, she felt herself lifted and carried kicking and scratching, through heavily brocaded drapes into a curtained alcove. Her eyes swept the room helplessly. She saw the ivory Mask leering at her as through a mist.
The alcove was walled with mirrors. Only deep cruelty could have devised such an arrangement so whichever way she twisted her head, she was confronted by the spectacle of her own humiliation reflected from every angle. She could not escape the shameful sight of her own writhings and the eager brutish hands of Courbet remorselessly subduing her hopeless, desperate struggles.
As she felt the greedy fingers squeezing her flesh, she saw in the mirrors her exposed breasts reflected, her dress torn and dishevelled, the pulled up black skirt in startling contrast to the white thighs, with only a wisp of silk protecting them as they frantically flexed, twisted and writhed. Then with a sucking gasp of breath between his grinding teeth, Courbet ripped the filmy panties from her body...
At the tea-table the senseless impersonator still sprawled, deaf to the frantic, agonized shrieks that rang again and again through the inner chamber of Courbet the Alchemist.
An hour later, a plain unmarked door opened into a narrow alley in the rear of Courbet antique shop, and Ruffian was thrust roughly out, her upper body almost bare, her skirt ripped to shreds. She fell sprawling from the force of the shove, and the door was slammed, with a brutal laugh. Dazedly she rose, shook down the remains of her skirt, took the blouse she held in one weak hand and tugged it on instinctively, then tottered down the alley, sobbing quietly but with full body shaking.
Inside the chamber which she had just been ejected, Courbet turned to a lean, short Asian with a shaven head, and from whose wide silk girdle jutted the curvedhandle of a light hatchet.
"Men of Red Crane, you have served me well. Tao Sing, take Mang and follow her. There is usually some man behind the scenes when a woman risks such high stakes. I let her go because I wished her to lead us to that man. Send Mang me to report. On no account kill him yourself. Only I must be the one to assuage the Crimson Pearl with their vile blood."
The hatchetman bowed and left the room, his face showing nothing of his secret belief that Courbet was insane, not because he believed the Crimson Pearl drank human suffering, but because he was a rich merchant who insisted on doing murder which others of his class always left to hired slayers.
In the mouth of a little twisting alley that ran out upon a rotting abandoned wharf, Ruffian paused. Her face was haggard and desperate. She had reached the end of her trail. She had failed, and Alvarado would not accept any excuse. Ahead of her she saw only the black muzzles of a firing squad to which he would deliver her. But first there would be vicious torture to wring from her secrets her captors would think she possessed. The world at large never knows the full story of the treatment of suspected spies. There was no way out of Benoit. Only one escape occured to be open for her.
With a low moan she covered her eyes with her arm and stumbled blindly toward the edge of the wharf, then a strong arm caught her by the waist and she looked up into the stern face of Jeremy Bane.
V.
"This isn't like you, Ruffian. You've never been one to give up."
"You don't know me. Let me go!" she protested. "It's my life! I can end it if I want to!"
"Not while I'm around," he grunted, picking her up and carrying her back away from the wharf. He sat down on a pile and plopped her down next to him like a child. "Good thing I found you," he grumbled. "I had a hard time tracing you after you slugged me and ran up that alley, but I finally spotted you ducking down this one. Now you tell me what the situation is."
He seemed to hold no grudge for that clout with the pitcher. There was onlyprotectiveness in the clasp of his arms around her shoulders, but she found a comforting solidity in the hard muscles against which her weary head rested. There was a promise of security in that solid strength. Independent all her life, she had seldom felt the assurance of leaning on anyone.
In a few words she told him everything, from the leverage Alvarado had over her, to the task he had set for her, and what had happened in Courbet's inner room.
Bane scowled at her narrative. "I'll see he pays for that! But first we'll go to the Rue Bon Fortune. Try to stall Alvarado along to give you another chance. If we have to, I can work on an informer I know who could tell me plenty about Alvarado. He's been mixed up in plenty of crooked rackets. I've wanted to put him aay for a long time now."
When they entered the Rue Bon Fortune, in a half-abandoned warehouse district in the slum district, they did not see two furtive figures slinking after them at a distance, nor hear the taller man whisper "Mang, go back and tell our master she had led us to a man! I will watch the alley till he comes."
Bane and Ruffian turned into a dingy doorway, up,some stairs and went down a corridor that seemed wholly deserted. Groping along it, in the dusk, she found the room she sought and led the Dire Wolf into it. She lit a candle stub stuck on a shelf, and turned to say, "He'll be here soon."
To the side, a wide double window stood open. Over a knee high railing, the dark waters of Riviera Silencieux, the Silent River, flowed sluggishly. Ruffian gazed down somberly at the black surface. Not an hour earlier, she had been ready to end her life in it.
"I'll wait in the next room," Bane said, taking his supportive arm from about her shoulders. "At the right moment, I'll come in. Don't worry."
Alone in the candle-lighted room she tried to compose herself. Her heart was beating a wild drumbeat, so loud in the stillness she felt someone might hear it. Somewhere rats scratched within the walls. Time dragged insufferably. Then quick heavy steps sounded in the hall, and Alvarado burst through the door, his face eager with greed. His smile dropped away as he read defeat in her eyes.
"Damn you!" His fingers were like talons as he sank them painfully into her shoulders. "You failed!"
"I couldn't help it!" she pleaded. "He knew right away I was a fake. Don't hurt me. I'll try again with a different approach."
"Try again? You little fool! Do you think that Alchemist will give you another chance?" Alvarado's suavity was gone as he turned brutal and savage. "You failed, after all my planning! And it's the last time you'll let me down, you're as good as dead."
The inner door swung open and a figure in black rushed in. Alvarado wheeled, raising his pistol, but before he could fire, Bane's lightning fist crashed against his jaw, spun him around and stretched him senseless. The Dire Wolf bent and picked up the gun to toss it aside, then whirled as the hall door opened behind him. He stiffened as a tranquil voice spoke: "Do not move, my friend!"
He looked into the muzzle of a tiny .22 gun in Courbet's hand. The ancient sorcerer placed a shallow wooden tray on the nightstand. Within it sat nestled a dozen potent talismans, including the prized Crimson Pearl itself. Why he had brought them was a mystery for the moment.
"So you are the Dire Wolf?" muttered the Alchemist. "I have heard so much about you. Good! You have many enemies who will pay well to have you as their prisoner."
He could have fired before even Bane could draw his own gun. But next to the Dire Wolf, Ruffian laughed unexpectedly. She seized the wooden tray holding the cursed talismans and flung it out through the open window into Riviera Silencieux far below.
Courbet's face went ashen. With a choking cry he fired, not at Bane but at the girl. But his hand was shaking visibly. He missed, and the Dire Wolf lunged in quicker than a Human eye could follow, seizing Courbet's hand and yanking it upward so the second bullet plowed through the Alchemist's jaw into the interior of his head before crashing out through the upper skull.
Bane let the corpse fall at his feet. "Quick thinking there, that's the Ruffian I knew."
"But they'll hang us for this!" whimpered the girl. "Listen! Someone's running up the hall! They've heard the shots!"
Stooping swiftly Bane folded Alvarado's fingers about the butt of the smoking pistol, and then kicked the man heavily in the ribs. Alvarado grunted and showed signs of returning consciousness. Bane drew Ruffian into the other room and they watched through the crack of the door.
The hall door opened and the Red Crane assassin rushed in like a panther, hatchet in hand. His eyes blazed at the sight of Courbet on the floor, Alvarado staggering to his feet with a pistol in his hand. With one stride the hatchetman reached the dazed blackmailer. There was a flash of steel, an ugly butcher-shop crunch, and Alvarado slumped with his skull split to the forehead. The killer tossed his bloodied hatchet to the floor beside his victim and rushed away out of the room.
"Out of here, quick!" muttered Bane, shaking Ruffian who seemed frozen. "Into the river with us." He seized her around the waist and dove headlong out through the wide windows into black cold waters.
A hundred yards downstream, they climbed up a slick retaining wall into the town again. Gasping at the exertion and the chill, Ruffian regained most of her poise in their groping flight up the darkened alley, as Bane muttered. "We're in the clear now. Alvarado can't talk, with his head split, and that assassin'll tell his pals Alvarado shot their boss."
"We'd better get out of town!" They had emerged into a narrow, lamp-lit street.
"No. We're safe from suspicion now. The Red Crane gang has a story that explains Courtbet's death. Come on to my hotel room, we can dry off and you can get some sleep before going on your way."
Ruffian gazed up at those pale eyes with an unexpected offer in her tones. "Is that all we're going to do?"
"I'm all business, Ruffian. You should know that by now." The Dire Wolf began striding down the dimly lit street. She followed him, grateful that the tension and uncertainty of the past few days seemed to be behind her at last. As she caught up with him, Ruffian felt in the shallow pocket of her skirt where the Crimson Pearl was tucked away. Seizing the pearl as she had tossed the tray of gems into the river had been the most skilled sleight of hand she had ever pulled off.
5/11/2023
11/11/2003
I.
"This is not a partnership. I'm in charge. You're going to go through with it or else!" Alvarado smirked cruelly as he delivered his ultimatum. Across the table from him Ruffian clenched her white hands in barely repressed rage. Alejandro Alvarado was tall and darkly handsome in a ruthless way. Many women looked on that hawklike face with its thin mustache with appreciation. Ruffian hated him, with as good reason as she feared him.
But she had been an independent adventuress since her teen years, and could not repress a flare of rebellion. "I've decided against the impersonation! It's too risky!"
"Not half as risky as defying me!" he reminded her. "Your safety is hanging by a thread, Ruffian. How would you like to have me tell the police why you left that apartment complex in such a hurry? Or tell them my version of what happened that night in Duffault's apartment—"
"Hush!" she begged. She was trembling more from repressed anger than fear as she glanced uneasily about the little curtained alcove in which they sat. It was well off the main floor of the Bordeaux Cabaret. Even the music from the orchestra came only faintly to their ears. They were alone, but the words he had just spoken were dynamite, not even safe for empty walls to hear.
"You know I didn't kill him," she snapped.
"So you say. But with your reputation, who'd believe you if I swore I saw you do it?"
She bent her head in defeat. This was the price she must pay for a single moment of bad judgement. In Marseille she had been indiscreet enough to visit the apartments of a certain important Ministry official. It had been only the harmless escapade of a thrill-hunting girl who loved building connections with people who might be able to help her larcenous career.
She had found more thrills than she wanted when the official had been murdered, right before her eyes, by his servant who she was sure was a Russian spy. The murderer had fled, and so had she, but not before she had been seen leaving the house by this Alvarado, a henchman of the slain official. He had kept silent for the moment. But the murderer had taken important documents with him in his flight, and there was hell to pay in diplomatic circles.
It had been an international episode, that almost set government upheaval roaring in troubled Europe. The murder and theft remained an unsolved mystery to the world at large, a wound that still rankled in the capitals of the Continent.
Ruffian had fled the city in a panic, realizing she could never prove her innocence if connected with the affair. Alvarado had followed her to this town of Benoit and laid his cards on the table. If she did not comply with his wishes, he'd go to the police and swear he saw her murder the minister. With sinking certainty, she knew his testimony would send her to a firing squad, for a various government was eager for a scape-goat with which to conciliate the wrathful French public.
Seeing no choice, Ruffian submitted to the blackmail. And now Alvarado had told her the price of his silence. It was not what she had expected, though, from the look in his eyes as he devoured her trim figure from glossy black hair to delicate feet in high heels, she felt it would come to that eventually. But here in the Bordeaux Cafe, a shabby rendezvous in the shadowy borderland between the respectable and the shady, he had reminded her of a project she had abandoned as too risky.
He had commanded her to steal the infamous Crimson Pearl, a rare gem belonging to the vile Alchemist named Courbet. That pearl had amsassed a long list of victims who had died violently trying to possess it.
"So many men have tried," she argued. "How can I hope to succeed? I'll be found floating in the river with my throat cut, just as they were."
"Your chances are good," he retorted. "They tried simple direct force. We'll use a woman's subtle strategy. I've learned where he keeps it. Informatiom from former employees can be bought. and he learned that much. He keeps it in a wall safe that looks like a dragon's head, in the inner chamber of his antique shop, where he keeps his rarest goods, and where he never admits anybody but wealthy women collectors. He entertains them there alone, which makes it easy."
"But how am I going to steal it, with him in there with me?"
"Easy!" he snapped. "He always serves his guests tea. You watch your chance and drop this knock-out pill in his tea." He pressed a tiny, translucent sphere into her hand.
"He'll pass out like a candle getting snuffed. Then you open the safe, take the pearl and skip. One reason you're perfect for this job is you have a natural gift for unraveling trick box puzzles. The safe doesn't have a dial. You press the dragon's teeth in some sequence. That's for you to find out."
"But how am I going to get into the inner chamber?" she demanded.
"That's the essence of the scheme," he assured her. "Did you ever hear of Lady Simone Beaufort? Well, every antique dealer in the Europe knows her by reputation. She's never been here to Benoit, though, and I don't believe Courbet ever saw her. That'll make it easy to fool him. She's a young Frenchwoman with esoteric tastes and she spends her time wandering around the world collecting rare Midnight War treasures. She's worth millions, and she's a free spender.
"Well, you look enough like her in a general way to fit in with any description Courbet's likely to have heard. You're about the same height, same color of hair and eyes, same kind of figure... And you can act, too. You can put on a posh accent that would fool genuine nobilty, and seem the high-born lady to a queen's taste.
"I've seen Lady Simone's cards, and before I left Paris I had one made to match. You see I had this in mind, even then." He passed her a curious slip of paper-thin pasteboard, embossed with elegant characters.
"Her name, of course. She spends a small fortune on cards like that alone. Now go back to your apartment and change into the clothes I know you had made up...scarlet silk dress, dark red hat, slippers with ivory heels, and a jade brooch. That's the way Lady Simone usually dresses Go to Courbet's shop and tell him you want to see the ivory Laughing Mask. He keeps it in the inner chamber. When you get in therem go into your act, but be careful! They say Courbet worships that Crimson Pearl in a literal religious way, and burns incense to it. But you'll pull the wool over his eyes, all right, if anyone can."
Ruffian made no comment.
"Go out by the back way. When you get the pearl, meet me at room Number 7, in the Rue Bon Fortune. You know the place. This town is already too hot for you, and we'll have to get you out into the countryside in a hurry. And remember, sweetheart," his voice grew hard as his predatory eyes, and his arm about her waist was more a threat than a caress, "if you double-cross me, or if you flop on this job, I'll see you stand before a French firing squad if it's the last thing I do. I won't accept any excuses, either. Get me?"
His fingers brushed her chin, trailed over the soft curve of her throat, to her shoulder, and as he voiced his threat, he dug them in like talons, emphasizing his command with a brutality that made Ruffian bite her lip to keep from crying out with pain.
"Yes, you've made yourself very clear."
"All right. Get going." He roughly pushed her toward a door opposite the curtained entrance beyond which the jazz music blared.
II.
The door opened into a long narrow alley that eventually reached the street. As Ruffian went down this alley, seething with rebellion against the task forced upon her, a man stepped from a doorway and stopped her. She eyed him suspiciously, though concealing a sudden jolt of recognition.
He was tall, wide-shouldered but lean, with cold grey eyes under feral black brows. As always, he dressed all in black.There was no mistaking Jeremy Bane, feared as the Dire Wolf in more than one kind of Underworld.
"You again! Will you stop getting in my way?" she demanded.
"It's what I do," He barred her way with a sinewy arm, and his eyes narrowed as they ran over the fear under the bland face. "You're in over your head, Ruffian."
"It would be a better world if people would mind their own business," she retorted.
"That's never going to happen. You are dealing with a triple crosser like Alejandro Alvarado," he growled resentfully. "He's already planned how to betray you."
She flinched at the name of her master, but answered spiritedly, "What I do is none of your business. Now let me pass!"
But instead he caught her arm in a grip that hurt. "Come with me."
"You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed. "I'll scream."
A powerful hand clapped over her mouth put a stop to that."Nobody interferes with anything that goes on in alleys behind places like the Bordeaux," he said in low tones, imprisoning her arms and easy lifting her off her feet, kicking and struggling. "Just be grateful it's me who's intervening."
He kicked open the door through which he had reached the alley, and carried Ruffian into a dim hallway. Traversing this with his writhing captive, he shoved open a door that opened on it. Ruffian, crushed against his rock-had chest, felt the tumultuous pounding of her heart, and experienced a momentary thrill of the presence of sheer physical strength.
If only she could trust him. Bane was the one adventurer in the Midnight War she felt had a chance against both Alvarado and Coubert. e carried her into a sparsely furnished, cobwebby room, and set her on her feet, placing his back against the door.
"Take two seconds and listen to me...." he began.
"Let me out of here, you beast!" She kicked his shins vigorously.
He ignored her attack as if he couldn't feel it. "You're teasing a dangerous enemy, Ruffian. I've found Coubert is close to one hundred years old. Alchemy keeps him vital. He has forbidden knowledge you can't handle. The Crimson Pearl is a Darthan sigil. It's supposed to have been on the crown of Tollinor Kje himself."
For answer she bent her head and bit his wrist viciously, even though discretion warned her it was probably the worst thing she could do.
"I'm losing patience with you," he grumbled, shoving her back against the wall. "Maybe I should let you put your neck in a beartrap, if that's what you're determined to.."
"My back! Something's stabbed me! Like a dagger."
"Now what?" Bane whirled her about to see what the problem was, but she had her hands pressed over the small of her back, and was writhing and moaning in well-simulated pain.
"Everything would be easier if you'd cooperate once in a while..." he began to say, scanning the wall and trying to find what had hurt her. As he turned his back, she snatched a heavy pitcher from the wash-stand and smashed it over his head as hard as she possibly could.
Not even Jeremy Bane could stand up under a clout like that. He dropped straight down as if struck by lightning. Ruffian darted through the door and down the hall.S She had heard of his enhanced healing. Bane had been known to bounce back rapidly from severe bodily trauma such as being run over by a truck or falling off a five story high roof. A smack on the head, no matter how lethal to normal Humans, would not delay him long. She sprang along the alley toward Rue Sardonic, not stopping to arrange her garments.
As she emerged into the street, a backward glance showed her Bane recovering already, propping his upper body on stiffened arms. But she was striding quickly away, ducking from one narrow alley into another and getting out of sight within seconds. After a few blocks, she slowed to a more sedate pace, arranging her dress as she went. A few loungers had seen her run from the alley, but they merely smiled in quiet amusement and made no comment. It was no novelty in that quarter to see a girl emerge from a back alley with her skirt pulled awry.
But a few deft touches smoothed out her appearance, and a moment later, looking cool and unruffled as though she had just stepped out of a salon, she was headed for her apartment, where waited the garments she must don for that night's dangerous masquerade.
III.
An hour later she entered the notorious antique shop of Etienne Coubert, which huddled in the midst of a squalid neighborhood as if it did not wish to be discovered. Outside it was unpretentious, but inside, even in the main chamber with its display intended to catch the fancy of tourists and casual collectors, the shop was a colorful riot of rich artistry.
A treasure in jade, gold, and ivory was openly exhibited, apparently unguarded. But the inhabitants of the quarter were not fooled by appearances. Not one would dare to try to rob Coubert. Ruffian fought down a chill of fear over tales she had heard.
A Chinese clerk bowed his head to greet her, hands concealed in his wide silken sleeves. She eyed him with the languid indifference of an aristocrat, and said, with a refined accent any Continental would have sworn she was born with, "Tell Coubert that Lady Simone wishes to see the ivory Laughing Mask." The eyes of the impassive Chinese widened just a trifle at the name. With an even lower bow, he took the elegant calling card, and ushered her to an ebony chair with lion-claw feet, before he disappeared through the folds of a great dark velvet tapestry which curtained the back of the shop.
She sat there, glancing indifferently about her, according to her role. Lady Simone would not be expected to show any interest in the trifles displayed for the general public. She believed she was being spied on through some peephole. Coubert was a mysterious figure, suspected of strange activities, but so far untouchable, either by his many enemies or by the authorities. When he appeared, it was so silently that he was standing before her before she was aware of his entrance. She glanced at him, masking her curiosity with the bored air of a Gallic noblewoman.
Coubert was a big man, broadly built, yet above medium height. His square, leathery tinted face was adorned with a thin wisp of drooping mustachios, and his bull-like shoulders seemed ready to split the seams of the embroidered black silk robe he wore. He had come to France from North Africa, and there was more hardened toughness in him as emphasized by his massive forearms, impressive even beneath his wide sleeves. He bowed, politely but not obsequiously. He seemed impressed, but not awed by the presence of the noted collector in his shop.
"Lady Simone does my humble establishment honor," said he, in perfect English, sweeping his eyes over her without any attempt to conceal his avid interest in her curves. There was a natural arrogance about him. He had dealt with wealthy spoiled women before, and strange tales were whispered of his dealings with some of them. The air of mystery and power about him made him seem a romantic figure to some European women.
"The Laughing Mask is in the inner chamber," he said. "There, too, are my real treasures. These," he gestured contemptuously about him, "are only a show for tourists'. If milady would honor me..."
She rose and moved across the room with the assured bearing of a woman of quality, certain of deference at all times. He drew back a satin curtain on which gilt lions reared, and following her through, drew it together behind them. They went along a narrow corridor, where the walls were hung with black velvet and the floor was carpeted with thick Isfahan rugs in which her feet sank deep.
A soft golden glow emanated from bronze lanterns, suspended from the gilt-inlaid ceiling. She felt her pulse quicken. She was on her way to the famous inner chamber of Coubert, inaccessible to all but wealthy and beautiful women, and in which, rumor whispered, Coubert had struck strange bargains. He did not always sell his antiques for money, and there were feminine collectors who would barter their virtue for a coveted relic.
Coubert opened a bronze door, worked in gold and ebon inlay, and Ruffian entered a broad chamber, over a silvery plate of glass set in the threshold.
He closed the door and bowed her to an ornate mahogany chair."Please excuse me for a moment, milady. I will return instantly."
He went out by another door, and she looked about her at a display whose richness might have shamed any ancient emperor's treasure-house. Here indeed were the real treasures of Etienne Coubert. Here were what looked like the plunder of a thousand archaeological digs and looting by armies of pagan temples. Dozens of curved swords, ornate sacrificial daggers, jade breastplates, bizarre helmets shaped like animal heads. There were idols in obsidian, gold, and ivory, ranging from a few inches tall to life size. A less sophisticated woman would have blushed at some of the figures depicting priapism and amorous poses reflecting great flexibility.
Even her eyes dilated a trifle at the sight of the ominous monstrosity that was the ivory Laughing Mask, looted from some nameless monastery deep in the forbidden realm. Then every nerve tingled as she saw a gold-worked dragon head jutting from the wall beyond the figure. Quickly she turned her gaze back to the god, just as her host returned on silent, slipper-shod feet.
He smiled to see her staring at the satyr idol and the female figure in its arms.
"That is only one of the conceptions of the god, rather carnal in nature. It is worth much to any collector.but let us delay business talk until after tea. If you will honor me?"
With his guest seated at a small round ebon table, the Alchemist struck a bronze gong, and tea was served by a slim, light-footed Chinese girl, clad only in a filmy jacket which came a little below her budding hips, and which concealed none of her smooth-skinned charms. Ruffian knew that Coubert had so many Asian servers because of his Red Crane connections.
The slave girl bowed herself humbly out with a last genuflection that displayed her full breasts beneath the low-necked jacket, and Ruffian's nerves tightened. Now was the time. She interrupted Coubert's polite trivialities.
"That little bronze horse, over there on the higher shelf," she said, pointing. "Isn't that a piece of the poet Jean-George Bouchard's work?"
"Indeed, the founder of Those Who Remember. I will get it!"
As he rose and stepped to the shelf, she dropped the knock-out pellet into his tea-cup. It dissolved instantly, without discoloring the liquid. She was idly sipping her own tea when the Alchemist returned and placed the tiny figure of a jade warrior before her.
"Genuine Bouchard ," said he. "It dates from 1919." He lifted his cup and emptied it at a draught, while she watched him with a tenseness which she could not wholly conceal. He sat the cup down empty, frowning slightly and twitching his lips at the taste.
"I would like to call your attention, milady..." he leaned forward, reaching toward the bronze figure but then slumped down across the table, out cold. In an instant she was across the room, and her tapering fingers were at work on the teeth of the carved dragon's head. There was an instinct in those fingers, a super-sensitiveness such as skilled cracksmen sometimes have. Ruffian sometimes said she had been born to be a thief.
In a few moments the jaws gaped suddenly, revealing a velvet-lined nest in the midst of which, like an egg of some fabled bird of paradise, burned and smoldered a great, smooth, round jewel.
She caught her breath as awedly she cupped it in her hands. It was that rarity, a pearl of such deep crimson that it seemed to reflect fire. the blood that flows near the heart. It looked like the materialization of a purple nightmare. She could believe now the wild tales she had heard that Coubert was leader of a cult that worshiped it as a god, sucking madness from its sinister depths, that he performed terrible sacrifices to it....
"Lovely, is it not?"
The low voice cracked the tense stillness like the heart-stopping blast of an explosion. She whirled, gasping, then stood transfixed. Etienne Coubert stood before her, smiling dangerously, his eyes slits of black fire. A frantic glance sped to the tea-table. There still sprawled a limp, bulky figure, idential to the Alchemist in every detail.
IV.
"What—?" she gasped weakly.
"My double," the Alchemist smiled. "I must be cautious. Long ago I hit upon the expedient of having a servant made up to resemble me and fool my enemies. When I left the chamber a little while ago, he took my place, and I watched through the peep-hole. I knew you were after the Crimson Pearl."
"How did you guess?" She sensed the uselessness of denial.
"Is it not obvious? Has not every thief in Europe tried to steal it?" He spoke softly, but his eyes shone, and he was breathing more rapidly. "As soon as I learned you were not who you pretended to bde, I knew you had come to steal something. Why not the Pearl? I set my trap and let you walk into it. But I must congratulate you on your cleverness. Not one in a thousand could have discovered the way to open the dragon's jaws."
"How did you know I wasn't Lady Simone?" she whispered, dry-lipped; the great ruby seemed to burn her palms.
"I recognized you from pictures! You are too careless with being photographed. Someone in your shady trade needs to remain undescribed."
"Wait! What are you going to do?" she gasped, as he stalked toward her.
A light akin to madness burned in his eyes. "You have defamed the sacred Crimson Pearl by your touch! It must be appeased in the suffering of all who touch it except myself, its rightful owner! If a man, his blood and broken bones! If a woman..."
No need for him to complete his abominable decree. The Pearl fell to the thick carpet, rolled along it like a revolving, demoniac eyeball. She shrank back, shrieking, as the no longer placid Courbet caught her by the wrist. Against his thickly muscled arms her struggles were vain. As in a nightmare, she felt herself lifted and carried kicking and scratching, through heavily brocaded drapes into a curtained alcove. Her eyes swept the room helplessly. She saw the ivory Mask leering at her as through a mist.
The alcove was walled with mirrors. Only deep cruelty could have devised such an arrangement so whichever way she twisted her head, she was confronted by the spectacle of her own humiliation reflected from every angle. She could not escape the shameful sight of her own writhings and the eager brutish hands of Courbet remorselessly subduing her hopeless, desperate struggles.
As she felt the greedy fingers squeezing her flesh, she saw in the mirrors her exposed breasts reflected, her dress torn and dishevelled, the pulled up black skirt in startling contrast to the white thighs, with only a wisp of silk protecting them as they frantically flexed, twisted and writhed. Then with a sucking gasp of breath between his grinding teeth, Courbet ripped the filmy panties from her body...
At the tea-table the senseless impersonator still sprawled, deaf to the frantic, agonized shrieks that rang again and again through the inner chamber of Courbet the Alchemist.
An hour later, a plain unmarked door opened into a narrow alley in the rear of Courbet antique shop, and Ruffian was thrust roughly out, her upper body almost bare, her skirt ripped to shreds. She fell sprawling from the force of the shove, and the door was slammed, with a brutal laugh. Dazedly she rose, shook down the remains of her skirt, took the blouse she held in one weak hand and tugged it on instinctively, then tottered down the alley, sobbing quietly but with full body shaking.
Inside the chamber which she had just been ejected, Courbet turned to a lean, short Asian with a shaven head, and from whose wide silk girdle jutted the curvedhandle of a light hatchet.
"Men of Red Crane, you have served me well. Tao Sing, take Mang and follow her. There is usually some man behind the scenes when a woman risks such high stakes. I let her go because I wished her to lead us to that man. Send Mang me to report. On no account kill him yourself. Only I must be the one to assuage the Crimson Pearl with their vile blood."
The hatchetman bowed and left the room, his face showing nothing of his secret belief that Courbet was insane, not because he believed the Crimson Pearl drank human suffering, but because he was a rich merchant who insisted on doing murder which others of his class always left to hired slayers.
In the mouth of a little twisting alley that ran out upon a rotting abandoned wharf, Ruffian paused. Her face was haggard and desperate. She had reached the end of her trail. She had failed, and Alvarado would not accept any excuse. Ahead of her she saw only the black muzzles of a firing squad to which he would deliver her. But first there would be vicious torture to wring from her secrets her captors would think she possessed. The world at large never knows the full story of the treatment of suspected spies. There was no way out of Benoit. Only one escape occured to be open for her.
With a low moan she covered her eyes with her arm and stumbled blindly toward the edge of the wharf, then a strong arm caught her by the waist and she looked up into the stern face of Jeremy Bane.
V.
"This isn't like you, Ruffian. You've never been one to give up."
"You don't know me. Let me go!" she protested. "It's my life! I can end it if I want to!"
"Not while I'm around," he grunted, picking her up and carrying her back away from the wharf. He sat down on a pile and plopped her down next to him like a child. "Good thing I found you," he grumbled. "I had a hard time tracing you after you slugged me and ran up that alley, but I finally spotted you ducking down this one. Now you tell me what the situation is."
He seemed to hold no grudge for that clout with the pitcher. There was onlyprotectiveness in the clasp of his arms around her shoulders, but she found a comforting solidity in the hard muscles against which her weary head rested. There was a promise of security in that solid strength. Independent all her life, she had seldom felt the assurance of leaning on anyone.
In a few words she told him everything, from the leverage Alvarado had over her, to the task he had set for her, and what had happened in Courbet's inner room.
Bane scowled at her narrative. "I'll see he pays for that! But first we'll go to the Rue Bon Fortune. Try to stall Alvarado along to give you another chance. If we have to, I can work on an informer I know who could tell me plenty about Alvarado. He's been mixed up in plenty of crooked rackets. I've wanted to put him aay for a long time now."
When they entered the Rue Bon Fortune, in a half-abandoned warehouse district in the slum district, they did not see two furtive figures slinking after them at a distance, nor hear the taller man whisper "Mang, go back and tell our master she had led us to a man! I will watch the alley till he comes."
Bane and Ruffian turned into a dingy doorway, up,some stairs and went down a corridor that seemed wholly deserted. Groping along it, in the dusk, she found the room she sought and led the Dire Wolf into it. She lit a candle stub stuck on a shelf, and turned to say, "He'll be here soon."
To the side, a wide double window stood open. Over a knee high railing, the dark waters of Riviera Silencieux, the Silent River, flowed sluggishly. Ruffian gazed down somberly at the black surface. Not an hour earlier, she had been ready to end her life in it.
"I'll wait in the next room," Bane said, taking his supportive arm from about her shoulders. "At the right moment, I'll come in. Don't worry."
Alone in the candle-lighted room she tried to compose herself. Her heart was beating a wild drumbeat, so loud in the stillness she felt someone might hear it. Somewhere rats scratched within the walls. Time dragged insufferably. Then quick heavy steps sounded in the hall, and Alvarado burst through the door, his face eager with greed. His smile dropped away as he read defeat in her eyes.
"Damn you!" His fingers were like talons as he sank them painfully into her shoulders. "You failed!"
"I couldn't help it!" she pleaded. "He knew right away I was a fake. Don't hurt me. I'll try again with a different approach."
"Try again? You little fool! Do you think that Alchemist will give you another chance?" Alvarado's suavity was gone as he turned brutal and savage. "You failed, after all my planning! And it's the last time you'll let me down, you're as good as dead."
The inner door swung open and a figure in black rushed in. Alvarado wheeled, raising his pistol, but before he could fire, Bane's lightning fist crashed against his jaw, spun him around and stretched him senseless. The Dire Wolf bent and picked up the gun to toss it aside, then whirled as the hall door opened behind him. He stiffened as a tranquil voice spoke: "Do not move, my friend!"
He looked into the muzzle of a tiny .22 gun in Courbet's hand. The ancient sorcerer placed a shallow wooden tray on the nightstand. Within it sat nestled a dozen potent talismans, including the prized Crimson Pearl itself. Why he had brought them was a mystery for the moment.
"So you are the Dire Wolf?" muttered the Alchemist. "I have heard so much about you. Good! You have many enemies who will pay well to have you as their prisoner."
He could have fired before even Bane could draw his own gun. But next to the Dire Wolf, Ruffian laughed unexpectedly. She seized the wooden tray holding the cursed talismans and flung it out through the open window into Riviera Silencieux far below.
Courbet's face went ashen. With a choking cry he fired, not at Bane but at the girl. But his hand was shaking visibly. He missed, and the Dire Wolf lunged in quicker than a Human eye could follow, seizing Courbet's hand and yanking it upward so the second bullet plowed through the Alchemist's jaw into the interior of his head before crashing out through the upper skull.
Bane let the corpse fall at his feet. "Quick thinking there, that's the Ruffian I knew."
"But they'll hang us for this!" whimpered the girl. "Listen! Someone's running up the hall! They've heard the shots!"
Stooping swiftly Bane folded Alvarado's fingers about the butt of the smoking pistol, and then kicked the man heavily in the ribs. Alvarado grunted and showed signs of returning consciousness. Bane drew Ruffian into the other room and they watched through the crack of the door.
The hall door opened and the Red Crane assassin rushed in like a panther, hatchet in hand. His eyes blazed at the sight of Courbet on the floor, Alvarado staggering to his feet with a pistol in his hand. With one stride the hatchetman reached the dazed blackmailer. There was a flash of steel, an ugly butcher-shop crunch, and Alvarado slumped with his skull split to the forehead. The killer tossed his bloodied hatchet to the floor beside his victim and rushed away out of the room.
"Out of here, quick!" muttered Bane, shaking Ruffian who seemed frozen. "Into the river with us." He seized her around the waist and dove headlong out through the wide windows into black cold waters.
A hundred yards downstream, they climbed up a slick retaining wall into the town again. Gasping at the exertion and the chill, Ruffian regained most of her poise in their groping flight up the darkened alley, as Bane muttered. "We're in the clear now. Alvarado can't talk, with his head split, and that assassin'll tell his pals Alvarado shot their boss."
"We'd better get out of town!" They had emerged into a narrow, lamp-lit street.
"No. We're safe from suspicion now. The Red Crane gang has a story that explains Courtbet's death. Come on to my hotel room, we can dry off and you can get some sleep before going on your way."
Ruffian gazed up at those pale eyes with an unexpected offer in her tones. "Is that all we're going to do?"
"I'm all business, Ruffian. You should know that by now." The Dire Wolf began striding down the dimly lit street. She followed him, grateful that the tension and uncertainty of the past few days seemed to be behind her at last. As she caught up with him, Ruffian felt in the shallow pocket of her skirt where the Crimson Pearl was tucked away. Seizing the pearl as she had tossed the tray of gems into the river had been the most skilled sleight of hand she had ever pulled off.
5/11/2023