The Blood Market Chapter 16

We were taken to the stables of the horsetrack and thrown into a caged enclosure that had likely intended for horse breaking. We were searched and relieved of our firearms, my sabre and harbinger's knife. The  t-handle knife hidden in my concealed boot sheath escaped discovery, but that was small comfort.

"So what do we do?" I said staring at the ground, "They're going to make us play that game. And it's not like they're going to play fair, or let us leave even if there's some way to win. This is what you meant about dying in the line of duty. So is this it?"

"You know that I deal in magic, Dahlia. Did I ever tell you what magic was when strip away all the lies and tricks?"

"As far as I was aware, that's all magic ever was: lies and tricks."

"No, that's just how you work magic. Stories are magic, magic are stories. We are the heroes of this story."

"Heroes die in all the stories I loved as a child," I said.

"Ah, but in this story, your partner is a magician. And as you said, magicians use lies and tricks. Watch the door, I am going work some magic." Harbinger sat down at the little wooden bench and began to scrape wax from the candle that served as our light source, "Watch the door, not me!" He repeated and I turned to watch. harbinger kept talking in a conversational tone as I watched the hall outside our cell, "This is one of the oldest magic tricks in the book, this version itself tested by the Grandfather of magic: Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin himself under conditions much worse than this. Throw me one of your boots. Mine don't have enough shoe polish. I'm not military enough, clearly."

I yanked a boot off and tossed it back, Harbinger caught it and began rubbing his fingers across the toe of the boot, "What are you doing watching me?" He asked, "Watch the door."

"Are you going to tell me this plan of yours?" I asked.

"I'm not. This is a long shot with a lot of variables. It's a plan with too many moving parts, none of which are nailed down. Just be ready to try and make an escape, regardless of what happens to me."

"Don't say that," I told him, "You're talking about this being a story, well people in stories who use the phrase 'whatever happens to me' always end up dead."

"Doesn't matter," he said, "Whatever happens, you be ready to take advantage of it. I will give you a chance, and it will only be one chance, so you be ready for it. Don't make me haunt you."

"Don't you dare sacrifice yourself for me," I said, turning back towards him, "I have enough dead friends on my conscience."

Harbinger tossed my boot back at me, "Too late, I'm ready. You're going to have to trust me, because we have no other plan."

I tried to count until they came to get us, but my nerves took their toll. Sounds kept distracting me, and I kept having to restart my count. Eventually an entourage of fifteen thugs came to collect us. I smiled, even disarmed they had finally learned their lesson on dealing with me. Blackwater himself stood behind the thugs, as they fitted us with elaborate carnival style masks to conceal our faces. Gunter Albrecht glowered beside him.

"What is the point of this?" Harbinger asked as a wiry man with a vandyke style beard drew a large beaked mask across Harbinger's face.

"All of the players are all masked.  Many of the wealthy who enjoy the show get squeamish if they have to look the people in the eyes. It's worse if they recognize the players," Blackwater answered.

"Cowards to the end," I said.

"Indeed," Bklackwater nodded, "But wealthy and willing to pay to have the cowardice catered to by people willing. People who seek happiness in external things eventually need ever greater indulgences, and the person willing to procure such things can make a great deal of money, and build a substantial power base. The aristocrat is a child, easily spoiled, easily upset, easily bored, easily bullied. They have great power and yet have no idea how to use it. People become nobility by living and dying by the sword, and then their descendents live and die by the silver spoon. It's disgusting, but easily exploited."

I watched as Albrecht's face tightened as Blackwater continued to talk. Harbinger must have noticed the change in Albrecht's face as well, as he turned his head to look at the other man as Blackwater gave his speech. A man fitted me with a carnival mask depicting a snarling lioness.

"And clearly the nobility are so easy to manipulate," Harbinger said, "Kill a few relatives, antagonize a noble blooded rival into a foolish gang war he has no chance of winning and you can easily gain control of your rival's forces, correct?"

Blackwater looked at Albrecht without changing his expression, "Something like that, perhaps. Enough, they are ready. To the field."

The thugs led us to the center of the horse track, with Blackwater parting ways to sit in a VIP box lookin down upon us. We stood before a table with a platter filled with all the equipment necessary to fire a flintlock pistol and the pistols themselves.

Gunter Albrecht waved to the plater and address the crowd, "The pistols are real. Our contestant can vouch for that, and may inspect and confirm that the ammunition and powder and all necessary equipment are genuine."

Albrecht gestured to Harbinger, "Inspect them. COnfirm for yourself that they are real, that there is no escape for one of you."

Harbinger looked at Albrecht, "Just me?"

Albrecht rolled his eyes, "You may both check."

Harbinger waved me forward, "You know this better than I do."

I inspected the equipment and pistols, looking everything over for some flaw that obviously wasn't there. After a moment, Harbinger joined me, examining first the pistols, then the ramrod and the cleaning equipment, finally the powder and the lead shot.

"It's all real," I said to him, "One of us is going to die."

"Say that louder." Albrecht said, "Let the crowd here your fate."

I raised my voice, "The weapons are real. You are about to watch somebody die for your amusement."

"Very amusing," Albrecht said, "For that little embellishment, why don't you go first?"

He picked up the platter and moved it out of our vision and loaded the weapons. I noticed that he stayed in view of the audience.

"They'll know which of us is getting the pistol that's actually loaded," I said.

"It doesn't matter," Harbinger said.

"Do you think he'll just load both pistols to get rid of us?" I asked.

"It's a pretty safe bet." Harbinger answered.

Albrecht returned and set the platter down. He addressed the crowd again, "I have loaded only one pistol. Fifty percent chances of survival. One shall stand and one shall fall. Our brave lioness shall go first, I think."

Harbigner stepped forward, "No."

Albrecht turned and looked at harbinger, "No?"

"It is my fault my junior partner is in this mess." Harbinger said to Blackwater, "I demand the right to go first. This is our game, and I am your opponent. You only need to defeat me."

"I have already defeated you. This is just your execution, but far be it from me to deny a man his last request. And in any case, you are not my enemy. This is chess, Mr. Harbinger. I move pieces around. I take pieces, and sacrifice pieces. And it all ends in checkmate. You are, in the end, my agent. You are an unconventional one to sure, a knight rather than a bishop or a queen, never moving in a straight line. But you still stand on my board."

"And you think you're the King. But the King does not move the pieces Mr. Blackwater, he is a piece on the board all the same. And I think you may have misunderstood my character in this little play. Because I believe that you are wrong. This is not chess. This is theatre. This is a story, and I am not the villain. You call me your knight, but you have forgotten my name. "

"The gun," Albrecht said. Harbinger picked up the pistol from the platter on the table and stared at it. The crowd gasped as he did, and I wondered what their reaction meant for me. He then pressed the muzzle of the gun up against the underside of his chin. The barrel disappeared beneath his beard.

"Old G.K. Chesterton always used to warn against invoking ancient gods,"Harbinger said, projecting his voice out to the back rows of the theatre," Something about them being quick to anger or other nonensene."

Albrecht shook his head, "Get on with it old man."

Harbinger ignored Albrecht and stared up Blackwater as he continued to speak, "Well I am invoking your namesake: Huitzilopochtli, the old left handed hummingbird and god of War of the Ancient Americans. And I am calling on his aid to best you in this battle. I
offer my blood and a sacrifice in his name! Let's see who the god's favor!"

And then he pulled the trigger and his face disappeared a crack of fire and thunder and an explosion of black powder smoke.

I don't scream. Little girls scream. I don't scream, often. I screamed.

"I guess he accepted your sacrifice." Blackwater said, a slight smile forming on his face, "I am not a King. That was his mistake. I am the player of the game."
I stared at Harbinger's body lying crumpled in the dirt of the stadium. I remembered Harbinger's demand that I take advantage of the chance that would give me. Was this it? Die on purpose so that I could walk free. They'd never just let me go free, I was sure of that, but I had to at least try.

Sound died away, leaving the arena bathed in silence. A low murmur crept into the arena from the stands. I looked around, counting the armed thugs, at least twenty that I could see. And Although most of the thugs carried clubs or machetes, more than enough had pistols strapped into hip holsters for my chances of escape to be virtually nil. I couldn't just give up thought, Harbinger had just died trying to by me a chance. I barely knew the man if I were to admit it honestly. I'd heard stories for years from my father, but had never met the man before this whole affair. And he had just died, willingly died, to give me a slim chance at survival. I had to try.

"The game ends when one of us dies, yes?" I said, addressing Blackwater and not Albrecht, "Well I've won. Let me go. It's over, you've got him."

"I have to admit," Blackwater said from his seat, "I didn't expect your partner to simply play the game. But I simply can't allow you to walk away with all that knowledge in your skull. I'm afraid that this time there are no winners as the rich and powerful here cannot tolerate being exposed. So we will have to empty your skull of its contents as well. Gunter, dispose of her."

Gunter Albrecht looked up at Blackwater with a look that I couldn't find a pleasant way of describing to myself. He didn't move immediately. The two men stared at each other for fifty three seconds before Blackwater sighed and shook his head.

"Gunter. The life of your niece means nothing to me. If her life also means nothing to you then, by all means, continue challenging my authority in these matters."

"When it comes down to the gutters," Albrecht said, "You're just the same as me; a thug in fancy clothes. You look down on me because I was born high. At least I understand I'm a bad man at heart. You and your chess talk, you're just pretending to be better than me."

"Potentially all true, and yet, irrelevant. Do you value the life of you niece?"

Albrecht looked away from blackwater and turned, taking a step towards me.

My mind raced. Would telling him the truth about his niece buy me time? Would it put June at greater risk? I said nothing.

Instead, I snatched the flintlock from the table, and fired it at Albrecht. He flinched but couldn't hope to move out of the way in time. I don't miss often, but something went wrong. A spray of blood spurted from Albrecht's neck. But I couldn't see a wound and he didn't stop advancing.

I heaved the table over and dropped behind it for cover knowing there would be other shooters taking aim. I could hear Albrecht's foot falls. I needed a workable plan, a way do get past the near two dozen armed opponents between me and freedom. I didn't see a lot of useful options.

"This is pathetic Crowe, face your death with some dignity." He said, and I heard him advance towards me.

Dignity and honor don't immpress me and never will impress me. I value victory and survival, and not necessarily in that order. I want my team to get through alive and intact, and I want to win the day. If I achieve the first, but not the second, I can try again. Albrecht put his hands upon the edge of the table. I had to act. The time for plans had waved goodbye as it passed.

"Fine," I said, "You want me to die a hero, I'll die like a hero." And I grabbed the table and rammed it up into his face and torso, knocking his head back.

"Heroes don't always die you know!" a familiar voice announced.

And Harbinger's corpse suddenly reached out and yanked Albrecht's Feet out from under him, sending the man falling backwards flat onto his back. He hit hard, I heard him gasp as the wind was driven out of him. I dropped back to my knees and drew out my t-handle knife from my boot and pounced on Albrecht, jamming the knife through his left eye. I let go of the knife and withdrew my hand and then drove a palm heel strike in to the handle of the knife driving it further into his skull. Blood sprayed from his nose and mouth, the wound spurted twice and then the body lay still. I stood up and looked at the crowd.

The nobles had nothing to say.

Blackwater sat leaned back in his seat, applauded," Well played, I must admit. But you still have no way to escape alive. Constable, I think you need to arrest these scapegoats, I mean traitors to the crown."

"It would be my pleasure. Nothing tastes sweeter than teaching some holier than thou priss some street justice. You think you're the alpha, Dahlia, I'm going to teach you that you're just a little..." Violetta said.

I spit into the dirt, "I cannot believe that I used to kiss that mouth."