Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [5]
His hands still bound, Crake wrestled the revolver from Macarde’s beefy fingers just as Rat shook off the effects of the tooth and drew his own cutlass back for a thrust. Crake swung the gun about and squeezed the trigger. This time, the hammer found the bullet. It discharged point-blank in Rat’s face, blowing a geyser of red mist from the back of his skull with a deafening bang. He tottered a few steps on his heels and collapsed onto a heap of rope.
Macarde was stumbling toward the door, unwittingly blocking Bruiser’s line of fire. As the last thug fought to get an angle, Frey dropped his cutlass, darted across the room, and scooped up the lever-action shotgun that Droop-Eye had left on the barrel. Bruiser shoved his boss behind him to get a clear shot at Crake and succeeded only in providing one for Frey, who unloaded the shotgun into his chest with a roar.
In seconds, it was over. Macarde had gone. They could hear him running along the landing outside, heading downstairs, shouting for his men. Frey shoved the shotgun into his belt and picked up his cutlass.
“Hold out your hands,” he said to Crake. Crake did so. The cutlass flickered, and his bonds were cut. He tossed the cutlass to Crake and held out his own hands.
“Now do me.”
Crake weighed the weapon in his hands. To his ears, it still sang faintly with the harmonic resonance he’d used to bind the daemon into the blade. He considered what it would feel like to shove it into the captain’s guts.
“We don’t have time, Crake,” Frey said. “Hate me later.”
Crake’s voice was low and hard, if a little trembly. “You let him pull the trigger.”
“Only twice,” Frey protested.
“Only twice?”
“I would have stopped him on the fourth time.”
“The fourth time?”
“That’s where the bullet was. Weren’t you watching when he spun the barrel?”
Crake glared at him. “You didn’t know where the bullet was. That’s impossible.”
Then there was that smile again, the wicked smile he’d come to know. The easy charm returned. It was as if an old friend had walked into the room.
“You just hypnotized a man with your tooth, Crake. Don’t talk to me about impossible.”
Crake grimaced in frustration. Damn it, now he had doubts.
Of course he didn’t believe Frey’s story, but then, he didn’t know enough about guns to really disbelieve him either. Maybe you could tell which chamber the bullet was in by watching it spin.
It seemed like the kind of trick a man like Frey, who spent his days in lowlife bars and Rake dens, might be capable of.
Did the captain have it all under control the whole time, or did he just get lucky? Would he have given up the Ketty Jay’s ignition code, or would he have let Crake die? Was he lying or wasn’t he? Crake didn’t know anymore. But the margin of uncertainty was too great to condemn him.
With a disgusted snort, he cut Frey’s bonds.
Crake was no swordsman, but he barely had to move his wrist and the cutlass did the rest. It chopped neatly through the gap between Frey’s hands, dividing the cord in two. Crake threw the cutlass back to Frey, walked over to Rat’s corpse, and pulled the pistol from his holster.
Frey chambered a new round into the shotgun. “Ready?”
Crake made a sweeping gesture of sarcastic gallantry toward the door. Be my guest.
Beyond was a balcony that overlooked a dim barroom, musty with smoke and spilled wine. It was empty at this hour of the morning, its tables still scattered with the debris of the previous night’s revelries. Tall shutters held off the pale daylight. Macarde was yelling somewhere below, raising the alarm.
Two men were racing up the stairs as Frey and Crake emerged. Macarde’s men, wielding pistols, intent on murder. They saw Frey and Crake an instant before the first thug slipped on Crake’s vomit slick, which no one had thought to clean up. He crashed heavily onto the stairs and his companion tripped over him. Frey blasted them twice with his shotgun, shattering the wooden balusters in the process. They didn’t get up again.
Frey and Crake ran for a door at the far end of the balcony as