The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [131]
“You!” he said. Then he started to glance around nervously, and little whimpering sounds came out of his throat. “You …?” he repeated with less energy this time. “Where—where’s Libby? Libby!” He looked at me again, very afraid. “It can’t be—it can’t be you…. This ain’t the right house …” His voice got stronger, though no less frightened. “This ain’t the right house—and I already killed you!”
CHAPTER 24
I’ve had a lot of peculiar things said to me in my life, but none to top that. The poor old fool genuinely believed that he had killed me, too, that much was plain from the desperate fear that was all over his drug-ridden face. But why he should have believed such a thing, I had no idea.
Then another batch of firecrackers went off out in, the street, and Micah Hunter spun round, holding his musket toward the front door. “So!” he said, determination replacing some of his fear. “You ain’t alone, reb!” He shouldered the musket, looking ready to do battle with whoever came through the door. “Well, come on, you bastards—”
“Hunter!”
Both Hunter and I snapped our heads round to the hallway, out of which had boomed Detective Sergeant Marcus’s voice. “Hunter!” Marcus called again through the kitchen window, causing the old man to grow fearful once more. “Stand down, soldier! That’s an order!”
“Captain?” Hunter mumbled. “Captain Griggs?”
“I told you to stand down, man! You’re wounded—unfit! We don’t need you, soldier—back to the hospital!”
“I—don’t understand …” Hunter glanced at me again, then around the house quickly. “Where’s Libby? I ain’t well!”
“Go on!” Marcus insisted. “Put down the weapon and get back to the hospital!”
“But I…” Hunter let the gun drift to his side—And that was all I needed. Like a shot I was back into the hallway, racing toward the kitchen window. Old man Hunter screamed something after me that I couldn’t make out, but nothing could’ve stopped me from slipping back through those bars like so much water. Marcus helped me through, and then cupped his hands to give me a boost back up onto the brick wall: I was a ways beyond professional pride, at that point. I used the rope to get back down into the alleyway, then grabbed the end that was still on that side of the wall. Looking around quickly, I found a water pipe with a spigot standing nearby. I tied the rope off onto it, then whispered “Go!” Marcus’s boots scratched against the wall as he climbed up top, and then he pretty much just let himself fall to ground on the other side, the studs on the boots hitting the concrete alleyway hard and, to judge by the look on his face, painfully.
“Pull it over!” he said, from which I took it that he’d untied the other end of the rope. I gave it a yank, and it came over with a whipping sound. Coiling it up around my arm quickly as we ran back to the open rear window of the stables, I handed the thing to Marcus, who stuffed it away in his satchel. Then we got through the window, closed it, and jumped back into the calash and under the tarpaulin, both of us breathing as hard as little Mike.
“What do we do?” I asked, the quick heaving of my chest making it hard to whisper.
“Shh!” Marcus answered. For a long few seconds we just lay there listening. Some dogs were barking in the yards behind the stables, and in the far distance we could hear Micah Hunter yelling away, though his exact words were still impossible to make out.
“I think we’ll be all right,” Marcus finally said. “The people around here must be used to that kind of thing from him. We can’t panic.” He pulled out a watch and cheeked it. “Lucius should be here within half an hour. Just catch your breath and try not to move.”
I followed the order, taking in deep gulps of air as I stroked the confused Mike through the leather of the satchel. “Shit,” I finally said, when I could do it quietly. “I think the old maniac really might’ve shot me.”
“It was the fireworks,” Marcus said. “And the morphine. My bet is, she gives him a hell of a dose before