The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [89]
“Put it down!” Wolfgang screamed at him, his hand tightening further around Skinner’s throat. Alan could not see her from his angle beneath the coach; he wondered if she was even still conscious.
“Here. I will, see?” Harry slowly began lowering the rifle to the ground.
Alan licked his lips. I have to do something… his eyes found one of the revolvers, lying on the ground. It must have spun away when one of the guards had fallen. Alan grabbed it with both hands, surprised by the weapon’s weight.
He found his voice, and shouted, “Let her go!” Even as he realized with a sinking feeling that if he fired, the bullet might go right through Wolfgang and into Skinner.
Rowan-Czarnecki half-turned. His eyes widened when he saw the gun. He opened his mouth to speak, then shouted as Skinner threw her head back into his jaw. In the same moment, she tore his hand from her throat and tried to twist away; Alan heard a sharp snap from her shoulder, but she managed to duck down.
Alan raised the gun and screwed his eyes shut. There was an explosion, a gunshot thundered in his ears, and he could smell burnt sulfur. There was, however, surprisingly little recoil. Alan opened his eyes; Wolfgang stood, a baffled expression on his face, with his shirt-front soaked with blood. Alan looked down at his gun, horrified. There had been no recoil at all; it wasn’t even smoking, No, he thought, oh, no, I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him…
There was another gunshot, just like the first, and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder again. Wolfgang’s head snapped to the side; he crashed against the coach and fell to the ground. Alan could only stare.
“You all right, boy?” Harry was shouting at him. He had his rifle raised, smoke curling from the tip. Alan could only nod, quiet and stunned. Harry immediately knelt next to Skinner, who had collapsed into the snow. “Are you all right, miss?”
Skinner’s face was pale, and she tried to speak, but only coughed instead. She indicated her shoulder, where her arm hung limply by her side.
“It’s dislocated,” Harry told her. He grabbed her upper arm and shoulder. “This is going to hurt, a lot.” The knocker nodded and gritted her teeth; Harry took a deep breath, and wrenched her shoulder back into place.
Skinner screamed, and half-collapsed into the snow again. Harry made to help her up, but she waved him off, breathing heavily. “I’m fine,” she managed to gasp. “Fine.”
Harry nodded and stood, then turned an appraising eye back on Alan. The boy was still beneath the coach, his face white, his eyes wide. “I killed him…” Alan said.
The coachman shook his head, and gently took the revolver from Alan’s hands. “You never did. Look. It’s not even hot. You never fired. It was just me.” He tossed the gun into the snow, and tousled Alan’s hair. “You did good, though. That was quick thinking that was, and it sure saved us all. What’s say we get you and the miss back into the coach and warmed up a little, right?”
He began to help Skinner to her feet, when a peal of thunder shook the ground beneath them. They all looked up and immediately turned their eyes towards Gotheray Castle. There was nothing to see.
“What was that?” Alan whispered.
“Something bad, I’ll wager,” Harry muttered under his breath. “Come on. Into the coach.”
Twenty-Nine: The Translated Man
“What do you mean, it’s here? How do you know?” Valentine asked.
“I can feel it.” The Brass Towers loomed in his imagination, and the ringing, buzzing sound in his ear intensified. Over the last few minutes, he had become more and more certain that this was not an effect of the drug; or, rather, that what the drug did was not so much cause a hallucination as it made him sensitive to certain other things—things that his mind was forced to interpret as hallucinations.
“Well,” said Valentine. “Well, we should leave. Right? Let’s go.”
“No,