Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,58

her hand.

She said, “It’s been four days now. Where could that little boy be?”

“It’s possible he—”

Sebastian broke off as the seat back between them exploded in flying fragments of cloth and stuffing, and the crack of a rifle shot cut through the night.

“Get down!” he shouted, pulling Hero to the floorboards. He caught her face between his hands. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. But what—”

“Stay down!”

The coachman was cursing, trying to rein in the plunging horses as Sebastian thrust open the carriage door and rolled out to hit the ground running. “Get the carriage out of here! Now!” he shouted as he darted toward the yawning black mouth of the alley from which he estimated the shot had come.

The night was wild, the hot wind sending bits of paper scuttling down the street and whipping at the tails of Sebastian’s dress coat as he ran. A well-trained rifleman could typically fire three rounds a minute, maybe four. That kind of expertise was rare, but Sebastian was still counting the seconds as coachman John whipped up his horses and the carriage disappeared into the night with a rattle and clatter.

Sebastian had almost reached the alley when the night exploded again in fire and acrid smoke.

Eighteen seconds.

“Bloody hell,” he swore, the knees of his elegant breeches sliding through rotten cabbage leaves as he dove behind a pile of overflowing, battered dust bins. He heard running footsteps that stopped abruptly, and knew that the shooter had relocated to a position farther up the alley.

Eighteen seconds. Either his assailant had brought two rifles, or Sebastian was dealing with an expert shooter.

Or he was facing more than one rifleman.

It was this latter possibility that kept Sebastian hunkered down behind the dust bins. One man could shoot and then reload while his partner took another shot. In which case confidently counting to eighteen could get Sebastian killed.

He was aware of the sweat rolling down his cheeks, his breath coming in quick pants, his throat so parched that the darkness of the night and the pungent stench of drifting gun smoke sent him hurtling back to another time, another place . . . a place of sun-blasted, dry mesas and sandstone villages that had already been old by the time of the Crusades. A distant rumble of thunder became the boom of cannons, the howl of a tomcat the cry of a frightened Spanish child, the enemy in the alley before him a foe he had battled a thousand nights in his dreams.

Drawing a steadying breath, he listened carefully, his gaze raking the shadows. The night might have been dark and alive with the wind, but Sebastian’s senses were abnormally acute. One man, he decided—there, at the far end of the alley near some broken crates.

One man. Maybe two rifles, but Sebastian doubted it.

Wishing he had his boots and the knife he kept sheathed in one of them, Sebastian shifted his position and gave one of the dust bins a heave. It rolled out into the alley with a satisfying rattle and crash that flung rubbish in a wide arc and set a nearby dog to barking.

The rifleman obligingly, foolishly, fired again. Pushing up with a smile, Sebastian charged.

He saw the man rise from his position, the lower half of his face obscured by some kind of cloth, his eyes widening as he realized the hunter had suddenly become the hunted. Then the man turned and ran, his rifle hitting the paving stones with a clatter as he threw it away to lighten his load.

Sebastian knew an almost overwhelming urge to go after him. But the man had a good hundred-foot lead on him, and the possibility of a partner waiting somewhere out of sight remained.

Sebastian drew up just before the end of the alley, swallowed the strong, primitive need to give chase, and turned to pick up the abandoned rifle.

Then he went home to his wife and infant son.

* * *

That night Sebastian dreamt of a storm-tossed sky and of the pitiful wail of an infant lost somewhere in the howling darkness.

He ran through a desolate landscape shrouded by a wild, tempest-riven night, searching frantically, finding nothing. Then a tall, ancient wall built of crude sandstone blocks rose up before him, stopping him. He turned to say something to Hero, but she had vanished. She had been there, beside him. He was certain she’d been beside him. Now she was gone

“Hero?” he cried. But the wind snatched away his voice as if it had never been. Then