Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller by Eric Christopherson Read Free Book Online Page B

Willie freed his meter. Noah snatched the meter away unexpectedly (though perhaps we should've expected it) and cradled the metal instrument in his arms as if it were baby Jesus in the court of King Herod.
    “Now, Noah—” I began, but cut myself off when footsteps sounded at the top of the creaky staircase. With a quick slap of leather, Patrolman Cox cleared his weapon from his holster and raised it in my direction.
    “Duck, Trenowyth,” he whispered, “you're in my line of fire.” I did, pulling Miss Buxton down with me, just in case.
    “You blokes down here, are you?” called an Irishman's voice from above. “Front door was open, so we let ourselves in. Hope you don't mind much. The sleet is bucketing down outside, and my friend here is sick.”
    “Yeah, sick,” called a second Irishman's voice, and then he coughed. “Sick I don't have a few bob for a pint of the black stuff.”
    I heard sniggering on the staircase, where two pairs of legs in dark trousers were descending, preceded by prancing flashlight beams. Behind me I heard a thud and an oof and another heavier thud, the fall of some bulky object. I turned to find Patrolman Cox face down on the floor of the path, immobile. Howard Kemble was stooped over his body, monkey wrench in hand, picking the cop's gun up off the floor. Howard straightened and aimed the weapon at me.
     
    A Ruse Revealed
     
    “Attention ladies and gentlemen!” Howard exclaimed through his flu mask, the barrel of the revolver pointing at my midsection from a distance of about seven feet. “This is a robbery!”
    Miss Buxton did not shriek in fear, as one expected of her sex, nor fling herself upon me as though she meant to hide in my overcoat. She merely sidled closer until our garments brushed.
    With his monkey wrench playfully held aloft, Howard said: “Sorry to throw one of these into your plans for the evening, Mister Trenowyth, Miss Buxton. But it just couldn't be helped.”
    The recent arrivals—both alien micks, as it turned out, rather than American-born—had made the bottom of the stairs and now crept along the narrow path behind us, one trailing the other. They wore flu masks too and pointed their light beams at us, as well as their buck knives.
    Howard said to them: “What took you so long?”
    The mick who answered I would soon come to know as Cormac. “It was your fault, Howie. You were too stingy with the birdseed. We lost the trail and had to find our own way through all this shite.”
    “There's a lady present,” I cautioned, earning a rabbit punch to the back of the head from Cormac as he came to a halt behind me. Hot breath and more imprecations blew past my ear.
    “Yeah, Howie, there's a fucking lady present. And a God damn cop too. You said it would only be this asshole, the mouthpiece.”
    “Couldn't be helped either,” Howard said. “You must've seen what happened.” He grabbed Noah by the scruff of his collar and shoved that light, little man forward so that Noah stumbled over the patrolman's body and into Miss Buxton and myself.
    “Trenowyth,” Noah said, “you're fired.”
    Patrolman Cox had begun to stir. Howard and Willie took hold of him beneath the armpits and yanked him to his feet. However groggy, Cox already understood the situation, I could tell, as a sneer had knocked his handlebar mustache off kilter. They shoved him forward until we'd formed a tight little knot of hostages in front of Noah's prized motor car.
    “What do you want from us?” I said to Howard. “Our wallets? Our pocket watches?”
    “Hardly,” he said. “Were you always this thick? Or was it the opium done it to you?”
    “I beg your pardon?” Had I heard him right? No, my ears had to be playing tricks with me under duress. He couldn't possibly know—.
    “Could I be plainer? We are familiar, Sir, with your favorite haunts in Chinatown.”
    My face grew hot—and reddened, no doubt—and the only verbal response I could muster was a whispered: “Who are you