The Irregulars

Chapter 8

Alec stood hesitantly, looking down at the table that stood between himself and Jane. it was covered with a variety of weapons. All of them looked very sharp and very dangerous. He looked down at the objects on the table, then at Jane.

"Are you going to hurt me again?"

"That depends," said Jane. "Are you going to act like a bloody fool?"

"If you're referring to what happened the other night," said Alec, "You should know..."

"I'm not referring to your little escapade," Jane said. "I think you've been suitably chastened for that, have you not?"

Now Alec's eyes passed from Jane's face, past the table and locked themselves on the floor. The mention of the dressing down he'd received from Rathbone, and the fact that Jane obviously had heard about it flushed his face with renewed shame.

Rathbone had been, understandably, furious.

"Do you have any idea what your little stunt may have cost us?" he had yelled.

Alec, having only known Rathbone for a few days by this point, wasn't sure how to react to the old magician's fury. However, he took his cue from Benny, who sat next to him and kept his head down. Eddie seemed unfazed entirely, but that came as little surprise to Alec. Nothing seemed to faze Eddie.

"Allow me to enlighten you," Rathbone went on. "The One Eyed Kings have gotten wind of your little excursion and have gone into hiding. So any chance of leveraging their experience and knowledge in locating the Bell has effectively been extinguished. You've jeopardized everything we have been fighting for, all for a few cheap thrills!"

"It wasn't all that cheap..." Benny began, trying to diffuse the situation with humor. Rathbone rounded on him.

"It is very crucial that you do not finish that sentence or thought," he said, and Benny bowed his head in dutiful submission.

The rest of Rathbone's harangue passed in a haze of white noise, but when it was all over, Alec couldn't shake the lingering sense of disappointment that radiated from Rathbone's eyes. Disappointment that seemed to be directed solely at him. That same disappointment now shone from Jane's eyes as she glared at Alec.

"Shall we begin?" Jane asked.

For a split second, Alex considered delivering a real and honest answer to that question. He wanted to say, "No! We shall not begin, you awful witch!" and then leave the room in a huff, maybe even flipping over the table as a final gesture of defiance. But something compelled him to stay. He had been on the run for six months and had very little to show for it, apart from the money he had made performing for the enemy. Here there was at least a chance to do some good, to make some kind of a difference. And maybe find his brother again. What was it that he had told him about their mother?

"She is going to take us someplace. Someplace for people like us."

While Alec did not believe that this was that place, he did believe that it was a step on the road to finding it and, by extension, finding Ethan again. The road behind him only led further into the sewers of Paris. Further into darkness. He resigned to his fate, and stepped forward.

Hours later, he lay in his cot, tired, aching, unable to sleep and unwilling to move. The rest of the crew was sound asleep, but sleep was eluding Alec. He was considering going back to the chamber he had visited on his first night when a voice called to him from the far end of the room.

"Get up."

"Oh no," said Alec. "Rathbone explicitly told me to stay..."

He sat up to challenge the person at the door, only to find the smiling figure of Rathbone looking back at him.