Free The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer Page A

should be concerned about.
    Something was happening outside her head to one of her body parts. A shoulder, maybe? Yes, her shoulder. Why was someone shaking her shoulder when all she wanted to do was sleep?
“Miss, wake up,” said a voice urgently. “He’s coming.”
    Wake up? No, thanks. This was her day off. Maybe a little surfing later on down at Malibu.
    “Miss, on your feet now, or Garrick will kill both of us.”
    Garrick.
    An image flashed through Chevie’s mind of a bloody body emerging from some kind of cocoon.
    One of her eyes fluttered open; the other was still swollen like a pink beetle in her eye socket. The boy leaned over her, hoisting her by the lapels.
    “Riley?”
    “The one and only, Miss Savano. We have to quit this place right now.”
    Leaving? But I thought you were dead. I’m just going to close my eyes for a second.
    Riley grabbed the agent under her armpits, and hauled her upright.
    “Come along now,” he grunted. “Upsy-daisy.”
    Chevie’s good eye flicked open. “I am not a child.”
    At this moment Garrick appeared in the corridor, his face set like alabaster and streaked with blood.
    He is angry, Riley realized, and the sight of his master’s cold expression nearly paralyzed him with fear.
    His survival instincts took over. He grabbed Chevie’s pistol, placed it in her fingers, and, clasping her hand in both of his, he aimed the gun at Garrick’s chest.
    “Shoot, miss,” he said. “Now!”
    With Riley’s help, Chevie managed to squeeze off not one but two shots, both pulling high, but the second slug struck close enough to give Garrick pause. The magician snarled like a cornered street mutt and changed his pattern of movement entirely, becoming fluid, but also erratic, never arriving where his body language forecast he would be. When it seemed as though he was committed to a sidestep, his body would make an impossible diagonal lunge forward.
    The gunshots jarred Chevie back to reality, and she noted that this Garrick person moved in a way she had never seen. She blinked her good eye.
    “What? This guy is like a cat.”
    “Misdirection, a magician’s ploy,” said Riley, grunting as he hauled Chevie backward up the stairs. He could explain more about Garrick’s unique style later, when they had escaped this death house, if escape were possible.
    Chevie backed up the stairs, keeping her gun trained as much as possible on Garrick. The magician hissed now, like a vampire, and jammed his bowler hat down to his brows so he would not lose it.
    He’s getting ready to spring, thought Chevie.
    “Yeah, that’s right, fella,” she called down to the magician. “You come a little closer. Let’s see how well your disco moves work in a narrow stairwell. I will drill you right through your eyeball.”
    The warning seemed to work, possibly because there was a lot of truth in it. If Garrick set foot on the stairs, he would be boxed in by the wall and bannister. But if Chevie thought the nineteenth-century man would be cowed by her futuristic weapon, she was wrong.
    “You cannot escape me, Chevron Savano,” he said, head cocked to one side. “I will have my boy back and the secrets of the Timekey.”
    Chevie’s blood ran cold. This guy knew an awful lot for a Victorian.
    “Take one more step,” she said, keeping her weapon as steady as possible, “and we’ll see who escapes.”
    All this time Riley muttered into Chevie’s ear and dragged her backward toward street level.
    “Step and retreat,” he said, trying not to catch Garrick’s eye, for that glacial gaze would freeze and shatter his resolve. “Step and retreat.”
    They were near the top step now, while Garrick lurked at the bottom, flexing his fingers in frustration, wishing for a throwing knife. Chevie had an idea.
    I have this guy pinned down. Backup can be here in two minutes.
    “It’s okay,” she told Riley. “We’ve got him now. He’s going nowhere. There’s a phone in my waistband—pass it to