Free Death and the Arrow by Chris Priestley

loose on me. I fear it to be a demon.”

DEMON
    The word demon was left hanging in the air. Tom gasped and turned to look at Dr. Harker, but it was Ocean who spoke first.
    “A demon, you say?”
    “Aye,” said the sergeant.
    “You can’t really believe that, surely?” said Dr. Harker.
    The sergeant turned on him angrily. “Look, you know something of those people, those Indians. You know they have their magic men, the shamans—”
    “Yes, yes... but surely—”
    “They say they have the power to call upon demons to do their bidding. Well, I killed such a shaman in that raid. I run him through with my own sword. I think his demon comes now to avenge him.”
    “But what makes you think you are being chased by a
demon
?” said Dr. Harker.
    “Because I seen him, that’s why.” The three listeners leaned forward eagerly. “I felt him watching me many times,” the sergeant explained. “But I only seen him the once. I was walking along the Tyburn Road when I felt his eyes on me. I spun round and for some reason I looked up, just in time to see him duck down behind a chimney.” Tom gasped. The three friends all looked at each other. “He was big, but fast with it. I don’t think it was any
man
up there.” The sergeant shuddered at the recollection. “Now I’ll thank you to leave me in peace.”
    “But—” began Tom.
    “Leave me alone, damn you!” shouted the sergeant, banging his pistol down on the table.
    “Come, Tom,” said Ocean. “Let’s get out of this crypt.”
    They left the sergeant to his vigil and climbed the steps leading up to street level. A balladeer was singing a song about a highwayman and his sweetheart, and they could hear cheers from the bear-baiting pit nearby.
    “Come on, gents,” said Ocean. “Let’s cross back to the north shore. I never feel right south of the river.”
    “I know what you mean,” said Dr. Harker. “Back to the City it is.”
    “But what do you make of it all, sir?” asked Tom.
    “Well, I do not believe that a demon stalks the streets of London, if that’s what you mean. There is logic in all this somewhere. Some sort of
human
logic. We just need to discover it.”
    “But the sergeant
saw
the attack. He saw his men killed,” said Tom.
    “He saw them
fall,
” said the doctor, turning away and walking briskly on ahead. “I do not believe that any of those missing men were actually killed, whatever the sergeant says. Do you remember what the man who attacked us called his cohort? Trooper! He called him trooper. And I do not believe that Bill Leech’s mother inherited any money. I think those men stole that silver. And if I’m any judge, it is the one called Shepton who is at the bottom of it all.”
    “But this Shepton, Doctor...,” called Ocean. “The sergeant saw him shot.”
    The doctor suddenly stopped in his tracks, groaned, and staggered backward, holding his chest.
    “Dr. Harker?” said Tom.
    Ocean grabbed hold of Dr. Harker as he fell back and, as he did so, they saw an arrow sticking out from between his fingers. The two friends looked wildly about them, trying to guess from which direction the arrow might have come. When they looked back, they found the doctor smiling.
    “He saw what he was meant to see,” said the doctor, showing them the broken arrow and feathered flight the sergeant had thrown on the table. “Seeing should not always be the same as believing, gentlemen.”
    With that, he set off toward London Bridge with a jaunty air, chuckling to himself, leaving Tom and Ocean staring openmouthed.
    Tom was in the printing house cleaning the blocks when Ocean burst in that same evening.
    “Master Tom,” he said, “we must get Dr. Harker and go back to the Ten-Killed Cat. I tipped the landlord some silver to tell me if anything happened to the sergeant and he’s sent word. Something’s happened, Tom. He says he’ll leave things be until we get there, so long as we’re quick. Will you come?”
    “Of course,” said Tom.