Allegiance: A Dublin Novella (22 page)

“You son of a bitch.”

He dropped by instinct; the bottle in Kelly’s hand smashed against the bricks above William’s head. He scrambled to move but Kelly was on him, using his weight to drive William backwards until they both fell to the ground. The blows came hard and fast, one-two-three – William threw an arm across his face as warm blood flowed into his eyes. He curled into himself, feeling each punishing blow, feeling his flesh bruise and his breath choke in his gut, closing his eyes against his penance.

And then, it was enough.

Something inside him snapped like the breaking of a twig, and every impulse William had ever known spewed from the rupture in a surge of wordless, opaque rage. He stopped the next punch with his palm, moving with wild speed to twist Kelly’s arm behind him, flip him to his belly on the pavement, and straddle his back, one fist clutched in Kelly’s hair to hold his face up off the ground, the other drawing his pistol and jabbing it into the base of Kelly’s neck. His fingers shook with the force of what he held in check. His voice did not.

“I don’t want to fight you, Shane. I just want to know where he is.” When he got no response except a jerk and a grunt, William dug the pistol deeper and twisted his fistful of hair until Kelly yelped. “Tell me where Adam is.”

Something cold pressed against William’s ear as a shadow fell across him.

“Let him go, Glasgow.”

William turned his head just enough to see David’s face above him, dark against the sunlight. His eyes were grim, but he held the shotgun with two steady hands. Andy appeared behind him, eyes huge and mouth open. “Jesus!” he blurted, and said no more.

Kelly twitched in William’s grasp. “Fucking shoot him, Ryan!”

William thought of long Saturday nights in the pub, rounds of whisky and games of cards, David’s laughter mixed with Adam’s. Fair-faced Davie Ryan, so merry and gentle, now gone stiff and stony with his eyes full of anger and hurt. He had come too far now – he only hoped David could see that in his face, and maybe understand. His desperation was all he had.

“I need to find him, David,” he said. “Please.”

David’s eyes searched William’s from over the shotgun’s barrel. He said nothing for a long, agonizing moment, and then the pressure against William’s temple wavered.

“You promise me you’ll get him out of here.”

“I swear it on my life.”

Andy’s eyes darted from David to William to Kelly and back again. Kelly’s breath rasped against the stones and he writhed beneath William’s weight. William did not move, and he did not take his eyes from David’s.

David stepped back and lowered the shotgun. “He’s coming up Bridge Street, round the back of the quay.”

William exhaled. He eased the pistol from Kelly’s neck and pushed the hammer down with his thumb, lowering it to the pavement. The adrenaline slamming through his heart began to ebb, and he lowered his head to take another steadying breath.

Across the square a storefront shattered beneath a tremendous explosion.

They hit the pavement hard, debris raining down all around them. Gunfire erupted on the other side of the municipal building with the scraping whine of tank tread over cobblestone streets. Women screamed as the gunfire intensified. The army.

“Shit!” Andy hauled William to his feet as Kelly scrambled up beside them. A wave of gritty smoke blasted over the barricade, obscuring their vision and stealing their air. David grabbed William by the shoulder and shoved him toward the street.

“Bridge Street! You get him out of here!”

“David—”

“Go, God damn it!” David coughed and raised an arm to cover his mouth.

William looked at all three of their faces, as best he could in the stinging wind. He grabbed his gun from the pavement and ran as fast as he could into the whirlwind.

It was bedlam: people ran in all directions, some trying to escape the incoming soldiers, others rushing to join the fight. Another explosion shook the ground beneath William’s feet; he leapt over scattered rubble and glass in the street, shielding his face from the smoke. Everywhere he heard screaming and shouting and the peppery toyish
pop-pop-pop
of machine gun fire. He fled behind the nearest building and then ran up Church Street towards the quay, as fast as he could go, heedless of the crossfire, searching everything he saw and every person he passed, until he stopped in his tracks at the end of the next turn.

And there he was, squatting behind a stack of scrap wood at the end of a narrow alley. He was alone, cut off by debris from both the buildings and the street. At his feet lay his shotgun, an open box of shells, and two unlit Molotov cocktails. Adam crouched like a cat and peered through the slats, his shirt smudged with dirt, his face lined and squinting down the barrel of the pistol he held braced across his forearm. He was cornered.

William sprinted forward before he could think. A shot sounded in the distance and he whirled – nobody behind them. The wind shifted and the smoke blew away, dissipating in the streaky sunset; looking back he saw that Adam had turned and now sat with his back against the wall, reloading his pistol from the box at his feet.

William called his name.

Adam’s head snapped up, and he aimed the pistol by instinct before he saw William standing across the lane. His eyes flickered, first in surprise, then in recognition. His face turned to stone beneath its layers of dirt. He did not lower the gun.

“Adam,” William said again.

Adam’s thumb moved to the hammer of his pistol.

“I can get you out of here, but you have to come with me right now.” A fresh burst of gunshots broke out nearby, followed by more shouting
– they were getting close. “Look, there
’
s no time, I’ve got to get you out of here. Please, Adam, just listen, you have to tr—” But that was a sentence he could not finish.

Adam stared at him down the barrel of the gun trained on William’s heart. A host of dark things moved in his eyes. His cheek, still yellowed by the mark of William’s fist, twitched as he clenched his jaw. William turned both hands to show empty palms and spread his arms, exposing his chest. He waited.

The tide in Adam’s face crested and ebbed. His eyes thawed from dark ice to the soft gray that haunted William's dreams. The pistol lowered until it hung at his side. He drew in a long breath, then another, and then he grabbed his shotgun and began to climb over the barricade.

William came forward to meet him, using the thickening smoke for cover. Adam stuck his pistol in his trousers and crawled over the rubble, keeping his head down, edging closer to where William stood. He jumped down with ease, and when his feet hit the ground he looked up at William and started to speak.

“Stop right there!”

William heard the rifle click before the shadow dropped across the street between them. One soldier, alone, his green uniform smudged with soot, his Crown-issue weapon poised carefully and wavering between Adam’s head and William’s.

“Step out this way, hands in the air. Slowly now.”

William and Adam looked at each other from across the street. Adam stood in a patch of sunlight; his cap shaded his eyes as they met William’s. William saw his own eyes reflected there – it was all he needed.

They drew their guns as one, side by side as if from an unspoken signal. The shots ripped through the alley, three bullets from three guns. The soldier caught both rounds in the chest and dropped before his rifle could slip from his hands. He landed on his back in a sprawl of green and re
d. William watched the dead man
’
s blood spread across the cobblestones.
So it goes, Da.

The shots would attract attention – they had to get out now. William shoved his pistol in his belt and turned to Adam. “C’mon, let's go.” He held out a beckoning hand. “Adam, come on. It’s alright, let’s go.”

Adam did not reply. He blinked at William and smiled – an odd, calm little smile. The wind blew through the alley, ruffling his hair beneath his cap as he looked down at his fluttering shirttail and the bright blood spreading across his belly. He looked up at William with that same tranquil, half-amused smile, and then pitched forward and fell face first onto the street.

27.

William was running again. In his dreams he ran through sunlight and silence, but now the streets all blurred together in an endless labyrinth of smoke and shadow and rising panic. He kept running, his progress slowed by the people rushing past and the weight of Adam’s body sagging against him. They pushed through the crowds quickly filling Church Street – men and boys rushing to join both sides of the fight, policemen scrambling too late to their stations, women and girls trying to find their men. Someone knocked into Adam’s shoulder and they both nearly went down – William grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back to his feet. Adam let out a strangled yelp; William’s palm came up red. He closed it into a fist and struggled forward a few more steps.

“Gotta get out of here,” Adam said.

“That’s what we’re doing, love, but I need you to help me, alright? Try to walk for me now.”

“No— you.” Adam’s voice was strained; he clutched one arm against his abdomen. “
You.
”

“Don’t be daft,” William snapped. “Get your arm round me. Come on now.”

Adam shook his head. “Hang you if they catch you.” He stopped abruptly and slipped from William’s grasp to lean against the wall. “Too slow.”

William compressed his voice into stern authority. “Bugger that. I didn’t come all the way down here to leave your worthless arse in the street. Now save your breath for walking and get your arm round me again.” Adam tried to protest as William pulled him from the wall but managed only a groan; William held him tighter and steered them back out into the flow. “Come on now – that’s a lad. Just hold on to me.”

Adam’s grunts turned to gasps as they stumbled down the smoke-filled streets. He made an effort to walk on his own, and for a while they moved more quickly – but his breathing grew more labored with each passing minute, and his shirt clung wet and sticky to William’s hands. William’s own breath came harder and harder; his shoulders and back began to burn as Adam’s feet grew heavier and the cobblestone stretched into eternity before them. He searched the horizon for a familiar face – someone, anyone who might help him get Adam away from this place before either of them were recognized. But they were moving away from the chaos, and the crowd had grown sparse, each passing shape the hurried blur of a stranger bent on his own pursuits. There was no one now to stop them, and there was no one now to help them.

Adam’s head lolled against William’s neck; his knees buckled and he would have fallen before William caught him in both arms. William pulled him out of the street and lowered him onto the nearest steps; he shook Adam once, called his name, but only a thin white crescent showed beneath black lashes. His fingers left frantic red smears on Adam’s neck
– a pulse beat faintly there. He drew a deep breath and put a shoulder into Adam’s gut, tried to haul him over his shoulder like a sack of grain – his ribs, bruised by Kelly’s fists, shrieked in pain and he sat down hard on the pavement with Adam slumped across his lap. He looked desperately down both ends of the alley.
I’ll never get him out of here,
he thought.
Too late, too late, William, too late again.

He had almost gathered the strength to try again when a grinding sound grew to a roar in the alley beside them
– a moment later a black lorry spun around the corner and screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. Smoke blew away from silver letters smudged with dust and soot:
Fisher’s Fine Grocery and Baked Goods.
The door flew open before the lorry stopped moving, and a white face appeared at the wheel.

“Come on!” Daniel cried. “Hurry!”

“He’s shot,” William said.

Daniel’s eyes grew huge when he saw Adam sprawled across William’s lap; he gasped something in a language William had never heard. His mouth fell open at the sight of Adam’s crimson-soaked shirt, the red smears on William’s hands and neck – and then his lips pressed into a grim line and his dark eyes flashed. “Get him in the back,” he said. “And hold on.”