Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles by Kim Newman Page B

the pavement, but the dead Danite had been dragged off.
    Fire was coming from at least two points. Just harrying, not trying to hit anyone.
    There was someone on the roof. We could tell by the creaking ceiling.
    Lassiter filled his guns. He had two Colts with fancy-dan handles. He ought to have had holsters to draw from, but would have to carry them both. Twelve shots. Maybe seven men. He’d get hit several times, no matter how good he was. I might even be able to put a couple in his spine as he strode manfully down the path of The Laurels and claim it was a fumble-fingered accident.
    He was an idiot. If it’d been me, I’d have picked up Jane and tossed her, in a froth of skirts, through the window. She was the one they wanted, heiress to the Withersteen property. At the very least, she’d be a tethered goat to draw the big game into range.
    I was cold and clear and clever again. The Professor would have been proud.
    ‘They can’t afford to kill the women,’ I said. ‘That’s why they didn’t throw dynamite. They want someone alive to inherit, someone they can rob through Mormon marriage.’
    Lassiter nodded. He didn’t see how that helped.
    ‘Stop thinking of Jane and Rache as your family,’ I said. ‘Start thinking of them as hostages.’
    If he didn’t take umbrage and shoot me, we might have a chance.

VIII
    ‘We’re coming out,’ I announced. ‘Hold your fire.’
    Rache giggled. I held the baggage round the waist, gun in her ear, and stood in the doorway.
    To the girl, it was a game. She had Missy Surprise hugged to her chest.
    Lassiter and Jane were more serious, but desperate enough to try.
    They had objected that the Danites would never believe their man would harm his beloved wife and daughter. I told them to stop thinking like their upright, moral, tiresome selves and put themselves in the mind-skins of devious, murderous, greedy blighters. Of course they’d believe it – they’d do the same thing with their own wives or daughters. Unspoken but obvious was that I would too.
    Indeed, here I was – ready to spread a pretty little idiot’s brains on the road.
    It’d be a shame, but I’ve done worse things.
    I took a step out into the garden. No one killed me, so I took another step down the path.
    Lassiter and Jane came after me, backwards. The Danite perched on the roof wouldn’t have a shot that didn’t go through the woman.
    Hooded men came out of the shadows. Five of them, carrying guns. All their weaponry was kitted out oddly. The barrels were as long again as they ought to be, and swelled into thick, ceramic Swiss-roll shapes. Silencers. I’d heard of the things, but never seen them. Cut down the accuracy, I gathered. The cat couldn’t hear you firing, but you’d probably miss. I’d rather use one of Moriarty’s airguns than a ridiculous contraption like that.
    ‘Parley,’ I said.
    The leader of the band nodded, silly hood-point flopping.
    The funny thing was that the hood was useless as disguise. Most masks are. You remember faces first of all, but people are a lot more than their eyes and noses – hands and legs and stomachs and the way they stand or hold a gun or light a cigar.
    I was facing Elder Enoch J. Drebber.
    I assumed our agreement was voided.
    ‘You don’t want these lovely ladies harmed,’ I said.
    ‘I only need one,’ Drebber responded, raising his gun.
    At this range, he could plug Rache in the breast and the shot would plough through her and me, killing us both.
    ‘Rache not like mans,’ she said. ‘Rache poo on you!’
    Drebber’s eyes widened in his hood-holes. Rache held up Missy Surprise, and angled the rag-doll, her fingers working the hard metal inside the soft toy.
    Lassiter’s second gun went off and Missy Surprise’s head flew apart.
    The Danite on Drebber’s right fell dead.
    ‘You’re next,’ I told Drebber.
    I was sure she’d been aiming at him in the first place, but he wasn’t to know that.
    The man on the roof decided it was time