Cole took another breath and struck the head of the match against the strip on the side of the box, expecting relief, but when the faint glow of the flame lit up the darkness, his stomach dropped as if he were falling from a railway bridge, straight into the rapid currents of the river below. Sheer luck kept him from accidentally breaking the thin piece of wood between his fingers, because if it happened, the lit match would have dropped straight into a puddle of liquid.
Of kerosene that had been splashed over corpses Ned had not dreamt up.
Two dead men lay right in front of them, with large holes in their foreheads and faces beaten to a pulp. Each held a revolver, as if they’d taken one another’s lives not that long ago.
“Holy shit.”
Ned’s face was pale as if he were a ghost himself. “Told you. Told you I could smell it!” he raised his voice in growing panic. “Let’s get out of here.”
Smoke erupted into their faces with a bang. Ned screamed out, and Cole’s heart just about stopped when the green fumes swallowed them with their choking stench.
This was it. Ned had been right, no matter how mad it had seemed only moments ago, and they should have never entered this crypt of a house.
Cole breathed the mist in, ready to follow Ned back, but then something nipped his fingers, and he shook them, ready to stick the cut in his mouth.
It hadn’t been a bite. The flame had reached his finger, and as the tiny piece of charred wood fell, Cole didn’t have the time to back away. Fire consumed the dead men, the liquid on the floor, and climbed Cole’s boot.
He fell back with a yelp and hit the sole of his other foot against the leather in hope of snuffing the flame while the green vapor twirled around them as if they’d opened the gates to Hell. Ned dragged Cole away from the flames, but when someone shouted, he let go, ready to take on whatever demon was after them.
“Oh, God! I’m so sorry about the smoke! Seemed like a good idea at the time!”
Cole knew that voice…
Adam emerged from the smoke like a magician in the circus, and fell to his knees in front of Cole. He covered his leg with thick cloth and patted it, putting out what remained of the fire.
With bright flames eating up the two corpses behind him, his apologetic smile was a surreal thing to see. But Adam’s presence meant they hadn’t been betrayed. They still had a chance out of this hellhole.
“You dumb bastard,” Cole said, shoving at Adam’s shoulder as his chest shook with laughter. So many emotions passed through him in the past minutes that he could no longer control this inappropriate reaction.
“But… those bodies?” Ned uttered, pointing to the spreading flames.
Adam rose and gestured for them to follow his lead as the air filled with the stench of flesh catching fire. “The men you killed two days ago. Now come. The show can only hold up traffic for so long,” he said and dashed, avoiding the spreading flames, as if this weren’t his first funeral pyre.
Ned spread his arms. “We have the US Marshal upstairs! How are we supposed to—?”
Adam winked at them with one blue eyelid and opened a large old wardrobe. Cole couldn’t believe his eyes at first, but thanks to the bright blaze behind them, he could clearly see a passage inside, and he remembered the other time he and Ned had fled danger through a tunnel. With fire roaring at their heels, they didn’t have time for questions and followed Adam inside, but the memories of Ned’s house in the mountains swirled in Cole’s head like fumes from a life long gone.
A lamp stood at the entry to the tunnel, revealing wooden supports reminiscent of the ribs of a giant snake, but Cole didn’t question any of it and picked up the light while Adam closed the wardrobe and then locked a steel-reinforced door that made up its secret back with a rusty latch.
Time sped up once Adam pushed past them. In a daze, Cole made sure Ned wasn’t stalling, and rushed along the tunnel, all the way to where its throat tightened, forcing them to crawl. The passage spat them into a small wine cellar, but Cole didn’t get the time to ask about their whereabouts when Adam handed both him and Ned dark blue cloaks, along with masks that were surely part of someone’s routine at the show.
The trap door above opened into a screened porch, and Cole froze when he realized an elderly woman watched them emerge from a cellar in her home, but she said nothing, and neither did Adam, who led them straight out, as if there hadn’t been anything off about the encounter.
It was still sunny in the street, and passers-by had congregated to send off the circus, shouting and waving at the painted wagons, but the stark black uniforms and helmets stood out in the crowd, like guns that could go off at any second.
Cole stepped in front of Ned, his breath loud inside the mask, but as they pushed through the crowd in the costumes, all he could hear were cheers and laughter. The public was so absorbed by the passing parade that most hadn’t even noticed the smoke coming out of the Crying Hose yet. But Cole looked over the shoulder in time to spot Craig jumping from the second floor.
Overwhelmed, and with his senses stunted by the disguise, Cole focused on the painted facade of the wagon at the very front of the parade. Jan stood in the driver’s seat, towering over a policeman who chastised him for blocking the street during a manhunt. A shimmery red suit had transformed him into a king good-naturedly listening to his subject’s plight, and as he spoke, taking up all of the lawman’s attention, Adam opened the back of the wagon and led them into the warm interior.
“They might check all vehicles leaving the city. You two need to hide,” he said and kneeled, lifting a chunk of the floor to reveal a compartment just long enough to fit a grown man
Ned went in without prompting. He needed to bend his legs a little and pressed his back to the side of the box so Cole could get in alongside him. When the wagon moved, Adam spurred him on with a gesture. A deep exhale later, Cole stepped into the tight space and lay down, facing Ned, who lowered his gaze in response. But in quarters so tight, they had to touch, and they both avoided looking at one another when Cole pushed his bent knees between Ned’s.
Last night’s argument and parting was still so fresh and painful that this moment did not feel real, yet when Adam shut the trapdoor, then covered it with some kind of rug and pushed something heavy on top for good measure, Cole’s mind thudded with joy.
They might have to travel in an oversized coffin, but when he’d set out for the police station earlier, he’d done so knowing his chances of success were slim, no matter how desperate he’d been to believe that he could snatch Ned out of Craig’s clutches. But they’d made it.
He’d trusted the right people, and now they were both safe.
Adam knocked on the wood above. “Safe travels,” he said and left, shutting the door behind him.
They were alone.
Silence stretched between them even though they lay entwined like two cats, with faces only inches apart. Ned’s breath was sweet and warm on Cole’s cheeks, but once the wagon sped up, and the thud of wheels dulled people’s voices, Cole couldn’t think of anything to say. Still overwhelmed by everything that happened in the past few hours, he just studied the faint outline of Ned’s cheek and hair, remembering every single moment where the plan could have turned sour yet had not.
It was a miracle that they’d both survived.