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Story: A Forbidden Alchemy

He smiled, loosened a breath, looked to me exultantly. “Tails,” he said, grin stretching.

“Very good. And who’s your pick?”

He took no time at all to answer. “Donny,” Leon said. “My pick is Donny.”

Patrick nodded.

Donny clicked his tongue and winked an unseeing eye. “Why do they always pick me?”

Patrick smirked. “When you’re ready, Gunner, cut Ferris loose. To make things fair, we’ll give young Donny only one shot. What say you, Leon?”

Leon gave a curt nod, an air of smugness lifting his chin.

Ferris had stopped wailing.

Donny had yet to draw a gun.

“Let’s see how fast you scamper, Ferris,” said Gunner. “He’ll be headed downwind, Donny.”

Patrick felt their spectators lean forward, the sport getting the better of them.

“Ready, Ferris?” Gunner called. “Take your mark… steady… and he’s off!”

Ferris was surprisingly agile on his feet, despite a small stumble upon release. He was twenty feet away before Donny had even brushed his coat aside. Ferris’s legs pounded the dirt back toward the cobbles.

His colleagues whooped and cheered; Leon was the loudest, barking a laugh skyward.

Donny cocked the hammer of his pistol and raised it in the general direction of Ferris, though the gun barrel erred to the right. “Am I straight on, Patty?”

Patrick lit a cigarette. “Straight enough.”

The end of the lane was near enough for Ferris to smell the victory. He closed in on the corner, fading into the late evening mist.

An almighty bang rented the air.

The bullet made whorls of the mist.

In the distance, Ferris fell.

The brick walls carried the sound upward with the smoke, and Kenton grew silent once more.

“How’d I do?” Donny asked.

“Square in the back of his head,” Gunner answered.

Donny cursed. “Was aimin’ for his arse.”

Leon’s expression had fallen, arrogance as shot as poor Ferris. Fear always filled the hollow.

The rest of the men stared back and forth between the felled man and the blind man, disbelief rebounding.

“Thanks for joinin’ us, boys. And just so there’s no confusion, know that your pastimes are not welcome commerce in the marketplace. As for your new positions of employment,” Patrick stepped toward Leon, eclipsing his view of Kenton Hill. “You could do worse than horse shit and rats.” Patrick’s head filled with flickering lantern light and groaning timber and walls made of mud. “Show some fuckin’ gratitude that I don’t throw you down a mine shaft instead.”

Leon shrunk, his brow spotting with perspiration, thoughts of the tunnels turning him quiet.

It was late. Patrick was tired. He wondered if perhaps tonight would render any sleep.

“Be sure to turn up to work in the morning, boys,” he said, giving them his back. “As demonstrated here tonight, your life depends on it.”

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