Chapter 15
Fire in the Hold
Angel could feel her heart thudding, could hear it in her ears, and yet every step she took seemed to echo through the darkness, announcing their arrival for all to hear. She told herself she was becoming overwrought, that the villains were tucked up in their barn and would not be expecting them.
A clank beside her had Angel and Leo turning to Milly, who froze in place.
She was carrying the lamps, unlit, for they intended to use the oil to set the hay alight.
Angel had given Leo her dagger, and he also carried a pickaxe and a spade.
Angel had the tinderbox stowed safely in her pocket, plus some thin rope which she was hoping she might make use of.
It was a slog, picking their way across the scrubby land in the dark. Even Leo, who seemed as surefooted as a cat, got his boot caught down a rabbit hole and struggled to get himself free.
Finally, however, they made it to the dilapidated hay store. Leaving Milly on guard, armed with a shovel, Leo and Angel gathered as much hay as they could carry and moved silently towards the barn doors.
As they crept closer to the barn, Angel caught the sound of low voices and they both stilled.
A woman’s laughter drifted from inside, followed by a high-pitched “No!” that made Angel’s blood run cold.
She met Leo’s eyes, saw the rage boiling there, and knew they had no time to lose. At least they were certain Toby was in there now, and closer to the small door than the large ones where they intended to set the fire. So far, so good.
The abrupt sound of a door opening startled them both, and Angel gasped as Leo dropped the hay and grabbed her about the waist, one hand covering her mouth as he hauled her around the side of the building.
Angel tugged at his wrist, and he dropped his hand.
They both eased towards the corner of the barn to peer around.
The small door stood open, the woman who had masterminded Toby’s abduction standing in the opening holding a lamp.
Beside her was the villain Angel had shot—and now she wished she had aimed for something other than his arm.
“Now, remember,” the woman said, her voice sharp. “You just bring ‘em here. Nowt else, and don’t you even think about getting drunk. If you mess this up, I’ll chop off your ears. Got it?”
“Aye, Mercy, I said I did, didn’t I?” grumbled a low, unhappy voice.
Mercy? Angel almost laughed, but then again, her name wasn’t entirely appropriate either.
As they watched, the man who had held the knife on Toby—he must be Stan—left the barn and made his way to the pony and cart which they’d hidden out of sight behind a small copse of trees.
With a jolt of excitement, she realised he was going to The Bull to wait for them, which only left one villain and the woman to deal with.
Their odds had just improved significantly.
“He’ll mess it up,” groused the fellow with the sling. “You should ‘ave sent me.”
Mercy snorted in disgust. “I sent you last time too and see how that turned out. Nah, I need someone with all his limbs intact in case the big fellow gets any ideas in his head. I ain’t taking no chances. Not this time.”
With that, they went inside and closed the door.
Angel turned and met Leo’s eyes. It was time.
Hart was desperate to get his hands on someone and make them pay for the terror he’d seen in Toby’s eyes, but it took them another trip before they were certain they had enough hay to smoke out their quarry.
Once it was arranged in a heap against the barn doors, Hart undid the lamp he’d brought and poured the oil over the top.
“You have the tinderbox?” he whispered to Angel, who nodded. “Right, wait until I’ve reached the roof, then set the fire.”
“I will. I’m going to set rope in place and come back, then Milly and I will go around to the door and wait for them to come out. You deal with the thug, we’ll deal with Mercy.”
He nodded, hesitating for a moment before reaching for her.
Hart heard her soft gasp as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
It was swift and hard, not nearly enough, but it had felt necessary.
“I just want you to know—I think you’re wonderful.
I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, Angel. ”
She smiled up at him. “Me either, providing Toby is unharmed. Good luck.”
“You too.”
Turning away from her, he walked around the barn, searching for the best way up.
It wasn’t a tall building, but there were few handholds.
His fingers skimmed the cold, slippery stone as he searched for purchase.
Low as it was, and painted by the rain, it might as well have been a sheer cliff face.
Finally, he got lucky. A large stone jutted out, enough to give him a foot up.
He set his boot against the wall and hauled, muscles burning, fingers biting into the rough edge until he could get himself high enough and hook an elbow over.
The tiles were greasy beneath his palms and brittle with age, making him fear he’d fall straight through if he dared put his weight on them.
For a moment he hung there, listening to the rain pattering on the tile, then he took a breath and heaved himself up, flattening his body to the pitch of the roof.
Glancing down, he saw Angel’s worried face staring up at him and smiled that he was ready.
She nodded, and he watched as she hurried around the building.
Milly met her by the door, and between them they took the pickaxe, turning it upside down and using their weight to thrust it deep into the damp soil to the far side of the door.
Once it was firmly planted, Angel tied the rope she’d brought around it, about a foot from the ground.
Satisfied it was strong enough, she glanced up at the roof before hurrying back to the hay.
Knowing it would likely take her more than a few strikes to light the oil, Hart began crawling across the roof, praying under his breath that the tiles would not break, the timbers beneath would not give way, and that he wouldn’t alert those below to their plan.
His breath caught as his tile broke beneath his knee with a dull crack, the sound hardly audible over the noisy thudding of his own heart, but there were no sounds of alarm from below, so he carried on until he was level with the doorway.
Below him, he could see Milly waiting in the building's shadow, shovel in hand. Everything was in place. Now all they needed was the smoke.
Angel muttered a curse under her breath as rain trickled down her neck and beneath her collar like icy fingers seeking warm skin.
She was shivering hard, though whether that was from the cold or from fear she wasn’t certain.
The hay ought to have gone up like a torch—Leo had soaked it well, the oil still visible, a dark greasy stain sticking to the ragged bundles of dry grass—but the rain was coming down harder, flattening it until it resembled the untidy nest of some massive water bird.
Still, she persevered, hunched over it, curving her body to shelter any tiny flame she might coax to life. Her fingers were stiff with cold, refusing to cooperate as she used the steel to strike the flint again and again.
Strike.
The flint rasped, skittered, and sent up a tiny, resentful spark that died before it could reach the oil. The char cloth was sodden, sticking to her fingers. Summoning up the very worst curses she had ever heard Black Jack utter, she tore it free, tried again.
Strike. A spark.
The rain devoured it before it could catch.
Angel gritted her teeth. She could make out the indistinct murmur of voices from inside the barn, though not what the villains were saying, their words muffled by walls and the weather.
Her belly tightened, tension tying her insides into a knot.
The stench of the oil was sharp in her nostrils, promising to burn if she could only find a strong enough spark.
But the rain kept falling, drowning her hopes.
For a moment she stared up at the night sky, feeling the vast expanse of darkness might swallow her whole. Her breath was short and uneven, delicate phantoms that appeared and vanished in the frigid air.
Panic fluttered at the edges of her mind—what would they do if she failed? —but she forced it away.
Come on, she murmured to the little box, as if it needed coaxing to do as she wished. Come on, you little devil, help me out here.
Strike—a spark!
Angel held her breath as the glowing ember caught and spread, moving along the ragged edge of the char.
She cupped her hands around it, willing it to burn, breathing low to feed it a tiny thread of air.
Angel watched with her heart in her mouth as a skinny curl of smoke drifted up.
Come on, come on, she willed it as the glow touched the nearest oil-soaked stem.
At first the hay only smouldered sullenly, but then the flame picked up, spreading along the stem to another, and another, until it finally got the idea and ran.
Heart thudding so hard she felt sick with it, Angel fed the fire, adding straw to the blaze until she was certain it was strong enough to hold. Murmuring a small prayer to her grandfather and asking him to stand beside her this night, she grabbed an armful of hay and gently covered the fire.
For a moment she feared she had smothered it too completely, but then a fat, acrid billow of smoke erupted, sending her hurrying away as it caught at her throat, making her want to cough.
She watched for a second longer, wondering whether Black Jack really was standing at her side, as the wind picked up, blowing the smoke towards the doors.
Thank you, she whispered in her mind, before turning and running back to the side door.