Big Damn Hero

25

While Inara infiltrated the mansion itself, Shepherd Book was moving stealthily round the perimeter of the grounds. He had no idea where Elmira Atadema was being kept on the premises, so his only option was reconnaissance. With Inara busy indoors distracting and neutralizing whatever security personnel Hunter Covington employed, Book crept along, keeping low behind the three-bar fence that encircled the property and studying the building from all angles. He reasoned that Covington would have Elmira under lock and key in an upstairs room, in order to make it that much harder for her to escape. To that end, he surveilled the house’s upper story, looking for a window that was shuttered or barred or both.

The sound of a twig snapping behind him brought him whirling around. His stun gun was in his hand, fully charged and primed. Book almost pulled the trigger to unleash the electrified dart that would deliver a 50,000-volt shock.

“River?”

River Tam stood there, swinging her arms from side to side.

“I thought we told you to stay in the shuttle with Simon.”

“Simon wasn’t looking, so I came out,” River said. “To help you.”

“You’re no help to me here,” Book said gently but with a forceful undertone. “This is something Inara and I have to do. You’re best off keeping out of sight with your brother.”

“I know where she is.”

“What?”

“The woman. Elmira. She’s in there.” River pointed, straight-armed, towards the stable block.

Just as Book was asking himself how River could know this— and be so certain about it, too — Simon came scurrying up.

“River!” he hissed. “You shouldn’t have run away. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Here I am,” she said simply. “You found me.”

“Sorry, Shepherd. I’ll take her back to the shuttle. No harm done, I hope.”

“Wait just a moment, son,” Book said. “River, are you sure that’s where Elmira is?”

River nodded. “Uh-huh. I can see her. She’s sad. She’s chained up. Straw in her hair. She knows she’s going to die. Hunter’s mad at her. She sold him out, he says. ‘I’m going to fix you, woman.’” River’s voice had suddenly taken on a gravel-roughness and a masculine note. “‘See if I don’t. When I come back, I’m going to show you what happens to bitches that snitch to the authorities. They get cut. All over. Every part of their body. Every part. Cut till they bleed to death, but slow. Days-long slow.’ And she knows he’s going to do it, too.” Her voice had reverted to normal. “He’s not a man to lie about such things.”

“Where precisely in the stable block is she?” River, if she was correct about Elmira’s location, had just saved Book a considerable amount of time and effort. The stable block would have been the last place he looked.

“Easier if I show you.”

Book looked at Simon, then at his sister, then back to Simon.

“Are you asking my permission?” Simon said.

“Preferably, but even if I don’t, River’s coming with me.”

Simon debated inwardly. “Then I’m coming too. I already let her out of my sight once. I’m not doing it a second time. Who knows what we could be walking into?”

Book did not like having two people tagging along with him. One was bad enough. But he respected Simon’s decision and his concern for his sister’s welfare.

“All right. Just please stay out of the way. Leave the rough stuff to me.”

“Here we go.” River was already striding off towards the stable block. Book hurried to catch up, Simon at his heels. “Off to see the horsies.”

They were halfway there when River said to Book, “By the way, there’s a man just inside the doorway. He hasn’t seen us yet. You have ten seconds before he does.”

Again, Book wondered how the girl could have such knowledge. Those Dr. Frankensteins at the Academy had bestowed talents on her that were preternatural, that were even — although it seemed a mildly blasphemous thought — godlike.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He broke into a sprint, running towards the stable block as fast as his aged limbs would let him. Book was, in fact, in phenomenally good shape for a man of his advanced years, keeping himself that way through a routine of isometric strengthening exercises and abstinence from alcohol and narcotics. Within five seconds he had covered the thirty yards between him and the stable-block door. Two seconds later, he was inside the building and confronting the man stationed on guard duty, who was in the process of rising from the chair he’d been sitting on and raising the rifle that had been lying across his knees. The stun gun crackled in Book’s hand. The guard tumbled to the ground, juddering, like he was doing some kind of wild horizontal dance routine. His teeth were bared. An eerie, strangulated ululation escaped his throat. A wet patch spread across the crotch of his jeans.

“There’s another one,” River said from the doorway.

Book wheeled to see a second guard appear from the shadows of one of the looseboxes. He was drawing his pistol. Book hit the switch on the stun gun to detach the wire linking it to the dart hooked in the first guard’s chest. The gun was a two-shot deal, but it required closer range than he currently had. The second guard was a good five yards too far away. Book had no choice but to duck down and charge towards him, hoping he could bridge the gap in time. The guard was cocking his gun, however, and drawing a bead on Book. Book knew, with a dreadful certainty, that he was going to be too slow. The guard was going to shoot him before he could get him with the stun gun.

A horseshoe whirled like a discus over Book’s head. It clouted the guard in the face, just above one eyebrow, with an audible crunch. The man dropped as though he had walked slap bang into an invisible wall.

Book glanced round to see River looking very pleased with herself, clapping her hands in glee.

“Nice shot,” he said.

“I love playing horseshoes,” River said. “I was always good at it. Better than Simon.” She picked up another horseshoe from the dust at her feet. It and the one she had thrown must have been just lying around spare. “If he gets up again, I’ll just hit him again.”

“You do that. Where’s Elmira?”

“Who? Oh, her. Yes.” The girl tapped her lips, pondering. “Up there.” She gestured towards a hayloft. “Straw in her hair.”

Book shinned up a stepladder that led to the hayloft. The horses were stamping softly and whinnying in their looseboxes below, disturbed by the uncustomary activities of the humans in the stables. If luck was on Book’s side — or some higher power — the beasts would not become so agitated as to draw the attention of people in the house.

As his head rose above the level of the hayloft floor, he peered cautiously around. There might well be a third guard on duty.

But there was nobody in the hayloft save for a young woman chained to a support post, with a piece of cloth tied tight around her mouth to form a gag. Her clothing was ripped and torn. Her hair was disheveled, and yes, as River had said, there were bits of straw in it, sticking out at all angles like pins from a pincushion. She had bruises and grazes all over, and she looked terrified.

As Book appeared, Elmira Atadema began to writhe and scream, despite the gag. He put a finger to lips and smiled reassuringly.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Elmira,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

Her expression was distrustful but she did calm down somewhat.

“Mika Wong sent me.” Only the slightest distortion of the truth. “My friends and I are going to get you out of here.”

Mention of Wong’s name appeared to settle the matter as far as Elmira was concerned.

Book undid the gag. Elmira worked her jaw to ease the kinks out. The gag had been on so long it had left red welts.

“Who are you?” she croaked.

“All in good time,” Book said. “First order of business: getting these chains off you.”

The chains were secured with a padlock. Book studied it for a moment, then shrugged. It had the simplest kind of lever-and-ward mechanism. He could have opened it in thirty seconds with a paperclip or a hairgrip, but luckily he could do better than that. From his satchel he took out a compact, leather-bound Bible. Concealed within the binding, in a recess beneath a marbled endpaper that could be detached, was a comprehensive set of lockpicks. He selected one that in his judgment matched this brand of padlock and corresponded to the genuine key in length. He inserted it into the slot, feeling its teeth fit snugly against the actuators. He’d gauged right. A single clockwise twist of the wrist, and the padlock’s shackle fell open.

“A Shepherd,” said Elmira, “who can pick a lock?”

“‘And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’” Book said, stowing the lockpick back inside the Bible and the book itself back in his satchel, “‘and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Matthew chapter sixteen, verse nineteen.”

He unwrapped the chains from around her wrists and helped her to her feet.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Elmira.

“Then let’s go. Time is of the essence.”