The sun seemed to be caught in the woods outside. It was a murky, depressing day. Cameo checked her pistols. She had loaded them before they left. For this trip she decided she preferred to have the ammunition on her body, just in case Gail got some smart ideas.
The ride was boring, heightened only by the whiskey she had brought along. The trek back through the Forest of Yetta reminded her of the trip days ago.
She began to see Opal through the shade that she had sent with him; this meant they were very close now. Gail watched Cameo suddenly draw her pistols, and because he was uncertain what she was doing, he did the same.
Cameo caught a glimpse of something shiny beneath Gail’s coat. “What is that?”
Gail rearranged some rope and something resembling an ice pick. “Nothing.”
“We are just supposed to kill Black Opal.”
“No, you’re just supposed to kill him.” Gail whipped open a black case, within which was an entire set of surgical tools. He let them sit on the bench seat for a moment and looked up at Cameo smiling, hoping to see her blanch as she recognized each and every implement.
He was gifted with the look he was hoping for. Her eyes went from the tools to his eyes. “But why?”
Gail laughed, “She wants his ill-gotten gain.”
“That’s why he’s a target?”
He rolled the black case back up, “I dunno. Maybe. That’s part of it, anyhow.”
Cameo took a drink. “I think she’s going to be disappointed. He partied pretty hard with some of the loot he
gained
from the robbery that I was a part of. I doubt he’s really stashing it all away somewhere.”
“Hey, it’s my job—heh, heh, heh—and I love it. Just think how many people wish they could take the kind of satisfaction in their work that I do.”
Cameo stuck her arm out the window and knocked on it with her pistol, “Driver, stop here!”
* * * * *
“I can’t believe we’re back here again,” Bellamy groaned.
Opal loaded his pistol, “I’m out of cash.”
“How can you be?!”
“Well,” Opal smiled impishly, modeling the stunning black brocade ensemble he was wearing. “I simply cannot deny myself.”
Bel sat down on a rock fence and sighed. “This has to be the last one Opal; this is just getting too tricky. We are too well known in these parts; we should move on.... Maybe to Shandow.”
“Awfully cold there.”
Bel met Opal’s hazel eye, serious and annoyed.
Opal smiled, “It’s something to think about. But for now, where is that coach?”
“Maybe highwaymen got to it,” a deep female voice interrupted.
Both Opal and Bel turned with pistols in hand, but Cameo’s was drawn on them already.
“There are two of us little lady,” Bellamy coaxed.
Cameo raised an eyebrow and smirked, “Indeed. Well, I have two pistols.”
Opal bit his lip, gently amused, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
Gail ran up behind Opal and cracked him in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.
Bel’s eyes widened in surprise at the second assassin who had come out of the woods to knock his partner to the ground rather viciously.
Opal collapsed as if the strings that held him up had been cut, and Gail sat down on top of his broken form.
“Put your pistol down, sir,” Cameo said to him, her voice devoid of emotion.
Bellamy set down his weapon.
Cameo motioned for Bel to sit down, and as he did so she pushed him over with her boot, and then stood over him as her partner pulled out his black case.
“You don’t need that.” Cameo said.
Clovis grinned, “Of course I do.”
Opal came to and grabbed for a dagger hidden inside his coat, but Clovis overpowered him. “Try that again, and I’ll blow your brains out.”
“What do you want? Have I wronged you in some way?”
“Nope.” Gail unlaced the black case lying on the ground beside Opal. “My employer was just wondering what you’ve been doing with all of that money you’ve hijacked, that’s all. What with all those wanted posters around, you must have robbed a lot of coaches, lifted a fair amount of ladies’ jewelry.”
Cameo beheld the implements in the case and remembered how he had taken her as his prisoner after all she had already endured, how he had used those same tools to cut her, for days, before she had escaped.
“Here’s his ill-gotten gain,” she ripped off Opal’s jacket suddenly. “It’s in his clothes. He doesn’t have anymore!”
Opal reached for the lovely brocade jacket that Cameo was shaking at Clovis. As she shook it, playing cards fell everywhere.
Clovis only smiled serenely, “I’m sure there’s got to be more.”
“Oh, there’s not, fellow. I assure you,” Opal chimed in as Gail pulled a scalpel from his case. “Really, I’m a complete clotheshorse—”
“He’s also a drunk!” Bellamy yelled from under Cameo’s boot heel. “He throws his money away after every larceny, buying drinks for everyone!”
“Yes, yes,” Opal nodded his head in agreement.
Gail looked over at Bel, “Well, maybe we should switch partners, Cameo.”
“Let’s just shoot them and be done with this.”
Clovis grinned, “I thought you enjoyed playing with my toys. Jealous? Missing my attention are you, Gwen? Maybe you preferred being the pincushion?”
Cameo fixed him with a hard look.
“I thought so,” he smiled with a set of filthy teeth and licked his cracked lips.
She moved her pistol from where it had been poised to shoot Bel and aimed it at Gail.
Gail laughed. “You would be on a wanted poster so fast your head would spin. You don’t think Wick would let her favorite die so you could have your petty little revenge on bad boy Gail, do you?”
Cameo considered this for a moment.
“Besides, you loved it.”
Cameo pulled the trigger, but it misfired.
Gail’s eyes widened, and he reached for his pistol, but Opal took that opportunity to throw the assassin off of him.
Cameo threw her pistol at Clovis’ head in exasperation; it connected and knocked Gail back for a moment, leaving him very angry. Cameo stepped back off of Bellamy’s prone form and pulled her second pistol.
Bel grabbed for his pistol, which was lying on the ground nearby him.
Opal had his rapier and his pistol.
Bellamy jumped up and turned on Cameo. They were facing each other, pistols aimed at one another.
“I have no quarrel with you,” Cameo said.
Gail had his pistol and took aim on his fellow assassin, but Opal tapped him on the shoulder with the sword from over his right side, and as Gail swung ‘round, he slashed Opal’s face with the scalpel in his left hand.
The highwayman shrugged it off and ripped the pistol from Gail’s other hand with his sword. The pistol flew through the air beautifully, landing in some weeds behind Opal.
Clovis stabbed Opal in the chest with the scalpel, the only weapon he had on him, and Opal shot him in the stomach with his pistol.
Clovis Gail fell to the ground.
Cameo took a couple quick steps to reach Gail’s wounded body.
“Cameo...” he gasped.
She shot him a second time in the chest. The cool air was filled with heavy, gray smoke and Gail was silent, his chest blown open.
“Are you all right?” Bel moved over to Opal.
He winced as he pulled out the scalpel. “My best shirt is ruined. My new jacket is lying in the mud....”
Cameo slid down onto hands and knees and pressed her face into the cold, damp, black soil. She had just doomed herself. She had set her own fate in motion by killing Gail. He was right; she had just lost the protection of the Association.
Bel still had his pistol pointed at her, but Opal pushed his hand down.
The assassin sat back up and ran her hands over her face, shaking her head in disbelief. All for what? She let her anger get the better of her.
“Well,” he smiled at Cameo, “that was loads of fun. Join us for a drink then?” He took a shaky step forward then fell down on one knee.
“Opal?”
He swayed for a moment, thinking he was going to laugh it off and stand back up, but instead toppled over.
Bellamy looked from his partner up at Cameo, “Did your friend poison his blade?”
“I doubt it; slow painful torture was more Gail’s style. He probably just lost that rush from the fight and started to feel the effects of his injuries. He did take quite a blow to the back of his head.
“Black Opal,” Cameo tapped his cheek with her hand as if she knew what she was doing.
“Opal?” Bel attempted, also not knowing how best to help.
His eye fluttered open. Unable to focus at first, he then he realized the assassin and his fellow highwayman were staring at him.
“Are you all right?” Cameo asked fixing him with those filmy gray eyes.
He smiled, “You see I’ll do anything to get a lady to have a drink with me.”
“Uh huh.”
“The back of your head is bleeding,” Bel informed him.
Cameo stuck a flask in his face. “Drink with me then.”
His hand was shaking as he lifted the flask to his mouth, but he managed to swallow a couple shots of whiskey. It woke him a bit.
When the flask was returned to her, the assassin took a shot of it herself, and since Bel was looking left out, she handed it to him next. Might as well make some friends; she presently had none.
“Yes, well I feel much revived.” He stood up. Both Bel and Cameo caught him by an arm as he wobbled. “Now then....” Opal swayed, “Where was it we...were going?”
“Shandow,” Bel spoke up quickly.
The two of them staggered forward as they held Opal up.
“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“Perhaps we should find someone to bandage you up?” Cameo interjected.
“We could stop at the tavern, have Lorraine look at it,” Bel said.
She glanced over and found Opal staring at her, but he looked away seeming to be admiring the silver flask once he realized he’d been caught.
Cameo handed it to him.
“Oh, please stop. We’ll be dragging him to the tavern if you keep this up.”
She smiled a crooked little smile, which seemed to make Bel less giddy and more nervous. He watched her finish the liquid, which seemed to have little effect on her, except for maybe numbing her pain.
* * * * *
It was nightfall by the time the little party of three crossed the threshold of the Tavern Pipe Inn. Cameo was tired from helping to carry Opal through the forest for hours, and she looked forward to a meal and something alcoholic as she and Bel set Opal in a chair.
“What’s happened?” The tavern landlord called to Bel. “Are you two all right?” This suspicion was directed at Cameo—dressed in black and an unknown in that particular tavern.
“It’s okay; she’s with us,” Bel motioned toward Cameo. He moved to the bar for something to drink.
Black Opal checked his face in a hand mirror. Gail had left him with a long scar on the right side of his face, the mostly unblemished side. He sighed and leaned in toward Cameo a bit, “Isn’t your employer going to be a bit unhappy about Clovis?”
She silenced him with a look.
Bel returned with ales.
“I can’t go back.” She drank some of the ale and wiped her mouth with a black glove.
“Going to be a bit hard on you, isn’t it Lady?” Bellamy asked seriously.
“I haven’t left anything behind that I can’t find again somewhere else.”
“Bellamy!” Charlotte swooped down on him, carrying some empty mugs. “When did you lot get here?”
“Ah—hello, Charlotte,” Bellamy said.
She slid comfortably onto his lap.
“Charlotte,” Opal faked a smile.
“Black Opal, are you all right?” She noticed his face was slashed open.
“Oh yes, yes, tops.”
Rising from Bellamy’s lap, she moved around the table to look over Opal’s wounds. “Lorraine, did you see your lad? He’s all beat up.”
Another barmaid scurried over. “Opal what happened to you?”
Now both of them were examining all his cuts and bruises.
“Please, ladies, if you don’t mind.” Opal tried to wriggle free.
Cameo tried not to laugh as two rather dingy-looking tavern wenches pawed over him.
“And who’s she?” Charlotte said, looking at Cameo.
“A hungry patron wondering where her dinner is,” Cameo replied jovially.
“She’s not important,” Bel assured them.
Cameo raised an eyebrow. A moment later the landlord set a plate of food in front of her, apparently having just overheard what she said.
“Maybe you two have some bandages around here somewhere?”
“No, not really,” Charlotte scoffed. “It’s a tavern, Bel.... But maybe we could come up with something suitable, and there’s always wine. That usually seems to help.”
“I think you should eat something, Opal,” Cameo pushed her plate toward him.
“Yes, thank you.” His voice was faint, and he helped himself to the lump of meat now sitting in front of him.
Charlotte’s eyes went to the brooch at the assassin’s collar, and then the two met each other’s gaze for a moment before the barmaid excused herself, “I’ll go... find something to dress that wound.”
“Shall I run you a bath, Opal?” Lorraine whispered into his ear.
He glanced over at Cameo, she was talking with Bel. “Uhh, no I think I’ll just need my rest tonight.”
“Uh-huh, sure you will, Opal,” she cooed and went to help the men at another table.
When he looked up from his food this time, Cameo was smirking at him.
“I’m glad someone here wants to take care of you,” Bel said as the barkeep dropped two more plates onto the table. Apparently everyone had heard what Lorraine said. “Heaven knows my back is aching from carrying you home.”
“It’s not as though you
carried
me—”
“No, it just felt a lot like that,” Cameo interjected.
“Exactly,” Bel said putting a lump of meat into his mouth.
Just then, the relative calm of the inn was interrupted as two men in the corner of the room jumped to their feet, shouting at each other. The barkeep hurried in their direction as one man threw playing cards into the face of the other.
Ignoring the commotion in the corner, Opal continued, “It’s not as though I could be very heavy anyhow.”