‘I’m sorry to have to call you out at this time of night, sir, but I understand that Lex Trent has no family in the city and-’
‘Yes, that’s right. Where is he? Is he badly hurt? What happened — was he attacked?’
‘Er… he… ’
‘Well? Come on, out with it!’ the lawyer barked impatiently.
‘The boy we have in the cell is claiming to be Lex Trent,’ the inspector said carefully. ‘But I… ’ He shook his head and handed the lawyer a sheaf of paper. ‘You’d better have a look at the report, Mr Lucas.’
Lex sat on the hard, lumpy bed and tried not to twiddle his thumbs. The guards glaring in at him were making him a little nervous. A cell. So it had come to this, at last.
‘I suppose a couple of aspirin would be out of the question? ’ he tried, without much hope. ‘I’ve got a splitting headache.’
‘You should be dead falling from that height,’ one of the inspectors said, slightly sullenly.
‘I’ve always been a lucky guy,’ Lex said, managing a pained grin.
‘Ha! That luck’s run out now, if I’m any judge!’
Lex glanced round the cell. He could see his bag of equipment on the table outside along with his black balaclava and a stack of the Shadowman calling cards that had been in his pocket. More than enough to convict him. More than enough to send him straight to the hangman’s gallows. More than enough to get him a one-way ticket straight to an unmarked grave in the Criminals’ Quarter. But giving up, caving in, quitting… these were not reactions that Lex was at all familiar with. Something would turn up because it always did. Lex was, after all, one of the lucky people. Because he had a deal with her. A bargain he was sure she would make good on. Mostly.
‘There will no doubt be scratches and bruises,’ she had said. ‘Quite possibly the odd broken bone, if you’re careless. But you won’t die. I promise you won’t die, Lex.’
And it was nice to have that assurance, although Lex had certainly never been fool enough to trust her word completely. But he was sure it would be all right and that he’d get out of this present mess. After all, the Gods were on his side. Or, more accurately, a God was on his side… the Goddess of Fortune, to be exact.
It had been just over a year ago, right before he came to the Wither City, when he was on the run from an angry mob… well, perhaps not a mob as such, but a couple of coppers who were really quite irate, anyway. He’d been carrying out a scam that had backfired rather unpleasantly. He’d been caught out and forced to flee. This rarely happened to Lex by that point, for he had worked on the scams during the twelve months since he’d run away from home, refining them and improving them until they were almost perfect. It wasn’t his fault — he was a penniless farm boy — he had to do something to survive. If he hadn’t learnt how to cheat and lie and swindle then he would most likely have been dead in a ditch before the first month was out.
But then he had discovered that not only could he cheat, but that he was good at it. A born natural, in fact. And it was fun, too — much more fun than sweating away on a farm, getting straw in your hair and blisters on your palms. Lex was born to be a crook and had taken to it like a duck to water.
But the day the jewellers came after him was not a good day, for they wouldn’t accept his apologies for trying to sell them a fake ruby brooch. Instead, they were adamant that he was to pay for his crime and so had set the police on him to arrest him for criminal fraud. Prison cells and courtrooms did not sound like a lot of fun to Lex and so he ran — out of the city with the two policemen close behind him. He didn’t have enough of a head start to outrun them and so he ducked into the church on the edge of town. It was big and looked like it had once been grand but was now rundown and derelict, obviously belonging to a God who had lost favour with the people and become unpopular. When Lex slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind him, he saw that it was dark and dank and the amount of dust covering the pews and altar made him sneeze loudly.
This startled the woman who had been sobbing on one of the pews near the front. At once she jumped to her feet and whirled round to face him. Lex cursed his bad luck for he had been sure the manky old place would be deserted.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, ma’am… ’ Lex began but then trailed off, staring at her. For this was no woman at all but the Goddess of Luck herself. He recognised her from one of the Games he had recently made a lot of money on. She’d been there in the Box of the Gods, watching the rounds. Standing before him now, she was the spitting image of her statues with her long, white toga, trimmed with gold braid and her fair hair piled rather precariously on top of her head. The only difference was that she seemed to have been using her sleeve in lieu of a tissue and a few strands of blond hair had escaped to hang loosely around her face.
‘My Lady,’ Lex said, trying to disguise his shock at finding the Goddess in such a state. ‘Please forgive me. I had no idea that you were here.’
The Goddess gave a loud, pathetic sniff. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘They’re going to close the church today anyway.’
Lex glanced round the abandoned place and noticed the life-sized chess pieces for the first time — one knight and one bishop. They were covered in dust like everything else but Lex knew what they really were, or at least, had been — people who had refused to participate in the Games and so had been turned into chess pieces as punishment.
‘Is this your church, my Lady?’
‘It was,’ she sniffled. ‘Before I lost all my followers. They’ve all taken off to worship the Gods of Wealth or Fame or Beauty instead. I lost my last official worshipper last night… ’ She trailed off, the faintest glimmer of hope coming into her eyes as her gaze rested on Lex. ‘Whose church are you in, young man?’ she asked.
‘Jezra’s,’ Lex replied proudly. The God of Wit and Daring was everything Lex had ever wanted to be and he was proud to pledge his special allegiance to him.
The Goddess pulled a face. ‘Jezra!’ She practically spat the name. ‘What can he do for you that I can’t? It’s not a rhetorical question, boy — give me an answer this instant!’
Lex hesitated then said, ‘Well… forgive me… but he’s a little more consistent than… you… are.’
Everyone knew that Lady Luck was dreadfully flighty and unreliable and most people would sooner try and build a house of cards on a trampoline than put any faith in her. It didn’t come as any great shock to Lex that she’d lost all her followers.
‘Lex Trent!’ came the sudden bellow from outside. ‘We know you’re in there! Come out this instant — you’re only making it worse for yourself!’
‘Damn it!’ Lex muttered with a scowl.
But the Goddess was already rushing down the aisle towards him, a radiant smile on her face as she grasped his arms and said, ‘My dear boy, why didn’t you tell me your name was Lex Trent? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’
‘Er… what?’ Lex replied, trying to work out why the Goddess of Fortune herself would be looking for a petty crook like him whilst at the same time trying to work out how he was ever going to get out of the church without the two burly policemen outside spotting him.
‘Yes, I want to recruit you to my church; I want you as one of my followers! You’re a natural, my dear. I heard a few months ago about a little boy who was travelling across the provinces, swindling, cheating, lying and getting away with it and I knew with luck like that I just had to have you in my church.’
‘I am not a little boy!’ Lex said, shaking her off irritably. ‘I’m small for my age, that’s all! Anyway, I wouldn’t want to join your church even if I wasn’t already in Jezra’s. You said it yourself — I’m already lucky — so how can you possibly help me?’
‘You can never have too much luck, Lex Trent. Especially doing what you do. As your current situation aptly demonstrates. ’
As if on cue, one of the policemen outside shouted, ‘You’ve got ten seconds to come out before we come in and drag you out ourselves!’