True, the flintlock fired only one ball but Figg still had use for the pistol. He narrowed his eyes, turning his head to the side, desperate to keep the light from Rosehearty’s lantern from blinding him.
He stood and listened, hearing Stubbs moan and curse him and roll around on the wet ground, and he heard Rosehearty rushing towards him, mouth open and breathing loudly, confident of his skill, sure he would kill the boxer whom he hated so intensely.
Figg threw the empty pistol at Rosehearty, then ran towards Stubbs, following the sounds coming from the albino. Behind Figg, Rosehearty crouched, turning his body to protect the lantern, catching the tossed pistol on his right forearm.
“You cannot limp faster than I can run! I shall have you, Figg! I shall!”
Figg, still holding his drenched coat, reached Stubbs who lay on his back, pale, ugly face contorted with pain as he pressed down hard with blood covered hands on the hole in his left thigh. When he saw Figg, he raised himself to his elbows, eyes searching the darkness for his quarterstaff. “Kill you, you bloomin’-”
Figg kicked him in the face, snapping Stubbs’s head violently to the right. Bleed and die, mate.
The staff. Figg must have it. Where the bloody hell is it? Damn the rain.
Figg saw it. Long, dark, lying half in moonlight and half in shadow. He limped towards it, widening his eyes to clear them of falling rain. Behind him, Figg heard Rosehearty splashing across the grass with long, loping strides, moving with remarkable swiftness for such a tall man. The staff was in Figg’s hand and his back was to Rosehearty who saw an easy kill and continued charging. The boxer”sback and kidneys would bleed as well as his throat, so place the blade where he cannot see it and do as Jonathan ordered.
Figg, eyes on the ground, saw the yellow pool of light grow larger around him as Rosehearty drew closer, saw his own shadow lengthen, saw Rosehearty’s long shadow grow longer, longer. … The rain-soaked boxer waited, his back still to Rosehearty, still keeping the lantern’s deadly light directly from his eyes, still on one knee as though tired, fumbling, indecisive.
His eyes never left the ground, never left Rosehearty’s growing shadow.
Then he heard Rosehearty, heard the hissing noise as the assassin breathed through tightly clenched teeth, saw the killer’s shadow almost on him and that’s when Figg, back still to Rosehearty, savagely drove the end of the quarterst off into the pit of Rosehearty’s stomach.
All of the breath left the tall man in one long, harsh sigh. His eyes bulged and the pressure against his stomach was massive, destructive, and Rosehearty doubled over, his tall beaver hat tumbling from his long, gray head. Figg scampered to his feet and was merciless; in his large hands, the quarterstaff was a blur, a seven foot length of oak wielded with swift and vicious skill. He thought of his own dead, of what would happen to Dickens’ children if Rosehearty were to live. For Will, for Althea.
Figg used both ends of the quarterstaff to kill Rosehearty.
A powerful blow broke the tall man’s left wrist, sending his lamp to the rain-soaked ground. A second blow crushed his right kneecap. Rosehearty’s scream echoed in the rainy night as the agony raced up the right side of his body. And as Rosehearty fell towards the ground, his arm and leg on fire with pain, Figg delivered the third blow with his full strength behind it, crushing Rosehearty’s left temple, instantly killing him and driving the tall man into the wet grass with sickening speed.
Figg never again looked at Rosehearty. He knew the man was dead.
Stubbs, face knotted with pain, looked up at the lantern and small sword in Figg’s hands. “Kill me, you bastard and be done with it.”
Figg listened to the rain, eyes narrowed and on the albino. “Some words with you first.”
“First? What the bleedin’ ’ell is first? You plan to do me, so do me. You will be gettin’ no words from me.” Stubbs closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, hands pressing hard on his thigh wound.
Figg, down on one knee, held the lantern close to Stubbs’s face. “I shall kill you, this is a fact and I shall not deceive you on that score. But I can kill you quickly or I can make a right bloody mess of it. You do not have much time in which to consider.”
Stubbs frowned. Beads of rain clung to his unshaven chin and darkened his clothing. “Dyin’ or dyin’. What kind of choice is that?”
“Not much. I do not mean for you to have much choice Stubbs, and you try my patience. You came for my life and now I mean to have yours.”
“I gots a woman, you know. And kids.”
“You are scum, Stubbs. They will be right pleased to be quits of you. Jonathan sent you to do me. Why?”
“Scairt of you. Never says so but we know he is. Says you are a primitive and terrible force.” The albino used blood covered fingers to squeeze rain from his eyes.
Figg frowned. Jonathan afraid of him? “Well paid were you?” he asked.
“A guinea each.”
Figg snorted. “Not very dear, am I.” Money you will spend in hell, he thought.
Stubbs licked rainwater from his lips and tried to sit up. “You are cursed. Jonathan has a spell on you.”
For the first time that night, Figg felt the cold. “Curse?”
“We saw him. A nail in your footprint. He had us follow you, then Timothy Buck he runs to get Jonathan and he brings him to one of your footprints and Jonathan he drives a nail in it, a nail what comes from a coffin. And he curses you that you be harmed until he pulls the nail from the footprint.” Stubbs stiffened with pain, falling backwards into a greasy puddle.
“Why is Jonathan goin’ to New York?”
Stubbs’s lips were pressed tightly together against pain and his eyes were closed and he did not see the quick movement as Figg flicked his wrist and slashed the albino’s cheek.
Stubbs squealed, flopping to his right, both hands on the right side of his face. Blood trickled through his fingers to mingle with the falling rain on the backs of his hands.
“I said to you Stubbs that you are lackin’ in time. Answer me.”
“The bleedin’ bloody throne, he wants. Solomon’s Throne.” Stubbs clutched his cheek and moaned.
Solomon’s Throne. Justin Coltman and Jonathan now gone to New York in pursuit of it. As Mr. Dickens figured. Find Justin Coltman and you find Jonathan.
Stubbs pleaded for his life. “Ain’t never done nothin’ to you Figg, afore tonight. Let me live. I promise you I shall never go on the hunt for you again.”
“I think this is correct, Stubbs. You will never hunt me again.”
Figg drove the point of the small sword deep into Stubbs’s left side, piercing his heart and the albino sighed, his eyes turning up in his head.
Figg remained in the park for a further fifteen minutes. He carried Rosehearty’s body to a nearby lake, placing it in a rowboat which he then pushed out into the dark, chopping waters. Returning to the scene of the killings, he picked up Stubbs’s body and carried it several yards to the zoo, where he threw it into a pile of straw near the elephants’ cages. One-eyed Timothy Buck, the smallest was last; his would be the longest trip.