The Pickpocket

Chapter 18 - A Change Of Face

“Jamie!” I yelled. He somersaulted into the gaping chasm of glittering ice below, ice that was melting as I watched. I gulped and shuffled slowly backwards, crawling on my belly. Matt and Ben were thawing and I could hear them snarling. Jamie squeaked in fear and I heard a snap as the ice around him cracked and broke up.

“This was a bad idea!” Jamie called up to me and Owen. “There are two big, scaly things down here and as much as I like reptiles, I don’t think they’re giant Smaugs…”

“Actually,” I replied, smiling despite myself, “they are.”

“Wha- aaaaaaaaaaaargh!” Jamie screamed and I heard a roar. Owen and I skidded to the edge of the pit and saw Jamie falling through columns of ice and fire, hurtling towards the rocky floor at an astonishing rate. No matter how quickly the pocket watch’s power worked, Jamie couldn’t survive a fall like that. Or could he?

“Jamie!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted at the top of my lungs. “Roll, spin, twist, snap, flip, flip, roll, land!” It was an old gymnastics routine that Jamie had taught himself. Whenever he was made to show anyone as a child he called it a gymnastics routine, but what he’d really done was invent a way of staying alive and fighting at the same time. He taught it me and it’s helped me out of a few sticky situations so far. The other person normally hurtled into a lamp post or building whereas I landed with minor broken bones or dived through a window.

“Sir, what in the name of sanity was that sequence?” Owen asked, bewildered. I grinned and explained to him the story of how it had happened. I guess I’d better tell you too, hadn’t I?

“Well,” I began, “Jamie got back from school one day with a broken nose and barely any hair left. He explained that another boy started hacking at his hair with scissors so Jamie’s friend at the time, a short lad called Ceylon, hit the other boy across the face. That other boy retaliated by plunging the scissors into Ceylon’s eye, driving them through his sockets and into his brain. Jamie leaped up and knocked the scissors away, determined to avenge Ceylon. He punched that other kid so hard that there was an audible snap as the boy’s neck broke. He fell to the floor and Jamie got piled on by the other kids, all of them trying to kill him. The teacher eventually separated the mass of screaming children only to find that Jamie was missing. He ran straight back home to me, laughing like a maniac the entire way. I realise what he’d done and moved him away. Unfortunately for him, the dead boy’s best friend - a year twelve, may I add - followed us.

“I was teaching Jamie how to shoot when he found us. Tirar, his name was. He grabbed Jamie by the throat whilst I was off re-collecting the spent bullets (Jamie was using a toy gun at the time) and threw him. Jamie lashed out whilst in the air and the routine was born. Tirar died, obviously. Jamie threw him in the lake afterwards. You should’ve heard the old man who lived by it scream when he went fishing the next day!

“Anyway,” I concluded, “that put an end to our life in the states. If Jamie or I show our face in the US ever again, we’ll be killed on sight. The bad thing is, we look a lot alike. So neither of us can pretend to be someone else because, well, we’re pretty unique.” My chest puffed out proudly at this and Owen raised an eyebrow.

“In what way, sir?” he asked cautiously. I grinned and beckoned him closer. Leaning forwards so that our faces were less than an inch apart, I looked him straight in the eye and grinned slowly. It took a few seconds but eventually Owen’s face went pale and he nearly toppled over the edge into the pit. I yanked him back and he scuttled backwards, pressing his back against the building.

“You… you…” he gasped, face white with shock but eyes wide in amazement, “your eyes…”

“Oh yes,” I replied, still smiling. I blinked once and my eyes returned to normal.

“They’re… they’re…” Owen stammered, raising a hand to point at me with a trembling finger. “They’re…”

“Red, I know.” I cut in before he could speak. “They do that whenever I get really angry. That’s why I have a bit of a name for myself. I’m a celebrity in the hitman world.” My grin grew wider, more manic, more demonic, and Owen squeaked in terror.

“No one ever escapes from Scarlet William,” I whispered. Then I laughed. Threw back my head and laughed, loud and long, eventually fading off into a mad cackle.

 

*

 

I could hear laughter when I eventually hit the floor.

The landing wasn’t perfect. Normally I’m a lot more graceful but I started too late and there was ice and fire aimed at me. So I landed as best I could.

Unfortunately, it was on my head.

“Oh!” I gasped, toppling over so that my legs were in the air and my backside was against a column of ice. I could see stars everywhere and it felt like someone was cutting my skull open. A peculiar feeling spread across my head, starting behind my eyes and eventually reaching around to the back of my head. It was like pins and needles, like static electricity but at the same time like being brushed by a feather. It made me shiver all over and made my skin tickle but as soon as it went I longed for it back again. Then I realised something.

My head was fixed.

It wasn’t just that my skull had been put back together. My vision (which isn’t very good for reading) was sharper than it had ever been, my one dud ear was able to hear everything and when I checked for a now-familiar scar behind my ear, it was gone.

I hated it.

Checking my reflection in the ice column opposite me (I sat up first, I didn’t just peer between my legs) I groaned softly. My hair was a very pale blonde and my eyes a sparkling blue. My jaw and cheekbones were more pronounced, my eyelashes were long and what few freckles I had were gone.

I was looking at a stranger and didn’t know who I was anymore.

Are you okay, Tex? a sly voice said in my head. I stiffened, my back and shoulders tensed. I recognised the voice but I didn’t know where from…

“You’re the voice on the phone, ain’t ya?” I said out loud. The voice laughed, a short bark that was nothing like I’d ever heard before. Then again, the laugh that I heard when I hit the ground wasn’t either.

Yes, I am, the voice replied, taking on a mocking tone. But you know me in real life. Have you ever escaped from Scarlet William, Jamie?

“How do you know about that?!” I was horrified. Dad had only ever told me that he was basically the Jack the Ripper of the USA - well, it was only me who survived to tell the tale. Normally, Dad went loopy after that. Started laughing like some guy on a lot of drugs and with mental issues.

What, like this? Laughter played in my head, the same laughter that I’d heard as I fell and smashed my skull open. With the sound came a picture.

Dad laughing, his eyes a blood red with a black pupil in the centre. Veins stood out in his forehead and blood dripped from his nose. His eyebrows were raised and he whispered something, so quiet I could barely hear it. And it was in my head.

“Will you survive, Owen? Or will you be the very last victim of Scarlet William?”