Noontide Sun (excerpt)

Excerpt

A plea for help was thwarted in the night, before it could fall upon sympathetic ears. Sarah heard it catch the misty air for just a moment—a fleeting, desperate wail that could only be human. The empty streets and unseasonably cold summer breeze had carried the sound right to her.

Rushing over glistening cobblestones, Sarah tugged the hood of her cloak up against the fine mist that fell from a foggy night sky. An uneasy feeling coiled in the pit of her stomach as she sought out the call. A wiser person might have ignored it, but the sharp, tumbling gravel of the voice that followed did nothing but propel Sarah forward.

"Enough," the voice snapped. Sarah knew that tone, the deadly sneer that she didn't have to see to know was present. "Leave him. I'll take it from here."

Sarah paused at the mouth of an alley and flattened herself against a building so she could peer around the corner. Deep in the alley, a door creaked as it opened and shut. The torchlight in the cavernous space painted Major Cartwright—the owner of the sneering growl—in hues of orange and gold. His unfortunate victim remained on his knees, swathed in shadow, his hands bound in front of him. Sarah could hear his shuddering, tearful breaths. Cartwright removed something from the victim's mouth and lobbed it aside, bringing the poor man's whimpering sounds to their full volume.

"On your feet," Cartwright ordered. When the man did not comply, he repeated the command between gritted teeth. "I said on your feet, soldier. You will stand before me at attention."

The soldier moved from shadow, illuminating a face that had been marked by fists and dripped blood that appeared black by flame. Sarah's hands braced against the stone exterior of the building, a new wave of fear creeping its way into her gut. The soldier was bent slightly, unable to stand proud and ramrod straight as so many others wearing red had done on their marches through the streets. Sarah watched him cower before his superior officer and felt a pang of sympathy that had, until now, been unfamiliar.

"Please," the soldier gasped, spitting blood onto the ground. "P-Please, I—"

"Begging will not grant you forgiveness. I am a reasonable man," Cartwright told him, "but I do not tolerate desertion. I thought I made that especially clear."

As soon as the soldier dropped to his knees again, Sarah turned away. She heard his half-coherent appeals for his own life at the major's feet. They stopped when another blow landed, forcing a few pained coughs out of the bedraggled soldier.

"Stand up," Cartwright said. Disgust laced his words. "You owe it to yourself to act with dignity in whatever time you have left."

When Sarah peeked at the scene again, the soldier stood upright. If she were braver, stronger, she might have had a mind to intervene. But her place was not to disrupt. She did not dare to go up against someone like Cartwright, who had the ability to silence her without much effort. She just didn't know if she could bear to watch any more of this.

"Do you understand what you could have done?" he asked, and in one quick motion, he grabbed the soldier's chin. "You could have ruined me. Ruined this entire operation, putting our advantages at stake."

"I swear—on my life—"

"Your life isn't worth much to me." Cartwright pulled him closer, shaking him. "I allowed you a certain responsibility and you...you committed the highest act of betrayal."

Sarah's brow furrowed trying to decode what the major was implying. Desertion was a crime in itself, but whatever this unfortunate soldier had done appeared to supersede that. The major's wrath happened to be notorious in this section of Philadelphia. This, however, felt far more sinister. There was something quiet and calculating about his statements, his actions.

Cartwright had the soldier in a tight grip, one hand wound around the lapel of his uniform coat. Sarah waited for the crack of a pistol, uncertain if the major would risk using something so noisy to do the job. When he showed no signs of drawing a weapon—Sarah didn't even see the glint of a knife blade in the flickering light—she found herself squinting to figure out why the soldier's body suddenly convulsed. He made frantic motions with his bound hands, straining against the rope to scratch at Cartwright's wrists. The major was unflinching, resolute as his fierce stare took in the soldier's choked gasps.

Sarah dared a few inches closer, keeping to the darkness of the alley. The abrupt change in the wind chilled Sarah to the bone. She clung to the side of the building when it swept her hood off, tossing stray chestnut strands of her hair from their delicate hold.

"P-Please," the soldier tried. "Please..." He forced out his words between gurgling wheezes as though his head had been pushed underwater.

"Stop," he continued. A mouthful of water splashed into the dirt at their feet. "Please, l-let go of me..."

Rivulets of water dribbled from his chin and rendered him speechless. It started as a slow trickle but once Cartwright seized a firmer hold of the soldier's face, it gushed from his mouth. His body writhed as he began to drown. Sarah watched, her eyes wide, while the water ran cloudy, then black. Black as blood in a torch's flame. The soldier sputtered in his attempt to take in air, but his efforts were of no use to him. Dark ribbons of blood dripped from his nose and ears. Sarah followed the droplets that left the corners of his mouth and hit the ground. The soldier's jerking movements ceased, replaced by an eerie stillness that froze her in a bitter cold.

Cartwright had drowned him.

And there hadn't been a source of water to be found.

Ducking around the corner out of the alley, Sarah pressed her back against the stone and tried to calm her own panicked heart. She allowed herself only a moment there, then pushed off the wall and headed down the vacant street before Cartwright discovered her eavesdropping.

She had no wishes to become his next victim tonight.

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