James Axler – Bitter Fruit

The pirate captain was dressed as a dandy, the suit he wore evidently the work of an accomplished seamstress. He carried a thick briarwood cane. His face, even in the gentling of the shadows, was a harsh canvas depicting decades of hard living. A livid purple scar nearly bisected his left cheek, looking like a fat worm laid just under the flesh.

“Long Johnson!” Doc bellowed through his cupped hands.

The pirate snapped his head around, tracking the voice. His eyes narrowed in the gloom. Around him the half-dozen men and women wearing sailors’ loose clothing produced weapons and took up defensive positions.

“Do I know you?” Long Johnson asked.

Doc pushed himself up out of his seat and strode across the room. He knew Jak would be behind him. “No,” the old man answered, “but I’d like a word with you if I could.”

“About what?”

“You’re a collector of books?” A few feet farther on, Doc had no choice but to pull up, unable to ignore the menace of the pistols in the hands of Long Johnson’s lackeys.

“Yes. You think you have something that might interest me?”

Doc shook his head. “Captain, I believe the interest may well be going the other way.”

Long Johnson remained within the protective enclosure of his people. A sawed-off double-barreled shotgun was in one huge fist. “Do I know you?”

“No, sir, you do not. My name is Theophilus Algernon Tanner. I come to you”

“Tanner!” Long Johnson’s voice was rolling thunder inside the room. “I know you, you spawn of the devil!”

Doc didn’t back off. “Then you have the advantage of me, sir, for I know you not at all.”

With a mighty sweep of one oak-sized arm, the pirate captain moved the man and woman in front of him. “But I know much about you. Operation Chronos ripped you from your time, from your family.”

Doc stared at the man, trying to see any indications of why the man would know what he did.

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I am not.”

“Never,” Long Johnson declared with passion, “had I thought I would have this opportunity.”

Jak stepped in front of Doc protectively.

“What opportunity?” Doc asked.

“For revenge.”

“For what?” Doc asked. “I do not even know you.”

“Not me,” the pirate captain said. “But someone else. Did you really think that after the taskmasters at Operation Chronos had their success with you that they would quit?”

Doc looked at the man. “Are you suggesting that you were plucked from your own time, as well?”

Long Johnson laughed insanely. “You don’t even know. Or are you lying?”

“No,” Doc said in a steady voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” Long Johnson stated. “Everyone else is already dead. But you were the catalyst for her pain and suffering. You shall pay!” He brought up the double-barreled shotgun.

Doc couldn’t believe what was transpiring. He stood in frozen shock. Then Jak whirled, grabbing the lapels of the old man’s frock coat and pulling them over a line of seats.

The double-aught blast cut through the air where they’d been standing. Men and women behind them went down, screaming in pain and fear.

Two of the pirate captain’s bodyguards started forward, pistols at the ready.

Jak moved as fast as heated quicksilver. His right hand flashed forward twice.

Doc watched the two bodyguards go reeling back. One of the albino’s blades had sunk deeply into the woman’s left eye, while the other had buried itself in the hollow of the man’s throat.

The theater crowd was up in open rebellion, weapons appearing as if by magic. Bedlam ensued. Unsure as to where the shotgun blast had originated, dazed by drugs and alcohol, the theatergoers fell on one another in a fierce bloodletting.

“Come on, Doc,” Jak said. “Not good place to be.”

“No,” Doc said fiercely. “I must find out what he means.”

“You and yours, Tanner,” Long Johnson said over the din. “I’ll have my vengeance and hers on you and yours.”

“Wait,” Doc cried.

The pirate captain brought up the sawed-off shotgun again and ripped off another blast that blew the top from the seat to one side of the old man. He broke open the shotgun, and ejected the spent casings, then thumbed fresh shells into the chambers. “Your family, Tanner! I’ll find them wherever they are, and when I do, they’re going to die!”