George delivered justice with a bottle of burning gasoline.
The home-made grenade traced an arc of fire through the night air, as neat as a line drawn by a compass. John George Boatman, son of the Miller, reached for the next one.
Henry-Stephen Teamster slapped the next sloshing bottle into George's hand. "I say we should kill him for what he did. We know Lizzy. Know her family."
George agreed, but said, "Father Barnabas said no deaths." He unfolded his induction lighter and applied its burning tip to the rags spilling out of the neck of the bottle. Fire bloomed. "Besides, a man like this one keeps his soul in his wallet."
A man like this. Mr. Kiyahk. A pagan, an Ilinwa, owner of enough wealth to employ a housekeeper, even if she was only a Christian. Enough to buy off the police after his abuse of her.
Smoke twisted in the electrical currents above Mr. Kiyahk's house. Red flames swelled sullenly in its depths.
Back in the care of her family, Lizzy Maid was now Lizzy Wanton. Another innocent soul was lost, another good woman's life destroyed at the hands of the Ilinwa. George had sold to Mr. Kiyahk. No more.
No noise from the house other than crackling. Knuckles white on the neck of the bottle, George told himself he was glad, and that he didn't want to kill the rapist.
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If not for Father Barnabas and his fear, George could offer more immediate and appropriate revenge. With a sledgehammer, perhaps. He clenched his teeth, imagining the blow, the rebound, the crack of bone. Heat gusted against his face.
"Losing his house will not begin to make up for what he did." George sighted on one of the skylights on the geodesic roof. "Stand back."
The swing, the arc, the sound of breaking glass and rushing air.
Sirens.
"Damn," hissed Henry-Stephen as George squinted down Michigami Avenue. Only three bottles remained, but even now Ilinwa police drones would be sweeping in on their cushions of air and lightning.
"Let's go." George snapped his induction lighter closed and waved away the next bottle. "Pack it up. No evidence."
Henry-Stephen hoisted the sack onto his shoulder, one hand still clutching a bottle-grenade.
George hopped onto his two-man bike, and yanked hard on the chord. The machine's little gas motor coughed, roared, settled. Flywheels spun, the air crackled, and they rose off the ground.
The last bottle smashed against the pagan's house and the bike rocked under Henry-Stephen's weight. "That felt damned good, George!"
"Don't swear." The pavement blurred away below them. George leaned into a turn and they shot through an alley.
"'Don't swear,' he says! Good old George." Henry-Stephen clapped a hand to George's shoulder and yelled over the wind, motor, and sirens. "What would they say at the seminary if they could see you now, huh?"
"They would weep."
George twisted the handles and carried them home.