After a couple of hours it became obvious to Emily that she wasn’t going to luck out with any relevant information. All she could glean from the people that she interviewed was that Sir William was known to all but not actually known by anyone. He was highly respected and considered to be the best at what he did.
She kept walking towards central London but, soon after speaking to the tenth shop owner, she gave up on her information gathering and assumed the role of a young tourist in London for her first time. She marveled at the ancient buildings, the narrow alleyways, the black cabs and the red double-decker buses.
Pubs with names like “The Slug and Lettuce” or “the Walrus and the Carpenter” or Emily’s favorite – “The Dirty Dick”.
Bobbies on the beat with their tall custodian helmets. World renowned department stores like Harrods and Liberty and Hamley’s. She also stopped outside almost every designer clothing store and lusted after the dresses and accessories inside. Clothes designed purely for beauty, with not an iota of care paid to their practicality. Proper girl clothes.
And before she knew it, the sun had set and she was lost. A light drizzle filled the air with moisture, refracting the neon lights into a million tiny rainbows and beading on her hair and clothes in little crystal spheres. The streets around her were a lot less salubrious than the ones that she had been walking along earlier and there were a lot less people around.
She walked to the end of the alley to discover that it was a dead end so she took out her phone and brought up her Satnav. It showed that she was in the center of an area called SOHO. The London Town guide called it “The Sleazy Heart of London’s Theater land”. But she wasn’t exactly nervous. After all, she justified to herself, this wasn’t downtown Laos or Sarajevo. It was the center of one of the capital cities of the first world.
But every city has an underbelly. And therein live the bottom feeders. Petty thieves, bums, hookers and con artists. Or simply forgotten men looking for trouble, keen to stamp their faded authority on whoever they could, in an effort to bolster their own low self esteem.
In essence – assholes.
And now there were five of them blocking the exit to the narrow alley.
‘Lost are we, girly?’ Asked one of the men, his round face shiny with rain and his shaved head aglow from the neon lights.
‘No thanks,’ answered Emily. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Oh, American are we?’ Asked the man. ‘Good. I like American girls.’
There was a chorus of appreciative laughter amongst the other men. A pack of hyenas. Followers.
They walked closer, spreading out as they came in order to block all possibility of escape.
Emily’s enhanced senses could pick up their smell. A rank combination of stale beer and unwashed body odor. Her heart rate sped up, thumping frantically in her chest. Then she remembered that she was no ordinary girl. Not anymore. And if anyone in the alley should be nervous it certainly wasn’t her.
She felt her anger well inside her and she started to walk towards the approaching thugs.
‘Steady, girly,’ quipped the leader. ‘Bit keen aren’t we?’
More moronic laughter echoed around the alley.
Emily took a few more steps until she was a mere two feet from the chief scumbag. ‘So you wanna play?’ She asked. The man looked a bit puzzled. And for the first time his arrogance slipped a little as Emily’s supreme level of confidence washed over him.
Emily winked at him. ‘Might as well,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m in London to do the sights and kick some ass. And I’ve already done the sights for today.’
Her right hand whipped out in an open hand palm strike to the man’s temple. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the ground. A puppet with its strings cut.
The laughter amongst his men died down as their limited cerebral capacity attempted to catch up with the rapidly changing flow of events.
Emily stood still and let her eyes run over the motley crew. ‘Well then, boys,’ she said. ‘Who’s next?’
Two men attacked at once. But to Emily it was as though they were moving in slow motion. Their movements sluggish and clumsy. Toddlers playing at being adults.
She didn’t even bother to get technical with them and simply slapped them both on the side of their heads with her open hands.
Left. Right. Both of them flew backwards, hit the ground and lay still.
Whether they were unconscious or not did not enter into the equation. They had obviously both decided that, for them, the fight was most definitely over.
Then the next man made a mistake. His hand dipped into his jacket pocket and came out holding a stiletto. The six inch blade flashed silver in the overhead lights as he waved it from side to side in an effort to intimidate.
Emily shook her head. ‘Put it away. Trust me,’ she urged. ‘You don’t want to go there. Put it down and walk away. Fun’s over.’
He jumped forward, leading with the blade, striving to cut. To wound.
Emily moved to the side, letting his knife arm slip past and then she swiveled, flicked her leg up and brought it crashing down on the man’s right shoulder. She heard the collar bone splinter as her kick landed and she readied herself for another strike. But it wasn’t necessary as he collapsed in a heap, the knife slipping from his nerveless fingers and skittering away into the gutter.
The final assailant put both his hands up, turned and ran. Leaving his wounded and broken companions to fare for themselves.
Emily spent a minute putting all of the unconscious men into the recovery position, ensuring that they were breathing freely and there was no possibility of their airways becoming obstructed.
Then she left the alley and hailed a cab to take her back to the apartment.
Chapter 12