THE SWORD - 1934

Charlie Stoddard was cold. He watched the speakeasy from the alley’s shadows, the collar of his trench coat pulled up against the wind. The rain had stopped, but a chill damp permeated everything in the alley, Charlie included.

A black sedan pulled up in front of the speakeasy. O’Flaherty’s car. All thoughts of discomfort vanished. It was almost time.

The speakeasy doors burst open. Light, jazz music and James Donal O’Flaherty spilled onto the street. The Irishman had his arms around two giggling women, floozies wearing almost enough clothing between them for a respectable lady. The party inside the bar was in full swing, but from his drunken stagger, it was clear O’Flaherty was done celebrating his latest courtroom victory.

The legal system had failed to stop O’Flaherty, but there was still justice to be found in Chicago. Justice of a sort, anyway: the justice of Gabriel’s Sword.

This was how Charlie thought of the weapon in his coat pocket. Its cold metal held the divine fire of retribution, and his was the hand chosen to wield it. Six men, six criminals had felt the Sword’s fiery blade and died for their sins.

There were hundreds who’d be happy to collect the bounty the Windy City mobs had put on Charlie’s head, if they only knew who he was.

Just a handful of men knew his secret, a precious few who were satisfied to allow his crusade to go forward.

Charlie pointed the Sword at the trio across the street, saw them glow dully in the weapon’s site.

O’Flaherty’s drinking had left him almost insensate, but through the haze he still felt the Sword’s fiery blade. A confused frown crossed his face. His dazed eyes followed the trail of smoke curling up from his chest, not quite connecting it to its source. The front of O’Flaherty’s shirt burst into a flame Charlie knew lanced deep into his chest. The killer’s scream ended almost before it began. He crumpled lifelessly to the pavement.

As Charlie raced down the alley, the shrieks of O’Flaherty’s companions echoed behind him. He was deaf to their cries. The only sound in his world was his heart, pounding in his ears as it always did after he’d meted out a measure of true justice.

Charlie didn’t notice the woman lurking in the shadows of the alley until she grabbed him. Turning his own momentum against him, she threw him to the ground.

His face slapped into a dark puddle. The Sword clattered away, out of reach. The woman gasped. She leapt, reaching for the weapon. Charlie rolled to his feet. Launching himself into the air, he caught her in a tackle that sent them both sprawling into a row of rusted garbage cans. A swarm of rats scurried for new cover.

For a minute or more the pair struggled in the darkened alley. The woman moved with a fluid grace, her red hair a blur in the moonlight. More than once he thought her immobilized, only to have her somehow slip free.

Once again she rolled out from under him, diving for the Sword. Charlie reached into his coat. He didn’t want the attention a gunshot would bring, but he couldn’t lose the Sword.

He cocked the gun. “Don’t move!” he hissed. For a split second the woman hesitated.

Then she dropped to the ground, grabbed the Sword, and whirled around to point it at him.

She stood slowly, the end of the Sword never wavering. At the alley’s far end, the jazz had stopped, replaced by the chorus of confusion that accompanied sudden death. If he was lucky, he and the woman might escape notice. Might.

Charlie took a step toward her. The end of his gun and the Sword’s were just inches apart. “Drop it.” He kept his voice low and even.

The woman’s face was shrouded in darkness, but he could feel her cold stare boring into him. “I have what I want,” she said. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Water trickled down Charlie’s nose. Slowly, he lowered his weapon.

“Don’t move!”

Light poured into the alley, flooding every nook and cranny, throwing the scene into sharp relief. The silhouettes of three policemen, guns drawn, cast long shadows from the squad car’s headlights.

“Drop the guns or I will shoot you!” one shouted.

Charlie dropped his gun. He looked at his adversary. “Don’t make them hurt you,” he said.

“Drop it!” yelled the cop. The woman’s lips peeled back from gritted teeth. Grimacing as though it pained her to do so, she let the Sword fall to the ground.

Two cops grabbed her, pushing her against an alley wall. The other knelt and picked up the Sword. He looked at the oddly shaped gun, then at Charlie.

“Stoddard, isn’t it?” he said.

Charlie squinted at the man. “Smithson, right? You were partnered with John Cooper a stretch?”

The cop nodded. He hesitated a moment, then, eyes darting from side to side, he pushed the Sword into Charlie’s hands. Charlie stared at it in surprise.

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Smithson said. “For Johnny.”

Charlie nodded once. Then he moved swiftly out of the alleyway, back into the shadows.

THE PRESENT

Shepherd stopped at a wine-colored door covered in elaborate woodwork. “The assassin killed at least twenty mobsters of which I’m certain, and there were another eleven in which I suspect he had a hand.

“The murders ended a couple years later, after which the item’s use became more…selective.”

Dawn frowned. “What do you mean?”

Published by Platinum Studios Comics. © 2006 Platinum Studios, Inc.