In the corner of a jail cell in a New York City prison, Francis Edmund Swift buttoned his coat. He was alone aside from fleas skittering in hay strewn across the floor. Above him, the moon shimmered through a little window. His breathing labored. His legs wobbled.
Moments ago a guard came by to graciously tell him that he’ll hang in the morning. The man told Francis that he was a murderer, a butcher, reviled and hated across the whole of New York. There would be no trial, no appeal — only justice for his wretched crimes. Yet as Francis stood in the dark, lit only by a single torch just beyond his cast iron door, he couldn’t help but fidget with the damned buttons of his British Army coat.
He hated this coat. It was nothing like the first he’d received in England. That coat had gold buttons and royal blue cuffs. That coat was light as a feather and wrapped around his waist like a hug. It had smelled like home, the home he’d gifted to his sister and two nieces long before traveling across the sea — before this war, before the rank of captain and certainly before his designation as The Butcher of Stone Street.
Francis had lost that perfect coat during a combat engagement in Saratoga. In fact, he’d not only lost his favorite coat that day but also his favorite horse, his right pinky finger and twenty-three men.
On that day, trotting through early morning fog on horseback, the then-Lieutenant Swift led his company through a field. Surrounded by thousands of other men dressed in red, they were all quiet and tired, so many having recently been transferred to the battalion just weeks prior from the entrenched southern colonies. No one wanted to be there, so to say the mood was rather dower would be an understatement.
Yet, just down the marching front line a child tooted battle jingles from a fife, perking Francis’s ears. As everyone huffed and coughed around him, he watched this little piper boy and wondered if it was this child’s first engagement, because though he’d never seen him before, he was honestly quite good.
You see, normally, all the kid musicians were shit. They hardly practiced. They’d drum or whistle total rubbish, which Francis considered to be a key factor in losing battles. Because how could soldiers trudge through muck and blood while a twelve year old bungled their way through, Jaybird Fireman’s Quickstep, or even worse, Tradesmen’s Song for his Majesty’s Birthday? It was impossible. Demoralizing, even. But this kid, whoever he was, really knew his shit. Each note was clean. He never wavered. There was a confidence to him like that of a young Mozart, or Bach before he was respected.
Because of this kid’s exquisite mastery of the fife, Francis remembered being in good spirits that morning, despite the sudden requisition of soldiers from a beleaguered front. He remembered turning to look behind him, wondering if his men were receiving the child’s little toots as pleasingly as he was, when suddenly a cannon ball whistled through the mist, adding its own harmony to the boy’s song.
The mortar crashed to the earth beside Francis and flung him from his horse. He soared through the air, ass over foot, and landed with a thud as more artillery rained around him throwing dirt, grass and bloody limbs all over.
Now, this was hardly the man’s first battle, not even his first war. And by all accounts Francis Edmund Swift was a bold man. He was brash. He was stern. Most would even argue fearless. Nothing phased him, he’d always said. Not even those creatures in the night he’d hunted for most of his life. Those terrible things which howled at the moon and stalked the realm between shadow and lamplight. Yet in Saratoga, lying there in the damp grass after being flung from his horse by some fantastical force of physics, Francis Edmund Swift finally lost his shit.
He peered out across the carnage and froze at the sight of his favorite horse scattered around him in little bits. Its head was severed. Its ribcage, exploded. His hands shook as he reached for a severed hoof and clutched it. He brought it close to his chest and held it so tight his knuckles went white. It was then that the screams, booms and musket fire drowned away and he found himself in his own, little, comfortable void.
For quite a while, all day in fact, he lay there in the grass with the horse hoof in his hands. He didn’t make a peep as twenty-three of his men were cut to cloth. He didn’t budge as his battalion marched on without him. He’d hardly even noticed the delicate precision of the maestro boy’s fife hush in the heavy smoke, forever silencing.
It was sunset when he finally stood and let go of his beloved horse. The field was quiet, the mist receded. Purple and gold spread across the horizon. And a sense of calm washed over Francis, a feeling not unlike waking from a long, necessary sleep.
As he yawned, he felt a sharp pinch on his hand and found his pinky was gone. He felt around his body and realized his favorite coat had been ripped apart like parchment, though nothing otherwise had graced his flesh. Dead soldiers, craters and splintered muskets lay around him. He was alone.
But unlike the rest of his regimen, Lieutenant Swift avoided capture that day. Had he known it could have been so easy to leave this miserable land, to surrender mear yards away and be thrown onto a boat back to England by the grace of the colonies, he would have ran up to the Yanks with open arms and pledged his allegiance. He was tired of this war, tired of this terrible ritual of fighting for nothing other than settling royal squabbles and petty taxes. He’d been here for too long. He’d seen enough and wanted nothing more of it. But, instead of surrendering, he snuck back to friendly lines and received three rewards upon his return.
The first reward he received was the rank of Captain. Since most of the other captains in his regiment had been killed or captured, his promotion was strictly pragmatic as there was no one left to fill the ranks (and his superiors made a point of this every night there was drink and song).
The second reward he received was a new horse named Dessie. Dessie was a tanned Arabian with a knotted tail and pearly teeth. She was strong-willed, disobedient and would nearly get the captain killed several times throughout the coming years.
The third reward Francis received was a new officer’s coat that felt like a curtain in both weight and texture. The sleeves were too long. The tail, too low. It shortened his stride and slouched his shoulders. He found it to be a symbol of everything wrong in his life. An ill omen for all the dark days ahead.
Now, in this prison cell amidst fleas and hay, Francis finally finished buttoning that stupid coat. His fingers danced over his old face — a face which had drooped considerably since his arrival to the colonies decades ago. He felt wrinkles encircling his bloodshot eyes, fleshy flaps which hung beneath his jaw line and thinning hair. He sighed.
This new world had changed him — each werewolf he’d beheaded, each vampire he’d staked and especially each battle he’d fought across two miserable wars had worn him into a shell of his former self. If he ever returned to England, a prospect he doubted now that he was scheduled to hang at sunrise, he couldn’t imagine returning to any semblance of the quiet life he’d left.
Maybe he deserved this, he thought, this whole dying thing. Maybe he should hang. It wasn’t his fault, what happened. But that didn’t matter, at least in the eyes of those who cared. Maybe it was fate, or God, or whatever devil reigned below which finally brought this on him. Lord knows he deserved it. He was old enough, lived enough. It made sense for everything to come crashing down like this. Maybe this was just him getting flung from the horse all over. But this time his luck ran out.
Yet, as he stood there, quiet and trembling in slender moonlight, he heard the soft whistle of a fife from down the hall. His ears perked. His shoulders relaxed. The music was distant at first, echoing across stone walls like a whisper.
But as the music grew louder, he peered down the dark corridor and noticed a boy round a corner, playing a British battle hymn in perfect pitch and tone. It was a long hallway, so he watched the boy skip and jump with glee, his hands pressed to the little pipe which hovered perfectly above pursed lips. But as he approached Francis like a shadow, the seasoned captain entered into a scowl.
“Stop where you are,” the old captain called out. “Approach no further, Fae.”
The boy stopped in the darkness, lit only by the brief flickering of torchlight. He seemed to sigh, then groan, then as he put his little flute away he transformed into a plump man, no taller than four feet and dressed in a buttoned down vest, crisp trousers, and a top hat. The odd fellow smirked, ruffling a large mustache under a bulbous nose.
“How’d you guess?” the man said in a thick accent.
“That boy you imitated died long ago,” Francis replied. “And I don’t take kindly to Lepre peering into my thoughts.”
The little man chuckled, then bowed, removing his top hat with an elegant dip before placing it back on his head.
“The name’s Finnigen O’Malley,” the man said. “And judging by your current strappings, I presume you are The Butcher of Stone Street?”
“So I’ve been called,” Francis said. “How’d you get past the guards?”
“Oh, I have my tricks,” the Lepre replied. “Might I ask how you ended up in this cell?”
“It’s a long story,” Francis said, at which the man chuckled.
“Well then keep your secrets,” he said.
They stood in silence for a moment, the dancing torch flame between them being the only thing to rustle.
Finally the Fae broke the quiet. “I have a proposition for ye, Ol’ Butcher.”
“I’m not interested,” Francis replied with a growl. “I’ll keep my fate and hang tomorrow.”
“Oh, but you’ll like this one,” the man replied. “I’ve come to grant ye a chance for escape.”
“I said I want nothin’—”
But suddenly, the man disappeared. Hay rustled behind Francis and he whipped around to find the Fae leaning against a wall, smiling.
“Just hear me out you,” the man said. He pulled a pipe from his vest pocket and lit it with a snap of his fingers. Smoke billowed from his mouth, wasping through the damp, dungeon air.
“I work for the crown,” the Fae continued. “The king seeks a task of ye. And only ye.”
“I’ve told the king I’m done with killing,” Francis said.
“There ain’t be need of that,” the Fae reassured him. “He only needs a book this time. A vessel that’ll proper turn the tide of this wretched war. Said he’ll pay ye handsomely.” He pulled a long scroll from inside his vest and handed it to Francis. “Glance it over. It’s proper signed and inked”
The old captain unfurled the parchment. It was a royal contract which stated that Captain Francis Edmund Swift, former agent of the crown and champion against the dark, was to accept one final operation: retrieve an ancient tome from Samuel Burtwhistle in Cherrytown.
“Tis’ a relic your former associate possesses,” the Fae said between pipe puffs. “Idiot of a man, I’m told, but very lethal and very feared.”
Francis hadn’t thought of Samuel in ten years. He figured he’d been long dead by now, succumbing to his own stupidity. He handed the Lepre the scroll, but the Fae shook his head.
“Keep it,” he man said. “If ye bring me the book, his grace’ll grant ye free return to England, full pardons of your crimes and coin beyond measure.” He slid a large pouch of clinking coins from his belt and tossed it at Francis’s feet where it sank into hay. The old captain picked it up and brushed off fleas. He hadn’t held this much money in years.
“Why does the crown want this book so bad?” he said. “What’s so special about it?”
“You’ll know once you find it,” the Lepre replied. “There’s a ship leaving tonight from Bowery Harbor.” The cast iron door behind Francis suddenly clicked, then yawned open. “The guards here won’t give you bother, so long as you don’t look em’ in the eye. Board the vessel bound for Boston. Another Fae’ll find ye when ye arrive.” Then he paused for a moment, eyeing the old man. “And don’t try anything funny in the meantime… we’ll be watching.”
The little man disappeared, leaving Francis alone in the flickering torchlight.
He sighed and stepped through the open jail cell door, slipping the fresh coin purse into his stupid coat. His footsteps echoed through dungeon corridors as he rounded dark corners and ascended cobbled stairs.
A guard, young and attentive, stood at the mouth of an entryway which lead to the prison courtyard. Francis took a cautious step into the soldier’s field of view, but the guard didn’t budge. He simply yawned, adjusted the straps of a satchel across his shoulders, then sighed. Remembering not to look the man in the eye, Francis quickly strolled by him into the prison entry yard.
The courtyard was littered with redcoats, yet none glanced in Francis’s direction. A breeze fluttered through his balding hair. It whistled like a fife, gently singing toward the freedom of an open prison gate which lead to the city beyond.
Yet Francis didn’t move. He simply stood in the middle of the courtyard, suddenly frozen.
He considered returning to his cell and accepting his fate. If he left, he’d just delay his hanging, he figured. And for what? A book? But then a vision of young Samuel Burtwhistle flashed through his mind. He saw him as a boy, scared and exhausted beside the corpse of his father. Then he remembered that last exchange he’d had with the man all grown up. He was a wreckless fool, brash and self-involved. In the waning years since their final squabble, Francis wondered how many had died from that idiot’s selfish acts.
He sighed. If he were to still hang, so be it, but he had a chance now to make at least some things right. To stop someone he’d trained into a monster. He’d lived with the guilt of it all for far too long. He could at least die now with a sense of pride, knowing he’d righted his greatest regret.
So, Captain Francis Edmund Swift, garbed in his stupid curtain coat and flush with coin, stepped forward and crunched across gravel and sand. He exited the prison courtyard into the city, turning down a darkened street toward Bowery Harbor, in search of a vessel bound for Boston.