LONDON
PRESENT DAY
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
Rémy rolled his neck muscles, double-checking his surroundings.
Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi.
A man in a navy pea coat, his collar turned up against the chill, stepped into Old Worm’s Curiosities and Ancient Alchemies. Nodding at the shop clerks, he jogged up the wooden staircase to the balcony two steps at a time. Rémy took his mother’s notebook from his inside pocket and flipped to a page he’d marked with an elastic band. He glanced at the series of scrawled drawings and ragged photographs she had torn from an auction catalogue just a few months ago.
Five Mississippi. Six Mississippi.
The cabinet matched the drawings and photographs. Relief flooded Rémy. He was in the right place.
Seven Mississippi. Eight Mississippi.
For the first time in his seventeen years, Rémy Dupree Rush was OK with validating a racist stereotype. He pulled his hoodie over his buzzed hair, making sure it covered the mark on his neck, then stared as menacingly as he could at an elderly lady browsing a stack of musty books in a nearby aisle. Clutching her handbag to her chest, she scampered away, muttering under her breath.
Nine Mississippi. Ten Mississippi.
In a blur of movement, Rémy dropped to the floor and popped open his guitar case. He grabbed something inside and stood up.
‘He’s got a gun,’ someone screamed.
Fear. The most powerful weapon of all.