"Douglas," Billy began, then caught himself. "I can't just—there's folk watching. Cameras. I—"
Braveheart turned his head, patient as a priest delivering absolution.
"Point your weapons at him," he said.
They obeyed as one. Nine muzzles rose, black mouths yawning through the bars like the throats of beasts.
Billy stumbled back, hands rising on instinct.
"Whoa—whoa—Jesus Christ!"
"You either hand over those keys," Braveheart said, voice level as scripture, "or they'll turn you into Swiss cheese and make you a headline."
Billy felt it then—that cold, animal certainty of real metal and real intent.
He hadn't served in the army, but he knew the sound a world made when it was about to break.
The nine stood there, motionless, faceless, the rain drumming on their armour like the ticking of a countdown.
This was not how Billy had imagined things.
He had planned for banter, for bluster.
He had not planned for zealotry with magazines.
He froze. The clipboard slid from his arm and puddled at his feet. The cigarette died in the wet.
The square held its breath.
Braveheart looked at him now, eyes dark under the hood.
"Do it, Billy. I'm not playing."
Billy's breath came short. He nodded, fumbled in his pocket, and held up the keys with shaking hands.
"Okay! Okay! Christ Almighty—just take it! But listen, it's after Christmas, right? There's only a few million in there now. If you'd come before the holidays—tens of millions, maybe more. I don't know the exact numbers—they don't tell me that stuff—"
Braveheart caught the keys one-handed, listening without listening.
To him, one million or ten made no difference; faith needed only proof.
He slid the key into the gate and turned it.
The lock clicked open.
The iron swung wide with a groan of history.
"Don't worry about the money, Billy," Braveheart said softly. "We can always get more. This is just a test run."
He faced the crusaders. "You know your work. Find the money—like the ten-pound note I showed you. I'll wait with the van."
Then he turned to Billy. "Oh—and knock out Billy. Makes it look clean. Innocent man, wrong place, all that."
With that he was already walking away, boots splashing through puddles, coat clinging to his shoulders as he disappeared back toward the alley.
Billy blinked rain from his eyes. "Wait—what did you just say?"
He barely had time to see Sir Egg step through the open gate—massive, silent, and unhurried.
Billy's mouth opened, but the rifle-butt found him first.
The blow landed square on his face.
There was a crack, a burst of red and white; his knees buckled, and he folded into the rain.
The sound echoed dull and final off the bank's façade.
Across the street, the bus stop erupted in gasps.
A woman screamed.
The rain drowned most of it, but not all—an old camcorder caught the moment in shaky pixels: the flash of steel, the spray of blood.
Someone shouted to call the police.
Drivers slowed, eyes wide behind windshields.
A father forgot to cover his son's eyes; the boy just whispered, "Wow—cool."
Sir Egg wiped the rain from his visor and gestured to two of the female crusaders—the red-haired sisters.
"Hold the gate," he growled.
They planted themselves by the entrance, rifles ready, saints carved in armour.
Sir Egg turned to the rest.
The red crosses on their tabards burned against the white as they crossed the courtyard, passing the statue of John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun—ancestor of Anna, unknowing saint of this madness.
The rain thickened into sheets.
Sir Egg roared and broke into a run.
He hit the bank's grand doors full force.
The beautiful oak exploded inward.
Timber burst; brass fittings skittered across marble like fleeing coins.
Inside, screams ricocheted up the stairwells.
Even on the second floor, the sound made the cleaners flinch and clutch their buckets.
In the security room, Stewart, the night-eyed watcher of a hundred flickering screens, froze.
For a heartbeat he simply stared, mouth open, as seven armed figures poured through the threshold, armour clicking, white tabards luminous under the fluorescent light.
Reflex took over.
Stewart's hand shot to the receiver; his voice cracked as he tried to steady himself enough to call and speak to the police. The rain outside and the static in his own head drowned half the words.
Down below, the marble hall stood in a hush that belonged to cathedrals and crime scenes.
Sir Egg planted himself in the centre of it, armour gleaming wet, three crusaders on each side like twin wings. Their rifles caught the light from the hanging lamps and glared back like extra eyes.
On the second-floor balcony, Irene the cleaner leaned over the rail, mop still in hand, and was joined by Guthrie, Elaine, and June—faces pale, mouths open but voiceless.
Below, on the floor of the hall, stood Agnes, Mags Leitch, Derrick Singh, and MacLeod, staring at the intruders who looked like a painting come to life and armed with machine-guns. In the side corridor Morag peered round the doorframe, clutching her trolley like a shield.
Then Sir Egg produced a ten-pound note between his gloved fingers and lifted it high as if it were scripture. Around him, the muzzles rose; rainwater dripped from the barrels like holy oil. His voice thundered out in a thick, half-forgotten tongue:
"Whar is the siller! By God's name — whar's the siller our Lord hath set us tae claim?
Yield it now — or feel His haly wrath!"
The sound of it—half Scots, half Latin, all rage—rolled through the marble like thunder in a crypt. None of them understood a single word.
Then Mags Leitch, assistant manager, feminist crusader of an entirely different faith, stepped forward in her sensible shoes and anger.
Suit and tie, hair cropped short, small silver ring at her nostril, eyes already narrowed for argument. Hands half-raised but voice sharp enough to cut glass.
"Hey, asshole! Stop yelling and calm yourself!" she barked. "I don't know what sort of game this is, but this is a bank, not a bloody film set! You don't barge in here waving your guns and scaring women like it's 1200 AD! Who the hell do you think you are? Crusaders? Cos-players? Pigs? You've got ten seconds to get out before I call the police, and that's your one and only warning!"
From the balcony Guthrie muttered, "Oh, Christ, no."
He'd seen guns before—real ones—and these were real. He turned on his heel, heading for the security room's safe and the single, dusty revolver that lived there: a relic, but better than prayer. His boots slapped the marble like punctuation marks of doom. No one upstairs tried to stop him; fear had rooted them in place.
On the floor, Sir Egg stared at the small, furious creature before him—short-haired, painted eyes, metal in her face, clothes that blurred the line between man and woman.
His medieval mind recoiled; the sight scraped against everything he believed about order and creation.
He saw not a woman but a banshee, a blasphemy in a tailored suit.
He drew back a step, as if she stank of brimstone.
Her mouth opened again—more defiance—but his disgust moved faster than reason.
With a growl he swung the armoured back of his gauntlet across her face.
Steel met flesh with a crack that split the room.
The ten-pound note fluttered from Sir Egg's hand as Mags Leitch dropped to the marble like a stone.
The sound of her body striking echoed through the bank — a single, dull thud swallowed by rain and thunder.
Silence followed — thick, absolute — broken only by the hiss of rain through the shattered doorway.
Up top, people gasped.
In the first-floor corridor, Morag's mop slipped from her fingers and clattered against the floor.
MacLeod lifted both hands, instinctively surrendering.
Behind the counter, Agnes — fingers gone cold — slid a trembling hand under the desk and pressed the panic button.
The alarm tore through the air like metal in a blender.
Red lights bled across the walls; hidden speakers spat a mechanical wail that made glass tremble.
The Crusaders, born to the thirteenth century, had no word for alarms.
To them it was sorcery, a curse given sound.
They flinched — armoured shoulders hunching, muzzles swinging — eyes darting like trapped animals.
The noise stabbed their ears and fed their paranoia until one word filled their throats: witchcraft.
Their mouths found prayers.
Their fingers found triggers.
Targets appeared instantly — anything that moved, anything not one of them.
Agnes and MacLeod behind the counter were first in their sights.
The seven rifles erupted.
Full-auto thunder tore the hall into splinters and noise.
Shell casings clattered like rain against stone.
Agnes didn't even scream. Her knees were too old to duck; she was still half-standing when the first rounds struck. The marble wall behind her painted itself red before she hit the ground in pieces.
MacLeod ducked late, a bullet taking his shoulder and another shaving his ear clean off.
He collapsed behind the counter, crawling through a storm of glass and wood, clutching his bleeding arm.
Derrick Singh dove behind the teller's desk.
The wood exploded into sawdust under the fire; splinters and bullets punched through his chest and thigh.
He gasped, hands slick with his own blood, whispering prayers in a language the crusaders would have recognised as another kind of heresy.
The mug beside him — BEST DAD in bright letters — shattered to powder.
The marble floor became a slaughterhouse.
The Christmas tree toppled, lights bursting like tracer rounds.
Paper and ash swirled in the air like wounded birds.
Upstairs, the women screamed.
Irene, the oldest and calmest, grabbed the twins Elaine and June by their wrists and dragged them towards the security room, her voice cracked but commanding:
"Move, girls! MOVE!"
In the hall below, the seven crusaders shouted and laughed in the same breath.
They had never known this power — thunder in their hands, death without consequence.
The smell of gunpowder and burning polish filled their lungs.
They swept their muzzles across desks and glass partitions with drunken joy, forgetting their orders, baptising the marble in noise.
Shells rolled.
Rifles smoked.
The bank screamed.
At last Sir Egg raised a gauntleted hand.
"Halt!" he roared.
The word cracked louder than the guns.
Silence followed—a long, trembling pause held together only by the shriek of the alarm and the hiss of rain.
The crusaders stood panting in the fumes of their own gunfire, armour steaming, eyes fever-bright behind their visors. None of them had ever fired a weapon before. Now they were gods.
Up top, Guthrie had the old revolver in his grip.
He'd shoved the women into the security room, locked it behind them, and run to the second-floor railing.
He peered over.
The hall below was a butcher's floor.
MacLeod crawled, one arm useless, painting a dark trail behind him.
Derrick twitched near the counter, breath bubbling red.
Mags lay still, face down.
And Agnes—what was left of her—was scattered across the tiles, one arm gone, her skull a burst melon of bone and hair.
Guthrie nearly vomited, but fear welded his stomach shut.
The nine stood in a rough line, their weapons still smoking.
The drum magazines hung heavy and obscene; the armour on their bodies looked wrong, impossibly thick, seamless—no joints, no straps, nothing he could understand. The light slid off it like water on oil.
He raised the revolver with both hands.
Sweat slicked the grip.
If he didn't act now, everyone else in the building was finished.
He found the biggest one—the giant with the black cross slit on his helm—
and cocked the hammer.
For a heartbeat the world narrowed to breath and crosshair.
He exhaled, squeezed—
—and in that same fraction of time the giant moved.
The helmet turned, eyes locking on him through the smoke.
He fired.
The shot cracked through the hall.
The bullet struck the helm dead-centre and ricocheted, whining away into the marble ceiling.
The impact threw the crusader backward, down to one knee, but not through.
Guthrie froze, disbelief swallowing the noise in his ears.
He had fired point-blank from above—barely ten metres.
No helmet on earth, not in 1989, not anywhere, should have survived that.
He whispered, "Impossible…"
Down below, Sir Egg shook his head once, like a man brushing off an insect, then looked up again. The dent on his browplate glimmered faintly red from the heat of the bullet.
He lifted a finger.
Six of the other crusaders turned as one, rifles rising in perfect, monstrous unity.
Guthrie managed half a curse.
Then twelve rounds struck him.
Glass burst, plaster bloomed red, and his revolver spun out of his hand, tumbling end over end through the air until it clattered onto the marble beside Mags Leitch's body.
Guthrie pitched backward over the railing and vanished from sight.
The heavy thump of his fall was swallowed by the alarm.
For a moment the hall was lit only by the flashing red of the emergency lights, pulsing over armour that no bullet in this century could pierce.
The impossible had come to Edinburgh.