Page 25 of Who Cries for the Lost

She reassembled the deck. “Very well. But do be careful leaving here, won’t you? The neighborhood can be... dangerous.”

“And yet you choose to live here.” Most of the residents of St. Giles were there because they had no place better to go, but that obviously wasn’t true for the Weird Sisters.

“It adds a certain mystique—an aura of danger that people like.”

“I can see that. Except the danger isn’t simply a part of the mystique; it’s real.”

“Perhaps. But people around here are afraid of us. They leave us alone.”

“Yet the same can’t be said of your customers.”

“Those who can afford it know to take precautions.”

“And the others?”

She shrugged. “I suppose some of them might end up in the Thames with their throats slit.”

“You’re suggesting that might be what happened to Sedgewick?”

“Hardly.” She leaned back in her throne-like chair, a smile touching her lips, the candlelight shimmering on what looked like a very real diamond that dangled from the gold chain around her neck. “When was the last time you knew a footpad to steal a man’s privates?”

“I suppose it depends on what he wanted them for,” said Sebastian, and saw her smile slip.

Chapter 15

Asquall was blowing in from the North Sea, the brine-laden wind slanting a cold rain sideways when Sebastian left the Weird Sisters’ shop to cut across the open expanse of Seven Dials. The storm had driven most of the district’s wretched inhabitants to seek whatever shelter they could find, and as he ducked down the narrow lane of crumbling, soot-stained brick buildings that stretched toward Long Acre, Sebastian found himself swearing softly under his breath.

His hearing and night vision were both unusually acute. But even Sebastian could not see through driving rain, while the howling wind in combination with the roar of water sluicing off the broken gutters overhead would drown out the kinds of sounds that might otherwise warn of danger. He tightened his grip on his walking stick, wishing his leg didn’t feel so damned unreliable but ready to whirl at a sudden rush of footsteps behind him even as he was alive to the potential threat of every man who came toward him.

The day laborer in stained canvas trousers and badly broken shoes.

The butcher with a bloody apron and a long, crooked nose.

The big drover in a torn oilskin and broad-brimmed slouch hat that hid his eyes in a way Sebastian didn’t like.

The man was a giant, looming a good seven or eight inches taller than Sebastian and built broad at the shoulders, with a big, bony skull and a jutting jaw and powerful long legs that carried him quickly through the wind-driven rain. He turned his head away as he came abreast of Sebastian. But then, at the last instant, he careened sideways, slamming into Sebastian hard enough to send him staggering toward the dark mouth of an alley that yawned beside them.

In a searing wave of pain, Sebastian’s weight came down on his bad leg and he felt it crumple beneath him. He landed on one hip, his right hand sinking into the fetid wet mud of the alley as he fought to keep from going sprawling.

Damn, he thought in a surge of impotent rage as he pushed up to his knees. Damn, damn, damn. His fingers slippery with filth, he was fumbling with the catch of his sword stick when the oilskin-wearing giant came up from behind to swoop down and wrap his massive arms around Sebastian’s torso, squeezing the air from his lungs and lifting him bodily off the ground. Fighting for breath, his arms trapped at his sides, Sebastian felt the sword stick slip from his fingers.

“Bon soir, monsieur,” said a faintly mocking voice from the inner depths of the alley. “Having a good evening?”

“Not particularly,” said Sebastian, his feet dangling several inches from the ground as the overgrown oaf swung him around to face the speaker. Unlike his companion, this man was of normal size, with overlong dark hair and a face mostly hidden by the folds of a black cravat. To his knowledge, Sebastian had never seen the man before.

“Don’t struggle, hmm?” said the Frenchman, stepping forward to press the naked blade of a hunting knife flat against Sebastian’s cheek and slide it up until the point hovered just inches from his left eye. “Otherwise, the blade might slip and steal your sight.”

Sebastian went perfectly still. For one suspended moment, the only sounds in the alley were the drumming of the rain and the heavy breathing of the three men. Then the Frenchman said, “You picked a bad night to take a stroll through an unfamiliar neighborhood, monsieur le vicomte.”

“So it would seem,” said Sebastian.

A hint of amusement narrowed the Frenchman’s eyes. “I have some advice for you, monsieur: Give up this investigation, now, or you will pay a price most dear. You do understand, yes?”

Sebastian blinked at the rain that ran down his face and into his eyes. At some point, he realized, he’d lost his hat. “Not entirely. What precisely are you threatening me with?”

“Use your imagination. Think of all that you hold dear, all that you could not bear to lose.”

“You bloody bastard,” swore Sebastian on a harsh exhalation of air. “Who sent you?”

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