Fog clung to the Thames like a lightskirt to a rich patron. Here and there, gaslight gleamed, flashing will-o’-the-wisp in the shrouding pea soup mist. It was the perfect night not to be seen.
Will Carver loped across rooftops and gables, leaping across an alley and coming to a halt behind a chimney near Brickbank.
A man landed lightly on the tiles beside him, breathing hard from the exertion. He wore black leather from head to toe, and the only weapons he carried were a pair of razors, tucked in his belt. “Bloody ’ell. You tryin’ to run me to death?” Blade muttered.
The words were quiet, but the sound carried in the still night. Will’s lip curled, and he glared at his master.
“They won’t be listenin’ for us, bucko.” Blade straightened, staring at the ruddy pillar of smoke ahead of them. “Not with that burnin’. And none of ’em ’as your hearin’.”
A column of red glowed against the night sky ahead, barely muted by the fog. Every time Will breathed he could taste the ash in the air. Ahead, a massive brick gate and wall blocked the way into the city. A company of metaljackets paced in front of the gate, gaslight gleaming off the shining steel plates of their armored chests. With the flamethrower appendages in place of their left arms they looked formidable enough to keep the general rabble at bay. They were, however, automatons and not human.
He’d long since learned they didn’t look up.
“Over?” he asked.
“I got me pardon now,” Blade said. “Could waltz right on through them gates and they’d not say a word.” The devilish light in his eyes said he wanted to try. There was nothing Blade liked better than thumbing his nose at the blue bloods who ruled the city.
“Yeah, well, we ain’t all that lucky,” Will reminded him. “I’ve still got a price on me head.”
Blade sighed, eyeing the massive edifice. “Over it is, then.”
“You’re gettin’ lazy.”
“I should be at ’ome, tucked up with me cheroot and a nice glass of mulled blud-wein.” What he didn’t add was the fact that he most likely wouldn’t have been doing either of those things. If the fire hadn’t called them out, Blade’d be in bed with his wife, Honoria.
Will took a few steps back. No point him being at home. The flat he rented these days was cold and uninviting. There was nothing for him to go back to.
A wide leap took him sailing across the street and onto a rooftop beside the gate. Taking a running start, he bounded up and over the wall before the guard on top had finished shaking out the flame on his match. Human eyes were sometimes just as bad as the automatons.
Bootsteps echoed him on the rooftops as he flitted lightly through the night. Fog parted around him, drifting in his wake, but he was moving too fast for anyone watching to see.
Here in the city the streets were a touch wider, the buildings not as jammed together as they were in the Whitechapel rookery he called home. Blood flushed through his veins as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop. He’d been cooped up for too long; he needed this.
Screams caught his ear along with the organized shouts of people trying to marshal water pumps. Little snowflakes of ash floated through the air, almost thick enough to choke a man. Will paused in the crook of a chimney.
Ahead, the world looked like it was on fire. Billowing gouts of orange flame licked at the skies, and a thick dark pall of smoke hung over the river. Lines of people manned water pumps, desperately trying to stop the flames from spreading.
“Jaysus,” Blade cursed as he knelt at Will’s side.
“The draining factories,” Will said. “Someone’s fired the draining factories.”
It was unthinkable. The line of factories down by the river were owned by the ruling Echelon to filter and store the blood gathered in the blood taxes. This would be a huge blow to them.
Blade’s eyes narrowed. “You and I ought to get out of ’ere, quick-smart.” His nostrils flared. “The place’ll be swarmin’ in metaljackets before we know it.”
Will backed up a step. He knew what Blade wasn’t saying. Two more perfect scapegoats couldn’t be found. Most of the aristocratic Echelon had been furious with the queen’s pardon and knighthood of Blade three years ago. And Will was just a slave-without-a-collar to their eyes.
A clink of metal caught his ears. Iron-booted feet on distant cobbles. A legion of metaljackets by the