Without turning his head, Colin snapped his gaze sideways. The silhouette of a boy emerged from the hedges against the house. Sweat broke out on his brow. This was no play of light nor a laudanum reaction, for he’d purposely avoided the stuff these past few weeks. Was this a true hallucination, then?
Or not?
Wheeling about, he lunged for the dark shape, fully expecting it to vanish. But the figure swerved away from him and barreled towards the gap in the broken garden wall.
Stunned, Colin sprinted and snagged the back of a collar, then hoisted a small lad eye-to-eye. His clothes smelled of dirt and mould and hot little boy, with arms hanging past his sleeves and bare feet dangling well beyond the ragged hem of his trousers. He was all knobs and angles, this child. Thin as a spindle.
“So,” Colin rumbled. “You are real.”
The boy nodded, the whites of his eyes stark against the night and a flop of dark hair hanging low on his forehead. To his credit, the lad didn’t cry out. Didn’t howl. Didn’t squirm. Odd, that. Quite the different reaction than the boy he’d snatched from the cliff.
Colin cocked his head. “Do I not frighten you, child?”
The boy stuck out his lower lip. “No, sir.”
Colin gaped. “Why not?”
Thin shoulders lifted beneath his grasp. “I were a’feared when ye first came, sir, but I bit my knuckle bone for to keep quiet.”
Gutsy lad. Smart, as well. Colin lowered him to the ground yet did not release his grip. Chasing the child inside the backyard was one thing, but if he bolted beyond the garden walls, answers might never be supplied.
Colin lowered to his knees. Even then he towered above the lad. “Why were you hiding in the shrubbery?”
“I weren’t.” The boy’s bare toes fidgeted in the lawn. “I were hiding in the house, sir.”
Colin hid a smile. If nothing else, he was forthright. “Very well, then what were you doing in my house?”
“Being,” he mumbled.
Leastwise that’s what it sounded like—which made no sense whatsoever. Colin lifted the boy’s chin with the crook of his finger. “Speak up, please.”
“Being, sir,” he belted.
This time a smile would not be stopped. Not only did the boy respond to commands, he did so with gusto. “Being what? A trespassing rapscallion?”
“Dunno, sir.” His face screwed up. “Them words is too big fer me.”
Of course they were. The lad could hardly be more than five years old. Possibly six. And no doubt he knew only the language of the streets. Colin leaned back and angled his head at him. “Fair enough. We’ll try something simpler. What is your name?”
“Sodom, sir.”
“What the devil sort of name is that?”
The boy flinched, and no wonder. The harshness of his tone echoed in his own ears.
Yet the child didn’t look away, just held his gaze steady with dead-fish eyes, as if he’d gathered all his playthings and run off into the night, leaving nothing behind but a shell.
And that’s when the truth punched Colin in the gut. Sickening. Revolting. He yanked back his hand as if the touch seared to the bone. This boy had been groomed to do as he was told, and only God knew what had been commanded of him.
His gut churned. “Your mother did not name you so. What is your true name?”
“Dunno.” The boy shrugged. “Only know what Master Monster calls me.”
Colin grimaced. What sort of horrors had this boy suffered in his short time on this earth? “You’ve run from your master then, have you?”
“Aye.” The boy’s eyes hardened into stones. So did his voice. “And I ain’t goin’ back!”
A sharp kick jabbed him in the thigh. His grasp slipped, and the boy tore off. Once again, the chase was on. But this time Colin didn’t care if he had to pursue the lad clear into the heart of Bristol. Master Monster had seen the last of this child, even if it meant the public saw Colin’s monstrous face.
