Page 2 of Thief Taker

The inn exploded into chaos—so much for stealth. Elias pressed in after Groves as two men leapt up from a table in the centre of the small room. He got a brief glimpse of Wessex, registered height and dark hair, before the man dashed the candle from the table and plunged the room into darkness.

“Get me a light!” Groves yelled over the din of panic and running feet. Like a sinking ship, The Red Lion was emptying of its rats. “Someone get me a bloody light!”

Both men stood stock still, mere shadows in the dark. Elias held his breath, his carefully laid plans as fragile as spring ice beneath Groves’s bloody clodhoppers.

Then Wessex ducked under the table.

Groves snorted. “You’re no safer down there!”

But Elias surged forward, shoving Groves aside and overturning the table. “Bloody hell!”

He was already too late.

A hole gaped in the floor, the first rungs of a ladder glinting in the light as someone finally brought a lamp into the room. Elias didn’t hesitate. “Grab Radcliffe!” he barked and threw himself down the ladder.

“God’s mercy, Elias,” Groves shouted after him. “At least take a lamp!”

“So he’s got something to shoot at? Not bloody likely.” He was gone before Groves could stop him.

The ladder ran down the inside of an outer wall. He could feel the rasp of brick against his knuckles and the dank chill of rising water below. The cellar, then. He jumped the last few rungs—a calculated risk in the dark—and landed in a low crouch, fingers digging into a cold dirt floor. He stilled, listening. Thin strips of light sliced through the floorboards overhead, casting moving shadows into the cellar. Above, he could hear men shouting, the heavy sounds of violence. To his left—north—a cold stream of air brushed his face from a patch of darkness. A tunnel, heading towards the Fleet. If Wessex crossed that stinking excuse for a stream he’d vanish into the warren of streets beyond.

Keeping low, Elias firmed his grip on his blade and crept forward. The tunnel was too low for him to stand upright, braced here and there with makeshift struts. It was black as pitch. Which was why he missed the moving shadow until a fist shot out of the dark to connect with his cheek, sending him reeling. He lost his hold on his knife, lunged for it, but too late.

Strong hands grabbed his coat and shoved him back against the wall, gloved fingers curling around his neck and holding him still. A clench of those fingers and his throat would be crushed, but the touch was light, the leather soft. All Elias could see of the man was the glitter of eyes above the black neckerchief that covered his mouth and nose, but he could hear his rapid breaths and feel the warmth of his body pressed so close that Elias was uncomfortably aware of its muscularity.

“My apologies, sir,” Wessex murmured, “but I can’t let you take me in.” His voice had a gentleman’s depth and polish, though oddly accented. It was scarcely more than a whisper in the dark.

“Will you kill me, then?” Elias expected nothing more from the likes of Wessex.

A dry laugh—a puff of breath against his lips—and then the glint of a blade. Elias flinched as air brushed his neck and the knife slammed into the wood.

There was no pain.

Wessex drew back slowly, a shadow sinking into shadow. For a heartbeat, Elias found himself transfixed. Then he lurched forward and ended up half-strangling himself. The bloody knife was pinning his damned coat to the wall.

“Shit!” He tried to pull free, but the sodding thing was stuck fast. Yanking at the buttons of his greatcoat, he managed to squirm out of it, but by then a trapdoor in the ceiling stood open and Wessex was gone.

Elias cursed loudly, jumped, and caught the lip of the opening, hauling himself out. He was close to the Fleet; he could taste its stench in the icy fog and see the mist curling up from its foetid sludge. His cheek throbbed, his eye starting to swell shut. Damn it.

Shaking his head, trying to clear his vision, he glimpsed a man disappearing into the mist straight ahead. Stumbling after him along the muddy bank, Elias found the end of a narrow plank laid across the Fleet. It disappeared into the fog, and he just caught the sweep of a man’s coat as Wessex leaped to the other bank.

Where the bloody hell was Groves when he could actually make himself useful?

Elias took a couple of steps onto the makeshift bridge. It wobbled under his weight and he swallowed hard. Those who fell into the Fleet didn’t live long, no matter whether they could swim. And he couldn’t.

“Stay where you are.” The fog deadened Wessex’s voice. “I don’t want to hurt you, sir, but I can’t let you take me.” The plank moved under Elias’s feet, and he flung out his arms for balance. The bastard was moving it, making to pitch him into the putrid ditch.

All Elias could see of him was a shape in the dark. Then the plank moved again and he took a step back onto the safety of the bank. Damn the man to hell. “I’ve got your scent,” he shouted as Wessex kicked the plank into the Fleet. “I won’t stop hunting you!”

No answer came. The figure in the mist stepped back, disappearing into the night, and was gone.

Chapter 2

Kit left his lodgings on Frith Street early the following morning, hoping as always that nobody of his former acquaintance would cross his path. Anonymity was partly why he’d chosen to lodge in Soho, although the greater part had been its cheapness.

Economy had become a necessity since Kit’s return from the American war and his discovery of the calamity overtaking his family.

Shrugging into his greatcoat, he made his way down the dark, narrow stairs from the room he occupied to the front door. Mrs. Coolidge, who ran the boarding house, sat in the front parlour. A gaggle of infants gathered around her skirts—the youngest tethered by strings to the chair she occupied, to keep them from crawling too far. Minding the children of her neighbours while they worked no doubt brought in another few pennies.