Page 136
“Fine,” I say.
Edward exhales once, sharp and furious. Lazarus takes his coat and we leave through the rear door, into rain, fog, and a city that has no idea how many monsters now walk its streets.
Mr. Haskell lives above a tobacco shop near the east canal, in rooms that smell of decay, gin, and cheap lavender used to disguise both. He opens the door on the third knock. I know because I knock with Alcott’s knuckles against his jaw. The door swings inward. Haskell collapses backward, choking on a cry. Edward mutters a curse behind me. Lazarus steps inside and closes the door softly. Haskell scrambles across the floor, one hand to his bleeding mouth. He is a thin man with a soft belly, yellowed eyes, and the moral texture of wet paper.
“Please,” he gasps. “Please, I don’t know—”
I kick him in the stomach. He folds.
“Do not bore me with lies before I have introduced myself,” I state with a cackle.
Edward enters last, shutting the curtain over the window. His face is pale, eyes are not and he looks at Haskell the way a starving dog looks at a locked pantry.
Lazarus crouches near the man. “Mr. Haskell.”
His eyes widen at the sight of him. “You.”
Lazarus smiles without humor. “Me.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he whimpers.
I laugh. “Poor start.”
Haskell tries to crawl toward the table, then I step on his hand. Not hard enough to break everything, but enough to make him scream so I lean down. “You arranged papers for a vessel leaving England within the last seventy-two hours. Private passage. False cargo. Passenger hidden or unnamed.”
“I arrange many papers.”
I increase pressure at his annoying words, his bones shift beneath my boot as he sobs.
“One woman,” I say. “Dark hair. Taken under guard. The Collector’s order.”
At the name, Haskell goes still. Fear, absolute real fear. Not of us, of him. I crouch, keeping my boot over his hand. “Now we are acquainted.”
“I can’t,” he whines.
“You can.”
“He’ll kill me.”
I tilt my head. “And what do you believe I am considering?”
Haskell looks to Edward, a mistake. Edward steps forward, for days, he has been grief and blood and helpless fury. Now he is something else.
“If you know where she is,” Edward says, “and you keep it from me, I will let him take his time.”
Haskell begins to shake, then Lazarus glances at Edward, and so do I. The Collector made a weapon and then foolishly misplaced its leash.
“I don’t know where he took her,” Haskell stammers. My boot presses harder.
“I don’t! I swear it. I only made the manifest. I only gave the papers to Bracken.”
“Bracken?” Lazarus asks.
“Harbormaster’s second. South docks. He arranged the launch.”
“What ship?” Edward says.
Haskell shakes his head.
