ducked. Somewhere above him, the banister exploded in a blast of toothpick-size splinters. Nick felt them scraping his cheek, raking through his hair. Hot blood trickled down his neck where one had flown by.
“Come ’ere, Gypsy boy.” Striker’s words were muffled. Nick’s ears still rang from the blast. “Pay the piper, or I’ll teach you to jig on a beam of light.”
But Nick had no intention of surrendering. By this point, emptying out his pockets could hardly be enough to buy his safety. Striker was out for blood, and he was still coming down the stairs. Nick charged for the door, fumbling for the latch because he still couldn’t see.
He breathed a prayer of thanks when the knob finally turned and the door cracked open to the world outside. Once he reached the street, he ran, aiming for the shortest way out of the Yellowback’s territory. He’d turned his right ankle landing on the marble floor, but he was used to shutting off pain. For a moment, he actually thought he’d escaped.
Then he heard the high, shrill whistle common to every streetkeeper’s gang. The universal signal for
As he scrambled through the throngs of shoppers, his vision cleared. He almost wished it hadn’t. The shadows between buildings suddenly teemed with ragged Yellowbacks. Nick dodged between carriages, behind barrows and signboards, doing his best to disappear from sight. It didn’t work. A glance over his shoulder showed him a stampede of pursuers.
He turned down Piccadilly, then down Swallow, finally rounding onto Regent Street. He pounded past gentlemen’s clubs and whorehouses—the best of everything could be bought and sold here—and slipped between two buildings just when his heart threatened to burst.
Nick leaned against the bricks, chest heaving. He was faster, but the pack of Yellowbacks wouldn’t be far behind. Their blood was up and the chase begun. It would only end when they dragged him down like a wounded stag or he vanished into thin air.
Obviously, his choice was the latter. He glanced around and then up. The building was only two stories high, the mortar half gone from its sides. There was no time to hesitate; he jumped, grabbing at the worn grooves between the bricks, and started to climb, ignoring the protests from his ankle. His fingers dug into the gritty, cold crevices, his arms and chest bunching painfully as he dragged himself up. His toes scraped and pawed until the soft soles of his boots found purchase—and then he was away.
It was an easy ascent, and it gave him a moment to think. Striker had been spoiling for a fight and had been quick to give his name. And he’d been quick to show off his arsenal. All that told Nick he was ambitious. He wanted word to get out that the Gold King’s streetkeeper was a man to be feared. The last thing he wanted was Nick noising it about that he had skipped away from Striker’s net scot-free.
But where had a street thug got such weapons? The worst he’d ever encountered in London’s back alleys was a crazy old soldier who had somehow stolen a howitzer left over from Waterloo. There were suddenly more important questions afoot than how Tobias Roth spent his idle afternoons—questions like how Nick would survive to taste his supper.
Nick grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself up. The pitch was mercifully slight, and he was able to crawl a few feet and collapse to catch his breath. All around him, roofs peaked and rippled like a slate ocean.
The key he had grabbed from Striker’s neck poked him as he lay there. He fished in his pocket with stiff fingers and pulled out the bright key on its grubby chain of rusting gray metal. It had been foolish to grab it, a whim based on pride more than logic. Then again, pride was all he had. And curiosity. What was the key for?
That was a question for another day, when he wasn’t scrambling to survive. Nick stuffed the thing back into his pocket, then prodded his sore ankle. It felt like it was swelling inside his boot. Bad news, when he had two performances on the morrow. He had to get back to the circus and take care of it.
Nick crawled cautiously up the roof, keeping low. Hot from exertion, he unbuttoned his coat, letting the spring breeze touch his skin. From a higher vantage point, he made out the route back to safe territory. Some of the buildings along the street hugged its curve, sporting flat-roofed porticos just made for Nick to run on. He could travel for some distance before he would be forced to drop back down to street level. He hoped by then Striker would have lost track of him. With luck, he had already.
He’d almost reached the peak of the roof when he heard a noise like a rifle shot. He thought he saw a plume of smoke, then a grappling hook shaped like a heavy, brass octopus snagged the gutter. Astonished, Nick stared as it clattered and scraped a moment before grabbing hold.
Nick drew the knife strapped to his hip, edging sideways down the roof toward the hook. A glance down showed the top of Striker’s spiky head as the man swarmed up the rope dangling from the octopus. Other Yellowbacks were clustered on the street below, their faces turned up like pale blossoms. When they saw Nick, a derisive hoot rose up, making passing shoppers skitter nervously into the street.
Well, this was easily solved. Nick dropped to his knees and immediately hacked at the rope. But the thrust of his blade struck something solid, sending a shock up his arm. To his utter surprise, the knife glanced off it. The rope wasn’t rope. It was made of dull metal fashioned in tiny flexible sections, jointed like a lobster’s tail. If there was hemp involved, it was inside armor hard enough to turn a blade. Frustrated, he stabbed at the joints with the tip, trying to wedge the knife between them. The blade snapped in two.
With a spurt of alarm, Nick dropped his knife hilt and scrambled up the rooftop, building up speed for a leap to the next building. He made the jump easily, but when he hit the next roof, pain shot up his right foot as if he’d landed on a sword point. Nick rolled, a cry escaping him before he could stifle it. After a long moment of dizzying agony, he got to his feet, refusing to limp. If he lost command of his balance, he would never survive the next hour.
Pain turned him cold, then sweat began to trickle down his back. This roof was flat and easy to cross, but the seconds spent nursing his injury had cost him. Halfway to the next jump, he heard a thud that said Striker was just behind. His step faltered, agony slowing him down despite his refusal to accept that the chase was over.
“Stop, Gypsy boy.”
Nick stopped. “Let me go.” His hands slid over his jacket, looking for one last trick, one last weapon.
“Sorry, boyo. Too many eyes on you to give you a pass.”
“How unfortunate.” Nick’s fingers closed on the long, thin shape of Evelina’s silver paper knife. With a flutter of dark satisfaction, he pulled it out, wheeled, and threw it in the same smooth motion.
It was a trick he performed every night—sometimes blindfolded, sometimes standing on the back of a galloping mare. The knife sank deep into the soft meat of Striker’s thigh, aimed right where the heavy leather skirt of the coat parted in front. The man yelped in pain, then fell to his knees, then collapsed on his side, moaning in agony. Another few inches, and he would have lost his equipment. A single inch, and the blade would have cut an artery. But Nick had put the knife exactly where he meant to.
Nick wasted no time. He staggered, hopped, and ran for the next rooftop, leaving Striker at the mercy of the other Yellowbacks. And he kept running, circling back almost to Old Bond Street, looking for a place where he could drop onto the roof of one of the steam-powered omnibuses, or maybe find his way down to an underground station where the trains ran beneath the streets. He had to get away—and soon—because the Yellowbacks would be out for his blood.
Unfortunately, he had let himself be led more by which rooftops were the easiest to cross than by which went in a direct path. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was. He stopped, dropping to his stomach and crawling to the edge of the roofline. In a moment, he had found his bearings, but he had also found something else.
Tobias Roth, walking across a courtyard. They were several streets away from the tailor’s shop, and whatever Roth was up to had nothing to do with fashion. He had shed his fine coat in exchange for a workmen’s smock, his soft-soled shoes for a pair of shabby boots. What, by the Dark Mother, was Roth doing?
Nick inched forward, trying to get a better look. The courtyard was surrounded by high walls, making it invisible from the street. On one side was a warehouse. The large double doors stood open, showing the inside was full of mechanical detritus, a woodstove, and a few pieces of derelict furniture.
