Devil in Winter (Wallflowers #3)(50)

Cam ventured into the intricate maze of streets with great care, mindful of the infinite traps and dangers that awaited an unwary visitor. He entered a courtyard through dark archway, forty yards long, ten feet wide. It was lined with tall wooden structures, their overhead abutments shutting out the winter sky above. The buildings were padding kens, or common lodging houses, where the homeless slept in piles like so many corpses in a mass graveyard. Hangings of putrid matter, two and three feet in length, extended downward from the abutments. Rats wriggled and scuttled along sides of walls, and disappeared into the cracks of the buildings’ foundations. The court was empty save for a pair of girls sitting together on a doorstep, and a few scrawny children who searched for refuse bones or stray rags. Throwing Cam suspicious glances, the children vanished at the far end of the court.

One of the fuzzy-haired young prostitutes grinned to reveal a few broken stumps of teeth and said, “Whot’s a big ‘and some cull like you come to ‘Angman’s Court for?”

“I’m looking for a man, about so tall”—Cam gestured to indicate a man of five feet and eight inches—“with black hair. Has he come through the court in the past minute?”

The girls cackled as he spoke. “Listen to ‘im talk,” one of them exclaimed in delight.

“Lovely,” the other girl agreed. “Come, dearie, you don’t want a man, when you could lay atop Lushing Lou.” She tugged down her blouse to reveal a scrawny chest and meager, drooping br**sts. “‘Ave a little crack-the-crib wiv me. I’ll bet you does it ‘andsomelike, don’t you?”

Cam withdrew a silver coin from his pocket, and her gaze followed it hungrily. “Tell me where he went,” he said.

“I’ll tell you for sixpence an’ a tup,” she said. “You ‘as pretty eyes, you does. I newer ‘ad a knock from a boy with such a lovely—”

A low, harsh laugh echoed across the court, and then came Joss Bullard’s mocking voice. “You won’t find me, you filthy ‘alf bred!”

Cam swung around, scanning the buildings, where scores of soot-smeared faces stared out of doorways and windows and peered over the tile-less rooftops. Not one of them was recognizable. “Bullard,” he said cautiously, turning slowly as his glance swept the scene. “What do you want with Jenner’s daughter?”

Another ugly laugh, seeming to come from a different direction this time. Cam ventured farther into the court, unable to identify Bullard’s location. “I wants to snuff ‘er!”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a bloody leech what’s taken ewery-fing from me. I wants ‘er dead. I wants to throw ‘er to the rats until there’s nofing but bones left.”

“Why?” Cam asked in bewilderment. “She’s asked me to help you, Joss, even after you betrayed her. She wants to honor her father’s request, to leave you enough to—”

“Devil take the filthy bitch!”

Cam shook his head slightly, unable to understand where such hostility had come from, or why Bullard harbored such mad wrath toward Evie.

Hearing a scraping sound behind him, he ducked and turned, just as the whistling arc of a board swung through the air where his head had been. The attacker was not Bullard, but a tosher, a scavenger who had impulsively decided to try his luck at back-alley robbery. He had the peculiar young-old look of someone who had lived in the streets since birth. Cam dispatched him in a few efficient movements, sending him to the ground in a groaning heap. A few more toshers appeared at the other end of the court, apparently deciding it was best to attack in numbers. Realizing that he would soon be overrun, Cam retreated to the archway, while Bullard’s voice followed him.

“I’ll get ‘er, I will.”

“You’ll never touch her,” Cam retorted, filled with a flare of impotent anger as he cast a last glance into Hangman’s Court. “I’ll send you to hell before you ever lay a finger on her!”

“I’ll bring you with me, then,” came Bullard’s gloating reply, and he laughed again as Cam strode away from the court.

Later in the day, Cam sought out Evie. Sebastian was occupied with a group of carpenters who were repairing the intricate parquet work of the wooden flooring in the main dining room. Finding Evie in the empty hazard room, sorting absently through baskets of gaming chips and separating them into neat stacks, Cam approached her with a noiseless tread.

She started a little at the light touch on her arm, and smiled with quick relief as she looked up into his face. It was rare for him to appear visibly troubled. A young man of his prosaic nature was not given to hand wringing or anxiety. Cam met each moment as it came, living as much as possible in the present. However, the events of the day had left their mark, imparting a stark tension that temporarily aged him.

“I couldn’t reach him,” Cam said softly. “He disappeared into a rookery, and spoke to me from the shadows. Nothing he said made sense. He harbors an evil feeling against you, gadji, though I don’t understand why. He’s never been what anyone would call a cheerful sort, but this is different. A kind of madness. I have to tell St. Vincent.”

“No, don’t,” came Evie’s instant reply. “It would only worry and anger him. He has enough to deal with at present.”

“But if Bullard tries to harm you—”