Page 82 of Heart of Iron
Will rubbed the back of his neck.“Esme, it ain’t that simple.”
“Oh?”
“Rip’s got the cravin’,” he said.“Spread through blood to blood contact.The loupe’s different.Spread by blood, by a man’s seed…”
A knowing light came into her eyes.
“I can’t ever be with her,” he growled the words out.“I wouldn’t subject her to a life like this.And that’s if she survived the initial infection.”
“Oh, Will—”
The door smashed open.
Will shoved Esme behind him.Rip glowered in the doorway, his gaze following the hand that had pressed her into the corner.A dark light came into his menacing eyes and Will jerked his hands away, holding them up in the air.If it came down to it, he could take Rip and they both knew it.But right now the man wasn’t thinking.Ruled by his own personal demons, all he saw was another man touching his wife.
“Just protectin’ her, Rip.”
“What’s wrong, John?”Esme asked.
“Heard a whistle.”His gaze darted over the pair of them.“Where’s Blade?Anyone missin’?”
Cold touched the back of Will’s neck.“Where’d you hear it?How long ago?”
“Outside the wall.Near Old Castle Street.’Bout ten minutes ago mebbe.”
On the way to Aldgate.
Lena.Heat roared through him, blanking his mind.He was moving before he thought about it, snatching the bladed half gloves off the bench and his hunting knife.
“Who is it?”Rip asked, his voice sounding as though it were distorted through glass.
Esme grabbed Will’s arm.“It’s Lena, isn’t it?”
The next thing he knew, he was hauling himself up onto the gutters of the warren.The rookery stretched out in front of him, a maze of decrepit buildings and lean-tos.Taking a running leap, he headed for the wall that encircled Whitechapel.
Built fifty years ago, during the time of trouble when Blade had first come to the rookery, it stood nearly twenty feet high.More a symbol than a solid edifice, it had been constructed with whatever lay at hand, in order to keep the Echelon out.
Vaulting over the top of it, he dropped down onto a roof far below.Another jump and he was in the street.
People took one look at him and scattered.As he made his way to Old Castle Street, he saw a crowd hovered around something in the street.A glint of gilt caught his eye and his heart leaped into his throat.Shoving through the crowd, ignoring the cries, he staggered to a halt in front of the Caine carriage.It was tipped on its side, glass sprayed across the cobbles.Some enterprising sorts had already started trying to work the gilt free and the curtains were long gone.
Turning, he raked his gaze across the crowd, looking for someone he recognized.Bill the Tanner met his eyes and flinched.Will grabbed him by the collar.
“What happened here?”
“Dunno,” Bill muttered, his breath stinking of gin and his mismatched eyes darting independently.“Weren’t ’ere, guv.Didn’t see nuthin’.”
Will drew him up until they were face to face, letting the heat—the Beast—wash through his eyes.“Did you know I can smell it when a man lies?Think carefully, Bill, about whether you saw anythin’ here.”
“I can’t,” Bill sobbed.“They’ll kill me.Said they’d do it if I breathed a word.”
Will’s fist tightened until Bill could barely breathe.“What makes you think I won’t?”
Clawing at his collar, Bill’s eyes boggled.“They got…a monster with ’em… A fire-breathin’ monster!I can’t.He’ll roast me…like a leg o’ lamb!Better you than them!”
“They took a young woman with them, didn’t they?She’s mine, Bill.My woman.And they took her.”He forced his fist to open and dropped the man onto the cobbles before he killed him.
The urge to do so was almost overwhelming.The vein in his temple throbbed, his vision blanking at moments.Time and space became odd vignettes of sound and movement.Bill scrambled back across the cobbles and then the world blurred again.
