Ashes To Ashes: A Ministry of Curiosities Novella (The Ministry of Curiosities Book 5) by C.J. Archer

Author:C.J. Archer [Archer, C.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-25T18:30:00+00:00

Seth and Lincoln stopped at the mews behind Gillingham's house to pick up Gus. "Nothing to report," he told Lincoln as he settled on the seat opposite. "He ain't been out yet today. So where we goin'?"

"Flower and Dean Street."

Gus stroked the scar stretching from his cheek to the corner of his eye. "Last time we went to them parts, the brougham almost got stolen."

"We'll leave it at the Pig and Whistle's stables. The ostler knows me. It's not much of a walk from there." Lincoln told him everything Billy the Bolter had reported and then outlined his plan.

"Thank you, sir," Gus said at the end.

"For what?"

"For tellin' me. Time was, you wouldn't have said nothin' about the whole plan, just my part."

Lincoln turned to the window and tried to think back, but it felt like another life, another century. He wasn't that same man anymore. The revelation was like a bolt of lightning, shocking him to his core.

He'd barely recovered by the time they arrived at the Pig and Whistle. He paid the hunchbacked ostler to mind the horses and coach, then headed to Flower and Dean Street with Gus and Seth. This part of Whitechapel was infamous for the violent Ripper murders, and a sense of unease and mistrust flowed from the passersby, hitting his senses with force.

Lincoln felt conspicuous, even though he'd gone to some trouble to blend in with the working class men. Perhaps it was because most of those men were at work in the early afternoon, not wandering around the streets in a pack of three. Lincoln regretted not waiting for darkness, when the men were heading home from their jobs at the factories. He worked better in the dark too.

But he'd been too impatient to wait. If Billy's information proved true, then Lincoln could be close to catching the gunman as well the man who hired him. Waiting would allow the gunman to escape.

"I hate this place," Gus hissed. He hunched into his great coat, but still shivered. "Feels like I'm bein' sized for me boots."

"Not even the poorest will want your stinking footwear." Seth's teasing was half-hearted, as he too kept a wary eye on the hollow-eyed children and their gin-soaked mothers.

They passed a group of thick-set men huddled around a low fire burning in a brazier. One man drank from a bottle while his friends rubbed gloveless hands together and laughed over something. Others stood a little further away, gazing enviously at the fire but not approaching.

"Should we ask them?" Seth said.

"No." Lincoln knew a group of thugs when he saw it. There were easier targets who would be more deserving of a few coins.

Gus tripped over the feet of an elderly man sitting on a doorstep. His head remained resting against the door, his mouth ajar. Lincoln couldn't be certain if he was asleep or dead.

A girl stumbled out of the shadows, a ragged shawl bunched at her chest instead of wrapped around her thin shoulders. Stringy brown hair fell from a cap that had probably once been white but was now gray and torn.

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