Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
Oxford, England
July 1888
Cemeteries always smelled of earthworms and damp dog fur, especially after a rain, and Brudge rather liked it that way. It made death more tangible. Imminent. An irrefutable reminder that life balanced on a knife's edge. He patted the blade in his coat pocket, the hard lump of it a reassurance that the Shadow Broker wouldn't get the best of him. Not this night. Brudge would be the victor or die in the trying.
"Step smart, Scupper," he called over his shoulder, annoyed that the oaf he hired couldn't keep up with him. To be expected, though, if he really thought on it. A battleship aground wouldn't move with ease, and Scupper was a boatload of muscle and flesh.
Holding his lantern higher, Brudge studied the black shapes in the freshly fallen darkness. Not a particularly brilliant time for a rendezvous, what with the turn of wheels yet grinding along the cobblestones outside the hallowed ground of St. Sepulchre's. Midnight would have been better. Perhaps this Shadow Broker wasn't all he was cracked up to be.
Or it could be a well-calculated appointment to put him at ease before danger cuffed him in the head.
An involuntary shiver spidered down his spine as his gaze shifted left and right. Nothing moved save for the slight tremble of leaves on the trees, dripping leftover raindrops like so many drops of blood. Tombstones the colour of bleached bones popped up from the dirt, quiet sentries of the dead. Nothing out of the ordinary for a graveyard, but he didn't like it. Not a bit. In his line of work, it was the mundane that dulled the senses, and a trafficker of purloined goods ought never give in to passivity. Unless, of course, he didn't mind a gun to the back.
Which he did.
After rounding a bend in the path, Brudge crouched at the next gravestone on the left and squinted.
Beauty, wisdom, fame and wealth
All are stolen by ill-health
Bold or valiant, rugged or brave
None escape the silent grave
What a load of codswallop. Brudge turned aside and spit. If the Shadow Broker thought a few words carved in granite would put the fear of God into him, then the scoundrel clearly didn't know who he was dealing with.
He set the lantern on the ground as instructed in the note he'd received earlier that day. Scupper pulled alongside him, smelling of gardenias of all things. Either the man had a secret penchant, or he still lived with his mother.
"Now what?" Scupper's voice was a foghorn.
"Shsst!" Brudge kept his tone to just above a whisper as he scanned to the far stretches of the light. "No sense letting the whole world know we've arrived."
Scupper had opened his mouth to reply when hardened words hit them both in the back.
"I see you have brought company. That was not part of the deal."
Brudge wheeled about, brows shooting to the clouds as the silhouette of a woman stepped from the shadows of a large tree trunk. She clutched a satchel in each hand, obviously prepared to do business. This slip of a woman was the Shadow Broker? No, it had to be a setup, and a nasty one at that.
"One can never be too cautious," he said, then murmured low to Scupper, "Be on alert." He eased his hand to his pocket, speaking loudly to draw attention to his words instead of the movement. "Had I known you were a skirt, I wouldn't have brought the extra muscle."
"Don't you know you ought not judge a book by its cover, Mr. Brudge?"
He chuckled, ending with a whisper to Scupper, "Check our flank, then circle round and get the goods." Upping his volume, he made a show of clouting the man on the back. "Off you go." Brudge smiled at the woman. "Is that better, miss?"
"There is no need to be condescending." A winter wind blew in her voice, stark against the July evening. "This is not my first purchase."
...
