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BEDFORD SQUARE BLOOMSBURY LONDON 1898

There were two srandfather clock and the velvet drapes One high and one loo pale thuht made darker still by blackout sheets behind the thick curtains and sackcloth tacked across the skylights

The lower shtly shivering inside the baseht on his first killing as a test

The upper se was the face of a h the public had once known hie nao he had been theone performance he actually sawed his beautiful assistant in half Garrick discovered on that night that he relished taking a life alhted applause froician made a new career of assassination

Garrick fixed his flatbony fingers pressing through the fabric of the boy’s coat, pinching the nerves He didn’t say a word but nodded once, a gesture heavy with reminder and implication

Think back, said the inclined chin, to your lesson of this afternoon Move silently as the Whitechapel fog and slide the blade in until your fingers sink into the wound

Garrick had instructed Riley to haul a dog carcass from the Strand to their Holborn rooms and then practise his knife work on the suspended remains so he would be accustomed to the resistance of bone

Novices have the mistaken impression that a sharp blade will slip in like a hot poker through wax, but it ain’t so Soainst bone and muscle, so be ready to lever down and force up Remember that, boy Lever down and force up Use the bone itself as your fulcrum

Garrick perfor his wide, blackened forehead at Riley to make certain the boy took heed

Riley nodded, then took the knife, palht

Garrick nudged Riley froe four-poster bed, on which lay the nearly departed

Nearly departed This was one of Garrick’s witticisms

Riley knew that he was being tested This was a real killing, a fat purse paid in advance Either he snuffed out his first candle or Albert Garrick would leave an extra corpse in this terrible, glooutters of London It would pain him to do it, but Garrick would not see any other option Riley es and polish boots

Riley swept his feet forward, one at a tiht, searching for debris It slowed his progress, but one crackle of discarded paper could be enough to awaken his intended victim Riley saw in front of him the blade in his own hand, and he could hardly believe that he was here, about to commit the act that would damn him to hell

When you have felt the power, you can take your place as my junior in the family business, Garrick would often say P’raps we should have cards of business made up, eh, boy? Garrick and Son Assassins for hire We may be low, but we’re not cheap

Then Garrick would laugh, and it was a dark, faraway noise that caused Riley’s nerves to throb and his stomach to heave

Riley moved forward another pace; he could see no way out of it The room seemed to close in around him

I must kill this man or be killed myself Riley’s head started to pound, till his hand shook and the blade alers

Garrick was instantly at his side like a ghost, touching Riley’s elboith one crooked icicle of a finger

‘From dust thou art’ He whispered so softly that the words ht

‘And unto dust thou shalt return,’the Biblical quote Garrick’s favourite

My own last rites, he’d told Riley one winter’s night as they looked out on Leicester Square froician had polished off his second jug of bitter red wine and his gentleman’s accent had started to slide off his words like fish from a wet slab

Every man Jack of us crawled forth from the filth and dust, and unto that stuff we shall return, mark you I just send ’em back quicker A few heartbeats early so that we may enjoy life’s comforts That is the way of our situation and if you have no steel in you for it, Riley, then

Garrick never completed his threat, but it was clear that the time had come for Riley to earn his place at the table

Riley felt the cracks between each board through the thin soles of his shoes that had been painstakingly shaved down on the lathe in Garrick’s workshop He could now see theout from under a puff quilt

I can’t see his face He was grateful for that much

Riley approached the bed, feeling Garrick behind hi out

Unto dust Dispatched to dust

Riley saw the old er a mere nub due to some old injury, and he knew that he could not do it He was no murderer

Riley cast his eyes about while keeping his head still He had been taught to use his surroundings in ti Riley’s everyintensity There would be no help frorey-hair possibly do against Garrick? What could anyone do?

Four times Riley had run away and four times Garrick had found him

Death is the only way out for ht Mine or Garrick’s

But Garrick could not be killed, for he was death

Unto dust

Riley felt suddenly faint and thought he would sink to the cold floor Perhaps that would be for the best? Lie senseless and let Garrick do his bloody work, but then the old h on Riley’s soul in the afterlife

I will fight, decided the boy He had little hope of survival, but he had to do so

Plan

after plan flitted through his fevered brain, each one more hopeless than the next All the ti the frost of Garrick on his neck like a bad orew clearer He could see an ear noith holes where a row of rings must have once pierced

A foreigner perhaps? A sailor?

He saw a ruddy jaith tallowy runs of flesh tucked underneath and a lanyard that ran to a strange pendant lying on the quilt

Look for every detail, was one of Garrick’s lessons Drink it all in with yer eyes and maybe it will save your life

No chance of saving ht

Riley took another sweeping step and felt his forward foot grow curiously warlanced down and to his surprise and confusion saw that the toe of his shoe glowed green In fact a cocoon of light had blosso e pendant

Garrick’s words gusted past his ear ‘Hell’s bells Trickery! Dirk him now, boy’

Riley could not ht

Garrick pushed hied hue, beco erupted fro Riley’s brain in the gourd of his skull

The oldup like a wind-up Jack from his box

‘Stupid sensor malfunction,’ he‘I have a pain in my’

Thefrom his fist like an icicle He allowed his hand to trail slowly doards the glowing teardrop pendant resting on his scrawny chest, then tapped the centre twice, silencing the dreadful wail The pendant’s heart displayed a glowing series of nu backwards from twenty

‘Now there, lad,’ said the old man ‘Hold on to those horses We can talk about this I have funds’

Riley was transfixed by the pendant It was ical certainly, but, more than that, it was familiar somehow