Page 1 (1/2)

CHAPTER ONE

"Right this way, guv"

The boy hurried ahead of Rip, his roughened boots churning the snow and lance over his shoulder, fully aware of exactly what stalked behind hih the cold streets behind the lad with his hands thrust into the pockets of his heavy coat The fingers on his left hand kept twitching, trying to stir soht, all he could feel was the heavy pull of the hydraulics in his forearh work Rookery work But it served its purpose Though the aristocratic Echelon that ruled London city considered him less of a man because of it – less than human – he couldn’t run this line of ithout two feasible li into his cupped palloves The boy’d lost one the year previous, when the biting cold came in Not uncoainst each other like slatterns on a winter’s night, seeking warh to keep the fires burning all night and froaped in the fabric beneath the boy’s ar was hard to co

Rip’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed Petticoat Lane and the alleys off it The ever-present ropes that slung between the upper stories of the alleys were bare of the ghostly flap of laundry Fire burned in a barrel on the corner and a pair of dolly their hands One of the itself onto her lips Coin was coin, but he knehat he looked like Wouldn’t be the first time a trollop hoped he walked away

"You’ve done your bit," Rip said, turning to Jeh of relief "Ought to wait ‘ere though, case I need you to run a e forup with a faint tree had been delivered but the lad’s palreased yet

The action was presus from his pocket and flipped the at that age It were the sort of thing a ot

Jeave a grin, the shillings disappearing like lanced at the narrow laneway that ran between buildings Liza Kent’s place There’d been no sign of her in three days and Je hiiven ‘er the touch-up, but no sniff o’ ‘ient touch ‘er up much?"

It weren’t none of his business but the hair on the back of Rip’s neck rose as the darkness within hi back into the stove as her pimp laid into her with his fists Rip had been small then, powerless He wasn’t powerless any he despised more than a man who raised his hand to a woman

Jem must have sensed the slither of darkness inside hiuv"

Easy Rip squeezed his eyes shut and forced the yearning hunger in hiut-twisting clench of it, he was starting to recognize what set it off and how to avoid that

Beco a blue blood with their unnatural thirst for blood wouldn’t have been his choice, if there’d been one Six h, a vampire had torn his throat open and half disembowelled him He could remeh hi on the roof, his heels druht And then hisover hiive you h to ‘eal your wounds"

He knehat it meant Blade had asked before if he wanted to become a blue blood In their dark little world, the threat of death or crippling injury was a constant and the craving virus could heal anything short of decapitation Still, he’d always said no before

Until Blade whispered the one little thing that ed his ers But know that this’ll devastate Esme"

Esme Blade’s housekeeper Christ In that mo dark wings of her brows, and Rip couldn’t have said no despite himself He’d always kept his distance froe to see her just oncefor him And so he’d squeezed Blade’s hand

The next he kneas flat on his back in his own bed, with Es to the buttons at her throat The other half of the equation began to sink in Blood And as soon as he realized what she was there for, a fierce aching need had burned through hi away the colour from his vision until all he could smell was the violet water on her skin and see the heady tick of her pulse in her throat Hands on her, yanking her close And Blade holding hihten ‘er, do you?"

The craving virus had healed hie of the coin The fierce hunger he could barely control Especially around her

"You don’t need me to come with you?" Je

He gave a rough shake of his head "I’ll check on it"

The lad tossed him a tremulous smile, then scurried into a nearby doorway and hunkered down to watch

Hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, Rip began to cross the street, sliding in the wet slush The scent of roasting chestnuts drifted past and raucous laughter sounded nearby Soled strand of holly in theirChristmas, he re the blue bloods of the Echelon celebrated, since the Church had excoered in the hu Echelon land and arrested any caught praying or on consecrated ground, but they couldn’t police everything

Nor could they arrest half of London