Barnabus motioned him in. “Is something the matter with Vera? Gemma said she seemed to be in pain today.”
“She’s still hurting,” he said, “and ’tis difficult for her to move about, but she grows stronger every day. I’ve come on another matter entirely.”
Barnabus hooked his thumb in the direction of the library.
“You look a bit worse for wear, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Brogan said, following Barnabus into the room. “Have you had a difficult day?”
Barnabus nodded. “Another fire, one likely connected to all the others. While looking it over, Stone and Fletcher and I caught sight of Serena. We tried to convince her to let us help her, but she’s too terrified of the Mastiff to take the risk.”
“’Tis a frustrating thing when a person’s in too much danger to even contemplate running from it,” Brogan said.
It was, at that. But it also wasn’t the only thing weighing on Barnabus’s mind. “Scrawled on one of the walls of that alley, in ash of all things, was ‘The Tempest is coming.’”
Brogan whistled low and long. “It couldn’t have been a warning for us. The Mastiff wouldn’t’ve known you’d be there.”
Barnabus dropped onto a chair. “Perhaps we aren’t the only ones the coming storm is meant to overtake.”
“Your discovery, though, makes me ever more curious aboutthis.” Brogan pulled from his coat pocket a sealed note and held it out to Barnabus.
“It’s addressed to the both of us,” Barnabus said, taking it from him.
“’Tis the reason I didn’t open it up. Fletcher dropped it at m’place. ’Tis from the Dread Master.”
Brogan had received direct messages from their mysterious figurehead before, but this was Barnabus’s first. Had Fletcher delivered it to Brogan before or after their time at the fire? Had it anything to do with that? To do with Serena?
“Gemma’s in the kitchen making tea. Let’s read through this before she returns.” Barnabus broke the seal and unfolded the stiff, red-edged parchment. He read out loud but in a whisper.
B and B—
I’ve learned the Mastiff’s last ten victims haveallbeen taken up by resurrectionists. My network suspects the stealing of bodies is a cruel warning to anyone considering defying the Mastiff and his associates. Resurrection men seldom limit themselves to crimes against the recently departed.
They are dangerous.
Barnabus pushed out a tense breath. He knew firsthand the dangers of resurrectionists. Gemma’s family had not always obtained from graveyards the bodies they sold. He had worriedabout that for months after marrying her. Her family’s revenge could easily have turned violent.
Arrange for a CALL charitable endeavor near St. Leonards in Shoreditch. That is where the resurrection man plied his trade last night against one of the Mastiff’s known victims—this time a man stabbed to death by the one known as “The Protector,” in what my contacts insist was punishment for refusing to bend to the Mastiff’s demands. With any luck, there’ll be a clue in the churchyard.
Whispers of something more on the horizon are all over London. Worries and uncertainties among some; heinous triumph among others. I suspect our foe does not mean to remain quiet much longer.
Be careful. Be vigilant.
—DM
“St. Leonards is in a hard-hit area,” Brogan said. “’Twon’t be difficult thinking of something that’s needed there that we can help provide.”
“And it’s not terribly far from where we saw the ash-written warning today,” Barnabus said. “I never have been one to dismiss coincidences out of hand.”
“Neither am I,” Brogan said. “The words had to have been written there for a reason.”
“To scare people, or maybe to remind them of their duty,” Barnabus thought out loud. “It was certainly etched in Serena’s mind as she stood there. We may have stumbled across not merely a randomly scrawled cryptic message but a hideout or gathering place connected with the Mastiff and his people.”
“Could be. And Shoreditch’d be the place for it.”
“Considering all the fires, writing the message in ash doesn’t seem accidental.”
“Ain’t terribly bright, either,” Brogan said. “At the first rainfall, all that’ll be left is a dingy puddle on the ground.”
The Mastiff, or whoever wrote it on his behalf, must have been certain the words would be seen quickly by whomever it was meant for. More evidence that the crumbling walls and dark alleys were a location of some significance.