The step was taken.
Burton whirled and straightened, his right arm shot up, and his fist connected with the man's chin with such force that the jawbone broke with an audible snap and the crook's feet left the ground.
Before the man had landed on his back, Burton was facing front and springing at the leader. Taken aback, Rat-face stabbed at him reflexively, the dagger aimed at his throat, but Burton swivelled, brought his own arm up under his opponent's, hooked his elbow and wrist around it, and jerked upward. With a nauseating crunch, Rat-face's arm splintered. His scream was cut short by a ferocious uppercut. He flopped backward, out cold.
As the third man closed in, others left the blanket to come to his assistance. It was a stupid mistake. Penniforth erupted out of it with a bellow of rage, ripping the material asunder.
While the cabbie laid into the gang, Burton took off his bowler and tossed it at the remaining knifeman's face. Momentarily distracted, the crook ducked and his beady eyes wavered, missing Burton's next lightning-fast movement. Before he realised what had happened, the East Ender felt his wrist clutched in a grip of such strength that his fingers opened involuntarily and the dagger fell from them. He was yanked forward and his erstwhile victim's forehead smashed into the bridge of his nose. The thief collapsed to his knees, blood spurting from his face, his wrist still held, as if in a vise. He looked up, half dazed, and the eyes that met his blazed with sullen rage.
"N-no," he stammered.
"Yes," said Burton.
He twisted the man's arm out of its socket and put an end to the highpitched shriek with a chop to the neck. The limp crook crumpled into a yellowish puddle.
Burton turned to see how Penniforth was getting on and laughed.
The giant cabbie was grinning, with three unconscious men at his feet. He was holding the other two upside down, a hand around an ankle of each.
"What shall I do with the rubbish, guv'nor?" he asked.
Burton recovered his slime-stained bowler. "Just drop it in the street like everyone else does around here."
He turned and caught sight of four squat figures passing the far end of the alley. They were gone in an instant, leaving him with a vague impression of floor-length scarlet cloaks with big hoods, totally enveloping the wearers. A new order of nuns, perhaps, come to aid the poor? Yet there had been something disturbing about those four shapes; something-what was it?-yes, something about their gait.
"Monty!" he snapped, and started running.
The cabbie dropped the crooks and followed. They reached the end of the passage and Burton looked to the right just in time to see a glimpse of red cloth sliding past the edge of a wall.
"Come on!"
He raced to the corner and peered down a dank alleyway no wider than the span of his arms. Far ahead, the four red cloaks were consumed by billowing fog.
Burton sped on, occasionally slipping in the slime, almost falling, with Monty on his heels.
An arched entrance opened onto yet another backstreet; almost pitch black, with just a glimmer of candlelight bleeding into the gloom from the gaps in a boarded-up window.
A flash of red passed through the light.
Along one dark passageway after another they pursued the short, cowled figures, only ever catching fleeting glimpses, never seeming to close with their quarry.
"By heck!" panted Penniforth. "They're fast! Who are they? Why are we chasin' them?"
"I don't know! There's just something odd about them! There!" Burton pointed ahead to where the four flowing shapes passed through an aura of light cast by a solitary gas lamp.
They pounded along until they reached the patch of brightness and there Burton skidded to a halt. He bent and quickly examined the mud. There were four sets of footprints in it.
"They're running barefoot on the balls of their feet and-look at this! triangular pads and four toes, and, if I'm not mistaken, these indentations indicate claws! They're the loups-garous, Monty!"
A terrified shout suddenly echoed from somewhere close.
Without another word, Burton plunged ahead. Monty followed, pulling the pistol from inside his greatcoat.
They emerged into a cobbled square with the vague mist-shrouded mouths of alleyways opening into each of its sides.
A man and a boy stood in its centre. The four robed figures were circling them with a predatory lope. Liquid snarling reached Burton's ears.
"For God's sake, 'elp us!" pleaded the man. "They're going to-"
One of the things swooped forward and leaped onto his chest, momentarily obscuring him with its red robe. Then it dropped back and stalked away, leaving him standing there, his throat missing.
A fountain of blood arced out and splashed onto the cobbles.
The boy let loose a wailing cry.
The man dropped to his knees then keeled over onto his face, blood pooling around him.
Penniforth raised his pistol and fired.
The detonation sounded terrific as it echoed from the walls.
The shot missed its target-Burton clearly saw the edge of a red brick explode as the bullet hit it-but, unexpectedly, as if set off by the noise, one of the creatures suddenly burst into flames which raged with such intensity that, within seconds, the figure was reduced to ashes before their eyes.
The remaining three creatures, in unison, sprang upon the boy. He screeched and struggled.
Penniforth fired again, hitting one of the creatures in the arm.
It howled and released its grip on the youngster, whirled, and bounded toward the big cabbie. As it did so, its hood fell back.
Burton jumped forward to intercept it and saw a diabolical face with a furrowed brow, deeply set bloodshot eyes gleaming above a wrinkled snout, a huge drooling mouth filled with long sharp canines, and a shaggy head of tangled hair out of which pointed ears projected.
The pistol banged again, its flash reflected in the thing's eyes as it ducked down, jumped up, and swiped at Burton. He felt an impact on the side of his head. The square somersaulted. Bells rang in his ears. He thudded into the ground and, through a shrinking tunnel of darkness, saw the writhing, screaming boy carried out of sight; saw a pistol fall and clatter onto the cobbles; saw a shower of red; saw-nothing.
"Hold on to this," whispered a heavily accented voice in his ear. A scrap of paper was pushed into his hand. His fingers closed around it automatically. For a moment he thought it had been handed to him by Arthur Findlay, and he knew the words written upon it.
John Speke had shot himself in the head.
Footsteps milling around.
Voices.
"Where you going, Gus?"
"Anywhere that I don't have to look at that mess!"
Hands lifting him, holding him upright; fingers wandering from pocket to pocket.
"Steady, old-timer," said a hoarse voice.
Something moving in his belt.
"Bugger me, lookit this-anuvver pistol!" Deep voice.
"Let's see that!" Hoarse voice.
"Check if it's loaded." Whiny voice.
The sound of running footsteps as someone departed in a hurry.
"Oy! Come back wiv that, you thievin' git!" Whiny voice.
"Ah, let the silly sod scarper; we'll catch up wiv 'im later." Deep voice.
"Hey, Dad, you wiv us?" Whiny voice.
Burton opened his eyes.
A fat, greasy individual was supporting him by the left arm; a small pockmarked man, with legs distorted by rickets, held his right. People were standing around, holding candles or oil lamps, some looking at him, others staring at the mess on the cobbles where a butcher's cart had dropped its load of offal.
Except-
Burton doubled over and vomited for the fourth time that night.
The two men, Hoarse Voice and Whiny Voice, backed away, cursing.
The king's agent, remembering his disguise, straightened but kept his back hunched. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked again at the ripped and shredded intestines and organs that were spread messily across the cobbles. His eyes followed their long, bloody trail, past the outspread legs, across the torn thigh with its bone glinting wetly in the lamplight, and into the hollowed-out rib cage.