He shivered and continued on his way toward the hotel, stepping into Crown Street with little awareness of the changing scene around him. In his imagination he crept through a dense and dripping jungle where only a few men had ever walked, breathing air untainted by civilization’s belching chimneys and grinding machines. His fingers sought purchase on the sheer side of a mountain peak while pristine snow lashed his face. His legs carried him at a flying run over a plain where the only obstacles were scattered trees, and the horizon swept on forever.
And sometimes, in the visions of freedom that possessed him, a nameless figure walked at his side. A woman with bold gray eyes, severe brown hair and a foolhardy fearlessness she wore as if it were a medieval suit of armor. A female of the type he thought he despised: meddlesome, supremely well-bred and absolutely convinced of her own infallibility.
But he couldn’t drive her from his thoughts, so he accepted her presence and set off across a sun-scorched desert, searching for the life that lay hidden just beyond his reach….
The scream shattered his pleasant illusion. He jerked upright, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the narrow, lampless street. The half moon crept behind him like a timid beggar, offering only the faintest illumination, but it was just enough to show Donal how far he had gone astray.
The rookeries of Seven Dials rose around him, unglazed windows and empty doors glaring like hollow eye-sockets and toothless mouths. The air was still and heavy, poised as if awaiting a single misstep from an unwelcome visitor.
Donal had no memory of how he had come to be in the very heart of the slum. Ordinarily he would have simply turned and walked away. But the cry of one in deathly fear still quivered in the silence, and he could not pretend he hadn’t heard. He listened, breathing shallowly against the stink of raw sewage and rotten food. There was no second scream.
The sagging walls of cramped tenements seemed to press in on him with the sheer weight of the misery they contained, and he almost chose flight over intervention. But he continued to linger, casting for the thoughts of the stray dogs that knew each corner of every maze of alleys and crumbling shacks.
Almost at once he found the source of the trouble. He unbuttoned his coat and followed the agitated stream of images that flowed through his mind like water over jagged stones, abandoning the illusory safety of the street for a dank, noisome passage between two dilapidated buildings. Slurred laughter floated out from an open doorway, and a man’s voice uttered a stream of curses in a hopeless monotone. Donal felt the dogs’ excitement increase and broke into a run.
The passage ended in a high stone wall. The sound of coarse, mocking voices reached Donal’s ears. He turned to the right, where the wall and two houses formed a blind alley, a perfect trap for the unwary. And this trap had caught a victim.
A child crouched amid a year’s worth of discarded refuse, her back pressed to the splintered wood of a featureless house. The dress she wore was no more than an assemblage of rags held together with a length of rope, and the color of her long, matted hair was impossible to determine. It concealed all of her thin, dirty face except for a pair of frightened blue eyes.
A trio of nondescript dogs stalked the space directly in front of the girl, facing an equal number of men whose manner was anything but friendly. It was their voices Donal had heard, and they were far too intent on their prey to notice Donal’s arrival.
“’ere, now,” a fair-haired giant said, wiggling his blunt fingers in a gesture of false entreaty. “Don’t be so shy, love. We only wants to show you a good toim. Ain’t that roight, boys?”
“’at’s roight,” said the giant’s companion, a skinny youth whose jutting teeth were black with decay. “Yer first toim should be wiv true gents like us. We won’t disappoint you.”
“Maybe you’ll even be able t’ walk when we’re done,” the third man said, wiping the mucus from his nose with the back of his sleeve. All three broke into raucous laughter, and the girl shrank deeper into the rubbish while the dogs bared their teeth and pressed their tails between skinny flanks.
“You come wiv us now,” the first man said, “and maybe we’ll let yer doggies go. ‘R else—” He nodded to Rotten Teeth, who drew a knife and slashed toward one of the dogs. The animal darted back, shivering in terror but unwilling to abandon the girl.
Donal set down his bag and stepped forward. The dogs pricked their ears, and the girl’s eyes found him through the barrier of her tormenter’s legs. Her cracked lips parted. Fair-Hair’s shoulders hunched, and he began to turn.
With a flurry of silent calls, Donal shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on a slightly less filthy patch of ground.
“I regret to interrupt your sport, gentlemen,” he said softly, “but I fear I must ask you to let the child go.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE THREE BLACKGUARDS spun about, wicked knives flashing in their hands. Fair-Hair lunged, and Donal leaped easily out of his reach.
“Now, now,” he said. “Is this the welcome you give strangers to your fine district? I am sadly disappointed.”
Fair-Hair, Rotten-Teeth and Snot-Sleeve exchanged glances of disbelief. “’oo in ’ell are you?” Snot-Sleeve demanded.
“I’m sure you’re not interested in my name,” Donal said, “and I am certainly not interested in yours. Let the child go, and I won’t report your disreputable behavior to the police.”
Rotten-Teeth snorted. “Will you look at ‘im,” he said. “Some foin toff who finks ‘e can come ‘ere and insult us.”
“Oi remembers the last toim someone did that,” Fair-Hair said. “Not much left o’ ‘im to report to anybody.”
“‘at’s roight,” Rotten-Teeth said. “You lookin’ to ‘ave yer pretty face cut up tonoight, nancy boy?”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Donal said, listening for the scratch and scrabble of tiny feet, “but you are certainly welcome to try … if you have enough strength left after your daily regimen of raping children.”
Snot-Sleeve aimed a wad of spittle at Donal’s chest, which Donal deftly avoided. He glanced past the men to the circling dogs. They heard his request and made themselves very small, waiting for the signal to move. The girl remained utterly still.
“‘e must be crazy,” Fair-Hair muttered, peering into the darkness at Donal’s back. “‘E can’t ‘ave come ‘ere alone.”
“There ain’t no one else,” Rotten-Teeth insisted. “Let me ‘ave ‘im first.”
“Oi got a be’er idea,” Snot-Sleeve said. “‘ooever takes ‘im down gets first crack at the girl.”
“Oi don’t loik this,” Fair-Hair grunted. “Somefin’ ain’t roight….”
Without waiting to hear his friend’s further thoughts on the matter, Rotten-Teeth crouched in a fighter’s stance and advanced on Donal. The stench of his breath was so foul that Donal almost missed the subtle move that telegraphed his intentions. Rotten-Teeth’s hand sliced down at Donal’s arm, and Donal stepped to the side, grasped his attacker’s shoulder and twisted sharply. Rotten-Teeth yelped and fell to one knee.
Fair-Hair and Snot-Sleeve rushed to their companion’s defense, but they had taken only a few steps when the rats spilled from their hiding places. Rotten-Teeth gave a high-pitched whine as half a dozen dark-furred rodents swarmed over his feet. Another fifty rats and a few hundred mice raced in an ever-tightening circle about the other men’s boots,