Despite this, the hairs stood up on Olivers neck, a deep sense that things were no longer as they ought to be. Cautiously he left the garden door ajar rather than clunking it shut, and peered into the kitchen. Damson Griggs lay face-down on the kitchen tiles, her blank eyes staring lifeless across the pooling blood. There was a small wood-handled knife from the kitchen drawer embedded in the back of her head. The practical, protective Damson Griggs, the old lady who did not have a single bad bone in her body; snuffed out with the casualness of a garden beetle flattened under a boot.
Oliver choked back a sob. He felt faint, like his soul was being drawn into the sky, his body lifted in the updraft of the death. Then his raw animal instinct for survival kicked in and he was back in the kitchen. Had Damson Griggs come in the back way too, surprising some cracksman stealing the houses silver plate? Where was his uncle?
Oliver felt a wave of panic rising in his stomach. His uncle should be home; why had he not heard the damsons cries? He slipped a large knife out of the sharpening block by the porcelain basin, briefly comforted by its heft. Someone coughed outside the kitchen. Oliver tried not to slip on the blood impossibly brown when it surely should have been red and he went to look through the crack of the door to the hallway.
There was a man he did not recognize no, two of them rifling quickly through the halls letters cabinet. They wore black clothes of a cut Oliver had never seen before. Where was his uncle? Oliver gripped the knife tighter, willing himself to move when a hand clamped over his mouth and his knife arm was seized in a vice-like grip.
It was Harry Stave.
The voice was in his skull, their guests lips still sealed grimly shut.
How are you doing this? Oliver silently mouthed. Are you a worldsinger? Wheres my uncle?
Who are they? Oliver mouthed. What are they doing here?
Are they armed? Oliver mouthed.
But you
Oliver arrived back at the police station lathered in sweat, his heart hammering inside his chest. Please let the station be manned. Hitting the door latch, he burst in, startling Sergeant Cudban.
Sergeant, Oliver panted. Damson Griggs is dead, killers still in the house.
Then Oliver noticed the two smartly dressed men on the other side of the room. Well, sergeant. Its as I was just telling you. It appears my words were prophetic.
Cudban nodded at the two men. Brigadier Morgan and Captain Bates from Ham Yard, Oliver.
And its no great feat of detection on my part to name the leader of the killers, said the man Cudban had identified as a brigadier.
Harry Stave, said the one called Bates.
Olivers eyes went wide. But hes still
Harry Stave slipped the scaffold outside Bonegate fifteen years back, said the brigadier. And hes been leaving a trail of corpses across Jackals ever since.
Youve had a lucky escape, laddie, said Cudban. Him and his gang of cut-throats are still at your house?
Oliver groaned. Uncle Titus. His uncle was at the mercy of a gang of thugs and tricksters. And he had abandoned him to his fate back at Seventy Star Hall. Oliver glanced at the warrant that Cudban was holding, an illustration of Harry Stave looking out at him below a line of blood-code sigils, information that could only be read by a transaction engine, then the warrants script. The red lettering leapt out at Oliver. Harry Stave. Escaped execution from Bonegate prison, 1560. A long list of aliases underneath. Two oversized initials at the foot of the page: C.I. crown immunity if handed in dead.
Cudban pulled a rifle down from the wall rack, broke the gun and carefully slipped a glass charge into its breach. He got Damson Griggs then, laddie? Murdering wee jigger. Well, he wont be getting close to the noose this time, not even if he gives
himself up.
But he let me go, said Oliver. He could have killed me too.
Ego, said the captain from Ham Yard. Not much good leaving a trail of villainy in your wake if the penny dreadfuls blame it on a rival crew.
The brigadier lifted a cutlass off the table. Your other constables?
Ones at the airship field, the other mans out towards the dike and the Hundred Locks navigation, spat Cudban. By the time I round them up, Stave and his crew could be halfway to Hamblefolk.
Not good, said the brigadier.
I told the county were running short-handed here, said Cudban. Maybe theyll listen now weve finally had a killing.
No, said the brigadier. I meant not good for you.
He thrust the cutlass up and into Cudbans stomach, twisting it as the sergeant stumbled back, a line of blood spilling from his mouth as he gurgled his last breath. At the same time, Batess arm snaked around Olivers neck and a fist punched him in the spine, collapsing the boy to his knees.
Its a terrible thing, said Morgan, watching Cudbans death throes with a solemn gravitas. when a young man goes fey, killing everyone in his home.
His colleague was pressing down on Oliver like a mountain. Then murdering his registration officer.