Free A Study in Darkness by Emma Jane Holloway Page A

Schoolmaster’s package.
    The other nodded, slowly sliding the gun from the holster under his coat. Nick’s skin chilled at the flat anger in his eyes. All of a sudden, the Schoolmaster didn’t look so bookish anymore.
    They were in for a fight.

 
    NICK HADN’T PAID A GREAT DEAL OF ATTENTION TO THE tannery, but now he squinted to make out what he could by the vague light of the moon. From his vantage point, he could see through the wide gates into the tannery yard. There were sheds and buildings, but a lot of the operation seemed to be set up outside, probably for the ventilation. Figures were moving around the yard, darting from the shelter of one huge vat to another, and then out through the gates to the scrubland where he stood.
    He caught a glimpse of a uniform—a familiar pattern of light braid on dark cloth, barely seen in the uncertain light but still more than enough for alarm. He swore under his breath. “The Scarlet King’s men. They’re coming from inside the tannery.”
    “Bugger,” the Schoolmaster said in cool tones. “That means they were waiting for us. Probably listening until we told them everything they wanted to know.”
    And there were more of them than he was seeing. Nick could sense more than hear the footsteps moving in the darkness, as if every shred of his being were suddenly attuned to the fine movement of air. Scarlet’s soldiers were good at stealth—he had to give them that. Then again, the penalty for failure was death.
    “Do they know we’ve seen them?” Nick said.
    “Hard to tell.”
    Nick couldn’t stop a quiver of panic when he thought of Striker, puttering down the road in the Steamer, or the
Red Jack
, hovering low and vulnerable like a whale trying tohide in a puddle. A curse escaped his lips. Had the soldiers found them? He was the captain. He should know what was happening to his ship.
I have to go. I have to go now
.
    His scrambling thoughts were interrupted as the Schoolmaster leaned close and slid something—paper by the sound—into the pocket of Nick’s jacket. “When you get to Scotland,” he whispered, “the code word is Baskerville.”
    Baskerville?
Was that a person? A place?
    But the Schoolmaster stepped away, giving a casual tip of his hat. The long tails of his scarf swung as he turned to go, his eyes sharp with a hellish species of mischief. He raised the pistol in a salute, cocking it with a sharp, metallic rasp. Then he raised his voice in a mocking tone meant for the audience in the shadows. “It’s time we said farewell, eh what?”
    There was a rustling that said he’d caught their attention.
    “Best get this over with, for all it’s been a pleasure,” said the Schoolmaster. “Safe journey, Captain.”
    And nothing says safe like a half dozen assassins hiding behind vats of piss and brains
. Nick shifted his grip on the knife. Before he’d taken up the life of a thief and a smuggler, he’d been the Indomitable Niccolo, the best trick rider and knife man around—and he’d been no mean acrobat, either. If these fools wanted a show, he’d give them one.
    Then the darkness itself seemed to move. The knife left his hand in a graceful arc, anticipating where the gunman would be, and the flash of gunfire blinded him. In the same instant, Nick flew into the air, twisting out of the path of the bullet. He felt it kiss along his thigh, leaving a trail of sharp heat.
    “Fardlin’ hell!” someone raged.
    Nick landed, rolled through a somersault, and came up a foot away from the speaker. A second knife slid out of his boot and into his hand. As he rose, the momentum of his body carrying him forward, he slid the weapon into the man’s diaphragm, the slight resistance of cloth and leather giving way to the elastic slide of steel through flesh and the scraping roughness of bone. He felt the man’s shudder, the wet, terrifiedcough as it vibrated through the knife hilt, and then he pulled the weapon away with a sucking jerk.
    There was an