Free The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) by Gregory Ashe Page A

to go now.”
    Irene pulled her hand free and stepped forward. “Who are you?”
    “Marie-Thérèse. I know you, Irene Lovell. And I know that the Children think you have something very important. And I know that they will rip every strip of skin from your pretty face before they realize you have no idea where it is.”
    “The box,” Irene said.
    Marie-Thérèse smiled like a cat with a bowl of cream.
    “Damn the box,” Cian said. A blow shook the rear door of the nave. He grabbed Irene’s arm. “She wasn’t lying about those golem things. They’re going to be in here any minute. We should run while we can.”
    “My feet hurt,” Irene said. “And I’m tired of running. You run. I’m going to—”
    “What? You’re going to fight?” Cian laughed. “You’re out of rounds and you weigh less than a wet cat. Those things will snap you like a piece of kindling.”
    Irene’s cheeks reddened. Before she could answer, though, Marie-Thérèse said, “There’s another way, of course. I am not entirely without resources. I could provide safe passage.”
    “How?”
    “How is not the right question, my dear. How much is the right question.”
    And again that look, that Mediterranean smile that made Cian feel the snap of metal teeth around his leg. Run, his brain said. Leave the girl.
    It was the smart thing to do. Irene was pretty enough, if you liked your girl thin as a sheet of ice and with all the sharp edges, but she didn’t mean a wooden penny to Cian. Without her, he’d be faster, and he could lose himself in the Patch. By morning, he could be on a train and out of this city.
    He hadn’t been smart in France. He’d come back for Corinne.
    And look how that fucking fairytale had turned out.
    For some reason, though, he was still standing there.
    “How much?” Irene asked.
    A blow split the rear door of the nave. Wooden slats toppled to the floor, and the hulking form of a man in a trench coat—a golem, Marie-Thérèse’s voice said in Cian’s head—forced its way through the opening.
    Marie-Thérèse’s smiled had widened.
    Cian put himself between the golems and Irene. Run, run, run. He could still run. And then his brain shut down, and the only thing left was the Colt and three shots.
    The first golem made its way down the center aisle of the nave. Tremors ran through the ground, snaking up Cian’s boots. His hand, though, as he drew a bead on the golem, was steady.
    Maybe he had learned something in France after all.
    Irene was screaming something, but Cian couldn’t take his eyes off the golem. He squeezed the trigger. The bullet knocked off the hat, exposing a lumpy knob of flesh where there should have been a face. Chips of something that looked like dirt flaked from the hole in the center of that monstrous face.
    No blood though. And the damn thing didn’t stop.
    Cian readied himself to fire again, but hesitated when he saw someone sprinting between the pews. It was a man, and he headed straight for the golem. The lumbering creature noticed the newcomer a moment to late. The man slipped behind the golem, stretched up on his toes, and dragged a knife across the back of the creature’s neck. Then the man gave the golem a shove, and the creature toppled over. When the golem hit the granite floor, it shattered. A chunk of mud the size of a man’s head slid free from the trench coat and came to rest against Cian’s boot.
    Cian took a step back.
    “Don’t take the deal,” the man called to Irene. And then he ran towards the back of the nave, where another of the golems had burst through the ruined door. With a laugh, he feinted at the golem, slashing at its face and pulling back.
    Not fast enough. One of the golem’s massive hands caught him in the chest and sent the man sliding across the cathedral floor.
    “Harry,” a woman’s voice called.
    “I’ll get him,” said another man. A Hun’s voice. Cian turned and saw a short, gray-haired man striding down the aisle. He carried a