The Ouroboros Cycle, Book Two: A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires. G.D. Falksen

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СКАЧАТЬ attention. Luka continued his careful advance. One of them men turned his head and coughed, and Luka quickly stepped away to avoid being seen.

      “I don’t much care what you take kindly to,” Constantine said. “You are no longer welcome here. Be gone.”

      The ruffian looked at his fellows and they all shared a laugh. He turned back to Constantine and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

      “Try no’ ta make too much noise, yeah?” he said. “Don’ wan’ ta disturb ya neighbors, eh?”

      Luka knew that he couldn’t reach Constantine in time—Varanus would be disappointed—but at least he had reached the two men at the back of the group. He grabbed them each by the ear and smashed their heads together. Their bodies jerked and shuddered, and they dropped to the ground where they lay motionless. They would probably live, though alive or dead made little difference to Luka.

      Ahead, the leader rushed at Constantine, knife raised. Well, Luka thought, that’s the end of him.

      But, to Luka’s great surprise, it wasn’t. As the ruffian came at him, Constantine tossed his walking stick into the air, caught it, and swung. The large metal head connected soundly with the ruffian’s jaw and knocked him sideways. He stumbled and ran headlong into the wall. Constantine swept his foot out from beneath him with another swing of the walking stick, and the ruffian hit the ground hard, spitting blood as he did.

      Two men remained. One turned to look to his leader while the second rushed at Luka. Evading the man’s sloppy punches, Luka bobbed back and forth for a moment, enjoying the thrill of the exercise. Then, tiring of the game, he caught the man by the collar and punched him once, twice, three times in the stomach before throwing him to the ground. The last man, now caught between the two men who had laid low his comrades, hesitated for a moment before bolting for the street. Luka let him go.

      “And don’t come back!” Constantine shouted. He advanced toward Luka, prodding the men on the ground in passing. “Come along, on your feet,” he barked at them. “Clear off! I won’t have you hanging about the place when I have patients to attend to.” Reaching Luka, Constantine gave him a quick appraising look and nodded. “Neatly done.”

      “Thank you, Doctor,” Luka said, nodding. “And you.”

      “It was nothing,” Constantine said. “Had you not come along, sir…then I would have done something rather impressive. And while we are at it, who, may I ask, are you?”

      “I am Luka,” Luka replied, smiling a little. “And you are Doctor Constantine, who is minding the clinic while Doctor Va—” Luka caught himself, “Sauvage is away.”

      If Constantine noticed the slip, he gave no indication. It was unlikely, though. From his manner and speech, Luka assessed him to be one of those tremendously intelligent people who understood little and noticed even less. The Shashavani had more than their fair share of them.

      “Yes, yes,” Constantine said, “she told me she had a man to keep an eye on the place. Very good.”

      He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping the head of his walking stick, lest contact with the ruffian’s face had soiled it. Luka looked over his shoulder and saw Bates hobbling toward them along the alley that connected Osborne Court to the street, followed by a couple of his fellows. They looked at the injured men who lay on the ground with wide eyes and open mouths.

      Was it possible they had thought Luka could not manage the whole group alone? He was more than a little offended.

      “Mister Luka,” Bates said, “we, uh…uh.…”

      “Just in time, Bates,” Luka said. “Mind these troublemakers for me. I must get to work, and I’m certain the doctor here does not want these men discouraging his patients.”

      “Yes, it would be most inconvenient,” Constantine said. He looked at Bates and extended his hand. “Bates is it?”

      “Yessir,” Bates replied. He quickly doffed his hat with one hand while shaking with the other. “I work for Mister Luka.”

      “Splendid!” Constantine said. “I could use a couple of door guards.”

      “Aye,” Bates said. “’Swhy we’re ’ere.”

      Bates snapped his fingers, and the two fellows with him took up positions on either side of the door, looking down at the ruffians and glowering. They carried large cudgels and looked more than ready to do violence.

      Good, Luka thought.

      One by one, the conscious ruffians got to their feet and began backing away toward the street.

      “And…Mister Bates,” Constantine said, “why don’t you come inside. Let me look at your leg. Doctor Sauvage left some notes for me about her current patients, and she mentioned your injuries.”

      “Much obliged, Doctor,” Bates said. “Very kind o’ you.”

      “Nonsense, it’s my occupation,” Constantine replied. “Come along.” He looked at Luka and added, “And thank you very much for your assistance, Mister Luka.”

      “My pleasure.” Luka smiled. It had been. Not quite the challenge he wanted, but it was good to be in a fight after so much time of inaction. “Good evening.”

      He tipped his hat to Constantine, turned, and departed Osborne Court in search of more trouble and more prey.

      * * * *

      Luka spent a little while walking the streets around Osborne Court, surveying his new territory and taking note of the inhabitants. The whores were out, standing around the street corner or making a patrol of the area, searching for customers. The drunks of the day had been joined by the drunks of the evening, and in the growing darkness the population became more and more sinister.

      He passed a pair of men robbing a third at knifepoint. Luka interrupted them and laid them out with a few blows each. He gave their victim the contents of their pockets as compensation and sent him on his way to spread the word. Luka knew nothing of the men nor of the details of the attack—for all he knew, the victim had done something to warrant the robbery. But that did not matter. From now on the people around Osborne Court would know that they were to be safe from violence, whether perpetrated by outsiders or by one another.

      This was his domain, his fief. The people were his responsibility, though it would take some work building their loyalty. This was governance at its most primitive level. There were no laws or customs for him to call upon, no predecessors from whom he could inherit his authority. The Spitalfields were a wilderness, a place of mistrustful people, either under siege by men who wished to do them violence, or those very same violent men besieging others. Luka would become the lord here by protecting the weak from those violent men with an application of even greater violence.

      At the corner of Burgess Row—a glorified alleyway that led between Perrott Street and Cooke Street—Luka heard a woman’s raised voice, shouting something that he could not quite make out. The tone was angry and more than a little frightened.

      Luka moved to the corner and peeked around it. About halfway along the alley, a pale young woman with ginger-red hair stood, back pressed up against the wall, illuminated by a beam of light. She was skinny—probably half starved—and clothed in a fraying dress of green and blue plaid. The garment was СКАЧАТЬ