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Back Cardinal Black Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. One: Into the Storm
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Two: London Calling
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Three: The Malignant Seven
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Four: Squirrels and Cats
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Five: Revelation
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. About the Author

He went down under the man’s weight, but desperately he held onto the gun as he clawed himself out from underneath the body.

When he recovered his wits he realized it was indeed a body, for Bogen’s face had taken on a blue tinge, his hands were still clutched to his throat, his eyes and mouth were open and the snowflakes made little hissing noises as they melted upon flesh soon to be as cold as the wind, for Bogen the bodyguard was dead.

Matthew didn’t know if this made him a murderer or not, but he doubted very many people had been killed by a water flask.

He made the quick decision to shrug off the polar bear coat, for its weight would be an impediment. He tossed it into the coach. A rapid search of Bogen’s jacket under the cloak turned up a small fringed leather pouch that Matthew’s fingers could feel contained ammunition balls and extra flints. He put that into his own jacket. The powderhorn had come off Bogen’s shoulder and lay up on the coach’s floor next to the flask, so Matthew retrieved that and bound its strap over his head and across one shoulder. He scanned the darkness and saw no return as yet of the drivers, but he pushed the musket deeper into the snow with his foot so it would be too wet to fire. His own pistol was probably too wet as well, in this weather, but he knew from experience that flintlocks were finicky things. After he had crushed the musket down, he turned his attention toward the park itself.

Through the snowclad trees he could see the gazebo at the park’s central point. The multicolored lanterns had gone out. Matthew figured that as owner of the park, Lash probably had his servants attend those festive lamps as Lash desired to appear a herald of the Christmas season to the residents of this exclusive neighborhood; he thought that Lash might disdain the small man, but the vice admiral wished to curry favor with those of equal wealth. In any case, Matthew had decided that if a coal wagon pulled up alongside the park and delivered warm bodies to the house for RakeHell Lizzie to slaughter, the entrance to a tunnel might be thereabouts—near enough to the manse but far enough away that no disturbance would draw unwanted attention. The gazebo, being a solid structure, might be concealing a trapdoor to a tunnel.