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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

If Elizabeth had one of her spells and could get hold of a blade, she would kill them both. Unfortunately, in that unfettered condition she might also dispatch Firebaugh.

Lash wanted to wash his hands of the Owl’s fluids and change his clothes before he spoke to the others, and with revenge and murder foremost in his fevered mind he left the study and strode along the corridor, leaving bloody bootprints in his wake.

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Five

“By way of introduction,” said Matthew over the pistol he held on Lazarus Firebaugh, “my name is Matthew Corbett, the man driving this coach is Julian Devane, and we’re taking you to Professor Fell’s village in Wales, where you will search the book I’m sitting on to prepare a potion. After that, you can jump off a cliff as far as I’m concerned.”

Firebaugh, ashiver in his nightgown for the cold was a steely presence within the coach, gave a slight, crooked smile. “Prepare a potion? Why?”

“Never mind that now. Just settle back and enjoy the—” The coach felt for an instant as if the wheels had lost traction and the whole thing was sliding to the right, but before Matthew could register the fear of an impending wreck the wheels caught the road once more. “Ride,” Matthew finished.

Elizabeth was staring burning holes through him. She had the polar bear coat draped over her as a blanket, only her head showing over its bulky folds. She said, “He was a fool to destroy the plans. You should’ve told him … take the book, take the doctor, take me along if you please … but don’t touch those plans.”

“I didn’t know what he was going to do. I couldn’t have stopped him anyway.”

“You’ll wish you had,” she answered.

“You’ll wish you’d never been born after the vice admiral finishes with you,” said Firebaugh, crossing one thin bare leg over the other. “He’ll be on the road by now. You won’t make it to Uxbridge before he nabs you.”

“We’ll see,” Matthew said. Julian was driving the horses as hard as he could, but in this weather it was an iffy proposition. The team could not gallop full out and they were constrained to a canter through the snow. Even so, it was a hard go for them and Matthew realized—as Julian must—that they were not going to last more than several hours. Certainly not a full day. Could Julian get the best out of them? It was difficult to say, because before climbing up to the driver’s seat he’d told Matthew he had limited experience driving a four-horse team and none with a coach of this size and weight. So indeed the future seemed, like the breaking dawn, dark and stormy.