I planted my feet apart and resisted. "I don't—"

A woman's scream tore through the thick, hot air. Gus and Seth let me go and ran toward the arch. I followed close at their heels, but got no further than the crowd gathered in the courtyard. The woman was no longer screaming, but her sobs echoed around the clearing. I couldn't see her, but could just make out her spluttered plea. "Don't hurt 'im, sir."

"Drop it!" Frankenstein shouted, from somewhere beyond the wall of bodies blocking my sight.

"What is it?" I asked Seth. "Can you see?"

He didn't answer but pushed through the crowd, his strong arms shoving people aside. Gus joined him, and once again I followed in their wake.

I peeked past Gus to see Frankenstein standing near the false wall, a child in front of him, his gaze dead ahead on something I couldn't see behind the wall, but I knew was Fitzroy. Frankenstein held a knife at the boy's throat. The sobbing woman must be his mother. Her menfolk held her back, but the anguish on her face made my heart ache for her.

"Now do you see what sort of character he is?" Seth growled at me.

"Drop the gun down there," Frankenstein snapped. "Do it now, or I'll slit his throat."

A hush fell over the crowd as we waited for the clank of the gun being dropped down the unseen manhole. But the only sound was the woman's uncontrollable sobs.

Frankenstein's arm tensed and the boy cried out in pain as the blade bit into his neck.

I was about to open my mouth, to scream at Fitzroy to do it, when Seth's hand clamped over it. He jerked me against his chest, blocking my view. "Quiet, Charlie," he hissed. "If he knows you're here, he'll use the boy to force you to go with him."

Perhaps I could force an exchange, the boy's life for mine…

"Do it!" the mother screamed before I'd made up my mind.

The distant splash of something hitting water was a relief to hear. The crowd seemed to take a breath all at once.

"Get away from the hole." The edge in Frankenstein's voice wasn't quite as harsh anymore.

I pulled free of Seth's hard embrace and peered past him. Frankenstein moved toward the manhole behind the wall, the child still locked in his arm with a knife to his throat. As he disappeared behind the wall, Fitzroy reappeared. He did not have his hands raised, but his intense focus zeroed in on Frankenstein.

"Let him go!" shouted one of the men holding back the sobbing mother.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The boy was spat out from behind the wall, propelled into Fitzroy's waiting arms. At the same moment, while everyone's attention was distracted, the knife flew at the boy.

Several women screamed, including me. But Fitzroy spun the child out of the way and put his own body between blade and boy.