Tanith hopped down off the cage. “No. Here’s the deal. You help us. You get along with everyone else in the team, even Jack, and when it’s over, I give you the name, and you go off and do whatever you want to do. Vampires hold grudges, don’t they? I’d imagine you’ve been holding this grudge for a good long time.”

“This might be it,” said Sanguine. “This might be the one thing to make you break your precious little vampire code – never kill another one of your kind. What do you think, Dusk? Might this be what tips you over the edge?”

Dusk said nothing.

5

ooftops and chimneys, that’s all there was to see from up here. The whole thing reminded Sanguine of that scene from Mary Poppins where Dick Van Dyke starts dancing about with all those chimney sweeps high over London town. He wondered if Springheeled Jack ever took the time to dance about with chimney sweeps, singing as they went. Probably not, if he were being honest. Still, it was something to wonder as he waited there, whistling ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ and keeping watch for Cleavers.

Not even twenty minutes later, a long-fingered hand scuttled over the ledge like an unsettlingly ugly spider, followed by an arm and then a battered top hat with a lined, drawn, misshapen face beneath. Jack stayed down there, chin level with the roof, eyes on Sanguine.

“No one else here,” Sanguine told him.

Jack’s voice was high and strained. “’Cept for Cleavers,” he said. “Cleavers’re everywhere.”

“Not here. Not right now. I’ve been here a whole half-hour and I haven’t seen a single one.”

“They’re about.”

“That I know. This whole area’s one big search zone for them. But if you’ve got the skills, sneaking in and out isn’t much of a problem. Come on up. We have time for a chat, don’t we?”

Jack stayed put for a moment, and then with a grace so effortless it would have widened Sanguine’s eyes had he not scooped them out long ago, he pulled himself up and stood there on the edge. His feet were bare, his clothes – top hat and tails – worn and musty.

“How’d you know where to find me?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t,” said Sanguine. “I reckoned you’d be keeping an eye out, though. Figured you’d find me if I waited long enough.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“That so? You’re lookin’ pretty calm for someone who should be worried.”

“And why should I be worried? We’re two old friends, standing on a rooftop, chatting.”

“Last time I chatted to you, you had all these plans to set off the Desolation Engine, remember that? And then that sneaky vampire git turned and ran, left me to get pummelled and thrown in a cell.”