Harper tilted her Guinness high, polished off the bottom foam. Set the glass down decisively. “Time,” she said. Bernard nodded. They both stood.

The young man fetched her cape from the stand in the corner, helped her shrug into it. He smoothed it down her back as she buttoned the front. Harper then slipped her pipe in her satchel and pulled the strap over her shoulder. Clapped her Borsalino onto her head; adjusted her glasses. Bernard retrieved her stick from the chimney corner and handed it to her. Completely recovered now, she patted his high cheek.

“Thank you for coming, lad. I should not have liked to’ve been bundled off like washing.”

He squeezed her hand. “We’ll go as we lived, darling—flailing about.”

“Ha-ha.”

She lifted the dragon’s head to the barman. Walked with Bernard to the double doors. They both paused there, peering through the etching of the crane on the glass. The thug was no longer at his post on the corner. No one else was visible either. The street was empty. It seemed empty, anyway.

“Well,” said Bernard under his breath. “It’s only thirty steps home.”

But they got no more than ten.

She pushed her door open. He shouldered through his. They stepped out onto the corner, under a streetlight. Began to cross the street. Bernard stayed close to Harper’s left shoulder. They looked to either side of them. Bernard glanced behind. No one was visible in any direction.

They went across the road diagonally, moving from the streetlight towards their own portico. About midway, they stepped out of the streetlight’s glory, into darkness.

And the scarred man came at them as if from nowhere.

He approached them swiftly, without breaking stride. He pointed to his wrist. He smiled, but his scar distorted it into a toothy smirk.

“Have you got the time, darling?” he said.

But he never stopped coming at them, charging at them. And there were other footsteps now, running footsteps, all around them, closing in.

“The time,” Harper growled, “is not yet.” Her stick was in her left hand, her right was pulling the dragon, pulling the sword’s blade free of its sheath. She brought the sharp steel arcing over her head, brought it slicing straight so that the point halted in the air just as the scarred man reached it. He had to brake—hard—on the balls of his feet, and even so, the sword pressed nastily into the hollow of his throat at the place where his overcoat opened.

Bernard, meanwhile, curled around behind her. He set his back to hers—and not a moment too soon. There were four others and they were rushing at him from every side.

Bernard gave a raw, steamy hiss as he pressed out his ibuki breath with a tightened abdomen. His right hand described a smooth shuto-uchi—the knife-hand stroke—in the air. With that, he slipped into his fighting posture.