“Here’s a dilemma for you,” Wright said. “Unless you let me pass, we’ll both die here.”
Ian knew it was only moments before the entire room was aflame. His body was flooded with fear and panic, and he fought to think clearly.
“There are only two options: let me escape or kill us both. What’s it to be?” Wright said, coughing from the fumes.
Ian looked around desperately—and saw the open door at the top of the stone steps.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “There’s a third option.” He delivered a vicious kick to Wright’s knees; the magician went down hard on the concrete floor. Seizing the moment, Ian leapt over the stacked hay to where Derek lay crumpled on the ground, half-conscious. He scooped the boy up in his arms and headed for the steps, but a hand clutched at his ankle and he stumbled, falling to his hands and knees. Derek slid from his arms, groaning.
“Run, Derek—get out!” Ian said as the smoke curled around them. The boy staggered to his feet and obeyed, climbing the stairs on his hands and knees as Ian fought to throw off his opponent’s desperate grip on his leg.
“Not . . . so . . . fast,” Wright hissed between clenched teeth. “You die with me!”
Ian pried his hand from his ankle and lunged for the exit as Wright scrambled frantically toward him, his fingers clawing at the ground in search of the scythe. But the smoke had thickened, covering everything in its gray haze. Coughing as it filled his lungs, Ian slithered on his belly to the stairway. Springing up the steps, he closed the door behind him, throwing the padlock through the metal loops, and flung himself down next to Derek, who sat leaning against the wall of the building, a dazed expression on his soot-blackened face.
Wright had roared with rage as the heavy doors clanged shut, sealing him inside. Now his screams had turned to terror. Ian fell to his knees on the cobblestones, soaked with sweat, and tried to block out the sound, but he could not bear the pure animal terror in the man’s voice.
“Help me—please! For God’s sake—help!”
It brought back still-fresh memories of his parents’ unheeded pleas on that dreadful night. Half-delusional with exhaustion and pain, Ian thought he could hear his parents’ cries once again.
“Ian, darling—help! Please, help me!”
Staggering to his feet, he pulled off the lock with trembling fingers, yanked open the door, and stumbled back down the stairs, to be swallowed up in the fiery pit of smoke and flames.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
When Sergeant Dickerson finally made it through to the other side of the bleating mass of sheep, there was no sign of Detective Hamilton or the man they pursued. Looking around frantically, he saw a small boy, whom he recognized as Derek McNair, stumbling toward him. His face was covered in soot, his clothing was torn, and he looked half-dead.
“Come quick!” the boy called.
“Which way’d they go?” Dickerson panted.
“This way!” Derek called over his shoulder, loping down the street on his thin legs.
“Oiy, this way, lads!” the sergeant called to the two constables, who had just extricated themselves from the flock of sheep. They staggered after him, truncheons flapping on their thighs. The boy led the little band of policemen through dim and dusty streets, into the unsavory neighborhoods beyond George IV Bridge.
As they entered the tenements of Little Ireland, they were followed by a few raggedy children and their scraggly dogs, barking with excitement. The odd cavalcade rounded the corner, looking like something out of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
“How . . . much . . . farther?” Dickerson panted.
“Down there!” Derek shouted, pointing to a narrow alley, Skinner’s Close.
He headed into the alley, the two policemen galloping after him.
“Quick—down ’ere!” Derek called, and Dickerson broke into a dead run.
Smoke billowed from an open cellar. Holding his hand over his nose and mouth, Dickerson peered into the flames and could just make out two prostrate forms at the bottom of the steps.
“Call the fire squad!” he barked at Derek. The boy blinked once and took off back down the alley. “You!” he said to the constables. “Help me get these men out of ’ere!”
The policemen obeyed, coughing as they followed the sergeant down the stone stairs. Just as Dickerson feared, one of the unconscious men was Detective Hamilton. The other was the magician they had chased from the Grassmarket.
“Don’ jes stand there!” he barked at the constables. “Give us a hand, then!”
They carried both men up the stairs to the street just as the clang of the bell on the fire truck sounded a few streets away.
“Are they dead?” one of the constables asked, staring down at the unconscious men, their faces black with soot.
“I hope not,” Dickerson replied, but hope felt like a faint and feeble creature indeed.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Ian awoke to the smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant. The first thing he noticed was that he was not in pain. The thought crossed his mind that he was in heaven, even though he didn’t believe in it. Opening his eyes, he half hoped to see his brother, but instead the worried face of Aunt Lillian came into focus. Her expression instantly changed to disapproval, and she shook her head.
“You behaved like a proper idiot. You know that, of course.”
He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. The white walls and sharp smell of antiseptic told him he was in hospital. A young nurse in a crisp white uniform was fussing with his covers at the foot of the bed. She had a soft, round-cheeked face and pale blond eyelashes.
“How did I get here?” he said.
“I brought ye.” The voice belonged to Sergeant Dickerson, standing on the other side of Ian’s bed, his face and hands blackened with soot.
“Sergeant Dickerson saved your life,” his aunt said. “He pulled you from the flames.”
“Me an’ another bloke,” Dickerson clarified.
“What about Wright?”
Dickerson looked away. “He didn’ make it, sir.”
“Damn,” Ian said. He felt like crying—not because Wright was dead, but because he had failed to save him—and because it was over. Relief and disappointment vied for mastery in his breast; the events of the past few days felt like a hollow dream.
“What’s all this about you almost dying, Hamilton?” a voice bellowed from the doorway.
“Bosh and bunkum, sir,” said Ian as DCI Crawford approached his bed. His skin was pasty, his small eyes rounded with red.
“You look like bloody hell,” he observed.
“You don’t look so good yourself, sir.”
The nurse who had been hovering at the foot of his bed stepped forward. “I must caution you against too much commotion—Mr. Hamilton needs his rest.”
“It’s Detective Inspector Hamilton, miss,” Crawford declared, scowling from beneath bushy eyebrows.
“Be that as it may,” the nurse said firmly, “he’s my patient, and—”
“It’s all right—I’ll go,” Dickerson said, glancing nervously at the door. “I, uh, got somewhere t’go anyway.”