Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) by P. J. Thorndyke Page A

baby screaming and the raised voices of a man and a woman engaged in an argument. The stiff corpse of a cat festered a few feet away. Here was the real beating heart of Whitechapel; the rotten core of London’s East End, hidden from the bustle of the shops and stalls, a world where human suffering rippled down its streets and washed over one like a tide of black misery and despair.
    As they passed the warehouses that overshadowed Buck’s Row—the small alleyway where Polly Nichols had met her fate—Lazarus could see in through grimy street level windows and down into dim basements, where the sweaters were hard at work sorting old clothes, cobbling boots and making shirts. It was oddly quiet here but for a dog barking.
    The light had begun to fade and already several prostitutes were about their business, walking in twos or threes, shabby-looking and worn down. As they passed the entrance to another winding alleyway, they heard a muffled groan of protest. Something about the noise struck Lazarus as altogether different from the many sounds of woe and misery that echoed down those grim streets. This was a desperate sound escaping from a mouth that had been abruptly stifled.
    They peered down the alley, and in the dim light they could make out the form of a woman being pressed against the wall by a heavy-set man in a bowler hat.
    “Stay close to me,” Lazarus told Mr. Clumps, “but let me handle this.”
    At their approach, the man turned to glare at Lazarus with mean eyes set in an unshaven face. One meaty fist held a prostitute in a bright red dress against the wall, his fingers digging in deep to choke off her breathing. His other hand held a short folding knife.
    “You ain’t no copper,” he remarked. “So piss off, or I’ll give you worse’n what I’m about to give her!” Then his eyes widened as he noticed Mr. Clumps shuffling out of the gloom. “Christ!” He stood back and changed his grip on the knife as if he might thrust it out in a gutting motion.
    Lazarus drew his Bulldog pocket revolver and aimed it as his ugly forehead. “Try it and see what you get,” he said.
    The thug grinned, folded up his knife and put it into his breast pocket, removing a similar revolver with the same hand. He was either mad or extremely careless with his life, for Lazarus could see in his eyes that the man intended to shoot. Apparently so did Mr. Clumps for, in a burst of speed that Lazarus would not have thought the mechanical capable of, he was between the thug and Lazarus, his massive chest blocking the gun’s muzzle.
    The shot went off and the girl screamed. Mr. Clumps did not even flinch. Lazarus knew that the shot had not damaged him; as with all mechanicals there was a screen of iron plating that protected the organic pilot’s innards. But the thug was none the wiser.
    “Wha... what the bloody hell are you?” the man stammered through the gunsmoke, his eyes wide. He did not have time to chamber another round for Mr. Clumps’s massive fist crashed into his jaw, sending him sliding across the cobbles and into the filth.
    “That wasn’t too savage, I hope?” Lazarus said.
    “Not too savage,” the mechanical replied, flexing his gloved hand.
    The thug groaned and rolled onto all fours, his hand reaching up to his bloodied mouth. A tooth fell loose. Lazarus aimed a kick at his backside.
    “Be off with you before we decide to rid the streets of you permanently!”
    The thug staggered to his feet and vanished into the dark warren. Lazarus looked at the woman, and for the first time realized how young she was. Perhaps in her early twenties, dressed in a Lindsey frock with a clean white apron. She had a mass of strawberry-blonde curls that spilled down on either side of her slender neck. Compared to the ruddy-faced, rotten-toothed women who shared her profession, this one shone with a youthful exuberance yet unspoiled by the ravages of her trade. And she was beautiful.
    “Much obliged sirs,” she said,