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blade had just penetrated the cab door, its quivering razor tip mere inches from Doyle's chest. A shrill, insistent variation of the vile whistling filled the nearby air. Doyle looked back: The gray hood was twenty yards back, drawing another, identically vicious dagger from its belt as it sprinted toward him at improbable speed. With a prodigious leap, the hood jumped onto the running board of the accelerating coach, clutching for purchase in the open doorway. Hands pulled Doyle back into the cab; he scuttled to the far corner, digging for his pistol, trying to remember which pocket he'd left it in, when he heard the opposite door open. He looked up to see a flash of flapping coattail; his friend had fled, leaving him trapped in the cab with their relentless pursuer—where was his pistol?
    As the hooded figure captured its balance in the doorframe and raised the weapon, Doyle heard the scuff of weight shifting on the roof, then through the open window saw his friend swing down into view and drive both feet into the open door, slamming it shut and rocketing the point of the embedded dagger completely through their attacker's chest. With a hideously muted mewling cry, the hood kicked and clawed ferociously at the invading blade, mauling its hands indiscriminately, then went suddenly and entirely limp, pinned to the door like a bug.
    Doyle struggled to his knees in the jostling sway of the carriage and moved to the hooded man. Rough clothes. Hobnailed boots, almost new. Feeling for a pulse and finding none, Doyle was about to remark on the curious absence of blood when his defender reached in through the window, pulled off the gray hood, and tossed it away.
    "Good Christ!"
    A hatch pattern of symmetrical scars crisscrossed the stark white face. The man's eyes and lips had been crudely knitted up with a coarse, waxy blue thread.
    Holding on from the roof, Doyle's companion reopened the door, and the body swung out with it: Suspended outside the rapidly moving cab, the corpse exhibited violent spastic movements as the coach bounced and jolted along. With a strong pull, the man drew the long knife back through the door, releasing the body from its attachment, and it fell away into obscurity.
    In one deft move, the man pivoted into the cab, pulled the door shut behind him, and took a seat across from the stunned Doyle. He took two deep breaths and then ...
    "Care for a drink?"
    "What's that?"
    "Cognac. Medicinal purposes," said the man, offering a silver flask.
    Doyle accepted it and drank—it was cognac; exceedingly good cognac—as the man watched. Doyle saw him clearly for the first time in the pale amber light of the cabin lantern—his face was narrow; streaks of color painted his sharp cheeks; long, jet-black hair curled behind his ears. High forehead. Aquiline nose. Strong jaw. The eyes were remarkable, light and sharp, colored by a habitual amusement that Doyle felt, to say the least, was currently inappropriate.
    "We could have that little chat now," the man said.
    "Right. Have a go."
    "Where to begin?"
    "You knew my name."
    "Doyle, isn't it?"
    "And you're ..."
    "Sacker. Armond Sacker. Pleasure."
    "The pleasure I should say, Mr. Sacker, is distinctly mine."
    "Have another."
    "Cheers." Doyle drank again and passed back the flask.
    The man unfastened his cloak. He wore black, head to toe. Lifting a leg of his trousers, he exposed the bloodied bite on his calf given by the feral boy.
    "Nasty, that," said Doyle. "Shall I have a look?"
    "No bother." The man took a handkerchief from his pocket and soaked it with cognac. "The puncture itself's not the worry, it's the damn tearing action when they prattle their heads about."
    "Know a bit about medicine, then."
    Sacker smiled and without flinching compressed the handkerchief tightly to the wound. Closing his eyes was the only concession to what Doyle knew must be extraordinary pain; when they reopened, no trace of it remained.
    "Right. So, Doyle, tell me how you came to be in that