From Hell Read Free Page B

more whistles or baying hounds in
Whitechapel, our hunt had come to the end.
    Scarlett stood and stretched, preening
in the weak glow of the sun. “It would seem the killer took the
night off.”
    “ I wish we had.” My hat
had nearly soaked through, the constant pressure of the rain
softening and bending the brim until it hung limp around my head.
My ears tingled from the cold wetness that ran over
them.
    She nodded while twisting her long
hair in her hands, water spilling between her fingers. “Since we’re
not going to find our man plying his trade during the day, I think
I’ll return home for a bit.” Scarlett turned her green gaze on me.
“Meet back here at dusk?”
    “ Sounds good.” I waved,
knowing she meant to report our evening’s failure to
Metatron.
    “ Yet another wonderful
evening in the life of Frank.” She yawned. “No wonder you’re
single.” Scarlett snorted and leapt into the sky before I could
reply. She was gone a moment later, leaving a trail of golden
energy in her wake. I waved goodbye with one finger.
    Once she was out of sight,
I sighed, glad to be rid of her. I yanked my hat from my head to
shake the water loose. While Scarlett might be right about the
killer not hacking up his prey in broad daylight, it was by far the
best time to scout a victim and to prepare. It was also the perfect
time to find out more about our elusive friend .
    That was what set Heaven and Hell
apart, or so Lucifer always told me. Demons were willing to crawl
in the muck to accomplish their goals. You don’t get to know your
enemy by keeping your distance, he’d said. You have to get up close
and personal, dig through their belongings, sniff their asses. The
contact would be a big help with that; the learning more part, not
necessarily the ass sniffing. Then again, you never
know.
    While I didn’t mind
Scarlett hanging around, especially if it helped prove
Hell’s innocence in this particular matter, she didn’t need to know
everything. A demon needs his secrets. We were, all things
considered, on opposite sides of the war. It never hurt to have her
there if a fight broke out, but when it came to subterfuge or
choosing the lesser of two evils, Scarlett was a liability. She
thought in straight lines and was colorblind to the gray in the
world. There’s no doubt she came here to finish the job, to take
out the killer like I’d been sent to do, but you never know how
things are going to work out. I hoped the mission was that clear
cut—track and kill—but they usually weren’t.
    I tossed my hat and coat aside, both
worthless after being drenched, and shimmied down the drainpipe to
the alley below. My uncle had given me plenty of shillings in case
I needed to bribe or coerce information out of anyone, but I didn’t
think it would hurt much to pick up a new jacket. After all, Uncle
Lou wanted me to blend in. Wandering around in the winter for too
long without a coat might draw attention.
    The Webley tucked nicely into the
waistband of my pants, out of sight beneath my shirt, I made my way
out to the street. Still early on a Saturday, most folks were still
slumbering off their Friday night or just avoiding the cold, wet
morning. The streets were nearly deserted as I wound my way through
Whitechapel. What the night’s darkness had hidden so well, the hazy
morning revealed. I wasn’t impressed.
    It was no surprise the Ripper fellow
had chosen to stalk his victims in the East End. The place was a
dump. Trash littered the alleys and flowed out onto the sidewalks
in haphazard jumbles, the rain having turned most of it into a wet,
stinky mush. Urban mud.
    Rats skittered through the garbage
looking for breakfast. They were fearless, beady little eyes
staring me down as I walked past while they held their ground,
whiskers twitching. They were willing to fight for their meal. That
meant they were starving. And if the rats were so hungry they would
challenge a demon, I could only imagine how bad it must be for