The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) Read Free Page A

Heeled Jack—Burton couldn’t think of it as anything else—crouched and turned toward him. “Sir Richard Francis bloody Burton.”
    “You’ve inserted one name too many, my friend, but I shall overlook that. Now be so kind as to introduce yourself and explain what you want with me.”
    “I don’t know.”
    Burton stopped in front of the creature and examined it. The description given by Monckton Milnes was accurate; it was totally lacking in any human detail.
    “You don’t know?”
    “Perhaps—”
    “Perhaps what?”
    “Perhaps I have to—”
    Without warning, it pounced.
    “Kill you!”
    A swinging fist knocked the point of Burton’s blade aside. He felt himself grabbed by the upper arms, solid fingers gouging into his biceps, and was lifted high into the air as if he weighed nothing at all. With tremendous strength, Spring Heeled Jack dashed him viciously to the ground. Even through the padding of snow, Burton’s head cracked with such force against the paving that his senses reeled.
    “Got you!” his assailant shouted. “Stop interfering! Leave me alone! Tell me why I’m here!”
    A shrill scream of outrage echoed through the square, and Swinburne came racing to his fallen friend’s assistance. The poet swiped at Spring Heeled Jack with his cane. It impacted against a broad shoulder and snapped in half, its lower end spinning away. “Get off him, you brute! Scat! Scat!”
    The stilted figure turned and swatted the poet. Swinburne cartwheeled and landed in a tangled heap.
    Tom Honesty put his whistle to his mouth and blew.
    Jack squatted over Burton. “What am I supposed to do? Where is the prime minister? What is your significance? What happened at nine o’clock?”
    Flat on his back, the king’s agent looked up at the blank countenance.
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    His attacker reached down, clasped the front of his coat, yanked him upright, and threw him. Burton saw the black night sky and the pink ground of Leicester Square alternating around him as—with shock slowing everything to a crawl and causing him to feel like a dispassionate observer—he pirouetted through the air. He passed over Trounce and the members of the Cannibal Club and glimpsed them looking up at him with expressions of sheer horror. Then he impacted against a plate glass window. Fragments exploded around him. They glinted and flashed. They rained like a thousand jewels.
    This surely hurts, yet I don’t feel a thing.
    He crashed down onto a table. It collapsed beneath him. Cutlery and broken crockery danced up, colliding with the showering glass. A symphony of clatters and smashes and bangs and clangs sounded from afar. Distant voices ululated. Everything was dreamlike.
    Of its own accord, his right hand rose into his line of sight, and he was fascinated to find that it still held his rapier. He watched as the weapon’s point lowered toward his feet until it was directed at the jagged rectangular hole where the window had been.
    Poor Bartolini. He’s having a bad evening. His restaurant is wrecked.
    Spring Heeled Jack bounded in and dived forward. Burton’s sword adjusted itself and struck the apparition in the middle of its chest. The blade bent, scraped across to the left, gouged a scratch in the hard white skin, but didn’t penetrate it.
    Jack snatched the weapon, wrenched it from Burton’s hand, and cast it aside. Planting a stilt to either side of the fallen man, it looked down and gave vent to an agonised whine.
    Burton whispered, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “I must serve Queen Victoria,” it responded. “But I’ve forgotten how.”
    Trounce came pounding into the restaurant. Bellowing, he thudded into the creature, wrapped his arms around it, and declared, “You’re bloody well nicked, old son!”
    Jack staggered. Burton quickly pushed himself out from between its legs and dragged himself backward through splintered wood and glass.
    Trounce’s grip broke as his