Ashes To Ashes: A Ministry of Curiosities Novella (The Ministry of Curiosities Book 5) by C.J. Archer Page B

gone to some trouble to blend in with the working class men. Perhaps it was because most of those men were at work in the early afternoon, not wandering around the streets in a pack of three. Lincoln regretted not waiting for darkness, when the men were heading home from their jobs at the factories. He worked better in the dark too.
    But he'd been too impatient to wait. If Billy's information proved true, then Lincoln could be close to catching the gunman as well the man who hired him. Waiting would allow the gunman to escape.
    "I hate this place," Gus hissed. He hunched into his great coat, but still shivered. "Feels like I'm bein' sized for me boots."
    "Not even the poorest will want your stinking footwear." Seth's teasing was half-hearted, as he too kept a wary eye on the hollow-eyed children and their gin-soaked mothers.
    They passed a group of thick-set men huddled around a low fire burning in a brazier. One man drank from a bottle while his friends rubbed gloveless hands together and laughed over something. Others stood a little further away, gazing enviously at the fire but not approaching.
    "Should we ask them?" Seth said.
    "No." Lincoln knew a group of thugs when he saw it. There were easier targets who would be more deserving of a few coins.
    Gus tripped over the feet of an elderly man sitting on a doorstep. His head remained resting against the door, his mouth ajar. Lincoln couldn't be certain if he was asleep or dead.
    A girl stumbled out of the shadows, a ragged shawl bunched at her chest instead of wrapped around her thin shoulders. Stringy brown hair fell from a cap that had probably once been white but was now gray and torn. Her face was mostly gray too. The only color came from the smudges of red under her sunken eyes and the sores on her lips.
    "Please, sirs. I'll do whatever you want for some ready." She let go of the shawl and held out her dirty palm. The shawl fell away to reveal a sleeping baby. The baby stirred with the sudden brush of cold air on soft skin. Unlike the girl, the baby looked healthy.
    Both Seth and Gus reached for their pockets but Lincoln stopped them with a raise of his hand. "Do you know where we can find Jack Daley?" he asked her.
    A spark of fear momentarily gave her eyes some life. She looked left and right, then backed away. She shook her head.
    Lincoln removed a pouch stuffed with coin from his inside coat pocket. "All of this and my coat if you tell me where to find him."
    For a moment, he thought her fear would override her desperation, but then she stepped forward. "He lives in the tall brown house on Flower and Dean," she whispered. "Two from the corner. Old Mrs. Fenton is the landlady." She blinked at Lincoln then tentatively held out her hand again.
    He gave her the pouch and she quickly tucked it back inside the shawl with the baby. "How old are you?" he asked.
    "Thirteen."
    Both Seth and Gus muttered under their breath. "The baby's father?" Seth asked.
    "Dead. Our mother too."
    "You're not the mother?"
    "He's me brother." She blinked dry eyes and kissed the top of the baby's head. "I'm all he's got now, and he's all I got."
    Lincoln shucked off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. He must remember to ask Doyle to get more made.
    "You don't want nothing else, sir?" she asked.
    Lincoln shook his head. He should walk away, but for some reason he couldn't. What was wrong with him?
    Gus laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. She shrank back. "Do you know how to get to Seven Dials from here?" he asked.
    She nodded quickly.
    "Find Broker Row and ask for Mary Sullivan. Tell her Gus sent you. She'll take care of you and your brother."
    "Thank you, sir." She clutched the baby tighter to her breast and hurried away.
    "We can't save them all," Seth said, as they moved off toward Flower and Dean Street.
    Lincoln made no comment. He found it easier not to dwell on such things, but it was difficult to dismiss the girl and her baby brother from his mind. Sending Gus to his great