Nine Ten Begin Again: A Grasshopper Lawns affair by EJ Lamprey Page B

more men entered, one of them leading a half-naked woman on a collar and chain. As she watched, the woman touched the man’s arm and he jerked round to glare at her. She flinched back and Edge’s eyes widened. She’d seen exactly that flinch recently; she knew that woman.
    ‘That awful Bateman woman is with them! Oh dear, Donald, I don’t like the look of them at all .’
    Donald turned his head fractionally to look, then went still as Sputnik came up on the other side of them and touched his arm. Even under the half-mask, Donald’s face radiated cold disapproval, but the other was undeterred.
    ‘We need to get your lass out now,’ he said in an urgent undertone. ‘I’ve run into these guys before, and they are very, very bad news.’
    Donald already had the leash in one hand, and twitched the sides of Edge’s voluminous cape together.
    ‘Hold it shut at chest level,’ he told her briefly, his voice subtly different, and looked at the smaller man. To Edge’s complete astonishment, he deferred to him. ‘What do we do?’
    The other jerked his head toward the door. ‘You behind me, the lass on our far side. Two of us, we should be okay, but these guys are bampots. If they challenge, are those daggers real?’
    Donald nodded and qualified it. ‘Blunted.’
    Sputnik nodded. ‘It’ll likely be okay, but if they challenge, lass, spring the one on your right arm for me. I’ll turn and take them, you keep moving. If anyone gets past me, Eugene will have to take him. Keep the dagger on your left arm for yourself at worst, but if you have to draw it, use it, don’t mess about. Go for soft spots, not for leather. Then run like buggery.’
    He turned, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Donald lifted her lightly down from her barstool and followed close on his heels, his hand firm on her arm, pushing down. She obediently crouched slightly, cursing the boots that boosted her height and made it almost impossible to hurry.
    The incoming group was still swaggeringly spreading out, and although one of them looked across, he jerked his head at his closest companion, said ‘Sputnik’ and laughed. Sputnik raised his middle finger in wry salute and kept moving. Edge was terrified she would stumble, turn her ankle in the ridiculous boots, fall sprawling to the floor. She tried to distract herself by focusing completely on their little guide. His voice was naggingly familiar, and so was the bouncy way he walked—and why had Donald suddenly turned their safety over to a man he’d dismissed contemptuously only moments earlier?
    It seemed to take forever, but finally they cleared the gilt door and were in the empty foyer, through it and out to the cold wet street, taking deep breaths of the misty night air.
    ‘Sputnik, thanks,’ Donald said in the same disguised voice and the gladiator put his hand up under his mask, as though—Edge’s eyes widened—as though he were brushing up a moustache.
    Major Horace Chubb blew a gusty sigh of relief and, for the second time in their acquaintance, offered her his jerky little military half-bow.
    Edge opened her mouth but Donald’s hand, still on her upper arm, clamped shut so abruptly she yelped instead as he spoke again to the Major.
    ‘We owe you, pal. Big time.’
    ‘When you’re tired of Eugene,’ the Major looked at Edge, ‘look me up. Cor! But you can leave the daggers behind, haw haw!’
    She smiled, bent forward and gratefully kissed his masked cheek, not even caring that he was goggling down her bodice. He gave a breathy little whistle of appreciation, then flapped his hands at them both.
    ‘Go. Now. There’ll be more of them any minute, they hunt in packs. I’m phoning the polis before they start hurting anyone.’
     
    ~~~
     
    Edge rubbed her arm and Donald grimaced apologetically as they hurried round the corner.
    ‘I had to shut you up before you said anything and he realized who we were. I told you once before, he’s a good man in a crisis. We got