but couldn’t discern anything in the shadows. The sound coalesced into a deep chuckle, and the dome of a ragged bowler hat emerged into the low light of predawn.
“Well, well, well. What ’ave we ’ere?” A familiar voice oozed dangerously from a mouth filled with crooked metal teeth. “If it in’t me ol’ mate, Seven.”
“McGinty,” Sev growled. “I’d like t’say it’s good t’see ye, but I’m no liar.” McGinty limped into the street. Sev was proud of that limp, having given it to the man four years earlier. Sev had also heard McGinty lost an arm that night, and judging by the traveling cloak covering the right side of his body, it was true. “Nasty limp, McGinty.” Sev smirked.
“Still a l’il smart-mouth, eh?” McGinty returned the smirk, but it looked awful on his ruined, lopsided face. “I’ve ’ad some work done. We’ll see if yer mouth is as smart when I slice it off yer face.” McGinty shrugged his cloak off, revealing an unwieldy metal appendage where the foreman’s arm used to be. In place of a hand, he had a large, rough blade. Sev’s shock painted his face. “Nuffin’ t’say?” McGinty cocked his mechanical arm back and rushed Sev. The big man swung his metal appendage. Sev ducked, avoiding the blade, then kicked out, knocking McGinty back, unbalanced. McGinty’s arm whipped in a circle and the blade detached, swinging in a wide arc on a chain. Sev barely avoided the weapon, the blade kicking up sparks on the cobbles of the road. Sev somersaulted backward to buy himself some time to free one of his own weapons. Before he could, McGinty’s chain-blade looped around Sev’s upper arms, preventing him from reaching his cutlass.
“Bloody hell,” Sev spat and tried to angle his weight to gain an advantage.
“Yer in fer it now, l’il bugger,” McGinty growled and heaved on the chain, reeling the blade and its prisoner in. Sev yelled, twisting in the air so his shoulder slammed into the big man’s jaw. Unfortunately, instead of harming McGinty, it only served to make Sev slightly dizzy. He bounced off the dirty foreman and landed hard on the cobbled street. McGinty wrenched his chain-blade free, rolling Sev’s limp body as the weapon released him.
Sev’s vision was blurry, but he saw the blade snap back to its socket. McGinty laughed as he raised the filthy blade, preparing to strike. At the edge of Sev’s vision, a shadow peeled away from its fellows and darted into the street. Dark limbs flashed with glinting silver and McGinty’s laugh stopped abruptly. The shadow danced around McGinty, two knives lashing out. McGinty gurgled in pain but couldn’t scream. A moment later, his severed mechanical arm clattered to the street in front of Sev. McGinty stared at his attacker, just before a polished, pointy-toed boot slammed against the foreman’s already bad knee. The big man yelped as he fell, and Sev looked up into the smirking face of Jack Midnight. The pretty criminal tossed his black lock off to the side, it having fallen across his face during his graceful attack.
“All right, Mr. Seven?” Midnight asked, barely winded, offering his gloved hand.
Sev accepted, nodding. “He dead?”
“Not yet,” Midnight purred.
“Are ye gonna kill ’im?” Sev swallowed hard.
“Hmm, no. No, I don’t think I will.” Midnight hooked his foot beneath McGinty and flipped him onto his back. “I think I shall send our friend Fervis a little message.” The slim villain straddled the unconscious thug and popped the buttons off the man’s shirt, exposing a vast expanse of muscled chest. Jack turned, knife in hand, and smiled his feline smile. “You’d better call it a night, Mr. Seven. I assure you, this isn’t something you’re likely to want to witness.”
Sev took Midnight’s advice and hurried off into the streets of Blackside, pulling his hat down over his ears, determined not to look back.
5
S EV spent the next two days sequestered in his attic
Alex Kava
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