It was sheer, blind chance which sent him down toward the Opera, where a rank of cabs could normally be found waiting for patrons. Sheer, bloody chance that had sent him straight into the path of a young woman who appeared from the murk of the wet night, gabbling out a plea for help. John Lachley had been at the wrong end of many an attack from vicious footpads, growing up in the East End, a target for nearly everyone’s scorn and hatred. Rage had detonated through him, watching an innocent young man struggle with a knife-wielding assailant, fighting for his life.
So Lachley drew the pistol he’d concealed for the night’s work with Maybrick and strode forward, ridding the street of this particular vermin with a single shot to the back of the skull. He expected the young man’s shock, of course, no one reacted well to having blood and bits of brain spattered across his face, and he even expected the young woman’s distraught reaction, nearly fainting under the strain of their close call.
But he did not expect what happened when he sounded the beautiful young woman’s pulse. The words came pouring out of her, in flawless Greek, ancient Greek, even as she snapped rigid, straining away from him: Death hangs on the tree beneath the vault . . . down beneath the bricks where the boy’s sightless skull rests . . . and six shall die for his letters and his pride . . .
This girl could not possibly know about the letters, about Tibor, about Morgan’s skull, sitting as a trophy atop the flame-ringed altar, or the massive oak on which the little bastard had died. But she did. And more, she had prophesied that five others should die for the sake of Eddy’s accursed letters . . .