Darkwalker by E. L. Tettensor Read Free Book Online

such as he had anything to say to Lenoir, who had been catching criminals since before Kody had seen his first winter. The man’s treacly affection for the law was sickening, and his ambition would have been laughable, were it not so pathetic. Kody genuinely believed he would fix the force someday. Catch the criminals. Save the world. Lenoir snorted contemptuously, sending a plume of mist into the air. One day, the sergeant would learn what the world was really like, and Lenoir could only hope he was there to see it.
    Anger drove his step as he headed for the poor district. He needed to find Zach before the boy turned in for the night. It was not difficult; Zach had a few reliable haunts, and Lenoir found him at the second tavern he checked. He did not even need to go inside; as he rounded the corner of the inn, he spied Zach tumbling into the street, the wrathful innkeeper towering above him. Lenoir was reminded forcibly of the incident at the Courtier the night before, and his mood soured still further.
    “If I catch you in here again, you little mongrel, I’ll cut your throat for you!” The man’s shoulders heaved with rage, and he cocked his leg back, as though he were preparing to kick the pile of rags in the dirt.
    “Will you, sir?” Lenoir said mildly, stepping into the glow of a streetlamp. “And who will run your establishment while you are in jail?”
    The innkeeper squinted into the light. “Who are you?”
    “I am Inspector Nicolas Lenoir of the Metropolitan Police, which you know perfectly well, since you have seen me in your tavern a dozen times or more.”
    The innkeeper’s lip curled. “So I have, with this little thief in tow.” He pointed a thick finger at Zach, who had righted himself and now stood defiantly before his accuser. “You keep bad company for a policeman.”
    “The company I keep is not your concern. And besides, what proof have you that the boy is a thief? Did you see him take anything?”
    “One of my customers was pickpocketed, and I’ve seen that boy around enough to know what he’s about.”
    Lenoir approached Zach. “Turn out your pockets.” The boy searched his face for a moment, but when he saw that Lenoir was serious, he did as he was told, reaching inside his trousers and turning out his pockets. They dangled like a pair of hound’s ears, empty.
    “There. You have no evidence with which to accuse the boy. Do not let me hear of you mistreating him again.”
    The innkeeper responded through a tightly clenched jaw, “He has no reason to be in my place. He’s not a paying customer. It’s my right to put him out if he can’t pay.”
    “So it is.” Lenoir dropped some coins into Zach’s palm. “Go inside and buy yourself a meat pie.” To the tavern owner, he said, “Now he is a paying customer.”
    The man could do no more than stand there shaking with anger as Zach walked triumphantly past, trailed by Lenoir. He did not dare challenge an inspector of the Metropolitan Police.
    Zach was grinning from ear to ear when they sat. “That was brilliant! It was just like the first time we met. Do you remember?”
    “Indeed I do, though I hardly think it something to be proud of.” Lenoir was never sure whether Zach fully appreciated how close he had come to his demise. Had Lenoir not happened upon the Firkin at the exact moment Zach was being hauled outside for a beating, the boy would almost certainly have met his end. To this day, Lenoir was not entirely certain why he had intervened, or at least why he had not dragged the boy off to face the magistrate. He told himself that it was simply too much effort to arrest and process a child who would only wind up at the end of a rope one day.
    And in truth, Lenoir did not begrudge Zach his thieving ways—not then, and not now. Zach had been dealt a poor hand, poorer than most in this city of ill fortune, yet he never let that grind him down. He could have done as the others did, rattling aimlessly about the orphanage