Mister Creecher Read Online Free PDF Page A

two boys?’ Creecher asked.
    ‘They’re in Fletcher’s gang,’ said Billy. ‘They’ll go straight to him.’
    He tried to walk on, but the giant placed one of his huge hands on Billy’s shoulder and he had to stop himself from whimpering at its cold and heavy touch.
    ‘Leave me alone,’ said Billy, his voice quavering now like he was eight years old and a climbing boy again, pleading with the sweep not to beat him.
    ‘I can protect you,’ said Creecher.
    ‘You can’t be around all the time. Even you have to sleep, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Creecher with a slow nod. ‘I have to sleep. But will you be any safer without me?’
    Billy swore and put his face in his hands.
    ‘If you hadn’t –’
    ‘If I hadn’t stopped him, the one called Fletcher would have taken your eye.’
    ‘Well, he ain’t going to stop at an eye now, is he?’ Billy snarled. ‘He’s gonna kill me for sure. And not quick, neither.’
    ‘No,’ said Creecher. ‘He will not kill you. I will see to it.’
    Billy squinted up at the giant, but his horrible face seemed devoid of any expression.
    ‘I ain’t asking you to kill him!’ said Billy.
    Creecher did not respond.
    ‘Not that anyone would mourn him,’ Billy added. ‘But still – I never said I wanted him dead. You can’t say I did, cos I didn’t!’
    Billy looked at the giant, who once again seemed to have edged into the darker side of the alley, as if he carried his own shadow with him.
    ‘And all I have to do is follow these two men round London?’
    Creecher nodded.
    ‘How will I know you’ll keep your side of the bargain?’ said Billy. ‘How will I know that Fletcher won’t jump on me one –’
    With horrible suddenness, Creecher moved towards Billy, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him to the wall.
    ‘Because when I say I will do a thing, I do it,’ he hissed, his rancid breath making Billy blink. Again the giant looked back towards Covent Garden and the two foreigners. ‘Unlike some.’
    His fingers tightened their grip on Billy’s throat. He seemed to be lost in thought and Billy tugged at his arm to try to pull him away as he gasped for breath. It took several hard punches at the giant’s forearm before Creecher looked back at Billy and released him.
    Billy slumped down, choking. Creecher stood over him, watching without a trace of emotion.
    ‘We are bound together, you and I,’ growled the giant. ‘Our destinies have become entwined for the present.’
    Billy rubbed his throat and took special note of that ‘for the present’. What would this devil do to him when his use was over? Crack his neck and hurl him in the Thames, most like. Billy felt as though he were running along a high rooftop, each tile slipping at his footfall and ever on the verge of plunging to his doom.
    The woman who had fainted moaned and began to get up from the cold cobbles. She blinked and peered at Creecher, who turned to her and growled. The woman whimpered and swooned once again.
    ‘I will meet you back at the attic,’ said Creecher.
    With that, the giant walked away. Within moments, Billy was alone in the alleyway and, for the first time since those early days on the streets as a runaway, he began to sob.

CHAPTER VI.
    Billy stole a loaf on the way back to the room above the baker’s. He almost hoped he would get caught. Maybe that was the only way to be free of Fletcher and the giant both: to get thrown in Newgate and transported.
    But Billy was incapable of being a bad thief. It was like asking a falcon to slow its flight. It just wasn’t in his nature. You are what you are , thought Billy. That’s all there is. That’s all there ever is.
    He slept, though he thought he would not, and dreamed like a dog, twitching and muttering at the passage of the day’s events.
    Then, what seemed like seconds later, it was morning and he awoke with Creecher’s pale blue-white face huge and filling his view.
    ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that!’ said Billy,