Supernatural Devices Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the theater goers in a flash of red and yellow. Cruces started to move to run her down, and Scarlett put a hand on his arm.
    “You want her to talk to you, remember? How is chasing her like a frightened animal going to do anything but terrify her?”
    “You have a better idea?” Cruces demanded.
    Scarlett nodded. “We follow her but we don’t push her too hard. With luck, she’ll soon see that we don’t mean her any harm.”
    Of course, that was easier said than done. Cecilia had burst through the crowd at speed, and for the moment at least, the only way to keep up was to run. Or at least to run as best Scarlett could, given the limitations of her dress. Still, she followed, using the flash of red and yellow ahead as a kind of beacon to guide her, while Cruces remained resolutely at her side.
    He was invaluable in that first sprint, because Cecilia’s flight through the crowd had stirred much of it up. London theater-goers were not, it seemed, happy to allow people to simply barge past them, and without Cruces to push them aside angrily, Scarlett did not know if she would have been able to get through. The young nobleman kept his hand clamped firmly on her wrist as they ran, presumably so that Scarlett would not be left behind. The touch of his skin on hers was almost electric, though his grip was tight enough to be almost bruising.
    They followed along street after street, heading east roughly parallel with the Thames. Cecilia showed no sign of slowing down, and if anything she seemed to be getting further away as she ran.
    “Cecilia,” Scarlet called out after her. Shouting in the street probably wasn’t something a well brought up young woman should do, but Scarlett had occasionally had to shout from one end of an archeological dig to the other, so she knew her voice was up to it. “Cecilia, please stop. You aren’t going to get into any trouble.”
    “No trouble?” Cruces muttered beside her, not pausing for so much as an instant as he did so. “After all this? She steals my ring, runs, and now leads us across half of London?”
    “It isn’t half of London,” Scarlett shot back, though in truth, they had already gone further than she had thought they might. Cecilia, meanwhile, showed no signs of stopping in response to Scarlett’s yelled request.
    “Can we chase her properly yet?” Cruces demanded. “If we take a side street or two, we might just be able to cut her off before she runs all the way to Whitechapel, or even Southend.”
    Scarlett wanted to point out that the girl probably would not be running at all if he were not with her, and that being facetious wasn’t helping anyone. Frankly though, she did not have the breath for it right then, so she simply nodded instead and pointed to a turning ahead.
    Scarlett did not have a perfect knowledge of the city’s back streets and alleys. She had studied maps, and quizzed those such as Holmes who knew more, but wandering around strange back streets alone was one of the few respects in which her parents did not encourage their daughter. Still the maps seemed sufficient for the time being, as Scarlett pointed them down street after street, trying to get ahead of their quarry. At one point, they clambered up a set of stairs and over the roofs of a row of homes, climbing down again on the other side in the hopes of gaining a little ground. As she climbed, Scarlett felt some of the fabric of her dress snag, and tear. She really was not dressed for a pursuit.
    They kept going, stealing sideways glances down alleys to check for signs of that distinctively bright dress Cecilia wore. Twice more, they caught glimpses of her, and each one spurred the two of them to run a little faster. Finally, Cruces pressed her flat against a wall. Scarlett did not want to think what a constable would think if he saw them like that. At best, he might assume that they were up to some nefarious activity or other, and demand that they move on. At worst, he might assume