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canine teeth.
    "Almost there," the man said, and they left the terrible house.
    chapter four FLIGHT
    HIS DELIVERER TOOK THE LEAD IN A HEADLONG DASH DOWN
    the dark alley outside. Unable for the moment to see the wisdom of any alternate course, as he followed, Doyle strained to keep the man's flowing cloak in sight. They turned once, twice, and turned again. Seems to know where he's going, Doyle thought wanly, his bearings yielding to the rattrap rookery of shacks and shanties through which the man's path threaded them.
    Breaking out of an alley onto a paved street, the man stopped short; Doyle's momentum carried him halfway into the street before the man yanked him back into the sheltering darkness. His grip was tremendously strong. Doyle meant to speak, but the man silenced him with a sharp gesture and pointed at the corner of an intersecting alley across the way.
    Stepping around that corner into view was the surviving gray-hooded killer: crouched over, moving steadily, deliberately, eyes to the ground, a coiled predator tracking its quarry. What possible signs could it be searching for in the hard pavement? Doyle asked himself—and then, more alarmingly: How did it get here so quickly?
    Doyle heard a whisper of steel on steel as his companion, face still obscured by shadows, sharp profile etched against the wall, drew from the walking stick he carried the base of a hidden blade. Doyle instinctively reached for his revolver. His friend's hand lay frozen on the butt of his rapier, as still as stone.
    A carriage approached from the left. Four immense black stallions roared into view, clattering noisily to a stop on the cobblestones. The six-seat coach stood huge and black as pitch. No driver was visible. The man in the gray hood
    moved to the side of the coach. A window slid open, but no light issued from within. The man nodded, but it was difficult to know if words were exchanged; nothing cut through the night but the labored sputtering of the horses.
    The gray hood turned from the cab and looked directly into the alley where Doyle and friend were sheltered; both shrank back against the brick. The hood stepped toward them, stopped, and cocked its head like a hound tracing frequencies beyond human range. It stood like that for some time, the chilling blankness of the man finding perfect expression in the lifeless countenance of the mask. Doyle's breath died in his chest—Something's not right, he thought—and then he realized there were no holes for the eyes.
    The door to the black carriage swung open. A short, strident, high-pitched trilling filled the air, halfway between a whistle and some less human vocalization. The gray hood instantly turned and leapt inside, the door slammed shut, and the steeds hammered the heavy carriage away, fog swirling greasily around the hole it carved in the mist.
    As the clip of the hooves faded, Doyle's companion eased his weapon back into place.
    "What the devil—" Doyle began, his breath bursting out in a rush.
    "We're not safe yet," the man stilled him, voice low.
    "All very well and good, but I think it's time we had a brief chat—"
    "Couldn't agree more."
    With that, the man was off again. Doyle had no choice but to follow. Keeping to the shadows, they stopped twice when the shrill whistling sounded again, each time at a greater remove, leaving Doyle to consider the disagreeable possibility that more than one of these hoods were on their trail. Doyle was about to break the silence when they turned a corner and came upon a waiting hansom cab, a compact cabbie atop the driver's perch. The man signaled, and the hack driver turned, offering a view of the ragged scar running obliquely down the right side of his face. He gave a brusque nod, turned to his horses, and cracked the whip, as the man opened the door of the moving vehicle and jumped aboard.
    "Come on, then, Doyle," the man said.
    Doyle followed up onto the stair, turning when he heard a
    dull thump to his right; a long, wicked