Read Online Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker - Free Book Online

said a sharp-eyed lady’s maid, her arms full of parcels. “Was that a wasp? Was he stung by a wasp? That’ll do it, you know. My cousin—”
    “Yes! It’s wasps! A swarm of wasps! Look out, they’re dangerous!” Ludbridge recognized Bell-Fairfax’s voice and scrambled to his feet at once, staring around, but failed to spot him. Women began to scream and men ducked, beating the air futilely. Cursing, Ludbridge grabbed Roberts under the arms and dragged him to the curb, where he propped him against a lamppost. Ludbridge stood and scanned the crowd, wondering how someone as tall as Bell-Fairfax could hide.
    “Oh! Oh! I’ve been bitten!” shrieked a woman some distance ahead. “Help!”
    “Here’s a wasp!”
    “Look out! You’ve got one on your hat!”
    “Look! Look! Another poor policeman’s been stung!” It was true; Simnell was down in the street, gasping and white-faced. Ludbridge sprinted to his side, narrowly avoiding being knocked down by a hysterical female flailing about with her shawl. A tiny bit of yellow and black fluff flew from her hat brim and landed on the bricks beside Simnell. Ludbridge picked it up and examined it briefly: no more than a bit of cotton daubed with paint, cleverly tied with a couple of twists of fishing line to make it somewhat resemble a wasp.
    “The bastards—,” said Simnell, before falling back unconscious.People ahead were running to and fro, yelling, and a cab-horse reared in its traces. Ludbridge dragged Simnell as far out of harm’s way as he was able, and ran on to the next man on watch, Preston. He arrived as Preston fell to his knees, clutching at the side of his neck. Just beyond him walked the young couple, the woman sashaying with the merest trace of exaggeration, her escort stiffly upright.
    “Did you see them?” Ludbridge shouted, pulling the tiny dart from Preston’s neck. Preston raised bewildered eyes.
    “Who? No—no one—” He sighed deeply and fell back, unconscious. Pulling him from the street, Ludbridge realized that all the darts had come from the south side of the Strand. He looked up at the buildings there to see whether there were not some form of scaffolding or other structure that might have served as a place of concealment, but was unable to discern any. None, at least, where someone of Bell-Fairfax’s size could hide—
    “Help! Wasps!”
    “Look, here’s
another
one bit!”
    “It’s the Chartists! They’ve gone and loosed wasps on the constabulary!”
    Ludbridge glanced ahead and saw Bedford Street. With resignation he walked through the crowd and beheld young Malahyde, the fifth spotter, who had just crumpled to the pavement. He bent, flicked the dart from Malahyde’s neck, and hoisted him over his shoulder as a fire brigadesman might. Making his way on to Bedford Street, he saw the three figures standing behind the railings at the Adelphi Theatre: the odd-looking young couple and a slouching man in the garments of a laborer.
    As Ludbridge drew near, the laborer shrugged and stood straight, seeming thereby to gain a full twelve inches in height. He met Ludbridge’s eyes and smiled. The lady lowered her handkerchief and positively grinned; her companion turned his still-fixedly-smiling head with a strange jerky motion, and raised one hand in an awkward gesture to his shirtfront. The hand lifted a small panel in the fabric of the shirt, revealing a square slot through which a second pair of eyes peered.
    “Bedford Street, Ludbridge.” Hobson’s voice emerged from the figure’s chest.
    “We win, I believe,” said Pengrove, in a fluting falsetto. “Something of a Pyrrhic victory, don’t you think?” Ludbridge glared at them, indicating Malahyde.
    “The effect of the dart wears off quickly, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax. “Kirke provided me with the drug. Our own formula, sir.” Looking smug, he twirled a length of hollow cane in his fingers.
     
    “ ‘EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE IN THE STRAND,’ ” Greene read aloud.