Read Online The Demon's Parchment by Jeri Westerson - Free Book Online

his hands at his hips, staring down the muddy streets, with their frosty rooftops and slithering smoke. “You take this street, Jack. And I shall take this one.”
    “Er . . . ‘take’ it, sir? For what?”
    “To question the merchants, of course. Ask them if they have heard of any boy who had gone missing. Even if it is a rumor.”
    Jack gnawed on his lip and shuffled his muddy shoes. “Beggin’ your pardon, Master Crispin. But they won’t be answering any fool questions from me.”
    “Hmm?” he asked, distracted. “Why not?”
    “Well, look at me, sir. I ain’t in no fit state. They’d think I was a beggar.”
    Crispin turned and measured young Jack, from his torn stockings to his beleaguered hood that he kept closed by pinching it tight at his chin. “Tell them you are on the Sheriff of London’s business—”
    Jack guffawed, showing a chipped tooth. “Go on!”
    With a sigh of resignation Crispin nodded. “Very well. Tell them you are an emissary of the Tracker. No doubt they have heard of me even on these streets.”
    “Aye. That
might
do. But if they box me ears for impertinence, it’s on your head.”
    Crispin smiled. “I shall gladly carry the burden.”
    Jack nodded once and was off, looking back warily.
    With a snort at insolent servants, he headed to the first shop on the street he had chosen. These were further in from the Thames; shops and houses that the Coroner had not questioned.
    Crispin repeated the exercise all the way to the end of the street, where Jack met him, rubbing his arms to keep warm. The light was slanting toward the horizon now. The sparse trees in back gardens were becoming dark silhouettes against the sky. Slushy flakes began to fall, speckling the lane. “Have you yielded anything?” he asked the boy.
    “No, Master. No one remembered a boy gone missing, servant or beggar.”
    Crispin’s eyes adjusted to the darkening night and measured the many lanes ahead of him. “There are many more houses and shops to ask.”
    “We can’t ask them all, can we?”
    Crispin’s sigh created a curling mist around his face. He looked down the lane and scanned rooftops disappearing into the night. “The city is a big place. I do not see how we can ask them all. There must be another way.”
    “In the meantime, we must go to meet this Jew, then.”
    Crispin wound his cloak about him. Yes. He must.
    The streets were becoming deserted. The merchants’ stalls had been folded up and shuttered. Even the sounds of commerce had softened from the day. The muffled fall of hoofs tramping in the new snow and the squeak of a cart pushed back to its resting spot were the only sounds left from another busy day in Westminster.
    Crispin led the way to St. Margaret’s Street toward Westminster Hall. An icy mist rose from the Thames and every sound seemed todampen beneath its heavy governance. The disquieting stillness sent a shiver down Crispin’s spine. It fell heavily around him, this sensation. He found himself stopping and looking around, bewildered. He touched Jack’s shoulder to stop him as well, and listened. It wasn’t so much something that he heard as it was something he felt. Jack looked up at him questioningly. Crispin beseeched those steady, tawny eyes, asking silently if Jack felt it, too.
    The world seemed to hold its breath.
    Crispin spun.
    For only a moment, with the light of a shopkeeper’s brazier filling the misty space behind, Crispin spied . . .
something
. . . against the snowy fog. A large, hulking silhouette. Broad shoulders supported a tiny head and large arms hung like hams at its sides. An unspeakable fear like none other suddenly seized Crispin’s heart. His first instinct was to grab Jack and drag his surprised form to him. His second was to draw his dagger.
    He blinked. And suddenly the alley was empty.
    “Master! What—”
    “Be still.” Crispin trotted down the narrow lane, looking for the . . .
man,
for want of a better word.
    The flickering