"Move!" It took Amy a moment to realize the command had come from her own throat. "Karim, grab da girls! Get dem somewhere safe!"

The Mohammedan stared at her, his mouth opening and closing—and then, wonder of wonders, did what she said.

"What about us?" she heard Patrick's voice from behind her.

Us. Amy's heart made a leap. He said us. Not me.

Shrugging off those stupid, childish, yet incredibly stubborn thoughts, she turned towards the man who had spoken. A grin spread over her face. "We're gonna go upstairs and 'ave a chat with Mr Whitlock!"

***

Gordy Whitlock was not in a good mood. He had returned to the "storehouse" to get the latest batch of brats from Jenkins—only to discover that Jenkins was nowhere to be found, and the patrols he'd established had apparently found better things to do.

"Playin' cards and 'itting da sauce again, I bet!" he growled. "Oh, when I get me 'ands on dem...!"

"'ello dere, 'andsome."

At the sound of the alluring female voice, Whitlock turned around. That most definitely was not Jenkins talking!

There was a twat standing at the entrance to the right corridor. Oh, and what a twat she was...! Eyes like emeralds he wanted to steal, and a body that made him want to grab hold and—

Dis ain't da time!

"Who are ye?" he demanded. "Where are me men?"

"Dose drunkards? Dey're all downstairs, nearly passed out on da floor." The woman smiled seductively as she sidled closer. Whitlock felt heat build up inside him, his eyes fixed on her cleavage. If he'd been a smarter man and looked at her face, he might have noticed the cold look in her eyes. "Dey sent me up ta say 'ello to ye."

"Smart bastards!" He chuckled. "But if dey think dat'll make me let dem off, dey've got another thing comin'!"

"Well, well..." Her smile widening, the woman sidled closer. "A strong, confident man. Just my type."

Damn! I wish I didn't 'ave business to take care of...

Sighing, Whitlock shoved thoughts of doing the dog's rig with her from his mind. He could get a whore anytime he wanted, but if the boss caught him slacking off...

"Perhaps we'll 'ave some fun later, little girl." His eyes narrowed. "But right now, I'm lookin' for a bunch of girls even smaller dan ye. Where's Jenkins? He's supposed to be up 'ere with da latest batch! Is 'e down dere drunk, too?"

"Oh, no. 'e just got a little bored of waitin' for ye." The wench winked. "'e's amusing 'imself with one of me friends over 'ere."

"Bloody bugger! Oh, well, show me da way, will ye?"

"It's me pleasure, Sir. Follow me, will ye?"

She led him along the corridor to a door in the wall. Whitlock frowned. This door...where did it lead to again? He didn't come here often. It was just a warehouse among many, and he very much preferred his "private collection" to the trash usually gathered off the streets at this place. But this door...something seemed familiar about it.

"In 'ere, Sir." The wench gestured towards the door, and stepped forward to pull it open.

"Wait a minute..." Whitlock frowned, only now realizing what had been bothering him all this time. "Dis ain't no door to a room! Dis is a—"

When the door to the broom cupboard swung open and he saw the two unconscious, tied-up men lying there, his eyes went wide and his whole body stiffened. He was so shocked he didn't even notice the heavy footsteps rushing up from behind. A moment later, something heavy struck him in the back of the neck.

***

Dropping the broken-off chair leg, Lord Patrick gazed down at the fallen man on the floor.

"What now? What do we do with him?"

"What ye usually do with a piece of garbage," Amy retorted, shoving the man into the remaining space of the broom cupboard and pulling out a rope. "Store it where no one steps on it, until ye can throw it away!"

But His Lordship had spent plenty of hours in the House of Lords, deciphering politicians' faces. It was easy for him to spot the glint in her eyes. Stepping towards her, he put a gentle—and slightly restraining—hand on her shoulder.

"Are you sure that's all you want to do to him?"

A muscle in her cheek twitched. "What I wanna do ain't important right now. We still 'aven't found Flo's friend yet, remember? We've gotta keep 'im alive. Whether I like it or not, 'e's probably da only one who knows what 'appened ta 'er."

Patrick nodded grimly. "True. And speaking of Flo's friend..."

"Aye." Slamming shut the broom cupboard door, Amy whirled around, her green eyes flashing. "Let's go check that other cellar!"

Patrick nodded, his heart pounding.

I was right from the start! Finally, we're going to get to the bottom of this. Now we only have to find Flo's friend, and then...

He smiled a grim smile.

Whoever is behind this...just wait! We're coming for you, and so is the heavens' justice!

Reaching for his pistol, he began to reload. Better safe than sorry.

"Let's go find Mr Karim," he suggested. "It's time to find the rest of the children, and then..." He cast a glance towards where Whitlock was locked in. "Let's ask him to help put a few polite questions to that gentleman."

"Sounds good. Let's move."

Soon enough, they reached the staircase leading down into the second cellar room, into which Karim had vanished earlier. From within, they heard a familiar gruff, rather desperate voice.

"No, no, infants! I have not come to eat you! What would make you even think such a thing? I would never—"

"Ha!" A trembling, but determined young voice cut him off. "Stay away, ye liar! I know da truth! Me mum told me! She told me about giants who come 'n' eat naughty children! But I've bin good! And dat frog I put in Uncle 'arry's boot don't count! Don't ye dare eat me!"

Lord Patrick Day knew that a house full of kidnapped children was definitely not the right place for amusement. He knew it to the depths of his bones—and yet, he couldn't help the grin spreading across his face.

"I think we should hurry," he advised. "Mr Karim seems to be in dire straits."

"And dat's a reason ta 'urry?" One corner of Amy's mouth curved just a bit. A tiny little bit.

For some reason, Lord Patrick suddenly felt incredibly proud. I made her smile.

Then he felt like slapping himself with a copy of Debrett's Peerage. Why the heck would he feel proud of himself for making simple, ordinary woman smile?

Then again—maybe he should not ask that question, or he might get an answer.

Just then, Karim's voice drifted up the stairs again.

"...keep telling you, I am not a giant!"

"Ye've got a beard! Ye're taller dan me dad! Ye're a giant!"

Lord Patrick couldn't help but nod. What admirable logic. He glanced at Amy. "I gather you would prefer leaving him to deal with it himself?"

"And listenin' at da door."

Another tiny hint of a smile flashed across her face, and they both moved down the stairs until a door came into view in front of them. The sounds from beyond the door had by now morphed from protesting yells into crying and sniffling.

"Cease this immediately!" the bodyguard's voice growled. "This behaviour is childish!"

Pushing open the door, Amy stuck her head inside. "Let me make a guess...perhaps dat's cause dey're children?"

"You!" Karim's eyes flared with a mix of rage and desperation. "Get in here!"

"All right, all right." His Lordship abruptly felt his arm being grabbed, and Amy dragged him after her into the cellar room. "Come on! Let's do dis!"

It took the two of them about a quarter of an hour to convince the children that Karim was not, in fact, a child-eating giant who lived atop a giant beanstalk far above the clouds. Lord Patrick wagered it would have taken longer if Amy had not encouraged Flo to start clambering up Mr Karim's back and tugging at his beard. Only when the other children witnessed her remaining alive and uneaten did they begin to relax and agreed to leave the safety of their cell.

However, they, too, didn't choose to stay with their rescuers. This time, Lord Patrick wasn't surprised when the children rushed out onto the street—just sad. Only a few chose to remain. Patrick knelt in front of one of the little ones. He wasn't quite sure if it was a boy or a girl. The child was thin as a stick, and had a mop of unruly hair on its head. Gently, he reached out and placed a hand on its shoulder.

"Why haven't you gone home?"

The child blinked up at him with eyes that looked far too big for its narrow face. "I don't 'ave one."

Patrick closed his eyes. What were you supposed to say to something like that?

"Well, you have one now."

Wait a moment...had that been him?

"There's a lady I know, a very nice young lady. She lives all alone in a big house, and she wouldn't mind taking you in in the least."

Tarnation! My sister is going to kill me!

The child's eyes grew even larger. "R-really?"

"Really!" Lord Patrick Day said, crossing his fingers behind his back. "I swear on my honour as a noble!"

I'll just have to talk to her first and then do a lot of praying...

"Nellie?" Excitedly, the child grabbed another girl beside her. "Nellie? Did ye 'ear dat Nellie? We're gonna 'ave a home!"

Patrick blinked. "Wait a moment. I didn't say that everyone of you—"

"Really?" The tiny girl piped up. "Ye ain't shittin' me?"

"I swear I ain't! Dat bloke over dere told me!"

"Didn't you hear me, children? I said I couldn't guarantee that everyone—"

"Georgie!" another girl squealed, completely ignoring His Lordship. "Ida! 'enriatta! Effie! Did ye 'ear dat?"

"Aye! We're gonna 'ave a place of our own!"

"Really? Where are we gonna go?"

"Will dere be good grub?"

"Are dere rats?"

Lord Patrick's eyes met with Karim's. "You, my friend," the massive Mohammedan said in a sombre tone, "are in trouble."

Lord Patrick's head rose hopefully. "Would you help?"

"Not even under threat of death and torture."

His Lordship's head sank again.

Just then, he felt something. A dangerous aura that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Rising to his feet, he turned around—but, unlike he'd expected, he didn't see some dangerous thugs come to reinforce the kidnappers. Instead, he saw Flo standing in a corner, her head hanging even lower than his had been, her tiny clenched fists trembling. In an instant, his own insignificant troubles vanished from his mind.

"She wasn't here, was she?" he said, softly.

The little girl shook her head.

"Ducking heck!" Lord Patrick slammed his fist into the wall. It said something about the seriousness of the situation that Amy didn't even make a quip about him cursing.

"Just cause we ain't found 'er 'ere doesn't mean we should give up!" Grabbing hold of Flo, Amy hugged the little girl to her. "Come. Maybe we'll find some clues in dere!"

Marching over to a shabby desk standing in the corner, she pulled open the drawers. Clearly, this was only a pretext to comfort Flo—but the moment she opened the drawer, she froze.

Lord Patrick's brow furrowed, glancing over at her. "What is it?"

Amy didn't answer. Instead, she reached into the drawer and pulled out a few sheets of paper. She opened her mouth—but then her eyes started to move across the paper. The farther they moved, the faster they moved until they almost seemed to be a blur. Amy's hands clenched into fists, crumpling the paper up at the edges.

"Amy?" The name escaped Patrick without a thought. Not Miss Amy. Not My Lady. Just Amy. Hesitantly, he took a step towards her. "Is everything all right?"

"All right?" Amy's hands clenched even tighter. He hadn't seen her making such a fist since the last time she had tried to punch him in the gut. "Is everythin' all right? Ha!" Her fist slammed down on to the desk, almost making the shaky thing collapse. "Bloody friggin' no! Nothin' is all right! Nothin' will ever be all right again! Look at dis!"

She thrust the papers into his hands. Taking them, Lord Patrick smoothed the crumpled sheets and began to read. It took him a moment or two to decipher the rows and columns of scraggly numbers and words, but once he did...

His spine stiffened.

"Is that...is that what I think it is?" His voice sounded foreign in his own ears.

"Aye." Amy's eyes flashed with green fire. "A sales list! A bloody, stinking sales list! And look at the list of buyers...Lord Soandso, the Honourable Mr George M.—dose bloody nobs and rich arse'oles! If I ever get my 'ands on dem, I'll slash dem, I'll burn dem, I'll...I'll..."

Snatching the list back, she turned towards the wall, where a merry fire was crackling in the hearth. Only when she drew her arm back did Patrick realize what she was about to do.

"No!" Throwing himself forward, he grabbed her arm, just before she could hurl the papers into the flames. "There might be information in those we can use to find the victims!"

"Oh." Clearing her throat, Amy loosened her grip. "Right. I knew dat."

Of course you did. That's why you nearly lit a bonfire with it.

"Let's take a look." Lord Patrick cleared his throat, wisely deciding not to speak those particular thoughts aloud. He tried to take hold of the papers again—only to have them snatched away by Amy. She poured over the documents once again, this time appearing to read them with a different eye. Her expression darkened even further.

"What is the matter?" Lord Patrick asked.

Scowling, Amy handed him the papers. "Take a look for yerself."

He did as instructed, and all too soon saw what she meant. Like in the samples she had read earlier, the full names of buyers were never listed. All that was visible were pseudonyms or abbreviations. Still...he stroked his chin, as his gaze flicked over the buyers with noble titles. There were only so many noble titles in the British Empire. Even the initial of a name might be enough to narrow down the pool of suspects greatly.

But his attention was all too soon distracted from that fact by another matter. His eyes flickered over to the children who had decided to stay, and from them back to the paper, searching. "Where are their names?"

"There aren't any." Amy's voice sounded dull.

His Lordship frowned. "But then how..."

He quickly checked. But there weren't any descriptions or identifying marks listed on the paper. Only rows upon rows of numbers.

Wait a moment...

Numbers?

Just then, one of the freed girls shifted. The sleeve of her dirty gown slid back, revealing an ugly black number scratched on her skin with some kind of cheap ink.

"Dey even took dere names away! Dere names!"

Patrick's eyes flicked towards Amy. There was no hint of the woman who seemed to care only for the safety of her and hers. Instead, her eyes were shining with the desire for vengeance, her fists clenched, ready for battle. Standing there, among the fallen excuses for human beings on the ground, she looked like the goddess of justice.

If the goddess of justice usually wore really revealing dresses, that is.

Radiating killing intent like a tigress whose cubs were taken, Amy whirled and marched towards the stairs. By now, Patrick wasn't the only one watching her, he noticed. So were Flo, Aggie and the other children, and Karim had taken a precautionary step backwards.

"Flo!"

"A-aye, Amy?"

"Are ye sure yer friend wasn't among da ones who ran?"

"Aye!"

"None of ye saw anyone dat looked like 'er description?"

Lord Patrick and Karim both shook their heads.

"And I guess dere are a few more children on dat list than dere were in dis place."

Lord Patrick cleared his throat. "Quite a few." Strange. This is my voice, right. Why does it sound so hoarse all of a sudden? "And we have no idea where they could be."

"Is dat so?" Cracking her knuckles, Amy started stalking towards the stairs. "Well...den I guess we should find out, shouldn't we? Let's 'ead upstairs. I wanna 'ave a little chat with Mr Whitlock!"

***

A groan escaped from Gordy Whitlock's throat. His head felt as if it had been pounded with a sledgehammer, and his mouth tasted as if an old boot was sticking in it. Blinking, he tried to chase away the bloody shadows covering his eyes, reached up and—

—and found an old boot sticking in his mouth.

"What the—grg! Agh! Blargh!"

Spitting and squirming, he managed to eject the nasty thing—only to realize that there was a leg attached to it. The leg of the man who was lying on top of him.

Wait a minute...I'm pretty sure dat three-penny-upright was a woman, right? I ain't that drunk!

"Get off me, ye bugger! Do ye 'ave any idea who I am? If ye ain't gettin' off me dis minute, I'll—"

Suddenly, light flooded his ill-adjusted eyes. Blinking up, he saw a radiant doorway, and, framed in the light, the figure of a woman. Whitlock had never been a particularly religious man—at least if you didn't count the various abbesses with whom he had a close working relationship. But right then and there, in a secret little corner of his heart, that figure looked far too much like an angel of vengeance.

"Ah," a far-too-sweet voice reached his ears. "Ye're awake. Great. Dat'll make things easier."

"Who are ye?" The voice that came from his throat was nothing more than a dry croak. "What do ye want?"

"Who am I?" Reaching into the folds of her dress, the wench pulled out the kind of equipment ladies of the night should not be carrying. The expensive pistol glinted in the ghostly light of the gas lamps. "I'm da one with da gun 'ere. Da Barrington Buggers send their regards."

"Da Barringtons?" Whitlock gritted his teeth. "Ye're from dose bunch of bastards? No rival gang 'as 'ad da guts ta go against us in decades!"

"Well, I've got news for ye, Mister. Things are about ta change." Stepping forward, the woman knelt beside him, gently stroking something cold down the side of his face, out of his field of vision. Whitlock shivered. It wasn't the first time he'd felt the barrel of a gun.

"And as for what I want...."

"Aye?"

"I want to know everythin'." The gun stopped right underneath his chin. "Everythin', do ye 'ear? Startin' with all da info ye've got about dis!"

A slim stack of papers landed on his chest. Whitlock needed only one glance at Jenkins' scraggly handwriting to know what they were. Cold sweat broke out all over his body.

Shit, shit, shit! If da boss finds out I let da Barringtons get deir 'ands on dose...!

It wasn't a thought he wanted to finish.

"Well?" The damned wench raised an eyebrow. "Are ye gonna talk?"

Whitlock snorted. "Do ye've got any idea of da kind of people ye're messin' with? Da kind of people who are behind me? Da Barringtons ain't got no clue who dey're goin' up against! If I open me mouth, I'm as good as dead! And ye think I'm afraid of ye and yer little toy?"

"Well, no. Not really." The woman smiled in a way that made Whitlock's hair stand on end. Pulling open the door behind her more widely, she revealed the silhouette of a massive, bearded figure looming in the doorway. "But if I'd 'ave ta venture a guess, I'd say ye'll be afraid of 'im."

The figure reached for its belt, and pulled a gigantic, curved sabre.