Page 58 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
Another stroke of luck was that the guard rushed to help Hammond, who was sprawled on the floor and stunned, instead of attacking Greer and Penny. “Sir?” he asked. “Sir, are you well?”
“Come on,” Greer said, grasping Penny’s hand and pulling him toward the stairs.
Penny went with him, speeding up to the first floor. Halfway there, his mind caught up to what they were doing.
“Where are you going?” he asked breathlessly. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get out of the castle?”
“Lord Fabian.” It was Greer’s only reply, but Penny felt those two words in his gut.
“You found him?” he asked.
Greer didn’t answer. He charged up the stairs, Penny racing with him.
The door of the tower room stood wide open when Penny and Greer reached it, but any hope Penny had that they’d be able to grab Lord Fabian and flee to safety was crushed at once. Dalhurst had beat them to the room, and as they burst into it, he had a weak, naked, and sagging young man clutched to his side as he tried to loop the man’s arm around his shoulders to help him walk.
“Let him go,” Greer demanded, charging all the way into the room.
“Hammond!” Dalhurst shouted, glancing past Greer and Penny into the landing.
“He’s not coming,” Penny said, striding up to stand by Greer’s side. “You might as well let us all go.”
It was a pointless thing to say, but it had been worth a shot. Surprisingly, Dalhurst dropped the young man, who crumpled backwards onto the room’s small bed. The movement wasn’t a surrender, though. Far from it. Dalhurst reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.
Greer moved before the man could draw out whatever he’d intended to grasp. He lunged at Dalhurst, grabbing him by the lapels of his coat and yanking him away from the bed. Penny used the movement to rush for the bed in the hope that he could help the young man who had to be Lord Fabian. It looked as though Lord Fabian had passed out.
“I will not let you do this,” Greer growled, then pulled back a hand to punch Dalhurst.
Unlike Hammond, Dalhurst was fast and saw the blow coming. He was forced to abandon his efforts to grab whatever was secured inside his jacket so that he could grapple with Greer instead. “You’re a dead man,” he threatened Greer, throwing a punch of his own.
Penny could only pray that Greer would come out on top of the fight. He had other problems to see to that meant he couldn’t watch it, though the sound of punches being landed, grunts, and struggling filled the room.
“Oy,” he said to Lord Fabian, who moaned slightly and rolled a bit on the bed, proving he wasn’t passed out entirely. “Lord Fabian. I need you to stand up, man. I need you to move.”
“Charlie?” Lord Fabian mumbled.
Penny wanted to shake the man and demand that he come to his senses and aid in his own rescue, but that would have been as pointless as all the lying and posturing he’d done downstairs to avoid being captured. He’d seen more than a few men lost toopium on the streets and knew just how pointless it was to argue with them.
“You’ll regret this,” Dalhurst shouted from the floor, where Greer had evidently knocked him. “You’re a dead man!”
“I’m not the one on the floor,” Greer told him, the light of victory in his eyes.
“No, you’re not,” Dalhurst said, nose dripping blood on his smiling mouth.
Penny only had half a second to feel dread at the man’s smile before Dalhurst stood and lunged for the open doorway. The brief lift of hope in Penny’s gut as the man fled was replaced by dread a moment later when Dalhurst slammed the door behind him. A moment after that came a scrape and a click as the door was locked.
Somehow, at some point when Penny had been tending to Lord Fabian, Dalhurst had grabbed the keys. Now Penny, Greer, and Lord Fabian were locked in the tower room.
“Fuck,” Greer grunted, racing for the door. He grabbed the handle and tried to turn it, but it didn’t budge. “Shit!” He rattled the door on its hinges, but nothing happened.
Greer slammed his shoulder against the door once, but it appeared to be more to release his frustration than because he believed the door would give. He roared, slammed a fist against the door one last time, then pulled back, turned, and headed to the bed.
“What is his condition?” he asked Penny, deadly seriousness in his eyes.
“He’s intoxicated,” Penny sighed, juggling Lord Fabian into a sitting position, trying not to gape at the landscape of bruises that marked the young man’s body. “Probably opium.”
“Laudanum,” Lord Fabian sobbed. “I don’t want it. I don’t want any more.”
Penny and Greer both looked at him. Penny’s heart raced with hope. Perhaps the man wasn’t so far gone after all.
