Oh, God, here we go... . "Wot's this, then?" Margo shouted, facing down a thickset, ugly lout with blood on his knuckles. "You givin' me old man wot for, eh? I'll give you me Germans, I will, you touch ‘im again!" She lifted her own fist, threatening him as brazenly as she dared.
Laughter erupted, defusing the worst of the fury around them at the sight of a girl who barely topped five feet in her stockings squaring off with a man four times her size. Voices washed across her awareness, while she kept her wary attention on the man who'd punched Kostenka once already.
"Cheeky little begger, in't she?"
"Don't sound like no foreigner, neither."
"Let ‘er be, Ned, you might break ‘er back, just pokin' at ‘er!" This last to the giant who'd smashed his fist into Pavel Kostenka's face.
Ned, however, had his blood up, or maybe his gin, because he swung at Margo anyway. The blow didn't connect, of course. Which infuriated the burly Ned. He let out a roar like an enraged Kodiak grizzly and tried to close with her. Margo slid to one side in a swift Aikido move and assisted him on his way. Whereupon Ned was obliged to momentarily mimic the lowly fruit bat, flying airborne into the nearest belfry, that being the brick wall of the church across the street. Ned howled in outraged pain when he connected with a brutal thud. A roar of angry voices surged. So did the mob. A filthy lout in a ragged coat and battered cap took a swing at her. Margo ducked and sent him on his way. Then somebody else took offense at having his neighbor come careening head first into the crowd. Margo dodged and wove as fists swung like crazed axes in the hands of drunken lumberjacks. Then she grabbed Kostenka by the wrist and yelled, "Run, you bloody idiot!"
She had to drag him for two yards. Then he was running beside her, while Margo put to use every Aikido move Kit and Sven had ever drilled into her. Her wrists and arms ached, but she did clear a path out. The riot erupting behind them engulfed the entire street. Margo steered a course toward the spot where she'd last seen the other members of her little team. She found them, wide-eyed in naked shock, near the edge of the crowd. Doug Tanglewood had wisely dragged them clear as soon as she'd yelled at him to do so.
"Dr. Kostenka!" Shahdi Feroz cried. "You're injured!"
He was snuffling blood back into his sinuses. Margo hauled a handkerchief out of one pocket and thrust it into his hand. "Come on, let's clear out of here. We got what we came for. Pack this into your nostrils, hold it tight. Come on!" That, to Guy Pendergast, who was still intent on filming the riot with his hidden camera. "If we get to the Whitechapel Working Lads' Institute now, we can scramble for the best seats at the inquest."
That got the reporter's attention. He turned, belatedly, to help steer Dr. Pavel Kostenka down the street and away from the mortuary riot. Margo escorted her shaken charges several blocks away before pausing at a coffee stall to buy hot coffee for everyone. "Here, drink this," she said, handing Dr. Kostenka a chipped earthenware mug. "You're fighting shock. It'll warm you up."
Dominica Nosette too, was battling shock, although hers was emotional rather than from physical injuries sustained. Margo got a mugful of coffee down her, as well, and Doug bought crumpets for everyone. "Here you go. Carbs and hot coffee will set you to rights, mates." Pavel Kostenka had seated himself on the chilly stone kerb, elbows propped on knees, shabby boots in the gutter. He was trembling so violently, he had trouble holding Margo's now-stained handkerchief against his battered nose. Margo crouched beside him.
"You okay?" she asked quietly.
He shuddered once, then nodded, slowly. When he lowered the handkerchief to his lap, he left a smear of blood down his chin. "I do believe you saved my life, back there."
She shrugged, trying to make light of her own role in the near-disaster. "It's possible. That flared up a lot faster than I expected it to. Which means you got hurt and you shouldn't have. I knew people would be in a mean mood. And I knew about the anti-Semitism. But I didn't figure on a full-blown riot that fast."
He stared for a long moment into the cup Margo handed him, where dark and bitter coffee steamed in the cold morning air. "I have seen much anger in the world," he said quietly. "But nothing like this. Such murderous hatred, simply because I am different..."
"This isn't the twenty-first century," she said in a low voice. "Not that people are perfect in our time, they're not. But down a gate, you can't expect people to behave the way up-timers do. Socials norms do change over a century and a half, you know, more than you realize, just reading about it. Me? I'm just glad I was able to pull you out of there in one piece. Next time we come out here, we're gonna be a whole lot more careful about getting boxed into potential riots."
He finally met her gaze. "Yes. Thank you."
She managed a wan smile. "You're welcome. Ready to tackle that inquest?"
His effort to return the smile was genuine, even if the twist of his lips was a dismal failure in the smile department. "Yes. But this time, I think I shall not say anything at all, even if my foot is trod on hard enough to break the bones."
"Smart choice. Through with that coffee yet?"
The shaken scholar drained the bitter stuff—what did the British do to coffee, to produce such a ghastly flavor?—then climbed to his feet. "Thank you. From now on, whatever you suggest, I will do it without question."
"Okay. Let's find the Working Lads' Institute, shall we? I want us to keep a low profile." She glanced at the reporters. "No interviewing potential mobs, okay? You want this story, you get it by keeping your mouth shut and your cameras rolling."
This time, none of her charges argued with her. Even Guy Pendergast and Dominica Nosette, whose dress was torn, were momentarily subdued by the flash-point riot. For once, Margo actually felt in charge.
She wondered how long it would last.
Chapter Twelve
The smell of tension was thick in Kit's nostrils as he threaded his way through Edo Castletown, answering a call from Robert Li to meet him for the antics at Primary and to ask his expert opinion on a recent aquisition he'd made. So Kit abandoned several stacks of bills and government forms in his office at the Neo Edo Hotel and set out, curious about what the antiquities dealer might have stumbled across this time and wondering what new horror Primary's cycle might bring onto the station.
Kit had never seen a bigger crowd for a gate opening and that was saying a lot, after being caught in the jam-packed mass of humanity which had come to see the last cycling of the Britannia. Kiosks that hadn't existed just a week previously cluttered the once-wide thoroughfares of Commons, overflowing into Edo Castletown from its border with Victoria Station. Their owners hawked crimson-spattered t-shirts and tote bags, Ripper-suspect profiles, biographies and recent photos of the victims, anything and everything enterprising vendors thought might sell.
Humanity, he thought darkly—watching a giggling woman in her fifties plunking down a wad of twenties for a set of commemorative china plates with hand-painted portraits of victims, suspects, police investigators, and crime scenes—humanity is a sick species.
"Is she honestly going to display those hideous things in her house?"
Kit glanced around at the sound of a familiar voice at his elbow. Ann Vinh Mulhaney was gazing in disgust at the woman buying the plates.
"Hello, Ann. And I think the answer's yes. I'm betting she'll not only display them, she'll put them right out in the middle of her china hutch."
Ann gave a mock shudder. "God, Ripperoons... You wouldn't believe the last class of them I had to cope with." She glanced up at Kit, who gave her a sardonic smile. Kit had seen it all—and then some. "On second thought, you probably would believe it. Have you seen Sven yet? He came up before I did."