Read Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) for Free Online Page A

windows and crumbling chimneys, their fires long left untended.
    Lazarus had come alone. Mr. Clumps had expressed a surprising degree of trepidation at allowing his superior to wander off alone on this overcast Sunday afternoon, but Lazarus had insisted. He was a private man, and when they were not pursuing their mission’s goals he must be allowed some private time. Perhaps he had family he wanted to visit, or a lady friend who missed him. These were things that the steam-man could never understand, Lazarus explained, and Mr. Clumps did an alarming impression of a man sulking when he had left him sitting on his chair in their lodgings.
    As Lazarus made his way across the weed-ravaged yard towards the address Mansfield had given him, his footsteps echoed across the cracked concrete, reverberating off the red brickwork of the surrounding buildings. He looked up at the lime oast with its dark eye-like windows of broken glass and conical kiln looming over him. He patted his coat pocket instinctively, feeling the shape of the Bulldog revolver. The smallness of it made him feel uneasy. He missed the reassuring bulge of his Enfield and especially the heavy weight of his Starblazer.
    The main door was secured with heavy, rusted chains, so he followed the building around to the left, looking for another entrance. He came across a small wooden door that was barely hanging from its hinges. He pushed it aside and he stepped in.
    Some pigeons, startled by his entrance, burst upwards in a flurry of feathers and out through a gaping hole in the roof. The place was dim. All about were scattered the remnants of the kiln’s former life. Worker’s tools, rusted and filthy, lay strewn on ancient benches and a thick layer of dust and grime coated everything. At the far end of the building, the floor dropped away to a set of slime-encrusted steps leading to the water. It had once been used as a small dock and now a thick layer of scum sat on the water, obscuring its depths.
    He poked around a little more, but to no avail. If anything had been amiss here, then someone had since removed all trace. It didn’t look like it had been used for anything since its fires cooled, many years ago. Disappointed, he left the building and made his way back across the yard.
    Some children were playing on an old heap of broken masonry and looked a little startled to see him emerge from the lime oast. There were four in all, three boys and a girl, all dressed in shabby jackets and caps.
    “Oi, mister!” shouted one. “Are you a copper?”
    “Nope,” Lazarus replied, walking past them.
    “I’ll bet you are. I’ll bet you’re investigating ghosts,” the lad said.
    “Why would a copper care two pennies about ghosts?” Lazarus asked. “Not that I am a copper. And what’s all this about ghosts, anyway?”
    “Cos a ghost lives in there,” the boy replied. “I seen it.”
    “What did you see?” Lazarus asked.
    The boy wiped the back of his hand across his nose and sniffed. “Well, it weren’t really me,” he admitted. “It was me brother Ben. He saw it late at night, a real ghost it was. It was all dressed in black and floated over the ground.”
    “Your brother’s been on the gin,” said the girl. “Seein’ things.”
    “S’all a load of cobblers anyway!” exclaimed another of their companions. “It ain’t no ghost. My dad saw him in daylight and he weren’t floating. My dad reckons its Todd.”
    “Todd?” Lazarus enquired. “Who’s he?”
    “Everyone’s heard of old Sweeney Todd,” exclaimed the second boy incredulously. “He’s the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He invites people into his shop for a shave and then he cuts their throat with his razor. Then he sells their bodies to a woman what makes ‘em into meat pies!”
    “Good grief, child!” Lazarus said. “Where do you hear such things?”
    “Everyone’s heard of ol’ Todd,” he repeated. “Ask anyone. That’s his lair where he hides from the