Ed ducked his head out of sight. What were they doing here? Everyone knew the Inquisition didn’t fuck around. Church business was strictly off-limits to London’s criminal element.

No one knew exactly how, but anyone who hit a church or Church property disappeared. Just like that. It’d happened to one of Tom’s “acquaintances” after the man, in a moment of desperation, had robbed a clergyman. The next day he had vanished. No one saw him again.

This was a troubling development. Troubling, but not necessarily a deal-breaker. The Church often hired Inquisition Adepts out and Ed could see the tell-tale Latin cross, in blood red, on the breast of their cassocks. These weren’t full Inquisitors, so this wasn’t necessarily Church property they were about to steal. And there were only three of them, mixed in with the dozen or so peelers in the street.

This’d better be a massive payday. I swear I’ll throttle Tom.

Ed was skittish, on the verge of backing off completely, when he saw Tom and James, dressed as journeyman plumbers, making their way past the checkpoint the police had set. What kind of package had both police checkpoints and Church security? Someone had dropped staggering amounts of money to keep this box safe.

The two disguised St Agnes boys shuffled through the crowd, caps drawn low on their faces. Ed saw Tom start as he spotted the Adepts, but quickly composed himself before they looked his way. He and James made it safely into the office building, where Hannah, yesterday, had tampered with the pipes and hidden one of James’ stinkpots in the vents. One false advertisement later and Agney’s Emergency Plumbing had been tasked with fixing the issue immediately.

They’re inside now. Guess we’re really doing this.

Ed wasn’t particularly religious, despite Tom swearing up and down that he’d seen a real angel once in his youth. Still he sent up a small prayer on the boys’ behalf. Couldn’t hurt, right?

Steeling himself, Ed backtracked across the skyline and made his way to the building opposite the office. Sitting on its roof gave him a vantage point allowing him to see the whole street at once without being visible from ground level.

The building he’d chosen had an attic that had been long sealed off but was easily opened with the right tools. All he needed to do was wait for Tom to hand him the package and then dash off as quickly as his long legs permitted. Right now though, there was nothing to do but sit in anticipation.

About an hour later, Ed perked up as he heard a carriage trundling down the cobblestone and the clop-clop of the horses pulling it. This was it. The package would enter the building, stay locked in a vault until dark, then leave the city forever. This would be their only shot.

Tom and James had been inside making an awful clanging racket with the pipes they were “fixing”. Ed thought it a tad much, but they were effectively selling the idea as no one in the street even looked twice after the first fifteen minutes.

The carriage shook its way down the street, escorted by four peelers on horseback. The peelers milling around in the street parted for the carriage, as if it were carrying royalty. Stopping directly in front of the office building, the courier inside hopped out and commandeered one of the idling policemen to help him lift the strongbox out and into the office where it’d be evaluated. The pair heaved and strained until an Adept took pity on them and picked up the entire thing, hefting it onto his shoulder. He disappeared inside.

Now it’s up to you two.

A short while later, a wave of dizziness passed through Ed, making his gorge rise.

What was that?

He looked down into the street and saw the Adepts looking directly at the office the strongbox had been taken to. The first one came running out of the building, animatedly whispering at the others. Whatever he was saying, it made the other Adepts wide-eyed with astonishment and they immediately ran off, leaving plumes of dust in their wake. Only one Adept remained. That couldn’t be good.

The peelers gaped at the vanishing Adepts, chattering excitedly amongst themselves.

Everyone’s distracted. They have to do it now.

True to form, Tom himself came dashing out, clutching his gut and groaning. The plan had been for him to pretend he had the shits and smuggle the item out, but from the way the peelers held their noses and cringed away from him, it seemed like he’d committed a bit too much to the role.

Ed readied himself. He was up next.

Tom, after climbing the stairs within, carefully opened the attic window that fed onto the roof, and as his head came into view Ed whispered furiously at him.

“What the shite, Tom! You never said anything about the Church! What th-“

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His rant devolved into a coughing fit as the smell finally wafted his way.

“What the fuck, mate, you actually soiled yourself!”

Tom, for his part, had a crazy grin on his face.

“Obviously not, you dunce. I stuffed one o’ Jim’s surprises in my pants and the stupid bobbies didn’t e’en check me twice! Ha!”

Ed, still off-balance from the earlier bout of nausea, couldn’t respond without inhaling the horrid fumes so just held his hand out impatiently.

Tom, still grinning, opened the tool pouch at his waist and pulled out a small metal canister. He shook it slightly. It rattled.

“I can’t figure out what’s in ‘ere, but it ‘as to be something special. Holding it gives me this… buzzy vigour, like lightning’s about to strike. It’s fucking mint!”

Ed grabbed it from Tom’s grip. And immediately puked.

“Whoa, I don’t smell that bad. What’s up with you, are you okay?”

Ed, stomach wringing, waved him off, before stuffing the canister in his messenger bag.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just get back down there and get the fuck out. And yes, you do smell that bad.”

What was happening? It was like as soon as he touched the thing, he was assaulted by vertigo. He was just glad he’d thought to bring a bag.

Tom, seeing Ed recover quickly, gave one last concerned glance before going back down, sealing the attic behind him.

Now all Ed had to do was escape over the rooftops. Luckily, that was his specialty.

----------------------------------------

By the time Monday rolled around, they were almost sure they had gotten away with it. It had been four days of sheer terror and frightened anticipation, but nothing had happened.

Tom had complained to Croydon about getting them involved in Church business but the man was too giddy at his competitor’s financial turmoil to really care. Apparently the man had taken out heavy loans to buy this artefact, in hopes of selling it to the Church. All such aspirations were dashed and Croydon was preparing to buy the panicking man out of his own company at a cheap price. As always, the St Agnes boys took the risks and Croydon profited immensely. All for the price of a spare room and food he wouldn’t even feed to his dogs.

They’d gone to ground just in case. Limiting their movement. Only going outside for essentials. Doubtless some of the peelers would remember the “plumbers” who’d fixed the pipes at the same time the canister got stolen, so Tom and James were especially banned from showing face on the streets.

Even with all these precautions, the air in the factory was charged with tension. The thing was clearly valuable. Tom and Ed both had strange reactions to it, Tom becoming invigorated and Ed becoming stricken with nausea and dizziness. Every so often, it would release its strange, invisible energies in a wave around it and affect the two even across the room. Tom and James insisted it was magic of some sort, while Ed was more skeptical.

Still, they all had the sinking feeling that the other shoe was about to drop. No way the Church would just let something like this go.

Which is why they were prepared when, in the dead of night, they heard shattering glass.

All three St Agnes boys sat up in their cots and glanced at each other. James and Ed immediately jumped out and began taking out the emergency bags they’d prepared for this. Tom made his way along the row of beds, shaking each occupant awake and directing them to be quiet.

"Escape Plan B! Escape Plan B!!"

Tom furiously hissed at everyone as they tried to herd bleary-eyed children to a secret exit they'd opened a while back. There was a stairwell that led to an alley behind the factory, but both ends had been bricked over. Nothing a sledgehammer couldn't fix.

As the kids started filing out, Ed turned to James, holding the canister out in front of him in its new home, a rusty old biscuit tin.

"So who's taking this?"

"You obviously. I'm not the acrobat you are, and we can't risk the kids by taking this with us."

Ed balked for a second, before realising the wisdom in his words. None of them wanted the children in Inquisition hands.

The only problem was that carrying the thing would mess with his coordination, a death sentence on the damp roofs of London. Ed sighed and grabbed a cord of rope, securing the valuable box to his waist.

Nothing for it but to press on.

As the group shuffled out of the stairwell, Ed climbed to the factory roof. Silhouetted against the moonlight, Tom saw him from the street and signed "Number?"

Ed nodded and went around the front, peeking over the lip of the roof. He came back to Tom, signing "One carriage. Four or five maximum."

Frowning, Tom signed back "Stay safe. Meet later."

Escape Plan B entailed disappearing into the sewers and coming up through a passageway into a secret basement under what used to be St Agnes. They couldn’t stay there long, but it was an amazing short-term safe house. Ed in the meantime would run off in the opposite direction, drawing attention and leading enemies on a wild goose chase, eventually losing them in a tangle of urban roofing.

The plan hadn't accounted for Inquisitors however.

As Ed took off, an Inquisitor spotted him from the ground, clad in his black cassock with the St James cross on his breast, and leapt onto the roof. From the street.

Holy shite!

Ed had already moved on, but the Inquisitor was much faster than he'd anticipated. His only previous experience with the Inquisition was with the Adepts and them getting sent after him was the worst case scenario in their plans, forcing Ed to recalculate on the fly. No way he could outrun them, his best bet was playing it stealthy and staying out of sight, using the various peaks and chimneys, illuminated in moonlight, to evade detection. Course of action set, the burglar grit his teeth and ran.

The wind whistled in his ears as he hopped from roof to roof, only able to spare a single glance back every few minutes. The Inquisitor was hot on his tail, gaining on him rapidly. The only reason he hadn't already been caught was that he changed direction every time the man spotted him, making his movements unpredictable.

Still, the outcome was inevitable unless something changed. Ed could almost feel the Inquisitor's presence heating his back.

He slid down another peak, jumping across the narrow street, swinging off support beams, Ed drew on every bit of experience he had to stay ahead. In fact, it looked like he might have actually-

The box tied at his waist pulsed and a wave of nausea and disorientation crashed through him. He lost his footing and slipped off the roof he was on. He tumbled forward, cracking his head against a wall, then dropping like a stone. Miraculously, he landed in a rubbish heap in an alley that hadn't been cleared out yet.

Woozy and seeing double, Ed blinked as he saw two Inquisitors pass over the gap he'd just fallen down.

Huh. Guess I hadn't lost him.

Then darkness claimed him.