Chapter One

The ferryman was dead.

There was no doubt about it. The fellow had no pulse. His skin was like ice. His pupils were dilated, his eyes glassy and staring. Reilly Stanton didn't need a medical license to tell him that this man was no longer among the living.

But Reilly wasn't the one who needed convincing. It was the wizened fisherman stooped over beside him who seemed to be suffering from some doubts.

"What's ailing him, then?" the old man asked, his breath turning instantly to steam in the cold winter air.

"Aye." The fisherman's question was echoed by several of his peers, all of whom had come to stare down at the corpse, as well as at Reilly, who'd had the ill judgment to plunge into the frigid water after the drowning man.

"I'm afraid," Reilly said, lifting his dripping head from the dead man's equally sodden chest, "that he's gone."

"Gone?" The eldest of the fishermen blinked down at him. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Well, passed on." Seeing the blank expressions on the faces around him, Reilly tried again. "Expired."

The word expired had always worked well enough on the families of Reilly's patients back in Mayfair. It was clear, however, that delicacy was wasted on these particular fellows, and so Reilly said, enunciating with difficulty through teeth that were beginning to chatter with the cold, "I'm afraid your friend is dead."

"Dead?" The old man exchanged incredulous glances with his companions. "Stuben's dead?"

Reilly rose to his knees - no small feat, since his once fine breeches wer