Gods of Manhattan Read Online Free

slightest thought. He was a relic, a battered old antique, a souvenir of a bygone age. His place in the scheme of things had been taken by younger men with bigger and better ideas. The world had moved on.
    He still hated Doc Thunder. That was the worst thing. That burning, black hatred would never go away, and now it was matched by a bitter, bottomless frustration. To know that you would never look into your enemy's eyes again, never watch them squirm, know the sweet taste of their fear... to know he could never hurt Thunder again... it was unendurable.
    His lips moved, and he began to whisper.
    Please, mein Gott. Please. Give me one chance. Let me hurt him once more. Let me be the catalyst that brings misery and torture down on his head, him and all his kind, all the strutting fools in their masks and their ridiculous outfits, all the ones who made me suffer, who reduced me to this shell. Let me take my final revenge on them all...
    Be careful what you pray for.
    The sword slid through his back, between his ribs, piercing his heart. The man standing behind him twisted the blade, and Donner shuddered, his eyes bulging, then rolling back.
    El Sombra withdrew the sword from the man's corpse and wiped it on the curtains. He'd come straight here after he'd gotten the information, and by the look of things - he prodded the corpse onto its back with a bare toe, studying the features - his information had been correct. He'd half-expected the old man to go for a gun when he'd broken in, but he hadn't even heard. Probably deaf, or nearly deaf. Idly, he took a step backwards, listening to the ugly, wet sound of the bowel letting go, and then turned on his heel and wandered off to check for papers, or lists of names, or maps. Executing one of the Bastards was always fun in and of itself, but he didn't want this to become a dead end. If the Ex-King Of The Bastards had fallen from grace, maybe he'd gathered some insurance on the way down. Or at least something that could be used to find more of them.
    He found what he was looking for in the bedroom.
    Ignored, the body on the carpet began to cool, and stiffen. Two days and eleven hours later, it would be found by patrolmen after Donner's downstairs neighbour complained about the spreading stain on his ceiling, and the stench from above. The newspapermen would hear of it, and it would become front page news - the dead man who died a second time.
    And then all Hell would descend on Manhattan.
    And a lot of stories would come to an end.

Chapter One
     
    The Case of the Stolen Lightning
     
    Night was falling, and the city was coming to life once again.
    As Rabbi Johann Labinowicz shuffled into the deli, he closed his eyes for a moment and took in the sound of the bell. A small, perfect little object that tinkled softly and gently, with a clear, resonant sound whenever the door opened, Johann had found himself wandering three blocks or more out of his way simply to hear it, and as a result this particular deli had, over a span of years, become his regular haunt.
    Johann was a man who took pleasure in small things. The ring of a shop's bell, the taste of a perfectly made salt beef hoagy with pickle and mustard. Having your habits and tastes known by your deli. Little things of that nature.
    "One salt beef, pickle and mustard." Mrs McGregor said it like a hello, as her husband had. Bill McGregor had passed away five years ago, but Alma had taken over the running of McGregor's Fine Deli and it was as though nothing had happened. She'd mourned, a deep and terrible wound in her had healed over time, but she'd done her mourning in between chopping egg and scattering cress, frying onion for the beef dogs and fine-slicing gherkin the way her husband had taught her. Only her regulars had noticed any change at all, and no change at all in the food. Mrs McGregor was a close and private woman, who played her emotions like cards against her chest. Johann had known her twelve years, and still considered