Aston leaped onto the leaky roof, the tiles crumbling beneath him, and the dirty water already dripping through the gaps.
‘Thump!’
The roof partially collapsed, but it left behind a larger hole, with Aston’s arms instinctively raised over his face, his hood pulled low. Crumbling tiles struck his head and back, with his blue-tinted knives swatting them away.
There were several men—each more rotund than the last. Eight in total, only two of them slender. They sat around a blue table, their mustaches twitching above their bluish lips. They stared at Aston, startled, a few of them abruptly recoiling. They fell from their chairs like puppets, and shadows flickered beneath the dim light of the candles. They had been playing a card game—poker, from the looks of it—when one of the thinner men, his face hawk-like with a long, crooked nose and sharp eyes, glared at Aston.