Artful: A Novel

by Peter David

  With the abject failure of any legal pursuits, Fagin drifted back toward more illegal ones. But slowly he discovered that he had lost the taste for it. He had become long accustomed to using children as his cat’s paws and thus not having to risk his own neck, and as his own neck had already been stretched once, he wasn’t entirely anxious to risk a second, and possibly less fortuitous, engagement with the hangman.

  So when the opportunities to relieve others of their handkerchiefs, purses, and other valuables presented themselves, he was lackluster in his endeavors, so much so that on two occasions he was actually spotted in the attempt by passersby or onlookers, and had to flee the scene before the authorities could be summoned.

  Thus did Fagin, over a period of many months, find himself slipping deeper and deeper into despair and frustration, for he could not leave behind the life he had once had, but could not conceive of a new life that he could embrace.

  It happened, then, that one night, so long after the encounter with Sanguine Harry that it seemed a lifetime ago—an odd happenstance, really, considering the number of lifetimes he had led—Fagin found himself walking a road that he realized, if followed to its inevitable conclusion, would return him to London. He wondered if sufficient time had passed so that such a return would not result in his being arrested or fled from, considering that he was believed long dead. After some deliberation, he came to the decision that he really didn’t care.

  And that was when he came to the startling realization that he did not care about anything.

  This sudden revelation would have come across to another almost as a burst of light behind the eyes, so forceful was it. Because he was what he was, though, it was instead an explosion of blackness, albeit in the same locale.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, next to a large tree, and the night waited to hear what he had to say.

  “Is this what it has come to then, after so many years? Me, what’s got no true life to propel me, after all. Willpower is what fuels me, and if I don’t have the will to go on, then how do I do it? What’s the point of it all? Of any of it?”

  Overcome by a sense of blinding ennui, he sank to the ground and stared at London in the distance, a great silhouette against the night sky, simultaneously seeming to beckon him and urging him to keep away.

  “I miss the sun,” he said, beset with melancholy, “and tire of the shadow. There are so many who are given greatness even though they are not entitled to it. And me, what has dwelt at the bottom of society’s dregs for so long that I can’t rightly guess what the top would even look like . . . what’s the bloody point of it all, is what I’m sayin’. Look at me: a creature of the night, and people fear the night, but nobody fears old Fagin. Despise me, yes. Hate me. Want to see me strung up they did, and I was, and they cheered to see a ripe old villain get what’s comin’ to him. But why can’t I be doin’ more than that? Why can’t I—?”

  How long his discourse might have continued unabated is unknown. Instead, he was interrupted by a loud, brusque voice that said, “All right, Jew! On your feet!”

  For an instant, Fagin froze, naturally believing that officers of the law had fallen upon him. A thorough terror of how Mr. Fang would react upon a general discovery that Fagin was close to London, having ignored his banishment, hurtled through him. He put his hands over his head and slowly turned, and then puzzlement registered upon his face as he saw a curious figure facing him.

  It was an extraordinarily sharply dressed man, attired in a most splendid suit, and he cut an extraordinary figure in it. He wore a riding cape of deepest purple, which was an extraordinary fashion decision for him to make, considering that he seemed most unlikely to have any claim to royalty. His extraordinary suit was similarly well turned out, and the one allowance made for his environment was that there was dirt on the rims of his boots. Even the boots were extraordinary, of fine black leather, and Fagin regarded him with a sideways cock of the head and arched eyebrow. Before he could stop himself, Fagin breathed, “Extraordinary.”

  “Indeed,” the man said. He was holding a pistol on Fagin, but Fagin paid it no mind.

  “Who might you be, my dear?” Fagin inquired.

  “I,” said the gunman, “am giving you the extraordinary honor of being robbed by none other than the renowned highwayman, Jack Sheppard. Now”—and he waved his pistol impatiently—“I’ll be havin’ your purse.”

  “Jack . . . Sheppard?” Fagin said the name slowly to make certain that he had heard it properly. “Jack Sheppard the highwayman died over a century ago. Executed for his crimes. You claim to be he?”

  “I do. Now . . .”—he waved the pistol again—“I should hate to waste a shot on you, but I will if you continue to prolong this encounter.”

  Although the highwayman did not notice it, Fagin’s nostrils flared as he took in the scent of the man facing him. The logical assumption to make was that this man, Sheppard, was a creature similar to Fagin, a vampyre. Or perhaps some other manner of ambulatory corpse, if such there was. But such creatures produce an aroma that is distinctive to others of the undead, for in truth, they are really nothing more than slowly rotting meat, and thus can be perceived as such by those with the peculiarly sharp olfactory senses that vampyres possess. Furthermore, human beings perspire, another scent that Fagin would easily be able to perceive and thus determine whether he was truly looking at one of his own kind.

  He was quickly able to determine that he was not, for the highwayman produced the sort of aromas typical for humans, and none of those that the undead possessed.

  “You are Jack Sheppard in name only,” said Fagin. “You are not truly he.”

  For the first time, the highwayman’s veneer of suavity seemed to slip a notch or two. “Are you feeble-minded? Of course, I’m not the original. But,” he said with determination, “I have read of him, and know of him, and am keeping his legacy alive.”

  “His . . . legacy.” It had never been a word that Fagin would have associated with those that practiced his particular calling, but it fascinated him. “A legacy. I never considered such a thing. Legacies . . . why, they’re for those what are looking to see somethin’ lastin’ beyond their lifetimes, are they not?” He was talking more to himself than to the highwayman. “But that makes so much sense, does it not, now? When one is faced with endless nights, why, then it’s just a matter of trying to get through every one of ’em. But if one sees the cutoff in the road, one thinks beyond one’s own immediate needs. One seeks immortality in name, as body cannot provide it. But immortality in mind distracts from what the name can achieve.”

  “What in God’s name are you blathering about?” The highwayman had completely lost his patience as well as his panache. “Right, then. I have had more than enough of this nonsense.”

  He approached Fagin quickly, assuming that Fagin could not possibly present any manner of threat. He grabbed Fagin by the throat and put the gun against the older man’s skull, cocking the hammer. “I am going to count to three,” he said.

  “No need for that, my dear,” said Fagin, and his hand moved so quickly that Jack Sheppard, or whatever his true name might have been, never saw it. All he knew was that one moment the gun was in his hand, and then it was in Fagin’s. Had he been at all aware of what he was faced with, he would have backed off, backed away, and perhaps there would have been an outside chance that Fagin might have let him escape. Instead, he made a terrible mistake and lunged for the pistol that Fagin was holding securely. He grabbed the barrel, yanking upward, and the hammer slammed home. Its fatal lead discharged and lodged itself straightaway into Jack Sheppard’s stomach.

  He let out an alarmed shriek of pain and stumbled backward, banging into a crooked tree and sliding to the ground. His eyes were wide with horror, and he clutched at his gut, feeling the spreading warmth against it. “Am . . . am I killed?” he managed to say, and with all of his bravado gone, he sounded as if he were littl
e more than a child.

  “Aye, my dear, I’m afraid so,” said Fagin, and his hands were clasping and unclasping rapidly. “And sad to say, because it’s a shot to the stomach, you won’t have a quick or easy time of it. A day, two, maybe three of slow agony, and there’s nothing to be done.” He licked his lips hungrily. “You know what a drunkard is, Jack, me boy?”

  “What? I . . .” He shook his head, uncomprehending.

  “A drunkard is him what can’t help himself. What drinks too much for his own good. It’s a sad, sad thing, being unable to control oneself. And the only way to stop being that way . . . is to stop being that way.”

  “Oh my God . . . oh my God, I’m shot . . . I . . . I’m going to die . . . .”

  “Yes, yes, we’ve established that, my dear,” said Fagin with an impressive attempt at sympathy that still fell well short of the genuine article. “But we’re on to my problems now, and my problem . . . I was a drunkard of a sort, ya see. I had my own drink that I craved, and I didn’t like what drinkin’ it did to me, and what it did to others. You might believe an old criminal like me, that I’d have no conscience, but that’s wrong thinkin’, it is. Just wrong. I have a conscience, I does, and a heart, even if it is a withered and useless thing, and so I quit. I quit, even though every single night without it pained me. My kind, we don’t need the drink to survive, not really. Just to thrive and be what nature—or unnature, I’m thinkin’—wants us to be.

  “But if I’m goin’ to leave a legacy, then I’m goin’ to have to be so much more than I am, and I can’t do that without your help, I’m afraid, Jack.” His body was trembling with the need that he had long ago thought he could control. But the smell of the blood that was seeping from Jack’s wound was simply irresistible. It pervaded his very being, became more than he could stand, and really, why should he have to stand it? Why turn away from what he was clearly meant to be? Certainly there was no answer to this question that presented itself to him, although admittedly he did not strive too greatly to discern it. He returned his attention to the catalyst of his epiphany. “But if it’s of any consolation to you, why . . . in your helpin’ me, I’m goin’ to be able to help you as well.”

  “You . . . you will . . .?” His voice stirred with the slightest glimmer of hope that Fagin seemed to be presenting to him. “How . . .?”

  “By making your death quick.”

  Fagin’s eyes turned a fiery red with bloodlust, and Jack Sheppard let out a scream of terror that accomplished nothing except to cause Fagin to leap forward like a great beast of the jungle. He landed upon Jack, who tried to bring up his arms to fend him off, but poor Jack had absolutely no chance. With a roar of boundless triumph, unleashing the creature that had been stymied within him through sheer willpower and what seemed an eternity of thwarted desire, Fagin sank his fangs into Jack’s throat and drained him. The blood cascaded over Fagin’s tongue and down his throat, and strength and power began to ripple through him. He drank and drank until there was not a drop of blood left in the highwayman’s body. Fagin stood fully upright for what seemed the first time in decades, which it might well have been, as his natural posture tended toward the hunch or the crouch. His shoulders were square, his chin thrust forward proudly. He threw back his head and unleashed a noise that was a combination of a howl and a roar, and wolves who heard it miles away returned the salutation, whereas any domesticated dogs whimpered and hid, being thus reminded that they were mere shadows of the wild and truly terrifying creatures that still roamed the night.

  “Why,” whispered Fagin, once the echoes of his triumphant bellow had faded, “did I deprive myself of this . . . this feast? What madness possessed me?” He received no answer as there were none to provide it, nor would he have listened even if it had been given.

  Feeling energized, he looked down at the body on the ground. A benefit of draining Jack so thoroughly was that it ceased the spreading of blood from the gut wound, and because it had been flowing quite slowly to begin with, the result was that although his shirt was quite ruined, the magnificent embroidered vest he had been wearing was largely unmolested, save for the small hole as a result of the pistol’s discharge.

  Fagin moved quickly, stripping the highwayman of his fine garments. He kept his own shirt, although resolving to find something far grander later, and within minutes had attired himself in the late Jack Sheppard’s clothing.

  He tossed his old clothes upon Jack’s corpse, not bothering to dress him in them. When daylight reared its illuminated head once more, someone would come across his body and notify the locals, and it would be assumed that someone had accosted him, killed him, and stripped him of his clothes in search of valuables. Thus would the highwayman be buried in some deserved pauper’s grave, or perhaps cremated, taking with him the last bit of Fagin that existed in the world.

  Satisfied with the night’s work, Fagin turned his back on the deceased and faced London, calling to it from the distance. “I hear you, my beauty,” said he, “and will heed your call. And by all the gods below, I shall give them something to talk about and remember me by, yes, I will.”

  He started moving quickly down the road, but his enthusiasm was so overwhelming, and the youthful blood pounding within him so intoxicating, that in short order mere walking was insufficient to contain him. A walk became a trot and then a run, and soon even gravity could not contain him. He started leaping down the road, as graceful as a gazelle, covering many yards with each stride, as if the earth had only a passing claim upon him.

  Thus did Fagin, a true bounder if ever there was, reach London, and waste no time in making a name for himself.

  And so now do we bring our villain current with the events that have been otherwise transpiring, and we find ourselves in one chill night, focusing on a young actress named Celia Dugan who has just performed in a penny dreadful theatrical detailing—as coincidence would have it—the criminal career of Jack Sheppard, being the original, gone more than a century, and not the thoroughly unmemorable and unmourned version who had been dispatched truly by his own hand and thundering incompetence weeks ago.

  Celia drew her shawl tightly around herself, for it was a chill night, and her purse was dangling from her wrist. She was passing a low building, and suddenly she heard a startling and chilling cackle, and she looked up and saw a darkened figure crouching atop the roof. For a moment, she was certain that she was about to witness a suicide, and she called out to him, “Wait! Do not! Matters cannot be as bad as all that!”

  Matters indeed could be that bad, but for her, not the figure.

  She shrieked as he leaped from the rooftop, cape fluttering around him, falling four stories, and landing directly in front of her. He, by all rights, should have been injured or perhaps even dead. Instead, he clutched at her and groped her, laughing dementedly the entire time, grabbing her purse and snatching her valuables before yanking her arm toward his mouth and starting to chew on it. His teeth punctured the skin, not too deeply, but enough that blood began to flow, and he licked at it eagerly.

  “Stop! Get away!” shrieked Celia, and she pummeled at him with her small fists, which did nothing to dissuade him. Then he tore his lips away from her arm, and his mouth was smeared with blood, and his eyes were red and wild. Terrified, she tried to pull away.

  “Jack thanksss you,” he hissed, and then he released her. As she had been endeavoring to get clear of him, this resulted in her losing her balance and falling to the street. She watched in wide-eyed amazement as he turned from her and vaulted straight up to another rooftop, as if he were a marionette being yanked skyward by a great, unseen puppeteer. He landed upon the rooftop, an impossible leap completed with inhuman ease, tossed off a wave, and vanished into the darkness, taking his crazed laughter with him.

  “Spring-Heeled Jack,” whispered Celia. She was holding her gloved hand against the wound she had sustained, and the bleeding was already slowing and would soon stop. �
��My God, that was Spring-Heeled Jack. I thought he was a . . . a legend.”

  And even though he was already two rooftops away, Jack heard her, and inwardly danced with joy.

  He leaped from rooftop to rooftop, London spread out below him, his town, all his for the taking. He reveled in his strength, in his audacity, in his . . . dared he say it himself? Why not? “Legend,” he said. “I am legend. I am—”

  He never saw the arm that emerged from the shadows, straight and hard as a log, that caught him across the face. He had been moving so quickly that it knocked him completely off his feet, and he landed hard on the rooftop. The world spun around him for a moment and then righted itself.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows and glared down at him.

  “Fang,” whispered Spring-Heeled Jack, and quickly he clambered to his feet. “I . . . that is to say . . . I didn’t—”

  “Shut up, Fagin,” said Mr. Fang, and Fagin promptly did so. “Did you think I would not know it was you? Did you think I would not figure out that Spring-Heeled Jack, bounding around London with his flaming red hair and crimson eyes and snatching purses and handkerchiefs . . . did you think I would not figure out that it was you?” When Fagin did not respond immediately, Fang prompted, “Well?”

  “You, ah . . . told me to shut up, so I wasn’t rightly sure if respondin’ was—”

  “Never mind,” said Fang impatiently. He folded his arms and looked Fagin up and down, like a scientist scrutinizing a disease under a microscope lens. “At least,” he said finally, “you are doing something with your potential. I will admit that much. This business of not drinking blood . . . it was ridiculous.”

  “How did ye know I was not drinkin’ blood?”

  “My spies are everywhere, Fagin. There is nothing I don’t know. Except, perhaps, what it was that you were trying to prove.”

  “Somethin’. But truly, my dear, I can’t remember what it might have been. The foolishness is washed away by the cleansin’ power of the crimson ichor that nourishes all our kind.”