by Steve McHugh
I grabbed a few more of the files and carried them up toward the house. “I’ll see you outside,” I called back. I found a large box in Felix’s study, and piled the files inside. The office, like most of the house, was devoid of anything that looked personal, but I managed to bust open Felix’s safe and remove the money and other items from inside it. One of which was a drawing of Felix and a young child on some old paper. It had been framed some time ago.
Before I left, I also took the light fae chains from the floor. The blacksmith had long since died, and it felt unfair to destroy something so rare. By the time I was done, two large boxes were stashed by the front door, almost breaking from what they contained.
“Are you planning on moving house for him?” Fiona asked as she re-emerged from the basement and saw the boxes.
“Grab one,” I said ignoring her comment. “We’ll dump them on the coach.”
“Felix can never come back here. Not now.”
“I know, but I’m not going to punish him for going against Merlin.”
Fiona picked up the box and dropped a few items from a nearby table into it. “I’m not without empathy for him.”
We opened the door and found half a dozen wood trolls staring back at us.
“Where is Felix?” the largest troll asked, his massive head far too close to my own for me to be comfortable.
“People took him,” I told them “Two of them are in the basement dead. The basement is on fire. We’re going to go find Felix. But he can’t come back here.”
Another troll took the box from me, while a third did the same with the one that Fiona was carrying.
“We’ll keep it all safe,” the largest troll told us. He glanced behind me. “How long before the house burns down?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona admitted.
The large troll motioned for both of us to leave the house, which we did quickly. And then several of the trolls went into the house.
“We’ll make sure Felix’s things are safe. Come get them from us when you find him.”
“And if they’ve killed him?” I asked.
“Are you going to try to save him?”
“Yes,” I told him.
“Then we’ll give them to you. I’m sorry about your coach driver, we got here too late.” He turned and entered the house.
“I’m sorry your child was taken,” I said. “Did they bring him back unharmed?”
The troll beside me pointed at a small wood troll sitting on the lap of a large female. “He is fine. Shaken, but okay.”
“Good, I’m glad.”
Fiona and I walked to the coach, and found the driver dead. His throat had been cut. Fiona helped bundle his body into the rear of the coach before she sat up front with me.
“Do you have a plan?” Fiona asked.
“We find Alan and Diana, and then we go get Felix back, killing anyone who gets in the way.”
“Not before we’ve had some answers though.”
“Oh, by the time we’re done with them, they’ll be falling over one another to give us whatever we want.”
Fiona and I took the coach back to the safe house in Whitechapel, which turned out to be empty. Even though it was dark, there were still plenty of people out and about, so removing the body from the coach would have been a very public affair. Instead, we moved the coach to the patch of grass where Alan and I had been attacked only a few days earlier. This time there were no maniacs about, so we left the horses in peace and removed the body, dumping it in the carriage, where the darkness ensured it couldn’t be seen even from a short distance away.
Returning to the house, we decided to wait for Alan and Diana to come back and went inside. Fiona went upstairs and changed her clothes, putting on a pair of dark trousers and white shirt. She tied her hair up into a bun and put a hat on it.
“Very fetching,” I said with a smile, when she came downstairs.
“You going to change?”
I shook my head.
“I hope you two had a more productive time of it,” Alan shouted from the hallway behind me.
I dried my hands and left the kitchen. “We know where they are,” I told Alan and Diana.
“Where?” they both asked.
Fiona removed some paper from her pocket and passed it to Alan. “We got the address from the two members of the Reavers who took Felix.”
“They have Felix?” Diana asked.
It took us a few minutes to explain everything to them, but they both remained quiet throughout.
“We’re going to get him back, yes?” Alan asked.
I nodded and explained why Felix had betrayed us.
“So, what’s the plan?” Diana asked. “I’d like to hurt the men who did this.”
“We need to get Felix away from Jack and Enfield,” I said. “Jack and Enfield . . . I don’t care what happens to them. They have questions to answer, but once they’ve done so, they’re going to be buried in unmarked graves somewhere. Then I’m going to see Merlin.”
The atmosphere changed slightly at my last words.
“Merlin? Are you sure?” Alan asked.
“You can’t accuse Merlin of knowing about this,” Fiona said. “He’ll deny it, and if he doesn’t, he’ll have you executed.”
I’d wondered that very thing from the time I’d left Felix’s house. “No, he’ll tell me the truth and he won’t have me executed. I hope not anyway. But it needs to be done. I need to know what Felix and Merlin did to me; I need to hear it from his own mouth. I need to know how many of my memories are lies.”
“This address is a warehouse not far from here,” Diana said. “It’s still being built. You sure the person gave you the right address?”
“Yes,” Fiona said. “It’s definitely the right address.”
“When do we go?” Alan asked.
“Now. We need to get this finished.” I turned to Diana. “Your coach driver was murdered. I’m very sorry.”
Diana looked toward the floor. “Just another reason for me to be involved. Have the murderers been punished?”
“Yes, they both died,” Fiona said. “And not well.”
Diana looked up at her. “Good. When this is done, I shall have his body returned to the ground. These Reavers have been nothing but a problem since they came to this city. I want to see that they are punished for this.”
The word “returned” set off alarm bells. Who or what was her coachman, anyway? But this was hardly the time to ask. We told her where the body of her coachman could be found and then, when everyone was ready, we set off toward the warehouse ready to cause the Reavers some serious problems of their own.
CHAPTER 25
November 1888. London.
The four of us crouched in the darkness outside the perimeter of the warehouse, near the district of Wapping. The building backed onto the river Thames, which was still and dark. As much as we were horrified by the crimes that had been discovered, I wondered how many were never uncovered after the evidence was disposed of in that river.
“They’ve got to know we’re coming,” Alan said.
“I imagine they do, yes,” Fiona told him.
“I’m going to go in and scout the place,” I told the three of them. “We have no idea if they have more help in there, and even less of one as to where Felix is being held. I’ll look around and come back.”
Diana and Fiona both looked ready to argue.
“How long do we give you?” Alan asked, looking at his pocket watch.
“Ten minutes. If I’m longer than that it’s because they’ve grabbed me and then you’ll probably hear the fight.”
“Ten minutes, exactly,” Diana said.
I nodded.
“You know, I’m a better hunter than you,” she told me.
I nodded again. “Of course, but you’ll also use that lovely bow to put one through their ears at the first opportunity. I’d rather they were alive to begin with.”
Diana smiled. “Go, do your hunt.”
> I thanked her and climbed the fence, keeping behind various pieces of building apparatus as I ran the few hundred yards to the warehouse. I remained close to the warehouse wall as I made my way toward the rear of the building next to the river.
The warehouse windows at my eye level were blacked out, and I didn’t fancy the idea of clambering up the side of the wall to see if the windows higher up gave me a better view of what was happening inside. I would have been too exposed for too long.
At the rear of the building there was a separate structure, which I assumed to be the offices for the management of the main warehouse. There was a staircase, which led up to the top floor. I ignored it and moved through the open rear doors of the warehouse and into the dark stillness beyond.
The warehouse floor, all several thousand square feet of it, was deathly quiet. I had no idea what the end function of the warehouse was, as all it contained were the tools and materials used to finish the building. The walls and roof were built, but the interior was still very much nowhere near completion.
Several small offices had been built in one corner, all of which turned out to be empty, and I’d soon made a complete lap of the interior of the warehouse. I glanced up at the walkways being added high above me. There was nowhere to hide up there. Wherever Jack and Enfield were, and wherever they’d hidden Felix, it wasn’t inside the main warehouse building.
I left the warehouse and decided to search the lower level of the larger office building first. I made my way to the door, but found it locked. I readied a blade of fire and paused. Runes had been carved into the doorframe. The light from the fire showed them up. I had no idea what they did, but I guessed it wouldn’t be good.
Instead of trying to find another way in, I doubled back and took the staircase up to the floor above. The door there was closed, but unlocked, and I was soon inside a long corridor that stretched the length of the building. Every few feet was another door, and after opening the third it was clear this was to be a series of offices. It probably allowed the management to overlook their workers, but not actually have to interact with them until they came and left the warehouse.
All of the rooms were empty, and by the time I’d reached the end of the corridor I was beginning to think that we’d been fed lies about the whereabouts of Felix and his captors. I glanced out of the window at the end of the corridor, and noticed the small dock that had been built below. A Thames sailing barge was bobbing gently beside it. At eighty feet long, it was a sizeable vessel, with more than enough room to stash Felix while Enfield and Jack hid.
“Ten minutes is up,” Fiona said from behind me.
“You make an awful lot of noise for someone who’s trying to sneak around,” I pointed out. “I heard you walking up the stairs.”
“Yet you didn’t come to see who it was,” she teased.
I ignored her taunt. “I’m more interested in that ship. Where are Alan and Diana?”
“They walked off toward the river; apparently Alan has a surprise he’d like to show her.” She paused for a moment. “You do know that Alan Daly is a criminal against Avalon. He should be in irons, or at least in a sorcerer’s band.”
“I’m well aware of what Alan is,” I replied, slightly terser than I’d intended. “He’s also helping track down a group of murderers. He could have run a dozen times and hasn’t.”
“When this is over, he’s going to have to be taken in for his crimes.”
“When this is done, I’ll make sure that happens. Until then he’s working with us. If you have a problem with that, you’re more than welcome to tell someone who cares later.”
Fiona breathed out slowly. “You’re not what I expected. I thought you’d be more of a stickler for the rules, more rigid. But you’re letting a known criminal help you bring down people who are, to many, Avalon members.”
“Avalon isn’t a place of paragons and virtue, where all is good and the bad guys are easily spottable. Avalon’s got just as much corruption as any other government.”
“That’s why I work for Elaine. Even so, it’s strange that you’ve decided to work with him. I told Elaine about it. She says she trusts your judgment in most things. So I will too. I just wanted you to know that I find it strange, that it’s not what I expected.”
“Thank you for being honest. Alan will receive the punishment he deserves. But first, he agreed to help. Once that’s done, he’ll run as fast as he can.”
“He’s an interesting man too. A thief and scoundrel, who thinks only of himself, helping Nathan Garrett defend the defenseless. An odd set of circumstances.”
“My whole life is an odd set of circumstances. You get used to it.” I turned and pointed out of the window. “Right now, we need to get on that ship.”
“Let’s go then.”
I followed Fiona back down the stairs, only stopping when we reached the end of the building. There was a good amount of space between us and the ship, and I doubted very much that running onto the pier was going to be the most silent of entries.
I thought I saw something and activated my night vision, spotting Diana, sans Alan, making her way under the pier, almost swimming in the horrid water that made up the river Thames. She stopped moving, and glanced over at us, raising her arm and pointing off to the side.
Following her directions showed Alan crouched down on the soft mud a hundred feet away.
“Is this part of a plan I was unaware of ?” I asked.
“We decided to exclude you. It seemed easier,” Fiona explained.
“Want to share what the plan is then?”
“Like I said, Alan has a surprise. We just have to wait for Diana’s signal.”
I had a really bad feeling about this. A feeling that was shockingly realized when Diana reached the ship and pulled herself up onto its deck. There was no one there to stop her as she crept across the ship and then vanished from view.
One minute felt like a hundred, but she eventually reappeared, moving slowly to the side of the ship, before dropping back into the river. A short time later, she rejoined us, bringing the smell of the water with her.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Don’t be annoyed, Nathan, you’re a masterful hunter, but if you’d have come across Enfield or Jack, you’d have attacked them. You’re not always the most patient of people.”
I opened my mouth to argue that the point was the exact same one I’d used against her going off alone, and, probably wisely, thought better of it. “What did you see?”
“Felix is onboard, I can smell him. There are a few others there too. I couldn’t go too far in, not without being spotted.”
“Anything else?” Fiona asked.
“Blood. A lot of it too. People have been killed on that ship, and recently.”
“What’s the best way onto the ship?” I asked.
“We’ve got that covered,” Diana said with a smile that made me very concerned. It was the kind of smile you’d see on a warrior before a battle, and you just know, with a hundred percent accuracy, that warrior was to be avoided at all costs.
Diana whistled, and I instinctively knew that it was a signal for Alan. I glanced over at him, but he’d already walked down to the water’s edge, his body turning to translucent water as he moved. The moonlight seemed to bounce through him, until he vanished from sight.
It didn’t take long for the water to become more violent, causing the ship to move erratically. The surface of the water broke and a large sea serpent crashed out of the river, bringing its long body down onto the ship’s deck with an almighty roar of noise.
The serpent was maybe thirty feet long, with a massive, thick body. Its mouth was easily capable of biting a fully grown man in half. It used its two small but powerful arms, each tipped with claws to tear into the ship with aplomb.
The beast’s head vanished below the deck, as the sounds of destruction rang through the night. The serpent’s body shuddered suddenly and then went limp. A blood-covered man emerged from below
the deck, a sabre in one hand.
Alan materialized on the riverbank, and collapsed to his knees. “Go to him,” I told Fiona, as the bloody man spotted Alan and began to move toward him. “I’ll get this guy. Diana, find Felix.”
Fiona ran toward a motionless Alan, while the bloody man stepped onto the pier. He saw me running toward him and for a second I thought he smiled.
“Hello again,” he said, with much enthusiasm as I reached the edge of the pier. “You come back to claim your friend?”
“We’re going to get Felix and then I’m going to stop you and Jack. No more innocents are going to die because of you.”
“You going to offer me the chance to surrender?”
I carried a belt of silver throwing knives at all times. There were six in total, and they’d gotten me out of a lot of trouble over the years. I removed two of the blades and motioned for the bloody man to come toward me.
“Brave little bastard. I recognize you from that alley. I’m glad I let you live, gives me a chance to correct that mistake properly.”
“You’re Enfield?”
Enfield bowed slightly, never taking his eyes from me. “Glad to hear my name has made its way to you. I’d hate for you to die at the hand of some anonymous lout. I assume the two we sent to Felix’s house are dead? We told them to wait there and deal with anyone who arrived.”
“Both dead,” I admitted.
Enfield shrugged. “Shame, but their sort’s two a penny, to be honest. Reaver raw recruits. So many people fail the Harbinger trials it’s not difficult to grab a few who are disenchanted with how Avalon runs things. They always disapprove of the murders to begin with, and then they find out that Merlin ordered them. That bit’s a lie by the way, he didn’t technically order them, he just doesn’t care where the souls come from.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, and moved closer to him. My silver daggers were no match against a sabre, but I was sure my magic would even the odds.