The Claws of Evil

by Andrew Beasley

  He could feel each of his footfalls as he thundered towards open air, his legs beginning to buckle. His lungs were made of fire; there was no strength left in him. But he simply could not stop now.

  Somehow, he managed to ease himself a hair’s breadth in front of Bedlam and then he dived for the ladder, throwing himself towards it full length. He hit it heavily, awkwardly, the wood slamming against him. For a fraction of a second he found himself lying with his face between the rungs, staring down at the pavement and the death that waited for him there. Then Bedlam landed behind him, half on top of him, and with such force that the vibrations threatened to shake them both off. The wood bowed dangerously and Ben’s stomach clenched.

  And then, to Ben’s absolute horror, the ladder slipped from the edge of the roof, leaving him and Bedlam both clutching thin air.

  Lucy was convinced that she was about to watch both Kingdom brothers fall.

  When Ben and the other Legionnaire had flung themselves onto the flimsy ladder-bridge, they had dislodged their end and so now it was only supported on the Watchers’ side. She and Ghost pushed down on their end with all their might, desperate to keep it suspended, but it was surely only a matter of time. Lucy could feel her arms shuddering with the effort. Ghost’s beautiful eyes met hers, his thick arms bulging beneath his Watcher greatcoat. If the ladder went now, it would drag them both with it. Quickly Josiah stepped in to help take the strain and even Molly added her weight, such as it was.

  Stuck in the middle of the ladder, Nathaniel had been cast off balance by the impact and tipped over the side, only managing to grab a hold by some miracle. Now he was hanging precariously underneath, his teeth clenched as he tried to find the strength to drag himself back up.

  Lucy gave Josiah and Ghost a nod. “One, two, three,” she breathed, and on the last count they all heaved together and began to haul the ladder to safety; slow inch by slow inch.

  She could see Ben swinging from the ladder too, with the other boy hanging desperately from Ben’s legs. Ben looked tortured, Lucy thought. Not cocky or clever. Just a boy in torment.

  Hang on, Ben Kingdom!

  Ben had never known pain like it. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his arms were ripped from their sockets. His fingers were slick with sweat and his grip was failing.

  Bedlam was swinging below him, trying to get a hold on Ben’s belt, but slipping all the time. Ben tried to get a better grip, but their combined weight was too much for him.

  He still had the Coin though. He could feel it in his left hand, held there by two fingers, while he tried to save his life with the other three.

  “Try not to struggle,” he snarled down at Bedlam, who was kicking out wildly with his legs. “You’ll have us both off, you idiot!”

  The ladder jerked again as the Watchers tried desperately to drag it over to their side to rescue their comrade. Ben could see his brother, hanging only a few feet away. Bedlam continued to thrash, his grasp sliding down to Ben’s thighs, his nails digging into Ben’s legs through the rough wool of his trousers. Ben braced himself for the moment when it became too much strain to bear and gravity had her way with the lot of them.

  Drop the Coin, said a voice inside his head that was not his own. It will pull you down, the voice warned. Let it go.

  Ben knew that his strength was failing. It made sense to drop the stupid thing and use all his might to hold on. But it never felt like a simple choice when it came to the Coin.

  Bedlam gave a strangled gasp and fell two more feet until he was hanging from Ben’s ankles. Ben wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on for: ten seconds? Five?

  Perhaps if he could somehow get the Coin into his mouth and hold it there, he could use two hands to save them both? Perhaps if he found the strength, he could help Nathaniel too?

  Or perhaps he could shake John Bedlam off and just save himself?

  Ben had no idea where that last thought had come from and it revolted him; although not enough for him to let the Coin fall from his fingers.

  His muscles were screaming. Beneath him, John Bedlam was screaming. On the other end of the ladder, the Watchers were screaming.

  Then another scream rang out, so pure and clear that it silenced the rest of the world. Time slowed down, just as it had the first time that Ben met the Weeping Man. Three seconds passed as slowly as a hundred years.

  One.

  He saw his brother Nathaniel lose his grip on the ladder and begin his journey to the waiting pavement below. And in that moment, Benjamin realized that he didn’t want Nathaniel to die. He didn’t hate him any more; he wasn’t even cross with him. He wanted to be friends with his brother again and to find their father together. But the cobblestones of London wouldn’t allow that. This is how it would end for Nathaniel. Flesh on rock, bone on stone.

  Two.

  With Nathaniel’s weight suddenly removed, the ladder made a shuddering lurch that almost wrenched Ben’s arms from their sockets. John Bedlam hung round his legs like an albatross, slowly clawing his way back up.

  “Help me,” Bedlam hissed in between groans, but there was nothing that Ben could do.

  Three.

  In a blur, something rushed past them both. A flash of purest white, accompanied by the beating of two enormous wings.

  It was the Weeping Man.

  He was an angel.

  Ben had no other way to describe what his eyes were seeing.

  Beneath that long black coat, he had been hiding a massive pair of wings. Wings the colour of clean linen, that carried the Weeping Man in a soaring arc; first up and then straight down, dropping like a hawk towards the ground.

  And before Nathaniel hit the floor, before the cobbles could steal his life away, the Weeping Man swooped in and caught him in his arms. Then, while Ben looked on helplessly, the angel carried his brother skyward, high up above the clouds.

  Ben felt numb.

  If Nathaniel is fighting on the side of the angels, then whose side was I on?

  And now, even though their comrade was safe, the remaining Watchers continued to pull the ladder to the safety of the other side. Ben didn’t understand why they would choose to show mercy on two Legionnaires when it made more sense to let them fall. It didn’t match with their description as the enemy. More lies that Carter had fed him, he realized.

  But whatever their reasons, he was glad they were acting the way they were. Every tendon, every fibre of muscle in his arms was in agony. If he could just hang on until the Watchers dragged him to safety...

  “Keep still,” Ben snarled, as Bedlam continued to climb up Ben’s body. “We’re nearly safe now.”

  “No thanks to you,” Bedlam replied.

  The Watchers didn’t speak as they hauled the ladder the last few yards and then dragged Ben and Bedlam up onto the roof. Neither of the boys had the strength to do anything except lie motionless on their backs, glad to be alive.

  The Watcher girl came to stand over Ben. She looked down at him with something close to compassion, her expression a strange contrast with her blood-red scar and eyepatch.

  “Come with us,” she said, holding out her hand to help him up.

  There was something in her voice that meant Ben knew he could trust her, and his fingers stretched out for hers.

  Suddenly, as he watched, her face became a mask of pain. Her hand snatched away from his to clasp her own shoulder. She gazed at her fingers, confused by the blood that she found there. Ben’s eyes looked back to the building opposite. Mickelwhite levelled his crossbow again.

  Even then, she hesitated.

  Schulman and Dips joined their captain with weapons of their own.

  Bedlam staggered to his feet and made a lunge for the girl.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, beautiful,” Bedlam snarled.

 
Ben leaped between the Legionnaire and the Watcher. “Go,” he told the girl. “Go!”

  She ran, following the other Watchers across the rooftops and away.

  Ben grinned; he couldn’t help it.

  “What d’you do that for?” growled Bedlam and, before Ben could answer, he swung a punch which caught Ben square on the jaw, slamming his head back.

  “Not bad,” Ben confessed, giving his chin a rub and testing his teeth with his tongue to check for any wobblers. “Now, would you like to find out how a boy punches?”

  Ruby was fed up with boys and all their stupid games.

  She left them to it, making her own way back into the Under, choosing the quiet paths and forgotten tunnels so that she could be alone with her thoughts.

  The Legion was the only family that she had ever known, but that didn’t mean that she had to love them, did it? Part of her wanted nothing more to do with them, but she knew that they didn’t take kindly to people leaving. Deserters were hunted down. The lucky ones got to live out the rest of their days as slaves, never seeing the light of day again. The less fortunate ones were given to the Feathered Men – as playthings.

  She had failed Claw Carter and now she would have to face the music for that. He was no closer to the Coin, and he wouldn’t take that news kindly.

  But far worse was the way that Benjamin had looked at her.

  She had seen in his eyes that everything had changed between them. She didn’t blame him, of course; if he had held a knife to her ribs, she would never speak to him again.

  Benjamin Kingdom was arrogant, stupid and thoroughly irritating...and so it came as a nasty surprise to Ruby that the thought of never being annoyed by him again was almost enough to put a tear in her big green eyes.

  Ben didn’t know where the anger came from.

  He had got into scraps before but he had never beaten someone the way he laid into John Bedlam. It was almost as if he had no control over his body. His left hand had a life all of its own, existing solely for the purpose of raining blow upon blow on the other boy.

  Then he remembered the Coin nestled safely back in his pocket, and it all clicked into place: Bedlam wanted it for himself, that must be it.

  Well, he can’t have it, thought Ben, and he began punching him again.

  Bedlam had stopped fighting a few moments ago and was simply lying there, absorbing punches. Part of Ben was screaming for him to stop, although he couldn’t make the message extend to his fist.

  When Ben realized that Mickelwhite was standing over him, it actually came as a relief. The decision to stop was taken out of his hands by a swift cudgel blow to the back of his head.

  And the darkness that came with it was a welcome escape.

  Jago Moon sat silently in the gloom.

  He rummaged in his satchel and found a half-smoked cigar, which he chewed for a moment and then lit, inhaling slowly. The leather chair he was sitting in was comfortable and he eased himself back into its embrace. That felt so good that he lifted his booted feet and rested them on the desk in front of him. All that was missing, he thought, was a coal fire and a glass of brandy.

  Moon was pleased that he could not see his surroundings. He could imagine what sort of decor Claw Carter would choose for his private sanctum. The professor masqueraded before the world as a man of history and learning, but Moon knew what his real interest was.

  Death.

  He had prayed long and hard before going against Mother Shepherd’s wishes. Maybe it was because he was so stubborn himself, but he simply couldn’t imagine Benjamin Kingdom leaving the Legion and joining the Watchers just because Nathaniel and the Weeping Man asked him nicely. Moon had been so bullheaded in his own youth that whatever he had been asked to do, he had always done the exact opposite, and Ben had a lot of that in him too. That was why he had come up with another plan. A more direct route to the same destination, he hoped.

  When he left the eyrie he hadn’t told anyone where he was going or why; this was his responsibility and his alone. After some fiddling with a set of skeleton keys and a jemmy, he had made his way into the echoing halls of the British Museum. The nightwatchmen were all dim-witted fellows apparently, and they had no idea that they were entertaining guests that night.

  Moon had made it his business to familiarize himself with the whole of London: the back lanes and the thoroughfares, the East End and the West. He had tap-tap-tapped his way around all the great public buildings, measuring their spaces by echoes and scents, just in case the day came when the knowledge would be valuable to the Watcher cause. So, feeling his way around the museum earlier, he had quickly found the corridor he was searching for. His hands recognized the length of knotted braid which forbade entry to visitors, and he’d carefully lifted one end from its brass hook and slipped into the private section. Carter’s room was in the basement and there was only one set of stairs leading down. Once in that corridor, the correct door was easy enough to find, his nimble fingers reading the names etched into the brass doorplates.

  Professor James Carter. It sounded so respectable!

  Safely inside, he’d made his way to the desk and sat himself down. He hummed a little tune to himself while he waited for one of the most evil men in Britain to come pay him a visit.

  He didn’t have to wait long before his wish was granted.

  The door swished open, and he felt the change in the air as a man slipped into the room. Although Carter probably thought that he was moving quietly, Moon followed his every step; the soft squeaks of the leather trench coat, the measured shallow breaths, the slow deliberate way he placed his feet.

  Carter was in front of him.

  Beside him.

  Behind him.

  Moon braced himself for what was to come.

  “What have we here?” growled Carter, his claw pressing against the flesh of Moon’s throat. “A Watcher spy?”

  Jago Moon laughed. Everything was going according to plan.

  When Moon came to, he was being dragged down a tunnel, his head throbbing where Carter had coshed him. Admittedly, that wasn’t part of the plan. However, when he reached out with his ears, the sounds that came back to him made him smile. Not that they were pleasant noises to listen to; on the contrary, they were the very sounds of darkness. Moon smiled because he had succeeded where no Watcher had before: he was being taken right into the heart of the Under.

  His nostrils tasted the air, rank with bodies and smoke; the grease of sweat, the meaty taint of the slaughterhouse. There were so many voices, echoing around him, pounding inside his skull. Low conversations, heavy with menace. Whispers of evil. Somewhere, a child was sobbing. He heard shouting, swearing, screaming. And other sounds that did not belong on this earth and chilled him to his soul.

  He had exaggerated his achievement, he knew that. Pride was one of the many failings that he confessed when he was on his knees in prayer. Watchers had been into the Under before, but previously not one of them had come out again. That was why Moon had been so keen to undertake this mission on his own; any fool could get himself captured, the real skill was in escaping afterwards.

  He liked to think that he knew a bit about Benjamin Kingdom. After all, how many conversations had they had down the years, sitting in that smoky corner in the Jolly Tar, talking foolishly about books? There was something special about the boy, he could see that, looking back; submerged beneath Ben’s quick mouth and even quicker fingers, there had always been potential. What Moon hadn’t perceived was that this cheeky mudlark would one day hold the balance between the forces of light and dark.

  The Uncreated One definitely has a sense of humour, he thought.

  In many ways Moon was proud of Ben, although he would never say it to his face. The boy worked hard and never complained about his lot. He found things to enjoy in a life that was full of hardships. He had a sp
irit of adventure which survived all the knocks along the way.

  Perhaps that was what was needed in the Hand of Heaven. A hope that endures; the courage to believe that life can be better.

  Shame about that cocky mouth, though.

  A sharp jab in the ribs brought Moon back to the present.

  “You can walk on your own now, granddad. I’m sick of doing all the work for you,” snarled his escort, taking his supporting arm from around Moon’s shoulders. “But try anything funny and I’ll gut you right here.”

  Moon didn’t doubt it. The man who had been bundling him along was over six feet tall, judging by the direction of the voice, and built like a brick privy, based on the heaviness of his foot. He was wearing a thick apron which brushed against his thighs as he walked and smelled very strongly of fish. That, combined with his accent which put him somewhere between Eastcheap and Cannon Street, all confirmed that he worked at Billingsgate Fish Market. If anyone could gut me, Moon thought grimly, this man certainly could.

  The fishmonger underestimated him though, and that was a big mistake. No one ever saw a blind man as a threat. Moon chuckled. He hadn’t been bound and gagged. The poor man hadn’t even confiscated his walking cane.

  So it was that once he had fully regained consciousness Moon calmly walked himself into prison, tap-tap-tapping his way through the Under. Listening to the flow of the corridors; hearing his way to escape. Although it had always been a reckless plan, he was beginning to think that it might actually work.

  It only relied on Ben to do the one thing he was really good at: open his mouth and get himself into trouble. Surely Benjamin Kingdom could manage that!

  At the prison door, Jago Moon froze.

  The stench that waited for him on the other side was the foulest thing he had ever breathed. The excrement didn’t bother him; everyone who lived near the Thames was used to that smell. Nor was it the waft of rotting meat and damp straw that came out to greet him. Jago Moon halted because the room stank of despair.

  The fishmonger placed his broad hand in the middle of Moon’s back and propelled him through. “Enjoy your stay,” he jeered, as Moon stumbled and fell to the floor. Behind him, Moon could hear the sound of a key turning and the fishmonger’s harsh laughter.