“Aye, lad.”
“So does that mean that you’re one of the other lot, a Watcher?”
“Aye, lad.”
“And you’ve known about the Legion all along?”
Moon nodded.
“And you never thought to tell me about any of this?” Ben sounded indignant.
“You were a silly boy, always lost in your books.”
“Books that you sold me!”
“Always dreaming,” Moon continued. “Always answering back. Never listening.”
“Well, I’m listening now,” said Ben petulantly.
“Good,” said Moon, “because if we are both about to be executed, there isn’t time for me to repeat myself, so pin back your lugholes and keep that mouth of yours shut.”
“How can you be so calm about all this?” Ben was exasperated.
“Because I understand and you don’t, Benjamin Kingdom,” Moon barked. “Now pay attention and listen to me!” His tone brooked no discussion. “I don’t know what lies Carter has already filled your head with, but you need to know about the Watchers if you are going to start making some better decisions.”
“The Watchers are spies, ruled over by a hag,” said Ben. “Or that’s what I was told, anyway.”
Moon sighed. “The Watchers are like lighthouse keepers. We warn of dangers, we shine a light in the darkness, we keep a constant vigil for those in peril of being drowned or washed away. We guide the shipwrecked to the safety of the shore. We save the lost.” Moon sighed. “There is terrible evil in the world, Ben, and though the history books don’t say so, through the generations there have always been Watchers who have fought to keep that evil in check.”
“So if the Watchers are like a lighthouse, who are the Legion then. Pirates?”
“No. The Legion are the waves, tearing away at the foundation stones of society, day by day and drip by drip. They sweep up the unwary and the unwise, dragging them down into the slime and filth in the darkest depths. They are the black tide, as unrelenting and without mercy as the cruellest sea. And if you dare to stand against them, they will dash you to pieces upon the rocks.”
It was beginning to sound to Ben as if taking the Mark hadn’t been his best decision. “But where do I fit into all this?” he asked. “Why is an angel with a sword looking for me?”
“Because you have been chosen, Benjamin Kingdom.”
“Chosen? No more riddles, please,” Ben demanded. “Chosen for what?”
“Chosen to die,” Moon said matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the price of eggs.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Ben snapped. “I can even tell you what time I’m gonna snuff it, if you like!”
“What did I say about listening?” Jago Moon paused, until he was sure that Ben was concentrating again. “The sacred prophecies of the Watchers tell of a young man who will become a great leader, called the Hand, and will guide his people to victory. Just as you can decide what to do with your own two hands – whether to use them to hurt or to heal, to give or to take – so the boy must decide which side he will fight for: Watcher or Legion, good or evil. He must choose for himself whether to be the great and powerful Right Hand of Heaven, or the wicked and spiteful Left Hand of Hell.”
“And then die,” Ben added glibly, trying to distract himself from his inner turmoil. It was so much to take in. This great leader couldn’t really be him, could it? How could he be expected to lead an army when he only made it through each week with bluff and bravado? And then his right hand began to throb in answer to his own question. The Hand. He really was different to the other boys on Old Gravel Lane, after all.
“Yes, and then die,” Moon replied. “But not as you understand it. The Hand of Heaven will die. He will die to himself, set aside all his own worldly ambition, and live for others. If you choose to follow the Watchers, then that is the future you face, Benjamin Kingdom.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so before?” said Ben, rising to his feet.
In the cell next door, Jonas Kingdom drifted in and out of consciousness.
He was more tired than he had ever been in his life. He had forced himself to go without sleep for several days. How could he rest when he hadn’t found Ben?
The places he had been... Through the rookeries, all around the deadly Tiger Bay district, peering into the frightening places of the city. He didn’t have a photograph to show people what his lost boy looked like – they had never had that sort of money – but he could describe him vividly. Ben was the absolute spit of the amazing woman who had carried him, right down to the fiery red hair and the lopsided smile. Eventually he came across someone who claimed to have seen him, a Chinese man who told him that a boy fitting that description had visited his laundry a few nights before.
And it was when Jonas stepped outside that laundry that the Feathered Men had attacked him. It was almost as if they had been waiting there to capture him and drag him away to this dungeon. But he hadn’t gone with them easily. That was why his body was so battered and bruised. Tentatively, he put his hand to his face, exploring the lumps and swellings around his eyes and across his jaw. He turned over on the straw, trying to find a way to rest his body that didn’t cause him pain. Then he shut his eyes.
He was probably dreaming, because he thought that he could hear his son’s voice drifting though the wall.
“Ben...” His lips made the shape of the name but no sound came out. I’ll find you.
“So how come you’re sat here, twiddling your thumbs?” Ben asked Jago Moon.
“Because, young Benjamin,” Moon explained wearily, “the Uncreated One told me to wait here for you.”
“So you get messages from a higher power, is that what you are trying to tell me?” Ben wasn’t sure about any of this. “Nice trick if you can do it.”
“And you can do it,” Moon replied. “That is just one of the many skills that it will be my onerous duty to teach you...if the Uncreated One can grant me sufficient patience.”
Mollified by the warmth that lay just beneath the surface of Moon’s words, Ben went to his old friend’s side.
“Here, we can use these,” said Moon, reaching into his jacket pocket.
“Two fountain pens? Very helpful.”
“They look like fountain pens,” Moon snapped. “But each one is packed full of gunpowder.”
Ben’s eyes lit up.
“All you need do is extract the fuse like this...” Moon continued, twisting the pen and pulling out a short length of wire. “Light it like this, then shove it into the keyhole...and Bob’s your uncle! We’ll be out of here in no time.”
“And what happens after we’ve blown the door?” Ben asked, while the pair of them took cover.
“Oh,” said Jago Moon, his heavy brows drawn into a frown. “The Uncreated One has just told me that you are in charge after that.”
When Ruby heard the distant rumble of the explosion, she knew that somehow it had to be Ben Kingdom and she smiled. She had loitered as near to the cells as she dared without drawing attention to herself, although she hadn’t decided if she was going to help Ben break out or just try to see him one more time through the bars. Whatever she did, she had to try to explain what happened, to tell him that she was just obeying Carter’s orders, to say that she was sorry at least. Her heart began to beat rapidly as she headed in the direction of the blast, and she wasn’t sure whether it was due to shock or some other, more dangerous, emotion.
Ruby Johnson was not used to feeling this way. Uncertain. Confused. She wanted her world to be black and white again. She had worked so hard to develop her public persona: Ruby Johnson, so confident! Ruby Johnson, so self-assured! Except that she wasn’t, not really; not on the inside where it mattered. And it was all Ben Kingdom’s fault.
As discreetly as she could, Ruby
set off in the direction of the bomb blast. Others would come running soon, she knew that, but she wanted to get there first.
A thought struck her as she ran. It surprised her at first, but the more she rolled it around in her mind, the more right it felt.
If Ben was escaping from the Under, he might want some company. Perhaps she could leave the Legion after all.
Emerging from the matchwood that used to be a door, Ben linked Moon’s arm through his, and began to pick his way through the maze of underground corridors.
Ben knew that he didn’t have the luxury of being able to deliberate on his choices, he would just have to go with his gut. “If you are going to start talking to me, Uncreated One, this would be a really good time!” he breathed. He dragged Moon onwards, trying to put as much distance between them and the cell as he could.
“Quickly, Benjamin,” warned Jago Moon. “I can hear footsteps.”
“Well, bully for you,” said Ben, feeling the pressure.
Ben hesitated at the junction of two tunnels, one well-lit, the other filled with shadows. Less candles equals less use, Ben reasoned, and chose the dark path.
It felt like the right decision at first.
But as they plunged headlong from one pool of light to another, he started to worry. They were definitely heading away from the busy communal areas at the hub of the Under, but Ben had no way of knowing whether that was good or bad.
When they reached the last of the torches, Ben took one off the wall and brandished it ahead of him. For some time the passage had been sloping steadily downwards, but the only direction that Ben really wanted to be taking them was up and out into the light. No other tunnels led off this one either apparently, not to the left or the right, and so they had no choice except to keep going onwards. It was growing colder too, Ben noticed, and twice he felt cold water drip down on him from the roof. These were not good signs. Ben had the sinking feeling that this was going to turn out to be a dead end, with the emphasis on dead.
“We have to turn back,” Ben decided.
“It’s too late,” said Moon sadly, shaking his head. “The Legion are on our heels.”
“How many?”
“Only three by the sound of it – one of them is more stealthy than the others, probably a girl.”
“Three?” said Ben. “We can handle them.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Moon, “but I’m not sure how we’d fare against their companion.”
Then Ben heard it too, echoing down the tunnel: the hideous shrieking of a Feathered Man.
Was it really that simple? Ruby wondered.
If Ben could walk away from this life, why shouldn’t she?
She passed the cell door, which was hanging off its hinges, a ragged hole where the lock had once been, and it made a smile break out on her face.
“What a team we could make, Ben Kingdom,” she said appreciatively.
She picked up her step.
There weren’t many tunnels that Ben could have taken from here and she had a hunch that Ben would have headed straight for the wrong one.
The boy needs me, she thought happily.
The water was dripping more heavily from the roof now.
It hissed as it rained on the torch and Ben prayed that they wouldn’t be trapped down here in the dark. The tunnel continued to slope downwards and the walls had become oily with slime and running water, making Ben grimace each time his fingers connected with the slick stonework, as cold and repellent as rotting flesh.
Ben’s feet were sodden. Brackish water had seeped through his boots and with each step the water was getting higher. It was at his ankles already and the tunnel still showed no sign of curving upwards and out.
“We must be under the Thames,” said Moon, holding fast to Ben’s arm as they did their best to negotiate the slippery stones.
“That at least explains the smell,” said Ben, wrinkling his nose against the stench of filth and decay.
“We need to hurry, Benjamin,” Moon urged. “Our pursuers are getting nearer.”
“I’m amazed we’ve had such an easy run of it so far,” Ben confessed. It was surely just a matter of time before the Legion caught up with them, he knew. His only hope was that they could make it to the surface in time to have it away on their toes.
Moon squeezed Ben’s arm so fiercely then that it made Ben wince.
“What was that for?”
“Brave heart, Benjamin, I can hear footsteps ahead of us too.”
“How many?” asked Ben.
“It sounds like hundreds,” Moon replied.
A sonorous bell rang through the Under.
Ruby knew what it meant. It was the call to arms. Someone else must have discovered Ben’s escape. Ruby could hear the pounding of running feet, orders being shouted, somewhere a baby screaming. The Feathered Men had been roused too, she realized with a shudder, their piercing shrieks adding to the pandemonium.
Ruby Johnson ran on. She was running out of time.
So the boy had escaped.
Why am I not surprised? thought Carter.
After all, if Ben Kingdom really was the Left Hand, the Son of the Sinister, then he would have guile and cunning aplenty. That was why he had deliberately pushed the boy into a corner, to test his mettle; to see how he would react. If Ben gave in to anger and hatred, then all well and good; the sooner he could fulfil his destiny at the dark heart of the Legion.
If, however, Ben was overcome by weaker emotions instead, then he was sure to go running to the Watchers. Such feeble qualities as mercy and forgiveness and love would be welcomed there, Carter scoffed.
And this was where the true brilliance of his scheme lay, Carter congratulated himself. It was not by chance that Ben had been placed in a cell with that reprobate Watcher, Jago Moon. Carter knew that if Ben did try to break out, then Moon would be only too happy to take the boy straight to the Watchers’ lair. All that Carter need do was let the pair of them run, and allow them to lead him straight to wherever the Watchers had pitched camp that night.
He would follow at a distance, and then unleash the Feathered Men.
The Watchers were bound to be keeping the Coin somewhere in their eyrie. No doubt that grasping hag, Mother Shepherd, would be clutching it tight to her withered bosom. He would tear their encampment apart to find it, and tear out her heart for good measure.
Tonight was win-win for Claw Carter.
The Christmas presents just kept on coming. And he hadn’t even been a good boy.
Ruby knew that the light around the bend in the tunnel had to belong to Ben.
She could hear two sets of feet sloshing about in the water and so she had assumed that Ben had felt obliged to take the disgusting old blind man along with him. That wasn’t important for the moment; they could always ditch him later, Ruby decided.
She was taking it nice and carefully, relying on the light from Ben’s torch in the distance. The floor of the tunnel had been made treacherous by the muck of the River Thames and the water was already up to her thighs. Each well-placed step she took narrowed the distance between her and Ben and she was beginning to feel rather pleased with herself again.
Then she heard a sound which stole all her confidence away.
A dreadful squawking noise, shrill and angry, filled the tunnel behind her with its wrath.
Mickelwhite had known that Ben would make a move, and so he and Bedlam had been waiting for it. They had a few old scores to settle with Ben Kingdom, and just to ensure they proved their point, they had brought a friend with them.
It was amazing what sort of loyalty you could buy for a leg of mutton, Mickelwhite thought.
“They’re coming,” said Ben. He could see the flicker of another torch approaching from the gloom behind them and hear other feet wading
through the water accompanied by the terrible screaming of the Feathered Men.
“They’re coming,” said Jago Moon, his blind eyes staring into the tunnel ahead of them.
It was then that Ben finally heard what Moon had been hearing all along; the insane song of a horde of rats swimming towards them out of the black.
A Feathered Man was pouncing along the tunnel towards Ruby, bounding from wall to ceiling and back again, finding purchase on the stonework with its talons. Ruby could see its beak snapping, the thin yellow tongue protruding, desperate for the taste of flesh. The creature had a metal collar around its neck, attached to a long length of chain. And on the end of that chain was Captain Mickelwhite, the Feathered Man dragging him forward with each lurch, like a bloodhound on the scent.
Blundering through the water beside Mickelwhite, a flaming torch in his hand and a nasty smile on his face, was John Bedlam. Ruby’s heart sank.
“On the hunt too, eh?” Mickelwhite said. He seemed delighted to meet her. The feeling was not mutual.
“Look!” shouted Bedlam, pointing wildly. “He’s there!”
Mickelwhite let the chain slip through his fingers and the Feathered Man leaped free.
“Kingdom will rue the day he betrayed the Legion,” said Mickelwhite with a spiteful leer.
Ben was trapped.
Behind them, one of the Feathered Men was crawling along the roof of the tunnel, its round eyes filled with hate, its beak clacking. Mickelwhite was there too, with his pet bully-boy, John Bedlam. Ben could see them as they turned a corner in the tunnel and came into view: two assassins in the torchlight.
Ahead of them, the water was writhing with rats. Fat body upon fat body. A sea of vermin rushing their way.
For all that – the terror, the horror, the promise of a painful death – only one thing hurt him: the girl who had led Mickelwhite straight to him.
“Ruby!” He shouted her name with such force that flecks of hot spittle came out with it. “I hate you!”
The Claws of Evil Page 17