The Mourning Emporium

by Michelle Lovric

  Then she felt something prod her left leg. It tickled. And at that same moment Teo finally found the page stored in her memory. Professor Marìn had written, “Vampyroteuthis infernalis, Vampire Squid, rarely seen and harmless to man unless modified by baddened magic.”

  She put on a burst of speed that churned the water. A moment later, tentacles were exploring her arms and legs again.

  “Il Traditore is right. If they kill me,” Teo groaned, “I won’t be able to warn anyone about exactly what he’s planning for London. The new ice flood. The Hooroo Ghost-Convicts …”

  A tentacle surged out of the water and slapped her across the chin.

  All thought vanished from her mind except one: excruciating pain. Agony surged through her face, legs and arms, as if someone was shooting a poison arrow through her blood. Her tongue immediately swelled to fill her mouth. Teo screamed, but no noise came out.

  “Now,” she thought desperately, “I know what killed the Melusine and the Sea-Bishops.” Even as she choked, Teo was buffeted by the wake of a passing fishing vessel. Its captain and crew were evidently frustrated by something caught in their nets.

  “Oh ’eck, it’s a dead seal, of all the rotten luck!” shouted one of the fishermen. “Get that peskiferous corpse rid!”

  “What’s a seal doing in the Thames? Thought they lived in the snowy wastes.”

  “Cold enough for it,” said his shivering companion. “Hain’t you noticed what’s happening here? Thought all them white floaters was just ice cubes escaped from the champagne cooler of some fancy restaurant, did you?”

  A lantern caught a gutting knife being pulled from a leather holster. Again and again it hacked at the tangled nets. Teo struggled to shout to the fishermen, but she was gagging on her swollen tongue. Anyway, she was between-the-Linings—they wouldn’t hear her, or see her frantic waving in the dark water just outside the small pool of light cast by their lantern.

  “Never seen so much blood!” complained the first fisherman, wiping his hand on his trousers. “There we go!”

  The limp body of the seal floated free. The boat sped off. Teo looked away, forgetting her own pain for a second.

  And indeed the pain ebbed. For the squid, smelling the seal’s blood diffusing through the water, quickly detached their tentacles from Teo’s thin arms and swam greedily toward the corpse.

  “A corpse, that’s what Bajamonte Tiepolo thinks I am,” Teo thought. “He will be sure his beastly Vampire Squid have killed me too. That is my one advantage now.”

  Sensation was returning to her tongue, and she could feel its swollen cushion gradually lessening to normal proportions.

  She tested it by speaking aloud. “I muth go weth. Newgate ith near the Weth End.”

  With an eye on the moon, she turned and swam west as quietly and quickly as she could. Crusts of ice reached into the river. Floes nudged her on either side.

  “Speed will keep me warm,” she thought. “Keep me alive, at least.”

  London’s stately buildings, faintly illuminated, reared on either side of her as she made her lonely progress. They seemed to bend over her with tender concern.

  As she dogpaddled, her mind dipped in and out of a thousand thoughts, each blacker than the last: the Bombazine, her cruel cargo, the ice generator, the Cala-Mary, Renzo languishing in filthy straw, but, worst of all, how she had felt in the presence of Il Traditore, hearing his hated voice, listening to his evil plans, and knowing that this city, full of people she loved, was now doomed, just like Venice.

  A London depleted by a million citizens—all drowned by Bajamonte Tiepolo—could put up only a feeble defense when the enemy soldiers—supernatural and criminal—came pouring in over the frozen English Channel.

  A tall black obelisk loomed, its unlikely silhouette jolting her thoughts. Cleopatra’s Needle! She called up her Appleyard and Hetling map for consultation. Sure enough, Newgate Prison was almost due east of the obelisk on the Embankment.

  Using Cleopatra’s Needle as her compass, Teo swam toward the shore. Dawn was breaking. Dirty streaks of light showed her empty streets.

  She ran barefoot in her wet clothes to Newgate, pausing only when she caught sight of her own shocked face in a shop window. As soon as she stopped running, she felt a burning like acid on her skin. The stings from the Vampire Squid had raised weals all over her face, legs and arms. Her teeth were chattering, but her tongue was now back to its own size. She galloped on, all the way to Newgate, where she shadowed a guard opening the gates for the early-morning coal delivery. She retraced her steps all the way to Renzo’s cell.

  “Renzo!” she cried. “Il Traditore …”

  The words died on her lips. Renzo’s cell was empty; a few parrot feathers eddied across the floor like autumn leaves.

  “Preparations for the funeral are all in order, dear Bertie?” the Pretender asked the new King of England over their after-supper brandies.

  “Well, it’s all in the hands of the best people,” said Bertie defensively. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Couldn’t possibly think …,” hummed the Pretender. “I mean, I can’t imagine. How many people are expected to turn out?”

  “Thousands upon thousands,” replied the King. “Everyone wants to be a part of it. And we’ll be putting on a jolly fine show. Superb, in fact. The streets will be thick with all our armed services. Every square inch of London will be covered with mourners and military. Touching, isn’t it? All those nice people gathered in the hope of a glimpse of poor Mama.”

  “Lovely stuff.” Harold Hoskins smiled and drained his glass.

  “I only wish it wasn’t so cold for all the poor creatures,” sighed King Bertie. “I worry for their health.”

  Eighteen months before, Teo had run through the labyrinth of the Palazzo Tiepolo in Venice, looking for Renzo, who had fallen into the cruel wooden hands of some animated statues called Brustolons. Now she hurtled through the long passageways of Newgate Prison, equally terrified of what she would find.

  How low to the ground the cells were! How dark! No natural light penetrated. Her way was lit by guttering candles in smudged black lanterns. When Bajamonte Tiepolo sent in his new ice flood, Teo realized, the prisoners down here would be drowned in minutes.

  She passed a cell full of boys and girls her own age and younger. They stirred and stretched in their rags. Being children, they could see and hear Teo, even though she was between-the-Linings. Stopping, she shouted to them, “What has happened to the Venetian boy? Do you know?”

  The Londoners stared at the red weals on her arms and legs with sympathy.

  “Someone got at you good, dint they?” a small girl observed.

  “A Vampire Squid or fifty,” muttered Teo. Urgently, she demanded, “What about Renzo Antonello? Where is he?”

  “He’ll be dancing on air shortly,” a boy said solemnly.

  “But they said he had a week!”

  “They’s been told to git all the hangin’s out o’ the way before Queen Vic’s funeral. Crammin’ ’em in, they are.”

  “When? When?” shrieked Teo. “What time is Renzo’s hanging?”

  “Just after seven.”

  “But ’e won’t die zackly on the stroke of seven, miss,” whispered the solemn boy, “worse luck. This new hangman’s a devil. He likes to let ’em dangle. We hears ’em screamin’ and chokin’ for quarter-hours on end.”

  “Which way is the execution yard?” demanded Teo.

  A garden of grimy fingers pointed to a corridor on the left.

  It was the sound of chanting that finally guided Teo to the place: a stark, ugly brick shed in a corner of the yard. The prison chaplain was quietly intoning his prayers.

  Teo stumbled and stopped. Inside the shed, a boy’s body was being cut off the rope. It had no more humanity left in it than in a sack of sticks. The face was turned to the left: she caught a glimpse of bluish skin and a tongue lolling against his cheek.

  “No!” she cried. Yet it was not fury,
but loneliness and sorrow that flooded Teo’s heart. Renzo had been a part of her life ever since she’d found out who she really was. How empty this crowded city seemed suddenly; how desolate the whole world was. Feeling dizzy, as if someone had stolen not only Renzo’s life, but the breath from her own lungs, Teo turned to leave the terrible place. Then she stopped.

  She thought wildly, “No! I will steal Renzo’s body and bring it back to Venice for a proper burial. He loves … loved … London. But he must come home.”

  “Teo!” the voice was weak. She trembled, afraid to turn.

  Had Renzo come back from the dead? It happened sometimes, Teo had read, that they didn’t hang people properly; that the body choked back to life after being cut down. Teo turned, her heart leaping with hope. She braced her shoulders and walked over to look the corpse full in the face.

  It wasn’t Renzo.

  “Teo, here!”

  Teo cast her eyes to the upper platform in time to see a noose being pulled over Renzo’s head. His hair had been shorn again; he was dressed in a somber gray shirt. She bounded up the steps to the platform and scrambled across the old wooden stage, reaching on tiptoe to where the rope was knotted. She struggled with it, but she was too small. Only the tips of her fingers reached the knot. The rope was slippery—she simply could not get a grasp.

  Renzo turned agonized eyes to hers. He whispered, “It’s no use. I sent the parrot to Lussa and begged her to print an official-looking document to say … but it was too late. You’re all wet? What hurt you, Teo? Your arms …?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Turn your head away. Don’t watch me die.”

  The chaplain concluded his prayers and cast his eyes piously upward. Below, an officer in uniform read out the charges against Renzo.

  The bells of St. Sepulchre Church began to toll, deathly and hushed. For the first time, Teo saw the hangman in his black hood. Through two small slits, his eyes gleamed with visible joy.

  “That’s not the real executioner!” she shouted. And then she saw the noose—moving even as it lay across Renzo’s neck, it was re-coiling itself into a different formation. Instead of the regular merciful gallows knot that Professor Marìn had taught them on the Scilla, it was now a cruel strangle-snare knot, guaranteed to prolong suffering and ensure a slow, wracking death.

  “Baddened magic, that’s what the executioner uses to torture the dying,” she reflected. And baddened magic was what she, Teodora Gasperin, the Undrowned Child, was on this earth to fight.

  “Lift me up,” she cried to Renzo. “If I can get a bit higher, I could undo that knot.”

  A small glow of hope lit Renzo’s eyes. His hands circled Teo’s waist. But in the same moment, the hangman stepped forward and put his hand on the lever.

  They were out of time.

  Renzo whispered to her, “Just hold me, Teo. With your extra weight, at least the drop will be quicker.”

  There was nothing else to do. Teo wrapped her arms around Renzo. She felt his heart beating through his gray shirt, hers keeping pace. His eyes were on hers and her hand stroked his cheek for the last time.

  “Goodbye, Teo,” he said quietly. “You must save London and Venice on your own now.”

  Teo screamed, “No! He’s innocent! This is murder!”

  Over her cry came the urgent patter of footsteps and a breathless shout. “Stop! In the name of the law, st-o-o-op! The Governor just found this on his desk!”

  Another officer read out, “Sentence commuted for Lorenzo Antonello!”

  A printed proclamation was handed around the execution chamber. Even from where she stood, Teo could smell the fishy odor of the paper and see the spatter of parrot droppings in one corner.

  Teo cried, “Was that your idea, Renzo? How brilliant of you! The parrot delivered your message safely after all. Lussa must have printed it on the Seldom Seen Press and the bird brought it back. It wasn’t too late.”

  Color slowly returned to Renzo’s face.

  The officer read the full proclamation: “ ‘The sentence on Lorenzo Antonello is commuted to life imprisonment with hard labor in Backbent Castle, Scotland.’ ”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else,” whispered Renzo to Teo.

  The hangman’s eyes glowered as he lifted the lever fully back to the wall.

  Renzo nodded. Teo stood aside while a human guard untied him. She followed as he was taken back to the darkness of his cell, pulled all the way by his ear. It was an easy guess for Teo that the guard got a cut of the hangman’s fee, and was disappointed to be bringing a live boy back from the execution yard.

  “Stay outside the cell!” Renzo hissed to Teo in Venetian.

  “Cuss me, would you, in your foreign lingo?” growled the guard, slapping Renzo’s face and pushing him into the cell. As soon as the key was turned in the lock and the guard had stumped off, Teo told Renzo all she had learned on the Bombazine.

  “So the giant squid was what the English call a red herring?” Renzo whistled quietly. “Ice and water again? I suppose he knows it works. Now …” And there was new resolution in his voice. “I’m no use trapped in here. Let’s work on my escape plan. But first, can you get me some proper clothes? I can’t wear this.” Renzo gestured at his gray execution shirt. “It’ll be a bit too obvious where I’ve escaped from.”

  Teo rushed back to the children who had been so helpful with information about the sadistic hangman. In her pocket she felt for the shilling she’d saved when she bought day-old bread from a baker’s boy just a few hours earlier.

  She sought out the least filthy boy in the cell, whose size fortunately most closely approximated Renzo’s. “How much for your trousers and shirt? And that rather smart hat?”

  Renzo was sitting in his cell twiddling a parrot feather in his hand as he stared up at the ceiling. In his other hand, he held the penknife that he’d hidden in his shoe.

  She poked the clothes through the bars. “Put these on.”

  Renzo poked the smelly rags with a clenched toe. “You mean on my body? Oh! Is that a louse?”

  “I do believe it is,” agreed Teo, bending down to examine the tiny white grub. “Best possible camouflage for a fugitive, some genuine London lice, don’t you think?”

  “Speaking of fugitive,” said Renzo casually, pulling the hat over his shaven head, “I’ve worked out how to escape. Simple, really.”

  “Your brush with death hasn’t exactly humbled you.”

  “Casanova did not act humble to escape from the Doges’ Palace in Venice, did he? Remember how he filed a hole in the ceiling of his cell, dressed in his best clothes and hat, and climbed up and out, returning via a window to the grand staircase? Then he had the audacity to simply stroll out of the front door, as if he was just leaving a grand ball, not a prison cell. The guard was fooled by his arrogant strut.”

  “Who says history can’t save your life!” Teo exclaimed. The sound of scratching and tearing had already commenced.

  “The guards’ll come running when they hear that,” warned Teo. “I’m going to ask those boys and girls to make a distraction.”

  “Before you go,” whispered Renzo, “I’ve also had an idea for getting Tobias out of the lunatic asylum. Listen.…”

  The children down the corridor were happy to oblige by screaming, laughing, shouting and swearing ferociously. What could the guards possibly threaten them with? Penal colonies or hard labor awaited them, if not destitution on the streets. They put their all into it, while Renzo peeled off the ceiling plaster in great hunks and slices.

  By the time a somewhat dusty Renzo was strolling out of Newgate with a crowd of visitors, Tobias Putrid had also been rescued from Bedlam by Signor Alicamoussa, posing as Tobias’s long-lost Italian uncle, who had come to take him away to the notorious Venetian lunatic asylum on the island of San Servolo.

  After explaining Renzo’s idea for saving Tobias to all aboard the Scilla, Teo had gone straight to the cavern to tell the mermaids what had happened. The Lo
ndon mermaids slathered her Vampire Squid wounds with HOMOCEA, “the best remedy known for open wounds, cuts, mumps, ringworm, jellyfish stings and piles.”

  At least it smelled pleasantly of eucalyptus oil and beeswax; more importantly it soothed the pain.

  “Of course, I wish I had some Venetian Treacle, but actually, it’s not bad at all,” Teo told a scowling Flos.

  The London mermaids lowered their pale lashes smugly.

  Back at the Scilla, the boys and girls had welcomed Renzo with open arms and many thumps on the back.

  “That hair o’ yourn’ll soon grow back,” soothed the District Disgrace.

  A stay in the lunatic asylum had not sweetened Tobias’s personal aura of sewer, but even he got his generous share of kisses on the cheek, and a lingering application of Turtledove’s tongue. Then they all sat down to a tremendous high tea of soup à la reine (concocted from boiled mutton, ham, boned turkey, wild ducks, partridges, ground plum pudding and a drop of Madeira), followed by lashings of sea pie, with pea curry and cheddar cheese for Teo. There was a round of applause for Cookie.

  That evening, Signor Alicamoussa and Turtledove called the boys and girls up to the main deck, where Emilio and Renzo had prepared charts and diagrams to outline the situation that faced them.

  Joining them on deck were more than thirty soft-spoken men, the Venetian pumpkin-sellers. They’d arrived with trays of hot spiced pumpkin, which was distributed among all those attending the meeting. Uncle Tommaso had also brought a pail of strawberry ice cream, which Pylorus called hokey-pokey. In the bitter cold, not one spoonful of the ice cream melted; not one drop was wasted either.

  Signor Alicamoussa began, “Thanks to vital intelligence garnered at vast personal risk by our brave Teodora, we know Il Traditore’s plan of attack. Is not colossal squids.”