by Matt Whyman
The only drawback is that he’s never made this kind of grasping jump with a wriggling load clinging to his shoulders.
“Where are you going, sir? This is a dead end! Anyone who dares to venture beyond the sty is sure to meet their doom! Everyone knows that. It’s the teaching of our forefathers.”
With no time to respond, and aware that several steps behind a stampede of troglodytes are now locked on to his scent, Yoshi swallow-dives for the pipe. He hears a voice from across the divide shout “No!” but already he’s in the air, with gravity beginning to tug. Stretching now, he grabs the broken end, which causes the pair to swing violently. Such is the force that Jenks loses his grip with a cry, only to regain it by grabbing at the boy’s ankle. Way below, the rocks and the broken brickwork seem further away than ever before.
“Hold on!” cries Yoshi, who has only managed to grasp the pipe with one hand.
“I can do that, sir,” squeals Jenks Junior, as he claws his way onto the boy’s back once more. “Just be sure to do the same for me!”
The pipe creaks under their weight, springing slightly when Yoshi reaches for it with his free hand. With nothing to lose, he hauls himself up until he can wrap his legs around the section and pull himself around.
“Jenks!” he calls back, squatting now, with both hands anchored around the pipe. “I want you to climb onto my shoulders, and spread your arms as I do when I stand.”
“May I ask why?”
“This is a balancing act we have to pull off if we’re going to stay alive.”
Behind them, in the closing darkness, the first of the creatures race up to the ledge. Rearing up on their hind legs, they bay at the boy as he rises gingerly to his feet.
“I feel unwell,” complains Jenks Junior. “This crossing is forbidden.”
“Get a grip,” Yoshi replies, to himself as much as the load on his shoulders, and takes his first step up the sloping pipe. In many ways, he tells himself, this is no different to negotiating a slanting length of scaffolding. He’s done it before, if it meant getting from one point to another without touching the ground. Unlike scaffolding, however, this ailing piece of copper continues to bob beneath his feet. With every step the spring in it tightens, while the top of the plunging waterfall grows nearer. And there, looking down upon them, he glimpses his friends. Livia and Mikhail are calling out, but he can’t hear a word, what with the cascade hitting the rocks below and the din from the mob behind. Despite the spray from the waterfall, he can see Julius, crouching at the overhang with his hand outstretched to help him.
Then Yoshi sights the brute standing over Julius, and gasps so sharply that it serves to unsteady his concentration.
Just for a moment, the boy seems quite vulnerable on his makeshift high wire. The pipe begins to quiver and then wobble beneath his feet. Yoshi attempts to counter by wheeling his arms, only for the restless load on his back to shift and make things worse. The black void below catches his eye now, as if preparing to swallow them whole.
“I’m sorry, Jenks!” he calls up, on sensing his balance move too far out of line. “I tried my best!”
With an anguished groan, the pipe sways away from underneath them. Yoshi cries out, but there’s no sudden uprush of air to signify his plunge into the blackness. Indeed, he finds himself dangling there, seemingly in defiance of gravity. He looks around, perplexed, and then returns to his senses on realising that his passenger’s leathery feet are now locked under his armpits. Looking up now, he finds Jenks Junior with a strained expression on his face and his arms stretched high. His aura might be flickering weakly, but combined with Yoshi’s twin beams it’s enough to show his hands wrapped around two spikes in the church underpinning.
“I can’t hold on for long, sir!” he grunts. “What would you suggest I do?”
“It’s very simple,” suggests Yoshi, both thrilled and chilled in equal measure. “Firstly, swing from one spike to the next, until my feet reach the pipe again and I can take our weight.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Secondly, stop calling me ‘sir’!”
“Very well, sir. Wish me luck.
Before the poor wretch on Yoshi’s back stretched up and grabbed the spikes, the view from the waterfall had been almost unbearable to watch. When Livia peeks through her hands, and Mikhail dares to face the chasm again, their joy is hard to contain.
“Way to go!” The young Russian high-fives the girl with the aura, and urges the creature who has just saved them to continue its good work. “With a pair of shades to cover those eyes, and maybe a beanie hat or something so the punters don’t get scared by his ears, I’d say we’re looking at the kind of high wire double act that could make us serious money. With the crew covering the street corners and these two performing tricks in the space above, we’d clean up!”
“So let’s just hope they make it,” says Livia, acidly. “And even if they do, I don’t think we should hang around.”
On the far side, a strange swine-like army is massing on both the ledge and the tunnel mouth above it. Jenks Junior continues to navigate the underpinning, swinging painstakingly from one spike to the next. By now, Yoshi’s toes have just reconnected with the sloping pipe, which helps to speed their last few steps. A commotion on the lower ledge breaks out just then. Julius is first with his twin beams to pinpoint who’s behind it. The wretch in question fights his way to the front, brandishing a knife from his bloodied apron belt, and squeals in fury as the duo approach the waterfall.
“It sounds like this is personal,” observes Mikhail.
“Yoshi should thank his lucky stars,” adds Julius, as Livia crouches to reach out for them. “As for his new companion, I’d say we’re looking at another psychic.”
Mikhail is still watching the swarming mass on the far side. A fight breaks out among the mob, such is their desperation to catch up with their quarry. In the thick of it, one unfortunate is shoved from behind, and tumbles noisily into the abyss. “Never mind the psychics,” says Mikhail, wincing as the squealing ends abruptly. “It’s the psychos over there we should be concerned about.”
Standing in the shadows, away from Livia’s aura, Aleister says: “We can’t stay here much longer.”
Livia hears the brute’s warning, but keeps her eyes locked on the boy on the pipe just in front of him. The waterfall is beginning to hit Yoshi hard, but he doesn’t blink or look away. “I am not going to abandon you,” she tells him, just as their fingertips touch and then lock.
“What’s Aleister doing here?” hisses Yoshi, as Jenks Junior reaches out for the final spike. Seeing this, the leader of the pack springs into the abyss as Yoshi had, but with greater power in its hind legs. The creature reaches the fractured pipe with ease. It’s the elder, Yoshi realises, with one terrified glance behind him. On hands and feet it moves, almost galloping across the pipe towards them. Immediately, Yoshi feels the pipe bow from his feet, but it’s too much for his exhausted companion, whose grip on the spike slips to nothing. This time, it’s Yoshi’s turn to save the moment. With Livia clasping one hand, he swings into the waterfall, and finds a toehold in the rock there. Behind them, the elder from the other side is gaining ground and fast. Sensing this, and clearly in a panic, Jenks Junior uses Yoshi’s head as a platform to scramble to safety, while a meaty paw reaches down to grab the boy by the scruff of his shirt. Such is the power behind it that Yoshi finds himself lifted away from the rock face, through the wall of water and into the care of the brute he had feared for so long.
“I’ll tell you what I’m doing here,” growls Aleister, as the pipe groans under the weight of another creature hell-bent on making the crossing. “I’m here to save your sorry souls. If we stay here for a moment longer, we could be torn limb from limb!”
“How can we trust you?” asks Yoshi, breathlessly.
Across the chasm, one wretch after another now fling themselves upon the pipe. It creaks and yawns, but by now the elder is almost across.
Jenks Junior
turns to see his pursuer grasping through the waterfall, and jumps with a squeal into Mikhail’s arms. The young Russian grimaces, but now is not the time to complain. For as the elder struggles to climb out of the plunging spray, several creatures midway across spring for the underpinning, and swing closer with frightening ease.
“I can’t tell you who to trust,” says Aleister, with a sideways glance at the old man, “but I think we all share the same instinct for survival.”
Julius seizes Yoshi by his wrist. The boy has never seen him look so alarmed. “For once I am in agreement with Aleister,” he says, just as the elder’s fist punches through the top of the waterfall, and anchors itself this time in the clay bed of the river. “We may have failed to secure the future of this city, but right now we must run for our lives!”
32
IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY
Otto Tempesta sloshes through the tunnel with his slacks rolled to the knees. He’s already congratulated himself on picking up a lantern on his dash from the Chinatown labyrinth. His only regret is that he didn’t stop to root out some wet-weather gear. Back then, he had bellowed after Aleister to wait for him, but the brute had not responded. And so he had picked his own way here, determined to catch up. Dropping down into the hidden river tunnel, it had seemed like a grand adventure. This kind of thing didn’t feature in any tourist guidebook or picture postcard, after all. Aleister himself had been hinting heavily about the merits of getting down into the bowels of the metropolis. Indeed, it was an experience that would allow Otto to return home feeling like he had literally searched high and low for the daughters of his beloved Marlene.
When it came to capital cities, London rocked on every level!
By the time the cold river water had taken away all feeling from his toes, Otto was beginning to wish that the girls had run away to some place more tropical. His enthusiasm had quickly trickled away with the current, leaving him cold, a little bit lost, and convinced that the big guy was playing tricks on him.
“Come on, Al!” he calls into the darkness. “This ain’t funny no more.”
Moments earlier, a strange glow had begun to build in the tunnel up ahead. As it brightened, a static charge lifted what was left of the hair on his head. Otto had been so concerned about keeping it in place that he failed to consider his own safety. And so when a luminous-looking boy splashed into view, there had been no time for him to clear out of the way. That this strange wraith promptly passed clean through him took his breath away. Then a second bright apparition had appeared in its wake – quite literally a pig of a man – and again Otto presented no obstacle. It was like witnessing two sweeping beams of light adopt a living form, and had left the talent-booker in no doubt that his host must be close at hand.
“It’s a neat act, man! Really. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m impressed. Why don’t you show yourself and we’ll talk? I really believe I could find a lotta work back home for a guy with your looks and skills. I’m thinking as a children’s party entertainer, you’d clean up!”
Right now, he rounds a gentle corner, and finds himself facing a long stretch sliced by slanting beams of light. A series of vents run along one flank of brickwork, overlooking the floor of a brightly lit corridor, he finds.
“Now what’s this?” he asks himself. From the far end of the corridor, several dogs pick up on his presence. Yapping noisily, they scramble in his direction. “Aww, cute!” Otto squeezes his podgy fingers through the grille, and then swiftly retracts them when the first mutt arrives and proves a little too lively. “Hey, fellas,” he continues, “have you seen a bald dude pass through here in a white fur coat? He’s kinda grumpy-looking, but a pussycat deep down.” He pauses there, and considers rephrasing himself. “Not the kind with whiskers and attitude who likes a saucer of milk, of course. I mean he’s a sweetie.”
All of a sudden, the dogs fall quiet. Otto eyes them curiously. Then his brow rides high when they turn to greet the figure who has just padded in through the door at the far end. At this angle and distance, he can see who it is in her entirety. The crown is all too familiar, as is the regal dress. It’s the slippers that look a little odd. Not to mention the cigar she then works at lighting up.
“Good grief,” he squeaks to himself, and hurriedly blows out the lantern light. “Marlene is not gonna believe this.”
Withdrawing into the river tunnel now, in awe of what’s just happened, Otto reaches for his mobile phone. He jabs in a number, presses it to his ear, and then curses to himself when he fails to get a signal. Instead, he turns to his camera, desperate to share this moment. With his subject framed, he squeezes the button, and startles himself at how intense the flash turns out to be in such darkness.
Unfortunately for Otto, the subject in question shares his surprise.
Even before the dazzle has cleared from his eyes, Otto is aware that the corgis have betrayed his presence. Their commotion is one thing. The eerie light mounting from the far side of the tunnel is another.
“Is that you again, Al?” He shields his gaze as the light continues to brighten. “The joke’s over, big guy. We probably should be leaving . . .”
This time, a group of figures splash into view. Aleister is among them, much to Otto’s relief. He also notes that several in their number are enveloped in the same weird glow he had witnessed earlier. That time, when a boy came charging through with some hog-like sewer freak in close pursuit, Otto genuinely believed it was for real. The glow had kind of given it away, he realised afterwards, because people just didn’t light up like that. And so Otto stands his ground now, ready for yet another illusion to pass through him, looking vexed all the same because this is not the time for pranks. “Any fool knows you can’t pull the same trick twice without someone working out how it’s done. C’mon, man. Switch off the projectors. It’s a neat light show, but let’s get out of here . . . Whoa!”
While Livia manages to steer around this object in their path, the brute behind her simply knocks him off his feet. Otto crashes into the water, and all the air leaves his lungs as the rest of the party trample over him. Even before he has sat up spluttering, they’re out of sight around the bend in the river tunnel. It leaves him listening to activity in the corridor now, and the sound of walkie-talkie chatter in amongst the din from the dogs. On his elbows in the water, Otto is drawn by more noise from the tunnel mouth, and is up on his feet when the stampede winds into view. As they race through the slanting light from the corridor, Otto doesn’t like the look of them one bit. At first he thinks they must be loose pigs, but too many of them rise up to run on their hind legs. The corgis just can’t keep still. They charge alongside the vents making more noise than anyone else
“What is going on here?” he asks out loud. “Who’s in charge?”
Unwilling to take any chances, Otto hurls himself from the path. He slams against the brickwork, knocking himself half senseless in his bid to escape another battering, and slides gently into the river once more as these rampaging wretches hurtle into the bend. The dogs only give up by what sounds like royal command, much to Otto’s relief. For a moment he lies slumped there in the slow-churning current, quietly working out how quickly he can get out of here and onto an aeroplane. The twins would survive without him. Blaize and Scarlett had been in this country for a lot longer than he had, and clearly knew how to get by on their wits. They were tough little firebrands, after all. Natural-born survivors. They could do as they pleased, he decides. Muttering about his treatment under London, Otto rises to his feet. Only to freeze when a bright dot of red light ripples across the water and settles between his eyes.
“Freeze, mister!” barks a voice from the dark side of the tunnel. “This is the palace police!”
Unsure whether it might be Aleister playing tricks on him still, Otto raises his hands. “You don’t understand,” he calls out just in case, feeling a little troubled now. “I’m a tourist!”
A whispered exchange can be heard from the far end of the tunne
l. Otto traces the laser light into the gloom, and makes out one, maybe two gunsights trained upon him.
“Did we hear you correctly?” asks the voice. “You’re a terrorist?”
“Read my lips,” replies Otto, and spells it out for him in a Bronx accent that would make a wise guy proud. “A turrist, just like I said. Turr-rist. Maybe you could give me directions. I’m kinda lost.”
“Oh, we’ll give you directions all right. Let’s start with putting your hands on your head and facing the wall. Play nice and nobody gets hurt!”
Through the grille, the figure in the slippers peers in at the proceedings. She watches her security team lead the intruder away, waiting for them to leave before savouring the cigar she has promised to be her last.
In a time of crisis, the Bridge can seem like a strange place to be. The monitors could record all kinds of chaos kicking off outside, and still there would be no need to talk in anything more than a hushed whisper. This is certainly how Billy No-Beard and the Tempesta twins have been communicating since Aleister left them in here. And yet it isn’t what’s on the screens that encourages them to be quiet. It’s the snake coiled in front of the door.
“D’you think it’s hungry?” This is Billy, eyeing it from a distance. “Maybe we can tempt it out of the way with some food.”
“Like what?” asks Scarlett. “There’s nothing to eat but baked beans in here. I don’t think snakes eat food from tins. They like fresh meat.”
“How reassuring,” comments Blaize, pacing back and forth. She touches her temple with two fingers, reflecting on something that’s clearly troubling her. “Listen, guys,” she says eventually. “I’m really sorry about leading Aleister here. It’s my fault. All I did was meet his gaze when he caught me, and then everything went hazy.”