Blackjack

by Tom Becker

  The artist lived in a garret beneath the eaves of a decrepit building in the depths of the Nook. Carnegie and Jonathan walked through the open door and hauled themselves up the wooden staircase, past a quarrelling family whose raised voices threatened to bring down the building around their ears.

  Florian Sickheart’s garret was a monument to deprivation. The floorboards were blackened, the furniture battered, and the walls streaked with grime and filth. A painting was hanging above the empty hearth, a complicated whirlpool of black lines. The artist himself was standing by an easel in the corner of the room. At the sound of Carnegie’s footsteps, he turned around. A deep scar ran like a canyon down Sickheart’s face, from the peak of his forehead to his jawbone. His right eye was shut, while his left darted manically around in its socket. Wild ginger hair shot out in all manner of angles. Despite the freezing cold, he was shirtless and barefoot.

  “You’re not Maude,” he said, cryptically.

  “No,” Carnegie agreed. “But I’m sure she’ll be along later. In the meantime, maybe you’ll talk to us.”

  From the moment they had entered the garret, Jonathan had had the uncanny sensation that he was being watched. As he looked up, he jumped. A single giant eye had been painted on the ceiling, a dark circle that looked down over the room. There was a malevolent depth to the pupil that made Jonathan shudder. When Florian lay in his bed, the eye would have dominated his vision: the last thing he saw at night, and the first thing in the morning.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sickheart said wistfully, following his eye up to the ceiling. “I have tried to capture it so many times, but never like this. It is the curse of the artist, you know.”

  “Very striking,” Carnegie said, in a conversational tone. “But we didn’t come here to talk to you about art. We wanted to ask you about the Bedlam.”

  Sickheart froze, then returned to contemplating the blank canvas on his easel.

  “Rumour has it that you spent some time in there,” the wereman continued. “And that you escaped from it.”

  Sickheart shook his head vigorously. “Nobody escapes from the Bedlam,” he said.

  “Not what I heard. Heard that you did.”

  The artist tugged at his hair in distress. “This isn’t right,” he moaned, gesturing at the easel. “I have a painting to finish, but now you come here and disturb me with all these questions!” Grabbing Carnegie by the lapels of his jacket, Sickheart shook him violently. “I must be left alone to create, do you understand?”

  The wereman nodded, carefully prising Sickheart’s fingers from his clothing. “Of course I understand. And the sooner you talk to us, the sooner the questions will stop and you can get back to your masterpiece. Also,” Carnegie added in a whisper, “I hear it’s harder to paint when all your fingers are broken.”

  Sickheart blanched. “Barbarian! You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Try me.”

  The artist slumped down on to the floor, defeated.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” he began sorrowfully. “I was the victim of a cruel misunderstanding. My parents were crude peasants, with no comprehension of the many forms of genius. They thought I was. . .” Sickheart tapped the side of his head, as though unable to say the word “mad”.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Carnegie said drily.

  “Indeed, indeed!” Sickheart squeaked. “I tried to make them see sense, but they wouldn’t listen. They carted me off like a common criminal and threw me in a cell. With the voices.” The artist clutched at his legs and rocked slowly back and forth. “No matter how I tried to shut them out, the voices wouldn’t leave me alone. In the end, I couldn’t take it any more. I decided I would escape, or die in the attempt. Thankfully, the voices came to my rescue. They told me which way to go.”

  “But if you managed to escape, why didn’t they try to lock you up again?” Jonathan asked.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Sickheart shouted, taking Jonathan by surprise. “Nobody escapes from the Bedlam! If I was outside it, then – ergo – I never could have been inside it.” He relaxed, apparently calm again. “Elementary, really, when you think about it.”

  It didn’t seem elementary to Jonathan. In fact, it sounded insane.

  “But why do you care?” Sickheart asked curiously.

  “We need to get inside the Bedlam,” Jonathan replied. “We want you to tell us how.”

  A look of horror dawned on Sickheart’s face. “Inside? But why? The voices – you can’t escape them, you know. They leave their mark on you.”

  “We’ll take our chances,” Carnegie replied firmly. “How do we get in, Sickheart?”

  The artist pointed at the canvas hanging on the wall behind him. “Take it,” he said quietly. “I have no use for it any more.”

  Carnegie frowned, looking at the lines swirling across the canvas. “What use is a painting to us?”

  “It’s not a painting, silly,” Sickheart tittered. “It’s a map.”

  “A map of what?”

  Sickheart masked his mouth with the flat of his palm and pointed down through the floorboards.

  “The sewers,” he hissed. “The underground. That’s how I got out, you see – tiptoeing through the tunnels. That’s how. . .”

  Trailing a finger across the scar on his face, he broke off with a whimper, his eyes wide from the memory. Carnegie strode over to the canvas and took it down from the wall.

  “Thanks for this,” he growled, clapping a hand on the artist’s shoulder. “We make it out alive again, I’ll bring it back to you.”

  “Alive?” Sickheart giggled like a child. “No fear of that, silly. You’re as dead as dead can be.”

  They left the artist sitting on the floor of his garret, rocking back and forth and giggling to himself. As Jonathan headed back down the stairs, the giggles turned to sobs, and the cries of Florian Sickheart dogged them all the way out to the street outside.

  11

  The Ripper’s carriage rattled south through Darkside in a blur of gold and black, its lanterns burning fiercely in the early-evening gloom. Again and again the driver lashed his horses, until blood ran down their flanks and their mouths were flecked with foam. Traffic splintered at the sight of the ornate carriage and its unmistakable crest, cab drivers and tradesmen preferring to ride up on to the pavement or crash into street lamps rather than impede their ruler’s progress.

  Inside the carriage, a man with a gross paunch and a thick black hedgerow of a beard was ingratiatingly wringing his hands.

  “My lord, it is an honour that you bless me with your confidence,” he fawned at the man sitting opposite him.

  “Yes, it is,” Lucien replied bluntly. The Ripper was looking thoughtfully out of the window, his chin resting upon his right-hand knuckles. The streets were quiet, and those who hurried along the pavements did so with heavy shoulders. Whereas in the past, the encroaching night would have sent a ripple of gleeful anticipation through the borough, now the atmosphere was heavy with sullen fear.

  “I would never have presumed to imagine that you even knew the name of Jeremiah Thunderer,” the paunchy man continued, “let alone that you would give a mere preacher the honour of sharing your private carriage.”

  “Don’t crawl,” snapped Lucien. “I didn’t bring you here to flatter me.”

  “No, sir. I am just surprised. I would have thought you would have preferred to discuss matters with Holborn. After all, he—”

  “I don’t care what the Abettor thinks,” interrupted Lucien. “I rule Darkside, not him.”

  “Naturally, my lord, but his counsel is worth heeding. As everyone knows, Holborn’s only concern is for Darkside.”

  “Holborn’s concerns begin and end with how he can steal my throne. That’s all you need to know.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes widened. “You suspect the Abettor of treachery?”

  �
��Suspect?” The Ripper laughed mockingly. “I see it in his eyes every time he looks at me. I hear it in his voice every time he opens his mouth. He would kill me without a second thought, if he could.”

  “But if you know that Holborn is plotting against you, why don’t you take steps to stop him?”

  Lucien waved a dismissive hand. “Let him scheme. The Runners obey my word and my word alone – his time will come. All my life I have been planning for this moment. I have fought and killed for it. I am hardly going to let Aurelius Holborn take it away from me now.”

  There was a commotion up ahead at the side of the road. A Bow Street Runner erupted out of the side of a ramshackle house, a bag of coins jangling in his giant hand. A gaunt man raced out after him through the door, a brood of young children around his legs.

  “Please don’t take that,” he implored the Runner. “It’s all we’ve got!”

  The Runner ignored him, walking on to the next dwelling. As the Ripper’s carriage rattled past him, the man recognized the livery, picked up a stone and hurled it at the vehicle. The Runner turned around and picked up the man by the throat, hauling him away even as the children pleaded with him for mercy. Lucien smiled thinly.

  “It appears that there is some discontent among my loyal citizens. Why do you think that is?”

  “It is not my place to guess the whims of the common man, my lord,” the preacher replied cautiously.

  “I asked you a question,” said Lucien. “I expect an answer.”

  Jeremiah hesitated. “It is the new tax, my lord,” he said carefully. “As it is, the poorer of your citizens struggle to gather enough pennies to buy food. If they have to pay your tax, they face starvation.”

  Lucien shrugged. “There’s always another option,” he said. “They can leave.”

  “Leave? And go where?”

  “Tell me, preacher: do you think the world begins and ends at Darkside’s boundaries?”

  “Lightside, my lord?”

  Lucien leaned forward. “Why do you think I have levied this tax? Do you think I covet the coppers of paupers? Holborn is a short-sighted fool – all he can think about is ruling the borough. I have other plans in mind for Darkside.”

  Jeremiah raised a bushy eyebrow. “Which are, my lord?”

  “Bring it into the light.”

  The preacher gasped. “But . . . I don’t understand!”

  “I don’t expect you to.” The Ripper ran a hand through his cropped dark hair. “How could you? No one understands this borough better than me. I am Darkside – reviled as a murderous cripple, ostracized by my ‘betters’. For over a hundred years, this borough has been a dirty secret, ignored by the rest of London. And we have been content to meekly hide ourselves away. Not any more – I will squeeze Darksiders out of this borough one by one, until nobody can ignore us. We are too strong, too powerful, to spend our lives skulking in the shadows.”

  The carriage had left behind the narrow, strangled streets of central Darkside, and was now careering along the broad approach to Devil’s Wharf. In the distance, huge steamship funnels formed a haphazard silhouette on the horizon. The preacher delicately cleared his throat.

  “And what, if I may ask, is my role in this?”

  “I want you to spread the word. You, Jeremiah, will be my voice to the people – to Darksiders and Lightsiders alike.”

  The portly preacher respectfully inclined his head. “I am at the Ripper’s service, my lord.”

  “Good. I thought you might say something like that.” Lucien banged on the ceiling of the carriage, which slowed to a halt. The Ripper leaned across Jeremiah and pushed open his door. “Now, I have business to attend to – an unsavoury affair that a man like yourself would not want to witness.”

  “You want me to get out here?” Bewildered, Jeremiah looked around the wharf. Drunks were stumbling out of the nearest tavern, slurring as they berated one another, while knots of burly sailors loitered menacingly in the shadows. “This is hardly the sort of place for a man of my stature to be frequenting. There are all sorts of unscrupulous characters here!”

  “Then I wouldn’t linger, if I were you,” the Ripper replied curtly. “Now get out of my carriage.”

  Thunderer stepped hesitantly down on to the wharf. Lucien watched with amusement as the portly preacher staggered off into the gloom, his hands clinging to his valuables. Then the Ripper banged on the carriage ceiling.

  “Onwards!” he shouted.

  Below decks of the SS Blackbeard, Alberto della Rosa sat quavering in the engine hold, his legs drawn up against his chest. His brow was bathed in sweat, and there was a hunted look in his eyes. Around him engines trembled and needles flickered across dials. But the ship wasn’t moving. For the hundredth time that day, Alberto checked his pocket watch. The Blackbeard was supposed to have left port an hour ago. Alberto had no idea where the ship was bound for, and he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting out of Darkside.

  He had been on the run since early morning. Word had got out that the Bow Street Runners were arresting members of the Night Hunt as punishment for the event’s dismal failure, and the della Rosas had quickly moved to smuggle Alberto out of the borough. He had been transported down to the docks at the bottom of a crate of fruit, and was brought aboard the Blackbeard as the captain was presented with a weighty bundle of pound notes. Alberto’s riding gear had been tied up in a bundle and burned, while his hat – lovingly adorned with bloodstained feathers from an eagle Alberto himself had butchered – now lay at the bottom of the harbour. Every trace of his involvement in the Night Hunt had been destroyed. All that remained now was for this accursed ship to move!

  There was a loud creak above his head, and then the door to the engine hold opened. Alberto froze. He watched with horror through the gaps in the rungs as two feet descended slowly into the hold, each step ringing on the metal like a death knell. At the bottom of the steps, a man turned and hobbled into the light.

  “Lucien!” Alberto gasped.

  The Ripper nodded slowly.

  “B-But,” stammered Alberto, “h-how on earth did you find me?”

  “The captain recognized you. Despite your handsome bribe, he thought better of aiding someone fleeing from the Ripper. He’s been holding the ship for my arrival.”

  Alberto choked back a sob of fear. “I wasn’t fleeing from you, my lord. My family merely thought that I was looking ill, and that a trip on the sea would be good for me. The sea air, you understand.”

  “I do understand,” replied Lucien. “That’s why you’re hiding in the hold. Enjoying the sea air.”

  “I’m still honoured that you came to see me. I know how busy you are.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” the Ripper said, with a cold smile. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

  “I know that you are angry about what happened on the Night Hunt, but truly it wasn’t my fault!”

  “You were in the wood on Bleakmoor.”

  “And I had the boy trapped, my lord! But the wereman jumped me from behind. There was nothing I could do!”

  “You let them escape,” Lucien said sharply. “And now two of my greatest enemies are free to run around the borough, stirring up trouble. I blame you for this.”

  “Please forgive me. If you give me another chance, I will track them myself. I swear it!”

  “The Bow Street Runners are seeing to that. I hardly require your services.”

  Alberto shifted fearfully. “So why are you here?”

  “I think you know why. I can’t have people letting me down. I need my subjects to know that there are consequences for those who fail me. Deadly consequences.”

  “But I’m from the one of the wealthiest families in Darkside!” Alberto wailed, scrambling back against an engine as Lucien hobbled towards him. “You can’t do this to me!”

&n
bsp; “I can do anything I want to you. I have power at my disposal of which you can only dream. Although, for you, it will be less of a dream, more a darkest nightmare. Be grateful that the Black Phoenix will ensure it ends quickly.”

  Lucien threw back his head, emitting an inhuman screech, and the hold was instantly submerged into inky darkness. There came the sound of giant flapping wings, and a set of razor-sharp talons came arrowing out of the unnatural night. Alberto screamed.

  12

  They waited until the middle of the night before daring to slip out through the front door of Vendetta’s town-house, six hooded figures hastening through fog-bound streets: Jonathan, Carnegie, Marianne, Harry, Raquella and Alain. The wereman had argued against so many people travelling to the Bedlam, but no one wanted to be left behind. As Alain quietly pointed out, with everyone committing to overthrowing Lucien, now was hardly the time to deny anyone a role.

  Having spent hours deciphering Sickheart’s map, they had decided that the best place to enter the sewers was on a side street running off the Grand. They walked swiftly through the borough, grateful for the fog’s protection. Jonathan’s insides were churning with excitement at the possibility of seeing his mum again. By contrast, Alain Starling was tight-lipped, his face drawn. It was almost as though Jonathan’s dad was scared of hoping that Theresa might actually be alive.

  Through the fog, Jonathan saw Marianne crouch down by an iron grille in the gutter by the side of the pavement. As the rest of the group took shelter in a doorway, he ran to help the bounty hunter lift up the sewer cover. As they moved the grille to one side, a stench rose up from the tunnels below like steam from a bubbling cauldron. Even given the rancid atmosphere that hung over Darkside like a cloud, the smell possessed a pungent foulness.