When Gods Die: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  “You fool,” spat Portland. “If we don’t find him and stop him, we’ll all be dead. Now get going!”

  Setting his teeth against the stench, Sebastian slipped away from the shaft. He could see better now, his eyes growing accustomed to the dim light that filtered down through the occasional grates. He was in a brickwork tunnel that arched so low over his head he had to stoop to keep from scraping his crown against the curving roof. A slow trickle of water ran down the center of the tunnel, but he suspected it wouldn’t be enough to wash away all trace of his footprints. If Portland and his men could find lanterns, the direction Sebastian had taken would be all too easy to see.

  The uneven, muck-covered bricks were treacherous beneath his feet. Moving as quickly as he dared, he followed the water downhill, hoping to come across another open grate that would give him access to the streets above. But he’d gone no more than a few hundred feet when he heard the sound of splashing and men’s voices behind him, followed by a wavering gleam of light. Rory had found lanterns far quicker than Sebastian would have expected.

  “Devlin.” Portland’s voice echoed through the shadowy tunnel. “Devlin? I know you can hear me.”

  Sebastian paused, listening.

  “You won’t get far down here, Devlin. Not without a lantern. It’ll be dark soon. Is this what you want? To die in a sewer like a rat? For what? For a shrieking madman of a king and his bloated buffoon of a son?”

  A silence fell, filled with the drip of water and the furtive scurrying of unseen rats’ feet.

  Portland’s voice came again. “You know what we’re doing is right, Devlin. You saw what it was like up there. The people of England have had enough. They’re restless, angry. If we don’t act now, the people themselves will bring down the monarchy. Only, they won’t just sweep away this king, this regent. It’ll be the end of us all. We know what happened in France. Is that what you want? To see England a Republic? With a guillotine in Charing Cross and every man, woman, and child of noble birth a target?”

  Sebastian could feel the damp chill of the place seeping up through the soles of his boots and wrapping around him like a fetid embrace. He glanced up at the rough bricks overhead and tried not to think about the crushing weight of the tons of earth above him.

  “Join us,” Portland was saying. “You want what we want. A strong England, a strong monarchy. It can happen. All it takes is a few selfless, determined men in the right places. Tomorrow the Regent leaves for Brighton. We will simply seize control in his absence. Declare for Anne of Savoy and her husband, and present the world with a fait accompli. What can Prinny do? March on London? It won’t happen. What regiment would follow him? It’ll be the Bloodless Revolution of 1811. Join us, Devlin. It will be a historic moment.”

  The Home Secretary fell silent.

  “There!” said a man’s gruff voice, cutting through the darkness. “See the footprints? He’s headed toward the river.”

  Sebastian splashed forward, heedless now of the noise he made. His feet slipped in the muck, his head brushing the rough bricks above. He could hear Portland and his men behind him, their feet slapping in the mud, their voices breathless. The feeble light from their lanterns bounced and flickered over the tunnel’s damp-stained walls, chasing him.

  Rounding a long bend, he came upon another tunnel that angled away uphill to his right. This tunnel was both higher roofed and broader than the one he followed, and for a moment he considered taking it.

  He’d long ago lost all sense of orientation. But when he hesitated at the junction, the air of the wider tunnel lay still and dead in the darkness, while a faint stirring of air seemed to waft up from below.

  He followed the air.

  Before he turned away from the intersection, Sebastian was careful to leave the sides of the tunnel and deliberately wade out into the sluggish stream that now trickled down the center. The water was deeper here; it would hide his footprints, mask his choice of direction.

  Debris-fouled water swirled around his boots, slowing his steps and growing higher by the minute. He dared not move too quickly now: the least sound would betray the direction he had chosen. He covered another two hundred feet, three. Then the lights behind him wavered and the splashing, scrabbling sounds quieted.

  Sebastian immediately drew up, holding himself perfectly still. He could hear his own breath soughing painfully in and out, so loud in his ears he wondered Portland and his men couldn’t hear it.

  “Son of a bitch!” swore Portland. “Which way did he go?”

  Sebastian breathed through his mouth, trying to block the stench of the place. The bloated carcass of a dead dog floated beside him. Glancing around the damp, cramped vault, he became aware of myriad eyes staring at him, glowing pinpricks of light in the darkness. More rats, he realized, scores and scores of rats.

  “We’ll have to split up,” he heard Portland say. “Bledlow, you and Hank keep going ahead. Rory, you come with me.”

  The splashing started up again. Cautiously, Sebastian pushed on. But he had to move more quietly than before, lest the two men still behind him become alerted to his presence and call the others back.

  The tunnel he followed angled downward, becoming both broader and higher as he neared the river. He could move more easily now, walking upright rather than stooping. But the water at his feet was rising, lapping at the tops of his boots, splashing up on his thighs.

  He became aware of the sound of rushing water coming from up ahead. A cold draft wafted toward him, carrying a different smell, the salty scent of the river mingling now with the acrid stench of sulfur and decay. Rounding a bend, Sebastian could see that up ahead the tunnel he followed emptied into a larger vault. Wider and flatter than the sewer he followed, the larger tunnel looked old, probably dating back to medieval times. Built of stone rather than brick, its center formed a deep culvert through which rushed a wide stream of water flowing so fast it filled the air with a soft mist.

  Just before its junction with the older sewer, the tunnel Sebastian followed opened out into a broad basin so wide the water only ran down the middle, with flat banks of deep mud stretching out to either side. Finding a shallow embrasure in the brick wall beside him, Sebastian drew back into the shadows, eased the dagger from his boot, and waited for the two men following him to come abreast.

  He didn’t have long to wait. The patrician-nosed gentleman Sebastian had seen in Smithfield passed first. Bledlow, Portland had called him. He carried the lantern thrust out before him at the end of a straight arm that shook so violently the light wobbled drunkenly over the curving walls and ceiling. Sebastian held himself very still and let the first man pass.

  The handle of the knife felt smooth and hard against Sebastian’s palm, the chill from the dank earth around him seeping through his sweat-dampened clothes. He waited until the second man—the dark-haired, craggy-faced assailant from the Strand—had taken one step, two, beyond the embrasure. The man moved clumsily, the scuffling of his feet on the slimy, uneven brick making enough noise to cover the whisper of sound as Sebastian slipped from the embrasure.

  Catching the second man from behind, Sebastian clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth and slit his throat, the blade slicing swift and sure.

  The man died instantly. Sebastian quietly eased the body down to the muddy bricks at his feet. But something in the man’s pocket clunked against the ground loud enough to bring the first man—Bledlow—around.

  “Oh, my God,” he yelped. Swinging the lantern like a weapon, Bledlow charged.

  Ducking the edge of the lantern, Sebastian sidestepped the lunge. His foot slipped on the slimy bricks and he went down on one knee, the knife spinning out of his hand. Whirling around, Bledlow charged again, the lantern still gripped in one fist. Crouching, Sebastian fell back and used the man’s own momentum to roll him over one shoulder with a heave that sent Bledlow lurching out into the broad mud of the basin.

  The lantern flew through the air and splashed into the water, going ou
t. The tunnel plunged into near darkness. Sebastian heard a deep, subterranean rumbling. The mud heaved, sucking Bledlow down.

  “Help!” The man floundered in the mud, sinking deeper, to his hips now in the oozing muck. “For God’s sake, help me!”

  Sebastian hesitated. He even took an unthinking step off the brick onto the treacherous, sucking muck. But the man had stumbled far out into the muddy basin. Even if Sebastian were to throw himself flat across the unstable silt, his outstretched arms still would not grasp the doomed man’s flailing hands. Sebastian felt the earth shift ominously beneath him. He leapt back.

  From far down the tunnel came the echo of a shout and the flicker of a lantern. Portland.

  “Quit struggling and try to keep still,” Sebastian said, although he knew the man was beyond listening, beyond reason. Already the mud had sucked him down to his neck. He was screaming, the shrieks punctuated with quick, gasping sobs.

  Sebastian regained his footing on the brick and broke into a run.

  Chapter 62

  The light filtering down through the gratings had dimmed with the approach of evening. Soon, Sebastian realized, it would be night. And with the fall of night would come the rising tide.

  Reaching the main culvert, Sebastian turned left, moving away from the river. The water here was already running deep and swift enough to carry a man away. He kept to the narrow elevated footpath that ran beside the chasm. But the path was treacherous, its stones broken and crumbling, forcing him to slow down. It wasn’t long before he saw the flare of a light behind him, heard Portland’s loud, angry voice. “Leave him! There’s nothing you can do for him. The man’s dead.”

  Sebastian pushed on.

  At one point he came upon a broad shaft opening to the street above, with a sturdy iron ladder firmly bolted to the damp stone walls. Taking a chance, Sebastian scrambled up the ladder to find the bars on the culvert above soundly in position. Conscious of the passing of precious seconds, he dropped back down and kept going.

  A quarter of a mile or so farther on he came to a place where a side tunnel had collapsed into the main vault, bringing down a heap of rubble and dirt that formed a makeshift dam. Water shot over the lip of the cave-in like a waterfall. But when he scrambled to the top of the tumulus, Sebastian found a broad expanse of water that had backed up behind the debris. A subterranean lake stretched from one side of the vault to the other, submerging the footpaths on either side.

  “Well, hell.”

  The light was fading fast, the dam alive with rats that scuttled, screeching, across the refuse at his feet. Reaching down to pick up a stout branch, he found himself staring at the pale body of a newborn baby mixed up with the carcasses of dead cats and dogs, and the broken chairs and filthy twisted rags that had snagged on the rubble. The stench here was almost overwhelming.

  Moving gingerly in the near darkness, Sebastian lowered himself into the cold, murky water on the far side of the dam. His cravat wasn’t exactly white anymore, but he tore it off anyway, and buttoned up his dark coat to hide the betraying gleam of his silk waistcoat. Scooping up a fistful of muck, he smeared his face with mud. Then he settled down to wait, the branch held ready.

  The glow of the lantern grew closer. He heard a man say, “Oh, God,” in a voice half strangled by disgust. “Rats. And look what they’re eating.”

  “Here,” snapped Portland. “Give me the lantern.”

  Sebastian could see him now, the light from the battered tin lantern wobbling over the vaulted ceiling of the sewer as he clambered across the debris. The Home Secretary’s hat was gone, his once fine coat torn and muddied. A jagged scrape trickled blood down one cheek. At the top of the dam he paused.

  “Mother of God, it’s a lake,” said the other man, coming up beside him. “We can’t get across that.”

  “Devlin obviously did.”

  “You don’t know that. Maybe he drowned.”

  “He didn’t drown.” Perching the lantern on the end of an out-thrust slab of rubble, Portland waded into the lake. The water swirled up over his boots until it was lapping at his thighs, then his hips. As he lifted his arms above the dark water, Sebastian could see the pistol stuck in the waistband of his breeches.

  Hidden behind a pile of trash, Sebastian sank lower in the water and let him pass.

  The other man hesitated, then scampered after him. He was reaching back to grab the lantern when Sebastian rose like a specter from the water, the branch gripped in both hands.

  The man’s eyes widened, his lips parting in a high-pitched shriek. Sebastian put the entire weight of his body into the swing and sent the wood smashing into the man’s legs.

  The crack of breaking bone echoed around the shadowy, lamplit vault. The man screamed in pain, his legs buckling beneath him. Sebastian swung again as the man splashed into the water, the branch splintering in Sebastian’s hands as it shattered against the man’s head.

  Portland turned, moving awkwardly in the waist-deep water. “Devlin!”

  The other man’s body floated between them, facedown.

  Portland surged forward, wading into the shallows. Smiling grimly, he reached to snatch the pistol from his waistband. He held it out in a steady grip, the dark bore of the barrel pointed at Sebastian’s chest. “You lose, my friend,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

  Sebastian listened to the click of the locking mechanism striking steel and smiled. “Powder doesn’t like to get wet.”

  “You son of a bitch.” Portland’s nostrils flared, his lips pressing together in a tight, grim line. Shifting his grip on the pistol, he swung it over his head like a club and lunged at Sebastian.

  Dodging sideways, Sebastian felt the slime-coated rubble shift beneath his feet. He lost his balance and plunged deep, sucking in a quick breath just before the water closed over his head.

  He had to fight his way to the surface, the ground beneath his feet still treacherous. Breaking water, he found Portland there before him. The Home Secretary raised the pistol to bring it down on Sebastian’s head again, the barrel blue-black in the faint glow of the lantern, the dark, polished wood of the handle dripping water.

  Sebastian still gripped the splintered remnants of his cudgel in his fist, and he used it now like a dagger, driving it up into Portland’s gut just as the man leapt.

  Portland’s eyes flew open wide, a gasp coming from the back of his throat as the jagged wood thrust deep into his stomach. Sebastian took a quick step back. The man’s legs collapsed beneath him.

  He sank quickly, the lake closing over his head, his body sucked along by the current so that Sebastian had to dive into the murky water to find him.

  Fisting his hands in Portland’s coat, Sebastian hauled the man out of the water and dragged him up onto the pile of rubble. “Why Guinevere Anglessey?” Sebastian said with a gasp, dropping down beside him. “Why did she have to die?”

  Portland’s eyes were open, his chest jerking with each breath. “Varden was careless,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “He let her find the letter….”

  Water dripped down Sebastian’s cheeks, ran into his eyes. He swiped at his face with one wet sleeve. “What letter?”

  “A letter from Savoy. Varden…he swore she wouldn’t tell anyone. But we couldn’t take the chance.”

  “So you lured her to the Norfolk Arms and killed her?”

  “No. Not me.” Portland shook his head, the movement causing his chest to heave as he fell to coughing. “Carter needed help getting the body out of his inn. It was my idea to use her death to”—his face twisted in a spasm of pain—“to discredit the Prince. It was working, too. Until you interfered.”

  “What are you saying? That Carter killed her?”

  Portland’s eyelids flickered closed.

  Sebastian gripped the man’s shoulders, shaking him. “Damn you! Who killed her?”

  Portland’s jaw had gone slack. Pressing his fingers to the side of the man’s neck, Sebastian caught the thread of a pulse. A man could l
ive for hours, even days, with a gut wound.

  Sebastian sat back on his heels, his gaze on the man before him. If he tried to haul the Home Secretary out of the sewers by himself, he’d simply kill the man.

  Slipping his hands beneath Portland’s shoulders, Sebastian dragged the man’s limp body to the highest point of the landslide, where he’d hopefully be safe from the rising tide. He left him the lantern, too, in case Portland should come back to consciousness.

  Then he retraced his route to the surface.

  IT WAS AN HOUR OR MORE BEFORE SEBASTIAN and a troop of constables made it back to the ancient, stone-walled sewer, the lights from their lanterns reflecting eerily off the dark walls and high, soaring ceiling. But when they reached the site of the cave-in, the Home Secretary was gone.

  Standing at the top of the pile of rubble, Sebastian looked out across the dark expanse of water. The body of the other man he’d killed lay half-submerged at the base of the rubble. But the Home Secretary still floated, his body lying facedown in the subterranean lake.

  “I don’t understand it,” said the Chief Constable, coming to stand beside Sebastian. “The rocks aren’t wet here. The tide couldn’t ’ave come high enough to carry him off. So what happened?”

  Sebastian stared down at the smear of blood that led to the water’s edge and said nothing.

  Chapter 63

  Sebastian limped across the black-and-white marble floor of his entry hall, his boots squishing foul-smelling water with each step. His cravat and hat were gone, his breeches and coat ripped and smeared with malodorous muck. His valet would likely succumb to a fit of the vapors at the sight of him.

  Morey hovered near the door, careful not to approach too near.

  “Send Sedlow to me right away,” said Sebastian, moving toward the stairs.

  “I regret to have to inform your lordship that Sedlow resigned his post this afternoon,” said the majordomo in a wooden voice.