by Rosie Best
I padded carefully across the patchy carpet, my hackles rising with every step, and put my head down against the old wooden door. I could feel my fur bristling all over my body, from my brush to my nose. I flattened my ears against my head and gave the door a firm shove. It shivered open and the scent reached out and curled around me like a pair of loving, decaying arms.
I could barely make out the naked human shapes of the three bodies on the floor of the room. The forest of spiderwebs was so thick it was like peering through cloud. Cloud with a thousand black specs hanging suspended in it, as if they were floating in the air.
I didn’t need to go inside. I didn’t need to do more than glance into the room, and then I turned tail and bolted, whining, scrabbling my way back down the stairs, my ears pinned to the back of my head. The dark walls banged around me, twisting, like I was running through a hall of mirrors, and I longed for the wide outdoors, for scents other than death and decay, and sounds other than the buzzing of flies.
There were three bodies. That is... I’d seen three torsos. I assumed there were six arms, six legs. But I hadn’t stayed to find them all.
The three people in that room had been dead a while, and the circle of life was in full, disgusting flow: maggots had turned into flies, had fed the spiders, had laid their eggs right next to the next generation of maggots. I couldn’t even see them – it had just been a clear scent of something tiny and blind and hungry, a sense of wriggling at the ends of the Cluster’s torn, scattered limbs.
I sprang out of the back door of the Saracen and sucked in breath after breath of cool, grubby air. The dim light in the alley seemed like bright daylight after the claustrophobic darkness inside, and I turned my muzzle to the open sky, letting the faint breeze shift the fur on my neck.
Then something moved, a little crawling something in the fur on my back, and my whole body twitched. I jumped and rolled until I saw the spider drop off and shoot under a pile of bricks, and then pranced a couple of steps sideways, my whole body revolting against the idea of touching anything, ever again. I stumbled against the rough wood of one of the broken-down fences and sprang away again.
I let out a long whine.
It was too late for the Cluster. At least for four of the six. These three, and Angel… What had happened to the other two? And what about their replacements? When they’d died, others must have been chosen, people who happened to be close by. But by now they could be anybody, anywhere. Did they even have any idea what they were, what they’d been sucked into?
For a second I wondered what could’ve torn the Cluster’s arms and legs from their bodies. But then it hit me, and I shut my eyes, trying and failing not to visualise the pigeons swooping in unannounced, catching the Cluster in their spider form, pecking and tearing, and then the bloody blossoming of flesh as they transformed at the point of death...
Is this it? I wondered, my breath hitching in my chest as I walked away. Is this all I’m going to find, more pointless death? Has she already destroyed the Horde, and the Rabble too?
I stumbled to a halt.
Has she already destroyed the Skulk?
What if she’s already found out where they live? What if she’s sending the fog there right now?
What if I’ve sent Addie to her death?
I turned on the spot, my paws dancing in an agitated circle, and then forced myself down onto my haunches and scratched at the back of my ear until my skin stopped trying to crawl in all directions.
I had to be practical about this. It wasn’t as if I had a choice, unless you counted lying down right here and waiting for Victoria to find and kill me as a choice, and somehow, despite everything, that was becoming less and less attractive. I didn’t know where Addie had gone. But I did know where the Horde and the Rabble were supposed to meet. If any of them were still alive, then maybe they could help me, and if they were all dead... at least I’d know.
I set off for Aldwych Tube Station under a spreading cloud, my paws feeling heavier with almost every step. Maybe the Horde would be OK. Maybe they’d have their stone and it would be safe and everything would be fine.
But the odds seemed to shrink the closer I came.
Aldwych is an abandoned station just around the corner from Somerset House, near to the Victoria Embankment and Temple tube – and yet, it didn’t occur to me until I was standing right underneath Waterloo Bridge, that I was going to pass the very place I’d escaped Victoria that afternoon.
Had it only been that afternoon?
I imagined for a split second, as I passed under the shadow of the bridge, that she would still be there, waiting, somehow knowing I would come back to this spot. I thought she might lunge out of the shadows towards me, the pigeons that were my parents flapping at her Leboutin heels.
I stopped on the far side and looked up. The side of the bridge was fuzzy to my fox eyes, but I could make out the scent of aerosol paints and the faint, shining swish and curl of the graffiti high overhead. E3’s latest, the Icarus figure falling through the clouds.
I ought to keep moving. I certainly shouldn’t linger here, where I’d only escaped death by the skin of my teeth a couple of hours ago, looking at the pretty pictures.
Except there had to be room in my life for this, because I was probably going to die soon. The knowledge felt innate, like if you cut me open you’d find it written through my bones like a stick of Brighton rock, but it came with a steely certainty that if there wasn’t time for this, there was no point trying to find the Horde or the Rabble, and I should throw myself into the Thames right now and have done with it.
I crossed the road and looked out over the river for a few minutes, as if by staring at the deep black waters I could wash my memory clean, like a palate-cleanser. I could make myself ready for whatever flavour of horror was waiting for me up the hill at the disused Tube station. The cold flowed off the water and I sucked in a few hard breaths.
I was getting tired. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had to be after 2am, and I’d spent most of the night running. My paw pads glowed with exhaustion. I really wanted to stop, to lie down here and let the gentle lapping of the Thames and the roar of traffic sing me to sleep.
I walked on towards Aldwych.
The station had been closed for decades, but it still had the iconic Tube entrance with its huge oxblood-red bricks, and the words STRAND STATION in black and white letters under the arched window.
I’d actually been inside once, two or three years ago. Transport for London rent it out to people who want to film in a tube station. They were making that film with Carey Mulligan, and Dad’s company was putting up part of the finance, so we went along on a family outing to watch the pivotal scene where she thinks about throwing herself in front of a train. By the end of the day Dad had made so many inane suggestions to the film crew, and Mum had made so many jibes about how many of Carey Mulligan I weighed, that I wished it was a working station so I could leap onto the tracks myself.
As I passed the side entrance on Surrey Street, heading for the main entrance on the Strand, I stopped dead and took a deep sniff.
I’d suddenly caught a strong, fresh smell of rat, as if out of nowhere. But then it had gone again. I snuffled all around the station, trying to figure out where it was coming from. High above my head I could make out more big black letters: ENTRANCE written over a metal concertina gate, and EXIT over two brown wooden doors with a modern lock. But the rat scent wasn’t near either of them. I retraced my steps, and there it was again, as I passed the front door of the next-door building.
Apart from the station, Surrey Street was lined with thin, tall Georgian town houses. Each one had an area – a deep ditch in front of the house that let light into the basement and allowed servants to take deliveries straight into the kitchen, so the lower class never had to come to the front door. Mum has a similar arrangement with the back gate and the Ocado man. Or... she had.
I shook off the vision of groceries piling up at the back door over
the next few days, of milk going sour in the fridge, and Mum’s answerphone filling up with anxious calls from members of government. I tried to concentrate on what was in front of my nose.
The rat scent was coming from the bottom of the steps. It was strong and fresh, full of scrabbling and nibbling creatures – and oddly, a blast of strong, fruity perfume.
My heart lifted. Perhaps the Horde were all right. Perhaps they’d have answers for me, perhaps even somewhere safe for me to rest.
“Hello?” I called down. There was no answer from the darkness, so I started to gingerly climb down the incredibly steep iron stairs. There was barely room for me to stand on each step. Tall windows loomed up over me, with white-painted bars bolted to them. At the foot of the steps there was a tiny corridor, strewn with leaves and bits of old newspaper. It was barely wide enough for a person to stand in, but at the far end there was a little hollow arch, and at the base of the arch...
A rat hole and a pile of clothes.
I leapt at the clothes, almost burying my head in them. Jeans, a white shirt that carried a clinical, hospital kind of smell. A bra, knickers, socks rolled up carefully inside bright blue crocs. She’d been here recently, and... yes, there was a fresh, female rat smell leading into the hole.
One of the Horde was here. Right now.
I pushed my head inside the hole, careless in my excitement, and got a face full of pure blackness. My heart hammered and I tried not to think about what would happen if I got stuck. I had to try. I started to crawl inside. My shoulder-blades hit the top of the tunnel every time I reached out with my front paws, and my belly scraped along the floor. I was all the way inside, stretched out to my full length, my head in utter darkness, when I pushed forward a little and a tiny, bright point of light appeared to my left. The tunnel curved gently around and down, and thank goodness, it started to open up.
When I pushed myself out, blinking in the bright electric light, I found myself in a dusty broom cupboard, stacked with teetering piles of paint-stained buckets and old mops.
The lights were all on. Was that normal? This place was supposed to be deserted.
I heard something skitter, like claws on tile, and I froze and then spun around, my own claws clattering.
“Hello? Hello! I’m from the Skulk, I just want to talk,” I said. There was no reply, and no more sound.
Had I imagined it? Maybe it was mice, or just some ordinary London rat. It wasn’t as if the Underground didn’t have its fair share.
I stood, frozen, for a few more minutes. But there was nothing.
I stepped out of the open cupboard door, into a deserted corridor just like any other one in the Tube. Except it was completely empty.
You almost never get an entire corridor to yourself, in the London Underground, and even if you do, you can sense the working station all around you. There are sounds of other people’s feet coming up in front of you or behind, of trains clattering through the tunnels or escalators humming. You get warm breezes off the tracks, smells of yesterday’s chips, and the far-off echo of buskers strumming guitars. In the Underground, even if you’re by yourself, you’re never quite alone.
Here, the curved corridor was silent, apart from the sound of my paws padding along the concrete floor, following the rat trail to the top of the spiral staircase. I could smell only rats and dust and the flow of electricity through the thick black cables that ran along the ceiling.
I couldn’t see how far down the staircase it went – it curved around a thick, tiled column so I couldn’t even see around the next corner. But I remembered it being a long climb down, and feeling much longer on the way back up to the surface.
I hesitated there for a little while, listening for any hint of movement. But the scent went this way, and I couldn’t do anything but follow it, to the end.
I lost count after about seventy-five steps and stopped for a moment, pressing my back to the cool tiles, waiting for the tremble in my limbs to subside. The staircase was utterly silent except for the loud rasp of my own breath. I felt the urge to stifle it, so as not to disturb the dusty nothingness. Grime and brick dust crept into my nose and I let out a sneeze that echoed for what seemed like eternity.
I counted another eighty-two steps, hugging the outside of the curve and trying not to think about anything but counting and not tripping over my own feet or the little pieces of debris that littered the stairs, before a flat patch of concrete finally came up to meet me. I’d hit the bottom, at last. I sank down onto it and lay there, panting, for a few seconds.
The corridors down here were brightly lit, too. Coloured signs and Thirties advertising were pasted to the walls, presumably props from the last time the station had been made up for filming. The walls curved up over my head, almost perfectly round.
The silence was even more oppressive when my breathing had calmed. The loneliness of it, the knowledge that I was so far down under the earth with nobody to see or hear me made me shudder.
Even the rat scent seemed to be fading out in all directions. The corridor led off at least four different ways, and there were two barred alcoves in front of me in total shadow, looking like prison cells for the darkness.
Something skittered.
I twisted around, looking for the source of the sound, but there was nothing there.
Then, again – a scuttling, claws-on-concrete kind of sound. It seemed to circle all around me, like a ghost, right behind me and gone as soon as I turned around, building to a rattling crescendo. I whipped about, faster and faster, twisting my head up and down, and still I couldn’t smell or see the source.
And then, suddenly, there were rats all around me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I stumbled, dizzy, bracing my paws on the concrete, and just about managed to focus on the sharp teeth of the one in front of me as they snapped at my nose. I jerked away. The rat reared up, its pink tail whipping out behind it, and raked its claws down over my muzzle. It was a stinging pain, like a bad paper cut, and it made my eyes water.
“Invader!” the rat snarled. “Trespasser! Tell us what the Skulk sent you for, and we might let you live.”
“The Skulk didn’t… I mean – I’m from the Skulk, but...” I tried to turn my head, to count how many rats there were around me. The one who’d spoken, a big grey female with a glossy coat, was flanked by a black-furred male and a smaller female. This was the one I’d followed down from the surface. I could still scent the faintest hint of medical soap on her. I was pretty sure there were three more behind me. The entire Horde.
“Answer her,” the male chittered.
“I came to... I...”
I didn’t know where to begin. It hadn’t occurred to me to work out what to say, if I actually met the Horde.
“It’s about the stones,” I blurted, before the lead rat could give me another swipe with her sharp little claws.
She narrowed her eyes to gleaming black slits, and the female beside her bared her teeth.
“How dare you?” the leader growled. Her whole body seemed to vibrate. “Filthy Skulk, breaking into our territory to accuse us of being thieves.”
“I – no, I wasn’t.” I tried to look around at the other three, but the male leapt, snapping his teeth close to my left eye.
“Face front when Amanda is speaking to you.”
“I wasn’t accusing you of stealing our stone!” I barked. “I just want to know if you’ve got yours.”
“Well if you were planning on stealing it, you’re out of luck, honey,” said one of the rats behind me, another female.
“No,” I whined. “Listen, there’s a sorceress, and she’s killing people for their stones, and I have a blue stone that I found – it’s hidden, safe for now, and I want to know whose it is so I can give it back, that’s why I came here.”
“She’s lying,” said the black male beside Amanda. “Just like the Skulk to make up some farfetched nonsense about a sorceress to get us to let our guard down.”
“Get out,
” said Amanda, rubbing her front paws over her whiskers. “And don’t come back here.”
My heart sank. “You can’t throw me out,” I said. “Not without giving me a chance to explain!”
“Orion,” Amanda snapped, and pain blistered across my tail. I yelled and tore my tail away from the teeth of the rat she’d called Orion, and lashed out, without thinking. My claws weren’t drawn, but I caught him hard on the side of the head and he tumbled through the air and skidded up against the wall of the tunnel. He was on his feet again in seconds, but it was too late. I felt claws digging into my back as one of the rats jumped and clung on.
“Leave Orion alone! You’ll pay for that, Skulk vermin,” she growled. It was the little female. Her teeth clamped down on the scruff of my neck and I bucked and twisted, trying to shake her off.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” I growled. In hindsight, probably a mistake. The rats piled on, biting and scratching. They were pulling their punches, trying to teach me a lesson rather than kill me – if they’d gone for my eyes and throat, I realised, I would be a goner. As it was I could barely move and my skin was stinging all over, bleeding from thousands of tiny punctures.
“Let me go,” I finally shrieked, “I’ll go, just let me go!”
“Back,” Amanda’s voice commanded. The weight lifted and I staggered over to the foot of the spiral steps. I turned back to see all six rats advancing on me, their little razor-sharp teeth bared and snapping at me. “Get out, and tell the Skulk if we see you here again we’ll bite to kill,” she growled.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I whined.
The rats lunged, their jaws snapping. I turned and hurtled up the stairs as fast as my tired legs could carry me.
I had no idea how close I was to the surface when my legs gave out and I lay, gasping, my head drooping onto my paws.
At least they weren’t all dead. It was better than finding them dead. And the stone couldn’t be theirs, could it? I racked my brain for any rat that’d pricked up its ears or seemed interested when I’d mentioned that it was a sapphire. None of them had.