Claws of Evil 1

by Andrew Beasley

  Two.

  With Nathaniel’s weight suddenly removed, the ladder made a shuddering lurch that almost wrenched Ben’s arms from their sockets. John Bedlam hung round his legs like an albatross, slowly clawing his way back up.

  “Help me,” Bedlam hissed in between groans, but there was nothing that Ben could do.

  Three.

  In a blur, something rushed past them both. A flash of purest white, accompanied by the beating of two enormous wings.

  It was the Weeping Man.

  He was an angel.

  Ben had no other way to describe what his eyes were seeing.

  Beneath that long black coat, he had been hiding a massive pair of wings. Wings the colour of clean linen, that carried the Weeping Man in a soaring arc; first up and then straight down, dropping like a hawk towards the ground.

  And before Nathaniel hit the floor, before the cobbles could steal his life away, the Weeping Man swooped in and caught him in his arms. Then, while Ben looked on helplessly, the angel carried his brother skyward, high up above the clouds.

  Ben felt numb.

  If Nathaniel is fighting on the side of the angels, then whose side was I on?

  And now, even though their comrade was safe, the remaining Watchers continued to pull the ladder to the safety of the other side. Ben didn’t understand why they would choose to show mercy on two Legionnaires when it made more sense to let them fall. It didn’t match with their description as the enemy. More lies that Carter had fed him, he realized.

  But whatever their reasons, he was glad they were acting the way they were. Every tendon, every fibre of muscle in his arms was in agony. If he could just hang on until the Watchers dragged him to safety...

  “Keep still,” Ben snarled, as Bedlam continued to climb up Ben’s body. “We’re nearly safe now.”

  “No thanks to you,” Bedlam replied.

  The Watchers didn’t speak as they hauled the ladder the last few yards and then dragged Ben and Bedlam up onto the roof. Neither of the boys had the strength to do anything except lie motionless on their backs, glad to be alive.

  The Watcher girl came to stand over Ben. She looked down at him with something close to compassion, her expression a strange contrast with her blood-red scar and eyepatch.

  “Come with us,” she said, holding out her hand to help him up.

  There was something in her voice that meant Ben knew he could trust her, and his fingers stretched out for hers.

  Suddenly, as he watched, her face became a mask of pain. Her hand snatched away from his to clasp her own shoulder. She gazed at her fingers, confused by the blood that she found there. Ben’s eyes looked back to the building opposite. Mickelwhite levelled his crossbow again.

  Even then, she hesitated.

  Schulman and Dips joined their captain with weapons of their own.

  Bedlam staggered to his feet and made a lunge for the girl.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, beautiful,” Bedlam snarled.

  Ben leaped between the Legionnaire and the Watcher. “Go,” he told the girl. “Go!”

  She ran, following the other Watchers across the rooftops and away.

  Ben grinned; he couldn’t help it.

  “What d’you do that for?” growled Bedlam and, before Ben could answer, he swung a punch which caught Ben square on the jaw, slamming his head back.

  “Not bad,” Ben confessed, giving his chin a rub and testing his teeth with his tongue to check for any wobblers. “Now, would you like to find out how a boy punches?”

  Ruby was fed up with boys and all their stupid games.

  She left them to it, making her own way back into the Under, choosing the quiet paths and forgotten tunnels so that she could be alone with her thoughts.

  The Legion was the only family that she had ever known, but that didn’t mean that she had to love them, did it? Part of her wanted nothing more to do with them, but she knew that they didn’t take kindly to people leaving. Deserters were hunted down. The lucky ones got to live out the rest of their days as slaves, never seeing the light of day again. The less fortunate ones were given to the Feathered Men – as playthings.

  She had failed Claw Carter and now she would have to face the music for that. He was no closer to the Coin, and he wouldn’t take that news kindly.

  But far worse was the way that Benjamin had looked at her.

  She had seen in his eyes that everything had changed between them. She didn’t blame him, of course; if he had held a knife to her ribs, she would never speak to him again.

  Benjamin Kingdom was arrogant, stupid and thoroughly irritating...and so it came as a nasty surprise to Ruby that the thought of never being annoyed by him again was almost enough to put a tear in her big green eyes.

  Ben didn’t know where the anger came from.

  He had got into scraps before but he had never beaten someone the way he laid into John Bedlam. It was almost as if he had no control over his body. His left hand had a life all of its own, existing solely for the purpose of raining blow upon blow on the other boy.

  Then he remembered the Coin nestled safely back in his pocket, and it all clicked into place: Bedlam wanted it for himself, that must be it.

  Well, he can’t have it, thought Ben, and he began punching him again.

  Bedlam had stopped fighting a few moments ago and was simply lying there, absorbing punches. Part of Ben was screaming for him to stop, although he couldn’t make the message extend to his fist.

  When Ben realized that Mickelwhite was standing over him, it actually came as a relief. The decision to stop was taken out of his hands by a swift cudgel blow to the back of his head.

  And the darkness that came with it was a welcome escape.

  Jago Moon sat silently in the gloom.

  He rummaged in his satchel and found a half-smoked cigar, which he chewed for a moment and then lit, inhaling slowly. The leather chair he was sitting in was comfortable and he eased himself back into its embrace. That felt so good that he lifted his booted feet and rested them on the desk in front of him. All that was missing, he thought, was a coal fire and a glass of brandy.

  Moon was pleased that he could not see his surroundings. He could imagine what sort of decor Claw Carter would choose for his private sanctum. The professor masqueraded before the world as a man of history and learning, but Moon knew what his real interest was.

  Death.

  He had prayed long and hard before going against Mother Shepherd’s wishes. Maybe it was because he was so stubborn himself, but he simply couldn’t imagine Benjamin Kingdom leaving the Legion and joining the Watchers just because Nathaniel and the Weeping Man asked him nicely. Moon had been so bullheaded in his own youth that whatever he had been asked to do, he had always done the exact opposite, and Ben had a lot of that in him too. That was why he had come up with another plan. A more direct route to the same destination, he hoped.

  When he left the eyrie he hadn’t told anyone where he was going or why; this was his responsibility and his alone. After some fiddling with a set of skeleton keys and a jemmy, he had made his way into the echoing halls of the British Museum. The nightwatchmen were all dim-witted fellows apparently, and they had no idea that they were entertaining guests that night.

  Moon had made it his business to familiarize himself with the whole of London: the back lanes and the thoroughfares, the East End and the West. He had tap-tap-tapped his way around all the great public buildings, measuring their spaces by echoes and scents, just in case the day came when the knowledge would be valuable to the Watcher cause. So, feeling his way around the museum earlier, he had quickly found the corridor he was searching for. His hands recognized the length of knotted braid which forbade entry to visitors, and he’d carefully lifted one end from its brass hook and slipped into the private section. Carter’s room was in the basement and there was only one set of stairs leading down. Once in that corridor, the correct door was easy enough to find, his nimble fingers reading the names e
tched into the brass doorplates.

  Professor James Carter. It sounded so respectable!

  Safely inside, he’d made his way to the desk and sat himself down. He hummed a little tune to himself while he waited for one of the most evil men in Britain to come pay him a visit.

  He didn’t have to wait long before his wish was granted.

  The door swished open, and he felt the change in the air as a man slipped into the room. Although Carter probably thought that he was moving quietly, Moon followed his every step; the soft squeaks of the leather trench coat, the measured shallow breaths, the slow deliberate way he placed his feet.

  Carter was in front of him.

  Beside him.

  Behind him.

  Moon braced himself for what was to come.

  “What have we here?” growled Carter, his claw pressing against the flesh of Moon’s throat. “A Watcher spy?”

  Jago Moon laughed. Everything was going according to plan.

  When Moon came to, he was being dragged down a tunnel, his head throbbing where Carter had coshed him. Admittedly, that wasn’t part of the plan. However, when he reached out with his ears, the sounds that came back to him made him smile. Not that they were pleasant noises to listen to; on the contrary, they were the very sounds of darkness. Moon smiled because he had succeeded where no Watcher had before: he was being taken right into the heart of the Under.

  His nostrils tasted the air, rank with bodies and smoke; the grease of sweat, the meaty taint of the slaughterhouse. There were so many voices, echoing around him, pounding inside his skull. Low conversations, heavy with menace. Whispers of evil. Somewhere, a child was sobbing. He heard shouting, swearing, screaming. And other sounds that did not belong on this earth and chilled him to his soul.

  He had exaggerated his achievement, he knew that. Pride was one of the many failings that he confessed when he was on his knees in prayer. Watchers had been into the Under before, but previously not one of them had come out again. That was why Moon had been so keen to undertake this mission on his own; any fool could get himself captured, the real skill was in escaping afterwards.

  He liked to think that he knew a bit about Benjamin Kingdom. After all, how many conversations had they had down the years, sitting in that smoky corner in the Jolly Tar, talking foolishly about books? There was something special about the boy, he could see that, looking back; submerged beneath Ben’s quick mouth and even quicker fingers, there had always been potential. What Moon hadn’t perceived was that this cheeky mudlark would one day hold the balance between the forces of light and dark.

  The Uncreated One definitely has a sense of humour, he thought.

  In many ways Moon was proud of Ben, although he would never say it to his face. The boy worked hard and never complained about his lot. He found things to enjoy in a life that was full of hardships. He had a spirit of adventure which survived all the knocks along the way.

  Perhaps that was what was needed in the Hand of Heaven. A hope that endures; the courage to believe that life can be better.

  Shame about that cocky mouth, though.

  A sharp jab in the ribs brought Moon back to the present.

  “You can walk on your own now, granddad. I’m sick of doing all the work for you,” snarled his escort, taking his supporting arm from around Moon’s shoulders. “But try anything funny and I’ll gut you right here.”

  Moon didn’t doubt it. The man who had been bundling him along was over six feet tall, judging by the direction of the voice, and built like a brick privy, based on the heaviness of his foot. He was wearing a thick apron which brushed against his thighs as he walked and smelled very strongly of fish. That, combined with his accent which put him somewhere between Eastcheap and Cannon Street, all confirmed that he worked at Billingsgate Fish Market. If anyone could gut me, Moon thought grimly, this man certainly could.

  The fishmonger underestimated him though, and that was a big mistake. No one ever saw a blind man as a threat. Moon chuckled. He hadn’t been bound and gagged. The poor man hadn’t even confiscated his walking cane.

  So it was that once he had fully regained consciousness Moon calmly walked himself into prison, tap-tap-tapping his way through the Under. Listening to the flow of the corridors; hearing his way to escape. Although it had always been a reckless plan, he was beginning to think that it might actually work.

  It only relied on Ben to do the one thing he was really good at: open his mouth and get himself into trouble. Surely Benjamin Kingdom could manage that!

  At the prison door, Jago Moon froze.

  The stench that waited for him on the other side was the foulest thing he had ever breathed. The excrement didn’t bother him; everyone who lived near the Thames was used to that smell. Nor was it the waft of rotting meat and damp straw that came out to greet him. Jago Moon halted because the room stank of despair.

  The fishmonger placed his broad hand in the middle of Moon’s back and propelled him through. “Enjoy your stay,” he jeered, as Moon stumbled and fell to the floor. Behind him, Moon could hear the sound of a key turning and the fishmonger’s harsh laughter.

  The cell had been home to so many prisoners in its time, it was as if their fear had seeped into the brickwork. Suddenly Moon felt alone and very afraid.

  Please don’t leave me in here alone for too long, Ben, he prayed.

  Although Ben’s head was pounding when he regained consciousness, he was glad that Mickelwhite had stepped in to stop him when he did. He didn’t understand what had come over him on the rooftop and felt ashamed of what he had done; even though Bedlam had started it.

  Ben had no idea how long he had blacked out for, but he knew that it must have been most of the day. He had never felt more tired and drained. It wasn’t just the result of his physical exertions either. Ben recognized that something unnatural was taking an appalling toll on his mind and spirit. Something small and round and silver. It was as if he had acquired a leech that was slowly and steadily sucking the life from him, leaving a shell that looked like Ben but was completely hollow on the inside.

  As he opened one eye it took him a second to recognize that he was back in the Under again, and that they were all there to “greet” him: Captain Mickelwhite; twitchy Jimmy Dips; Alexander Valentine, looking more sickly than before; Hans Schulman, with his square Germanic shoulders; poor crippled Munro; and, last in line, a puffy-faced John Bedlam. Ruby Johnson was there too, standing behind the others, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

  Not one of them looked pleased to see him, Ben thought.

  That also probably explained why they were all standing up and he was bound at the wrists and lying on the floor.

  While the boys glared at him, Ben noticed that Ruby was steadfastly avoiding catching his eye. She looked uncomfortable and obviously felt ashamed, and Ben was pleased; that was the way that traitors should feel. And yet, there was still a part of him that would have found a crumb of comfort in her emerald gaze.

  Ben curled up in agony as a really juicy kick in the belly helped him to come completely to his senses. He looked up to see John Bedlam on the end of that boot, grinning wickedly through fat lips and a black eye.

  “You kick a bit like a girl, too,” Ben quipped. Same-old, same-old, he thought: laughing on the outside, hurting on the inside. He tensed his stomach muscles, ready for a second visit from Bedlam’s boot.

  But for the second time it was Mickelwhite who was his saviour. “Leave it, John,” he said. “We have been summoned to the sanctuary to give an account of last night’s little excursion.” He made a small sound then to prove that this was his idea of a really witty comment. “I will be very interested to see how our new associate talks his way out of this one.”

  So will I, thought Ben, as they led him away.

  They came to a halt outside a pair of massive bronze doors. They towered above Ben, four times as tall as he was. Like the door of the armoury, they were covered with images of angels and winged beasts with the heads o
f birds and lions and bulls. Ben looked closer and then recoiled. These angels were savage. They fought with teeth and claws and swords and spears, and other weapons that he couldn’t name, but which would be just as effective at cutting out your heart. They were not at all like the fat-faced cherubs he had seen at Cowpat Cowper’s Sunday school.

  Nor were they like the noble angel who flew with the Watchers.

  “When we are inside the sanctuary, nobody speak without my say-so,” said Mickelwhite curtly as he led the way.

  For the first time ever, Ben felt like doing exactly as he was told. And yet...

  “Blow me down,” he said as he stepped inside. He really did want to hold his tongue but he just couldn’t help himself. The sanctuary of the Legion was an architectural miracle. Every Londoner was so in awe of the work of Sir Christopher Wren and the dome of St Paul’s. If only they could see the work of Alasdair Valentine, thought Ben.

  The craftsmen of the Legion had laboured underground to build a cathedral of their own; equal, but opposite. It was filled with a thousand candles: on the floor, in niches, in the walls, on pillars, in sconces. And yet they couldn’t create enough light to fill the inky shadows that encircled them. There was movement in those pools of darkness, Ben realized; shapes that were not quite human, whispers and spiteful laughter.

  Everywhere that Ben laid his eyes, he found something to be afraid of. The columns that he had seen in the Egyptian’s workshop were dwarfed by the ones here. Each massive pillar took the form of a man or woman with the head of a beast, their faces evil and cruel, their arms arching forward to support the vaulted roof. And as their hideous splendour drew his eyes up to the domed ceiling, Ben was chilled to the marrow by what he discovered there.

  There were...creatures... What else could he call them? Horrible things, that roosted in the eaves, holding tight to the stonework with strange elongated hands and feet, and nails like talons. Their bodies might once have been human, but their heads and wings belonged to a nightmare.

  The bird-men, Ben realized with a gasp. No wonder poor Mr. Smutts had been scared half to death.