by Mark Morris
What the hell was it? My first thought was that Willoughby had coughed up one of his internal organs. I stared at him, expecting to see blood on his chin and waistcoat, his body crumpling to the floor like a downed zeppelin.
But he was still standing, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed. He was still making that awful furball noise too, his body heaving with each retching expulsion.
I looked at the thing that had come out of him. Hawkins had frozen in the process of untying the rope that secured Clover to the chair and was staring at it too. It was blue-grey and as smooth, wet and gleaming as a fresh liver. About the size of a clenched fist, it was roughly spherical in shape. At first it was inert – and then it moved! I felt a jolt go through me; I might even have cried out.
I guess what the thing really looked like was an ocean creature, a sea slug or something, but in that moment I thought of it only as a living, breathing tumour. Something nasty, poisonous, that might invade a human body and make its host ill, and have to be cut out before it could grow and spread.
It moved again, its gelid mass giving a weird lurching spasm, like a newborn taking its first gulp of air. Then it began to pulse and shudder, its blue-grey flesh rippling as thick, dark veins bulged on its surface.
And then, as if that wasn’t repulsive enough, a mass of spines suddenly sprang from its slick flesh like porcupine quills.
‘Fuck!’ I blurted, and even Hawkins cried out in surprise.
At the back of the stage Willoughby gave another choking heave, and a second blue-grey lump surged out of his mouth. Even as this one plopped wetly to the ground like a puppy in a placental sac, he heaved again, disgorging a third creature, and then, in quick succession, a fourth and a fifth.
I thought of the heart, of the way it could change form, become fluid. I thought of the spike that had extruded from its surface like the eyestalk of a snail, but which had turned instantly hard enough to puncture Barnaby McCallum’s skull as easily as if it were an egg.
Were these… things akin to that? Or were they the heart’s antitheses? Its nemeses even?
And then I thought of Horace Lacey and my original notion of airborne piranhas.
‘Fuck!’ I shouted again, stumbling forward and grabbing Hawkins’ arm. ‘It’s them! They’re the things that killed Lacey!’
Maybe I should have made the connection immediately, but connections are easy to spot when you’re observing events from afar. When you’re in the thick of it, with no time to do anything but react, it’s different. The obvious isn’t so obvious then.
Clawing at the knots securing Clover to the chair, and despairing that there were so fucking many of them, I yelled, ‘We’ve got to get her free! We’ve got to get out of here!’
I heard Willoughby cough up another of the creatures, and then another. My fingers were starting to bleed from my attempts to pick the knots apart. Beside me, Hawkins was working just as urgently, but with less panic. I heard another wet splat, then two more. I stole a quick glance at Willoughby. What I saw yanked a gasp out of me.
He had deflated. He’d become thin. But it wasn’t a healthy thinness. It was not only his clothes that now hung grotesquely loose on his bones, but his skin. His face looked as though it was melting, wattles and dewlaps of flesh swinging pendulously from his jawline, his mouth and eyes sagging at the corners. He looked like a waxwork under a heat lamp, or a child clothed in the flesh of an adult.
Appalling as this was, it didn’t horrify me as much as the creatures milling around his feet. There must have been two dozen of them now, maybe thirty. They were quivering and pulsing, as if girding themselves for action. Around half were bristling with porcupine-like spines; the rest still seemed to be acclimatising.
I renewed my attempts to untie Clover, but the knots were tight and many. I tried to focus on my task, but I was aware that half a dozen metres away the things that had killed Lacey and the girl in the yard were massing for attack.
Several possible courses of action spiralled through my head. Should Hawkins and I pick up Clover, chair and all, and carry her out between us? No, we’d be too slow, too hampered by our burden. Should we attack the creatures then? But how? By kicking them? Stamping on them? But what if that just invigorated them? Goaded them into retaliation?
Perhaps my best option was to look for my gun? I knew roughly where it had landed – or thought I did.
But no, I couldn’t abandon Hawkins and Clover, not even temporarily. If they were attacked while I was poking about in the dark, I’d never forgive myself.
The only thing to do, therefore, was stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends against whatever horror we were about to face. Whether we lived or died, the three of us would do it together.
Then another possibility occurred to me: what if I attacked Willoughby? Punched him senseless? Maybe the creatures were mentally linked to him in some way, and maybe, by knocking him out, it would neutralise them?
Much as the prospect of approaching the spiny, pulsing monstrosities repulsed me I decided it had to be worth a try. I blurted my intentions to Hawkins, but he shook his head.
‘Let me do it, sir. I’m more dispensable than you.’
‘Bollocks! Besides, it was me who got you into this. I should be the one to try and put it right.’
‘I wouldn’t be here at all if you hadn’t rescued me, sir. I owe you my life.’
‘No, you don’t!’ I said, appalled. ‘Don’t ever—’
‘Too late!’
The cry, shrill but slurred, came from Clover. Though still groggy, she was recovering quickly now. I glanced at her and saw her looking in Willoughby’s direction. I followed her gaze.
‘Oh, shit!’
While Hawkins and I had been arguing – swinging our dicks at each other, Clover would have said – Willoughby’s army of spiny, man-eating tumours had continued to rally themselves. Now, bristling with spines, they were turning in our direction. Or, considering they had no faces, they at least gave the impression they were.
‘Leave me,’ Clover muttered. ‘Just go.’
‘No way,’ I said.
She shoved at me angrily. ‘Don’t be a dick, Alex. There’s no point us all dying.’
‘We’re not leaving,’ I said. ‘We’ll fucking carry you if we have to.’
But then there was no more time to debate. With a horrible slithering sound Willoughby’s creatures surged towards us.
‘Call them off!’
The voice, harsh and rasping, echoed round the auditorium. At first I had no idea where it had come from, and then, as the advancing mass came to a sudden halt, I realised that Willoughby had the point of a large rusty knife pressed into his baggy-skinned throat. Standing behind him, holding the knife, his other hand clamped around the actor’s now bony shoulder, was a filthy figure in a ragged overcoat and battered bowler hat.
‘Mr Hulse,’ I said, almost laughing with relief. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘Come in round the back, didn’t I? Been keeping my beady eye on him, just like you told me. I followed him here, then waited outside to see if he come out again. When he didn’t I took myself off for a pie; the snow was coming down fierce, and I was in need of something hot to keep me tripes from perishing. I got back in time to see you arrive in yer hansom. The way you run up them steps I thought: aye-aye. So instead of following through the front, I decides to go round the back. That way, I thought, if it comes to it, we can attack the problem from two sides, maybe catch our little fishy unawares.’ He winked. ‘And there you has it. Worked a treat.’
Although we weren’t out of the woods, I couldn’t help but grin. ‘Mr Hulse, you may have just saved our lives.’
‘Worth a bonus, I reckon.’
‘A big bonus,’ I agreed.
Hawkins was still working at Clover’s ropes. With a sudden yank he finally succeeded in loosening what must have been a major knot. The rope sagged around her middle, allowing her to tug her arms free. Moments later she manoeuvred her way out of the
chair and stood up, then immediately staggered to one side. I grabbed her before she could fall.
‘Whoa,’ she said, clutching at Hawkins and me for support. ‘Still a bit punch drunk. The bastard chloroformed me just after I found Lacey. Caught me with my pants down. Not literally.’
Now that Clover was free, Hawkins had turned his attention to the mass of spiny tumour-creatures, which had flowed halfway across the stage and then stopped. They were poised, quivering, as though awaiting further instructions.
‘Clearly the creatures are beholden to Mr Willoughby,’ he muttered.
‘Which makes him the murderer,’ I said.
‘Please,’ Willoughby’s voice was almost as rusty as the knife at his throat, ‘let me explain.’
‘Explain murder? This’ll be good,’ said Clover.
‘Not murder,’ protested Willoughby. ‘Survival.’
Perhaps it was simply the knife, but along with his corpulence had gone the bluster and arrogance we’d become used to. The transformation from the man we’d seen bullying his fellow actors at yesterday’s rehearsal to the pitiful wreck before us now was startling. I wondered whether the creatures had something to do with that, whether they acted as storehouses for Willoughby’s viciousness – or, more to the point, whether they were living, breathing distillations of the more vile aspects of his character.
‘The Society did this to me,’ he wheedled. ‘In fear of my life, I joined their number, and was transformed into a… a ghoul, forced to gorge on misery, grief and terror, base emotions which in turn manifest as these vile forms that feed on human flesh. It is the only way I can be provided with the sustenance I need, the only way I can survive. It’s a miserable existence, but don’t you see? I have no option but to kill, and to keep on killing. I don’t wish to do it, but I must!’
He looked abject, but Clover sneered. ‘Oh, boo hoo! My heart bleeds. Who are you to think your life is worth more than the lives of the people you’ve killed? Of course you’ve got another option, you selfish bastard. You’ve always had another option. You should have killed yourself!’
Livid with fury, she took a lurching step towards him, as if intending to take a swing at him. I grabbed her arm.
‘Careful. Don’t get too close to those things.’
She glared at me – then almost instantly nodded and I felt her muscles relax.
‘Sorry, it’s just… he makes me sick.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
Although I shared Clover’s revulsion, I didn’t want this to turn into a slanging match. All I wanted was information that might give us a possible route back to the heart and Kate.
‘Tell me about the Society, Mr Willoughby,’ I said. ‘Who are they? Where do they come from?’
Willoughby looked drained; his voice rose barely above a mumble. ‘I know precious little about them – and that, I swear, is true. Their full title is the Society of Blood. They are a clandestine organisation, and an itinerant one. They have no meeting house, no set location in which to conduct their affairs.’
‘How did you encounter them?’ asked Hawkins.
Willoughby began to shake his head, and then, with Hulse’s knife jabbing his throat, thought better of it.
‘I remember nothing of the encounter. I regret to say I was drunk and high on opium. Before becoming an actor I lived the life of a libertine, a lotus eater. Mine was a debauched existence. I sought no goal but my own gratification…’
‘So what’s new?’ muttered Clover.
‘There is an opium den in Limehouse, the Thousand Sorrows in Floral Court. It was there that I made the acquaintance of a man named Darnley, who spoke of the Society as if it were a paradise on Earth – a place in which a man might discover all the sinful pleasures he could imagine, as well as many that he could not. It was Darnley who enticed me to accompany him to one of the Society’s gatherings, which was where I encountered an individual known as the Dark Man, who transformed me into the lowly creature I am now.’
I gasped as if punched in the stomach.
‘The Dark Man? Who is he? What did he look like?’
Willoughby – as well as he was able with Hulse’s hand on his shoulder – shrugged.
‘I recall nothing of the encounter, nor of the process by which he changed me.’ His voice, already a mumble, became even more hushed. ‘But some claim he is the very Devil.’
Thrown by Willoughby’s mention of the Dark Man, who I had only ever previously heard referred to by Kate’s mother, Lyn, and who I had always assumed was simply her way of personalising her own psychosis, I tried to keep on track.
‘A while ago you accused Hawkins and me of being members of the Society. You said you were worried they had finally tracked you down. So does that mean you’re on the run from them, that you and the Dark Man don’t see eye to eye?’
Willoughby sighed. ‘The reason that the Dark Man altered me – the reason he alters anybody – was to make me an acolyte, one of a group whose numbers grow by the day. But I did not wish for that to become my fate, Mr Locke. I may be wicked, but I am not half so wicked as my pursuers.’
My mind was racing. The Society of Blood and the Wolves of London. Were they one and the same, a slippery, ever-shifting organisation with as many names as the Devil? And the Dark Man: who or what was he? Their leader? The spider at the centre of their web? Or were there many ‘dark men’? Was it simply a nominal title, a catch-all term?
‘What else can you tell me?’
Willoughby spread his hands, the skin on them wrinkled, ill fitting. ‘Nothing. That is all I know.’
‘What shall we do with him, Alex?’ Clover said.
Why ask me? I wanted to snap. I’m not your boss! But that would have been unfair.
‘He’s a murderer. We should hand him over to the police.’
‘No! I beg of you!’ Willoughby made a half-hearted attempt to pull away from Hulse, then squawked in pain as Hulse jabbed the knife harder into his scrawny throat, drawing blood.
Trying to stay calm, Willoughby said, ‘If I am in custody the Dark Man will find me. I beg you to let me go. If you do, I will disappear, go about my business quietly. You will never hear from me again, I sw—’
He was still speaking when Hulse slashed his throat. The cut was deep and swift and savage, and made a noise like serrated metal tearing through cardboard. Blood sprayed everywhere, jetting over the wooden boards of the stage and over Willoughby’s creatures, which instantly began to shrivel, to dissolve into powder, giving off a high, sickening, mushroomy stench. In less than the time it took for Willoughby’s emaciated body to hit the floor with all the grace of a sack of rocks, the creatures had become nothing but blue decay.
Shocked by the suddenness of Willoughby’s death, I could only stare at Hulse, who sniffed.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘but it struck me that a feller like him ought not to be out and about in this world. Unnatural, he is. Fierce unnatural.’ He leaned over and wiped his blood-smeared knife on Willoughby’s jacket. ‘Besides which, my poor old ears had had enough of his whining. Getting on my nerves something rotten he was.’
ELEVEN
GOOSE AND BACON PIE
The snow fell steadily through the afternoon, settling on the ground like a pristine carpet laid directly over one that was old and filthy. Although it had stopped by the time Clover and I arrived at the Sherwoods’ modest terrace in Gloucester Square, the air was still dense with ice crystals and wraith-like tendrils of freezing fog.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’d recovered from the events earlier that day, but a couple of hours’ solid sleep when I arrived home at least meant I wouldn’t spend the evening acting like a zombie. Despite the hum of exhaustion in my muscles and guts, my brain had been so wired with stress and trauma that when I’d lowered my head to the pillow I’d thought there was no way I’d ever sleep again. But as soon as I shut my eyes my head felt like a boulder sinking into the depths of a deep, dark sea. The sensation was so blissful I f
elt my muscles instantly relax. I inhaled the darkness, happy to drown.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have slept so easily if I hadn’t known that the information Willoughby had given us wasn’t already being acted upon. There had been a part of me – a big part – that had wanted to rush over to Limehouse immediately, even though I was almost dead on my feet, but Hawkins, Clover and even Hulse had persuaded me not to. They’d said the wisest thing to do would be not only to re-charge my batteries first, but also to arm myself with as much information as possible before rushing anywhere.
I knew they were talking sense, and yet I also knew (and I’m pretty sure they did too) that even if I gleaned a whole dossier of information about the Society of Blood and the Thousand Sorrows, chances are the outcome – whether good or bad – would ultimately be the same. Because the simple fact was that now the heart was no longer in my possession, I had nothing to fight my enemies with. All I could rely on was my gun and my wits, but I doubted whether either of them would be much use if the Wolves’ (or the Society’s) only intention was to squash me like a troublesome bug.
I was kind of relying on the fact that it wasn’t, though; that the reason they hadn’t already killed me was because I was somehow important to them. Although nothing was certain, including my enemies’ motives, they seemed to have gone to a lot of trouble to draw me into their world, inveigle me into their affairs. So maybe I was as wrapped up in their destiny as they were in mine?
In the end I agreed to hold off visiting the Thousand Sorrows until later that night – specifically, until after Clover and I had fulfilled our dinner invitation with the Sherwoods. The clincher came when Hulse promised me he’d employ a couple of men to keep an eye on the place until then. And in truth, dinner with the Sherwoods might turn out to be equally important, if not more so, than my proposed visit to Limehouse. Whatever transpired, it looked as though it was going to be a busy evening, and an interesting one.
Our knock on the Sherwoods’ door was answered by a stout, grey-haired woman wearing a neat, black pinafore dress. From what Clover had told me about the Sherwoods, I guessed she was their only servant – a combination butler, housekeeper, nursemaid and cook. Adam Sherwood (if that was his real name) was a clerk, one of thousands who, due to the new businesses springing up almost daily in London, either lived in modest accommodation in the city or commuted from the suburbs. Clerks were generally young, either single or recently married, and they earned an average wage of around one-fifty, two hundred pounds a year. This placed them in the relatively new social strata of what was increasingly being called the ‘lower middle class’ – though in the social-climbing environment of Victorian London it didn’t stop them from trying to impress their friends and neighbours by living as grandly as they could.