by Mark Morris
As soon as she saw me, Mayla rushed forward, and was only prevented from ascending the stairs by Hawkins, who stepped in front of her and raised a hand. Tilting her head to peer around him she said, ‘I got something for you, Mr Locke. And mighty glad I’ll be to get rid of it too.’
I saw Hawkins tense, even take a half step forward, as she lifted the outer layer of her voluminous skirts and began to root among the folds.
‘It’s all right, Hawkins,’ I said, knowing what she was going to produce and thinking how ironic it was that, having looked for the heart for so long, all I could feel at this moment was anxiety, trepidation.
As expected, Mayla’s hand emerged clutching the obsidian heart. Clover gasped and I saw Hawkins’ shoulders stiffen in surprise. As if she couldn’t bear to possess it any longer than she had to, Mayla gave a flick of her wrist and suddenly the heart was arcing through the air towards me.
I knew I would catch it, and I did. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could have done it with my eyes closed. The heart smacked snugly into my palm as if connected to me by a length of elastic. The instant I closed my fingers around it I felt something I hadn’t felt for the past three months, but which all the same was as familiar and comfortable and natural to me as breathing. It was a sense of completeness, affinity. It was the unshakable notion that I was part of the heart, and it was part of me.
My drug, I thought, and wondered if the feeling was unique to me or whether anyone with a prolonged connection to the heart would feel the same. Did it exude an influence, maybe even a chemical, which linked you to it? Was this, for the heart, a symbiosis of convenience? Maybe the thing was just a kind of vampire that intoxicated its chosen victim and created dependence within them?
All I knew for sure was that as soon as the heart was back in my possession I felt strong again, full of energy. Descending the last few steps into the hallway I held up the object as though it was a holy relic.
‘Where did you get this?’
Hawkins moved aside so that Mayla and I were face to face. Eyeing the heart warily, she said, ‘Mr Hulse gave it to me.’
‘Hulse?’ said Clover. ‘And where did he get it from?’
All at once it came to me. ‘The crowman’s shop,’ I said. ‘Tempting Treats. My guess is that it’s just come into his possession. Am I right?’
Mayla nodded.
Clover looked at me curiously. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Stands to reason. What would have been the point of Lyn drawing the place to my attention otherwise?’
The face that Clover pulled showed she didn’t know how to even begin to answer that question. I could hardly blame her. None of us knew who or what the version of Lyn that sometimes appeared to me was. She couldn’t be a ghost, because the real Lyn was still alive. All I could say for sure was that she was some kind of guide, one who occasionally popped up to point me where I needed to go.
I wondered how the heart had found its way to Hayles’ shop, and from where and who it had come. Had it simply turned up in a load of house-clearance junk, or could it be that a future version of me had left it there knowing that that was where I’d find it?
Could that even work? It seemed like an impossible loop. A chain of events in which the heart was basically conjured into being from nothing, or at least from not much more than the mind-boggling machinations of time. And even if such a thing could work, where did that leave my future self? Wouldn’t leaving the heart in Tempting Treats for me to find mean that the future me would be stranded in this time period?
‘Why didn’t Mr Hulse deliver the heart to Mr Locke in person?’ asked Hawkins, breaking in on my thoughts.
Mayla was still looking at me, as if I was the only one who was speaking. ‘He said there were dogs on his tail, but that he’d try to draw them off.’
‘Dogs?’ said Clover, alarmed.
Hawkins’ voice was stern. ‘Were you followed here, girl?’
For the first time Mayla looked away from me, her dark eyes fixing on Hawkins. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. There was a shadow…’
‘What shadow?’ said Hawkins irritably. ‘What do you mean?’
Mayla gave an almost sulky shrug. ‘A half-dozen times on my way here I thought there was someone behind me. But when I turned to look all I saw was the moon above the rooftops. Twice, though… I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but twice I saw a shadow pass across the face of it.’
Clover and I glanced at each other, but Hawkins, still scowling, said, ‘A cloud, you mean?’
The look that Mayla flashed him was impudent and contemptuous.
‘Weren’t no cloud. I know what a bleedin’ cloud looks like, don’t I?’
One of the girls – Florence, I think – gave a gasp at Mayla’s language.
Keeping my voice low so that neither Mrs Peake nor the girls could hear, I said, ‘The Wolves are coming. We need to get the innocent out of harm’s way.’
The innocent. Although I’d never used it before, the phrase slipped easily off my tongue. It spoke volumes about what I thought of myself. I wasn’t ‘innocent’. On the contrary, I was riven with guilt. Some might have said I was a victim of circumstance, but I couldn’t forgive myself quite so easily. Not only was I guilty of killing McCallum, for all that he’d engineered his own demise, but I also had the blood of others on my hands: Horace Lacey; all those who’d been in Incognito on the night of Tallarian’s attack; the two men who Hulse had assigned to keep watch on the Thousand Sorrows – all of them people whose lives wouldn’t have been cut so brutally short if they hadn’t intersected with mine.
I didn’t want Mrs Peake, the girls and Mayla to likewise become collateral damage. And neither did I want anything to happen to Clover and Hawkins, for all that they saw this as their battle too.
Mayla’s eyes narrowed at my words.
‘The Wolves?’ she repeated. ‘Who the bleedin’ hell are they?’
‘Bad people,’ I said shortly, and turned to the group huddled in the corridor. ‘Mrs Peake, will you take Mayla and the girls to the kitchen and give Mayla a hot meal? Lock yourselves in and don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe.’
Mrs Peake opened her mouth to protest, but I held up a hand.
‘Please don’t argue, there isn’t time. Just believe me when I tell you that this is for your own good.’
Mrs Peake pursed her lips, then nodded. Stepping forward she beckoned Mayla with a crooked finger.
‘Come along, girl.’
Mayla, though, stood firm. Tossing her head contemptuously, making her black curls tumble and ripple about her shoulders, she said, ‘Don’t “come along” me, missis. I ain’t one of your serving girls.’ She jabbed a finger in the direction of the heart. ‘That thing attracts trouble, I know it. And I ain’t sticking around to face it when it comes.’
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ I said. ‘Step out of this house and you’ll be dead for sure.’
Mayla looked defiant, but I saw fear in her eyes.
‘And if I stay here I’ll live. Is that it?’
I hesitated, then lowered my voice so that only she could hear.
‘I can’t promise anything. But if you stay out of sight and keep quiet, you’ve got more of a chance. Please, Mayla.’
She looked me in the eyes for a long moment, and then nodded. It was a relief to watch Mrs Peake and her entourage disappear along the corridor. I could only hope that by staying out of sight they’d be beneath the Wolves’ consideration and would therefore remain safe.
I also hoped, although with less confidence, that I’d likewise be able to persuade Clover and Hawkins to make themselves scarce before the Wolves arrived. Predictably, though, as soon as I suggested to Clover that she take Hope up to the attic and hide there, she shook her head.
‘No way. I’m not leaving you and Hawkins to face them alone. Look what a mess you got into when you went off to Limehouse without me. This time we’ll do it together. We’re a team.’
‘You really th
ink they’ll give a shit about that?’ I said. ‘Besides, I’m not suggesting that Hawkins and I face them without you. I want you both to be out of the way when they arrive. They’ve come for the heart and I’m going to give it to them – I’m not going to fight them.’
Their protests were immediate and loud – or at least Clover’s were. Hawkins made his point with a shake of the head and a curt refusal to leave my side.
I told them, as briefly as I could, what had happened upstairs, and tried to convince them yet again that I was the only one the Wolves might not kill. Clover, though, argued that the second the Wolves had the heart they’d have no further use for me.
‘All the more reason to keep casualties to a minimum,’ I said in frustration, but Clover shook her head.
‘Why do you think I was brought to this time period?’ She jabbed a finger at me. ‘It was to help you, you idiot, not to hide as soon as the going got tough.’
Before I could reply, Hawkins added, ‘Miss Clover is right, sir. I can’t believe that your future self rescued me from the gallows for no reason.’
‘But maybe that reason was just to look after me when I got here,’ I said. ‘To rescue me from the fire, install me here, nurse me back to health. Or maybe he did it – I did it – just because I had you in my memory and didn’t want to risk changing the past.’
Clover scowled almost aggressively. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Alex. You can’t get rid of us. Whatever happens, we’re staying right by your side.’
Under other circumstances I might have laughed, but at that moment I just felt pissed off. ‘You’re being childish. Not to mention selfish.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Selfish? How do you work that out?’
‘What if the Wolves turn up and Hope hears them and comes down and walks right into the middle of… whatever it is?’
She was silent for a moment, clearly deciding how to respond. Finally she conceded, ‘Okay, fair point. But what if I—’
But all at once the time for discussion was over. Before she could finish her sentence there was an almighty thud and a sharp, splintering crack from the direction of the drawing room.
A split-second glance ricocheted between us, then we were running towards the source of the sound, me in the lead, Clover and Hawkins just behind me. As I entered the drawing room, I subconsciously raised the heart as though it was a shield or a weapon, my eyes darting this way and that as I tried to cover every corner, every angle.
All seemed normal and undisturbed: the Christmas tree untouched in the corner, the ornaments intact on the shelves and tables, the pictures still hanging on the walls. My brain was already replaying the sound I’d heard – it had reminded me of something, and as I glanced towards the thick red curtains I realised what.
One Saturday morning, a year or so ago, a bird had flown into the glass doors of the balcony of my Chiswick flat. It hadn’t broken the glass, but it had made a hell of a bang – loud enough to make me jump and Kate to burst into spontaneous tears. The bird hadn’t injured itself (when I investigated, expecting to find it dead or stunned, there was no sign of it), but it had left a ghostly smear of itself on the glass. The noise I’d heard half a minute ago had sounded like that – except whatever had hit the window this time had been much heavier than a bird.
I crossed the room quickly, aware of how vulnerable Victorian houses were compared to their twenty-first century counterparts. There was no double glazing here, no elaborate locking systems, no burglar alarms. I knew such things wouldn’t have proved a barrier to the Wolves of London in any case, but that was hardly a comfort.
Choosing a window at random – it was one of the central ones – I grabbed one of the heavy damask drapes that kept out the cold, and yanked it aside. The snow that blanketed the land glowed a deep minty blue in the moonlight. There was no fog this evening; in fact, I couldn’t remember when I had last seen the sky so clear.
I’d chosen the right window. The glass was bisected top to bottom by a crack that looked as if it had been drawn on by a black marker pen. In the centre of the crack was a silvery star ringed with concentric circles, where the glass, absorbing the impact of whatever had hit it, had splintered along myriad tiny fissures, but held.
I leaned over the windowsill, looking out. Clover, beside me, did the same. Lying on the snowy ground under the window was a dark spherical object, like an out-of-shape football. I realised what it was just as Clover gasped.
It was a human head, the mouth open in a slack yawn, the eyes like grey, glazed marbles. The face, thin and bony, was that of an old man or woman – death had rendered it sexless, and the sparse hair, clumped with snow, which straggled across the features, made it even more difficult to identify. Although I couldn’t see it clearly, one side of the face looked dented and discoloured, I guessed by its impact with the window. As my stomach curdled in shock and revulsion, I found myself wondering if the head belonged to one of the men who were supposed to be watching the house, and who were conspicuous by their absence. And then Hawkins, who had ghosted in to stand on my right, murmured, ‘Poor Mr Hayles.’
As soon as he said the name I recognised the dead face, and felt ashamed I hadn’t done so straight away. Of course! This was the old man from Tempting Treats, who Hawkins and I had visited only a couple of days before. Although I wasn’t the one who had killed him, I couldn’t help feeling that his death was yet another I was responsible for, another splash of blood on my hands.
‘Bastards,’ I muttered, reeling away from the window and letting the drape fall back into place. Cutting off the man’s head and using it as a projectile was a barbaric act, one designed to intimidate and destabilise us. Although it was hard, I knew I had to try and detach myself from my own guilt and horror. I had to focus my mind and be ready for whatever might happen next.
What did happen was that we heard a scratching sound, like claws on stone, from somewhere above us. I went cold, my eyes turning instinctively up to the ceiling.
Had the fuckers got inside while our attention was diverted? Were they in Hope’s room even now? Was the Sandman looming over her bed, sand pouring from his mouth and eye sockets as she gaped up at him, too terrified to scream?
I could see that Clover had had the same idea. Her eyes widened and she went rigid, like a deer in the forest sensing danger, then she swung towards the door.
Hawkins, though, turned the other way. I saw him take a step towards the fireplace, tilting his head. We could still hear the scratching, echoing and ghostly. Then there came a softer sound and the fire crackled as soot trickled into it from above.
‘It’s in the chimney,’ Hawkins said.
It was true. The scratching wasn’t above our heads – it was coming from behind the wall above the fireplace. It was getting louder and closer as it descended. And accompanying it was a gentler but no less ominous sound: a beating or fluttering.
I jerked forward towards the metal fireguard that stood loosely on the hearth as a barrier against sparks or chunks of dislodged coal.
‘We need to block—’
But before I could act, or even finish my sentence, a wild, flapping shape burst out of the chimney in a cloudy cascade of soot and erupted into the room like a phoenix rising from the flames.
The new arrival was no radiant mythological creature, though. It was a ragged, tattered, squawking thing, black and trailing soot as if moulded from the grime of London itself. It was a crow, I realised. But was it the crow? Satan? The one that had belonged to the old man? Was it so attached to its owner that it had followed his killers all the way here? And if so, what did it want? Revenge? Help?
If I’d been thinking rationally, I’d have realised how ridiculous those questions were. But I wasn’t. I was reacting to the situation, my thoughts pinging randomly in my head. The crow rose above us, screeching and darting. Each time it flapped its wings more soot sifted down like fine black snow. I’d never been scared of birds, but it struck me, even more than it had in the old man’s s
hop, how much bigger and more primal a crow seemed in a confined space; how you couldn’t help but flinch whenever it came near you; how much more wary you were of its stabbing beak and sharp claws.
Maybe I should have put two and two together. Maybe I should have realised there was more to this than met the eye. But the bird’s appearance had caught me off guard – had caught all of us off guard – and it never occurred to me that the bloody thing was anything but what it appeared until Hawkins reached up towards it, as though to snatch it out of thin air, and it changed.
The transformation was lightning quick – so quick it was more an impression than anything; a vague after-image that lingered in the memory like an imprint of a childhood nightmare.
When I recall the incident now, what I ‘see’ is the bird expanding, stretching like a piece of elastic. But that makes the creature, and the shape it became, sound more solid than it actually was. Because what it really seemed like was an absence, as if reality had suddenly become two-dimensional; as if it had become nothing but a screen with an image of the room on it, and someone had slit that screen open and allowed the blackness behind it to come pouring through.
The microsecond it took for the slit to change again and to converge, to descend, on Hawkins, is even more of a blur in my memory. Trying to access it now is like trying to make sense of a distorted image in an out-of-focus photograph. What I ‘see’ in my mind’s eye is the slit becoming a huge, black, guillotine-like blade, which sweeps down across Hawkins’ body and then just as quickly withdraws from him. The next thing I’m aware of is Hawkins lying on the ground, several feet away from his right arm, which has somehow, impossibly, become detached from his body.
For several seconds after the attack I could do nothing but stare down at my friend in disbelief. Although his mouth was open and twisted in agony, his eyes bulging, his face so drained of colour he looked monochrome, he made no sound whatsoever. I can only suppose it was the enormity of what had happened that had silenced him. The pain and shock must have been so great they had overwhelmed his senses, his ability to think.