The Dark River fr-2

by John Twelve Hawks

  It was too cold to sleep outside, and there were surveillance cameras on the underground. As he drifted down Tottenham Court Road past brightly lit shops selling televisions and computers, he remembered Maya telling him about a location in West Smithfield where heretics, rebels, and Harlequins were executed by authorities. Once she used her father’s language when she mentioned the area, calling it Blutacker. The German word originally denoted the cemetery near Jerusalem bought with the silver given to Judas, and then it acquired a more general meaning. It was any accursed place-blood ground. If this really was a Harlequin site, then perhaps there was a message board in the area or some indication of where he could find help.

  He headed toward East London, asking for directions from people who all seemed to be either drunk or lost. One man who could barely walk straight started waving his arms around as if he were swatting flies. Finally, Gabriel walked up Giltspur Street past St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and found two memorials that were only a few feet apart. One was in memory of the Scottish rebel William Wallace, while the other plaque was placed a few feet away from where the Crown had burned Catholics at the stake. Blutacker, thought Gabriel. But there were no Harlequin signs anywhere.

  Turning his back to the memorials, he approached St. Bartholomew the Great, a small Norman church. The stone walls of the church had been chipped and darkened over the years, and the brick walkway was smeared with mud. Gabriel passed through an archway and found himself in a burial ground. Directly in front of him was a heavy wooden door with iron hinges that led into the church. Something was scrawled on the lower edge of the door, and, as he came closer, he saw four words written with a black felt pen: HOPE FOR A TRAVELER.

  Was the church a place of refuge? Gabriel knocked on the door, and then pounded on it with his fists, but no one answered. Maybe people were hoping for a Traveler, but he was cold and tired and needed help. Standing in the burial ground, he felt a strong desire to break free of his body and abandon this world forever. Michael was right. The battle was over and the Tabula had won.

  As he turned away, he remembered how Maya had used the message boards she set up in New York City. What she wrote looked like graffiti, but every letter and stroke of the pen conveyed information. He knelt in front of the door and realized that HOPE was underlined. Perhaps it was just an accident, but the black line had a slight barb at the end, almost like an arrow.

  When Gabriel came back out through the archway, he saw that the arrow-if it was an arrow-was pointing toward Smithfield Market. A big man wearing a white butcher’s apron walked by carrying a shopping bag stuffed with beer cans. “Excuse me,” Gabriel said. “Where’s…Hope? Is that a location?”

  The butcher didn’t laugh or call him a fool. He jerked his head in the general direction of the market. “Just up the road, mate. Not far from here.”

  Crossing Long Lane, Gabriel approached the Smithfield meat market. For hundreds of years, the district had been one of the most dangerous areas of London. Beggars, harlots, and pickpockets mingled with the surging crowds while herds of cattle were whipped through the narrow streets to the slaughterhouse. Warm blood flowed through the gutters, giving off a faint white steam in the winter air. Flocks of ravens circled above the butchery, dropping down to fight over scraps of flesh.

  Those times were gone, and now the central square was lined with restaurants and bookstores. But at night, when everyone had gone home, the spirit of the old Smithfield returned. It was a dark place, a shadowy place, dedicated to killing.

  The main square between Long Lane and Charterhouse Street was dominated by the two-story building used to distribute meat throughout London. This huge market was the length of several city blocks and divided into sections by four streets. A modern Plexiglas awning ran around the circumference of the building to protect truck drivers loading supplies in the rain, but the market itself was a renovated example of Victorian confidence. The walls of the market were constructed with white stone arches, the gaps filled in with London brick. Massive iron gates painted purple and green were at each end of the building.

  He circled the building once, then twice, looking for graffiti. It seemed absurd to search for “hope” in such a place. Why had the man in the butcher’s apron told him to walk up the street? Exhausted, Gabriel sat down on a concrete bench in a little square across the street from the market. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and tried to warm his fingers with his breath, then gazed around the square. He was at the junction of Cowcross Street and St. John’s. The only business still open was a pub with a wooden façade about twenty feet away.

  Gabriel read the name on the sign and laughed for the first time in several days. Hope. It was the Hope Pub. Leaving the bench, he approached the warm lights that glowed through the beveled glass and studied the sign swinging over the entrance. It was a crude painting of two shipwrecked sailors clinging to a raft in a turbulent sea. A sailing ship had appeared in the distance and both men were waving desperately. Another smaller sign indicated that a restaurant called the Sirloin was upstairs, but it had stopped serving an hour ago.

  He entered the place half expecting a grand moment. You’ve solved the puzzle, Gabriel. Welcome home. Instead, he found the landlord scratching himself while a sullen barmaid wiped the counter with a rag. Little black tables were at the front, and benches were in the back. A glass case displaying some stuffed pheasants sat on an upper shelf beside four dusty bottles of champagne.

  There were only three customers: a middle-aged married couple having a whispered argument and a weary old man who was staring at his empty glass. Gabriel bought a pint of beer with a few of his remaining coins and retreated to an alcove with cushioned benches and dark wood paneling. The alcohol was absorbed by his empty stomach and dulled his hunger. Gabriel closed his eyes. Just for a minute, he told himself. That’s all. But he gave in to his weariness and fell asleep.

  His body felt the change. An hour ago, the room was cold and static. Now it was filled with energy. As Gabriel began to wake up, he heard the sound of laughter and voices, felt a draft of cold air as the door squeaked back and forth.

  He opened his eyes. The pub was crowded with men and women about his age greeting one another as if they hadn’t met for several weeks. Occasionally one person would argue in a good-natured way with someone else, and then both of them would hand money to a tall man who wore wraparound sunglasses.

  Were they football fans? Gabriel thought. He knew that the English were passionate about football. The men in the pub wore hooded sweatshirts and jeans. A few had tattoos-elaborate designs that emerged from their T-shirts and curled around their necks. None of the women wore a dress or a skirt; their hair was cut very short or tied back as if they were Amazon warriors.

  He studied several people standing near the bar and realized that they had only one specific thing in common-their shoes. The athletic shoes weren’t the conventional styles designed for basketball or jogging through the park; they had flashy colors, elaborate lacing, and the kind of treaded sole you’d need for all-terrain running.

  Another blast of cold air and a new customer entered. He was louder, friendlier, and definitely fatter than the rest of the people there. His greasy black hair was partially covered by a wool cap with a ridiculous white pom-pom on the top. His nylon jacket was open, revealing a prominent belly and T-shirt with a silk-screen drawing of a surveillance camera with a red bar slashed across it.

  The man with the cap bought a pint and made a quick circuit of the bar, slapping backs and shaking hands like an alderman running for office. Watching closely, Gabriel could see a hint of tension in his eyes. After he had greeted a few people, the man entered the snug, sat down on the bench, and punched out a number on a mobile phone. When the recipient of the call didn’t answer, he left a message.

  “Dogsboy! It’s Jugger! We’re at the Hope and Sirloin. All the crews are in. So where are you, mate? Call me.”

  The man with the cap closed his cell phone and noticed Gabriel
beside him. “You from Manchester?”

  Gabriel shook his head.

  “So what crew you with?”

  “What’s a crew?”

  “Ah, you’re from the States. I’m Jugger. What’s your name?”

  “Gabriel.”

  Jugger motioned to the crowd. “All these people are Free Runners. There are three London crews here tonight plus one down from Manchester.”

  “And what are Free Runners?”

  “Come on! I know they got ’em in the States. It started up in France with a couple of lads just having fun on the rooftops. It’s a way of seeing the city as a big obstacle course. You climb over walls and jump between buildings. You break free. It’s all about breaking free. Understand?”

  “So it’s a sport?”

  “For some. But the crews here tonight are hard-core underground. That means we run where we want. No boundaries. No rules.” Jugger glanced to the left and right as if he were about to tell a secret. “Ever hear of the Vast Machine?”

  Gabriel resisted the impulse to nod. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the computer system that watches us with scanner programs and surveillance cameras. The Free Runners refuse to be part of the Vast Machine. We run above it all.”

  Gabriel watched the door as another group of Free Runners entered the pub. “So is this some kind of a weekly meeting?”

  “No meetings, mate. We’re here for a straight-line race. Dogsboy is our man, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

  Jugger held his seat as his crew began to gather in the snug. Ice was a fifteen-or sixteen-year-old girl, small and severe-looking with painted eyebrows that made her look like an underage geisha. Roland was a man from Yorkshire who talked slowly. Sebastian was a part-time college student with paperback books stuffed into the pockets of his frayed raincoat.

  Gabriel had never been to England, and he found it difficult to understand everything they were saying. Jugger had once driven a “juggernaut”-which was what the British called a certain kind of truck, only it wasn’t a truck-it was a “lorry.” Potato chips were “crisps,” and a glass of beer was “a bitter.” Jugger was the informal leader of the crew, but he was endlessly teased about his weight and his “bobble hat.”

  Along with the British words, there was also a Free Runner vocabulary. The four members of the crew chatted casually about monkey vaults, cat leaps, and wall runs. They didn’t just climb up the side of a building; they “murdered it” or “wolfed it down.”

  People kept talking about their best runner-Dogsboy-but he still hadn’t arrived. Finally, Jugger’s mobile phone began beeping and he motioned for everyone to be quiet.

  “So where are you?” Jugger asked. As the conversation developed, he began to look annoyed and then angry. “You promised, mate. This is your crew. You’re letting the crew down… Sod this for a game of soldiers… You can’t just…Damn it!”

  Jugger closed the phone and began to swear. Gabriel could barely understand half of what he was saying.

  “I assume Dogsboy will not be in attendance,” Sebastian said.

  “Bastard says he’s got a bad leg. I bet a tenner he’s in bed with a bit of fluff.”

  The rest of the crew began complaining about their friend’s betrayal, but they quieted down when the man with the wraparound glasses approached them. “That’s Mash,” Roland whispered to Gabriel. “He’s holding all the side bets for tonight.”

  “Where’s your runner?”

  “I just talked to him,” Jugger said. “He’s…he’s trying to find a taxi.”

  Mash sneered at Jugger’s crew as if he already knew the truth. “If he doesn’t show up in ten minutes, you lose your side bets plus the hundred quid forfeit money.”

  “He might-maybe, perhaps-have a bad leg.”

  “You know the rule. No runner and you lose the forfeit.”

  “Gormless bastard,” Jugger muttered. He looked up at his crew after Mash had returned to the bar. “Okay. Who’s the runner? Somebody volunteer.”

  “I do technicals, not straight lines,” Ice said. “You know that.”

  “Got me a bad cold,” Roland said.

  “You’ve had it for three years!”

  “So why don’t you do the race, Jugger?”

  Gabriel had always enjoyed climbing up trees and running across the rafters of the family’s barn. He continued to challenge himself in California with motorcycle racing and parachute jumps. But his strength and agility had been taken to a new level in New York when Maya recovered from her injury. In the evening, they would run through kendo exercises. Instead of wielding bamboo sticks, Maya would use her Harlequin sword while he fought with the talisman sword. This was the only time they both looked freely at each other’s bodies. Their intense relationship seemed to express itself in a relentless combat. At the end of the kendo workout, both of them were breathing hard and drenched with sweat.

  Gabriel leaned forward and nodded to Jugger. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll run for your crew.”

  “And who the hell are you?” Ice asked.

  “This is Gabriel,” Jugger announced quickly. “An American Free Runner. Expert class.”

  “If you don’t have a runner you lose a hundred pounds,” Gabriel said. “So pay me the forfeit money. Either way, it’s the same. And I just might win your bets.”

  “You know what you got to do?” Sebastian asked.

  Gabriel nodded. “Run a race. Climb some walls.”

  “You got to run the roof of Smithfield Market, cross over to the old slaughterhouse, get down to the street, and make it to the churchyard at St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate,” Ice said. “If you fall, it’s a twenty-meter drop to the street.”

  This was the moment-he could still change his mind. But Gabriel felt as if he had been drowning in a river and suddenly a boat had appeared. He had just a few seconds to grab for a rope.

  “When do we start?”

  THE MOMENT THE decision was made, Gabriel felt as if he were surrounded by a new group of best friends. When he admitted that he was hungry, Sebastian hurried off to the bar and returned with a chocolate bar and several bags of salt-and-vinegar crisps. Gabriel ate the food quickly and felt a surge of energy. He decided to stay away from alcohol, although Roland offered to buy him a pint of beer.

  Jugger appeared to regain his confidence now that his crew had a runner. He circled the bar a second time, and Gabriel heard his swaggering voice rise above the general noise. Within a few minutes, half the crowd believed that Gabriel was a well-known Free Runner from the States who had flown over to London because of his friendship with Jugger’s crew.

  Gabriel ate another chocolate bar, and then went to the men’s room to splash some water on his face. When he came out, Jugger was waiting for him. He pushed open a door and led Gabriel to an outside courtyard that was used by the pub during the summer.

  “It’s just us now,” Jugger said. All his bluster had disappeared and he acted shy and unsure of himself-the fat boy who had been teased in school. “Tell me straight, Gabriel. Have you ever done this before?”

  “No.”

  “A thing like this is not for the ordinary citizen. It’s a right fast way to get killed. If you want, we can sneak out the back.”

  “I’m not going to run away,” Gabriel said. “I can do it…”

  The door burst open. Sebastian and three other Free Runners appeared in the courtyard. “Here he is!” someone shouted. “Hurry up! Time to go!”

  As they left the pub Jugger was absorbed by the crowd, but Ice fell in beside Gabriel. Gripping his arm tightly, she spoke in a low voice: “Watch your feet, but don’t look farther down.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you’re climbing up a wall, don’t try to hug it. Push your body out a bit. It helps your center of gravity.”

  “Anything else?”

  “If you get frightened, don’t go any farther. Just stop and we’ll get you off the roof. When people are scared, they fall.”

  No
one was on the street except for the Free Runners, and some of them began showing off-jumping onto the edge of concrete traffic barriers and doing backflips through the air. Lit up by security lights, Smithfield Market looked like a massive temple of stone and brick dumped into the center of London. There were plastic sheets hanging over the steel doors that covered the loading docks, and the night wind made them sway.

  Mash led them around the market and explained the route for the straight run. Once they made it up onto the roof, they would run the entire length of the building and use a metal awning to cross the street to an abandoned slaughterhouse. Somehow they would get down to the street and run up Snow Hill to St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate. The first runner to reach the fenced-in churchyard was the winner.

  As the crowd strolled back up the street, Ice pointed out the other men who had volunteered for the race. Cutter was a well-known crew leader from Manchester. He wore expensive-looking shoes and a red tracksuit made out of a satiny fabric that shimmered beneath the lights. Ganji was one of the London runners-a Persian emigrant in his early twenties with a slender, athletic build. Malloy was the fourth runner, short and muscular with a broken nose. According to Ice, he worked as a part-time bartender in dance clubs around London.

  They reached the north end of the market and stood across the street near a butcher’s shop that specialized in organ meats. Gabriel’s hunger had vanished and he felt highly aware of his new surroundings. He heard laughter and people talking, smelled a faint garlic odor that came from the Thai restaurant down the street. The cobblestones were wet and looked like pieces of shiny black obsidian.

  “No fear,” Ice whispered like an incantation. “No fear…No fear…”

  The market building rose up in front of the Free Runners like a massive wall. Gabriel realized that he would have to climb up the wrought-iron gate to the clear Plexiglas awning that was about thirty feet above the cobblestones. The awning was held in place by steel poles that came out of the wall at a forty-five-degree angle. He would have to shimmy up one of the poles to reach the roof.