Underworld

by Oliver Bowden

  “No, Aubs, and I can’t tell you how much I wish that we had just gone our separate ways because then my dear Martha would be alive right now.”

  “Oh, Freddie,” said Mrs. Shaw from the door. She hurried in, placed a tray of tea things on the table then came over to Abberline where she knelt and took his hand. “We are so very sorry, aren’t we, Aubrey?”

  Aubrey had stood, painfully. “Oh my, and the two of you only married a matter of months.”

  Abberline cleared his throat. “She was claimed by tuberculosis.”

  “That’s a great shame, Freddie. Me and Aubrey always thought you went perfect together.”

  “We did, Mrs. Shaw, we did.”

  For some time, they sat; then, not quite knowing what else to do, Mrs. Shaw served the tea and the three of them sat in silence for a little longer, the two Shaws helping Frederick Abberline to grieve.

  “What now, Freddie?” said Aubrey.

  Abberline placed his cup and saucer on the tabletop. Only the tea leaves knew what the future held in store for him.

  “Time will tell, Aubrey,” he said. “Time will tell.”

  SIXTY-NINE

  Weeks passed. The twins made their mark in London. Despite Evie’s protestations, Jacob had set up his gang, The Rooks, establishing them as a force in the city. Meanwhile, they had liberated the urchins, Jacob had assassinated the gang leader Rexford Kaylock, the twins had found a train hideout and they had secured the trust of Frederick Abberline, who had promised to turn a blind eye to their activities.

  And while Jacob’s attention was focused on building the reputation of his gang, Evie had thrown herself into investigating the Piece of Eden.

  “Ah, another exciting night home for Evie Frye,” he had said, spying her with letters, maps and assorted other documents. Perhaps he hadn’t spotted the fact that she was also strapping on her gauntlet at the time.

  “Just on my way out, actually,” she said, with more than a hint of pride in her voice. “I found the Piece of Eden.”

  As usual, it was lost on Jacob, who rolled his eyes. “What’s this one going to do? Heal the sick? Deflect bullets? Control the populace?”

  “They are dangerous objects, Jacob. Especially in Templar hands.”

  “You sound exactly like Father.”

  “If only.”

  Now she drew her brother’s attention to an image of Lucy Thorne that lay on the table. More and more lately, Evie had found her gaze going to it, remembering the intimidating woman she had seen in the shipping yard. “Lucy Thorne is expecting a shipment tonight. She is Starrick’s expert in the occult. I am nearly certain she is receiving the Piece of Eden Sir David Brewster mentioned.”

  Jacob sniffed action. “Sounds like fun. Mind if I join you?”

  “Promise you will stick to the mission?”

  “I swear.”

  * * *

  A short while later they were at the docks, where they flattened themselves to the roof of a warehouse overlooking the main docking area in order to watch boxes being unloaded below them.

  There she is, thought Evie excitedly. Lucy Thorne. The occultist was dressed in her customary black. Evie wondered if she mourned the loss of Brewster’s Piece of Eden.

  Lucy Thorne’s words drifted up to them as she took one of the men to task. “The contents of that box are worth more than your life and those of your entire family,” she snapped, one bony finger pointing at a specific crate. “Do you understand?”

  The man understood. He doubled the guard then turned back to Lucy Thorne. “Now, Miss Thorne, there’s the matter of some papers for Mr. Starrick. If you’d just come this way . . .”

  Reluctantly she followed him. From their vantage point, Jacob and Evie assessed the situation.

  “Whatever it is she’s after, it’s in that chest,” said Evie. They cast their eyes around the docks, seeing Templar gunmen on the rooftops. Meanwhile, the crate that was suddenly as precious to them as it evidently was to Lucy Thorne had been loaded with others onto a flatbed, horse-drawn wagon. A guard stood holding the reins. Two other guards close by were muttering darkly about the terrifying Lucy Thorne, as well as speculating what might be in the priceless crate.

  Jacob slipped off his top hat and raised his cowl, his own little ritual before action, and with a wink at Evie, he left to deal with the guards on the rooftops.

  She watched him go before making a move herself, scuttling silently to the edge of the roof then dropping down to crouch by a large water container beneath a dripping downpipe. With one eye on the men guarding the cart, she kept watch on Jacob’s activities above. There he was, moving up on an unsuspecting sentry. His blade rose and fell. The man fell silently, a perfect assassination, and Evie hissed a quiet congratulation through her teeth.

  It died on her lips. The second gunman had seen his comrade fall and had brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

  As Jacob dashed across the rooftop toward the gunman, her brother moving faster than the guard could take aim and squeeze the trigger, Evie herself dashed out from behind the water barrel. She came up behind the two men who stood at the rear, both of whom had their backs to her. Pivoting, she unleashed a kick at the neck of the first man.

  Clever Evie. She had remembered to undo her coat this time, and the luckless sentry was smashed forward into the cart, nose and mouth crunching a second before he left a bloody streak on the crates as he slid to the dirt.

  Evie had already swung to her left, bringing her gauntlet hand round and punching the second guard in the side of the head. This man had approximately half a second to live and he spent it feeling dazed and off balance, before Evie pulled her elbow back, engaged her blade and thrust it into his temple. By now the third sentry had made his escape, and the gunman on the rooftop lay dead. But it was too late. The alarm had been raised, and just as she pulled herself up to the wagon and used her blade to lever the nailed lid of the crate open, Jacob had jumped from the roof of the warehouse opposite and come sprinting across the apron toward the wagon.

  “I think it’s best we leave,” he said, and never were truer words spoken. The docks were in an uproar. Doors of warehouses flew open to decant men in bowler hats, snarling dogs in tweed suits, all of them bearing guns or steel. Ever since Jacob and Evie’s activities in the city had attracted the attention of the Templars, they’d hired the most mercenary, ruthless and bloodthirsty underlings they could lay their hands on.

  Men came piling out of the meeting room, with Lucy Thorne screaming directions at them. She had picked up her skirts and with a great and righteous anger came barreling out of her meeting, only to find that her precious cargo was on the move. There were twin spots of emotion at her cheeks and her voice was a screech. “Get after them. Get after them.”

  Evie had a brief impression of that face. A lingering glimpse of fury to match. And the chase was on.

  With Jacob at the reins their carriage flew out of the dockyard and onto the waste area that was its hinterland. On the top of the wagon, Evie hung on tight. Her cowl billowed with the onrushing wind as the horses gained speed. She wanted to scream at Jacob to go more slowly, but out of the dockyards emerged a second carriage, a porcupine of Templar men.

  On the board was Lucy Thorne, resembling a raven with crinoline wings. Though she hadn’t quite lost her black composure, it had certainly been rattled knowing she had let the precious crate out of her grasp, and she was pointing and screaming, her exact words lost in the wind but her meaning very clear indeed: get the twins.

  Now the carriages came bursting out of the docks and careered left onto Ratcliff Highway. Tall buildings, shops and flat-fronted tenements lined either side of the street, windows looking impassively down on a highway packed with wagons and dock traffic below. Ratcliffe Highway, a street notorious for its violence, was now witnessing more of it.

  The rattle of the two wagons over t
he cobbles was almost deafening, Evie terrified the wheels would come loose. Meantime she was desperately trying to make sense of what she saw in the crate—a cache of documentation and a book inscribed with the Assassin crest—as well as trying to cling on. A shot rang out and she heard a bullet whistle past her cheek, eyes reflexively going to Jacob to check he was all right.

  And, yes, he was all right. His cowl flapped in the wind, his arms spread wide as he handled the reins, intermittently yelling insults over his shoulder at their pursuers and urging the horses on.

  Ahead of them pedestrians scattered, traders flung themselves on their barrows to stop produce taking flight; coachmen steadied their horses and shook their fists angrily, and still the carts thundered on.

  Another shot. Evie flinched but saw it take a lump out of brickwork nearby, even as they raced past. Now what came to her over the crash of cartwheels, the screaming of terrified pedestrians and spooked horses, was the increasingly panicked urgings of Lucy Thorne. Her head whipped around and once again the two women locked stares. Lucy Thorne seemed to simmer with hatred for the young Assassin. Whatever was in this packing box was important to her, important to the Templars—and therefore important to Evie.

  If she could keep hold of it.

  It was a big “if.” Jacob was driving as fast as he could but their pursuers were gaining, the Templars pulling level now. Evie saw men hanging on, pulling pistols—and then remembered that thanks to Henry Green, she now had one of her own.

  With one hand steadying herself on the crate, she pulled the Colt from within her coat, drew a bead on the man nearest who was aiming his own weapon, and fired.

  Evie was not as good with a gun as she was with a blade, but a good shot nevertheless, and her bullet would have made a new hole in the man’s forehead were it not for the fact that his cart suddenly lurched as the wheels hit a pothole. As it was, he clapped his hand to his shoulder and screamed, dropping his own pistol, only just stopped from being flung off the wagon and to the cobbles below.

  Meantime, the Templars’ wagon had gone dangerously off course, the driver desperately trying to keep it from tipping over. Even Lucy Thorne had stopped her screaming and was hanging on to the boards for dear life, her hat a thing of the past, her hair tossed about by the wind.

  The other cart tried to ram them. More shots rang out. Next Evie saw Templar thugs preparing to jump from one wagon to the next, Lucy Thorne’s orders becoming increasingly more threatening as she pictured the two Assassins escaping with her documents.

  “Look.” Jacob was pointing, and sure enough there in the distance, rattling along the Blackwall railway line, was the train that the Assassins had made into their hideout.

  Seeing it had given Jacob an idea. They could make a sharp right into Rosemary Lane, then, as long as they timed it right, they would be in the perfect position to leap from the cart onto the train.

  The twins, with their preternatural link, seemed to decide on that course of action together without ever saying as much.

  They reached the junction of Ratcliffe Highway and Rosemary Lane, and Jacob wrenched the horses to the right, already beginning to get to his feet, trying to control them at the same time as he prepared to make the jump.

  They were level with the train now. Evie had no choice but to make the jump. With a cry of frustration she grabbed the notebook adorned with the Assassin crest—it was all she could take with her—thrust it into her coat and then, as her brother leapt from the wagon and into an open cargo door of the train, she did the same.

  The two of them landed heavily on the boards: Jacob exuberant, flushed with excitement; Evie the opposite. All she had to show for the evening was one dog-eared notebook. And for her that wasn’t good enough.

  SEVENTY

  Jacob and Evie continued to put their stamp on London, maneuvering the Assassins into what must have been the Brotherhood’s strongest position for a century. They gave medicine to the sick of Whitechapel—like Henry they were winning hearts and minds.

  The Templars were not happy. Their Grand Master Crawford Starrick was given updates of Assassin activity, receiving them from his position at the mahogany desk of his office.

  “Frye intends to endanger all of London at the hands of the mob,” his lieutenant, James Brudenell, told him.

  “Or perhaps he doesn’t intend much of anything at all,” chimed in Philip Twopenny, as Starrick added a cube of sugar to his tea. “Perhaps he is simply content to dice with our lives.”

  Starrick lifted his teacup to breathe in its scent. His handlebar moustache quivered.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “this tea was brought to me from India by ship, then up from the harbor to a factory, where it was packaged and ferried by carriage to my door, and packed in the larder and brought upstairs to me. All by men and women who work for me, who are indebted to me, Crawford Starrick, for their jobs, their time, the very lives they lead. They will work in my factories and so too shall their children. And you come to me with talk of this Jacob Frye? This insignificant blemish who calls himself an Assassin? You disrespect the very city that worked day and night so that we may drink this. This miracle. This tea.”

  Lucy Thorne had entered the room. She took a place by her master’s side. The terrifying vision atop the wagon no longer, her hat was on her head, her composure repaired.

  “I am nearing the end of my research,” she said. “Our beloved London shall not suffer such a bothersome fool for much longer.”

  “And what of this sister I hear of? Miss Frye?” asked Starrick.

  Lucy Thorne pursed her lips. “Miss Frye shall be gutted soon enough.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Oblivious to the forces who plotted against them, Evie and Henry continued their research at his shop and in their hideout. “You may not have found a Piece of Eden,” he told her, trying to console her, “but this material is invaluable.”

  She looked at him gratefully and the pair of them held each other’s gaze for a moment until Evie gave an awkward little cough and looked away. Together they went back to looking at the notebook rescued from the crate until Henry hit on something. “Look. It says that the London Assassins had found a shroud.”

  A shroud.

  Evie came close to read over Henry’s shoulder. Closer than she needed to. Both knowing it. Both maintaining contact, tiny little shocks running through them.

  “The Shroud of Eden is supposed to heal even the gravest injury,” Evie read. “If the Assassins had found something like that, surely Father would have known.”

  No, he was obsessed with the Metropolitan artifact, thought Henry. The apple of his eye was the Apple. “There must be something we’re missing,” he said.

  As if on cue Evie saw how documents inserted into the notebook came together as a map. She snatched them up, going to leave.

  “Aren’t you coming?” she said to Henry.

  He looked awkward. “Fieldwork is not my specialty.”

  “We found a clue to a precursor object—don’t you want to follow it?”

  He did, of course. He wanted to stay with Evie too. “Put that way, one can hardly refuse.”

  * * *

  The two of them followed the map, excited by the new discovery and thrilled to be in each other’s company, as it took them to one of the more well-to-do areas of the city, where the streets were less crowded and the houses more grand. Something occurred to Henry. Could they be heading in the direction of Queen Square?

  “Do you know, I think this map may be taking us to the Kenway mansion,” he said.

  “Kenway? The pirate?”

  “Master Assassin and pirate, yes.”

  “It’s surprising that you haven’t already searched the house. Kenway was an Assassin, after all.”

  “Edward’s son Haytham joined the Templars. They own the house now.”

  “So the Templars own a h
ouse with Assassin treasures stored in it—and never located them?”

  Henry gave a short smile. “We must be better at hiding things than they are.”

  They came into the square, which even Henry knew had changed over the years. Once named Queen Anne’s Square it had been lined with mansions on all sides, the Kenways’ among them, and though the statue of Queen Charlotte remained in place, and the alehouse on the corner, The Queens Larder, had stayed open for business since time immemorial, the mansions had since been occupied by hospitals and other charitable institutions, as well as booksellers and printers.

  There were fewer buildings used as domiciles now, but the Kenways’ mansion was among them. This was where Edward Kenway had lived on his return to these shores. His son, Haytham, had been inducted into the Templars, a long and ghastly story that had seen father pitted against son.

  Jennifer Scott, Edward’s daughter and Haytham’s half sister had spent years living there, cursing Assassin and Templar equally though continuing to enjoy the benefits of her links to both, not least of them being that grand home on what had since been renamed Queen Square.

  There Jennifer had remained, occasionally venturing forth to propose that Assassins and Templars should seek some accord, until her death of old age when the London Templars—and probably the Assassins as well—breathed a sigh of relief.

  Evie and Henry came onto the square now, passing the Roman Catholic Aged Poor Society and the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, before Evie suddenly ground to a halt, dragging Henry toward the scant shelter of iron railings lining the square.

  “Look,” she said, breathing the word into his ear.

  Sure enough, a carriage stood outside the Kenway mansion. Emerging from it was the unmistakable personage of Lucy Thorne.