Widdershins

by Alexander, Alex

  In the corner of the room, there was a man with a slouch hat, smoking a pipe and like everyone else he was watching the harpist. But unlike the other men, he didn’t have one of the maidens to keep him company. He was alone.

  There was something about this fella, something Niclas couldn’t quite put his finger on. Niclas was used to not being able to put his finger on things. He was cognitively fingerless.

  He stared at the man for longer than he should have, and soon, through a cloud of tobacco smoke, the man stared back.

  ‘’Ere we are then, a pint o’ whole milk. Do you want it in a glass?’

  ‘No miss, in the bottle’s fine. ’Ow much?’

  ‘…’ Madame Spriggs hesitated again, this time trying to work out how far she could push her luck. ‘That’s a sixpence altogether,’ she said, awkwardly.

  ‘Uh…’ Niclas didn’t have the right change. ‘Is a shillin’ alright, miss.’

  ‘A shillin’! For some water and milk? Why uh, yes. That aught cover it.’

  Niclas handed over the coin, gulped down the water with urgency and picked up the bottle of milk.

  ‘You need anyfing else, young master, you just give us a bell. Still got those dancin’ lessons if you want? And I reckon’s we could give you a deal on ’em… ’alf price if you fancied it?’ said Madame Spriggs.

  ‘Oh! Uh, I’ll fink ’bout it, miss,’ said Niclas. Half price didn’t sound bad, he’d have to run it past Balthazar.

  As he was finishing up and on his way past the girls back up the stairs, the strange man had been watching him. Niclas had a habit of drawing attention to himself, but this was different. The stranger’s eyes were fixed to the boy as he went up the stairs. It was nothing he’d said and nothing he’d done to pique the man’s interests. It was the dusty chalk marks on the back of his clothes. Pink chalk marks.

  Niclas got to the top of the stairs and took the key out of his pocket. Then he felt something. A presence lurking behind him. It was the same presence he’d felt downstairs. He gave a quick glance back and there, at the end of the corridor, stood the stranger in the greatcoat and slouch hat. The man was staring into his pocket watch with a look of mystified intrigue.

  Niclas picked up the pace. He hurried to the bedroom door and fumbled the key against the lock. It dropped out of his sweaty hands and bounced on the floor. The man was walking faster too. The spurs on his boots chinking as he strode down the passage. Careful not to spill the milk, and peeking out of the corner of his eye at the approaching man, Niclas bent down, picked up the key and shoved it into the lock.

  The door opened and he was but moments from slipping inside and locking it behind him, when the man, unveiling a pistol from within his coat, barged his way in.

  Smash went the bottle, splash went the milk. Candles rolled across the floor towards the bed; where Niclas took refuge behind one of the four posts.

  He couldn’t draw his eyes from the flintlock. It was a fearsome design of the likes he had never seen; a chunky weapon of iron, with a screaming woman’s face engraved down the barrel, and a revolving canister at its heart.

  It’s doubtful any intelligible thought entered the boy’s mind from the moment he was muscled into the room. Why the man was there and who he was, were both questions for a sober mind. But Niclas, like most people, quickly turned drunk in the presence of a gun. Drunk on fear. His only thought, which, had the intruder pulled the trigger would have been noted as his last, was: Balthazar?

  Granted, this thought wasn’t the most useful to have at the current moment, but it was intriguing, for the cat was nowhere to be seen.

  The Witchhunter said nothing. He held Niclas at gunpoint and cast his eyes over the room. He saw the sigil, chalked on the floor and surrounded by unlit black candles. On the table lay a bag overflowing with unusual items and a piece of parchment with penciled peculiar markings. And there, on the side table, a stale, half eaten croissant.

  ‘P…p…pwease don’t kill me… I’m sorry, gov… did Mr K send you? I’ve got money. You can take it for ’im. You can ’av’ it all–’

  ‘Quiet,’ said the Witchhunter.

  He stepped into the sigil and took a closer look at the glyphs chalked around it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘…Nuffin’… Just silly drawin’s that’s all.’

  ‘You’re a little young to be dabbling in this sort. Who else is here?’ The Witchhunter crossed the room to check the bathroom. Niclas climbed over the bed, to keep distance between himself and the armed man.

  ‘Wot do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘Where’s the witch?’ said the man, pointing the gun again.

  ‘Which? Which wot?’

  ‘Witch! Where is it?’ the man demanded. His voice was cold, firm, the kind of voice that belongs to a man who’d have no trouble sleeping at night after killing a young boy.

  ‘Listen, gov, I knows you fink you knows that I knows wot you’re goin’ on ’bout, but troof be told, I don’t knows a fing ’bout wot you finks I know.’

  The Witchhunter peered under the bed, then shot his attention back to Niclas.

  ‘I won’t ask again. Where’s the witch?’

  Niclas had picked up a pillow to defend himself. It wasn’t doing him much good. He clasped it against his body in both arms, screwed up his face, closed his eyes and waited for the short, shrill, thud.

  ‘And which witch would you be looking for?’ said Balthazar.

  Spooked, the Witchhunter drew his second gun and backed away from the bed.

  Niclas pulled his face from the pillow and gingerly peered back at the man.

  ‘It’s just, there are many witches in this city. It helps to know whom you’re looking for,’ Balthazar continued, in a voice that could have greased axles.

  ‘Avast, come at me, coward,’ said the Witchhunter, exasperated. He searched the room with his pistols as eyes.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t make assumptions. I’m certainly no coward.’

  ‘Then why hide, witch? Face me!’

  ‘I’m not hiding. I’m merely trying to avoid a nasty misunderstanding. If I show myself to you, you won’t hesitate to shoot me. This way, I can explain a few things first, which might just have the weight to change your mind.’

  Niclas too was puzzled as to where Balthazar was. His voice seemed to echo about the room as if called into a chasm.

  ‘Firstly, I’m not what you think I am, as you’ll understand when you look me in the eye. Secondly, the boy here knows nothing. Absolutely nothing actually. He is my assistant, that is all. Thirdly, my interest in the occult, as displayed by those curious pink markings goes only as far as curing my ailment, no further. And fourthly, I have no love for witches, and as we clearly share that attitude towards them, I believe I can help you. I can find every witch in Laburnum if you so wish. So, you see, it helps to know which witch you’re looking for? Now, had you shot me dead, those four facts would have been lost to the void, wouldn’t they?’

  The Witchhunter was stunned and Balthazar took advantage of this, revealing his hiding place – the roof of the four poster bed. He hopped onto the top of the wardrobe, down onto the adjacent chest of draws, then across onto the mattress. The Witchhunter, startled, took aim.

  The cat showed no fear, it purred behind green eyes.

  ‘Are things a little clearer now?’ At this, the hunter met the cat’s eyes and was so bewildered he took a step back.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, metaphysics. Am I a cat, or am I a man? Why, what are we both but not the same stuff arranged in a different way?’

  Balthazar’s nonchalant manner confused Niclas, and the silence that ensued made him wriggle in discomfort.

  ‘Witch or no witch, there’s witchcraft at play, and I will not stand for the Black Science.’

  The man moved his fingers onto each of the triggers.

  ‘Fine. Kill us if you must,’ said Balthazar.

  Niclas, who had start
ed to believe things were on the up, tasted the appetiser to death once more.

  ‘Of course, then you’d be just like those you hunt: a child killer,’ Balthazar added, putting a hold on the Witchhunter’s trigger finger and propping one of his eyebrows on end.

  Niclas studied the man’s expression. They held a stare: the boy frightened, the man dubious.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll let him live,’ remarked the Witchhunter.

  ‘Perhaps,’ smirked the cat, ‘but you’d be very foolish to kill me. I am no harm to anyone, except the odd mouse or fly. There’s no logic in killing me, but there is reason to let me live. As I said, I know the whereabouts of every witch in this city. A man of your occupation could strike somewhat of a metaphorical gold mine, should you spare me.’

  The Witchhunter, stubborn, kept his aim whilst Balthazar continued to ramble off this persuasive yarn. Eventually, after another painful and precarious silence, the man lowered his firearm, though refused to holster it.

  ‘I am not a fool, how do I know you speak the truth?’ he asked.

  ‘You will have to trust me,’ said the cat.

  ‘I don’t trust easy.’

  ‘No, you certainly don’t look like the type who does. But you must believe me when I say that I share the same hatred you have for the creatures you hunt. I was like you once, a man. It is because of them that I have become trapped in this fluffy existence. I want only to be free! To walk again on two legs and drink wine with a cup in my hand. I know that you and I can help each other and it would give me nothing but pleasure to see my curse avenged.’

  ‘A witch made you this way?’

  ‘Sadly, yes. It’s a curse I have been trying to cure. Now, what say you lower the guns, you’re frightening the boy.’

  ‘Why would a witch want to make a man a cat?’

  ‘Ah, if only I knew the motivations of those twisted and evil monsters.’ Balthazar sighed. ‘It’s a rather long story. And one I don’t wish to tell at gunpoint.’

  The Witchhunter considered lowering his pistol, then reconsidered. ‘How can you find them?’ he said at last.

  ‘I have a contact.’

  The man and the cat tried to out stare one another, whilst Niclas did his best to hold Laburnum's most expensive glass of water in his quivering bladder.

  ‘What contact?’ said the man.

  ‘We can go if you like. It’s not far.’

  The Witchhunter looked the cat up and down. There wasn’t much to look up and down at.

  ‘Take me,’ he said.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Balthazar. ‘See, boy, how much just talking can achieve. We could have had quite the upset, dead cat, dead child, that would lower the price for a room in this place quite considerably.’

  ‘Enough,’ snapped the Witchhunter, reinstating the gun. ‘Right now, cat, I get the impression that you like to talk a lot. I also get the impression that you talk a lot of crap. I can’t say I believe you can find witches any easier than I can, but I suggest you start moving – this gun intended to kill today, and right now it’s struggling to trust you.’

  The cat, offended at first, drew a caustic grin across his face.

  ‘So be it, witch-killer.’

  They left the Queen’s Garter, crossed the Brewery Quarter and found themselves following the cat into an alley. Unlike Niclas, the Witchhunter was not used to following Balthazar into such inhospitable places. He kept his hands near his pistols and his eyes on every corner.

  ‘Where are you taking me, cat?’ he asked, browsing his necrocardium.

  ‘It’s ok. Don’t be scared witch-killer. We’re going to visit the oldest, largest and most observant inhabitants of Laburnum. When it comes to finding anyone, they should be your first resort.’

  ‘And who are they?’ asked the Witchhunter.

  Balthazar stopped in front of a drain grid, and nodded his head as a command for Niclas to remove it.

  The boy crouched down and heaved at the drain’s lid, but he was weak, and after frustrating the Witchhunter, and amusing Balthazar for a minute or so, the Witchhunter stepped in to help.

  The cover slid aside and fumes of the sewer’s stench escaped into their nostrils.

  ‘The rats of course,’ said Balthazar.

  ‘Rats?’ said the boy and the man as one.

  ‘Yes, now Niclas, you run along back to the room, we should only be an hour or so.’

  Niclas found the request odd, but did as he was told. Or at least he would have, had the Witchhunter not grabbed his waistcoat.

  ‘The boy comes too,’ he said.

  Balthazar, for the first time since meeting the Witchhunter, showed an emotion that wasn’t altogether nonchalant. For a reason Niclas couldn’t grasp, he didn’t want him to follow.

  But the Witchhunter was an obstinate man, and he would have his way or no way at all.

  ‘Fine by me,’ the cat said at last, as if laughing off a bad joke, and hopped down into the sewer.

  The Witchhunter, poisoned with doubt, shoved his gun into Niclas’ back.

  ‘In,’ he said.

  ‘Easy, gov, easy.’

  ***

  Niclas’ nose was that of a stench connoisseur. It was accustomed to the damp, grime, rot and festering filth of Bog End. But below the city streets lived a far worse stink. For all things rancid soon find their way into Laburnum’s sewers. There, they float in a putrid concoction, so toxic, that the slightest drop would give a seven-foot draught horse the trots for a year.

  A dark, slimy river crawled through the tunnels; its viscosity nearer to curdled cream than water. Within it, Niclas could make out lost items from the upper world. Bits of broken toys, blanched newspapers, tattered clothes and ships of rotten food crewed by maggots. It made him ill watching the junk bob up and down on the surface, but it was also unpleasantly fascinating, for some of the stuff people flushed down their water closets was really quite extraordinary.

  The side path was treacherously thin and the roof was arched, making it a death trap for the tall and the clumsy.

  Fortunately for Niclas and the Witchhunter, there was just enough light to see where they were going. Every thirty feet along the ceiling was a drain, and from each of these drains poured a column of light. Like waypoints in the dark, they revealed the enormous length of the stream.

  Niclas glanced back. The tunnel behind was now unrecognisable. There were no landmarks to guide them home, and it dawned on him that without Balthazar they could be lost traipsing in circles until the fumes strangled them.

  He looked up at the nearest drain as the spores drifted into its shaft of light. It was impossible to see where they were beneath the streets. They could have been right below Poshside, under some Lord’s toilet while he was making himself lighter. Or they might have been walking beneath the slums, right under the Bowler Gang’s warehouse. It was mind boggling to think of all the hustle and bustle going on over their heads, while they were so close to it, yet so far removed.

  Niclas was pondering just how mind boggling it was, when his foot caught a badly placed brick, sending him over the edge of the pathway – headfirst towards the sludge.

  He froze in midair, his toes balancing on the edge, his body hovering over the living river.

  The Witchhunter had caught him by the strap of his waistcoat. He yanked him back onto the path.

  ‘Be careful you idiot,’ yelled Balthazar from the front, ‘that foulness will make you so sick that you’ll wish you had King Cholera.’

  ‘Fanks, gov,’ said Niclas, looking up at his saviour with a beholden gaze.

  The Witchhunter replied by raising his gun and pointing onwards. Niclas continued.

  Balthazar led them through the labyrinth, round corner after corner until they came to a small iron bar gate, which he slipped through without problem.

  ‘Almost there now,’ he said.

  Niclas tried to squeeze through the bars, but he was too big.

  ‘Err… Got a problem, sir.’

  The Witchhu
nter shook his head. He gave the handle a stiff push, the rust crumbled from its hinges and the gate whined open.

  Niclas shrugged.

  On the other side there were no more drains overhead and so the light faded quickly. This didn’t seem to trouble Balthazar at all, he carried on walking into the darkness and out of sight.

  ‘Sir? Sir?’ called Niclas. ‘Come back, sir, we can’t see a fing.’

  The Witchhunter holstered his gun and rummaged through his oversized pockets. Out came a small, intricate metal box. He flicked the lid open with his thumb and a smell of fishy blubber oil wafted into the air. With a strike of the flint, the wick caught alight, and a little flame sprouted up eagerly, pushing back the darkness.

  Niclas was amazed. He'd never seen such a device. ‘Nice one, gov,’ he said.

  And there was Balthazar, waiting for them just ahead, two eyes shimmering in the black.

  ‘How very prepared you are,’ he said.

  The Witchhunter, with his pocket flame in one hand and his gun back in the other, ushered Niclas on.

  ‘Blumin’ ’eck,’ said the boy, ‘there’s a ’ole world down ’ere.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Balthazar. ‘These are the maintenance tunnels. They built the network when they were building the sewers. You used to be able to get here from the street without having to go through the drainage but smugglers started using them so they bricked them up.’

  ‘They run under the ’ole city?’ said Niclas.

  ‘Most of it.’

  ‘How far?’ said the Witchhunter.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Balthazar. ‘And I’d put that gun away if I were you. They won’t like it.’

  The Witchhunter dithered to obey.

  ‘I’ll keep it to hand,’ he said.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said the cat.

  ‘I can’t believe that this is all under ’ere. I’ve been walkin’ round upstairs and didn’t even know there was a downstairs,’ said Niclas.

  ‘You’re not missing much,’ said Balthazar.

  ‘Yeah, but still, I didn’t even know.’