The Dagger Men: A Novel of the Clay Shamus

by Michael Panush

  “Sapphire will send a car around. He’ll have everything ready.” Rabbi Holtz leaned closer to Clay. “I’ll send Monk and Cohen to another sewer entrance. They’ll meet you inside, in case you need any help. It should be fine. Perfectly safe.” He was trying to reassure himself.

  The dining room door inched open. Monk Moss poked his head in. He held his straw boater’s hat in his hand. “Boss.” He jabbed a finger into the hall. “There’s a Rolls Royce outside—one of Sapphire’s cars. It’ll take Clay, Zipporah, and your boy to the coast. They’ll be taken out to a tramp steamer, put in a rowboat, and sent into the sewers from there.”

  Zipporah pushed back her chair. “We’d better get moving.” She smiled at Harvey. “Come along, child. No time to waste.”

  “Okay.” Harvey turned back to his father. “Goodbye, papa. I’ll be back later. I’ll be careful—I promise.” They embraced, and he and Zipporah joined Monk in the hallway. Clay moved to join them, but Rabbi Holtz left his seat. He gripped Clay’s arm.

  “Clay.” He lowered his voice. “Do you think I’m a good father?”

  “I’m not sure how to answer that.” Clay paused. He paused for a few moments. “You’re a better father."

  “Better than who?”

  “Than your older brother.”

  “Ah.” Rabbi Holtz released Clay’s arm. “You know what’s crazy? I often wish Chaim was here. When he was in America, he hated it and I hated having him here. He wanted to study his holy books and debate on obscure passages of the Talmud, without caring at all for making a living and putting food on the table. That was my concern, and yet he never approved of my decisions. Maybe I want him here so I could tell him ‘I told you so.’ Prove that he was wrong and I was right. Or maybe I just miss him.”

  “I miss him,” Clay said. “Despite everything.”

  “You take care of yourself, Mr. Clay. And you watch over my boy.”

  “I will, Rabbi.” Clay walked through the open doors, and followed his friends. They headed outside, into the shadows, to solve the night’s mystery.

  ~~~

  An hour later, they floated through a sewer entrance on a small motorboat. They had followed Sapphire’s exact route for smuggling his artifacts—joining a tramp steamer as it approached Sickle City, and boarding a petite, maneuverable motorboat, which was loaded into water bright with reflected stars. From there, they had zoomed to the dark coast. Above the land, the skyscrapers reared up and sparkled like pillars of light. Zipporah managed the motorboat, and used a flashlight and a small map to navigate. They found a sewer entrance, a round tube leading to a canal, and buzzed the motorboat inside. Then they floated down the canal, zooming along above a trail of bubbles. Clay settled in the back, closer to Zipporah, while Harvey sat in the prow. They all carried flashlights, which gleamed through the tunnel.

  The light revealed Sickle City’s mammoth sewer system—an ancient collection of tunnels dating back to before the Victorian Age. They stretched for miles under the surface, crisscrossing and forming hubs like subterranean cathedrals, lubricated by an endless river of sewage and water. This canal seemed small, but they floated past numerous branching forks and hallways, all lost in shadows. Rats appeared to be the only residents. They clumped together on the sheer, cement banks of the canal, and scurried away when the flashlight beams passed them. The smell wasn’t too bad, and Zipporah and Harvey used scented handkerchiefs to help them cope. Clay simply ignored the stench.

  Harvey pulled his coat closer. He looked back at Clay and Zipporah. “Who do you think is right?” His voice echoed through the hallway. Clay and Zipporah stared at the boy. “My uncle, I mean, or my father?”

  “Right about what?” Zipporah asked.

  “About America.” Harvey pushed up his spectacles. “I’ve read a lot of books, but I’m still not sure what to do in this situation, or what I should believe. There’s injustice and inequality, but America has been really good to my father, as well. It’s given us a great house, and two servants who are really nice, as well as people like Mr. Moss and Mrs. Cohen—and you Miss Sarfati, and Mr. Clay too. I can go to a good school, and Herbert can go to university. It’s given us all kinds of great things.”

  Clay didn’t know what to say. Should he tell Harvey that Rabbi Holtz had only acquired all those great things by breaking the law? Somehow, he didn’t think that would help matters. “It can be a hard country nonetheless,” he said.

  “Yes,” Harvey agreed. “I suppose it can. That’s why I think Herbert is right, as well. Maybe they’re both right, in their own way.” He stared at his Buster Browns. “I know my father shouldn’t have said those things about Miss Hark. I’ve b-been called similar names, by some of my classmates. Not exactly the same, of course, but still insults. About my Hebraic heritage.”

  “Bunch of heels,” Zipporah said. “Don’t listen to them. I remember when one of the Tommies in our unit was giving me lip because of my ancestry. I broke his nose and he never raised his voice again.”

  “So I should break their noses?” Harvey asked.

  “Don’t do that,” Clay said. “But you’re right—you shouldn’t insult other people, just because they’re different. After all, if you can’t get along with other human beings, you have no hope at all of getting along with me.”

  Harvey grinned. “That’s a nice way of putting it, Mr. Clay. Do you think—”

  “Wait.” Zipporah raised her hand and Harvey fell silent. “Does anyone notice the air getting colder in the canal?”

  She was right. The air had suddenly grown chilly. Clay could sense the temperature, and the cold crawled its way up his arms, across his shoulders, and down into his gut. It didn’t particularly bother him—he had been forged from nearly frozen Russian ground, after all—but he certainly noticed. Zipporah and Harvey both shivered. Harvey buttoned up his checkered coat and stared in amazement as mist left his mouth. Zipporah’s breath did the same. The coldness came from the air itself, as if the entire tunnel had been turned into an icebox.

  Frost appeared on the walls of the tunnel, forming curling, white spirals against the cement. The ice shone in the beams of the flashlights, so that the sewer canal seemed to be running through pale blue light. Ice appeared in the canal, smaller chunks bumping against the hull of the motorboat. The motor blades cut against ice, spraying some in the air in a white slush. The water continued to solidify, cracking and groaning as the motorboat moved against it. Then their vessel lurched to the side as the surface of the canal solidified completely. It could go no further. The ice surrounded the motorboat completely, trapping them in place. Clay stood up in the boat. It rocked a little, but stayed steady, fixed in place by the ice.

  He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but he knew the cause. “Magic.”

  “This is a powerful spell, Mr. Clay.” Harvey reached into his book with shivering hands. “Cripes. I wish I had some gloves.” He flipped through the pages. “It comes from someone who has mastered the various regions of the Sephirot—the Ten Emanations of God—and also, the—”

  “The Qlippoth.” The voice came from further down the dark hall. Clay turned his flashlight down the tunnel. A figure approached, big as a bear and nearly as hairy. He strode into the light, his hands folded in the thick sleeves of his dark robe. Every inch of this newcomer seemed covered in dark, bristly hair. He had a thick beard, long hair—partly set in ringlets—and bushy eyebrows. His beard and hair matched the dark fur of his long, flowing kaftan and the round fur cap on top of his head, so it all seemed composed of the same substance. “They must master the Qlippoth, the evil and impure husks that come from distancing oneself from the divine. I have mastered both.”

  Zipporah pointed at the stranger. “You certainly ain’t mastered a razor and scissors. You ever been to a barbershop?”

  His dark eyes fixed on her. “I am a disciple of Isa
ac Luria, and will let no razor ever reach my beard.” He pointed to Zipporah. “You speak out of turn. You do not know a woman’s place. It is very typical of American women. They disgust me, with their short skirts, and the free and disrespectful behavior. And have you seen the way that these ‘flappers’, as they are called, style their hair? Disgraceful. Still, you will learn. You and your people will all learn.” His eyes moved to Clay. “You seem to be in charge. Did Sapphire send you?”

  “Who are you?” Clay asked.

  “Yossel Geist.” He rested a hand on his robe. “Rabbi. Of the Dagger Men.”

  “Dagger Men?” Harvey asked. “Aren’t those the rebels in Ancient Judea? Didn’t the Romans wipe them out?”

  “The Roman Empire is dust,” Geist continued. “The Dagger Men remain.” He walked closer, his tone changing and becoming almost pleasant. “Now, let’s get to business. What artifacts are you protecting? They must be strange indeed, if Sapphire gave them such odd guards. Some sort of shrew in the guise of a woman, a clumsily made golem, and a little boy—very odd guards indeed.”

  “I want to slug him, Clay,” Zipporah said. “Then hack off his beard.”

  Rabbi Geist ignored the threat. “Give me whatever you have in the motorboat and you may pass.”

  “We ain’t got nothing.” Zipporah reached for her blades. “Sapphire sent us, all right—to find out who robbed him. You Dagger Men or whatever you call yourselves might’ve survived the fall of Rome, but you won’t be around much longer after pissing off Sid the Shark.”

  “You need to learn the proper way to behave.” A smile split his bearded face. “The Dagger Men will be fine teachers.”

  He clapped his hands, and then the icy surface of the canal shattered in a dozen places. Flakes of ice flew through the air, the powder white and faint in the low beams of the flashlights. Skeletal bodies emerged, smashing their way to the surface. They broke the ice and pulled themselves up, frost dripping from their bones and their armor. Clay stared at the soldiers that Rabbi Geist had summoned. He recognized them from one of Harvey’s books on Ancient History, where he had seen them arrayed in colorful crimson rows before armies of charging, half-naked barbarians. Like the soldiers in the history books, the Roman legionaries wore round metal helmets and jointed armor, with rectangular shields and small, lethal swords. But these legionaries had only bone behind the visors of their helmets. Skeletal hands gripped their swords and shields, which had been splotched with rust and frayed. They looked like they had just been unearthed from some ancient tomb.

  Harvey recognized them as well. “Roman legionaries—these are the guys who battled the Dagger Men, thousands of years ago in Ancient Judea! They put down the Judean Rebellion, but the fighting was very fierce and lots of people on both sides died.”

  “Looks like Rabbi Geist wants us to end up like these Romans,” Zipporah muttered.

  “We won’t,” Clay replied.

  A legionary clambered into the side of the motorboat, moving over the rim in a single step and approaching Clay. He pulled back his sword, but Clay slugged him first. A rapid blow to the Roman’s chest shattered metal and bone alike. The legionary fell back, fragments of bone and broken steel flying from the shattered skeleton. It fell on the ice, which cracked under its weight. Clay turned to the next legionary, who swiped his sword in a rapid slash. Zipporah’s scimitar parried the blow. She pushed back the sword while Clay punched the legionary in the skull. The helmet and skull left the skeleton’s neck and hurtled through the air. Clay could hear it bounce against the stone wall and fall to the frozen surface of the canal.

  The skeletons swarmed the motorboat. Even as Clay and Zipporah dispatched a pair of the legionaries, more scrambled aboard and went to work with their swords. The skeletons slashed the short blades at Harvey, apparently thinking nothing of killing a child. Clay doubted they had much intelligence. Magic alone animated their ancient bones, and it knew no mercy. He stepped in front of Harvey, the boat rocking, and took three swords in his back. The blades, splotched with rust but still sharp, jabbed into his shoulders and tore his trench coat. One wedged deeply into his back and stuck there. Clay spun around, dealing a wide, sweeping blow that smashed apart the three legionaries and tossed them from the boat. He reached behind his back, grabbed the sword, and wrenched it out. Another legionary neared him and he stabbed the point straight into the skeleton’s skull.

  But even as Clay and Zipporah fought, the legionaries continued their advance. It seemed that an entire Roman Legion had somehow been hidden in the sewer canal, and now rose up with a mad eagerness to deal damage once again. Clay and Zipporah fought together, his fists and her sabers hacking and bashing aside the skeletons, but the legionaries still closed in. Zipporah received a cruel cut to her chin, and she flinched back at the sudden blood. Harvey stood between them, trying to stay upright as the motorboat twisted in the ice. Clay glanced down the tunnel. Rabbi Geist had vanished further down the frozen canal. He had apparently decided to let his undead minions finish the job.

  Harvey pointed off the back of the boat. “Pilums! Or pila, to use the plural. Mr. Clay, Miss Sarfati—duck!”

  As he spoke, a trio of legionaries moved behind the boat, armed with oversized spears—each ending in a lethal point. The skeletal arms twisted and threw, sending the spears hurtling through the air. Zipporah grabbed Harvey and pushed him down, then dropped as well. Two spears flew past their heads. The next thudded into Clay’s upper chest. If it had reached his forehead, it could have turned him back into a lump of earth. The legionaries reached for more spears—pila , as Harvey had called them—and prepared to throw again.

  Then the motorboat creaked, the edge screeched painfully against the ice and began to descend. Sword points smashed through the bottom of the vessel, jabbing into the air. The blades punctured the wood, dripping with ice water as they reared into the low light. Clay grabbed Harvey by his collar and hauled him up—just before a spear could pierce the boy’s foot. Another sword point nearly missed bisecting his foot. The legionaries had gotten under the rowboat, and had stabbed holes in the hull. Water poured in the through the holes. They would be sinking soon.

  Clay glanced at Zipporah. They both knew their only option. “Ready for a walk on the ice?” Zipporah asked.

  “Why not?” Clay set Harvey gently down on the other side of the ice, and hopped over himself. His boots slammed down. The ice cracked and trickles of cold water pressed over his boots—but it didn’t shatter completely. It could hold their weight. Zipporah dealt with another skeleton, driving her sword into its rib cage and smashing several of its bones, and then leaping nimbly to join them. They hurried away from the boat, down the canal.

  Their shoes clicked and slipped on the ice. The carpet of slick, frozen sewage stretched ahead of them. Rabbi Geist must have frozen a decent part of the underground river, to give his Roman legionaries plenty of means to maneuver. The skeletons used that now. They surged around the trapped, sinking motorboat, and charged after Clay and his friends. More pila hummed through the air. They smashed down into the ice, the points driving into the ice and the poles reverberating as they wedged in place. The legionaries brandished their square shields, using them like the Romans of old.

  They couldn’t battle that many legionaries. Clay turned back to face the legionaries, walking backwards. He smashed a fist into a Roman shield, his knuckles cracking against wood and steel. He knocked the legionary back, but another took its place. They would chase them, surround them, and use their lethal short swords to hack down Clay and the others.

  “Zipporah.” Clay’s voice groaned as he warded off another sword’s blow. “You know what to do.”

  “True enough,” Zipporah agreed. “Looks like I was right to come prepared.” She pulled the Mills Bomb from her pocket, then glanced at Harvey as she removed the pin. “I’ll throw it and we run.” She balanced the grenade in
her hands, judged the distance, and then tossed it through the air. The grenade bounced off a legionary’s shield and then rolled to the frozen surface of the canal. It bounced on the ice. Clay grabbed Harvey’s hand and tugged him along, breaking into a run and sprinting down the tunnel. Zipporah hurried after them.

  The Mills Bomb roared to life and did its job. The blast swept through the tunnel, ripping into the skeletal legionaries and shattering them. Red fire and smoke pulsed against their slim bodies. Chunks of bone, ancient armor, ruined shields, and ice from the frozen canal flew through the air and ricocheted off the stone walls. They pattered down on the ground, clattering and scratching against the ice or plopping into the liquid canal. Harvey covered his ears and winced, and Clay’s head rang against the concentrated noise of the blast. Still, they stumbled on.

  The explosion faded and light dimmed. Clay caught a glimpse of a furry figure and switched on his flashlight. The beam of illumination showed the back of Rabbi Geist’s fur coat as he scooted down a side canal, slipped into a shadowy alcove, and vanished. He must had seen them deal with his skeletal soldiers and now sought to escape.

  “There he goes,” Clay said.

  “We’ll find him. And have a nice long talk about ripping off Sapphire’s goods.” Zipporah turned to Harvey. “He mentioned he’s with the Dagger Men. They’re old, right? From Classical Times? I guess that’s why he’s commanding a bunch of skeletons.”

  “The Dagger Men led the Judean Rebellion,” Harvey explained. “And they killed numerous Romans—and moderate Jews as well—and then they fought the legions to the end, and—”

  “We can talk about this later,” Clay said. “For now, we’ve got to get Rabbi Geist.”