Wild Boy and the Black Terror

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  He heard glass smash. Cold air rushed at the hair on his face. He reached the dining room in time to see the candles go out as wind swept through the shattered French windows.

  He stepped inside, trembling all over with anger.

  A white tunic lay on the floor, but no servant. The man who had been there, face down, was gone. He had hidden right next to them, listened to their every word.

  Clarissa rushed in. She saw the tunic and immediately understood. She shoved Wild Boy in the chest. “How could you not see?”

  Instinct urged Wild Boy to retaliate. But the real fight wasn’t yet lost. The killer couldn’t be far away. He stepped through the broken windows and onto the patio, scanning the snow for prints.

  The moon emerged from behind the clouds. The peacock bushes threw long shadows across the silver snow. A crow settled on the hedgerow wall of the maze and cawed loudly into the night.

  A hunched figure darted from the side of the house.

  “There!” Clarissa said.

  Barging past Wild Boy, she leaped the patio steps, landed in a roll and charged towards the maze after the killer.

  12

  Wild Boy raced after Clarissa, ignoring the sting of the snow against his bare feet. He jumped the patio steps and dodged between sculpted bushes. Freezing wind whipped his eyes, watering his vision. He slipped over, came up swearing.

  Ahead, the killer moved across the snow – a dark, hunched figure. He seemed to crouch as he ran, hiding his shape. Wild Boy glimpsed the flap of a coat or cloak. Then the killer was gone, disappearing through the entrance to the hedgerow maze.

  “Hurry!” Clarissa yelled.

  Wild Boy kept moving, sinking into the snow up to his knees. The green and white maze wall rose over him, twice his height. Icicles hung from a wrought iron arch that framed its entrance, gleaming like the teeth of a monster. That entrance was the only way in or out.

  “Wild Boy?” Clarissa’s cry grew fainter as she ran deeper into the labyrinth. “I can’t find him.”

  Wild Boy looked back, praying that Dr Carew or Gideon would come to help. Where were they? He knew he should stay here and trap the killer in the maze. But he couldn’t just stand here, not while Clarissa was in there with him.

  He ran into the maze.

  The high hedge walls blocked the moonlight, but he could just make out footprints in the snow; the killer’s marks trampled by Clarissa. He tried to climb one of the walls to see across the maze, but he couldn’t get a foothold in the thicket and thumped back to the snow.

  “Clarissa?” he called.

  “Wild Boy? Where is he?”

  She sounded closer at first, then further away.

  Wild Boy ran along twisting paths, following the broken tracks. Wind rustled the moon-slivered hedges, and shadows shifted along the ground. Something moved behind him. He whirled around, but all he saw was a flurry of snow falling from one of the walls.

  He kept going, taking one bewildering turn after another. The gaps between the hedges grew narrower, the maze walls closing in. The only sound was the wind moaning along the path.

  A scream.

  “Clarissa!” Wild Boy yelled.

  She was just yards away but they were separated by a hedge. He ran at it, tearing at branches to force his way through. He heard her cry out again, thought he saw someone run past on the other side. He pushed harder, until he tumbled out onto the path.

  In the moonlight he saw three shades of red: rusty hair, bright silk dress and crimson blood spreading across the snow.

  “Clarissa!”

  His cry rang around the maze as he rushed to her. Her breaths came out in slow, frozen clouds. Her hair was wet and sticky with blood.

  “He hit me …” she groaned “… from behind.”

  Wild Boy tugged off his coat and slid it under her head. He didn’t bother telling her he’d get help; Clarissa was the toughest person he knew. And now there was only one set of footprints to follow.

  He looked at her and saw it in her eyes. Get him.

  And then he was running again, the wind rushing at the hair on his chest. His eyes scanned the ground, fixed on the killer’s trail. He turned, turned again, and came out in a clearing in the centre of the maze.

  A thin mist filled the heart of the labyrinth, but it was lighter here, where the moon shed its rays. Ice glinted on a small pagoda in the middle of the clearing. A crow sat beneath its onion dome, watching Wild Boy, not moving.

  The snow was thicker here too. The killer’s tracks were knee-deep sinkholes leading towards the pagoda. But halfway, they stopped.

  Wild Boy turned, confused. The maze’s walls were too far for the killer to have jumped. So how could the prints just stop?

  He crouched, examining them. They were different from others he’d followed. Those had sloped forwards, shaped by the killer’s movement. But these marks leaned backwards too. That made no sense, unless the killer had stopped and retraced his steps.

  At that moment Wild Boy knew two things: that he had walked into a trap and that the killer stood right behind him.

  He tried to move but something crashed against the back of his skull and he stumbled to his knees. A crimson cloud drifted over his shoulder. A mist of his own blood, freezing, floating.

  A boot kicked Wild Boy forward. It pressed on his head, forcing his face deeper into the snow. He couldn’t breathe.

  A hand gripped his hair and yanked him up. Gasping a lungful of air, Wild Boy reached for the edge of the pagoda, hoping to pull himself away. The boot kicked his arm so hard that the force flipped him over. Agony roared up his shoulder and out of his mouth.

  Still the crow did not move.

  A long shadow fell over Wild Boy. He tried to see who was there, but his vision was blurred by pain and wet hair.

  The killer’s voice was muffled, as if he was covering his mouth. “You disappoint me, Wild Boy. I thought you were a brilliant mind.”

  Disappointed him? Well at least that was something…

  No – don’t give in. He’d never given in, no matter how bad the beatings got. He wasn’t about to start now. He couldn’t fight, but maybe he could keep the killer talking long enough for Gideon or Dr Carew to get here.

  “Who are you?” he groaned.

  “You know that.”

  “Know who you think you are. Some ugly demon.”

  “The demon. Malphas, the Prince of Hell. Destroyer of Cities. But no, that is not me. I am merely his Servant.”

  “Don’t … don’t believe in demons.”

  The killer laughed, a sound like an Alsatian barking. “Ask Marcus. Now he has seen the power of Malphas. Imagine the horrors that torment his mind. Surely he has witnessed more evil than a hundred men. Caused more evil, in the name of his Gentlemen.” The killer spat the word like it was poison. “For that he deserved to die.”

  “He ain’t dead.”

  “Not yet, perhaps. But it is only a matter of time until his heart fails and the terror claims his life too.”

  With a boot, the killer rolled Wild Boy onto his front. “And you? What will you see when you taste my terror, freak? Tell me, what miseries has someone like you experienced?”

  Talk to him. Get him close to see his face.

  “Can’t hear you… ”

  “Then I suggest you listen harder, for this is the important part. You know what I seek?”

  “Black diamonds. Why?”

  “You will know soon enough. For now, your only concern is the next black diamond. It is in a place to which I am unable to gain access. A dangerous place. With your combined skills, however, you and Miss Everett stand a greater chance of success. You shall acquire it for me.”

  “I’ll get it. I’ll shove it up your—”

  “I am running out of patience.”

  Yeah, and out of time. Wild Boy heard a shout, someone coming. He had to keep the killer talking. He was about to speak, but then something made him shut up.

  “I have a cure that could save
Marcus,” the killer said. “Do you believe me?”

  Wild Boy did, instantly. It wasn’t just the tone of the killer’s voice – cold and deadly serious. He simply understood what the killer knew he would. This man had been in the dining room after Clarissa left. But the poison, whatever it was, hadn’t affected him.

  He had a cure.

  “Give it to me and I won’t come after you,” Wild Boy said. “I swear, no one will. I’ll send the Gentlemen in the wrong direction with every clue. I ain’t one of them, and I ain’t no copper neither. You give me a cure for Marcus and you and I got no quarrel.”

  Another barked laugh. “Your guardian would be disappointed to hear you say that.”

  He was right, but Wild Boy didn’t care. He looked out for his friends, no matter what. He was about to say so, but the killer spoke again.

  “If you bring me the next black diamond, I will give you the cure.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “But you will try anyway. It is the only hope, and not just for Marcus. Without him you have nothing. How long would a freak like you last on the streets? How long would Clarissa remain by your side? Finding that diamond is your only hope.”

  How did this man know so much about him? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was right. “Where?” Wild Boy asked. “Where is it, the diamond?”

  The killer leaned closer, blocking the moonlight. With one hand he pressed Wild Boy harder into the ground. With the other he wrote in the snow. He lifted Wild Boy a few inches to see the word.

  Wild Boy burned it into his mind. It meant nothing to him, and yet it meant everything. “I’ll do it,” he gasped. “I’ll get the next black diamond.”

  The killer released him, and Wild Boy slumped back to the ground.

  “Then we will speak again,” he said.

  13

  Wild Boy opened his eyes.

  He lay on a damp mattress, looking up at a ceiling that seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Much of it had collapsed. Chunks of plaster had fallen to reveal bug-eaten timbers and broken tiles. Snow had melted through from the roof, and needle-thin icicles dangled over Wild Boy’s head.

  The room reeked of gin and damp and rotting wood. Wind rushed through a broken window, rattling the last shards of glass that clung stubbornly to the frame. Thin walls shook from a commotion next door. Wild Boy heard cheering and stamping, and the slap of a fist against a face. It sounded like a boxing match.

  “Where am I?” he groaned.

  His coat was wet from the snow in Lady Bentick’s maze, and the back of his head throbbed where the killer had struck. Another pain there was sharper and more vicious, like a bird pecking the wound. Something tugged at his skull, causing his head to twitch.

  He tried to rise, but a hand held him down. Its skin was pasty and wrinkled. Its nails were encrusted with blood.

  “Don’t move,” Gideon grunted.

  Wild Boy saw him now in a mirror on a wall. He saw, too, what tugged at his head: a needle and thread.

  Gideon made a final stitch above Wild Boy’s ear, sealing the wound. Leaning closer, he bit the end of the thread. There was at least a bottle of gin in his breath.

  “That should hold it,” he said.

  He gave the end of the thread an unnecessary tug, causing Wild Boy to gasp with pain, and then sat beside the remains of a fire. He lit a clay pipe from the pulsing embers.

  “Who done it?” he said.

  Wild Boy sat up, an effort that exhausted most of the energy left in his arms. He touched the wound, feeling stitches that were tight and precise. It was an impressive job, even though it felt as a nail had been hammered into his skull.

  “Where’s Clarissa?” he asked.

  “She’s fine. Outside. I said, who done that to Marcus?”

  Gideon’s face screwed up even tighter as he drew on his pipe, as if he was sucking in needles. Wild Boy realized that he must have seen Marcus in that state, too. Black-veined, tormented by his own mind. What had the killer called it?

  The terror.

  “What happened to him?’ he asked.

  “Lucien and his Black Hats showed up,” Gideon said. “They took him away. To a hospital maybe, or an asylum. He was still alive. If you can call that living.”

  “I gotta see Clarissa.”

  Suddenly Gideon bolted up, grabbed Wild Boy and pinned him against the wall. “You think this is all about you, don’t you? You’re Wild Boy! The great detective genius! You think this is all your story and don’t mean nothing to no one else.”

  His eyes were red and blurred. Veins bulged beneath his neck cloth.

  “I’ve served Marcus for sixteen years,” he said. “I owe that man everything. He saved me once. You’ve known him for, what, four months? You think it was hard for you, seeing him like that? So I am asking you again: who done that to him?”

  He pressed Wild Boy harder against the wall. Instinctively Wild Boy lashed out, head butting him and sending him tumbling back beside the fire.

  Sparks crackled up the chimney.

  Gideon clutched his nose, but blood leaked between his fingers. He scrabbled towards Wild Boy, about to attack, but stopped, seeming to realize that fighting wouldn’t help Marcus. Instead, he turned and neatened the cloth around his neck.

  “None of the Gentlemen wanted you,” he said. “They said you were trouble. But Marcus stood up for you. He said you and Clarissa could do amazing things. Said you would be great one day. He protected you, defended you. Saved you over and over, and you had no idea.”

  The pain grew sharper in Wild Boy’s head. “You said he saved you too?”

  “That ain’t none of your business. Your business now is saving him back. So you better be amazing, like he said. Do you find a way to save him.”

  Gideon leaned closer to the fire, breathing in the smoke. “Do you remember what the killer said to you?”

  Wild Boy did, every word. The killer offered a deal, a cure to save Marcus in exchange for the next black diamond. He’d even given him a clue to find the diamond. A single word. Oberstein.

  He suspected Gideon might know what it meant; the man had spent years with Marcus, and Marcus knew everything. But could he really help the killer? Marcus wouldn’t want that, not for anything.

  He watched Gideon place a cooking pot over the fire, only just realizing something about this place. “This is where you live?” he asked.

  Gideon shrugged. “Seemed like the best place to bring you. Not many Gentlemen or coppers come here. We’re in the Rat’s Castle.”

  The Rat’s Castle. It was one of the roughest inns in London, yet just a knife’s throw from Lady Bentick’s house.

  Wild Boy looked around the frigid room. The bed sheets were stiff with dried sweat, and the mound of empty bottles under the bed was so high that it raised the mattress. Surely Marcus had offered Gideon a home in the palace. Why did he choose to live here then, in squalor?

  Gideon’s coat sleeves were rolled up, and Wild Boy spotted a faded Indian ink tattoo on his sinewy arm – crossed swords over a crown. He’d seen the symbol on soldiers that visited the fairground. Had Gideon been in the army? Wild Boy realized how little he knew about the man, even though they’d quarreled almost every day over the past four months.

  A Bible sat on a chair beside the bed. He flicked it open where a crease on the spine suggested it had been read. A passage was circled on the page.

  Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow…

  Gideon snatched the book. “That ain’t none of your business either. You and I are friends as long as you’re saving Marcus. If you ain’t got a plan for that, you can take your chances on the streets. You got that?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Go get Clarissa. You need to eat.”

  Wild Boy swung his legs from the chair, testing their strength. His head whirled as he walked to the door. The walls moved in crazy circles.

  He turned back. “You ever heard of some p
lace called Oberstein?” he asked.

  Gideon looked up from the cooking pot. His face changed from rage to something like fear. “Why you asking that?”

  “You know it or not?”

  “Yeah I know it,” he said. “But it ain’t a place, it’s a person. Oberstein’s a jeweller, got a shop on Bond Street.”

  A jeweller? Well, that answered something at least. Wild Boy went outside to find his friend.

  14

  Wild Boy stepped outside, squinting in the midday sun. He was on a wooden balcony that overlooked the courtyard of the coaching inn, a rickety rat trap of shedlike rooms and greasy doorways. Everything glistened with ice and grime.

  Noise came from all around him, beery singing from a tavern below and grunts and cheers from the boxing match next door. The courtyard’s square of snow was speckled with colour. There were yellow holes where punters had relieved themselves, steaming brown dung, and flecks of red from fights. Wild Boy didn’t need his detective skills to tell that a snow-covered lump in the corner was a man, short and squat and buried by the snow where he had died.

  A flurry of snow sprinkled from the tavern roof. Despite everything, Wild Boy smiled. He’d known where Clarissa was the moment he stepped outside.

  Always up high.

  Still shaky on his legs, he walked to where a barrel was collecting rainwater from a broken drainpipe. The barrel was full, the water frozen solid. He climbed on top of it and gripped the pipe, but his head whirled and his feet slipped on the ice. Just as he was about to fall, a hand shot out from above and grasped his wrist.

  Clarissa hauled him onto the roof and wrapped him in a tight hug. Then she released him and shoved him in the chest. “It’s your fault!” she said. “You should’ve seen the clues. You should have saved Marcus.”

  Wild Boy crouched, pressed a palm to the tiles to steady his balance.

  Clarissa towered over him. Her dress was torn, and its sequined sleeve snapped in the wind. A bandage around her head was spotted with blood. A trickle had escaped from beneath; a red tear sliding down her face.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. “We don’t have another plan, Wild Boy. Now the Gentlemen are after us and Marcus is gone. We only ever had him.”