“So,” Carter began, Grey Wing observing him with one unblinking eye, “we failed in our last attempt to seize power.” Grey Wing did not respond or appear to care. “Outwitted by a boy.”
“The Kingdom child,” Grey Wing said, pausing to spit out a lump of gristle. “He would make good eating.”
“No!” Carter slammed his claw down on the table to emphasize his point. “Ben Kingdom could still be useful to us.” As much as Ben had inconvenienced him, there was something about the lad which meant that Carter could never hate him. Ben Kingdom was an overcomer; he had a spirit that enabled him to rise above his circumstances, to keep fighting regardless of the odds. Carter felt a certain kinship with that.
“Ben Kingdom has…talents,” Carter continued. “That much should be obvious even to you. Don’t you remember how he defeated your Feathered Men at Tower Bridge? Surely you cannot forget how he used the Hand of Heaven and called down hailstones to drive you from the sky!”
Grey Wing remained silent, but paused to inspect a ragged hole in his wing, a souvenir of his last meeting with Ben Kingdom.
“I intend to harness that power for the Legion,” Carter continued. “Just imagine what he could achieve as the Hand of Hell!”
“I thought that you had already tried that…and failed.”
It was a stinging remark but Carter let it pass. He hadn’t realized what Ben meant to him before; he had seen the boy merely as a means to an end. Carter felt differently now…
“You and I both know that it is never too late for someone to walk the Legion path,” said Carter. “We have a defrocked bishop in our number, as well as the burglars and thieves. Ben will come round to our way of thinking, just you wait and see.”
Grey Wing cocked his head and fixed Carter in his gaze.
“But time is running out for you, isn’t it, human? That is why you have come crawling to me again.”
Carter couldn’t deny it. After years of inaction, Mr. Sweet had suddenly made his move. “I underestimated Sweet, I have to confess. I don’t think any of us expected him to remove the other members of the Council so…decisively.”
“Really?” Grey Wing scoffed. “You imagine that you are the only man in the Legion to have dreams of power? There’s hardly a soul in the Under who doesn’t conspire against someone!”
“Sweet and I are not the same,” Carter said emphatically.
Grey Wing busied himself with a bone.
“Sweet wants the Crown of Corruption so that he can make himself a king. He wants to take one monarch and merely replace them with another… He thinks small. My plan is somewhat…different. It is a plan that I am certain you will be able to align yourself with, you and all your feathered brothers.”
Grey Wing did not look up from his feasting.
“I want nothing less than Hell on earth.”
Grey Wing stopped mid chew. “Tell me more.”
“Mr. Sweet will use the Legion and the Feathered Men to establish an empire for himself. But I want chaos. I want ruin.” Carter showed his passion in every word. “I want destruction.”
“I like it!” said Grey Wing, his cold eyes suddenly ablaze. “The best way to wound the Uncreated One would be to lay His creation to waste!”
“I knew you would appreciate the simplicity of my goal.”
“But why would you choose such a path?”
“My reasons are my own,” said Carter. “Suffice it to say that I have a score to settle.”
“The thirst for revenge,” said Grey Wing with approval, “one of the few emotions that I’m still able to feel.” Tossing aside the remains of his meal, the ancient Feathered Man gave Carter his full attention. “So,” he said, “you plan to remove Mr. Sweet?”
“Permanently.”
“I have just one demand then, if you want my support,” said Grey Wing. “After you kill Sweet, can I eat him?”
“Which would you prefer,” asked Claw Carter. “Leg or breast?”
The Nightmare Child skipped on. This fog was such fun.
He had spent five delicious minutes playing peek-a-boo with an old man in his nightshirt. While the man was washing his face, the Nightmare Child had stood behind him, making sure that the man caught a fleeting glimpse of him in the mirror each time he rubbed his bleary eyes. The old man thought he was going insane.
The old man was right.
After that he sat in a nursery and helped the china dolls to walk on their own. They went looking for the nanny and she squealed when they found her.
Then he fancied a change of scenery and set out to find the lowest drinking house imaginable. The Blue Dog was full of the most desperate drinkers. All he had to do was whisper in one man’s ear, then sit back in the corner to watch the fun. The fight that ensued left no one standing and reduced the furniture to matchwood.
The Nightmare Child clapped his tiny hands together.
“More!” he said. “I want more.”
“Any sign of Nathaniel?” The words came tripping over Ben’s lips in their haste to be spoken.
Jonas Kingdom shook his head sadly. “No one’s heard from him, none of the scouting parties have seen him.”
Ben stood by his father’s side on the roof of Peek, Frean & Co’s, the biscuit manufacturers. The warmth of the factory beneath their feet and the sweet aroma of baking surrounded them, binding them together in a brief moment of calm. It had been a long hard day and it showed no sign of letting up. Jonas looked besieged, as if he was aching inside and out.
Ben had followed in the footsteps of Lucy and Mr. Moon from morning till evening, feeling like a failure. True, they had rescued nearly a dozen people and helped a dozen more. True, they had even caught a few Legionnaires and sent them packing. But Ben found it hard to move beyond that moment when his special power – the Hand that the Watchers were all counting on him to use – had failed to work again. And everywhere they went it was the same story – no sign of Nathaniel.
When they had wearily climbed back onto the rooftops to grab something to eat, Ben’s heart had leaped to see that his father was there before him. And then fallen just as quickly when he saw that Nathaniel wasn’t with him.
“We’ll find him, Pa,” Ben promised now.
Jonas ruffled Ben’s hair and drew his son close. “You’re all I’ve got,” he said. “You and your brother.” Then he dug into his bag and pulled out a hunk of bread and a slab of cheese.
They lapsed into silence again as they ate. The landscape below them was bizarre, the streets and low roofs entirely submerged in swirling limbs of fog. Ben ran his hand through his red-gold hair and longed for his old billycock hat.
“He’ll be alright,” he said, as much to reassure himself as his pa. “Nathaniel can handle himself.”
“I know, but I won’t get any rest until I see him again,” said Jonas.
The fog had continued to suffocate the city all day. Londoners, being Londoners, had been doing their best to keep life going as normal, but it was getting harder by the hour. It was more than just the blindness and the disorientation, more than the thieves and the looters who had chosen to make the most of this dark opportunity. Fear was rising too; Ben could almost smell it over the stink of the Thames. Creeping up through the floorboards of every house, oozing through the alleyways, seeping into the foundations of the great city…
A stone rattled somewhere on the roof behind them and Ben spun, his hand reaching for his quarterstaff. In the dim evening light, he could make out a silhouette, standing silently. “Who’s there?” Ben challenged.
The figure moved closer, and Ben left his weapon on his belt.
Lucy smiled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I thought I was alone up here.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jonas. “Any news of my boy?”
It was Lucy’s turn to shake her head.
“What’re you up to then?” asked Ben. “It’s not like you to be skiving off.” It sounded like more of a challenge than Ben had meant it to.
“To spy on the Legion?”
Lucy shook her head. “To smell the biscuits.”
“I could murder a garibaldi,” said Ben. He felt bad about being rude to Lucy. He wished he hadn’t taken his frustration out on her and he gave her a smile by way of an apology. “Friends?” he said.
Lucy nodded and gave him a smile of her own.
A scream rose up from the streets and their smiles vanished.
“We have to find Nathaniel before night falls,” said Ben.
“So you think that Nathaniel might have come here?” Ben asked his father.
“I’m not sure, Ben,” Jonas replied, “but he was scavenging for rope and this is a good place to get it, so…”
“So we’ve nothing to lose by looking,” said Lucy, as she pulled out the tight bundle of her escape ladder and got busy securing it.
Ben knew the maritime chandlery down by the docks – everyone did. If he’d been sent out to find some rope, he certainly would have thought of here. Hopefully Nathaniel had too.
Lucy double-checked her knots and then let the ladder clatter to the ground, where it was lost in the fog.
“After you, m’lady,” said Ben with a bow.
“Oh no, after you.” Lucy played along.
“For goodness’ sake, pack it in, you two,” said Jonas Kingdom, swinging his big frame over the edge of the chandlery roof and onto the ladder. “There’s work to be done.”
“You always get me into trouble, Ben Kingdom,” said Lucy quietly as she followed Ben down the rungs.
“An’ that’s why you like me,” said Ben. “You good girls always go for the bad lads.”
“You wish.”
The lightness of Ben’s words did nothing to disguise the knot of worry in his gut. And when they reached the cobblestones, they both fell silent.
Ben felt overwhelmed. Once more, he was only a few feet away from people shouting, weeping, fighting, and yet he couldn’t see any of them. He had already spent countless hours searching for Nathaniel in this cursed fog. How was he ever going to find him?
The day was failing fast and the opal glow of the gas lamps only added to the confusion, creating globes of flickering light which merely deepened the shadows all around. At his side, Lucy took on a ghostly form as the fog came between them. Simultaneously they reached for each other’s hand.
One voice rose above the others in the chaos. Somewhere a small child, no more than two years old, Ben guessed, was crying for her mother, a terrible forlorn wailing. They were here for Nathaniel, Ben knew, but they were still Watchers.
“Stay still,” Jonas shouted to the petrified child. “Let me come to you,” and he set off in the direction of the cries.
“Wait,” said Ben, holding him back. He took a coil of thin rope from his pack. “Tie this to your belt, Pa. You too, Lucy. If we get separated in this we’ll never find each other again.”
Jonas quickly secured the line before disappearing into the fog, Lucy releasing the rope hand over hand behind him. Then they heard the child’s cries again, but this time it seemed to Ben that they were coming from the opposite direction. The fog was playing cruel tricks, he realized. There was only one thing for it.
“Stay here,” he told Lucy. “We stand a better chance of finding that poor kid if I check the other way, but I need you to keep guard at the foot of the ladder. It’s our only way out of here.” The mist swirled between them, as if to emphasize his point. He took out another coil of rope, tied one end to his belt and passed the other end to Lucy, before he plunged into the sea of chaos.
“Hold on,” Ben called to the lost child. “I’m coming to help you!”
He pushed forwards, and this time he had no doubt – the fog was working against him. Snake-like tentacles entwined themselves around his arms and legs, making Ben fight for every step. Then, just as suddenly, the grip was released and Ben stumbled forwards.
Behind him he heard Lucy calling him, desperation in her voice.
“Ben!” she shouted. “The line has gone slack. Where are you?”
Ben looked at his waist and saw that the rope was gone. The spectral fingers of the fog must have loosened the knots.
At that moment, a sailor, who had decided to solve the problem of being lost by drinking himself stupid, staggered into Ben, spinning him round by the shoulder. The sailor belched an apology of sorts but left Ben dizzy and disorientated. And lost.
“Pa!” he shouted. “Lucy!”
Two voices replied “Ben!” but Ben didn’t have time to regain his bearings. From somewhere far too close, he heard a horse whinny in distress and the frantic voice of its master trying to calm it. The sound of hoofs drumming on the cobbles echoed through the fog, followed by a terrible crash as a carriage overturned creating huge billows and swirls in the mist around Ben. The fog cleared just enough for Ben to make out passengers and the fallen animal as they cried out in pain. For a fleeting instant Ben thought he saw a face from his past, a face with chestnut hair and emerald eyes looking straight at him. Ben blinked, and it was gone. Another ghost in the fog.
Then came the laughter. Not the sweet melody of Lucy Lambert, but a cruel and ugly sound which chilled Ben to his core.
Ben thought he saw a figure flash past him.
“Lucy?” Ben called out. “Nathaniel, is that you?”
The figure passed closer. Not Lucy or Nathaniel, Ben realized, but a peculiar child with curly blond hair. And yet it couldn’t be the same little kid who’d been lost and wailing, could it? Ben’s blood ran cold as he caught a glimpse of the tiny figure, skipping through the mist. “Are you playing hide-and-seek?” the strange child trilled.
“Who are you?” Ben challenged, his voice almost cracking with fear.
“You’ll have to keep seeking if you want to find your brother, Ben Kingdom,” the child taunted. “I haven’t finished playing with Nathaniel yet.”
Ben’s heart turned to ice.
The child laughed again and Ben spun round, desperate to catch up with him, in spite of the dread that was squirming in his mind like worms in old cheese.
The laughter came from everywhere and nowhere as Ben blundered through the fog in pursuit. He knew that he was moving further away from Lucy and his pa, but here was a chance to find Nathaniel. He might not get another.
Twice Ben collided with other bodies, as disorientated and distressed as he was. Twice he picked himself up and stumbled on. It was only one thought that gave him the strength to carry on: Follow the creature, rescue Nathaniel.
Nathaniel in chains. In the dark… Alone… Except for the rats… And that evil child…who certainly wasn’t flesh and blood… What might such a creature be capable of? And what had it done with his brother?
It was such an all-consuming thought that Ben didn’t realize that while he was following the fiendish child someone else was stalking him. He didn’t see the hand that snatched the Watcher satchel from his shoulder. And he didn’t see the club rise and fall, or hear the footsteps running away.
But he felt the blow, and watched in confusion as his world turned from white to black as he fell unconscious and the floor rushed up to welcome him.
The Prime Minister, Lord Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, was pacing anxiously in his private rooms at the Savoy Hotel. He could still hear the baying voices that had been raised at him in the Houses of Parliament that day, the jeering boos and ballyhoos. Disorder was spilling through the London streets and the police were losing control. Everyone expected him to resolve the situation, but, in truth, he had no idea how to restore calm or stem the rising violence. Only one man seemed to have a plan for this dark time, and the Prime Minister was waiting for him now.
The knock came an hour later than they had agreed, but even so the Prime Minister was relieved to hear it, rushing to answer the door himself. “Thank you for
seeing me at this late hour,” he said, ushering in his special advisor.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Mr. Sweet replied.
“Please allow Jackson to take your coat and hat,” said Lord Cecil. “Will you join me in having a brandy, to fight this inclement weather?”
The stony-faced butler silently took Sweet’s fur-collared greatcoat and silk top hat. A maid appeared with a glass of golden liquid on a silver tray. Sweet swirled the brandy in the glass and inhaled deeply.
Cecil led him through to an oak-panelled study. A fire burned brightly in the grate. A black slate clock sombrely ticked off the minutes. Mr. Sweet made himself comfortable in a wing-backed leather chair. He drank deeply and then waved his glass for more.
The Prime Minister took up the chair opposite, suddenly feeling like he was the visitor. The maid refilled Sweet’s glass.
“Leave the decanter,” said Sweet.
The maid looked to the Prime Minister for permission, her eyes as wide as a frightened deer’s. Lord Cecil nodded.
“So, Mr. Sweet,” Cecil began.
“So?”
“Please tell me this plan of yours. The police force is in tatters, looting is rife, there’s even talk of some sort of plague of lunacy…a brain fever that is leaving men insensible. To be honest, I’m at a complete loss.”
“I know you are,” Sweet replied, settling back with his brandy.
The Prime Minister waited.
Mr. Sweet smiled.
“Now, look here,” Lord Cecil began. “I am grateful for your help, but I am not in the habit of being toyed with, I—”
The Feast of Ravens Page 5