But as quick as his change of heart was, the cracks were quicker. He could feel the shifting of the stone beneath his feet like breaking ice, the fractured plates sliding underneath him as he tried to adjust his weight. The fault lines raced towards Mother Shepherd, splintering through the platform as the balustrade fell away in chunks.
Mother Shepherd was old. She was slow. And she didn’t stand a chance.
Ben saw her stagger and fall and he put everything into a dive, throwing himself towards her disappearing form. He skidded on his belly as he stretched his hands out towards her, even while the stone continued to fracture and disintegrate around them. By some miracle Ben managed to grab hold of Mother Shepherd’s wrist. She was hardly as heavy as a child and it came as a shock to Ben how fragile she really was.
Ignoring the pain in his own muscles, Ben started to drag her back up. “Hold on,” he said, his teeth clenched with the effort. “I’ll pull you up.”
The old lady hung perilously beneath him. Ben could feel her bones through the thin tissue of her skin. His hands were wet with perspiration and his arms felt as if they might pop from his shoulders at any second.
“Try to reach me with your other hand,” he urged. “I can do this.”
“No,” she replied gently, her expression a picture of serenity.
“Please let me try,” said Ben, a tear tracing a line down his cheek even as his grip continued to slip.
“Let me go, Benjamin,” said Mother Shepherd, no trace of either fear or condemnation in her voice. “There’s no sense in us both dying. I’m ready for my future…and you’re ready for yours.”
“No,” said Ben. “I can’t let you go. I won’t.”
“I love you, Benjamin Kingdom. I know you’ll make me proud.”
And as the tears rushed to Ben’s eyes, the stone beneath them gave another mighty lurch, and Mother Shepherd disappeared into the fog amongst a storm of falling rubble.
Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
Ben said the words over and over, as if by repeating them he could keep Mother Shepherd alive.
He couldn’t take in what his eyes had just witnessed.
His mind could not accept what his left hand had caused.
But he couldn’t deny that he was about to fall too.
Ben considered simply letting go, to rid the Watchers of his menace once and for all. But he dismissed that thought just as quickly; he couldn’t know peace until his brother was free.
Ben quickly whipped his grappling hook from his belt and secured it to what remained of the balustrade, then he clung to the rope with both hands and kicked out with his feet. Part abseiling, part falling, Ben chased Mother Shepherd towards the ground. His hands burning as the rope stripped the skin from his palms, he recklessly dropped through the hungry fog at breakneck speed.
The mist was so thick that Ben had no real way of knowing how far away the ground was. Or what would be waiting for him when he got there.
Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
Jago Moon was never far from Mother Shepherd. Although she had not given him the job officially, he considered himself to be her bodyguard.
Whenever she went away to pray, even when she insisted on solitude, he always followed her in secret, relying on his own stealth to keep him hidden. Some men might curse their blindness, and the fact that they could never look at a pretty girl again, but in a strange way Jago Moon’s lack of sight allowed him to paint a perfect picture of Mother Shepherd. He knew that she was as old as he was. He had touched her skin and felt the soft folds of wrinkles. But in his mind’s eye he saw her as about eighteen, the same age as he saw himself until his joints ached and reminded him of the truth.
He could not see the fog that had stolen London, but he could feel its presence in the cold clamminess that surrounded him, probing his flesh with its searching fingers. His keen ears could hear the fog too, or at least they could recognize how it muffled and dampened the sounds of the street. There was still so much panic. Some people had been wandering for days, hopelessly lost and brimming over with despair. Then there were those Legion yobs, hell-bent on adding to the terror. Let one of them come my way, thought Moon, his hand itching to pull his sword from its hiding place in his cane.
Mother Shepherd was out of harm’s way at least, he consoled himself. Where could be safer for a Watcher than St Paul’s? High up over the city, that was where the Watchers were always best protected. A smile crossed his lips as he thought of Mother Shepherd, as aged as she was, still nimble enough to cross a death slide or climb a rope ladder.
Suddenly a vibration above his head shook Jago Moon from his reveries. It was a rattle at first, like a sudden hail shower on a spring day. But then it was followed by the thunder of something breaking and as the rain of stones became heavier, all of Moon’s senses told him that something had gone terribly wrong. His tongue could taste masonry dust above the soot and salt of the London air, and his ears could hear the whistling of falling objects, striking against the stonework as they raced to the ground. He winced as he heard something heavy hit the cobblestones fifty yards away from where he stood.
It sounded like a side of beef hitting the butcher’s slab.
He ran, desperate to prove wrong what his ears had already told him to be true.
When Jago Moon kneeled beside the body he was grateful that he was a blind man. He knew it was Mother Shepherd – he recognized the smell of Sunlight soap and the rose water she always dabbed on her wrists. He placed his hand on hers and felt the warm stickiness of blood. And the faintest fluttering of a pulse.
“Mother Shepherd,” he began, “I—”
She silenced him with a shaking finger pressed to his lips. “I don’t have much time left in this world,” she murmured. “I need you to make me a promise.”
“Name it.”
“Find Ben, no matter what it takes,” she hissed urgently. “Ben was with me and we…argued. It was my fault, Jago, you must understand, my fault, not Ben’s… I…I failed him. I should have protected him from the Coin… I asked too much of him, too soon…” She broke off then, the effort of speaking taking its toll.
“Does Ben know where the last Judas Coin is?”
“It’s been in his pocket the whole time.”
Jago Moon was staggered. He couldn’t imagine how much strength it must have taken to carry such a burden in secret.
“I tried to make him give me the Coin,” Mother Shepherd explained. “I only wanted to help him but I ended up hurting him instead… Ben must be told that I don’t blame him for what’s happened, it was my fault, all of it… Find him, save him, Jago… Tell Ben that he is forgiven, that I love…”
And then she was gone. The brightest light in all of London, extinguished, dead in the dust of St Paul’s.
The rope was ten feet short of the ground and Ben fell the last drop, the pain shooting up through his ankles. He didn’t care about himself though. He spun around, looking for Mother Shepherd through the murk of the fog.
He saw the form of Jago Moon, hunched over a shape on the pavement.
He heard the old man’s deep sobs.
As he watched, Jago Moon jerked his head up and Ben could feel the intensity of those blind eyes, even through the suffocating mist.
“Ben!” Moon shouted.
Ben ran.
Sweet sat upon the great golden throne in the sanctuary of the Under while the motley ranks of the Legion stood silently before him, waiting on his every word. They were not as well trained as the army, but what they lacked in ability they made up for in enthusiasm.
The sanctuary never failed to impress, Sweet thought. Although they were deep beneath the London clay, the vaulted ceiling rose high above their heads, held aloft by vast stone columns carved with the faces of beasts and men, their muscular arms arcing forward and meeting in the middle. In wrought-iron sconces and niches carved into the walls, a thousand candles
burned with golden light; but there were not enough candles in the world to defeat the inky gloom of the sanctuary. It was a place where darkness was celebrated and shadows ruled. Sweet couldn’t help but wonder how this throne would compare to the one in Buckingham Palace. Not long now, he reminded himself. Not long.
Mr. Sweet rose to his feet and every Legionnaire, every man, woman, boy and girl in their number, slapped their left fist against their breast. In the eaves above, roosting at the tops of the pillars, Feathered Men squawked their approval.
“Today is a glorious day for the Legion!” Mr. Sweet declared, his deep voice echoing into every corner. “Today marks our last day as an army in hiding!”
The crowd cheered.
“We have brought this city to its knees. The Government is ours!” Mine, actually. “We have the Watchers on the run.”
The Legionnaires roared their approval.
“And now we will finish them!”
With that he signalled to a group of bare-chested Legionnaires standing beside an enormous crank, which operated a massive chain ascending into the blackest recess of the roof. The crowd watched in anticipation as the men took their places, bent low and began to heave against the wheel, like oxen grinding corn. It was agonizing at first and progress was slow. But then the cogs began to turn, taking up the slack in the chain, and gradually, notch by notch, a series of shutters began to open along the length of the sanctuary ceiling. With screams and shrieks the Feathered Men fell into a frenzy of excitement, sensing that their freedom was at hand.
“The ancient gates are being opened wide,” said Sweet, his voice rising above the screeching of the winged monsters, the astonished murmurs of the crowd and the groans of the stone panels as they creaked slowly aside to reveal the open mouths of tunnels leading to the surface. “Today we see the birth of a new Legion, a stronger Legion.” The crowd was in raptures as Mr. Sweet spoke. “This day I unleash the Feathered Men and let all of London quake!”
The Feathered Men began a cacophony of singing in their foul language, and like a flock of birds they acted as one, wheeling and turning around the roof of the sanctuary. Mr. Sweet watched the terrible cloud, and felt the downbeat of their wings, so vigorous that the candles began to gutter and die. Then, on some unseen command, the fallen angels flew into the waiting tunnels and swarmed away towards an unsuspecting London.
Mr. Sweet’s ambition soared with them. In two short days it would be the Feast of Ravens, the night when the powers of darkness were at their highest.
Who can stop me now? he wondered as he watched the last of the Feathered Men depart.
Lucy Lambert saw them first. She forced down the sickening fist of panic that rose inside her as she began to count the terrifying forms.
One. Two. Three.
Five.
Ten.
A whole squadron of Feathered Men had emerged from beneath the blanket of fog and was heading straight towards them, the mist eddying with the beating of their wings.
Lucy was standing guard on the roof of St Bart’s and one look at the shivering, wounded bodies stretched out behind her was enough to convince her that there was no way these people were well enough to make an escape over the rooftops. She ran to the warning bell and struck it with a hammer. Its solemn toll rang out, deep and full of danger.
“To arms!” Lucy shouted. “Watchers to arms!”
The Feathered Men were still far away, but they were closing in with every second. Flying in close formation and with one fixed intent: death.
Adrenaline surged through Lucy’s veins as she ran to the defence post that was mounted on the corner of the rooftop in anticipation of an attack like this. She dragged the tarpaulin off, revealing the mounted harpoon gun beneath, its three metal support legs bolted to the roof, its bucket seat waiting for her. Lucy hesitated. She had trained for this, but she knew that there was going to be a world of difference between shooting at targets and trying to hit Feathered Men for real.
Ghost joined her and for a moment his brown eyes fixed on hers.
“I know,” she said, grateful for his silent support. “We can do this.”
Ghost grinned and took up his position on the crank handle while Lucy settled herself into the low-slung gunner’s seat, leaning back and looking down the length of the barrel, getting her eye used to the sight. It was an impressive piece of equipment, fashioned from brass and steel. It was her job to aim and fire when the enemy was squarely in her sights. Ghost had a more physically demanding role, well suited to his impressive muscles. It was his task to turn the crank handle, spinning the weapon to the left or right in accordance with Lucy’s instructions: that way they could aim the gun in any direction and track their enemy across the sky.
Behind them the rooftop was a flurry of movement, the hours of practising emergency drills paying off. The younger Watchers were gathering the refugees together and doing what they could to shelter them beneath heavy layers of canvas and tarp. Lucy spotted Molly Marbank helping an old lady under cover.
Other Watchers were getting ready to take their stand. Jonas Kingdom was a natural leader and she could hear his voice barking out, getting snipers into the best positions, their crossbows aimed on the oncoming foes. No padded heads on the crossbow bolts this time, Lucy noted grimly.
She had always understood that the Watchers were at war with the Legion, but today it became a reality. They had always been countering the Legion’s plans in secret, foiling their schemes, generally spoiling their day. Now that had changed. No more hiding. This was open war.
As Lucy was thinking this, Josiah rushed past her and launched himself into the sky, diving like a hawk with his curved sword drawn and ready. Lucy knew that the sword’s name was Peace. She also knew how much it hurt Josiah when he had to use it. Although they were hateful and had rejected everything that was good, the Feathered Men were still Josiah’s own kind: he would weep as he plunged his sword into their black and corrupted hearts.
“Brace yourself,” hissed Lucy to Ghost as the Feathered Men drew nearer, “here comes the first wave.”
As she watched, three of the creatures peeled off from the main formation and began to swoop down towards them. Lucy tracked the first one down the gleaming line of the harpoon gun.
“Incoming!” Lucy shouted. “Bearing at one o’clock!” In response Ghost furiously cranked the handles so that Lucy could keep the Feathered Man in her sights.
The fallen angel appeared in the cross hairs of the harpoon. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the trigger.
They both watched as the harpoon was released and spun through the air towards the Feathered Man, a thin guide rope snaking out behind it. Lucy found her knuckles going white as she gripped the handle of the massive gun, willing the missile to fly true. She saw the look of horror on the monster’s face as it finally saw the spear that was heading its way.
Then it was her turn to be shocked as the Feathered Man weaved in the air, bending at the waist so that the harpoon missed him by an inch.
Enraged, the Feathered Man now looked back at Lucy through those same cross hairs and began to fly straight for her.
“Reload!” she shouted.
Ghost reached for a new harpoon, but his fingers were slick with sweat and he wasted precious seconds dropping it and picking it up again. Together they ratcheted back the spring-loaded mechanism and slid the fresh bolt down the barrel into the firing position.
By the time Lucy was back in the seat the Feathered Man was almost upon them.
“Three o’clock,” she screamed and Ghost spun the gun round until she was face-to-face with the enemy.
Even at the battle of Tower Bridge, Lucy had never been this close to one of the fallen angels before. Part of her had always struggled to believe that these once beautiful creatures didn’t still retain an ounce of goodness somewhere deep inside. But now that she looked one of the beasts in the eye, and saw in those dark mirrors nothing but hatred, she could pull the trigger with a clean conscienc
e. If she didn’t stop this thing, then it wouldn’t hesitate to tear her to pieces.
The bolt struck the Feathered Man square in the chest, the tip emerging from its back with a spurt of dark blood.
Lucy watched as it fell, spinning to its death, its wings collapsed like broken sails.
“Reload,” she said calmly. “Two more coming in. Twelve o’clock.”
Ben ran until his legs gave out. His muscles burned and he lost all control of his limbs, wobbling like a calf before stumbling face down onto the ground.
When Mother Shepherd fell, Ben felt something snap inside of him. He almost heard it crack, as if it were a physical thing. Did hearts really break like they said so in stories? he wondered. His felt as if his had.
Mother Shepherd loved him; that was the truth. In the time that they had been together, that frail but incredible old woman had shown him the tenderness and mother-love that his heart had always yearned for.
And now he had killed her. He heard the accusation in Moon’s cries as he fled the scene in shame.
His own voice condemned him too. That’s two mothers you’ve sent to the grave.
Ben lay in the gutter. The cobbles were wet and the dampness was soaking into his clothes. He would have stayed there if a pair of feet hadn’t walked into his line of vision. Even then he wouldn’t have moved if it had been any old pair of boots, even Constable Wilde’s, all polished and shiny from kicking Old Gravel Lane boys up the backside. But these weren’t any old boots. They weren’t really even feet.
Ben was staring at the talons of a Feathered Man.
Still shaky, Ben hauled himself upright again. The filthy creature circled him, its beak opening and closing slowly, revealing its thin black tongue. Its huge wings were spread wide, closing him in on two sides. It made an angry hiss and then launched itself at him, slashing at his face with its claws.
“So, you want to cut up rusty, eh?” Ben muttered, as he dodged and unhooked the collapsible quarterstaff from his belt, extending it to its full five-foot length. “That suits me fine, mate,” he said, as he unleashed a furious attack.
The Feast of Ravens Page 10