The City of Fear

by Andrew Beasley

  “Pa’s somewhere outside the Wall,” said Nathaniel softly. “Josiah’s dead, Mother Shepherd’s dead, Lucy’s a prisoner, Mr. Moon’s a prisoner, Ghost’s a prisoner and who are we left with? Carter and Valentine, both sworn members of the Legion until recently. Truth is, Ben, I’m frightened. Claw Carter frightens me.”

  “I know,” said Ben. “I’ve been flung into the role of leader and I can tell you I spend half my time feeling scared. But if being a Watcher means anything, I think it means that we have to be brave, to take a chance…a leap of faith. And sometimes the biggest leap is to believe that each of us can be more than anyone else imagines. Look at me, Nathaniel. Six months ago I was nothing, just another mudlark, up to his neck in muck and trouble, with no future to look forward to except working too hard and probably dying young. And now I’m the Hand of Heaven, so they say.”

  Nathaniel listened.

  “The Watchers didn’t see a street rat when they looked at me,” said Ben, “they saw something more. That’s what the Watchers do, Nathaniel – they look for the best in people’s hearts…and they find it.”

  “Well, it was buried pretty bloomin’ deep in Carter,” said Nathaniel.

  “You’re not wrong,” Ben laughed.

  “DON’T MOVE, MOLLY!”

  Jonas Kingdom hadn’t meant to shout but Molly had to understand the danger she was in.

  He approached the girl carefully, picking a path towards her through the rubble. His eyes flicked between the girl and the ground before his feet. They had all seen the explosions when escapees had blundered onto a landmine in Mr. Sweet’s death zone. One wrong foot…

  Molly was quaking now. She looked so vulnerable to Jonas; a frightened little waif, standing on a bomb in the rain. She had the blasted dog cradled in her arms, but Jonas was grateful for it – the three-legged mutt gave the girl some comfort, breathing against her face in short, hot bursts and licking her affectionately.

  Jonas reached Molly’s side. “You’re going to be alright,” he said. “I promise you that, but you have to promise me something too.”

  Molly nodded, her eyes wide with fear.

  “You have to promise to stand as still as a statue.”

  Molly nodded again.

  “Good girl,” said Jonas and he crouched down to inspect the situation. In truth Jonas had never seen a land mine before and he had no idea how to disarm one, although he did have a rough knowledge of how the monstrous things worked. You stood on one and that set the primer, took your foot off again and BOOM.

  “You there!” A voice called out to them from behind the army barricades. “Get in, man, you’re making yourselves open targets!”

  Jonas turned and saw a British officer beckoning to them urgently.

  “We can’t, sir,” Jonas explained, gesturing to Molly’s predicament with a sideways tip of his head.

  “Oh, I see,” said the officer calmly. “Stay where you are, the pair of you, I’m coming over.”

  The soldier walked briskly over and joined Jonas in an examination of the landmine. “Beastly things,” he muttered. “A coward’s weapon.”

  The soldier kneeled and drew a screwdriver from his pocket, keeping up a running commentary of his actions. “I’ve dealt with a few of the blighters before,” he said, smoothing his hand over the metal surface of the device until he found a raised panel fixed with four screws. He set to work quickly and efficiently, removing the plate so that he could get to the deadly workings inside. “These are an especially nasty sort. Sweet’s thugs have added a clockwork timer…” The man squinted into the dim interior and fished in his pocket for a pair of wire-cutters. “The trick is…” he said, gingerly reaching inside, “to remember the right order when cutting the wires…”

  Jonas was frozen to the spot. He had been in some tight corners himself but he had to admire this man’s steely calm. Probably only a few years older than Jonas, the officer looked like a military man from a long line of military men; clear eyes, strong mouth, neatly brushed moustache. The British Empire had been built on men like him.

  “Red before yellow kills a fellow,” said the soldier with conviction. “So, yellow it is.” With that, the soldier confidently cut the first wire in two, although Jonas noticed a flicker of relief cross his face when they weren’t all blown to kingdom come. Satisfied that they were in the clear, the soldier even gave a little whistle as he cut the red wire.

  In a gentlemanly fashion, the officer rose to his feet and extended his hand for Molly to take. “This way, if you please,” he said, like a prince from a fairy tale.

  “This is Clover,” said Molly, holding up the toad-faced bulldog and waving him in front of the soldier. “He wants to be your friend.”

  “And what’s your name, young lady?” asked the officer.

  “I’m Molly,” she said, beaming.

  Regardless of the downpour, the soldier unbuttoned his greatcoat and swept it round Molly’s shoulders. She almost disappeared from sight within its folds.

  “Right,” he said briskly, “let’s get out of this rain.” He indicated a green canvas tent a little way back from the front line of ruined houses. “Temporary HQ. Not much to look at but there’s a paraffin stove inside and I can promise you both a mug of tea.”

  “Will there be biscuits?” asked Molly.

  “For you, young lady, there just might be,” said the soldier with a smile.

  Gratefully they walked over and stepped inside, welcomed by a wave of warm air. Molly put Clover down and ran straight for the stove, extending her hands towards it.

  The officer put his own hand out for Jonas to shake. “I saw you piloting that airship. Very brave thing that, saved a lot of people.”

  “There’s thousands more on the other side of that Wall,” said Jonas. “They all need saving.”

  “We know,” the soldier sighed. “Sweet’s got us trussed up like turkeys at Christmas, damn his eyes. We daren’t risk Her Majesty’s life. But give me half a chance…” He slammed his fist into his palm and rubbed his knuckles. “At least the Prime Minister made it out, although he’s a shadow of his former self. Seems that he was the victim of some sort of terrible mental torture.”

  The soldier looked weary. “Sorry,” he said, “where are my manners? I’m Carnehan,” he said smartly. “Brigadier Daniel Carnehan, commanding officer 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards.”

  “Jonas Kingdom, at your service.”

  Carnehan’s face lit up. “Not related to Ben Kingdom, by any chance?”

  “My boy,” said Jonas.

  “Very pleased to meet you, sir,” said Carnehan. “All we ever hear from the escapees are extravagant tales about this Ben Kingdom and the ‘Watchers’. You appear to have a very remarkable son.”

  Jonas nodded. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “And is our plucky young lady your girl?”

  “I’m more of her guardian, actually,” Jonas explained. “I knew her father…it’s a sad story.”

  “Aren’t they all?” said the brigadier thoughtfully. “A child should have a family. My wife and I always wanted children but…” Carnehan’s eyes became distant for a moment before he returned to the matter in hand. He pulled two chairs closer to the stove.

  “I have to ask you,” said Carnehan, beckoning Jonas to sit. “Is everything set for Revolution Day?”

  For the next half an hour, the Kingdom brothers followed Valentine and Claw Carter deeper into the Under. It was very different to the first time that Ben had descended into the Legion’s secret world beneath the London streets. When the Legion had been in hiding, the Under had been a bustling community; albeit a community of scoundrels, lowlifes and rogues. Now, walking behind Carter, Ben had the feeling that he was actually on one of the professor’s archaeological expeditions, visiting the decaying remnants of a lost society.

  The Legion had no more need to skulk in the shadows. When Sweet swept into power, there was a mass exodus from the Under, as its denizens snatched whatever p
roperty on the surface took their fancy. Well-to-do families in Mayfair found themselves slung out to live in the gutter, like the beggars they used to despise. Rumour had it that the Savoy had become home to the most notorious murderers.

  The abandoned Under was a ghostly place, Ben thought, full of shadows and dark memories. Cups still sat on tables, half-eaten food rotted on plates, chairs were overturned where their occupiers had stood in a hurry and never returned. And yet Ben had the eerie sensation that they were not alone.

  They only had their lamps to guide them and Ben couldn’t shake the feeling that when their feeble light passed by, the shadows were moving behind them. More than once they all stopped, listening for footsteps that were not their own. They weren’t helped by the drip-drip-drip of falling water, echoing through the tunnels. There was almost as much rain down here as there was up top, thought Ben. It was leaking through the brickwork, finding every weakness in the mortar. In some places it was running freely down the walls, so that they were walking through icy puddles. Ben was glad that they didn’t have to venture into the lower levels; all this water had to be going somewhere.

  The other noise that surrounded them was the shrill squeaking of the rats. Thousands of them, Ben reckoned, all happily making the Under into their own kingdom. Everywhere Ben’s eyes fell, he spotted their bloated bodies and naked pink tails. Scrabbling up bedsheets. Scurrying across tables. Scampering over furniture. Chewing everything, defecating everywhere; their huge black eyes always searching for more.

  In one of the deserted dormitories Ben saw a mattress which appeared to be undulating. It took a moment for him to realize that it was one solid mass of rodents. He pulled the door shut and walked swiftly by.

  “This is it,” Valentine declared, swinging his lantern up towards the ceiling. “We’re directly beneath St. James’s Park.”

  Ben was glad of Valentine’s remarkable knowledge of the labyrinthine Under. And he liked the irony that the boy’s distant ancestor, Sir Alasdair Valentine, was the original architect of the Legion’s home back in the days of Henry VIII and now the Watchers were using that knowledge against them. Yes, despite Valentine’s background, Ben trusted him. When Ben had met him, the boy had been at death’s door, riddled with consumption, before the power of the Hand had restored him to health. The first thing Valentine did with his new strength was get as far away from the Legion as he could; that was good enough for Ben.

  Carter tapped on the ceiling with the tip of his quarterstaff.

  “Your friends are about fifteen feet that way,” he said.

  Your friends, Ben noted. Not ours.

  “We need to start gathering as much wood as we can find. We’ll have to shore up the sides of the tunnel as we dig,” said Carter. “I suggest we split up, we’ll cover more ground that way. Nathaniel, Valentine, you’re on wood duty. Straight flat lengths are what we’re after. Ben, I want you to come with me.”

  “Why?” said Ben, feeling the control of this rescue mission slipping from his hands.

  “Two reasons, actually. Firstly, because I need you to help me collect some excavating equipment. There’s a tool locker on this level. We can hardly dig with our bare hands, can we? And secondly” – he grinned that grin again – “I don’t think some of the other members of your little gang want to be left alone with me.” This with a pointed look at Nathaniel. “I don’t blame them,” said Carter, sounding very reasonable about it. “If the positions were reversed, I wouldn’t trust me either.”

  Ben fell into step beside Carter and they set off together, his brother and Valentine heading in the opposite direction.

  “Work on the tunnels never really stopped,” Carter explained. “If I’m right, and I normally am, we should find a store with some picks, shovels and other basic equipment just round this corner.”

  Carter brought them to a wooden door and promptly chopped the lock out with his claw. “Open sesame,” he said.

  As Ben stepped inside, the crunch of a footstep behind them alerted him to another presence skulking in the darkness. Then, before he could react, Carter shoved Ben forward savagely. Ben staggered blindly into the dark confines of the tool store, falling to his knees as he tripped. He was back on his feet in an instant, but it was too late.

  Carter slammed the door shut, holding it closed with his full body weight.

  Ben hammered on the wood. “Let me out!”

  There was no reply.

  Desperately, Ben pounded on the wood again.

  “Professor!”

  The only answer was silence.

  All of Nathaniel’s warnings about Carter screamed in Ben’s mind.

  How can I have been so wrong?

  Munro looked down at the dagger in his hand. He had never been on any of the skirmishes with the other Legionnaires. They said that his lame leg held them back, that his crooked back made him a liability. They were wrong. Just as so many people were wrong about Munro all the time; judging him only by what they saw on the outside.

  None of them really knew him. Knew what he was capable of.

  Munro played with the knife, testing its tip with the fat of his thumb. It came away bloody. Munro smiled grimly.

  He was waiting for someone.

  Munro had joined the Legion because no one else would have him. His father had been a loveless man who looked on his son and saw an opportunity for profit. That was how Munro had come to spend his early years touring in a freak show, standing on a stage so that other children could point and laugh and stare. And when Munro dared to disobey his father, his father punished him. Sometimes with a stick, sometimes with his belt, but always with anger.

  So Munro ran away. He begged on the streets. He stole to live. Everyone turned their faces away from him. Except the Legion. They could always find a place for one more outcast.

  In the Under, Munro was warm, he had food more often than not, and people to speak to. Mickelwhite, Bedlam, Valentine and Jimmy Dips were the first boys that Munro could call “friends”, although they were often cruel to him too. He cooked for them, cleaned for them, acted as their slave. His reward was to be tolerated.

  Hans Schulman showed him occasional glimpses of kindness, but these soon vanished when the other boys returned to the barracks. And there was a time when Munro had thought that Ruby Johnson was his true friend. But then she had run away hand in hand with Ben Kingdom without even pausing to say goodbye.

  Munro had love in his heart; he could feel it there. But there was no one for him to pour out his love upon, and no one who loved him in return. Only Buster had helped to ease the loneliness. Dear old Buster. How Munro missed the feel of the dog’s rasping tongue on his face, and the warmth of his body beside him as he slept. Munro had been prepared to serve Mr. Sweet, to give him lifelong devotion. But that changed that night on the Wall when Sweet had taken Buster from him.

  That was why Munro was hiding behind the curtain in Sweet’s private chamber in the Tower of London. That was why he had brought the knife.

  It had been easy to get into Sweet’s chambers. He was Munro the crookback. Munro the laughing stock. Munro the whipping boy. He’d told the guards that Mr. Sweet had appointed him to be his jester and not one of them had paused to consider that it might be a lie. No doubt they all thought it would be amusing to see the funny-shaped boy hopping around in a clown’s multicoloured motley, hitting himself with an inflated bladder on a stick.

  He’d show them.

  The door opened and Sweet marched in. He was wearing a red cloak today, with a huge collar of white feathers which matched the ivory of his raven-skull helmet. Sweet closed the door and then slumped against it. He seemed very tired, Munro thought as he studied him through a gap in the curtains, keeping his own breathing as quiet and shallow as he could.

  Sweet slipped out of his magnificent cloak and, with trembling fingers, attempted to hang it on its hook. He failed twice and threw it down on the floor in contempt. Then Sweet lifted the crown from his head reverently and placed
it on a velvet cushion, while he removed his ivory mask. There was a slight sucking sound as the mask came away from the raw red flesh of Sweet’s scalp, and Munro flinched.

  Sweet was appallingly disfigured. The fire at the Feast of Ravens had stolen all of Sweet’s hair and left his flesh puckered and blistered. No wonder he wanted to keep his face hidden. Children had poked fun at Munro, but they would run crying from this man.

  Sweet returned his mask to its home on a plinth. It sat in line with a dozen other masks, all in the shape of carrion birds with sharp beaks. Then Sweet’s hand reached out for the crown and placed it back on his head.

  “I know you’re there,” snarled Sweet.

  Munro started to shake. He looked at the dagger and wondered what he could have been thinking. There was no way that he could hurt anyone deliberately; he had been on the receiving end too often. He wanted to throw the awful weapon away but he didn’t dare move.

  Sweet spun round, as if trying to catch someone by surprise, but he was facing towards the fireplace, not the curtains. Munro was confused.

  “Oh,” said Sweet. “It’s like that, is it? You want to play games?”

  Sweet snatched up a poker from the fireplace and brandished it in front of him.

  “I can see you,” Sweet sang, like a schoolboy in the playground. “One, two, three, ready or not.” Then he lashed out furiously, using the poker to sword fight with invisible enemies. He smashed the candlesticks from the mantelpiece and then swung round again, hacking and slashing until all of his masks were scattered and he was panting for breath.

  “You can’t have it, it’s mine!” Sweet sounded like a petulant child, refusing to share. He dropped the poker with a rattle and then clung to the crown with both hands, backing into a corner and dropping down heavily on his backside.

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone? I can see you in the shadows… Stop laughing… Please…”