The City of Fear

by Andrew Beasley

  First he had to get to an entrance to the Under. He hobbled through the rain, but halted when he heard unkind laughter up ahead. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself if he could avoid it. He tucked himself into a doorway and watched as two Legionnaires hammered a poster to the wall. It didn’t take long and they were soon on their way again, carrying a satchel that bulged with more posters to be put up.

  When they were out of sight, Munro shuffled over to take a closer look. Ruby had taught him to read on the long nights they had shared in the barracks.

  What he read now sent shivers down his crooked spine.

  Come and Witness Mr. Sweet’s

  Circus of Death!

  Laugh

  At Nature’s oddities!

  Wonder

  At the savagery of the Beasts!

  Thrill

  At the torture of our Enemies!

  Delight

  In the fights to the death!

  30th April

  Lyceum Theatre

  Doors open at 1 for 1.30 start

  FREE ADMISSION

  Persons of a frail or nervous disposition

  Are advised NOT to attend

  Munro ripped the paper off the wall. Furiously he screwed the poster up and shoved it into his pack where no one else could read it.

  He paused to look at the Legion Mark branded into his left palm, the symbol that said he was the property of Mr. Sweet. The shame that Munro felt burned hotter than the branding iron ever did.

  Ruby had visited seven more churches in search of the Gehenna Key. Seven times she had failed. She felt drained, emotionally and physically. Part of her dreaded finding the key, but she knew that Grey Wing would not allow her to string him along. She was the puppet here.

  Grey Wing would keep her searching all day, and all night too if necessary. Ruby knew that she needed to solve the riddle of the key if she stood a chance of uncovering its resting place. And so, with some resentment, the Feathered Man had set Ruby down outside the Punch and Judy public house. After a few words, the landlord threw the fallen angel a hunk of meat and let Ruby in through the side door. Ruby knew the landlord well and had a long-standing arrangement with him. She paid him rent for a corner of his cellar and in return he looked the other way. Grey Wing would be preoccupied with feeding for a while; enough time to give Ruby a little breathing space and a chance to think.

  She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror behind the bar as she headed for the cellar steps. The emerald eyes that looked back at her had lost all of their sparkle. You’re in over your head this time. She inhaled deeply through her nostrils and straightened her shoulders; she had been in tight corners before and she would get out of this situation the way she had always done in the past – on her own.

  Once upon a time she could at least count Munro as her friend, but he had betrayed her when she’d tried to leave the Legion. That was back when she thought she might have a future with Ben Kingdom. She and Ben were going to run away together; at least, that had been Ruby’s plan. A lifetime ago, she thought with a sigh.

  Down in the beer cellar, Ruby shifted one of the barrels, prised up the floorboards underneath it and pulled out a bulging hessian sack. It always lifted her spirits when she looked inside. The precious metal glinted back at her, shiny with the promise of her new future. She ran her hands over her secret hoard of loot, then emptied her backpack and added some more church valuables to the pile. Perhaps one or two more runs and then she would be ready.

  The problem was that she couldn’t spend stolen candlesticks and crucifixes. They were worth a lot but she would have to find a fence, a criminal who would buy them from her. And she knew from past experience that those deals had a habit of turning sour. If she was lucky she might get ten per cent of their real value. Ruby made a mental calculation – she didn’t have what she needed. Yet. In truth there would never be enough, but three more jobs, she decided, and that was it. After that she would be upping sticks regardless. She didn’t have the stomach for this any more.

  Ruby just needed to find the key so that Grey Wing would fix his beady eyes on some other poor soul. And when he was looking in the opposite direction, she would grab her loot and run.

  She returned her treasures to their hiding place, pushed down the boards and slid the barrel back on top. Then she allowed herself a small glass of the landlord’s watery ale and sat down to think.

  Obadiah Moon had obviously known about the key, so it wasn’t too big a leap to assume that Jago Moon might know about it too. Had the Moons been the guardians of the key down the generations? And if so, how many other Moons had there been, and where were they all buried?

  There also remained the question of what the key was for. Ruby had started to have a sick feeling in the depths of her stomach when she wondered about that.

  She could feel the cogs turning in her mind. Gehenna. What did that mean? She had heard the word once but couldn’t place it.

  Then it came to her. Claw Carter had spoken of it after one of his visits to the Dark Library, where the Legion kept its books of forbidden knowledge.

  Gehenna – the place where the fires never cease burning.

  Gehenna – where the screaming never stops.

  Gehenna – Hell on earth.

  The trapdoor to the cellar was wrenched open and Grey Wing thrust his head inside. “No more rest,” he hissed, his yellow tongue struggling with the language of mortals. “Find the key. Now!”

  “I am so sorry,” said Hans Schulman. “I am very clumsy, ja?”

  There was beer everywhere. It was all over the table in the guardroom, and all over the Jail Master General’s trousers. Hans had come in on some errand, and managed to knock the man’s pint mug over in the process.

  “Imbecile,” the Jail Master shouted, his enormous jowls wobbling in irritation as he began to wipe himself down.

  “Let me help you,” said Hans, grabbing up a cloth and furiously mopping the table, sending a candlestick crashing.

  “Just leave it, will you?” said the Jail Master. “You’re making it worse.”

  “Please forgive me,” said Hans, his eyes dropping to the man’s sodden trousers. “I’m sure that no one will think you have – what are the words? – wet yourself?”

  “You’re on a charge, chummy,” snarled the Jail Master. “You’re gonna get twenty lashes for that.”

  Hans had known that a punishment would be coming but it was a small price to pay. The Jail Master shuffled away to find some dry clothes…and left the keys in the guardroom unattended.

  The rumours said that the key Hans was looking for was marked with crossed bones. No one locked in that cell had ever been released alive. Hans took it from its hook on the wall, slipped it into his pocket and walked away as quickly as he dared. There would be no coming back from this moment. He was a Watcher spy inside the Legion and he had just committed a crime punishable by death. When the key was discovered to be missing – and that would happen – then the Jail Master would be in no doubt as to who the culprit was.

  Hans was a dead man walking.

  And yet if this key did what he believed it might, then the risk was worth it. If Hans was able to release this prisoner, then the war against the Legion was closer to being won.

  The city was slipping over the edge into chaos. The Legion were drunk with power. Mr. Sweet himself was growing more dangerous by the hour. Earlier that day, Hans had witnessed five red-headed lads being dragged before him. None of them bore the slightest resemblance to Ben, save their hair colour, but Sweet’s paranoia was so extreme that he executed them regardless.

  Revolution Day was less than forty-eight hours away. It couldn’t come too soon.

  Hans had been undercover in the Legion for a long time and it had become second nature for him to eavesdrop on the villains that he lived alongside. Even so, he had almost gasped out loud when he’d overheard Sweet give away the one piece of information the Watchers needed.

  Now, if Hans could
get the Queen to safety, that would surely be the turning point of this war.

  Using a lantern, Hans navigated his way through the Under. Water was running down the walls and the air was full of the scent of decay. Huge green and black patches of mould spread through the corridors like a disease. Here and there, clumps of sickly white mushrooms had sprouted up, eager to release their spores. And the deeper Hans descended, the worse it got. He covered his mouth and nose with his neck-scarf, but the rotting smell still made him gag.

  Alone in the flooded chambers, Hans began to feel his mind playing tricks. He was not afraid of the rats that seemed to have been breeding in their hundreds, but he was troubled by the dark. He felt a stirring in the shadows, a sense that he was being followed, hunted even. Of course, when he turned round there was nothing – it was only his imagination – and yet his skin crawled with fear.

  Eventually Hans reached a spiral staircase, water cascading down the steps around his feet. He moved down to the deepest depths of the Under, the lowest level, where the secrets and the horrors were kept. At the bottom of the stairs, Hans paused. The water level was almost at his waist here. He flashed his lantern down the corridor and found the dungeon doors. What could he hope to find on the other side of those bars?

  Holding his lamp high, Hans waded cautiously along. He arrived at the first door and peered through the barred window. A skeleton grinned back at him, still manacled to the wall, waiting for help that never came. The next two cells were empty and Hans felt his hopes trickling away. Twice, he spun round, sensing another presence in the darkness. Twice his lantern found nothing.

  “Help!” called a small, frail voice. “Is somebody there? Will you help me, please?”

  It sounded like an old woman. Hans pushed his way through the water, hoping against hope that it was her. He saw a small, pink hand reaching out through the next set of bars.

  “My Queen,” breathed Hans.

  Victoria no longer looked like a queen though. Her thin hair was plastered to her scalp, her skin was taut on her cheeks, her dress was in rags. But her eyes still glinted with strength.

  Hans inserted the long key into the lock. It was stiff and he had to put both hands to it. He strained, but the key still refused to turn.

  “Hurry,” Victoria urged. “You must free my friend too.”

  Hans paused and put his face to the barred window of the neighbouring cell. He couldn’t be sure at first, but he thought that he could make out a figure standing silently in the middle of the dungeon, fixed to the spot by lengths of chain. A tall figure with a strong, elegant face; dignified even though there were raw stumps on his shoulders where mighty wings had once grown.

  “You!” Hans declared.

  Queen Victoria gave a shrill scream and Hans was confused. Then a heavy hand landed on his shoulder from behind and he understood all too well.

  Hans turned and his lamp illuminated a silver raven-skull mask beneath a crown of coins.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Sweet. “It’s me.”

  Munro never made it as far as Highbury Fields.

  The tunnel came up on the edge of the death zone. The rain soaked him as soon as he emerged and he sat for a while in an empty house, shivering and trying to get warm. His journey had left him exhausted and the idea of making it as far as Scotland seemed ridiculous. Munro’s belly growled with hunger and his head throbbed so badly that his vision had begun to blur. Parched, he bent down and drank from a puddle, but the water was murky and left him feeling more disorientated than before.

  Dazed, Munro wandered out into the ruined street. There he struggled across the seemingly endless mounds of rubble, as tall to him as mountains. He slipped and fell, grazing his hands and knees. But he hauled himself back upright again, or as upright as he was able, and kept going. Ten minutes later he fell again, harder and heavier, striking his head on a jagged chunk of masonry. This time he could feel the warmth of blood as it rolled across his eye.

  In his imagination he could hear a dog barking.

  He closed his eyes and knew that he didn’t have the strength to stand up again.

  The barking grew louder. It reminded him of…

  Buster!

  A rasping tongue lapped at Munro’s cheek, bringing with it the familiar hot waft of old bones and bad teeth. Munro opened his eyes and saw his three-legged friend standing on a broken wall right in front of him.

  “Who’s a good dog?” said Munro, nuzzling his face against Buster’s and receiving canine kisses.

  “Clover!” called a girl’s voice. “Where are you, boy?”

  The girl came skipping over. “There you are,” she said, rubbing the dog’s head and making a fuss of his ears.

  Munro shrank down, trying to hide his hump and the unfortunate lines of his face.

  “Hello!” said the girl brightly, as if noticing him for the first time. “I’m Molly and this is Clover. He’s the best dog in the world, aren’t you, Clover?”

  Munro was at a loss as to what to say. The girl wasn’t shrinking back in revulsion, which was good; wonderful even. But the dog wasn’t Clover, it was Buster.

  Munro was about to tell the girl as much, but he could see how happy the three-legged bulldog made her.

  “Molly!” called a man’s voice. “What are you doing? I’ve told you not to wander off like that. It’s not safe out here.”

  A soldier approached and Molly ran to him. “Look,” she said. “Look what Clover has found.”

  “Good Lord,” said the soldier.

  Munro brought up his arms to cover his face. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Here,” said Daniel Carnehan, bending down to help Munro up. “You’re hurt, sonny, let’s get you seen to.”

  Munro said nothing as the brigadier and the little girl began to help him back to the army encampment. He didn’t say anything when they cleaned his wound and wrapped it in a clean bandage. He didn’t say anything when they brought him soup and a bread roll, then more soup and more bread, until he was fuller than he had ever been. But he felt a warmth inside. Then Buster scrambled up on his lap and Munro thought that his happiness was complete.

  Munro fell asleep in that blissful state, breaking wind as silently as he was able. He only woke when he heard voices talking about him.

  “He’s a Legionnaire,” said Jonas Kingdom. “Ben described all the boys who were in Mickelwhite’s brigade and he’s definitely one of them.”

  “We can settle this easily enough,” said Carnehan.

  Munro trembled as the two men approached. Without protestation, he opened his left hand and showed them the Mark. “It’s true, I was in the Legion,” he told them, cringing in expectation of his punishment. “But not in my heart, never in my heart. Why else would I be running away?”

  “It’s alright, sonny,” said Carnehan. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Please. I promise you can trust me,” Munro gabbled. “I can help you, I’ve got information you can use against the Legion.”

  “Steady, lad,” Jonas reassured him. “Tell us what you’ve got.”

  “Mr. Sweet has gone mad.”

  Carnehan paused. “How do you mean?”

  As best as he could, Munro told of how he was going to assassinate Sweet but couldn’t bring himself to do it. And of the demons that only Mr. Sweet could see.

  “I’ve also got this,” said Munro, dragging the crumpled poster from his pack and spreading it out before them.

  The brigadier winced. He was horrified by what he read. The torture of prisoners. Fights to the death. This was the final straw. He screwed up the poster with a snarl. “I cannot allow this brutality. We aren’t up against an ordinary enemy here. Real soldiers only fight against other soldiers, not civilians, not prisoners, not women and children. Sweet is a…” Carnehan paused, aware that there were younger ears present. “Sweet is a bully and a coward to boot.” His face grew severe, adding years to him. “Sweet thinks that our hands are tied while he holds our dear Queen, but I hav
e had the honour of meeting Her Majesty and I know that she would not want the British army to delay while her beloved subjects were being made to suffer in such a way. She is one woman and there are thirty thousand souls inside that blasted Wall.” Carnehan drew in a long breath, as if stiffening himself for the decision he was about to make.

  “First of all I need you to show me this tunnel of yours. If you used it to get out, then my men can use it to get in. Secondly,” his moustache twitched ever so slightly, “I need you to return to the city and get a message to the Watchers.”

  Munro went pale at the prospect. “I’ll do it for you,” he said.

  “Good lad,” said the brigadier. “As commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards, I am issuing a new order to my battalion. Queen or no Queen, my boys in red shall fight alongside the Watchers on Revolution Day.”

  Carter took the Watchers down, down, down, until they reached the lowest level of the Under. They said nothing for a long time, afraid that their voices might carry and give them away. All the while, Ben listened for sounds of pursuit and the chilling calls of the Feathered Men, but they never came. They had given the Legionnaires the slip.

  “I hope Valentine was lucky too,” said Ben.

  “We weren’t lucky,” Carter contradicted him. “It was my knowledge of the Under that enabled us to outfox our dull-witted trackers.” He sniffed. “I’m certain Valentine’s equally superior understanding of the complexity of these tunnels will have allowed him to keep the escapees out of harm’s way. No doubt they are already tucked up in a Watcher safe house.”

  “I wish we could say the same for Mr. Moon and Ghost,” said Ben. He couldn’t shift the image of the shaven-headed Watcher being snatched away from the escape tunnel before he got a chance to descend. Maybe that was a good thing, considering what happened to the shaft a second later, but even so the knowledge that their friends were still prisoners of the Legion weighed heavily on him.

  Experience had taught Ben that things never quite turned out how you planned. As if to prove his point, the ceiling above their heads suddenly groaned, releasing a shower of mortar and fragments of brick. They could all see it; the rainwater that had saturated the soil and collapsed the escape tunnel was wreaking havoc on the fabric of the Under.