The City of Fear

by Andrew Beasley

  Lucy ploughed through the water to the angel, taking his hand in hers and kissing it tenderly. “We’re here for you now,” she said.

  “Lucy Lambert,” said Josiah, “I was sent to watch over you.”

  Lucy’s lantern lit up the Weeping Man’s face. She hoped that her expression only showed how much she loved him and not the shock that she felt. It was clear that Josiah had suffered as a guest of the Legion. But in spite of it all, Josiah’s eyes had lost none of their compassion.

  “It’s good to hear your voice again, old friend,” said Jago Moon. “Now, let’s get you out of there.”

  “Until a moment ago that would have been impossible,” said Josiah, a smile spreading across his lips. “But when I heard you approaching, my chains melted away.”

  Lucy looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

  Josiah’s smile grew broader. “The witch-silver bonds that kept me here dissolved before my eyes. That can only mean that the Crown of Corruption which gave them their power has been destroyed.”

  “He’s only gone and done it,” said Moon, hugging Lucy. “Ben’s done it!”

  “There will be time for celebrating later,” said Josiah. “Victoria is next door, but she is failing fast.”

  Lucy banged on the adjoining door, but there was no response. Were they too late?

  She pulled out the key that Hans had bravely smuggled out and, tugging her goggles down to protect her eye, Lucy submerged herself so that she could get the key in the lock.

  Her first two attempts were unsuccessful as her shaking fingers failed to find the hole. Finally she slid the key home with a sense of triumph and, with a twist of her wrist, she turned it until she could feel the bolts drawing back.

  The click was the loudest sound that Lucy had ever heard.

  Hans and Valentine hurtled through the streets in an attempt to intercept Lucy and Moon before…

  “We have to warn them,” Hans panted. But a sick feeling in his stomach taunted him; they’re dead already.

  Missiles zinged around them as they plunged headlong through open war. Guided by the Watchers, brave rebels threw stones and broken bricks from rooftop vantage points. Legionnaires responded with rifles and crossbows.

  Hans and Valentine skidded around one corner and came face-to-face with an entire battalion of Legionnaires. So much for the Legion being caught by surprise, Hans thought as they hastily retreated, running zigzags through the rain.

  Breathless, they ducked into a deserted side alley, managing to dodge the battalion on their tail. The Watchers had been so insistent that this uprising should be done without bloodshed but Hans found his teeth grinding together in anger and frustration. Had they set the revolutionaries up to fail? They certainly hadn’t seen any signs of victory so far.

  A flash of movement on the rooftops overhead caught Hans’s eye and he felt a flicker of hope. Was this more Watchers preparing to attack the Legion?

  That hope was shattered when a body dropped from the sky and landed on the ground in front of them.

  It was the body of a lad in Watcher uniform. He was very, very dead.

  Hans and Valentine looked up. A Feathered Man was hovering over the alley. Its yellow beak was streaked with red. It saw them and screamed.

  Valentine brandished his quarterstaff. “You keep going, old chap,” he said. “I’ll give you as much of a head start as I can.”

  So Hans kept running, hoping against hope that he could save Lucy and Mr. Moon…

  Ben turned to confront Grey Wing.

  When is this gonna end?

  He had nothing left to give. If it wasn’t for the adrenaline pounding through his veins, he probably wouldn’t have been able to stand. Even so, he rolled his shoulders with attitude, adjusted his billycock and stepped forward.

  “I’ve destroyed your crown, your mate Sweetie is somewhere at the bottom of the pit, and I’m all out of birdseed… So you may as well just leave the girl with me and sling your hook, unless you fancy a taste of the same medicine?”

  It was bravado, of course, and Ben knew that Ruby could see right through it. He was still getting over the shock of seeing her again. She seemed smaller than he remembered her, more vulnerable.

  “Come on, Ruby,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “I’m taking you out of here.”

  Ruby shook her head sadly and pointed to her ankle. Ben didn’t understand until he saw the shackle. Grey Wing had Ruby on a chain; one end was attached to her ankle, the other was in the fallen angel’s grasp. Ruby wasn’t going anywhere.

  Grey Wing threw back his head and screeched with laughter. “Your little girlfriend stole something for me,” he taunted, holding up an ornate key. “Shall we see what it does?”

  “The Gehenna Key!” said Carter, the shock of recognition on his face. “Don’t do it! You’ll destroy us all!”

  “You say that as if it is a bad thing,” mocked Grey Wing, stalking across the chamber dragging Ruby in his wake. The Feathered Man cocked his head and hissed at Carter. “From dust you came, and to dust you will return.” With that, the Feathered Man put the tip of one of his talons beneath a flagstone at the edge of the pit and lifted it up. Ben saw an ornate keyhole set into the stonework underneath.

  They faced each other across the pit. “Stop,” said Carter, “I’m begging you.”

  Ben had never heard the professor speak like this – Carter was afraid and that made Ben very scared too.

  Ben ran through the options in his mind – he had to stop Grey Wing from using that key.

  Jump the pit? Too far.

  Could he make it round to the other side in time? Impossible.

  “Stop, Grey Wing,” Carter repeated. “Please.”

  “Never,” said Grey Wing, lowering the Gehenna Key towards the lock.

  Carter sighed resignedly. “I knew you were going to say that.” The professor’s head dropped and he turned his back on the victorious Feathered Man. The look of defeat on the professor’s face was absolute – the misdirection that he had intended it to be. With practised dexterity, Carter flicked aside his coat, pulled a crossbow pistol from its holster, spun back to face the creature, and loosed off a shot at Grey Wing’s heart.

  Ruby had seen none of it.

  She chose that moment to wrench on her chain, making a frantic attempt to grab the key. “I won’t let you do it!” she shouted at Grey Wing. Ruby went to block him – and stepped straight into the path of the crossbow.

  Carter’s bolt flew straight and true.

  Ben gasped as the missile pierced Ruby between her shoulder blades with a dull thunk.

  Ruby turned, a look of confusion on her face. Her eyes sought Ben across the chasm of the pit.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ruby Johnson. Then she dropped to the floor. Dead.

  Ben was frozen with shock. At his side, Carter had no more crossbow bolts and no more tricks up his sleeve.

  Grey Wing shrieked again and thrust the Gehenna Key home, twisting it with a guttural scream of victory.

  Numbly Ben heard an ancient mechanism rumble into life far beneath them. He could make out cogs turning and, from deep down underground, the heavy metal sounds of bolts being drawn back. Each clunk rattled against Ben’s heart.

  There followed a single second of empty silence and expectation.

  “Listen,” said Grey Wing. “Can you hear them? My cousins?”

  Ben didn’t want to hear.

  At first he thought that the scratching noise was in his head. He once knew a boy down at the docks who claimed that a beetle had crawled into his ear while he slept and he could hear it always, scuttling around inside as it tried to find the way out again.

  The noises that Ben heard were like that; impossible to escape.

  Gibbering, clicking, scratching sounds, rising up from the depths.

  “Run, Ben,” said Carter. “Save yourself.”

  Ben had never known the professor to run from anything.

  “Humans built the Under,” croa
ked Grey Wing. “Foolish, spiteful, vengeful, wicked humans, like Sweet—” He listed these traits as if they should be revered rather than reviled. “And yet they lacked the courage of their convictions,” Grey Wing continued scornfully. “They made their sacrifices so that the Feathered Men would join them, and then they were too afraid to allow us to be anything more than guard dogs on chains, monsters at their beck and call.

  “They built this sanctuary, with its pit leading down into the darkest places that could be imagined. But the dwellers in the deep cannot rise up because humans placed bars across the pit, inscribed with words of binding.

  “You are all so weak compared to us,” Grey Wing mocked. “You mortals only ever think of yourselves – my needs, my dreams, my desires. Soon you will realize that the universe is very much bigger than you have imagined. Bigger and more powerful. Hungrier…”

  Ben could hear the mad scramble as the things that had been imprisoned raced for freedom. The rattle of claws and barbs. The snapping of teeth and jaws. The slathering of a thousand mouths. The creatures had begun their climb.

  “They’re coming!” screamed Grey Wing.

  Jago Moon knew what a lock sounded like. He sometimes thought that he would have made an excellent safe-cracker if he hadn’t chosen the more honest profession of bookseller – and freedom fighter, of course. As soon as Lucy had turned the key and the teeth came into contact with the first tumbler, Moon knew that she was in danger.

  He heard the ratcheting within the stonework as the springs released their deadly load. He heard the whisper of the steel spikes as they emerged from their hidden home in the wall. And he heard Lucy’s sad gasp as she recognized her mistake.

  The trap snapped out for her.

  And Lucy would have been impaled a dozen times if Moon hadn’t clasped her by the shoulders and flung her out of the way.

  Lucy went under the water as she was thrown backwards and in her panic she sucked the liquid into her lungs. But Moon’s hands quickly hauled her back above the surface and her body went into a spasm of retching as she brought the dirty water back up again. When she was finished, she leaned her body against Mr. Moon, her head resting on his shoulder, drawing on his inner calm while her own heart pounded wildly.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “I’d snatch you from the jaws of Hell itself, Lucy Lambert,” said Moon with a grin. “Not much of a trap, at the end of the day,” he sniffed. “They really want to get those cogs oiled.”

  “Lucy,” said Josiah tenderly from behind his bars. “The thought of London without you watching over it would break my heart.”

  “Right then,” Moon continued briskly before he got too emotional. “Get your jemmy out your pack, we’ve still got a couple of doors to open.”

  “Wait – now that my cursed chains have gone,” said Josiah, “I can feel some of my strength starting to return.” Lucy jolted with shock as Josiah’s fist punched through his cell door, splintering the wood around the lock. The angel pushed open his door against the weight of water and stepped out of his cell for the first time since the Feast of Ravens.

  Lucy threw her arms around him and then recoiled when her hands touched the angel’s bare shoulders and felt the jagged stumps.

  “What have they done to you?”

  “Nothing that time won’t heal,” said Josiah. “Or that I haven’t already forgiven.”

  Lucy had been so focused on the rescue mission that she had almost forgotten the threat of the floodwater continuing to wreak havoc on the Under. But suddenly the tunnel shuddered beneath their feet and an awful rasping sound echoed around them. All along the length of the corridor, stones began to break free from the roof and crash into the water. The lantern on its plank raft was still alight, but one close splash would leave them all blind.

  “Follow me,” said Josiah calmly. The Weeping Man put his hands to the metal spikes and, with a tremendous effort, he forced them back into their hidden housing in the wall, only stopping when they all heard the click of the spring lock snapping back into place.

  “Victoria,” Josiah shouted. “If you can hear me, please stand clear of the door.”

  The angel positioned himself in front of Queen Victoria’s cell door and kicked it with such force that it shattered. The Watchers pushed their way through the broken wood and Lucy gasped when she saw a white shape floating on the surface of the water, arms spread wide. She swung the lantern round for a better look and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was only a voluminous blouse. So where was the Queen?

  The light found a tiny form right at the rear of the cell. As the floodwaters had risen it seemed that the Queen had taken her bed and managed somehow to stand it upright against the wall. Victoria was clinging to the top of it, her face above the surface, but her eyes closed.

  Josiah drew closer and picked up the small woman as if she were a child. Victoria’s skin was as pale and shiny as candle wax and her lips were almost lilac from hypothermia. Josiah breathed very gently on her face and the elderly monarch’s eyes fluttered open.

  “We’re taking you home,” he said.

  Lucy barely remembered the journey out of those terrible dungeons. As they climbed higher, the water level dropped, but the Under itself had become one big mantrap, ready to crush them. All around them, above and beneath, stones that had held fast for hundreds of years were growing loose. Threatening to fall at any time.

  When Moon punched open the last trapdoor, Lucy had never felt more grateful to be alive. Although they had emerged within the shadow of the Wall, she stood there and let the rain fall on her body, her arms spread and her head back, so she could catch the raindrops in her mouth. She stayed like that for a blissful second before pulling her flare gun from her pack, unwrapping the oilcloth that had kept it dry and firing it into the sky.

  The green explosion lit up the clouds.

  Mission accomplished.

  Jonas pointed to the flare as it rose into the air and burst green over the city.

  Nathaniel punched the air.

  Lucy and Mr. Moon had rescued Victoria!

  It was the signal that the army had been waiting for too and from all around the city, Victoria’s army began their assault. Message received and understood; Her Majesty was safe. Now the gloves could come off.

  The ground beneath Nathaniel’s feet shook, the vibration followed a moment later by the sounds of cannon fire. “Looks like the Wall is coming down tonight, son,” said Jonas.

  Along with the brave men and women of London, Jonas, Nathaniel and Ghost had battled tooth and nail to wrestle their sector out of Legion hands. It had been harder than they had ever imagined. Good men and women had been forced to fight like the devil to protect the ones they loved. Jonas knew that even though they would be relieved to live to tell the tale, battles like that left deep scars inside. And the night was still not over.

  Just as one brigade of Legionnaires was defeated, so another one emerged to take its place. Then there were the Feathered Men who were spoilt for choice when it came to fresh victims to devour. They seemed to have gone into some sort of feeding frenzy and the sound of their delirious glee echoed overhead, louder than the incessant rain, louder even than the artillery bombardment.

  Jonas was painfully aware that the Feathered Men could still win if the free Londoners lost their courage now. He drew Ghost and Nathaniel to him.

  “The Queen is safe,” Jonas shouted above the mayhem. “God save the Queen!” Then louder, at the top of his lungs: “God save the Queen!”

  Nathaniel joined in and they chanted with all their might.

  Down the road another man joined in. Then another and another, their spirits lifting as they took strength in that good news.

  The cry spread, house by house, ringing the length of Old Gravel Lane, then right across the East End.

  “God save the Queen!”

  “And God help us,” Jonas added as the battle continued.

  The noise of the creatures he
ld Ben like a vice. Claw Carter was rooted to the spot too, equally mesmerized by the appalling sounds emanating from the pit. Ben had read about sailors whose minds were imprisoned by the sirens’ song and then lured to their deaths on the rocks. The music of the creatures was a thousand times worse.

  Grey Wing, meanwhile, was in ecstasy, hooting and howling in triumph. Water was streaming from the roof now, snuffing out the remaining candles and bringing with it a hail of masonry. Ruby lay discarded, like a broken toy, blood from her wound mingling with the water on the floor until she was surrounded by a halo of red.

  And the tide of terror was still rising.

  Squealing. Snapping. Slithering.

  The sounds bombarded Ben, filling his heart with fear. He had no idea what sort of monsters might be climbing up from the darkness, but his imagination ran wild.

  Ben couldn’t help himself. Curiosity got the better of him. He looked down.

  He saw teeth. So many teeth. Thin ones like needles. Long ones for ripping and tearing.

  And eyes, glowing back at him with malice.

  The things – Ben could think of no better word to describe them – were crawling and scrabbling up the sides of the hole that had held them for so very long. Some of the things seemed to change form as he watched them. Long tentacles would appear from dark orifices to taste the air. Freakish limbs swayed disturbingly before sprouting eyes or fingers or mouths.

  Ben saw what looked like a human hand being tossed between the creatures. Then he spotted the signet ring and realized with revulsion that it was all that remained of Mr. Sweet.

  Only a handful of candles still burned now and it felt as if the darkness was hemming them in on all sides, the circle of light dwindling with each passing second. Ben gazed at Ruby and the sight of her motionless form stirred something inside of him stronger than his fear.

  There were so many things that Ben still wanted to say to Ruby; that she was amazing; that she should be a Watcher. That he forgave her.

  The Hand of Heaven began to thrum with power as the first wave of creatures started to spill out of the pit and scurry away into the darkness. Some of the vile things came scuttling towards Ben, chittering with laughter and gnashing their tiny jaws. Ben retreated, lashing out with his feet. As he did so he was struck with the urgent need to get Ruby out of their way; he couldn’t stand the thought of these awful beings touching her.