Artful: A Novel

by Peter David

  And who could blame him? The Artful certainly could not.

  “Where are we going again?” said Bram as the coach rattled around them. It was not the fanciest means of transportation existent, but at least it was going to get them where they needed to be, wherever that was. “You don’t know where Drina is, do you?”

  “No,” said Dodger grimly. “But I’ll wager the vampyres do.”

  “And where are we going to find them? Do you have any idea where they’re hiding?”

  “None.” The Artful’s mouth grew tight. “However, I have an idea who can help us in that matter.”

  “Who?”

  “Wiggins.”

  “Who’s Wiggins?”

  “It changes,” said Dodger. “‘Wiggins’ is what they call whoever’s in charge. Face keeps changin’. This is the second one I know of.”

  “Should I be worried that I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  “We’re goin’ to Baker Street,” said Dodger. “There’s a gang there what always fancied itself up against Fagin’s group . . .” His voice trailed off. It had been the first time he’d said Fagin’s name aloud since the slaughter at the Abbey. He hated to think of the bodies of the women strewn about on the floor, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he alerted the authorities, like as not they’d arrest him on suspicion. Perhaps they would even try to blame him for the entire mess. He simply had to take confidence that sooner or later someone would come by and discover the horrible crime that had befallen the helpless women. Then they would be given last rites and attended to properly.

  He realized that his voice had trailed off, and he hadn’t quite answered the question. “They call themselves the Baker Street Irregulars. I crossed with ’em now and again.”

  “If they were opposed to Fagin’s group, shouldn’t they be opposed to you?”

  “Nonsense. No one’s opposed to me,” said Dodger with a cheer in his voice that he did not truly feel.

  The coach pounded along the road, and Dodger drifted in and out of slumber. He had not slept the entire night, after all, and exhaustion was clawing at him eagerly. As his eyes closed, he never took his gaze off Bram, and was surprised to see that the younger lad was not looking the least bit tired. The last thought he had before he fell dead asleep was I wonder if he’s actually alive or really dead?

  Dreams fell upon him with terrifying speed. He was exactly where he feared: in the halls of the Abbey, watching the nuns being slaughtered. Except in this instance the vampyres were not satisfied with simply killing all the women. Instead, the vampyres were having the nuns drink their own blood, transforming them into vampyres themselves. The Artful watched in silent horror, unable to say or do anything except gaze upon the scene in complete helplessness.

  Then the vampyre nuns turned almost as one and started to advance on Dodger. The youngster cried out, his arms flailing about, but he was helpless to move as they surrounded him. He begged for mercy—promised he would behave himself—but none of his pleas did him the least bit of good. Within moments, they were all around, and he even imagined he could smell their foul breath rolling out of their mouths.

  Suddenly, one of them shook his shoulder. The Artful started awake and blinked furiously against the sunlight in his eyes. “What—?” he managed to say.

  It was Bram who had awakened him. “Are you all right?”

  “What? Oh . . . yes. Yes, I’m . . . I’m fine. Did you sleep?”

  “Yes,” said Bram so matter-of-factly that Dodger was convinced Bram was lying to him. “The coach stopped.”

  It clearly had. The Artful stuck his head out and called, “Why aren’t we moving?”

  “Because I’ve taken you where you wanted to go,” said Quinn, scowling down at them. “We’re on Baker Street.”

  A quick look around verified for Dodger that they had indeed arrived at their desired destination. “Awright,” he said and emerged from the coach. A handful of pedestrians were strolling around, and although some of them glanced their way, most of them were far too preoccupied with going on about their own business.

  “Wait here,” Dodger said to Quinn.

  Quinn tossed off a salute that was redolent with sarcasm. “Aye aye, sir. I’ll be right here waiting for ye.”

  The Artful ignored his attitude. In truth, he couldn’t really blame him for it. The man had been ordered to work for two youths involved in a quest that any rational adult would dismiss as the pastime of madmen—all at an hour that decent people were in their beds. It made perfect sense for him to be irritated. Fortunately enough, Dodger was preoccupied with too many other things to be annoyed by it.

  “Come on,” he said to Bram, and they started walking.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find the Irregulars.”

  “Do they have a headquarters or some such meeting place?”

  “If they did, they didn’t tell me nothin’. But that’s all right. We’ll just fix it for them to find us.”

  “How?”

  The Artful leaned against a corner. “First,” he said, “we pick a place to stand. Right here seems fine.”

  “All right. Why are we standing here?”

  “To be seen. We’ll wait here about half an hour or so. That should be enough time.”

  Bram clearly didn’t understand what Dodger was up to, but he did not question. Indeed, his implicit faith in Dodger’s plans somewhat gladdened the heart of the young thief. That sort of trust did not always come easily, and he felt gratified that Bram Van Helsing clearly had no problems with leaving matters up to Dodger to plan.

  The Artful simply wished that he felt worthy of it. Even as they waited, and even as the sun crawled dimly through the foggy sky, he felt a growing sense of helplessness. The vampyre conspiracy was something entirely beyond human ken, and contemplating it for even a few minutes was enough to give Dodger pause in his thoughts. Now that he was aware of the vampyre’s existence, the world seemed even more foreboding and difficult than ever. For one such as Dodger, always brimming with a confidence that belied his stature—both in height and standing in society—to have his beliefs shaken so was a blow that had felled greater men before. That gave him pause, though: Greater than I? The thought almost made him smile.

  It matters not how it seems. All that matters is what is, and I will simply have to deal with whatever that happens to be.

  And that, as they say, was that.

  Some small talk passed between the boys during the intervening half-hour. Surprisingly, considering the circumstances, they spoke about nothing that had any moment. Bram spoke idly of someplace where his father and he had eaten before Bram had been stolen. The Artful talked of how he had first met Drina. He had not yet fully processed that she would one day be the queen of England, and was still working on seeing the hidden meaning in what had previously been purely idle comments to which he had attached no importance.

  Eventually, however, he nodded and said, “All right. Time to go to work. They’ve had enough time to see us.”

  Bram looked around, feeling vaguely apprehensive over the thought that someone was watching them without actually acknowledging their presence. “And . . . what now?”

  “Now we bring them to us,” said Dodger.

  He watched carefully, looking for a proper target. He finally found one: a rather heavyset man with an ill-fitting topcoat and a conspicuous bulge in his jacket pocket. “Wait here,” said Dodger, and he fell into step behind the larger man. The man didn’t even come close to noticing him, which was exactly what Dodger anticipated.

  The man walked as briskly as his large frame allowed him. He stopped briefly at a corner, and that was all the hesitation that Dodger required. He stepped up to him, and his practiced figures dipped into the man’s oversized pocket. Within a moment, he was holding the oversized change purse in his hand.


  “Hey!”

  The Artful did not even have to bother to look in the direction of the outraged shout. He knew who it was. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “’S’cuse me, sir!”

  The man turned, his face the color of umber, sniffing in indignation over having his doubtlessly deep thoughts disrupted by the intervention of a young man. “What?” he said crossly.

  “I noticed this fell out of your pocket. Couldn’t help but pick it up and alert ya to it.”

  Clearly suspecting some manner of trick, the man’s hand promptly slapped against his pocket. When he discovered it empty, he gasped in shock. Without a word, Dodger tossed the purse to him with an underhanded gesture. “Should be more careful,” he advised.

  “Yes . . . yes, I . . . .” Apparently feeling that the moment called for some tangible display of appreciation, he started to reach into it to remove a coin.

  The Artful didn’t permit it. He put up his hands and said, “No tip necessary, sir. Just doin’ what I know is right an’ honorable. Good day to ye.” And he even bowed slightly and made a show of tipping his hat.

  The heavyset man seemed confused, but tipped his hat back and then went on his way. The Artful wasn’t giving him any more thought; instead, he had already turned to face the scowling young man who had previously shouted at him. This man had two youngsters with him, and they were all staring at Dodger suspiciously.

  “Wiggins,” said Dodger, tossing in a slight bow for show’s sake.

  “Dodger,” replied Wiggins. He and the other two lads regarded Dodger with outright suspicion. “What just happened here?”

  “Wanted to get’cher attention, I did,” said Dodger.

  “Well, you’ve managed that well enough,” said Wiggins. “Don’t quite understand the why of it, though.”

  “Bram,” called Dodger. Answering the summons, Bram was immediately at his side. “This is Wiggins. Head of the Baker Street Irregulars. Wiggins, this is Bram, head of nothin’ in particular.”

  Bram bobbed his head slightly in greeting. The Artful then waited for Wiggins to introduce the two lads who were standing with him, but he disdained to do so. Instead, he simply stared impatiently at Dodger and Bram. “What’s goin’ on? What’s this all about?”

  “We have need of some of the Irregulars’ brand of magic.”

  “Do ye now?”

  “We do.”

  “And we should provide this why, exactly?”

  “Because we’re out to stop a vampyre conspiracy,” Bram said before Dodger could speak up.

  Wiggins stared at him, and Dodger waited for Wiggins to burst into laughter as any right-thinking Londoner would be wont to do.

  Instead, Wiggins simply stared at him. “Vampyre conspiracy?” he said after a long moment of thought.

  “That’s right.”

  “And who is involved in this conspiracy?”

  “Princess Alexandrina Victoria. They’ve captured her, and we need help tracking her down,” Bram said matter-of-factly.

  Wiggins was a scruffy lad with unkempt hair. The two lads with him were similarly styled. They could easily have been members of Fagin’s gang back in the day. Wiggins stroked slowly at his chin as if he had a beard and then said the last thing that Dodger could possibly have expected.

  “So someone else knows about that. We thought we were the only ones.”

  Bram looked with quiet triumph at Dodger, who was clearly dumbfounded. “You knew about it?” Dodger said in utter shock.

  “Of course we did. We’re the Baker Street Irregulars. There’s no dirty dealin’ goin’ on in London that we’re not twigged to in some way, shape or form.” He took a step toward Dodger, and his eyes narrowed. “But how did you get caught up in this, Dodger? Helpin’ queen and country ain’t somethin’ that you’re typically part of.”

  “I met the princess without knowin’ who she was.”

  “How could you not know?”

  “How was I s’posed to?” Dodger said defensively. “It’s not like she had a glow or somethin’ about her. There’s no way I could’ve known.”

  “If you’d paid attention, ye would’ve.”

  “If you’re so very much fixed with payin’ attention,” Dodger said tartly, “then impress me. Give me some inf’mation that could lead me to her.”

  “I have no idea where she is. Gents?” Wiggins had turned to the two lads standing next to him, and they both shook their heads.

  “Devil take your not knowin’!” said Dodger. “You’re the bloody Baker Street Irregulars. You said it yourself—there’s not nothin’ goin’ on that you don’t have some angle on.”

  “Are you callin’ me a liar?” said Wiggins.

  Dodger took a few steps from him so that he was only a couple of paces away. He was doing everything he could to keep himself together, but his voice was unmistakably quavering as he spoke. “I ain’t callin’ you a liar, Wiggins . . . I just . . . we need your help. I know ye don’t think much of me. And I know what you thought of Fagin . . . an opinion that, just let me say, turns out to be more on spot than anything I could have guessed. But the bottom line is that I’m afraid for Drina’s safety, and by the way, you should be as well. That is, if you’re an Englishman. Which I know you to be.”

  Wiggins glanced right and left, and then in a low voice he said, “Wait here.” That was all. Then he turned away from Dodger and Bram and headed off.

  Bram looked up at Oliver questioningly. “Now what?”

  Dodger shrugged. “Now we wait here.”

  They had no other option. So they remained where they were.

  The Artful worried the entire time that this was some sort of strange prank on Wiggins’s part. It was certainly possible. There was no love lost between the two of them, and Wiggins required no excuse whatsoever to take advantage of Dodger’s desperation and just leave him standing there forever.

  Yet it was only an hour later when Dodger looked up and saw that Wiggins was approaching him again. This time he was on his own. “Where are your comrades?” asked Dodger.

  In a low voice, all business, Wiggins said, “They’re outside the Bazaar.”

  “The Bazaar? The Baker Street Bazaar?”

  Wiggins nodded.

  “The museum?”

  “Aye.”

  Immediately Dodger felt as if something was crawling up his back very slowly. He detested the Bazaar. The museum there consisted of wax images, set up a few years earlier by some French woman. She had come to London to make her fortune and now charged six shillings a visitor to come and visit her chambers dedicated to memorializing the French Revolution, not to mention her chamber of horrors. The Artful had visited it when it first opened, seeing it as a likely place to do some pickpocketing business. But he had found the entire place so appalling that he had decided very quickly he was never going to set foot there again. He had faithfully kept that promise to himself all these years later.

  “Why are they at the Bazaar?”

  “To make sure he doesn’t leave.” Wiggins glanced skyward. “Not terribly likely. It’s broad daylight, after all. Still, it’s always wiser not to underestimate what vampyres are capable of doing.”

  “Make sure who doesn’t leave?”

  Wiggins once more glanced right and left, as if concerned that someone might be eavesdropping. Then he lowered his voice and said softly, “One of me boys thinks there may be an actual vampyre in the chamber of horrors. He says a body showed up there the other day outta nowhere.”

  “Couldn’t it just be another waxwork?”

  “My boy doesn’t think so. He’s pretty sure he saw it breathin’. Or doin’ whatever it is they do that passes for breathin’.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a long shot to me,” said Dodger, who was hardly convinced that this was what they were searching for.

  “You
have a better idea?”

  The Artful started to fire off a reply but then stopped. The truth was that he had no better idea, and not only was he aware of it, but so was Wiggins, who smiled grimly. “All right then,” said Wiggins. “Off you go. You know where it is?” The Artful nodded, trying not to show his distaste. “Fine.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some change. “Here.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Twelve shillings so that you two can get in. I don’t want you to have to pick someone’s pocket in order to gain entrance.”

  “Damned decent of you,” said the Artful.

  “Just trying to keep my street clear of . . . well, people like you, truth to tell.”

  Dodger nodded in acknowledgment of the sentiment, and they then parted ways.

  It was a short walk to the Bazaar, and Dodger dreaded it the entire way. But he knew he had absolutely no choice. The fact that the Irregulars had been of any help at all was nothing short of miraculous; he and Bram simply did not have the option of asking more than they already had.

  A few people were filing in at the open double doors of the Bazaar. They were chattering eagerly amongst themselves. Dodger could discern from what they were saying that all of them were out-of-town travelers; no return guests in his particular outing. He was not certain why, but he took some degree of comfort in that.

  The first room to engage the tourists when they entered was the exhibit of the French Revolution. It could take quite some time to see it, and that suited Dodger just fine. “This way,” he murmured to Bram, and the two lads headed straight for the signs that pointed them to the chamber of horrors. Even as he passed through, the Artful Dodger became more and more concerned. They were not heading into this situation with anything resembling a plan, and lack of planning was a good way to get oneself nicked at the very least. But the fact was that they simply did not have time to plan. Everything had to be done as expeditiously as possible, and so there was nothing for it but to throw themselves directly into matters and pray that it all worked out to their advantage.