“I am not lost. The Thieves’ Guild passage is . . . hidden. That’s all. The entrance is found by way of a secret mark.”
“And if we don’t find it?”
“This tunnel shrinks to become a filter, a sort of pipe filled with steel teeth that breaks up debris before the Fleet shoots out into the Thames.”
“So we’ll be . . .”
“Ground to pulp. Yes.”
Jack dropped his head into his hand. “So there’s that.”
The tunnel shrank, as predicted, and the gray rushing noise grew into a frothing white roar. Jack took up the oar and jabbed at a steel control wheel sticking out from the wall, attempting to trap the paddle and halt their race toward certain death.
He missed.
He growled and fixed his sights on another wheel, hanging down from a mass of pipes on the ceiling. But then he noticed something odd. That wheel was missing some of its spokes. It cast an X-shaped shadow across the pipes behind. As he watched, the pipes and their fittings aligned to form the rough image of three keys laid across the X. Jack gasped. He knew that symbol.
As quickly as they had all aligned, the pieces drifted apart. But the X marked a rusty iron rod sticking down from the bricks. Jack smacked it with his oar. The rod shifted like a lever.
A heavy chunk sounded from the bricks. A section of wall swung out to block their path, and the bow smashed into it, sending up sparks from the bronze gunwale and turning the boat. They went flying down a slope of rushing water and splashed down into a slow-moving current. As everything settled, both teens looked up and saw a big copper X set into bricks above them, with three keys laid across it made of gold, silver, and iron.
Gwen dropped her gaze from the X to Jack. “How did you—?”
“The man who stole the Crown Jewels had the same symbol tattooed on his neck.”
“That’s the mark we were looking for,” she said. “The mark of the Thieves’ Guild.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
JACK ROWED THEM OUT of the little passage into an underground lake the size of several football fields. A hundred voices echoed across the water. Ramshackle structures dotted with yellow lanterns rose like bleachers from every shore. And theirs wasn’t the only boat on the water. A barge passed within arm’s reach, piled with lumpy sacks that might have contained anything from potatoes to dead bodies. The pilot, a brawny fellow in a threadbare suit, stared Jack down.
Jack lifted his chin. “Hey.”
Brawny-threadbare-suit guy shifted his gaze to the line of tunnels behind them, pushed down on his punting pole, and coasted on.
Gwen slapped Jack’s arm. “ ‘Hey’?” She thrust her chin at a line of docks. “Steer us over there. And check with me before you speak again.”
Once the boat was tied up, the two worked their way along the crowded waterfront. Burly crewmen brushed past them, loaded down with sacks and crates. Hucksters hocked their wares off the barrel. As Jack and Gwen squeezed by, a huge bruiser caught Jack’s arm, bald head covered in silver tattoos. “What’s yer hurry, boy? Buy a pretty bobble for the pretty girl, eh?”
Gwen pulled Jack away. “Not interested.”
But as soon as he turned to follow her, Jack bumped into a miniature stage. An angry marionette in black tails and a top hat pointed at him with a flopping finger and yelled, “Watch where yer going!” while a second marionette—a little boy—picked its pocket. The bystanders laughed. Jack turned beet red.
“Stairs. Now.” Gwen tugged his lapel to get him moving again.
They dodged a girl juggling butcher knives, ducked under a giant painting that Jack could swear he had seen in photos of the Louvre, and climbed a set of stairs to the relative safety of a cobblestone street. From that elevated position, Jack could see the variety of boats at the docks.
There were skiffs and barges, a few steam-powered craft, and even a Chinese junk at the far end. A girl not much older than Jack broke from the crowd and passed between two beefy thugs that guarded the junk’s gangplank, without so much as a glance at either of them. She had a streak of red down one side of her jet-black hair.
“That’ll be the guild master’s barge,” said Gwen, following his gaze. “We’ll start there.”
“That’s your plan?” Jack had to swallow his shock as a giggling threesome in grungy petticoats strolled by. As soon as they had passed, he leaned close to Gwen, lowering his voice. “You plan to waltz into the lair of the master thief and ask him to rat out his star player? You think Fagin is just gonna hand over the Artful Dodger?”
“Honor among thieves, Jack. The Crown Jewels are off-limits for the guild. Always have been. Our thief broke the rules. The master won’t tell us anything. Naturally. But our visit will set off a mad hunt for his Artful Dodger. All we have to do is keep out of sight and follow.”
The cobblestone lane brought them past the center of the docks, and a plume of fire caught Jack’s eye. A teen in a blue cloak stood above the crowd on a flashy gold drum, shooting fireballs from both hands. Two collided above his head, exploding into a flaming triangle, and the crowd erupted into applause. From Jack’s angle, however, he could see a contraption hidden within the boy’s frilled sleeve. Jack watched a wad of material shoot out of it, igniting as it passed over the boy’s palm.
“The Thieves’ Guild and the Magicians’ Guild are tight,” said Gwen, stopping to watch the show. “Along with the Tinkers’ Guild. All three have . . . overlapping interests.”
She was right about the magicians. There were others. A young woman sawed herself in half, and a Persian man in silk pants made his tattoos leap from one bicep to the other. At the edge of the crowd, an Asian boy in a worn tux held his hands over a barrel and formed a glistening, long-stemmed rose out of ice. But the stem was too delicate. It snapped, and the half-finished bloom fell to the dock and shattered. His sparse group of onlookers turned away. In desperation, the boy shot fierce streams of white over their heads, making it snow. Most only brushed the flakes from their shoulders and walked on.
Again, Jack saw up the magician’s sleeve. And again, he saw a contraption, silver this time. But as the boy made more snow clouds, nothing emerged from the shooter, as if it was only there for show. Confused, Jack looked to the boy’s face and found that the young magician had fixed him with a hostile glare, boring into him with ice-blue eyes.
A hand touched Jack’s elbow. “Don’t look, Jack. He doesn’t want you to see.”
“But why would he—?” Jack stopped mid-question and looked down at his side. “Sadie?”
His sister smiled up at him, dressed in her favorite green skirt and sparkly lavender Keds.
She wasn’t alone.
Ash stood in the middle of the lane, a few feet in front of them. He lifted his wolf’s-head cane and tipped up his newsboy cap. “Hello, Jack.”
Jack backed away, pulling Gwen and Sadie with him, but then he heard heavy footfalls behind. He wheeled around and saw Shaw stepping out from an alleyway.
The big warden blocked the road and punched a meaty fist into an equally meaty paw. “Going somewhere, Thirteen?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
JACK STRUGGLED to catch up with what was happening. How had his sister wound up in London’s underworld, escorted by Ash and Shaw?
“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Ash, tapping his cane on the cobblestones. “But here you are, in the Thieves’ Guild with the rest of the criminals.” The tapping stopped. “Jack, what happened to you?”
Jack ignored him. “Sadie, what are you doing here?”
His little sister shrugged. “Helping.”
“She’s a natural, she is.” Shaw thrust his chin at the little girl. “Led us right to ya the moment we arrived down ’ere. Per’aps she’s got wot tracker brains you ’aven’t.”
“I heard Mom say you’d be hungry.” Sadie held up a bulging leather satchel. “Look, I packed you some dinner.”
“Oh, Sadie, what have you done?” Jack lifted the satchel’s strap over h
is head and checked the contents. All he could see were gobs of paper-wrapped toffees. Leave it to a nine-year-old to pack dinner. “Penny chews?”
“Your favorite.” Sadie winked and shot another glance at the bag.
Jack scrunched up his brow. His sister almost never winked.
“Chew your candy on the way back to the Keep,” said Ash, taking a step closer. Shaw did the same, closing the net.
A three-story shanty stood at the edge of the lane, opposite the docks. Jack grabbed Gwen and Sadie and backed against the door. He jiggled the handle. Locked. “I didn’t do this, Ash. You have to believe me.”
“Tell you what. Come back with us and sit tight while the ministry investigates. The truth will out, Jack. Always does. I think we learned that together.”
Gwen had wrapped an arm around Jack, as if cowering away from Shaw. Then he felt her slip a hand into the satchel and grope around. “Stall them,” she whispered.
The satchel.
Sadie’s wink.
Of course.
Jack gave Gwen a tiny nod and then coughed. “Uh . . . wow, Ash. Shaw? Really? I can’t believe you’re working with this ginormous lummox.”
“I said ‘stall them,’ ” hissed Gwen. “I didn’t tell you to insult the big one’s intelligence.”
Ash leaned on his cane and raised an eyebrow. “I had to let my last partner go. After that, my options were limited.”
“Tha’s right,” added Shaw, advancing another step. “And them limited options was me.”
Gwen sighed. “Never mind.”
Crack!
A blue cloud filled the lane, and Jack felt himself yanked through the doorway. Cheers erupted from the magic show spectators on the dock below. Gwen, it seemed, had shoved a handful of puffers—pea-size tracker smoke bombs—into the space between the door and its frame, blowing it wide open.
The three raced up a staircase and out across a plank walkway that bridged the alley behind the shanty. Ash came running around the corner and jumped, swiping at Jack’s heel with his cane. “You can’t hide, Jack. Not from me.”
Another door: unlocked.
A left, a right, and another left down a hallway with bloodred carpet and peeling wallpaper.
A crash behind them.
Jack looked back and saw Shaw’s gargoyle scowl. “Faster, Gwen!”
They ran up dozens of steps and across more rickety walkways, climbing higher and higher through the shantytown, until they burst into a room filled with ruffians playing cards. Every grisly, snarling face turned to stare at them.
Gwen would not be stopped. “Excuse us, please. Coming through.”
There were bumps and jostles, a few squished toes. The crowd filled in behind them, and Jack heard Shaw growl, “Let us through.”
Another voice, deeper and far more menacing, growled right back at the warden, “Wot’s yer problem, mate? You threat’nin’ that young miss and ’er friends?”
The rest was lost in a barrage of angry shouts.
The teens and Sadie pushed through a heavy door and emerged on the uppermost street of the cavern, where the houses were built of stone and sturdy timber up against the rock wall. Jack pulled up short and put his hands behind his head, breathing hard. Not far away, a set of steps led up to a tunnel entrance. “We have to get out of here,” he said, turning toward the stairs.
Gwen jumped in front of him. “Wait. We can’t leave yet. We haven’t learned anything.”
“Yeah? Well, we sure can’t stay. The Hunt is Ash’s specialty. How long do you think we’ll last down here if we hang around?”
Instead of answering, Gwen produced a spring-loaded knife and flipped out the blade with a pronounced shink.
“Uh . . . Gwen?”
Without explanation, she turned him around and scraped the knife down the back of his leather coat.
“Hey, what’re you—?”
“Relax. I didn’t hurt it.” She spun him back around and showed him the blade, now covered in powdery blue residue from the puffers that had gone off behind him. She swiped a pinkie through it and rubbed a little on the stones at their feet. “If it’s a hunt Ashley wants, then it’s a hunt he’ll get.”
Jack craned his neck to look over his shoulder, turning backward in a circle. “Is that stuff only on my back, or is it all over my—?”
“Quit messing around. Those ruffians won’t hold Ash for long.” Gwen jogged up the stairs, stopping twice to rub the blue powder on the steps and on the mouth of the tunnel at the top. Then all three of them retreated down a plank walkway on the low side of the street and hid behind a set of linens hanging from laundry wires.
Seconds later, Ash and Shaw walked by. The young quartermaster crouched at the base of the steps and inspected the residue Gwen had left for him. He looked up at the tunnel and clenched his fist. “They’re out already. Come on, Shaw.”
The warden lagged behind. “You sure ’bout that?” He turned as he spoke, looking straight at the linens.
Jack held his breath.
“Yes, I am sure.” Ash was halfway up the steps. “Look here. More residue from those puffers. One of them must’ve stepped in it. Quickly, man. We’re losing them.”
The warden took one more long look at the linens, grumbled to himself, and lumbered up the steps after Ash.
Once he was sure they were gone, Jack crept out from behind his sheet. Across the walkway, mounted on a tin shanty, was a brass plaque. He read the name out loud. “Divers Run.”
“A diver is an old term for a pickpocket,” said Gwen, ducking out from behind another sheet with Sadie. “It’s a play on words, as in ‘divers run from the bobbies.’ ”
“It’s more than that.” Jack turned to look down the walkway, which descended by ramps and steps all the way to the docks. “It’s our thief’s address.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
WITH ASH AND SHAW out of the picture, Jack had time to think, and he remembered the satchel. He lifted the flap and dug through the penny chews. Aside from the puffers, Sadie had brought him a four-barrel dart gun, two electrospheres, and a copter-scout—a wind-up sphere whose top half could spread out to become helicopter blades. “You packed this?” he asked, handing her a toffee. He tossed a vanilla chew to Gwen and chose a strawberry one for himself—his favorite.
“Mom was busy,” said Sadie. “Tracker Lane was absolutely crawling with spooks and wardens. She says she misses you, but she knows you have to do this.”
Jack knelt down in front of his sister, helping her unwrap her candy. “I’m sorry I was so slow to clue in to your plan.”
“That’s okay. Gwen got it. That’s why you two are so good together.” Sadie popped the toffee into her mouth. “She completes you.”
A hint of red crept into Gwen’s cheeks.
Jack stared at his sister for a long second, half-chewed strawberry toffee hanging from his teeth. “You have to go.”
“What? Why?”
“Jack—” Gwen protested.
He held up his hand. “This is too dangerous. She needs to get back to the Keep.”
“All right. And what’s your plan? Send her up the steps? Ash and Shaw are long gone. She’d be all alone, stranded in the middle of London.”
Jack stood, looking up and down the wooden walkway for some kind of help. Nothing materialized.
Sadie squeezed his arm. “You need me.” She looked as serious as any nine-year-old could.
Right. Like he needed to babysit a little girl while he was chasing a thief, clearing his name, and trying to save his mentor. At the moment, however, Jack had no other choice. “Fine. You can come.” He turned and started down the walkway.
“Yay!” cried the nine-year-old, catching his hand. “So . . . where are we going?”
“Forty-nine Divers.” Jack scanned the shacks on either side as he walked. “I saw it on a paper in the professor’s office. That can’t be a coincidence.”
The addresses were hard to find, each formed by a number of wind chimes
or potted plants, or encrypted as symbols carved into a shingle. Gwen identified a 53 written in ancient Babylonian. “Thieves,” she grumbled. “They make everything so complicated.”
They found the number 49 painted on a rusty rail car, tucked in among the wood-and-tin shacks—an old bedroom car, with its burgundy-and-beige paint job half eaten away. Jack scratched his head, gazing down the walkway to the underground lake far below. “But how did they . . . ?”
“This has to be the place,” said Gwen, pushing on the door.
“Gwen, it’s a thief’s hideout, I doubt it’ll be—”
The door squeaked open.
“—unlocked.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Locks aren’t much use around here, for obvious reasons.”
Jack went in first, drawing the dart gun. If the thief was in there, he wanted to be prepared. A night lamp on a desk at the far end cast a dim red glow over the space. Beside it sat a complete human skull, mouth gaping open in a scream. Jack swallowed. If their thief was going for super creepy, he had hit a home run.
Gwen hit a switch and a string of yellow lights flickered on overhead. No one was home. Jack motioned Sadie inside. “Shut the door.” Then, considering how easily they’d gotten in, he added, “And lock it.”
There was a small kitchen on one end and a bed on the other, with the desk in the middle. “He’s kind of messy,” said Gwen, lifting a red sheet from the floor to check beneath the bed. When she came up again, she was holding a leather case.
“That’s the one I saw Gall hand the thief,” said Jack, stepping over to have a look.
Gwen laid the case on the bed and popped it open. “Look. Custom pockets.” There were two rows of square cutouts in the black foam liner and two matching rows of round cutouts below them, with one extra at the bottom. “Empty,” she said. “Whatever Gall gave the thief, he took it with him.”
The Fourth Ruby Page 9
