"And that's thank you."
"I'm sorry?"
"Thank you for everything you've done. You have been, quite simply, incredible. And if there's anything I can ever do for you, whatever it is -"
"There is one thing," she said, before he could finish - the flush of colour still there in her cheeks but her eyes now staring confidently into his - and with one hand on the back of his neck pulling him close, her warm lips parted to meet his unprotesting mouth.
With the train underway, and the memory of their last lingering kiss still warm on his lips, Ulysses Quicksilver distractedly picked up that morning's copy of The Times. The headline read:
AILING INDUSTRIALIST DIES IN HOUSE FIRE
"We made the front page," he said, smiling grimly at Nimrod. It had taken a while for the news to filter down to London, but Umbridge Industries was one of the cornerstones on which the modern British Empire of Magna Britannia was built, so his passing had made headline news - even if all of the facts surrounding the case had not.
The morning after the incident, the local paper had gone with news of another fire, the one that had gutted St Mary's Church and resulted in the death of the Reverend Nathaniel Creed. The fire at Umbridge House and the death therein of the cancer-stricken industrialist Josiah Umbridge had only made page seven.
The boy watched the train are is rattled its way along the track, hugging the banks of the Esk as it first headed south before turning west and starting on its way across the moors. He heard the distant clickety-clack of its wheels on the rails and the peep-peep of its steam-whistle, softened almost into melody by the distance and the muffling wind sweeping across the headland above the town.
"So, are you coming or what?" a skeletally gaunt man wearing scuffed top hat and tails, and tight black leggings, called from the cavalcade of steam-wagons and horse-drawn carts.
"I'm coming!" Jacob called back as he hefted his own meagre pack onto his shoulder. He hadn't had much that he could call his own to begin with, and thanks to the fire and his father's death, he had even less. The fire and brimstone priest might not have loved him, but he had still cared for him after a manner of speaking for the last seventeen years, and Jacob would miss him, even if the recalcitrant sinner had given him a name that summed up how he felt about the impact he had had on his life, a name that translated from the Hebrew as 'usurper'.
And now that his father was gone, it was time for Jacob Creed to make his own way in the world, and not as a boy but as a man, as part of new family, one that accepted him as he was.
"I'm coming!" he called again.
Throwing the blackened shell of the church one last mournful glance, Jacob trotted after the departing wagon-train as the Circus of Wonders went on its way.
Dawn was still two hours off as George Craven started hauling in his nets after another night's fishing. He had slipped back into the old routine as easily as he had slipped into his old galoshes and sou'wester, as easily as Mrs Craven had taken on the mantle of nagging fish wife again - although now she had something else entirely to complain about.
His life of luxury had not lasted for long, as ephemeral as the fame Mycroft Cruickshank had promised him. What had been headline news a month ago was today's fish and chip papers. And George should know; he had been tucking into a portion of deep-fried haddock only the day before when he had come across the words 'Mermaid Stolen' half-obscured by grease at the bottom of the packet.
He was still considering how quickly fame could turn to notoriety and, in turn, to derision when the glistening, writhing mass of his catch began to spill into the bottom of his boat, the Mabel, and it took him a moment to realise that something wasn't quite as it should be.
Amidst the wriggling mass of writhing tentacles, flapping fins and scuttling crustaceans there seemed to be some commotion. There was something in there with the catch, something that was voracious and evil-minded, something that was attacking the sea's bounty that lay suffocating in the bottom of the boat; several somethings in fact.
George Craven peered closer, trying to get a proper look at what it was that was molesting the fish, by the swaying inconstant light of the hurricane lantern secured to the mast.
They were hideous, impossible things, like some unholy cross between a crab, a fish and... and something like the mermaid - something almost human. In fact, in comparison, they made the mermaid seem like a perfectly plausible natural hybrid. But there was nothing natural about these things.
Boldly, George reached down with a thick gloved hand and plucked one of the creatures from the writhing mass of bodies sloshing around his feet. It was bright red in colour and only six or seven inches long from head to tail. Parts of it looked like they were covered in shell, but the shell itself was still soft and pliable, as if the thing were newly hatched. As George peered at it in disbelieving wonder it hissed and twisted in the grip of his thumb and forefinger, snapping at him with one over-sized pincer-claw.
For a moment he considered taking the specimen back to shore alive. He still had Cruikshank's details. Perhaps this could be the start of something big.
"Now hang on there, George," he announced to the sea and the wind. He peered at the impossible amalgam again, with its asymmetrical physiology, seemingly part mammal, part fish and part crab, and saw nothing but trouble. "They'd never believe you!" he said with a sigh.
And with that he tossed it overboard, back into the cold surge of the sea. Snatching the others from among the morning's catch, one by one, he sent them over the side after the first. The squirming creatures plopped into the water, quickly sinking from view into the black depths of the North Sea.
"How'd you do this morning, George?" the fisherman said aloud, playing all the parts in some imagined conversation he might have later that morning, back at the docks.
"Not bad, not bad."
"No mermaids today?"
"No, not today."
"A good catch then?"
"Yeah, a good catch. But you should've seen the one that got away."
THE END
Ulysses Quicksilver will return in Pax Britannia: Evolution Expects.
Jonathan Green lives and works in West London. He is well known for his contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks, as well as his novels set within Games Workshop's worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He has written fiction for such diverse properties as Sonic the Hedgehog and Doctor Who, and non-fiction books including the titles Match Wits with the Kids and What is Myrrh Anyway? The co-creator of the world of Pax Britannia, Human Nature is his third novel for Abaddon Books and the fourth in the series. To find out more about the world of Pax Britannia, set your Babbage engine's ether-relay to www.paxbritanniablog.blogspot.com
Now read the exclusive short story...
CHRISTMAS PAST
Jonathan Green
~ December 1997 ~
I - WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY
The atmosphere within the doctor's study was one of quiet, studious application, the only sounds the crackling of the fire in the grate, the scratching of the pen across the sheet of headed notepaper he had placed on his blotter, and the deathly ticking of the clock as it marked the man's last moments on this earth.
The pre-printed heading on the top of the crisp sheet of vellum notepaper read:
Dr Lockwood Lacey, Doctor of Psychiatry
Beneath it the doctor had written the date - 1st December 1997 - and then, in a meticulous hand, had proceeded to set down his written confession.
It was snug within the study: the curtains had been drawn against the encroaching night outside and the doctor had ensured that he had locked the door before he set about his night's business.
He put down his pen and, having re-read the last paragraph of the letter, took up the bundle of crumpled papers again. Shuffling through them one by one he read each again in turn. It did not take him long. Each was a letter, written on significantly poorer quality paper, torn from a child's jotter. Each was written in b
right crayon colours, in the same childish hand, was decorated with simplistic illustrations, and each began in just the same way:
Dear Farthr Krissmus
There were thirty-seven of them in total.
With a sigh the doctor put them back on the desk, shuffling the papers together into a neat pile as he did so. Taking off his glasses he rubbed at his eyes. He felt tired, exhausted in fact. He hadn't slept for days; but he would have his rest soon enough.
Replacing his glasses, he re-read the last paragraph of his own letter. Taking up his pen once more he signed his name with a flourish, and then carefully replaced the lid. He folded the sheet of notepaper and slipped it into the envelope that he had addressed before commencing his act of confession and, licking the gummed strip, sealed it. Having tidied the other papers on his desk, the doctor laid the envelope carefully on top of the small pile in his out tray, his eyes alighting on the name of the addressee once more: The Reverend L. G. Havelock.
Calmly, the doctor rose from his chair, took off his shoes and padded across the carpeted floor of the study, the black dog that no-one else could see but which he knew was there - that was always there - trotting at his side. He stopped before the chair, which he had already had the forethought to place under the light fitting in the middle of the room.
Climbing onto the chair he slipped the noose over his head - the noose that he had also seen fit to prepare before he commenced on the rest of his endeavour, while his mind was still clear, his resolve firm. Kicking the chair away from under him, the doctor hanged himself.
A choking gargling sound disturbed the peace of the room, the spasming body sending jerking shadows dancing about the study in the flickering firelight.
And the black dog wagged its tail in approval.
II - THE DEAD OF JERICHO
Night fell as the Sunday faithful attended evensong, and with it, the first snows of winter drifted down upon the dreaming spires of Oxford. Feathery flakes descended right across the city from the blanket of clouds above.
The snow fell on the streets of Jericho, and the red-brick homes of the employees of the Oxford University Press, as much as it fell on the domiciles of dons and scholars, swirls of white confetti spiralling down between the terraces to form fractal icing sugar patterns on the roofs and roads and pavements.
But such beauty went unappreciated by Noah Hackett who, in his rotgut-induced alcoholic stupor was, for the time being, only concerned with finding a place to sleep. The snow only made things worse. Tonight it would be both cold and wet.
The prospect of sleeping rough on the streets of Oxford, amidst all the wealth and splendour of the complacent colleges, even among the less than salubrious warren of streets of Jericho, was never a pleasant one. But the knowledge that the cold and damp would leech what little warmth the last bottle of cheap gin had left in his bones, only made it seem all the more unappealing.
But he knew Jericho well - it was a favoured haunt of his, the memories of better days dragging him back to the area time after time, and there were always the boathouses and lock-ups down by the canal that were worth trying before hunkering down to wait out the night, the snow and the inevitable hangover.
He turned onto Canal Street, hoping to find an appropriately unlocked coach house in which to shelter. It was then that he heard the jingling sound for the first time, although in the drunken haze through which he lived much of his life these days he barely registered it.
The sound provoked in him nothing more than mild amusement, and into his mind, blown like the whirling inconstant snow, came memories of childhood Christmases, twee carol-rhymes rising from his subconscious like the bubbles in a glass of champagne. Not that he got to drink champagne these days.
There was nothing worth celebrating nowadays; it was enough for him that he managed to beg enough pennies from the guilty worthies of the city to furnish himself with another bottle of cheap gin and a bull scrotum pie, if he was lucky.
The tramp stumbled on along Canal Street, pulling the layers of scavenged shirts, cardigans, waistcoats and his heavy coat closer about him. He tugged his woollen cap down tight over his ears and for once was glad of his lice-ridden beard, which helped keep his face warm under its week's accumulation of grime.
Jingle-jingle.
There it was again, the tinkling of Christmas bells.
Noah trudged on through the slushy first fall.
Jingle-jingle.
And again.
This time the tramp turned. He peered through the snow and the night, and his own ever-present alcoholic fog, and glimpsed movement in a patch of shadow beyond the pool of light of the nearest guttering streetlamp. Something crimson swirled in the light escaping from a first floor window of one of the houses.
Jingle-jingle.
And then it was gone.
Confused by what he had seen and heard, but more irritated at still having nowhere to sleep, the tramp continued on his stumbling way, grumbling to himself through his beard.
Reaching the entrance to one of the alleyways that ran down to the Oxford Canal, Noah ducked into it, fervently hoping to give whoever it was that was following him the slip. He had had enough of the police harassing him and of the do-gooders from the Temperance Society sticking their interfering noses into his private business.
Untended weeds clogged the alleyway, poking out from underneath the ill-fitting doors of lock-ups and boathouses. Surely there had to be somewhere suitable round here?
Rattling the doors of the padlocked outhouses, Noah was only dimly aware of the footsteps approaching him. The renewed jingling, however, was enough to alert him to the presence of the stranger behind him.
He shuffled close to the red-brick structure to his right. He had learnt long ago that it was sometimes best just to blend into the background and not draw attention to oneself, especially when you were creeping round behind people's houses. Accusations of theft and trespass sat all too easily on the shoulders of a vagrant, as far as the authorities were concerned.
The thumping footfalls came nearer.
Jingle-jingle.
Noah froze, his weak heart suddenly racing with fretful apprehension. But still he turned round, to see who was following him.
A huge shadow stepped out of the night and into the middle of the alleyway in front of him and stopped abruptly. Noah's gasp of alarm surprised even himself. Cowering before the figure, he peered up into the hood of the crimson cloak that was pulled up over the stranger's head.
He half-expected to see a jolly, rosy-cheeked face with a bushy white beard. The bifurcated brutish face he saw there instead turned his guts to ice-water colder than the snow, and caused him to blurt out another blubbing cry of dismayed disbelief.
"You?" he gasped, recognition coming to him, despite the mind-fogging effects of the gin.
There was a sudden flurry of movement that sent eddying snowflakes spinning into the air, the reflected flash of the streetlamp on finely-honed steel and Noah gasped again as the air was forced from his body by a crippling punch to the stomach.
The figure pulled back. Noah's gaze was drawn to the fist with which the savage blow had been delivered. Four claw-like appendages glistened wetly, speckles of holly-red dripping onto the ground amidst the smattering of snow.
Noah instinctively put a hand to his belly. It came away painted red. In a state of shock the tramp found himself thinking how hot his lifeblood was, when he himself felt so cold.
With a feral wail of its own the red-cloaked figure moved in again with the gutting blades, and the jingling of Christmas bells accompanied the chorus of savage howls and agonised screams that suddenly filled the winter's night.
And all the time the snow fell.
III - THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY
"Not another one," Chief Inspector Thaw muttered grumpily.
"I'm afraid so, sir," his loyal sidekick Detective Sergeant Whately replied, holding the door for his superior to enter the archive ahead of him.
There,
between the rows and rows of shelves lay the crumpled body of the Chief Librarian. From his posture and the rigour-set expression on his face, the Chief Inspector could have believed that Everett Willoughby was only sleeping, if it hadn't been for the blood-sodden mass of papers and irreplaceable archive documents on which he was lying.
The air of the archive was redolent with the smell of old books, mildew and the bitter-iron aroma of blood, and there was lots of it.
"Dear God," Thaw uttered in dismay.
"Ah, you're here at last, Chief Inspector," a young woman wearing blood-stained white coveralls said, rising from where she had been crouched beside the corpse.
"And good morning to you too, Doctor Lavish," Thaw replied, absentmindedly combing a hand through the swirls of white-grey hair on his head, in the presence of the attractive younger woman. "You're looking radiant as ever, if I might be permitted to say so?"
"Well compared to our friend the Chief Librarian here, I suppose I am," she smirked, looking down at the dead man's puffy, fish-white face. His eyes were sunken within blotchy purpling hollows.
"Is it our killer?" Thaw asked, returning to the matter in hand.
"That's for you to find out, isn't it Chief Inspector?" Doctor Lavish said, a twinkle in her eyes.
"Well, yes. Of course, but —"
"But if you mean, is it the same M.O., then yes. Knifed in the stomach with what looks like a fistful of kitchen knives. He was stabbed multiple times. Position and pattern of the wounds suggest that the victim was struck repeatedly with an instrument made up of several long blades."
"You're sure, doctor?"
"Either that, or our killer took the time to meticulously measure the space between each stab wound before administering the next."
Pax Britannia: Human Nature Page 28
