Blood Royal

by Jonathan Green

  Barty said nothing in response to Ulysses’ outrageous claim. He was staring unseeingly at The Times, a distant look in his unfocused eyes.

  “Obviously wasn’t as preposterous as I thought it sounded,” Ulysses muttered.

  “Hmm? What?” Barty managed, looking up from the paper. “Sorry, you lost me there for a moment.”

  “I can see that,” Ulysses said. “Anyway, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been away with the fairies this evening.” He retrieved his paper, taking his seat by the fire again.

  “I wish I was.”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything more, both returning to their perusal of their papers, the library clock marking the passing seconds tick after tock, after tick after tock.

  Ulysses looked at his brother. “You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

  “Well, it’s funny you should mention how you’re not a gambling man.” Barty shifted uncomfortably in his chair. They said confession was good for the soul; what they didn’t say was that it was terrible for your pride and sense of self-worth.

  “You haven’t been gambling again have you?”

  Barty winced at his brother’s parental tone.

  Ulysses glowered at him from over the top of The Times.

  “When did this start?”

  “Well, it didn’t ever really stop.”

  “What? You mean to tell me that ever since you tried to have me declared dead, so that you might come into your inheritance prematurely – just so you could pay off your gambling debts – and even then, after I bailed you out and invited you to join me in our father’s house once again, you still didn’t learn from your mistakes and continued to fritter away our father’s legacy until – now what? – loan sharks are after your blood, you’ve got heavies breathing down your neck for non-payment of blackjack table fees? What?”

  Slowly, Barty opened his mouth to speak.

  Elsewhere within the Mayfair townhouse, the jangling of the doorbell disturbed the peace of the tiled hallway. At any other time Ulysses may well have stopped to wonder who had dared break curfew to come calling at such an hour, but at present he was too caught up in his brother’s tangled affairs.

  “No, I don’t want to hear it,” Ulysses declared angrily, interrupting his brother before he could even speak. “Just tell me how much it is you need this time to get you out of whatever mess it is you’ve got yourself into, and then I’m going to tell you how things are going to be around here from now on!”

  Barty returned his brother’s glowering gaze and Ulysses was able to read the fear writ large within his sorrowful eyes.

  “It’s not as simple as that this time,” he said quietly. “I wish it was, but money’s not going to cut it.”

  Seeing his brother like this Ulysses relented and his expression softened.

  “Look, don’t be ridiculous. No matter what your debt, I’ll settle it; even if I have to sell the Warwickshire pad. Don’t worry, little brother, we’ll sort this out together. It’ll be alright.”

  “I wish I could believe that. I really do.”

  With a polite cough, Nimrod announced himself, standing at the threshold to the library. It was as if he had appeared out of nowhere, his prize-fighter’s physique and straight-backed butler’s stance giving him a certain presence. Grey-haired, broken nosed and with a hawkish countenance, Ulysses’ butler nevertheless wore his uniform as if he had been born to the profession.

  Still scowling, Ulysses looked from his brother to his manservant and adventuring companion. “What is it, Nimrod?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but there is a gentleman here to see you.”

  “A gentleman?”

  “One Doctor Gallowglass, sir. I believe you are old acquaintances.”

  “Gallowglass?” Ulysses said, suddenly elated, his mood having taken a turn for the better now that something had distracted him from his concerns over his brother’s frivolous lifestyle. “Victor? Victor Gallowglass? We were at Eton together. What’s the old bugger doing here and at this time of night, after curfew and all? It’s a long time since the two of us have wasted an evening in the company of the green fairy, or with a bottle or two of Beaujolais,” he said, recalling happy memories of more carefree times. “I wonder what he wants.”

  The manservant fixed him with those piercing, sapphire-blue eyes of his. “I think the matter might be an urgent one, sir.”

  “Really? Well I’d better not dally a moment longer then.” He rose to his feet.“Look, Barty, I’m sorry, but I need to deal with this.” Ulysses moved towards the door. “But we’ll talk again later, old chap? Stiff upper lip and all that, alright?We’ll sort it out. Whatever it is you’ve got yourself mixed up in, we’ll sort it – together.”

  He left the room, his younger brother slowly shaking his head in denial as he stared despondently at the fire dying in the grate.

  THE MOMENT ULYSSES set eyes on his old school friend he knew that something was wrong. The man’s face was the colour of a bloodless corpse, his eyes sunken and his shoulders slumped.

  He was pacing around the drawing room, fretting like a man facing imminent fatherhood; either worrying at his neatly-trimmed goatee or wringing his hands together until his bony knuckles showed white.

  “It’s been a long time, Victor,” Ulysses said as he entered the room. “What is it that brings you to my door?”

  Victor Gallowglass stopped his pacing and looked at Ulysses. Relief and sorrow warred for dominance of the features surrounding his permanently doleful eyes.

  “Quicksilver,” he said, clasping Ulysses’ hands in his, “it is so good to see you.”

  He was shaking; Ulysses could feel it through his grasp.

  “Here, have a seat.” He guided Gallowglass to a chair beside the cold stones of the hearth. Ulysses released himself from his old acquaintance’s clinging grip, and took the chair opposite. “Can I get you anything to drink? Barty and I were just enjoying a nightcap.”

  “No. Thank you,” his guest said hastily. Ulysses could see sweat beading on his forehead. “This can’t wait a moment longer.”

  “Very well, then. So tell me; what is it I can do for you?”

  As Gallowglass opened his mouth to speak, it seemed to Ulysses that he might burst into tears at any moment. And then everything came pouring out of him in a torrent of distressed recall.

  “They took my daughter. They said that if I wanted to see her alive again then I must finish my work, see it through to the end. I was being blackmailed, I know that, but what could I do? She’s all I have now, since... since my Mary...”

  Gallowglass broke off, his lip quivering. Ulysses said nothing, giving the man the space he needed to continue.

  Recovering himself, Gallowglass went on.

  “Anyway, I agreed. Of course I did, and I almost had her back, she was almost safe again, but then that bastard, London’s self-appointed caped crusader, interfered in it all and the locusts came and took her.”

  “The locusts?”

  “And now, for all I know she could be...”

  The wretched man broke off again, heavy tears splashing into his lap.

  “It’s alright.” Ulysses reached out a comforting hand. “Tell me. Slowly.”

  Steeling himself again, the shaking man gathered the emotional strength to finish his story.

  “That jack-a-knave, that bastard, Spring-Heeled Jack is planning a rescue operation.”

  “Spring-Heeled Jack?”

  “He says he can get her back. I don’t see what else I can do. Much as I hate the idea of him screwing everything up again, I don’t see that there’s any other way. But if that’s how it’s got to be I want someone else there with him every step of the way – someone I can trust. I want you to go with him, Quicksilver.”

  “But of course,” Ulysses said. “And with me you get Nimrod, my manservant, too. He’s a bit handy in a scuffle, you know?”
>
  Gallowglass looked as though he were about to cry again. “It is such a relief to hear you say that. But time is pressing. You have to come now. That fool vigilante’s meeting us within the hour.”

  “Now? But of course,” Ulysses blustered. “Where are we meeting him? Where is this rescue attempt taking place?”

  Gallowglass turned his mournful eyes on Ulysses once more.

  “St Paul’s. We’re meeting him back at the St Paul’s west wall.”

  Ulysses completely failed to stifle his gasp of horror.

  “Oh, Victor. What have you got yourself mixed up in?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Exterminator Salvation

  IT WAS NOT until just before dawn that Ulysses Quicksilver and his ever faithful manservant actually met up with Spring-Heeled Jack in the shadow of St Paul’s.

  Despite the fact that the locusts had returned to their lair the street was quiet. Since the Wormwood Catastrophe whole areas of London had become veritable no-go areas, contaminated, as they had been, by the mutagenic rain that had fallen on the capital, causing damage that would take years to put right.

  Those who could afford to had vacated homes and business premises this close to the contamination zones. They preferred to stay well clear of the danger zones, no matter what propaganda the Government might put out. Public notices had informed the survivors of the Catastrophe that they had nothing to fear, as long as they were sensible and kept out of the contaminated areas. Nonetheless, the streets of London wouldn’t be truly safe until the authorities got round to decontaminating the no-go zones, which was proving to be a painfully slow process in itself.

  The blockades were only supposed to remain for as long as it took the over-stretched exterminators to get round to clearing those areas worst affected. Barricades and walls had been hastily erected around all of the deluge hotspots to contain them for the foreseeable future. Once the exterminators had been into this area, the barriers would come down. But for now, the streets surrounding St Paul’s were strictly off limit.

  At least the Upper City had remained mainly unaffected. Those who worked within the skyscraper office buildings had been shielded from the deadly downpour. But thank goodness that had been the case, Ulysses thought, for at least with the City and Government relatively unaffected by the Wormwood Catastrophe the globe-spanning empire of Magna Britannia was still able to continue to function as the leading world power, just as it had for the last 150 years.

  “Long time no see,” Ulysses said, looking the hulking vigilante up and down.

  It had been a month since Ulysses had last had anything to do with the masked vigilante and, in that time, it looked as though he had made further improvements to his suit.

  The cape was the same, as was the jet-pack harnessed to his back beneath it. His face was still hidden by an emotionless mask realised in black leather and brass, with red-lensed goggles built in. As far as Ulysses could tell, the most obvious enhancements that Jack had made were the addition of some sort of gas re-breather and the suit’s gauntlets which were now equipped with scalpel-like blades.

  In their turn, Ulysses and Nimrod were both attired in the finest leather, brass and treated rubber anti-contamination suits Robinson Heath’s Adventurers’ Emporium had to offer.

  “Where’s the doctor?” the vigilante asked.

  “I sent him home. I think he’s been through enough tonight already, don’t you?

  You haven’t been frittering away your time I see,” Ulysses said, regarding the steel talons.

  “Well you know what they say,” the vigilante replied, his voice a flat monotone, altered as it was by the mask’s speaker-grille.

  “What, no rest for the wicked?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “The devil makes work for idle hands?” Nimrod suggested.

  “No. I was thinking more along the lines of: ‘Make hay while the sun shines’,” Jack said, his monotone somehow managing to sound disgruntled. “And where have you two been? The Exterminators’ Emporium’s seconds sale?”

  “I’ll have you know that these are the best containment suits money can buy,” Ulysses retorted. “But you’re not far off.”

  “I prefer something of my own design.” With that, the vigilante threw out his arms, the cape extending its broad bat-wings behind him.

  “Yes, yes, put it away. We’ve seen it all before.”

  Jerking his arms back down, Spring-Heeled Jack folded his cape again.

  He towered over the other two in his augmented suit and Ulysses had to admit – but only to himself – that he must make most two-bit criminals think twice when they came up against him. Fear must play its part in conquering those of the criminal fraternity Jack seemed to have now made it his life’s work to eliminate, in his mission to keep London safe from the lawless.

  “Enough of this macho posturing; we’ve a job to do. How long is it since the girl was taken?”

  Spring-Heeled Jack glanced at his wrist-mounted chronometer. “Six hours.”

  It had taken that long for Victor Gallowglass to track down his old school friend to beg for his help. The rest of the time had been used in preparing for the hunt and, for Ulysses and Nimrod, that meant paying an out-of-hours visit to Robinson Heath’s, to kit themselves out with the latest in personal anti-contamination protective gear.

  The suits were all-encompassing conglomerations of leather and treated rubber, with reinforced steel toe-capped boots and fish-bowl helmets. Every piece was secured to every other with brass clasps and rubber seals.

  Ulysses and Nimrod were each carrying the additional weight of a Smith and Winchester flame-thrower about their persons, the brass fuel tanks strapped to their backs. Ulysses had also rescued the grappling-gun he kept in the boot of his Silver Phantom Rolls, just in case. It now hung from a hook on the notched leather belt of his containment suit.

  “So, we’re all here,” Ulysses said.

  “Almost,” Jack replied.

  Looking towards the shadowed entrance of a narrow winding side-street, he pressed something on his wrist-mounted control panel.

  As Ulysses peered expectantly at the shadows crowding the mouth of the alleyway, he thought he could see something like a steam-wagon parked there, back-end on to the main thoroughfare.

  The relative peace and quiet of the empty street – nowhere in London ever being totally quiet, what with the movement of traffic through the capital and the ever-present clatter of the Overground, even in these days of curfews and security lock-downs – was broken by the rising hum of heavy machinery powering up. With a great clanking of piston limbs and the hiss of steam, something shouldered its way out of the back of the steam-wagon.

  Eight feet tall and just as broad, a shape like a walking furnace strode out of the shadows and into the Smog-smothered pre-dawn light.

  In that same instant the colour drained from Ulysses’ cheeks.

  “Oh my god, you have got to be kidding me!”

  “It’s alright. There’s nothing to worry about,” Spring-Heeled Jack reassured him.

  “But that’s...” Ulysses broke off as he stared into the glowing head-lamp eyes of the hulking search and rescue droid.

  The monstrous machine looked down at him, its furnace maw opening in an exhalation of fiery heat.

  And was it Ulysses’ overwrought imagination playing tricks on him, or was the monstrous machine really regarding him with something like recognition.

  Ulysses tried again. “But that’s...”

  “The Limehouse Golem. Yes, I – how shall I put this? – acquired it from the wreckage of the Jupiter, once it had been hauled out of the Thames.”

  “But I blew it to smithereens.”

  “That’s right, you did. But don’t worry, as well as rebuilding it, I also had the good sense to re-programme it.”

  Ulysses stared at the mechanised killer, mouth agape. He could see quite clearly now how the robot drudge had been welded back together, as well as the augmentatio
ns that had enhanced its frame. “Nimrod wasn’t kidding when he said the Devil makes work for idle hands, was he?”

  Jack relayed a command to the droid via a series of keystrokes on his control pad. With a grating of gears, the ape-like automaton leant forwards and reached out one massive crusher-claw hand towards the dandy, and then stopped, waiting.

  “Go on, shake his hand,” the vigilante said.

  “His hand?”

  “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Ulysses took a cautious step forward and – his heart in his mouth – slowly stretched out his gloved hand.

  “That is unless I decide to designate you as a target.”

  Ulysses hoped that the vigilante’s words were supposed to have sounded ironic, but right at that moment he wouldn’t have liked to place a bet on it.

  “I’m joking,” Jack said.

  “Yes, yes. Of course you are,” Ulysses blustered with forced good humour, but he quickly drew his hand out of reach of the droid.

  “Very wise, sir,” Nimrod commented, so that only his master could hear.

  “It’s only a tool, after all, and nothing to get het up about,” Jack stated. “It will prove useful if we find ourselves having to clear any obstructions on our way through the ruins.”

  Ulysses turned and looked at the looming barricade behind them. Beyond it lay acres of burnt-out buildings and derelict streets, the legacy of Wormwood’s bitter waters. “Do you really think she’s still alive somewhere in there?”

  “I have to hope she is,” the vigilante said, “and if there is even the faintest glimmer of hope, I have to try to rescue her, otherwise...” His words trailed off.

  “Indeed.”

  For a long moment none of them said anything.

  “So, I’ve brought a droid,” Jack said, breaking the tense silence at last. “What have you brought?”

  “Don’t start gloating,” Ulysses warned. “We wouldn’t be about to embark on this little sojourn into Locust London if it wasn’t for you.”

  “A pair of Smith and Winchester flamer-throwers. Will that suffice?”