by Tom Becker
“I don’t remember that,” she said softly. “There was the explosion . . . the wall came down . . . Lucien. . .” Her eyes widened. “Lucien! Did I get him?”
Jonathan shook his head. “They thought you were dead – he went back to Darkside to become the new Ripper.”
“Dammit!” swore Marianne, thumping a fist down on the mattress. “Rot him to hell!”
“Take it easy!” Jonathan said. “There’ll be time to get back at him later. The doctors said you need to rest.”
“Rest?” The bounty hunter gave him a piercing look. “How long have I been here, Jonathan?”
“About a week. Why?”
Marianne gingerly pushed herself up on her elbows, and tried to swing her legs out of bed.
“Wait!” Jonathan said hastily. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve been here a whole week? I need to go to Darkside. Lucien—”
“You need to stay in bed! The doctors reckon you’re going to be here for another month at least.”
In truth, the hospital staff had been baffled by their new patient. Two days after the surgery, the nurses had been staggered to see that Marianne’s deep wounds had already closed over; after four days, one of the doctors had ordered they retake her X-ray results, unable to comprehend the speed with which her bones were fusing back together. Medical science wasn’t to know that Marianne was a Ripper, and that her rate of recovery was far beyond that of any normal human being.
The bounty hunter slumped back down on her bed with a groan. “I can’t believe getting up could hurt so much,” she muttered.
“Give it some time. Wait until you’re better and then we’ll go back to Darkside.”
“We?”
“Harry and Raquella are here too. They’re staying with my dad.”
“Oh? And where’s your pal Carnegie?”
Jonathan bit his lip. “Lucien’s men got him at the power station and took him away. I don’t know where he is.”
“So what are you doing here? Why haven’t you gone after him?”
It was a question Jonathan had been dreading. Ever since that night at Battersea, he had been haunted by the memory of the men closing in around his friend Elias Carnegie and beating him unconscious. The fact that the wereman private detective had been taken whilst protecting Jonathan only made the image sharper, more painful. It had taken all of his friends’ powers of persuasion to keep him on Lightside.
“We all want to help Elias,” Raquella had said, as they sat around the kitchen table. “But rushing off back to Darkside now would be insane, Jonathan. If we even set foot there, Lucien’s going to have us killed. We don’t even know where Elias is, for heaven’s sake!”
“It’s not just that,” Alain Starling said solemnly.
“What do you mean?”
“Son – we don’t even know if Elias is still alive.”
“Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!”
“But he’s right, Jonathan,” Raquella said sadly. “We need to know before we risk our lives too.”
“Look,” cut in Harry. “I’ve sent a message back over to Arthur Blake at The Informer. If there’s any word on the street about Carnegie, he’ll pick it up. Until then, the best thing we can do is sit tight and work out a plan.”
“Fine. You stay here and work out a plan,” Jonathan said stubbornly. “In the meantime, I’ll go to Darkside and do something.”
“That would be utter stupidity,” Alain Starling said sharply. He continued, more gently: “If Elias were here, he’d say the same thing, son, and you know it.”
So Jonathan had stayed in Lightside, chafing with impatience, trying to avoid the thought that Carnegie might be dead. Although no one said it, everyone knew that the wereman wasn’t the only reason behind Jonathan’s desire to return to Darkside. The same night that Carnegie had been captured, Jonathan had finally discovered the fate of his mum, who had been missing for over a decade. It turned out that Theresa Starling had been imprisoned by Lucien in the Bedlam, a mental asylum in Darkside – revenge for uncovering the fact that Lucien had murdered his brother. After all these years, Jonathan had finally discovered what had happened to his mum, and now he couldn’t do anything about it. It was impossibly frustrating.
He had tried to talk to Alain about it – but his dad had clammed up and refused to discuss the matter. Raquella and Harry said that the Bedlam was more than just an asylum: it changed people. Jonathan didn’t care. No matter what his mum looked like, or how she acted, if she was still alive he was going to get her out of there. But then he couldn’t do that alone, either. . .
Marianne was still waiting for a reply. Jonathan looked down at his feet. “Why haven’t I gone after Carnegie? I don’t know what to do.”
The bounty hunter began to laugh – a harsh, bitter sound. “And you were hoping I could help you? Look at me, Jonathan! What are you expecting me to do?”
“I thought you’d do something,” Jonathan said angrily. “You’re not just going to give up, are you?”
Marianne sighed. “Far from it. But my quarrel with my brother is a personal one. I can’t afford to be running around Darkside looking for lost pets.”
“Pets?” Jonathan echoed incredulously.
“Jonathan—” Marianne began wearily.
“Forget it,” he retorted. “Do what you want.” He got up from his chair and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him as he went.
Jonathan was still fuming later that afternoon, as he strode along the South Bank through the encroaching gloom of a wintry late afternoon. Although he knew it was crazy pinning any hopes on Marianne, it didn’t stop her refusal to help him from hurting. After all, he had saved her life – didn’t that count for anything?
A small Italian coffee shop huddled beneath a covered walkway by the Thames Path, its bright interior lights warding off the onset of evening. Harry Pierce – the young Darkside journalist, and son of the murdered James Ripper – was sitting quietly at a table in the corner, sipping from a large mug of coffee. He had managed to squeeze his broad shoulders into one of Jonathan’s shirts, but it looked as though at any moment his frame was likely to burst out of it, like some sort of superhero. Unlike the other Darksiders Jonathan knew, Harry seemed to relish spending time in modern London. Given another week, Jonathan would have bet money he’d have bought a mobile phone.
Harry looked up, noting the black look on Jonathan’s face. “What’s up?”
“Marianne’s awake.”
“Oh.” Harry paused. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I’m not so sure now,” Jonathan replied sourly.
“Didn’t go so well, then?”
“She’s not going to help us.” He glanced around the coffee shop. “What are we doing here, Harry?”
“Waiting for someone. And if I’m not mistaken, that’ll be him now.”
Through the window, Jonathan saw a jittery figure picking his way through the crowds on the Thames Path. The man was small and skinny, wearing a banded hat and a suit one size too small for him. His eyes darted this way and that, scanning the vicinity for possible danger.
“Oscar’s the finest grass in Darkside,” Harry said confidentially. “You want to know something, he’ll sniff it out for you.”
The grass slipped in through the café door and sidled towards their table, his long nose twitching constantly above a pencil-thin moustache.
“Harold,” he murmured, in a soft, squeaky voice. “It’s been a while.” Settling into a chair facing the door, he took Harry’s coffee from underneath his nose and smelled it suspiciously.
“Feel free,” Harry said drily. “Thanks for coming to meet us.”
“I would say it’s nothing, Harold,” replied Oscar, “but this part of town gives me the creeps. You know where you stand on Darkside, but Lightsiders are a
rum bunch. Can trust ’em about as far as you can throw ’em.”
“What about Carnegie?” Jonathan said impatiently. “Have you heard anything?”
Oscar glanced at him warily, refusing to answer until Harry gave him a reassuring nod.
“Not a bean. If the wereman’s still alive, he’s stashed away somewhere pretty secure. Arthur’s put out all the feelers he can, but there’s not much more he can do. It’s common knowledge that The Informer’s going to get shut down sooner rather than later. You ask me, Arthur’s mad not to be in hiding already.”
Harry sighed. “You haven’t brought cheery news, Oscar.”
“These aren’t cheery times, my friend. I’ve got a bad feeling about this new Ripper. The Bow Street Runners are still knocking about, for one thing, and those Lightside coppers too.”
Jonathan’s ears pricked up. “Lightside coppers?” he asked.
“Department D, they’re called.” Oscar twitched. “Imaginative name, eh? Anyway, that hunchback who works for them’s been seen sneaking into Blackchapel a couple of times.”
“Carmichael? What’s he doing there?” asked Harry.
Oscar nodded sagely. “Well, that, my friend, is the question.” He took a long slurp of Harry’s coffee, draping his moustache with foam.
“And is there an answer?”
“Only hearsay and rumour. But an acquaintance of mine did pass on an interesting suggestion.” Pulling his chair closer, the grass dropped his voice to a whisper. “He reckons that they’ve dredged the wreckage of that power station and they can’t find Marianne’s body!” Oscar chortled. “That would leave our new Ripper with a bit of egg on his face, eh? His ‘dead’ sister being alive and well.”
Jonathan and Harry exchanged glances. “So if this is true, what are these Lightside policemen going to do?”
Oscar shrugged. “How should I know? I ain’t a copper. If I was, though, I’d do the obvious things: comb the local area, pay any friends of hers a visit, check all the hospitals. . . Hey!”
He watched as the two boys leapt up from the table and sprinted out of the shop. Shaking his head, Oscar took a deep, mournful sip of coffee.
“Bleedin’ Lightside,” he muttered, to no one in particular.
2
In the dark, the blank windows of the hospital had assumed a strangely forbidding aspect. As Jonathan and Harry raced along the main road, an ambulance careered past them, blue lights flashing and siren wailing, and screeched to a halt in front of the main entrance. A team of medics unloaded a patient on a trolley from the back of the vehicle, and wheeled him inside.
As they approached the automatic doors at the reception area, Jonathan flattened himself against the side of the ambulance and grabbed Harry’s wrist.
“Look!” he whispered.
Through the glass doors he could see the unmistakable figure of Horace Carmichael standing at the reception desk, talking to a nurse. The bright strip lights ruthlessly exposed every crease in the hunchback’s shabby clothes: they looked like he had slept in them for a month. The nurse had a quizzical look on her face, but she was nodding as he spoke.
“As soon as he asks, she’s going to tell him where Marianne is,” Jonathan said quietly. “Do you reckon we can take him? Looks like he’s on his own.”
Harry frowned. “Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said slowly. “Check out those guys over there.”
Peering around the ambulance, Jonathan saw two large men standing by a water cooler, silently watching Carmichael as he chatted with the nurse. Their broad frames were covered by jeans and baggy tops, hoods drawn up so that their faces were swathed in shadow.
“Hoods,” Jonathan said grimly. “Only ever means one thing.”
Harry nodded. “Darksiders.”
“Big ones, too. We’re going to have to come up with a new plan.”
The nurse nodded emphatically and began pointing out directions. Carmichael glanced over towards the two men at the water cooler and jerked his head at them to follow him.
“We’re out of time,” Harry said, stepping out from behind the ambulance. “Looks like we’ll have to distract them. I’ll try to lead them as far away from Marianne’s room as I can. You get up there and get her to safety. If I don’t see you, I’ll head back to your dad’s place.”
“What are you going to do?” Jonathan asked.
Harry smiled. “The usual,” he replied. “Get on someone’s nerves.”
He turned and jogged into the reception, where Carmichael and his men were heading towards the lift. Without breaking stride, Harry dashed up behind the two burly henchmen, grabbed their hoods and yanked them down. The men whirled round as one, revealing black, scaly faces covered in violent orange markings. Beady eyes glinted with reptilian intelligence. Harry turned pale and backed away.
It was at that moment that a nurse looked up from her chart, saw the lizard-like creatures, and began screaming. The reception area descended into pandemonium as people stampeded for the main exit. Through the throng, Jonathan saw the creatures chase after Harry down a side corridor leading away from Marianne’s room. Carmichael was shouting something to the nurses, but no one was paying any attention to him. Visibly torn between following his men and finding Marianne, the hunchback paused for a second, and then headed for the lift. He hadn’t taken Harry’s bait.
When the lift doors had closed behind the detective, Jonathan battled his way through the crowds at the entrance, raced through the reception and took the stairs three at a time. He arrived on the second floor just in time to see the detective disappearing round the corner – in the confusion, Carmichael had gone the wrong way. Jonathan pelted along the corridor in the other direction. With visiting hours over, the hospital was quiet, the patients immersed in television programmes, music or drug-induced dreams.
Upon reaching Marianne’s room, Jonathan darted in through the door and closed it softly behind him. He leaned his back against it, catching his breath. The lights in the room had been turned off, and moonlight was pouring in through the window, bathing an empty hospital bed in bright white light.
Jonathan blinked with surprise. Where was Marianne? He checked the room from top to bottom, even looking under the bed, but there was no one there. Baffled, Jonathan slipped back out into the corridor, only to hear a set of footsteps heading towards him. There was no time to hide. He froze.
When the figure rounded the corner, Jonathan relaxed. It was only a nurse. Adopting an innocent expression, he went to walk past her. But before he could react, the nurse clamped a hand over his mouth, and hauled him with surprising strength into a storage cupboard. As she closed the door behind them and pressed a finger to her lips, he saw that it was Marianne. The bounty hunter had somehow managed to change clothes, and was now wearing a light blue nurse’s uniform. She was also, he couldn’t help notice, smiling.
“You just can’t stay away, can you?” she whispered.
“What are you doing?” Jonathan hissed. “Where did you get those clothes from?”
“Where do you think? I swapped them with a nurse.”
“Oh. Right.” An unsettling thought occurred to Jonathan. “You didn’t hurt her, did you?”
Marianne grinned. “Of course not! She’ll be fine. Once she wakes up.”
“You knocked out a nurse?”
“I know – seems dashed ungrateful, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I got a funny feeling that it was time to go, and I felt a bit too visible in my own clothes. I left her in the toilets to sleep it off.”
“You were right about one thing. Carmichael’s here, and he’s after you.”
The bounty hunter gave him a questioning look.
“A Lightside detective – friend of Lucien.”
“Ah. My dear brother has sent someone to check on my recovery. Typically thoughtful of him—”
Marianne broke off, and hel
d up a warning hand. From the corridor outside, Jonathan heard a low hissing sound, like a tyre slowly deflating. He looked around the cupboard, searching for a weapon amongst the piles of cloths and bottles of cleaning fluid. With nothing suitable to hand, he picked up a mop.
The hissing grew louder as the creature neared. A shadow slid underneath the cupboard door, then paused. Jonathan tightened his grip on the mop, while Marianne tensed beside him. For one second, and then another, all Jonathan could hear was the hissing of the creature and the thumping of his heart, and then the shadow moved on and the creature continued along the corridor. His shoulders sagging, Jonathan let go of the mop.
“What was that, I wonder?” Marianne said thoughtfully.
“Dunno – but they’ve got black scaly heads, with orange stripes.”
The bounty hunter’s face darkened. “Fire salamanders. Nasty things – strong brutes with poisonous skin. Don’t touch them.”
“There are two of them with Carmichael,” Jonathan said. “The other one must still be chasing Harry.”
“My nephew’s here? Really? If it weren’t for him, I’d give up on family altogether, you know.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
The bounty hunter’s eyes twinkled. “I told you, Jonathan – I’ve rested for long enough. Now let’s get out of here.”
As he followed her out of the cupboard, Jonathan couldn’t help but notice that Marianne was limping. For all her flippant humour, it was clear that she was still injured.
They were about to get into the lift when a faint shout rang out from the floor above. Marianne looked sideways at Jonathan.
“That sounds like my nephew. Think we should go and help him?”
They hurried up the stairs and into a brightly lit ward, hitting a tidal wave of patients flooding past them in dressing gowns and pyjamas, some in wheelchairs and others hobbling on crutches. The cause of the exodus could be seen at the end of the ward, where one of the fire salamanders had backed Harry into a corner. The young Ripper was trying to keep the creature at bay with a drip stand – the salamander hissed angrily as it ducked and weaved, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
