Blackjack

by Tom Becker

  With each passing day, he channelled his frustration into anger at Raquella’s absence. Although he had come close to draining her on more than one occasion, the maid had been the one servant he had maintained over the years. He had become accustomed to her unassuming presence, at times even favoured her with some of his thoughts. And the truth was, he needed counsel more than ever, and she was the only person left he could rely upon.

  With Raquella gone, Vendetta had to do everything for himself. This would had been vexing enough at the best of times, without the increasingly problematic issue of feeding. Unable to access his money or contacts, Vendetta had been reduced to stalking the Lower Fleet for victims, hiding in the shadows like a common footpad, wary of intervention from the Bow Street Runners. The only people walking the streets at that time were usually homeless urchins or the deranged elderly, whose thin blood was little more than gruel. Even now, drowsy with hunger, Vendetta felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.

  He was awoken by a knock on the door.

  Vendetta’s eyes snapped open. The snow was coming down faster now, submerging Darkside in a blizzard of white flakes and obscuring the front step from view. Vendetta hungrily ran a tongue over cold lips. Either Holborn had managed to track him down already, or someone had chosen the worst possible moment to pay him a visit. He moved soundlessly from his chair and into the hall. As his starved system sensed the blood pumping through the human on the other side of the door, Vendetta’s teeth began to tingle. He opened the door, preparing to strike.

  “Hello,” Jonathan said.

  For the first time in his life, the vampire was lost for words.

  “You?” he managed.

  “Yeah. Let us in, will you? It’s freezing out here!”

  The boy’s shirt and waistcoat were doused in snowflakes, and he was shivering. Recovering his poise, Vendetta gave a mirthless impersonation of a smile. Perhaps this week would provide him with some satisfaction after all. He stepped to one side and made a welcoming gesture.

  “By all means, Starling.”

  “Cheers.”

  Jonathan stepped past him into the hall, blowing on his hands.

  “I’m surprised you managed to find me,” Vendetta said, his fingers itching to wrap themselves around the boy’s neck. “I wasn’t aware anyone knew of my current whereabouts.”

  “I told him, sir,” a female voice replied. Vendetta whirled round to see Raquella standing in the doorstep. “I hope you can forgive me, but I had no other choice.”

  The vampire snarled with fury. “I should have known! Wherever Starling shows up, my loyal maid always tends to follow.”

  A silhouette loomed at Raquella’s shoulder.

  “Don’t blame her,” said Harry Pierce. “If there was anywhere else we could go, we would. Believe me.”

  “Him as well?” Vendetta spat at Raquella. “Is there anyone in Darkside you haven’t told about this place?”

  “Vendetta!” Marianne cried from the pavement, stepping out from the shadows and into the light beneath a street lamp, her hair dyed a brilliant blue. She waved with mock bonhomie. “So good to see you! I believe you know Alain?”

  A thin, older man was standing beside her. The vampire recognized Alain Starling all too well. It had been Alain who had turned Vendetta’s feeding knife upon him over a year ago, nearly ending his life. Alain stared back at him unafraid, a look of cold contempt on his face. Vendetta hissed and took a step towards him, only for Raquella to catch his arm.

  “Wait, master, please!” she implored. “These are dark times for all of us. We have a common foe in Lucien. If we fight amongst ourselves, we have no hope. But if we throw in our lot together. . .”

  “And what makes you think I need your assistance?” Vendetta asked icily.

  “Even you can’t do this on your own, sir.”

  For a long time no one moved, Vendetta’s gaze remaining locked on Alain. Then the vampire broke away, and led them inside the townhouse.

  They sat down to an uneasy council of war in Vendetta’s study, the atmosphere thick with tension. The vampire listened idly to Jonathan’s story, seemingly uninterested in their escape from the hospital and the snaring of Sergeant Wilson. Only at the mention of the Night Hunt did his eyes light up with malice.

  “Well, well, well,” he chuckled. “Carnegie really has outdone himself this time. There hasn’t been a Hunt in decades.”

  “You’ve heard of it, then?” Jonathan asked.

  “Starling, Lucien’s great-grandfather – Albert Ripper himself – asked me to take part in one. All the most powerful figures in the borough are present at a Hunt.”

  “I wouldn’t hold out much hope for an invitation this time,” Marianne said lightly. Vendetta ignored her.

  “Sadly, I was attending to business on Lightside – retrieving a loan from an old business acquaintance – and so was unable to attend. Somewhere here, however, should be a book written by a man who did.”

  The vampire rose gracefully from his seat and crossed the study to a set of bookshelves, where he began running a finger down the leathery spines. “Thankfully, though I have been forced to leave behind most of my library in the temporary care of the Abettor, some of my books are here. Yes, here we are.”

  Vendetta pulled out a small, scarlet-bound book and glanced at the cover. “Confessions of a Night-Hunting Man, by Barnaby Alibi. I knew Alibi well – a weak, nervous excuse for a Darksider, with an exaggerated sense of his literary worth. This Night Hunt must have happened about eighty years ago, when Albert was on the throne. He was a brutal man, even by the Rippers’ standards.”

  Looking up at the vampire’s smooth, ageless face, Jonathan had a sharp reminder that he was in the same room as a creature of the undead. He sat in silence as Vendetta began to read aloud.

  July 17th, DY 38

  For weeks Darkside had been ablaze with the proclamation that the traitorous Abettor Sully Porter – the vile knave who had attempted to poison Albert Ripper while he slept (if there exists a more base and cowardly method of assassination, then it is beyond the knowledge of this writer) – was to face the trial of the Night Hunt. The men and women on the Grand could talk of little else, even if most knew that they stood no chance of taking part. However, thanks to my role as Blackchapel scribe and recorder, a black invitation fell through my letter box two nights before the Hunt was set to take place. Just the sight of Albert Ripper’s signature was enough to make me shiver with anticipation.

  That night I made my way to the highest ridge in Bleakmoor, dressed in blood-red riding gear. A parade of braziers lit my path, taking me to a camp in a state of frenzied preparation. Wine was flowing freely, and the air rang with bawdy choruses. The very best of Darkside society was present: Baroness Abattoir, Honved della Rosa and Jorg Gomorrah. All, however, paid due deference to Albert Ripper – the titanic ruler of our borough, who sat on his steed with the same consummate ease and majesty with which he occupied the throne. Giant blacksmiths, their exposed arm muscles bulging in the firelight, struggled to control the hellhounds that would lead the chase as they strained at their chains. In their slavering jaws I saw the gateway to eternal damnation.

  When the shackled Porter was displayed before the hunters, the hounds bayed hungrily, joined by the men themselves in an unholy harmony. The prisoner was asked if he had any last words – he said nothing, his face paler than a ghost. A coward to the last. As the horses whinnied and bucked with impatience, Porter was freed and sent on his shambling way into the night. After the traditional twenty minutes had elapsed, Albert put a horn to his lips and gave it a deafening blast: the Night Hunt had begun.

  Of the chase, I confess to seeing little. A novice rider, I stood no chance of keeping pace with the hunting pack. I remember the thundering of hooves around me, the unerring progress of the horses through the darkness, the distant snarling of hellhounds. As I tr
ailed behind the other riders, from far away I heard the discordant blowing of a horn – the signal that our quarry had been hunted down. The talk around the campfires afterwards was that Albert himself had won the chase, furiously beating his mount in order to strike the killing blow. There was even a rumour – whispered in the softest, most cautious of tones – that the Ripper had wrestled with one of his hellhounds for the privilege of taking first bite from the disgraced Abettor’s body.

  The rest of the night was lost to drink and song. The next morning, what remained of Sully Porter’s ravaged corpse was displayed on the Tyburn Tree, a stark reminder to its citizens that, even in Darkside, not all crimes can be forgiven, nor all sins remain unpunished. . .

  Vendetta snapped the book shut. “In short,” the vampire said, “Carnegie is a dead man.”

  7

  The procession began after nightfall, a rowdy crocodile of Darksiders careering through the streets. Drawn from the most exclusive parts of the borough – from the leafy opulence of Savage Row and the snooty delights of Lone Square to the extravagant comforts of the Cain Club – they were a rogues’ gallery of thieves, gamblers and murderers. Ordinarily, they navigated the streets from the safe confines of a carriage or a hansom cab, but an invitation to a Night Hunt was confirmation of one’s wealth and social pre-eminence: it was a time to be seen.

  The hunters did their utmost to ensure that they were noticed. Dressed in scarlet riding gear, they swished their hunting whips at passing urchins for sport, laughing uproariously. Spotty youths tossed gold coins into the gutter, sniggering at the violent scrummage to claim them. Ordinary Darksiders bit their tongues and stayed their hands on the hilts of their weapons, unwilling to risk interfering with such a time-honoured tradition. Instead they memorized the faces of those mocking them, preparing to settle scores at a more convenient opportunity.

  As the hunters continued north, the street lamps ended and the cobbled streets of Darkside gave way to the wild slopes of Bleakmoor. Usually a barren scrubland, the moor was coated in a thick white layer of snow that crunched underfoot. Flaming torches marked out a path up the hillside towards the dark, undulating ridge that dominated the skyline. Ravens flapped overhead, cawing loudly.

  The hunters puffed and panted up the hillside, their faces ruddy with drink – unaware that they were being watched. Crouching down behind a giant rock overlooking the torch-lit pathway, Jonathan and Raquella maintained a chilly lookout. Having taken up positions several hours before nightfall, their thick woollen overcoats were struggling to protect them from the arctic winds. Jonathan breathed on his icy hands, his teeth chattering.

  “If we don’t move soon I’m going to freeze solid,” he muttered.

  Raquella put a finger to her lips, her cheeks reddening in the wind. If she was feeling the cold, she was too proud to show it.

  “Hush!” she urged in a whisper. “We’re badly outnumbered here. If anyone sees us, we’re in big trouble.”

  “Might not be such a bad thing,” Jonathan replied, shivering. “At least a chase would warm me up.”

  Raquella cast an eye over the stream of Darksiders still stumbling up the hill. “It won’t be long now. Most of the great families have passed by. We have to wait for stragglers, remember?”

  Jonathan peered out over the rolling landscape. He had heard enough tales of Bleakmoor from Carnegie to know that this was not the place to be wandering around at night – a hunting ground for wights and wild cats, the hills were said to be littered with corpses.

  “I hope everything’s ready,” he said pensively.

  “Don’t worry about that,” replied Raquella. “Marianne knows what she’s doing.”

  They had parted company at the edge of the moor, the bounty hunter leading Alain and Harry off into the gloom, laden down with lengths of wire and sticks of dynamite. The plan was a hasty one, finally agreed after a night’s worth of argument in Vendetta’s townhouse. Lacking the numbers to take on the hunt face to face, Jonathan and Raquella’s task was to infiltrate it, and hope that Marianne could provide a distraction large enough for them to get to Carnegie before Lucien did. Vendetta had steadfastly refused to provide any assistance, contenting himself with some barbed comments before retiring to his room. It was a measure of how slim their chances of success were that Jonathan found himself wishing that the vampire was alongside them now.

  “Your master wasn’t much help,” he grumbled.

  Expecting the maid to leap to Vendetta’s defence, Jonathan was surprised when Raquella nodded.

  “It will take him time to come round,” she said. “Vendetta is not used to working with other people.”

  “It’s his choice,” Jonathan replied sourly. “If he doesn’t want to work with us, he could always try his luck with Lucien.”

  The last of the hunters stomped past them, loudly cursing the thickness of the snow. Five minutes passed by, then ten. Jonathan was wondering whether they had left it too late when he heard the sound of footsteps ploughing hurriedly through the snow, and then a high-pitched nasal voice rang out.

  “This is all your fault, Portia!” a boy whined. “If we miss the Hunt I shall never forgive you! Mama will hear about this!”

  “Oh, do be quiet, Wilbur,” a girl snapped back. “Your whining gives me an intolerable headache. I’m going as quickly as I can.”

  Two children Jonathan’s age rounded the curve. The boy was glaring daggers at his sister from underneath a riding hat several sizes too large for him. Portia was daintily picking her way through the snow, vainly trying to spare her boots from the slush.

  Jonathan gave Raquella a grim smile. “We’re in luck,” he said.

  He slipped out from behind the rock and crept after the children, the sound of his footfalls drowned out by their bickering. As he got within striking distance, he pulled out a long cosh from his belt. Despite a lengthy tutorial from Marianne in how to knock people unconscious, Jonathan felt very uneasy. He needed the boy’s clothes, but he didn’t want to actually hurt him.

  “But I want to see that disgusting mutt die!” Wilbur wailed.

  Instinctively, Jonathan brought the cosh sharply down on the boy’s riding hat, and was rewarded with a stifled grunt as Wilbur slumped to the floor. Portia spun round, her mouth open in shock, her boots forgotten. At the sight of Jonathan, cosh raised in the air, Portia’s eyes rolled up in her sockets and she fell into a dead faint on the snowy slope.

  Raquella joined Jonathan’s side, shaking her head at the sight of the two prone siblings.

  “I mean, really,” she said disparagingly, dragging Portia’s body behind a row of gorse bushes. “A night out in the open will do these two a world of good.”

  Following the maid’s example, Jonathan hauled Wilbur out of sight and hurriedly exchanged clothes. As he stepped back into the torchlight, he felt faintly ridiculous in his tight jodhpurs and riding jacket. At least his hat fitted him more snugly than it had Wilbur. Leaving the two children wrapped up in their overcoats, Jonathan and Raquella hastened up the hillside, relieved to feel the blood running through their veins again.

  On reaching the top of the hill, they found themselves on the edge of a campsite ablaze with activity. The hunters had congregated amidst the glow of three giant bonfires, sparks spitting high into the night air as old friends were saluted and tall tales retold. Above the din, a band of gypsy musicians were playing a delirious reel, their violins spiralling over the top of banging drums that urged the listener to stamp his feet. On the far side of the camp, away from the bonfires, a corral of hellhounds pawed at the ground, snarling with impatience. They were watched over by a contingent of Bow Street Runners, their chain leashes looking like pieces of string in the hands of the golems.

  As Jonathan and Raquella stepped cautiously into the deafening hubbub, they were greeted by a paunchy man who jovially stuck a goblet beneath Jonathan’s nose.

  “Drink
up, young ’un,” he ordered. “You’re a man tonight.”

  Unwilling to draw attention to himself by refusing, Jonathan took a deep swig from the goblet. As the scalding liquid inflamed his throat he coughed, tears springing to his eyes. The jovial man laughed and slapped him on the back.

  “That’s the ticket!” he cried, wheeling back into the throng.

  Jonathan’s eyes were still watering when suddenly, through the flames, he saw the new ruler of Darkside. Lucien was standing in the centre of a ring of hearty hunters, his slight frame dwarfed by the larger men. The Ripper looked uneasy in the glare of the attention, his crooked stance betraying his permanently crippled left leg. When an attendant tried to brush some snowflakes from Lucien’s jacket, he angrily swatted their hand away. Holborn, standing a protective half-step behind, smoothly stepped in and dismissed the attendant.

  Clasping Raquella’s hand, Jonathan drew back into the shadows and stealthily worked his way to within earshot of the Ripper.

  “Do you think we could begin now?” he heard Lucien icily remark over the crackling flames. “If one more of these drunken imbeciles tries to curry favour with me, I’ll set the hounds on all of them.”

  “Of course, sir.” Holborn bowed smoothly, and then cried out: “Bring the prisoner before us!”

  At once the campsite subsided into a hush – the chatter stopped and the gypsy musicians put down their instruments. Two Bow Street Runners appeared on the ridge, on either side of a tall, familiar figure. Breathing in sharply, Jonathan watched as his friend came into view.

  Elias Carnegie shambled into the campsite, his hands and feet shackled in heavy iron restraints. His shirt was torn and in tatters, his trademark stovepipe hat a crumpled mess. Angry bruises on his flesh betrayed the fact that he had been beaten. Despite his injuries, the wereman’s head was defiantly unbowed. When one of the Runners brought him to a halt before Lucien and Holborn, Carnegie surveyed the cream of Darkside with a look of undisguised contempt.