It was just past three o’clock by Thaniel’s pocket watch—and the tolling of a distant church bell—when the Crooked Lanes finally acknowledged them. They were tired, having not slept enough, and they had been walking about in random directions for hours. It was almost a relief when a pinch-faced man wearing a tatty brown cloak approached them in a narrow alley, and suddenly said in a shrill voice:
“Are you lost?”
“Are you of Crott’s gang?” Thaniel countered immediately. “Hmm. You’ll be wanting one of Crott’s? Not mine; I’m Rickarack’s man.” The stranger looked them over like a magpie examining a potential treasure. “Wait here,” he said suddenly, and hurried away around a corner.
They waited, as they had been told, none of them speaking, each wrapped up in anticipation. It was less than three minutes before a new arrival turned up. It was a bent old man, horribly scarred on one side of his face, as if he had long ago been mauled by some kind of wild animal. He wore a multitude of tatters and rags; his neck sagged and his bare forearms were covered in liver spots.
“They call me Grindle,” he said, his voice low and phlegmy. “What business do yer ’ave with Crott, strangers?”
“My name is Thaniel Fox, wych-hunter,” came his reply. “And this is Cathaline Bennett, a wych-hunter also. The lady is Alaizabel Cray.”
“Aye, I’ve ’eard of your father, Master Fox,” Grindle said, squinting at him. “No wych-kin in the Crooked Lanes.”
“We’re not here for wych-kin. I seek an audience with Lord Crott,” Thaniel replied.
“Do yer now?” said the old man, with a rancid smile. “Do yer indeed?”
It had been a long day for Ezrael Carver. There was no particular reason for it, no special circumstance that made this day any more difficult than the rest. He was just tired, and his patience was thin, and so he had to work hard to keep up a veneer of unflappable politeness as he trawled around Cheapside Police Station looking for files that their hopelessly inept secretary had scattered around various cabinets.
He didn’t like the bustle that filled the main body of the building. It seemed like every day there were more people crowding around the reception desk, or sitting on the hard pews in the waiting room. The city of London was going to pot, all right. It had been sliding gradually downhill ever since the Ver-nichtung. Ever since those blasted Prussians had bombed it, twenty-odd years ago. Ever since the wych-kin came.
The requisite papers finally found, he returned to his office and shut the door on the noise outside, noticing that Maycraft was not back yet from wherever he had gone. He sat down in his chair and put the papers on the desk before him.
Truth be told, he quite liked Maycraft. He’d had plenty of run-ins with the older man in his time, when he worked in Holborn; but when he’d heard that he’d been given the commission by Parliament to work on putting an end to Stitch-face, he’d had no qualms about accepting, even though it meant working with a man whom he’d only ever antagonized in the past. Now, after two years of collaboration, they knew each other well, and accepted each other’s foibles. And he certainly enjoyed the privileged position that he held, being able to pick and choose his departmental assignments around his work on the Stitch-face problem.
Well, he thought. All that aside, what am I to do about these Green Tack murders?
He tapped a pencil against his teeth, gazing into space, conscious of the light dimming towards another cold, dark and undoubtedly foggy evening. Inspiration was not readily forthcoming today so to make himself feel useful he hit on the idea of calling Doctor Pyke up at Redford Acres to ask if he had had time to look over the documents they had given him. On Maycraft’s suggestion, they had given him the details on the Green Tack murders for his professional opinion on whether the killer was indeed Stitch-face or, if not, then what kind of person could do those things. Carver had been against sharing information with those outside the police force, but Maycraft insisted that Pyke was trustworthy. In fact, it would have made more sense to wait for Maycraft to return and have him call Pyke, since the two of them were friends, but Carver did not want to wait.
Picking up the earpiece of the upright telephone, he suddenly realized that he had no number for Doctor Pyke. He asked the operator to connect him to Redford Acres, but she had no listing for it. He apologized and replaced the earpiece in the cradle.
How silly of me, he thought, and went over to Maycraft’s desk, opening the drawer in which was the Inspectors address book. Maycraft would have the number. Opening it, he began to look. Maycraft’s handwriting was shocking, and he had a habit of doodling on the edges of the notepaper that was most annoying and distracting to the eye. Additionally, he had not put the numbers in alphabetical order, and when Carver finally did locate Doctor Pyke’s address, there was a small note beneath that said: Telephone number: see Lucinda Watt, secretary. It was while flicking through on a search for Miss Watt that he suddenly slowed the turning of the pages, a frown appearing on his face. He turned back two leaves and stared at the thing that had caught his eye.
Maycraft, not an imaginative man on the outside, was nevertheless extremely creative in his doodles. There were dragons, over there a sketch of a muffin-man (obviously drawn in a state of great hunger, as he was depicted as the Second Coming), and numerous Union Jacks. But there, in amid a clutter of other absent-minded scrawls, was a tiny shape. It looked something like a jagged seashell, or a heavily lashed eye... No, no, it was more like an odd malformed octopus or a seal or... he didn’t really know. It was drawn within a circle, like a badge or a symbol. Ordinarily, it would not have attracted his attention, but for the vaguely unpleasant feeling he got from it; however, his quick brain had made a connection immediately upon seeing it.
He looked from the map on the wall to the symbol and back again. Then, drawing a small-scale map of London from his own drawer, he marked the spots where the Green Tack murders had taken place. And he joined them up, like a constellation, and drew a shape around them.
“By Heaven,” he breathed, as he stared down at the map on his desk.
Stretched over London, with only a small section of its body left incomplete, was the tentacled thing in Maycraft’s address book. The sites of the Green Tack murders formed the primary points of its shape; tips of tentacles, the top of what might be the head, and so on. He estimated that only two more points were needed to complete the shape, and he put dots where they would have to be.
A cloud passed before the sun, and the room dimmed.
“By Heaven,” he said again. “Maycraft.”
AN AUDIENCE WITH CROTT
A DEAL IS STRUCK
THE RAT KING 10
Lord Crott’s feasting hall was huge, an immense stone room with tall, rough pillars that shouldered up to the great arches overhead and held them aloft. Everything was bare stone, made of massive blocks, and there seemed to be no real doors into the room; rather, it was almost completely open, with the peripheries yawning into blackness where no light shone.
Between the pillars, however, there was plenty of light, and sweltering heat. Metal troughs stood along the centre of the hall, filled with burning coals and topped with all manner of grill and spit, stringy steak and tough pork and chicken. Bubbling cauldrons—yes, cauldrons, even in this day and age!—bobbed with potatoes and vegetables. Cooks wandered around the perimeter of their domain, turning and tasting the food.
All around the lighted area were tables, at which sat men and women and children, the beggars of the Crooked Lanes. They were filthy and unkempt, most of them bearing some deformity or affliction, for it was common practice for poor parents to cripple a child so they could evoke sympathy in passers-by and gain coin from it. And yet, they were laughing and talking, exchanging bawdy humour or thumping each other playfully, and eating their fill at the tables, with jugs of wine to wash down the meat. The room was all noise and movement, the sound echoing up to the great roof and multiplying across the cavern, and merriment filled the air.
T
he man who Grindle pointed out as Lord Crott was sitting in no special place, at no specific table. He sat on no high chair or dais; he was feasting between a thickly muscled ogre of a man with a simple face that bespoke some brain deficiency, and a small boy who sat with his eyes closed and his long, dirty hair in knots and tangles all over his face. As they looked, he laughed heartily at some unseen joke and slapped the back of the ogre, who took it as his cue to emit a gormless, slow chuckle.
Grindle brought them over to where Crott was sitting, and he looked up as they neared. He was a lean man of perhaps forty years, and he would have been handsome were it not for the vicious sword-scar that crossed his cheek and made his lip curl unpleasantly, or for the deep smallpox pitting that hid beneath a thin, scratty beard. He looked little like a beggar, Thaniel thought; more like an outlaw of some kind, Robin Hood perhaps. He chastened himself for being fanciful.
But it was the boy next to him that dominated his attention. There was one detail that he had not been able to see from a distance, that was now overwhelmingly obvious. The boy was not sitting with his eyes closed out of choice. A twin line of dull brown dots linked with wire ran along just above and below his lashes. His eyes had been sewn shut.
“Thaniel Fox!” Crott exclaimed. “My, my, it’s been a time. You were half that height when I saw you last.”
“Ezekien Crott,” he replied, smiling. Crott stood and they shook hands heartily. “Still king of your castle, I see.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, then turned his attention to Grindle. “Some food for our guests, then.” With a wave, he ushered away the people sitting opposite him, and they picked up their plates and left, so that there was now an empty bench on one side of the rough-cut table. “You must sit down, ’ he said. “Ah, the enchanting Miss Bennett. It is a pleasure to have you at my table.”
She nodded her head and smiled as she sat.
Grindle returned with a companion, and placed four plates of chicken, potatoes, gravy and cabbage down before them. It was only at that moment that they realized they were ravenous. Cathaline began eating hers immediately; the others waited for Crott to wave them permission to begin. Grindle sat down on the right of the boy with the sewn-up eyes.
“I am honoured to present my companions,” Crott said. “Old Grindle you already know. Here to my right is Devil-boy Jack, an advisor of the highest calibre. And this mountain to my left is Armand. He’s French, but otherwise a very fine fellow.”
Armand made his slow hur-hur-hur again at the sound of his name, then picked up a piece of chicken in his fingers and began to chew it.
“I imagine you have something of a problem that I can help you with, Thaniel,” said Crott, after a time. “Your father and I were always great friends; a service to his son is a service to him.”
“I imagine I will be able to return the compliment,” Thaniel replied. He was watching Devil-boy Jack uncomfortably.
“Tell me your troubles, then, and I will tell you mine,” Crott said genially. “And we shall see what we shall see.”
Thaniel told him then, leaving out occasional details here and there but being truthful in the main.
Crott leaned forward when Thaniel was done. The feasting had reached a freshly raucous pitch around them, but he seemed not to notice the background noise that almost drowned out their words.
“You seem to be in a dire predicament, my friends.”
“I believe,” Thaniel said, “that what we are involved with has much greater repercussions than we have yet seen. The Fraternity wants this girl, I’m convinced of that. It may be that the story behind her will affect us all.”
“Thaniel Fox is right,” said the Devil-boy, his voice a flayed, hoarse whisper. Everyone at the table shifted their attention to him, expecting him to elaborate, but he said nothing more. Crott did not even look at him, only tapped his index fingers together in front of his face.
“You need me to shelter you all,” Crott said slowly “You need me to shelter her, when things will come looking for her. And you want me to find out what I can about her past, and about what she is involved in now. Am I correct?”
“You are,” said Thaniel.
“You ask a lot,” he said.
“I know,” Thaniel replied.
There were a few tense moments, and then Crott clapped his hands. Armand clapped as well, aping him, and laughed his feeble-minded laugh. “Anyway, enough of your problems,” he said. “I think we should discuss exactly what you can do for me.”
“Things are dark, here in the Crooked Lanes,” Jack said unexpectedly. Crott subsided almost immediately, deferring to the young, blind scrag. “I see a pestilence in the stones of our cellars, and the sewers are fouled by something unnatural. We are surrounded by portents of evil.” He turned his sightless face to Alaizabel. “Do you not feel the city’s death throes? We are on the brink of an unhallowed age. The aged spirit inside you is the key, Alaizabel Cray. She will bring about the darkness.”
“Who is she?” Alaizabel asked.
“Her name you know,” the Devil-boy replied. “Her purpose—”
“Will be revealed to you in time,” said Crott, interrupting. “After you have done a small favour for me.”
Thaniel’s face was stern and blank. “What would you have us do?”
Crott chewed on a cold, greasy chicken thigh. “We have an unwelcome guest in our sewers,” he said round a mouthful of muscle. “Get rid of it.”
Thaniel nodded. “Of course,” he replied, but any further comment was forgotten in the wake of the scream that came from the far side of the feasting hall. The beggars were on their feet in a flash, none quicker than Crott and few slower than Armand. The sound came from the darkness outside the pillars that surrounded the feasting area. Torches were brought, and by the time Crott arrived at the source of the disturbance, a circle had already formed around it. They made way for him and his guests, and in moments they stood looking upon the thing that lay at the edge of the vast feasting hall.
Five black rats, each the size of a small dog, lay dead. Their vicious incisors showed over cold lips and their thick tails were entwined, woven in and out of each other in a complex tangle, forming a hub around which the bodies of the rats were loosely scattered.
“What is it?” Alaizabel asked, noting how the beggars were gazing fearfully at the conjoined creatures.
“A Rat King,” Cathaline replied.
“It is a portent of evil,” Devil-boy Jack said in his scratched, hoarse voice. “The signs are unmistakable. A catastrophe is approaching. The darkness awaits.”
THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALISTA WHITE
A CARRIAGE AT REDFORD ACRES 11
The great Gothic arch of St Pancras train station loomed out of the rain-mist, spectral in the faint moonlight. There was no fog tonight; the torrential downpour had torn it to tatters and it had retreated to the hollows, lurking in thin shreds around cold graveyards and derelict wasteground. Few people trod the streets, for the rain was enough to chap the cheeks with its fury, and those who did were surrounded by a private haze of moisture as the droplets exploded over every centimetre of them.
But for some, the necessity of travel was great enough to force them to brave the elements, and cabs still rattled back and forth through the deluge. For an unfortunate few, however, there was both the necessity of travel and the lack of wealth. Alista White was a woman with three children to support, no husband, and a good heart which would not allow her to condemn them to the workhouses. She made enough money at her weaving to eke her way through a tough, leathery life, but not enough so that she could frivolously afford a cab when Shanks’s pony would do just as well. So she walked on, unaware that tonight there was something stalking her that would take her life before the dawn rose again.
A carriage creaked slowly through the downpour, forging through the sheets of rain, pulled by a black stallion and a white mare. Its hunched driver wore a top hat, with the collar of his voluminous greatcoat turned up, so that
only a narrow band of shadow was left for his eyes, and nothing could be seen of his face.
Insidiously, the dark carriage moved through the streets around St Pancras, heading to a destination known only to its driver, an appointed time and an appointed place. Gradually, it was swallowed up by the rain, until it had passed from view and was gone.
The onslaught slashed down, the walls crawling with rivulets that shifted their routes restlessly back and forth down the rough stone. The kerbs had become river banks, and the street-gutters gaping caves that drank them in greedily. Spuming waterfalls careered off slanted roofs, plummeting down to burst on the ground below. Under the feeble protection of her black umbrella, Alista continued on her way, hurrying to Doctor Roach’s house. Of course, he wouldn’t appreciate being awoken at this late hour—it was half past one in the morning, she guessed—but her boy Jip was down with the shakes and the chills and the fever, and she’d seen what had happened to his best friend Tomas when he’d had the same thing a week ago. She’d seen those horrible red cracks appearing all over him, as if he had been shattered like a dropped vase and the blood beneath was welling up a millimetre beneath the skin. She’d seen it on the noses and cheeks of old drunkards many time; burst veins from a lifetime of alcohol. But this was all over; and now Tomas was lying somewhere, in a Poor Pit no doubt, with maybe fourteen others who couldn’t afford a proper burial. And her Jip had it now. Crimson Fever.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray Page 10
