Medi-Evil 3

by Paul Finch

  Charles hurried south, towards the Thames.

  *

  Though he lacked Colonel Thorpe’s experience, it wasn’t long before Charles picked up a trail that he thought might be Sebastian’s.

  In Lyall Street, which was the next road along, he noticed spatters of a dark, oily substance on the pavement. In the gas-lit gloom it was difficult to tell their colour, but they were so fresh that they smoked in the chill. Sixty yards further on, he found another spattering of the same liquid, this time trickling down a wall. There was similar evidence at the junction with Elizabeth Street, and on Commercial Road. As Charles had suspected, the blood eventually led him all the way to the river’s edge at Chelsea Reach.

  Further downstream from here there’d be forests of masts and sails, the sound of accordion music and wild shouts from the wharf-side taverns. However, this stretch of the Thames was quiet. It rippled silent and sluggish under its shroud of ebbing mist. On the far side of it, new building work was under way on Battersea Fields, but none of it was yet complete and at this late hour there was neither light nor sound from the various construction sites.

  Charles crouched at the edge of the dock. There was no telltale film of blood on the water; no stains streaked down the granite stanchions. He hadn’t expected the injured creature to simply throw itself into the Reach and vanish, of course. But it had definitely come this way. The last splotch of its fluids was still visible only twenty yards behind him. Charles wondered what Colonel Thorpe would do.

  And then he saw the leg.

  He only caught it in the corner of his eye and at first took it for a piece of bent driftwood. But he looked again, and this time there was no mistake. Below him, about thirty yards to his left, shingle had banked up against the dock wall, forming a small beach. The leg lay on top of this.

  He sought a way down, eventually finding a flight of steep steps, the bottom five of which were slippery with weed. The tide was thankfully low, but he still had to wade ten yards through muddy, knee-deep shallows before he reached the object of his attention. It was clearly what he’d thought – an immense, insectile leg; the femur section broad, almost violin-shaped, the lower shank long and narrow, the whole thing clad in a hard, green shell. Evidently, Colonel Thorpe’s hefty payload had struck it at the point where it joined the thorax, for that was where it had come detached. Blood, though viscous and clotting, was still seeping from the grisly wound.

  Charles stared at the thing, repulsed. And then his eye caught something else. To his left, in the centre of the dock wall was the entrance to an overflow pipe. A circular concrete rim led backwards into unknown depths. Water was trickling out, and all manner of foul rags hung from it. Despite this, the rim was clearly smeared around its sides with a dark, oily residue, which, when he looked at it closely, again seemed fresh.

  Charles peered into the black maw, a chill down his spine. This would be an act of insanity, and no mistake. But he owed it to Annabelle to at least look. He wasn’t just trying to recapture Sebastian now (though Heaven knew how he was going to manage that); it had become a rescue mission as well: the boy was maimed, maybe dying. Should a soldier of the Queen walk away from something like that? Colonel Thorpe hadn’t been the first to scornfully note that Charles had survived the battle of Isandlwana when so many of his comrades hadn’t. An enquiry had cleared him of cowardice, but the stigma had remained. He’d been cat-called in the mess, had even found an anonymous letter with a white feather attached in his quarters. This tarnished reputation hadn’t yet followed him home to England, but it would do soon enough, and how would it look to his fiancée if he’d also balked at the first sign of real danger during tonight’s escapade?

  Charles steeled himself, drew the revolver from his pocket, checked to see that he had at least one shot left, then climbed up into the pipe and shuffled forward on his hands and knees.

  It was a loathsome experience. The stench was frightful. All types of disgusting things dripped on him or hung in his face. And of course he could see nothing. The blackness flowed over him, filling in the space behind as well as in front. Soon – and he glanced over his shoulder and saw this for himself – the entrance was nothing more than a distant patch of foggy starlight. This was futile, he thought. What could he hope to gain by this?

  Suddenly there was movement.

  Just to his left.

  What sounded like a faint scratching.

  Charles turned sharply, just in time for a match to burst into flame. Instinctively he yanked his head back – before relaxing a little. Colonel Thorpe was there. He was crouched in an alcove, smiling, his elephant-gun propped up next to him.

  “Well done, young fella,” he said. “It wasn’t a difficult trail to follow, but for a milksop like you I’m impressed.”

  “Colonel …” Charles began, but the colonel put a gloved finger to his lips.

  “Hush, my boy. You’ve done as much as you need to. This way, no-one can say it was your fault.” He clenched his fist and drove it forward, slamming it into Charles’s jaw, knocking his head against the stonework behind, plunging him into oblivion.

  *

  Colonel Thorpe turned Captain Brabinger over (to make sure he didn’t drown in the stream of liquid excrement that flowed underneath him), and proceeded along the passage.

  The colonel knew roughly where he was going. This was not a proper sewer. It was one of Bazalgette’s ingenious storm-drains, designed to channel away excess rainwater from the streets above, or, if the river ever rose inexorably, one of several hundred that would suck the overflow down into a network of subterranean gullies and lagoons, and dispel it all again when the level had reduced. At no stage would he be more than ten feet below the surface. In daytime there’d be fresh air down here and even chinks of light. Of course this wasn’t daytime, so for the moment at least he’d have to be on his guard. But that had never troubled Thaddeus Thorpe before.

  Gun to the fore, he continued. The concrete pipe had now given way to a brick tunnel, which was wider and taller, but he still had to move at a low stoop, which meant that his back and knees were aching. Eventually he reached a junction and there he could stand head-high. He struck another match, and it illumined a vaulted, octagonal chamber about twelve feet across. Four other passages ran off from it in different directions, brackish water flowing out of each one, all the currents branching down towards the river – as much as they were able to, the floor being so choked with leaves and litter and general ordure. Once again strands of putrid matter hung from overhead, like dead vines in a decayed jungle.

  The match went out. Colonel Thorpe struck another and this time set fire to a bundle of handkerchiefs that he pulled from his overcoat pocket. He stuffed them into a fissure in the wall, and looked around again. On the west side of the chamber, just below the arch of the ceiling, he saw another aperture. This was smaller than the others, about the size of an oven-door. Six corroded iron bars were fixed across it, but the middle two had been bent aside. The colonel chuckled. When he’d ventured into this place and found it empty of rats, he’d had his first real inkling that he was on the right track. Now he was certain.

  Gun under his arm, he crossed the chamber, reached up and with no great difficulty twisted the remaining bars loose. Despite the burning rags, this smaller recess remained in darkness, though from the smell issuing out of it – a mixture of blood and honey, spiced with the sickly odour of rotted vegetables – he fancied his prey was close at hand; maybe only a couple of feet away.

  “Not long now, my friend,” the colonel said in a low voice, “and your pain will be over.” He laid the barrels of his weapon across the lip of the recess, and reached into his pocket for another match.

  And only then did he realise that he wasn’t alone.

  Swiftly and silently, two lithe but very tall figures had appeared from opposing tunnel mouths, one to either side of him.

  This was an entirely new experience for Colonel Thorpe: that something, or even less likely, som
eone could sneak up on him without his noticing. He whipped around to face the one on his left, grabbing quickly for his gun. But whatever lay in the recess grabbed the gun first, yanking it out of sight. The figure on the right, meanwhile, had seized the colonel’s arm in a grip of steel. The colonel found himself gazing into an astonishingly savage face: Negroid and black as ebony, with four bronze rings inserted through each of its earlobes. Ritual, clawed striations were visible across the broad, strongly-boned brow, while the plump cheeks had been slashed with tiger-like stripes of glowing red war-paint.

  The colonel tried to strike with his fist, but that arm too was now caught. Suddenly he was helpless as a brute in a snare, both his wrists pinioned behind his back. The man with the tiger-face leaned in closer, and drew his lips back in a feral snarl. He reached under his cloak and, with a metallic rasp, produced something long, heavy and shimmering in the firelight. The colonel’s eyes fixed on the weapon intruders into Africa’s dark heartlands had come to fear throughout countless centuries: a machete.

  “Damn you!” Thorpe stammered, his normal gruff tones broken with fear. “You don’t understand, you stupid, ignorant darkie. I’m on your side. I’m here to help you … damn your eyes, damn your filthy hide!”

  The tiger-man paid the protestations no heed. His snarl became a sickle-shaped grin. And he plunged the machete forward – again and again and again.

  *

  The first thing Charles did when he came round was start throwing punches.

  Only slowly did he realise that he was alone and lying on a bed in an attic room – a very familiar attic room. He sat up sharply, and went dizzy. He felt gingerly at the side of his jaw where there was an egg-sized swelling, and then at the back of his head; the old suture scars had burst and leaked a little blood. He climbed carefully to his feet, but the room swam and he had to steady himself against a wall.

  It took several minutes for him to come fully to his senses. When he had, he saw that his overcoat had been removed and used as a blanket for him, while a cushion from downstairs had served as his pillow. He glanced around again, unsure which stench was the worst, the general foul odour of the room or the filth that streaked his clothes. The air at least was fresher than it had been earlier. Charles over to the window, which was still missing its steel grille. He looked outside. Much of the fog had cleared, and by the moon’s position it was the early hours of the morning. Despite this, he thought he could hear voices somewhere below. It sounded as though an argument was in progress.

  He crossed the room to the iron door, only to find it closed and locked.

  “Blast it, Annabelle!” he hissed. “How can you side against me?”

  He turned, trying to think clearly. They hadn’t bothered to replace the window-grille because it was at least a thirty foot drop to the garden. But if Charles remembered rightly, the net had snagged half way down. He hurried over there and again peered out. The net was still there, suspended by several strands of twine that had caught around a broken nail in the window frame. Eagerly, he hauled it up and extricated one of the colonel’s two ropes. He bound one end of this around the heavy iron bedstead and the other around himself. Then, tentatively, he started to lower himself down the exterior wall. On first taking his weight, the bed leapt up, but it couldn’t pass through the window and provided a solid anchor. Charles thus descended, dropping the last three feet and landing on the paved path at the top of the lawn.

  He untied the rope, and warily circumnavigated the house, coming eventually to the bay window of the parlour. It was curtained off, but he put his ear to the glass and listened. The argument was still going on. By the sounds of it, Annabelle was exchanging opinions with Joseph and Nigel.

  “We must silence him,” one of the Ethiopians said in his heavily accented English.

  “No,” Annabelle replied. “I won’t hear of it.”

  “If he’s no longer your betrothed, mistress, why does it sadden you?” the other asked. “You no longer love him, you say. We must act. It’s for the benefit.”

  “It’s murder,” she replied.

  “Is it not murder to send Kalengu back to our homeland, where millions will die?”

  “That is a superstition.”

  “You know it to be true.”

  “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Mistress, this man is a danger to us. His survival threatens everything we have worked for.”

  Charles stepped backwards, heat rising in his cheeks. So that was the plan: to dispose of him, purely because he knew their unnatural little secret. And what was this about Annabelle no longer being his fiancée? These black beasts, these great apes that she called servants had finally turned her against him.

  “We’ll see about this,” Charles said, stalking along the path towards the front door, which after all the comings and goings of the evening had been left ajar.

  He entered the hall unimpeded, glancing left at the parlour door. This too stood partly open; through the narrow gap, he could see to the far side of the room. Leaning against the fireplace – rather to Charles’s surprise – was Colonel Thorpe’s elephant-gun. How it had got there, Charles couldn’t and didn’t like to imagine, but as far as he recalled there was at least one shot left in it.

  Only one, while Nigel and Joseph were two.

  Nevertheless, it would improve his chances.

  The Ethiopians, meanwhile, were still remonstrating with their mistress.

  “It isn’t that simple,” she replied to them. “As long as Sebastian lives here, there’s a danger he’ll be discovered. You’ve seen the reaction of the people on the streets. They’re terrified; they’re like to do anything. First of all we must find a way to keep him properly penned.”

  “That is agreed,” one of the servants replied. “And to help with this, those others who know about him must die. Mistress, it will save millions …”

  Charles had heard enough. He took a couple of deep breaths, shook his cramped limbs to loosen them, then kicked the door open and dashed full pelt across the parlour.

  In his peripheral vision he fancied Annabelle was in one of the armchairs, Nigel kneeling in front of her and Joseph standing to one side. But before any of them could react, he’d reached the elephant-gun, cocked it, spun around and fallen to one knee. The two blacks looked as astonished as their mistress, though fleetingly Charles was equally as dumbfounded as any of them. Both Ethiopians wore cloaks over their normal servant garb, but bewilderingly, they’d painted their faces with ritual stripes and were wearing bunches of earrings in each ear. In addition, Joseph’s normally crisp white shirt was sprayed scarlet all down its front.

  “Bloody heathens!” Charles finally stammered. “Planning to do for me as I slept, eh?”

  Nigel, who at nearly seven feet was slightly the taller of the two, watched the big gun warily. “Captain, when one’s nation is in peril, one must act whichever way one can.”

  “You don’t have that choice any more,” Charles replied.

  Annabelle stood up. “Charles …” she began, but he cut her dead.

  “Silence girl! From now on it’s ‘Captain Brabinger’ to you.” Annabelle looked stung and also hurt, but Charles felt he’d seen enough of her pretend gentility. “This charade of civilisation has gone on long enough I think. I don’t know where that lunatic brother of yours is, miss, but he’s going to be caged, as he deserves to be. In case you’d forgotten, this is London in the nineteenth century – it’s no place for ill-bred savages like these two, or monstrous abhorrences born in jungle hells.”

  As Charles ranted at his former fiancée, he didn’t at first notice Joseph sidling to the left, reaching for a long, slim object standing against a pot-plant. Only when the servant suddenly lunged for it and raised it above his head to throw it, did Charles spot it and realise what it was: an armah, an Ethiopian hunting-javelin; six feet long with a weighted head and a wide, flat blade of polished steel. A deadly weapon, used since the days of Emperor Gelawdewos to bring down li
ons and leopards.

  But sleek as the weapon was and as fast as Joseph could brandish it, Charles was already in position. He triggered his gun without hesitation.

  In the small parlour, the boom was ear-shattering. Before Joseph could even loose the spear, he was hit in the upper torso and flung at least five feet backwards, crashing against a bureau, sending ornaments and photo-frames scattering. A second passed and the tall servant hung there as though crucified, his entire chest apparently imploded. Very slowly, he tumbled forward. The exit-wound between his shoulder blades was a red, raw hole the size of a dinner plate. As the smoke cleared, blood and bone could be seen to have spurted up the wall as high as the ceiling.

  With a sibilant hiss, Nigel drew his machete. Charles hit the trigger again, just in case the colonel had reloaded, but it was useless. He stood up and flung the empty elephant-gun like a log, only for the mighty warrior to bat it aside with a flick of his wrist. Hurriedly, Charles scanned the room. There had to be another weapon – and there was. On the mantel he saw the six-chambered revolver that he himself had carried earlier. He dashed towards it. Nigel swiped out with the machete, but Charles ducked underneath, rolled across the carpet and then was up on his feet again. He grabbed the revolver, swung it round and pointed it straight at Nigel’s face. The servant had raised the machete for a second blow, but now hesitated.

  Charles fired.

  The shot struck Nigel just above the left eyebrow, exiting through the side of his skull in another deluge of blood and bone fragments.