London Macabre

by Savile, Steve

  A second body blow spun him around.

  He barely clung to consciousness as the street spun with him.

  McCreedy’s brawler’s instinct saved him from going down to the next punch. He covered up, bringing his arms in to protect his wounded side. Still, the sheer ferocity of Cain’s follow-up rammed McCreedy’s elbow into the cut. Biting back on the fresh wave of agony, the big man rolled with it, and delivered a crunching right hook into the side of Cain’s head, rattling it like a timpani drum.

  Cain came back at him then, his brutality refined, efficient, and like the corpse he wore, elegant. He had no sword. Somewhere between Whitechapel and the banks of the Thames he had lost it. That ought to have been a mercy all of its own, but the homunculus had no need of such a mundane thing, not when it had its bare hands with which to tear him apart.

  He almost seemed to be moving in slow motion, or out of time itself. Cain rocked back on his heels, turning his left shoulder, charred flesh and bare bone and all, into the punch, and slapped a stinging blow into the side of McCreedy’s head, ringing his ears. Even as McCreedy shook his head, trying to gather his senses, Cain drove his fists into his face, a rapid double-punch, right-left combination that forced him back onto his heels. Mercy slipped through his fingers. Before he could react, Cain hammered another shockingly fast right-left double into his body, lifting him physically off the ground, and stepped in to close the gap that had opened up between them to deliver a straight right into the centre of his face.

  McCreedy’s head snapped back again, blood and spittle flying from his mouth as his teeth rattled beneath the punch. The blow tore through his half-transformed lips to reveal bloody gums and canine incisors.

  Another punch split his face wide open.

  But somehow McCreedy stood his ground.

  It was just sheer bloody mindedness that kept him on his feet.

  He refused to go down.

  His entire body was a mass of agonies. His vision blurred so badly he could barely see a few feet beyond his face, everything else was reduced to a diffuse smog. He ducked behind his fists, trying to protect his face and his side at the same time from the rapid jabs Cain rained down upon him. Every blow sapped another ounce of his strength, making it harder and harder for McCreedy to defend himself. But he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. Not like this. He had to give a good account of himself. He pitched and leaned as a sharp right hook cannoned into his good side. The shockwaves reverberated through every bone in his ruined body.

  There was no escaping the pain.

  So he surrendered to it.

  Cain’s fists pummelled into him, driving him back and back step after stumbling step. He tasted blood. And somehow he found the strength to launch a counter of his own, but this time instead of wailing on the skin suit, he aimed a single punch square at the ruin of broken ribs and the homunculus’s foul features that leered out through the blood-slick bones of the dead man’s ribs. He put everything he had into the blow. His life depended upon it.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  It was never going to be.

  The homunculus sneered, gleeful hatred twisting its tight little goblin-face even as a spur of broken rib dug into the plane of its bloody cheek.

  And Cain came at him again, all thoughts of mercy gone from McCreedy’s mind. He opened his mouth to beg, only for Cain’s dead fist to smash into his jaw, shattering his canine teeth. The sheer venom of the punch brought him to his knees, and even as he went down, Cain swept in to deliver the coup de grâce, a huge scything blow to the side of his neck that would have snapped it in two had it connected.

  The big man went down all the way, hitting the ground hard.

  He reached out.

  His hand found the hilt of Mercy.

  And this time when it sang to him, he listened to it.

  He brought the broken sword up, driving it between the third and fourth rib of the skin suit, where the heart would have beat in a mortal man. The shattered point split the cartilage in the middle of the homunculus’s face, spearing deep into the damned thing’s brain.

  Its death throes tore Mercy out of McCreedy’s hand. He wasn’t about to waste his last bit of strength trying to hold onto it. Cain’s skin suit staggered back step after unsteady step as his hands grasped weakly at the sword hilt. He wrenched it free, splitting the homunculus’s skull wide open. Cain fell to the ground still clutching the broken sword. His cursed blood bled out over the cobbles, permeating the stone, seeping down into the dirt, and through the dirt into the bedrock, bleeding all the way back down to Hell.

  Chapter Ninety

  With the soul trap broken, the spirits of the dead fled Father London. They were drawn to the Lime House and to the weakness in the veil it was built around. Having been bound in captivity for so long, unable to pass over, the soul trap was the only thing holding all but the newest of the dead to this plane. The rest, those older souls, began to dislocate, their tormented consciousnesses scattering to the four winds the moment Locke’s fist shattered the iron sigil.

  A theologian might have claimed they were drawn into the light, but would have trouble rationalizing the fact that that light was actually the iridescence of the Morning Star’s supernova, not the gateway to Heaven.

  Dorian was no theologian, but neither was he dead.

  There was no place for him in the light.

  ”Find him,” a voice whispered urgently through his awareness. It was a ghost speaking to him. It had to be. Because he knew that voice as well as he knew his own, though he had never thought to hear it again: Fabian Stark.

  He didn’t understand the urgency, but didn’t question or doubt it. His friend had found a way to talk to him sans psychopompos and séances, and he wasn’t about to ignore his voice.

  And then he saw the body.

  Brannigan Locke’s broken corpse lay crushed beneath one of the great iron plates that had come away from the Golem’s skull. There was no trace of Locke’s spirit lingering around the bones. He had already begun his journey.

  He knew grief then, utter and overwhelming grief.

  With the soul trap sprung there was nothing to bind Locke’s essence to this place. But Dorian wasn’t ready to lose him. Not like this. The fragments of what had happened had begun to take shape in his awareness. Locke had shattered the sigil and released thousands of spirits, allowing them to continue their journey into death, and in doing so had freed Dorian from the ties that bound him. He had given his life for all of these others. Dorian felt a shiver run through the very core of his existence.

  Find him.

  He called out, shouting Locke’s name over and over, and even as desperation began to take hold rationality took over. Dorian had one gift, he commanded the dead. He was their vessel in this life once they had gone on onto their deaths. Locke could not deny him. He wrapped his consciousness around Locke’s body. It wasn’t the same as drawing the ghost of the corpse as he had with the angel in the lodging house, but without a corporeal form of his own it was the best he could do. It would have to suffice.

  Shrouding the broken body, he called out again, there was no summoning ritual, not like when he had used to draw the dead angel back. He had no coins to place over his eyes, and no way to tease out those last thoughts of his friend. He could only hope that Locke would hear him and answer.

  ”Bran,” he called out, ”Bran, come back to me.”

  He had no idea how long he had left until Locke’s body became uninhabitable; abandoned, the body decayed so quickly. All of the bones could be broken, they ’weren’t what mattered. It was down to the brain. Without the soul to drive it, the brain quickly died. Without that singular essence that made Brannigan Locke Brannigan Locke, his mind would become feeble, and even if he was brought back it would be to a body where the brain had no command over speech, and even the most simple motor skills beyond it. Locke would be trapped, much like he had been inside Father London, inside a body over which he had no control. It was a fate far worse than
death. If he was going to save his friend, it had to be now.

  ”Bran, come back to me,” and this time as he said it the corpse shuddered once, violently, and its eyes opened.

  ”Dor? Is that … is that … it hurts, Dor. It hurts.”

  ”Hush, Bran, hush.”

  ”I can’t see you, Dor.”

  ”I’m here,” he soothed, wishing he could make the dead man see him, to show him it was all right, that he was safe, that he was with friends. He could, of course. He allowed his consciousness to give substance to his face, willing Locke to see it, to understand. ”You saved me, Bran. You did it. You saved them all.”

  ”That’s good,” Locke said through cracked lips. The words sounded like tarpaper crackling as they barely whispered out.

  He didn’t know what else to say.

  ”Why have you brought me back, Dor?”

  ”You don’t have to go,” he said, and realised it was true. There was always a choice in the matter. ”You have a choice.”

  ”What choice? Everything hurts, Dor. I cannot abide. My soul isn’t strong enough. I just want the pain to cease. I want it to be over.”

  ”It will be, I promise. It will be. If you want to leave I won’t stand in your way, my friend. I won’t drag you back. I will let you sleep. But if you aren’t done living there is stuff yet to be done. It won’t be easy, this body is broken. I don’t doubt you’ll never walk again, but your strength has always been your mind. If you would fight on, I would have you at my side every day of the week. Together we are strong, my friend. Together we are strong.”

  ”What choice,” the soul repeated, through lips that had all but forgotten how to talk. This time it sounded less like a question and more like a damnation. ”I am done here, but I want to live.”

  That was all he needed to say.

  There were no doors leading back to earth or up to Heaven, there were no bright lights or long tunnels for his ghost to walk into. There were no loved ones beckoning for him. The world was reduced to this, the words ”I want to live,” and his broken body lying in the detritus of the Golem waiting to be found, with or without his soul. Had he said, ”no, I am finished with this life and death is not such a bad place to be,” then his flesh would have become food for the silverfish by the time rescuers found it.

  But there would be no dying today.

  Locke’s body shuddered again, this one more violent than the last, and he coughed. It was a deep, soul-wracking cough, but it was the cough of someone very much alive despite his injuries.

  ”Don’t leave me,” Locke begged, but Dorian was already gone.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  He opened his eyes and it was like seeing the world for the first time.

  There was a copper taint to everything, and for one heart-stopping moment Dorian Carruthers thought the thruppenny bits were still fused to his eyeballs—that somehow he was staring through them. They weren’t. They lay on the ground beside his head. The copper tinge was the first blush of dawn and the coming of morning. They had made it through the night.

  He had no idea where he was, other than that there was a roof over his head, with open beams supporting the roof, that every spare inch on the beams was taken by ravens who, to a bird, were looking intently the other way, and that he was surrounded by packing crates. He moved gingerly, wary of what pains he might wake in his body. He had been away from it for so long, but it seemed to answer his bidding. He pushed himself up onto one elbow.

  There was broken glass everywhere and the place reeked. It took him a moment to place the smell.

  Blood.

  There was death nearby.

  He pushed himself up, lost. Everything was so disorientating. He stumbled forward, needing the support of one of the crates to stop himself from falling, and even then his legs threatened to betray him when he saw Millington lying on the concrete floor surrounded by stray dogs and rats. There was something unnatural about seeing hundreds of animals in the huge warehouse, every colour, every breed, mangy mongrels one and all, but surrounding the fallen man they were so much more than that, they were his protectors. And that, Dorian realised, was as natural as it came.

  ”Ant?” He called out gently, ”Ant?”

  But Millington didn’t so much as stir.

  He began trying to pick a path through the pack to Millington’s side, but stopped as the pack opened for him to reveal tattered rags stitched with sequins and fake pearls, and bones. He knew what he was seeing, but it still took some accepting; the clothes were the full regalia of the Villain Kings, meaning the bones, by extension were all that remained of them who wore them. Dorian had a keen eye. He saw gristle and bits of meat still stuck in some of the dogs’ teeth. He tried to make sense of it. The dogs had turned on them, eaten them, and now they were guarding Millington protectively. He knew his friend’s gift. He had seen him talk to animals before, befriend a mouse, charm a nightingale down out of a low branch to sing on his finger, but this, this was different. This was slaughter. Pack justice.

  ”Ant,” he called again, a little louder, but wary of making too much noise. The last thing he wanted to do was spook the dogs and risk them turning on him.

  The mutt nearest his feet nuzzled at his ankle and seemed to nudge him on another step. A skinny black Labrador sniffed at the other ankle. The animal’s ribcage stuck out prominently, suggesting the dog hadn’t eaten properly in ages but down at the hind legs, by its sagging teats, its bloated belly betrayed the fact it had more than had its fill this morning. Dorian tried not to think about it, but it was impossible not to imagine the dogs feasting on the men in their gaudy coats. Blood-stained sequins stuck to the broken glass. In front of him a path opened up all the way to Millington’s side, but he hesitated to take the first step because it took him through the rag and bone remains of the Villain Kings.

  The strays nudged him on, pushing at the backs of his legs until he started walking.

  He placed each step carefully as he walked through the bones. It didn’t help. This was his gift, and like Midas’s, it came with a hefty price. In the presence of such traumatic death the residual energies, the ghosts, clung on to haunt him. He could see them all. Hear their screams and the mad baying of the dogs, as the trace memories of such absolute, abject terror were burned into the walls themselves, and into the floor, and every step of the way they reached up demanding he relive them. There was no way he could escape them. It was all he could do to withstand them.

  Reaching Millington’s side, he knelt.

  He felt out the pulse in his friend’s neck. It was strong. He loosened the top button of his shirt, giving him room to breathe. Millington was cold, not merely out cold. Dorian took off his own topcoat and laid it over his friend, for what little warmth it would offer. Millington’s breathing was good. He looked serene. At peace lying there. Dorian shook his shoulder, trying to rouse Millington. There was no waking him, not without smelling salts. He had to make do with making sure his friend was comfortable. McCreedy needed him more.

  He stood and turned on his heel. The dogs opened another path for him, this time all the way back to the stairway that would take him down to the street.

  ”Look after him,” Dorian said to the dogs, and left them, running.

  He took the stairs three and four at a time, using his hand to push off the wall as he reached the turns and landings and didn’t stop running until he was out of St. Katherine’s Docks and into the street, and even then it was only to get his bearings. The air was thick with settling soot. He was gasping for breath even before he began running again. He could see the rustred torso of the fallen Golem over the rooftops in the distance. He ran toward it, head high, arms and legs pumping furiously as he pushed himself to run faster and faster even as the dawn street became crowded with confused Londoners, milling around, not knowing which way to turn or whether to run or what was going to happen to them next.

  Dorian had no such doubts. He picked a path through the rubble, intent on reaching
the Golem’s head.

  This entire part of the city was in chaos. Entire buildings had come down, leaving only a few bricks standing, or random walls unattached to any houses. A church stood in a pile of rubble, its spire twisted to point fifteen degrees off true with the weathercock spinning aimlessly, its beak pointed unerringly down to Hell, where this entire nightmare began.

  Dorian pushed his way through the people.

  He saw the soot-black outlines of people burned into the walls, but didn’t stop to relive their last moments. He had enough anguish and fear inside him to last a lifetime. He didn’t have the room for any more. He ignored the pale faces and the grief-stricken glances of the survivors. There would be time enough for them later.

  Someone grabbed at him. He jerked away from it before he realised there was no one there. No one but the ghosts who didn’t know they were dead. He saw them shimmer in and out of sight between the living, trying to help them, trying to marshal resources, organise rescues, not knowing it was their own bones under the fallen stones they were trying to save.

  It was hopeless.

  He started to run again, forcing everything else from his mind.

  He had to get to McCreedy, otherwise all the choices in the world wouldn’t be worth a damn. But it was easier said than done. The dust clouds had begun to settle and the sun was up over the lowest roofs of east London turning the Golem into a blood-red shepherd’s warning.

  Breathing hard, Dorian kept on running.

  Again and again he felt the hands of ghosts brush against him, looking for solace, for understanding, needing to communicate one last message, or simply not accepting that they were meant to go.