Darkside

by Tom Becker

  The rest of the boys followed him, elbowing their way past Jonathan. It seemed that knowing Carnegie’s name wasn’t such a bad thing round here. Now all he had to do was meet the man himself.

  Jonathan slipped in through the ground-floor entrance and crept up a tired staircase. At the end of a landing there was a heavy red door that was covered in deep scratches. On the wall near it a brass plaque had been engraved with the words “Elias Carnegie. Private Detective”. Jonathan rang the bell but couldn’t get any response, nor could he raise anyone by knocking. Eventually he tried the handle. It turned, and he entered the room.

  Carnegie’s lodgings were spare to say the least. No lights were lit, but Jonathan could make out two chairs and a low sofa positioned on a threadbare rug, and a rickety bookcase clinging to the wall. The fire had burnt out in the hearth, and the room was deathly cold. Behind a long wooden desk there was a man slumped in a chair. He was facing away from Jonathan, staring out at the moon. Even in the gloom it was clear he was a broad, bulky man. When he eventually spoke, however, his voice was hollow and strained.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry . . . I did knock.”

  At the sound of Jonathan’s voice, Carnegie turned around. His bulky silhouette seemed to fill the room. “I didn’t say ‘come in’. Basic manners, boy.”

  “Do you want me to wait outside?”

  “I want you to go away.”

  Jonathan couldn’t believe it. This was the person his dad had sent him to, the person he was relying upon to save his life. And now he was telling him to go away!

  “But I need your help!”

  “Not tonight, boy. Things are only going to get worse if you hang around.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to go!”

  Carnegie leapt out of his chair and leant over the desk. In the moonlight Jonathan could see that his eyes were filmy and bloodshot. “Do you not understand?” he hissed. He pointed at the window. “Have you not seen the moon? Do you want me to hurt you? Leave now!”

  “I need your help!” Jonathan tried again, desperately. “My dad sent me here . . . he says he knows you!”

  Carnegie had fallen back into his chair, and was cradling his head in his hands, moaning. He seemed sick. Then his shoulders began to shake, and Jonathan wondered whether he was crying. He edged towards him, his arms outstretched.

  “Mr Carnegie? Are you OK?”

  He placed a hand on one of his broad shoulders. A low chuckle escaped from Carnegie. “Feeling better, boy,” he muttered thickly. “Much better.”

  Carnegie’s head suddenly snapped up towards Jonathan, who recoiled in horror. His face had undergone a terrible transformation. A grey matting of fur covered his skin, and his teeth had grown long and sharp. Where before his eyes had been those of weak human’s, now they were the blank, hungry eyes of an animal.

  Jonathan backed away to the office door. Carnegie rose and moved powerfully after him. “I did tell you to leave.”

  “I’m going . . . I’m going!” Jonathan shouted.

  He grinned, revealing the full horror of his incisors. “Too late now. . .”

  10

  Carnegie hurled himself at Jonathan, his mouth wide open and his teeth gleaming. Jonathan barely had time to twist his body out of the way before a huge hand – now more of a paw than a hand – sliced through the space where he had been standing. The beast snarled and bore down on Jonathan, moving with a feral, muscular grace. He seemed to grow in stature as he moved, his shoulders broadening and his muscles rippling beneath his shirt.

  Jonathan had to do something, or he was a dead man. His fingers hurriedly sought out the knife in his pocket. As the beast neared he lashed out, felt the blade brush against thick hair, and darted around the other side of the desk. Carnegie howled, and wiped a fleck of blood away from his face with a hairy hand. A deep chuckle escaped from his throat.

  “You’re going to need more than that sewing needle to hurt me,” he barked.

  “Why are you attacking me? I came here for your help!”

  “Right place, wrong time, boy.”

  Jonathan scanned the room for a bigger weapon. There was a poker propped up next to the hearth but there was no way he could get past the beast to get his hand on it. He was trapped. Why on earth had Alain sent him here?

  He didn’t have time to think about anything else. With a rush Carnegie came after him again, leaping over the desk. Jonathan ducked underneath and began to scramble away, but Carnegie landed easily on all fours and was on his prey in a flash. Jonathan had one agonizing glimpse of the door before the beast stretched out a paw and swatted him in the stomach. Jonathan crashed to the floor, the wind buffeted out of him. There was a tearing pain in his side, and when he touched the wounded area, his palm came away hot and sticky with blood.

  Carnegie howled – this time with pleasure. He skirted round the desk and began to advance slowly, taking pleasure from the desperation of his prey. Jonathan pushed himself weakly across the floor on his back, his feet slipping on the tatty rug, his whole body trembling with fear.

  “No need to rush,” the beast said, his grey fur glinting in the moonlight. “It’s still early.”

  “Don’t hurt me! I’m Alain Starling’s son!”

  Carnegie shrugged. “And?”

  A sob escaped from Jonathan. The pain in his side was getting worse, and he could see the trail of blood he had smeared across the floor. With a thud his head hit the wall behind him. There was nowhere left to go. His life was going to end here, in this small, dark room in the middle of Hell. The beast was standing directly over him, blocking out the moon, blocking out the light, blocking out everything. Carnegie roared, and closed in on Jonathan. . .

  Light. It was the light he noticed first. Not the brilliant white light of a heavenly afterlife, but a wan, yellowy sunlight trickling in through the window. Jonathan opened his eyes, blinking. The ceiling of the room was cracked and covered in patches of black mould. He craned his neck around to get a better sense of his surroundings, but the movement sent a bolt of pain down his side. Jonathan ran his fingers through the torn remnants of his sweater to see if his wound was still bleeding, but while he had been unconscious it had been dressed and bandaged.

  “So you’re awake.”

  Carnegie was sitting back in his chair, looking drawn and tired, but human. The hair had disappeared from his face, save for his unshaven chin, and his teeth had shrunk to normal size. He was wearing a long black morning coat over a grimy waistcoat covered in dark splodges of colour. As he spoke he tapped a fountain pen on the desk and refused to look Jonathan in the eye.

  “I guess so. What happened?”

  “We both got lucky.”

  Jonathan moved into a sitting position, wincing in pain. “I don’t feel very lucky.”

  “Believe me, you’re the luckiest person in Darkside. And there’s a lot of people here who know how to make themselves very lucky. Especially when I play cards with them.”

  “Eh?”

  He snorted. “Forget it. How’s the side?”

  “It hurts like crazy.”

  “Yeah. It will do for a bit. You’ll live though.”

  A glass of water had been set down by the sofa. Jonathan took a sip from it while Carnegie continued tapping the desk. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said the detective was nervous. Carnegie shook his head with a rueful grin.

  “So you’re the Starling boy then?”

  Jonathan nodded. “I tried to tell you.”

  “Forgive me. I don’t always think that clearly when I’m . . . well, you know, in the other form. And it’s been a while since I saw your father.”

  “So . . . you’re a. . .” Jonathan wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to say it. “You’re a . . . werewolf?”

  Carnegie rubbed a hand over his face. “This
is going to be a long day. I can sense it. Let’s clear up one thing, boy. I prefer ‘wereman’. Did you see me running around on all fours last night?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I mean, I’m not an animal, damn it.”

  “But every time there’s a full moon, you . . . change?”

  “Or when something annoys me enough. And I should warn you, boy, all these questions are pushing me pretty close right now.”

  He muttered an oath under his breath. Jonathan took another sip of water and looked out of the window.

  Fitzwilliam Street was busier now than it had been at night, but it wasn’t any more pleasant. Water streamed across the pavement, carrying with it a film of scum and excrement. The Darksiders splashed their way through the muck, splattering it on to their clothing. Young boys in cloth caps and shorts darted across the road on mysterious errands, narrowly avoiding being trampled beneath thundering carriage wheels. Across the street, a man in a greasy white apron stood in the doorway of a butcher’s shop, a cleaver resting menacingly in his folded arms. The sky was still overcast from the clouds of filth churning out from the industrial chimneys, and a pall of smoke from an unseen fire had drifted over from a nearby street.

  “So why am I alive, then?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You forgot my dad’s name. But you didn’t kill me. Why not?”

  Carnegie looked up for the first time. “You passed out, and this rolled out of your pocket.” He held up a small object. It was the used bullet that Mrs Elwood had given Jonathan! In the shock and the confusion he had forgotten all about it.

  “That made you stop?”

  “Might forget the odd name, boy, but I’ll never forget that. This bullet would have ended my life many years ago had your dad not pulled it out of me.”

  “But I though werewo . . . weremen could be only be hurt by silver bullets.”

  “You ever been shot, boy?”

  “No.”

  “Still hurts pretty bad. Here.” He tossed the bullet over. “You might want to keep hold of it. Just in case.”

  “So am I safe now?”

  “From me. For now.” Carnegie grinned. “There. Isn’t that better?”

  In the freezer room of the butcher’s shop on Fitzwilliam Street, Jonathan watched in horror as Carnegie devoured a raw leg of lamb, his teeth greedily tearing strips of flesh off the bone. He didn’t seem to notice the flecks of blood and skin falling on to his morning coat. Noting Jonathan’s expression, Carnegie proffered him the leg. “Are you sure you don’t want some?”

  “No thanks.”

  “And you said you were hungry!”

  “Yeah. I was. I don’t think I am any more.”

  Carnegie swallowed a large mouthful of meat. “I’m starving. I nearly ate last night, but, well, you know. . .”

  Jonathan stamped his feet to try and shake off the cold. He had borrowed a shirt and trousers from the wereman, rolling up the sleeves and doing his belt up tightly to try and fit into them, but it was still freezing. The meat cooler was a square room covered in white tiles. Huge racks of meat hung in rows from hooks, swaying from side to side. Carnegie hadn’t changed his clothes – save for the addition of a stovepipe hat, rammed so far down his head it nearly touched his eyebrows – but he seemed unaffected by the temperature. His only thought was on the meat under his nose. Jonathan had feared that he was going to turn back into the vicious beast from the previous night, but if anything, the sight of a normal-looking man gobbling raw meat off the bone was even worse.

  The cooler door opened, and the grim butcher stuck his head around the corner.

  “How’s the lamb?”

  “Good as ever, Col. Boy doesn’t seem to want anything, though.”

  The butcher shrugged. “Some people prefer their meat cooked, Carnegie. What can you do?”

  “Eat them?”

  The butcher let out a fat chuckle. “Are you out on a case? Do you want a bottle of your special recipe?”

  Carnegie gave Jonathan a sly glance. “I think the boy might be trouble. Better get me a bottle, just in case.”

  The butcher elbowed his way between two huge sides of beef and lumbered over to the far corner of the room. He returned with a brown glass bottle encased in frost, and handed it to the wereman. Carnegie slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat. “Cheers, Col.”

  “Erm, sorry but . . . what is that?” asked Jonathan.

  “That’s Carnegie’s Special Recipe. He never goes out on a case without it.”

  “It’s got me out of few tight spots, I can tell you.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Why do you keep it in the freezer?”

  “It’s volatile stuff. Best kept frozen. One spark and it’ll blow this place sky high.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Distilled human blood and rubbing alcohol,” replied Col. Seeing the horrified look on the boy’s face he laughed, and withdrew from the freezer.

  Carnegie nudged Jonathan. “Just a little butcher’s humour there, boy. Don’t listen to him.”

  Jonathan smiled politely.

  “So anyway . . . you came to me for help. From Lightside. You must be in pretty serious trouble.”

  “What’s Lightside?”

  Carnegie made a small sound of exasperation. “How did you find me? How did you survive the crossing here, when you seem to know absolutely nothing? Look, this part of town is Darkside. It stretches from Bleakmoor in the north to Devil’s Wharf in the south. It’s not much to look at, I’ll grant you, but it’s home. Lightside is . . . everywhere else. The other side of the coin. Where we don’t go.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Why does that not surprise me? Anyway, it’s a Darksider term. You live in Lightside. So, to repeat my question: why are you here?”

  Jonathan’s hands were turning blue from the cold. When he blew on them they ached. He started to speak, his teeth chattering.

  “C-c-could we t-t-talk about this somewhere a bit w-warmer?”

  Carnegie gave him a sympathetic look. “Of course, boy. Where are my manners?”

  He hurled the ravaged leg of lamb into a corner and propelled his companion towards the exit. As they moved back through the warmth of the front of the butcher’s shop, Jonathan plucked up the courage to whisper in his ear. “Um, Mr Carnegie?”

  “Just Carnegie’ll do.”

  “You’ve still got blood on your chin.”

  “So?” Carnegie replied, and strode out into the busy daytime throng.

  11

  The Grand was as vibrant, filthy and dangerous as it had been the night before. Carriages clattered past pavements packed with Darksiders pushing and shoving past each other, quarrelling with jabbing fingers and raised voices. For now the street lamps were dull and lifeless, and the street was bathed in the murky yellow light of daytime. An electric crackle in the atmosphere suggested that a storm was brewing. Jonathan could feel the hairs rising on his arms. The tension had been transmitted to the inhabitants, and everywhere he looked he saw the potential for violence.

  Carnegie strode on regardless, his gaze fixed directly in front of him. He was walking against the flow of the crowd, but space always appeared to open up in front of him. By contrast, Jonathan was knocked and buffeted as if he was standing in a gale. It was a constant struggle to keep up. Although everyone moved out of Carnegie’s way, no one looked pleased to see him. Jonathan noticed that people looked away from him, or down at their feet, as if they had spotted something fascinating on the pavement. Some failed to disguise their suspicion and outright hatred.

  One drunken man, swigging unsteadily from a bottle of alcohol, barged into him as he passed. Carnegie didn’t blink – but a large hand shot out and grabbed the man by the throat. He hoisted the drunk up and pinned him against a wall. The man’s feet dangled useless
ly in the air, searching desperately for the ground.

  “You knocked into me,” growled Carnegie.

  The drunk stuttered an apology. Carnegie eyeballed him before relenting, and dropped the man in a choking heap on the floor. Then he moved away, as if nothing had happened. Jonathan trotted after him.

  “You see, boy, there’s a few bad apples in Darkside. . .”

  “I can see that.”

  “But it’s not so bad. All you have to do is set certain boundaries. Don’t let anyone push you around. People respect that, after a while. Word gets around.”

  A massively obese woman appeared in front of Jonathan, rings of fat wobbling around her body like hula hoops. She leered menacingly and stretched out two fleshy arms, trying to envelop him in a bear hug, but he managed to evade her with a neat sidestep.

  “Why is everyone so mean round here?” Jonathan panted, keeping one eye open for any more signs of trouble.

  “Bad blood, boy. Bad blood. Our families used to live in your part of London too, you know. But many years ago, during the reign of that hag Victoria, the authorities decided to clean up the streets. Their gleaming city was too good for the likes of us. So they rounded up our grandparents – all the freaks, lowlifes and criminals they could find – and herded them into this one area. We’re their descendants. Everyone in Darkside has evil in their veins – some just have more than others.”

  “Is that why this place doesn’t appear on any maps?”

  Carnegie laughed scornfully. “Maps don’t mean anything, boy. They’re one side of the story, one person’s view of events. You don’t see Darkside on any maps? Of course you don’t. The authorities don’t want anyone knowing there’s a whole world of danger on their nice, safe doorsteps. All hell would break loose.”

  He chuckled again, and Jonathan got the distinct impression that he would quite like that to happen.

  “I don’t get it, though,” he confessed. “This is the middle of London. How can people not see all this?” He waved a hand around the Grand.