Wild Boy and the Black Terror

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  Plaster sprayed down. The two Gentlemen fell to the floor, covering their heads, and the intruder tumbled back inside and onto the carpet. The furious cry that came from behind the mask was as familiar to Wild Boy as the angry eyes that glared at him from the floor.

  He leaned against the wall, the gunshot ringing in his ears. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked Clarissa.

  32

  Clarissa didn’t know whether to hug him or to punch him.

  In the end she decided to do neither, and sat in a sulk on the ballroom bench. She tucked her hands under her thighs, hoping that might stop them from lashing out as fists when Wild Boy spoke.

  She hadn’t said a word as the Gentlemen led her down to the gaudy ballroom where the toffs had been dancing. All those lords and ladies were moved into the long room with the paintings on the walls, so now it was just her and Wild Boy and stinking Lucien Grant. The other Gentlemen, dressed as servants for some reason, were in the picture gallery too, trying to keep the toffs from complaining. This ballroom seemed even bigger with just the three of them here. There was so much red and gold that Clarissa wanted to be sick.

  She knew she had to speak, but part of her wanted to stay silent. That part of her wanted the killer to win, to punish the Queen and the Gentlemen. And to punish him.

  She dug her hands harder into the seat as Wild Boy came closer. All she could ever see were his eyes, but she knew them so well and she could tell he was hurting. Was he still suffering, like she was, from those visions left by the killer’s poisonous smoke? She pulled her hands from under her legs, about to reach out to him.

  But then Lucien Grant whispered something and Wild Boy nodded, and she knew they had become friends. She felt another stab of betrayal: that knife in her heart.

  “Clarissa?” Wild Boy said. “Why are you here?”

  He looked confused.

  Good. For once he doesn’t get to know everything.

  Lucien glowered at her. He was trying to look scary, but she was pleased to see that he stayed several steps away. He was shiny with sweat from running around in a flap. Clarissa gagged from the stench of his body odour.

  “Miss Everett,” Lucien said, in a deep voice. “Perhaps I might present you with a few facts?”

  She swirled a ball of spit in her mouth, ready to present him with a faceful of phlegm if he came closer. But then he said something that made her swallow it back down.

  “You were at all of the crime scenes.”

  “What?”

  “What is more, Wild Boy informs me that a key detail of this case is based upon an account provided by yourself. You state that you were given a note by the killer at Lady Bentick’s house, which you supposedly threw on her fire. And now you are here, caught by our trap. You see where this is leading?”

  Clarissa almost burst out laughing until she saw how serious Lucien was. He thought she was the killer?

  She looked at Wild Boy. “Do you think this an’ all?”

  Wild Boy threw his hands in the air and groaned. “Course I don’t, you bloomin’ thickhead. But you gotta say what’s going on, Clarissa. This is serious.”

  She fought a grin. Of course he didn’t think it was her. Still, she wasn’t about to forgive him. “Why don’t you work it out with your new pal,” she said.

  “He ain’t my pal. You are.”

  Unable to control herself, she shot up and shoved him in the chest. “You left me.”

  She only meant to push him, but his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor. Wild Boy was tough – the toughest boy she knew – but he’d gone down like an old man. He turned away, but Clarissa saw him grip his head. It was the terror.

  Lucien went to help Wild Boy up, but she barged him aside.

  “Here,” she said. “Sit down.”

  “I’m sorry, Clarissa,” he said. “I didn’t have no choice. Marcus is gonna die. Maybe all of London too.”

  She didn’t want to argue with him, not like this. But he was wrong. “You had a choice,” she said. “We could’ve done it together. Instead you left me just like…”

  She bit her tongue.

  “Just like everyone else?” Wild Boy said.

  “Like a thickhead, was what I meant. Sit down, will you.”

  “I’ll sit down if you tell me what you’re doing here.”

  She helped him onto the couch and was pleased to see his grimace replaced by a weak smile.

  “How long did them Gentlemen manage to keep you locked up?” he asked.

  She sat beside him, and immediately felt better. It was strange, like they’d been apart for weeks rather than hours. She felt whole again.

  “Long enough to let ’em know what I thought of them,” she said. “Then I went out the window. I wanted to catch the killer and save Marcus myself. I knew you were setting up a trap here, but I thought I could go back to the museum and make one of the suspects confess. So I ran all the way there. It was snowing harder and I didn’t have boots, cos I took ’em off to climb down the palace wall. My feet felt like they were on fire, and I was still only in this dress. It was cold, but I was tough.”

  Wild Boy nodded, and she was pleased he believed her. In fact, it had been so cold that she’d nearly given up her hunt and returned to St James’s Palace.

  “Were all three of them still at the museum?” Wild Boy asked. “Gideon, Dr Carew and Spencer?”

  “None of ’em,” she said. “I sneaked around the back and into the workshop. Wasn’t no one inside. Then I heard the front door, so I crept there and looked out. I saw someone carrying a body and putting it next to another in a carriage. The bodies weren’t shaking. I thought they were dead.”

  Lucien stepped closer. “Who did you see, Miss Everett?”

  “I ain’t telling you nothing.”

  She turned to Wild Boy. “I couldn’t see the bodies. It was dark and there was too much snow. Whoever carried them wore a hood and one of them crow masks from the wax statues in the museum, the ones dancing with that French lady queen. I knew it was the killer. I just knew. I dunno where he got the carriage from though. There was other stuff in there an’ all, a sack and some bowls. He must’ve been somewhere to get it all. I knew he planned to kill all of London once he had the black diamonds, so he had to have a hideout. I thought I could catch him there. That would really show you.

  “So I pinched a mask from the museum too, in case I got seen, and a cloak and these boots to keep warm. As the killer rode away, I jumped on the back of his carriage.”

  She saw Wild Boy’s eyes light up, and knew he was impressed.

  “Except he didn’t go back to his hideout,” she said. “He rode near here and stopped at the park. He didn’t hang about long, neither. He just jumped down, grabbed his sack and ran for this palace.”

  “And the men inside the carriage?” Lucien asked. “Which two were they?”

  Clarissa felt her face redden. She hadn’t thought to look inside the carriage.

  Lucien turned away, trying to control his anger, but failing. His voice boomed around the ballroom. “For God’s sake. The fate of an entire city is at risk, and she didn’t even look in the damned carriage.”

  “Shut your head,” Wild Boy said. “She was chasing the killer.”

  “Yeah,” Clarissa said. “He was fast an’ all, faster even than me. He ran right along the wall of the palace garden, round to the back. Then he went up and over in a flash. By the time I got over, I couldn’t see him no more through the snow.”

  She remembered how scared she’d been then, but decided not to say. She knew it would invite another sneer from Lucien, and she was struggling to control her anger at the man. She wished she could tell Wild Boy more. She’d followed some wind-rustled footprints towards the patio and peered through steamy windows into the ballroom. But there had been so many guests, it was impossible to spot the killer.

  “You came in here looking for him?” Wild Boy asked.

  “Only I never saw him. Then you came in wit
hout your mask, and everyone started to panic. I thought the killer must’ve sneaked out of the ballroom, so I tried to go after him. But them Gentlemen chasing me had guns.”

  She kicked one of the candle stands, causing its light to skitter around the dance floor. The truth was, she’d simply wanted to escape without getting shot. She wished she had confronted the killer outside when she had the chance.

  “I suppose I failed,” she said.

  “No,” Wild Boy said. “You got closer than any of us.”

  “Really?” Lucien said. “All I can see is that Miss Everett has hindered our operation. Our plan is now in ruins and the killer is nearer than ever.”

  She was pleased to see Wild Boy ignore him. She recognized the look on his face – that sparkling, wide-eyed look he got when he saw a clue. Or heard one.

  “I said something important, didn’t I?” she said.

  “Maybe. I gotta check on it.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Wild Boy’s eyes flicked to Lucien, and the Gentleman shook his head. Clarissa understood. She had been banned from their stupid operation. She wasn’t allowed to help him any more. She hoped Wild Boy would insist. The Queen had put him in charge, after all. But he said nothing more as he and Lucien walked towards the patio doors. Him and his new partner. His new pal.

  The knife drove deeper into Clarissa’s heart.

  33

  “If we can believe her story,” Lucien said, “then the killer is here.”

  Wild Boy tried not to react. He and Lucien had agreed a truce. But if the Gentleman made one more comment like that about Clarissa, they’d become enemies again in exactly the time it took to swing a punch.

  He knew he’d upset Clarissa again by leaving with Lucien, but he had no choice. She wasn’t allowed to be involved in this case.

  No, he reminded himself, he did have a choice. He’d chosen to catch the killer.

  “I shall have more men guard Her Majesty,” Lucien said. “Moving her would be too dangerous. God alone knows where the killer is hiding in this palace. The rest of the Gentlemen will begin an inspection of the guests. Perhaps those sketches you had drawn will come in handy after all.”

  Wild Boy nodded vaguely. He opened the patio doors and wind rushed in, blowing his hair and putting out candles.

  “Where are you going?” Lucien asked.

  “I gotta check on something.”

  “What?”

  “I only saw Clarissa’s prints out here before. No others.”

  “So she is lying,” Lucien said. “Hardly a surprise.”

  “She wasn’t lying about nothing,” Wild Boy said. “But one bit of her story was just a guess.”

  “Which part?”

  “That the killer came inside the palace.”

  He stepped outside and closed the door. It was unbelievably cold. Beyond the porch, the snow fell thick and fast. Flocks of polluted flakes swirled among the white. As they settled they speckled the garden with dark spots.

  The porch had protected the prints that Clarissa made by the patio doors, but there were no other tracks beyond it. Whatever marks the killer had left in the garden had been scrubbed away by the wind.

  No way Wild Boy could track the killer in these conditions. Instead he needed to think like him. The killer had come here for the black diamond. But the stone was with the Queen, in a room that he couldn’t possibly reach.

  “What would I do if I were him?” Wild Boy said.

  I’d make the Queen move.

  But the Gentlemen would never move her with the killer nearby.

  Unless they had to.

  What if something happened, an event so dangerous that the Gentlemen were forced to move her from the palace?

  Some sort of attack on the building.

  For that, the killer would have to be close. Clarissa didn’t see him anywhere outside the palace, which was why she thought he sneaked inside. So if he wasn’t inside the palace and he wasn’t outside the palace…

  Wild Boy looked up. Through the snowfall he saw the statues at the edge of the roof. He remembered how he’d felt that one of those winged figures was watching him.

  “He’s on top of the palace,” he said.

  Now he was moving again, searching for any way the killer might have reached the roof. He saw ivy leaves in the snow, torn from a creeper that climbed the palace wall. He ran to the wall, felt the creeper’s wooden trellis. It was like a ladder, rising to the top of the building. Several leaves were crushed into the trellis, and one of the wooden rungs had snapped under a weight.

  The killer’s weight.

  Get up there now.

  Gripping the rungs, he began to climb. Wind whipped his back, and his feet slipped on snow-wet leaves. He clung on, gritting his teeth. His heart was going like the piston of a steam engine, pumping fear and adrenaline through every vein. The killer was close. He could feel it. He was close!

  Reaching the top of the ivy, he hauled himself onto the roof. A fierce wind rushed across the surface. He didn’t dare stand up for fear of being swept back over the edge. Instead he crawled forward, struggling to make sense of what he was seeing.

  He was on the ballroom roof, looking towards the top of the gallery. A dull orange glow rose through the skylight, but there were other lights there too. Flickering lights.

  A dozen fires burned in bowls around the skylight, their flames rising and writhing, dancing like dragons. Silhouetted against the lights was the squatting figure of a demon. It was hunched and ragged, with a crow’s face and a black scythe beak.

  No, not a demon. It was the killer, wearing one of the masks from the museum. Wild Boy reached to his coat pocket for the syringe, but suddenly he couldn’t move. He’d been struck by a realization so horrifying that it froze him to the spot.

  The gallery.

  That was where the guests were gathered.

  His legs began to work again, and he sprang up and charged across the rooftop. “No!” he cried. “Don’t do it!”

  A blast of wind knocked him back, and pain shot between his ears. He covered his head, trying to fight the visions that flashed again through his mind. Those freak show walls, those laughing crows.

  He heard glass smash, and knew he was too late.

  He scrambled towards the flames as they snapped higher.

  The killer was gone, leaving behind fires and shattered glass. Wind rushed through the broken skylight, sweeping black smoke down into the gallery.

  Below, all of the guests shook with terror. Their skin had turned white, and black veins streaked across their faces. Some collapsed to the floor, dead or dying. Others curled up cowering or fell back against walls. Paintings crashed to the ground. The night filled with screams.

  Wild Boy staggered back, away from the black smoke. His legs buckled and he fell to the roof. “No,” he gasped.

  He had to stay focused. The Gentlemen guarding the Queen would have heard the cries. Right then they’d be rushing her from her room to her carriage.

  And the killer was waiting.

  Scrambling up, Wild Boy ran to the other side of the roof. He saw Lucien in the palace forecourt, roaring orders at a groom to prepare the Queen’s coach. But where was the killer? He must have got down there somehow.

  There!

  A rope hung from one of the statues and down the front of the palace. Wild Boy rushed to it, sank to his knees. No time to worry about the height. No time to worry about anything.

  He grasped the line and swung over the edge. His bare feet scrabbled at the wall, seeking a grip. He let his hands slip on the rope, descending in short, stuttered bursts, blown by the wind.

  Come on. Faster…

  He slid past the second-floor windows, then the first. Below, the groom rode the Queen’s carriage towards the palace entrance. Wild Boy glimpsed someone else move behind the coach. It was the killer. He had sneaked inside!

  Get down there now.

  He was still too high, going too slow. He looked down,
a desperate plan forming. Directly beneath, the wind had driven a bank of snow against the wall. Wild Boy hoped it was thick enough.

  He let go of the rope.

  He fell twenty feet, screaming the whole way, and thumped into the white cushion. He rose, shaking snow from the hair on his face.

  Four Gentlemen rushed from the palace, escorting the Queen to her coach.

  “No!” Wild Boy yelled. “The killer’s in there!”

  His voice was lost to the wind.

  Lucien opened the coach door. The glare of his lantern caught the Queen’s tiara. The black diamond sparkled darkly among the pearls. The Queen protested, but this time Lucien wouldn’t be dismissed. He ushered her in, slammed the door and barked to the driver. “Go!”

  The carriage didn’t move.

  “For God’s sake, man, I ordered you to—”

  The words stuck in Lucien’s throat. The driver was in no position to go anywhere. He had been struck by the terror.

  “Lucien!” Wild Boy called, staggering closer. “The coach. He’s in the coach.”

  Lucien threw open the coach door. “Your Majesty!”

  No reply from the darkness inside.

  Wild Boy arrived, wheezing and shaking.

  Lucien’s hand trembled so hard he could barely hold his lantern as he raised the light to the cabin. “My God,” he said. “My God…”

  The killer had gone. So had the Queen’s tiara and the last black diamond.

  Queen Victoria, though, was still there.

  Shaking and muttering.

  Black and white.

  Struck by the terror.

  34

  Things quickly went from panic to chaos.

  All but a dozen of the Gentlemen had been in the picture gallery when the skylight fell and the terror swept upon them. The rest now struggled to deal with the victims whose lives the poison hadn’t yet claimed. They pinned down convulsing limbs, injected opiates into black-veined necks, tipped brandy into screaming mouths, anything to calm the frantic bodies.

  Nothing worked.

  The victims were moved back into the ballroom, where they struggled and thrashed on the dance floor like marionettes controlled by madmen. The chandeliers swayed from the volume of the screams, rocking the walls with light.