The Feast of Ravens

by Andrew Beasley

  But Carter’s finger had not pulled the trigger.

  He could hear soft footsteps behind him and yet he dared not turn his head.

  “Father?” said a thin voice, which brought Carter’s arms up in goose pimples. “Father, is that you?”

  It sounded like a child. Still clutching his rifle and trying not to tremble, Carter rose to his feet.

  “You,” he said as he saw the figure standing before him, dressed in a sailor’s suit, like a good boy on his way to church.

  He had been wrong to summon this being in the first place, Carter saw that now. Mr. Sweet was the only one who had benefited from the Nightmare Child’s presence and that had definitely not been Carter’s plan. Because he had found that he was relatively at ease in the company of the Feathered Men, Carter had wrongly assumed that this fallen cherub would be equally amenable and open to his suggestions. He had been very wrong on that score. The Nightmare Child was a law unto itself.

  “Papa,” said the Nightmare Child, in a sickly-sweet and wheedling tone. “Why did you leave me and mother in the desert? Why didn’t you bring us home with you?”

  “Stop this,” Carter snapped. “Stop this at once!”

  “Don’t be cross, Papa,” the cherub continued. “I love you.”

  Carter felt the unnatural power as the fallen angel spoke. The words resounded inside his head and he felt his legs begin to give way beneath him as the line between reality and fantasy started to blur. “Stop it! You’re not my son!”

  “Of course I’m not, silly,” said the beautiful woman whose photograph he examined every day. “It’s me. Don’t you know your own wife, James?”

  Claw Carter gazed at her face; she was just as exquisite as he remembered her. Hesitantly he reached out to touch her hair. It was like silk. He wanted to bring it to his face and hold it against his cheek.

  “Charlotte,” he said, as his mind blundered over the edge into insanity, “is it really you?”

  “You know it is,” she said, her face falling away to show the skull beneath. “Come and give me a kiss.”

  Mr. Sweet was feeling supremely satisfied.

  Claw Carter had been suitably punished. Ben Kingdom was his prisoner. He was in possession of all thirty Coins of Judas. And his pain of a mother was finally off his back for good.

  Today he was the Prime Minister. Tomorrow he would place the completed Crown of Corruption on his head and he would become the King. King of the Legion and King of Great Britain.

  Since Lord Cecil no longer required his rooms at the Savoy, Sweet had moved in and was making the most of his predecessor’s hospitality. He remembered that there was a particularly fine box of cigars on the desk and he reached for one now.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, young man?” came a haughty voice that he knew all too well. “I’ve told you before that those disgusting things are bad for you.”

  Sweet saw his mother standing in the corner. His dead mother.

  “Oliver,” she said in a tone full of admonishment, “you have been a very naughty boy indeed.”

  “Stop this, Moloch! I know it’s you.” Sweet’s own voice rose to a booming crescendo to cover his fear. “I command you to stop!”

  Before his eyes, Lady Sweet’s form melted away to leave the Nightmare Child standing in her place. Smiling.

  “I’ll stop for now,” said the Nightmare Child, speaking once again in the disconcerting high-pitched voice of a small boy. “But I’m bored.” It ran to the door, then paused halfway out. “You will play my game one day though. Everybody does.”

  The tiny footsteps pattered away up the corridor, leaving Mr. Sweet chilled to the bone.

  Ben gazed up at the Tower of London: a stark silhouette against the tattered remnants of the fog. He shuddered. It was a cold monument with a dark and bloodstained history and he was certain that the Legion was about to write its own gruesome chapter. Ben was their prisoner and he could expect no mercy. The Yeoman Warders were long gone, the Queen was missing, and there were rumours that Mr. Sweet had already helped himself to the Crown Jewels. Only the ravens remained to see Ben’s fate, joined by hundreds of Legionnaires gathered for the Feast.

  “Keep moving,” grunted Ben’s guard, a huge man with only two teeth in his mouth, jabbing him in the back for good measure. Ben had no choice but to obey; his hands were tied firmly in front of him. It had been the same story all day, as he had been bundled, helpless, from pillar to post; Mr. Sweet’s most treasured prisoner. In his mind Ben had sought the company of Nathaniel and his pa, Lucy and Mr. Moon…Mother Shepherd, but even those familiar faces were too painful for him to bear. Standing there now Ben felt small and lost – surrounded by wickedness on all sides.

  The guard halted him at the edge of the crowd as Mr. Sweet’s voice echoed across the courtyard. Ben listened in silence.

  “My loyal Legionnaires, feast, make merry, for today we begin our reign!”

  There was something unreal about the celebration that was going on around him. Although the night air was bitterly cold, there was a festive atmosphere, full of laughter and merriment. The wine and beer were flowing freely and the air was rich with the fatty goodness of roasting pigs; Christmas for evil people, thought Ben. He looked over to one of the cooking fires with longing and watched the hog slowly turning on a spit, the smoke twisting upwards and merging with the dying remnants of the mist. Ben’s own stomach was aching with emptiness. To really rub salt in the wound, Ben’s guard hadn’t stopped shoving juicy slabs of meat into his mouth. Hope you choke on it, Ben thought charitably.

  Many of the throng had come dressed for the occasion, Ben observed. The women had plaited long black feathers into their hair and some of the men had them too, in their hair or beards. Others were wearing the cowls that Legionnaires often adopted for their surface missions, heavy woollen hoods that cast their faces in shadow. Almost all of the revellers had smeared their faces with broad stripes of black grease; it was a disturbing effect. Most Legionnaires were pretty threatening in a good light, but here, in the flickering glow of the torches, they appeared diabolical.

  Ben caught glimpses of staring white eyes and flashing teeth in blackened faces, expressions growing increasingly wild as the drinking slipped over into drunkenness. Someone in the crowd had brought a drum and was beating out a strange rhythm, while the women spun around and shrieked in a wild dance. If it was a party, thought Ben, then it was the sort of party which ended in a fight. He could taste the violence in the air, sour and rank.

  Presiding over it all was Mr. Sweet, flanked by a huge pair of Feathered Men. These fallen angels were bigger than most; their feathers were as dark as midnight, their beaks longer – a hideous combination of raven and man. Sweet himself was wearing a magnificent cloak of blue-black feathers which swept out behind him, and although he had not daubed his face, his eyes had the same glassy look of danger. He was standing with his two guards on a raised wooden stage, a lot like the platforms used in public hangings, Ben thought.

  Ben’s eyes went wide as he saw what else Mr. Sweet had brought with him.

  There was a stone plinth on the stage, topped with a rich velvet cushion. And on top of the cushion was a crown. A crown made of silver coins. A crown which radiated pure evil. Ben shuddered. He knew how much dark power a single Coin had contained, how terribly one had influenced his actions. But thirty?

  “Bring the sacrifice forward!” Sweet ordered.

  “That’s your cue,” Ben’s guard gloated.

  The crowd parted and Ben was pushed towards the platform. Faces loomed at him from every side, curses and threats on their breath. Something hot and wet landed on Ben’s cheek and he realized, to his disgust, that one of the Legionnaires had spat on him.

  Numb, Ben stumbled up the wooden steps until he was only a few feet away from Mr. Sweet and the Crown of Corruption.

  “See the last hope of the Watchers!” Sweet shouted. “See how he trembles before me!”

  Ben remained silent, h
is mouth dry.

  “String him up,” said Sweet.

  With that, the guard bundled Ben forwards until he was standing beneath the waiting arm of the gibbet. Gleefully, the burly Legionnaire produced a length of rope, fastened one end to Ben’s already bound wrists and then threw the other end over the wooden frame. Taking the rope in both hands, the guard heaved downwards and Ben felt his arms being dragged up until he was balanced painfully on tiptoes. The guard then tied the rope off, leaving Ben dangling.

  The crowd roared their approval.

  Mr. Sweet strode over to Ben and leaned in close, so that he could whisper in his ear. “I hope you have a good view,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to miss this.”

  Sweet returned to centre stage. “Now let me show you how we treat our enemies…”

  An arched door opened at the foot of one of the towers and a strange procession filed out. Ben could see a cage, being carried at shoulder height by four Legionnaires and inside it was—

  “Nathaniel!” Ben shouted.

  “He can’t hear you,” said Sweet. “He probably doesn’t even know who you are any more.”

  Ben could only watch as other figures trailed behind his brother. He struggled to understand what he was seeing.

  The procession was led by the sinister child that Ben had encountered in the fog, followed by what appeared to be a massive hound. No; Ben looked again. Not a dog – a man, on his hands and knees with a leash around his neck.

  The Legionnaires roared with anger. “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” rang the chant. They screamed at the crawling figure until the veins stood proud on their necks. They spat at him vehemently. “Here, doggie, doggie,” mocked one woman, throwing a lump of greasy meat onto the grass in front of the pitiful victim.

  Ben almost didn’t recognize the poor wretch. The man was insensible. He looked so disorientated, his hair awry, his expression slack. He probably wouldn’t recognize his own face in the mirror if he saw it.

  It was the claw that gave him away.

  “Professor Carter,” Ben breathed in disbelief.

  “This is what happens to those who betray the Legion,” Sweet gloated. “Would you like to see a demonstration of Legion justice in action?”

  The mob roared their approval.

  “All praise the Nightmare Child.”

  Sweet slapped his fist to his chest in the Legion salute and a thousand Legionnaires beat their own chests in response.

  Ben ran his eyes across the turrets and the battlements, hoping, praying, to see a Watcher on the rooftops. But he was alone.

  Ben didn’t want to die – he guessed that he was to be the sacrifice now.

  Nathaniel was only a few feet away from him, but it may as well have been a mile. The cage that held his brother had been placed at the other end of the stage.

  “Nathaniel!” Ben called to him again, but Nathaniel gazed at him as if he were a stranger.

  Ben looked again at Professor Carter and saw the same emptiness in his eyes. The man’s great intellect had been stolen from him, leaving him no better than a gibbering imbecile. No matter how ruthless the man had been, nobody deserved this fate. Unexpectedly, Ben’s heart went out to Carter. If, in his grief, Carter had chosen to follow the Watchers rather than the Legion, how different the man’s life might have been.

  Choices and consequences, Ben…

  Ben didn’t understand how Carter could have been reduced to such a pitiful state but he had the sinking feeling that he was about to find out.

  The Nightmare Child mounted the stage. In the ugly sky above, circling ravens croaked in triumph. A few Feathered Men flew with them. All around Ben, the Feast night fires burned intensely, making shadows of every face. It was as if the crowd had become a single being, with one purpose, one black heart. Eating but never satisfied. Drinking without merriment, only as a passage to oblivion. A savage creature made of hair and feathers and hatred, and with a thousand hungry eyes fixed on him.

  At the front of the crowd Ben spotted Mickelwhite’s face, animated with cruel delight. Beside him, Bedlam was gnawing on a fatty chunk of meat, his lips grinning and glistening, the grease spilling down over his chin. Hans Schulman and Alexander Valentine were there too, looking on impassively.

  The mob fell into an expectant hush, until the silence was broken by a barrel-chested Legionnaire in the front row. The man had a beard bristling with feathers, and HATE tattooed inexpertly across both sets of knuckles.

  “Death to the Watchers!” he yelled and Ben shrank inside himself as the terrible cry was taken up around the Tower. “Death! Death! Death!”

  The small blond boy crossed the platform to inspect Ben, looking for another pet to torment. Only it wasn’t a cruel child, Ben understood. This time, without the fog to blur his sight, he saw the small pair of black wings that sprouted through slits in the shoulders of the sailor suit. Yes, it was something much, much worse.

  “What do you want?” Ben asked, doing his best to sound defiant.

  “I want to be your friend,” said the Nightmare Child. “Will you play a game with me?”

  “Sorry,” said Ben. “I don’t play with girls.”

  “Oh,” said the Nightmare Child, a pink tongue emerging from behind the Cupid’s bow of its lips. “This is going to be fun.”

  The fallen cherub regarded Ben with a look of pure malice. Its eyes were dark, almost black, and overflowing with malevolence. Although Ben tried feverishly to look away, he felt himself pulled irresistibly into those inky pools. It was as if he was a mudlark again, struggling in the slime on the banks of the Thames; the more he struggled the quicker he was held and the deeper he sank. The Nightmare Child’s eyes sucked him in until he was swallowed completely.

  Ben blinked beneath the agonizing weight of that stare and when he opened his eyes again he was confused to find himself back at St Paul’s, face-to-face with Mother Shepherd. “Benjamin,” she said softly. “I’ve been so terribly worried about you.”

  The old woman gave an unnatural smile then, and Ben looked disconcertedly at the corners of her mouth. Each movement of her lips caused tiny hairline fractures to splinter through skin as fine as plaster.

  “But…I…you…” Ben spluttered.

  “Yes, Benjamin, that’s right,” said Mother Shepherd, stretching her arms towards him for an embrace, “you did kill me.” Her smile grew wider as Ben watched. Wider than any human smile could stretch, splitting at the sides until it stretched to her ears, showing every tooth in her mouth from front to back.

  “No, but, I didn’t…it was an accident.” Ben stumbled over his words as he struggled to move away from her, his arms throbbing with pain as the ropes bit deep. “I…I…”

  “Killed me,” she completed. “I always knew that you would. You nasty, hateful child.”

  “But you said you believed in me,” Ben protested.

  “How could I believe in you?” Her voice was filled with scorn as the spider’s web of cracks spread to cover her face. “You’re just an ignorant urchin from the gutter. You don’t even believe in yourself!” Huge chunks of her head began to crumble away then, reminding Ben of the stone balustrade that had caused her death.

  “You were never going to be the Hand of Heaven, Benjamin, never! The Uncreated One doesn’t give that sort of power to boys like you. Don’t you know that He hates boys who kill their mothers?”

  Ben’s blood ran cold.

  He closed his eyes, and this time when he dared to open them again he discovered that Mother Shepherd had gone and he was looking at a much younger woman. A woman who he had never seen with his own eyes but had loved in his heart for the whole of his life.

  “Ma,” said Ben, his heart breaking. “Is it really you?”

  The woman turned to face him completely, her red-gold hair brushing Ben’s skin with the smell of sunshine. “My son,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. “My precious Ben.”

  “Yes, Ma, it’s me.”

  “Why did you kill me, Ben?�
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  Ben felt despairingly afraid. Defenceless. Hopeless. Defeated.

  He screwed his eyes shut, putting all his remaining strength into keeping them closed. His mother was standing in front of him. His dead mother. Smiling and calling him a murderer. If he saw the look on her face one more time, it would break him, mind and soul.

  I must not open my eyes. I must not open my eyes. I must not open my eyes.

  “Ben!”

  He opened his eyes.

  “Ben!”

  Lucy couldn’t stand by and watch.

  It had been easy enough for her to sneak into the Feast with Ghost and Jago Moon. All they had to do was wear the hoods that Hans had smuggled out for them and blacken their faces so they could mingle with the crowd. But now that they were on the inside and the gates had been locked, Lucy felt threatened on every side.

  “I’m going to get him,” she said.

  “No,” Moon warned. “You’re not.” He grabbed her arm and held her back. “Stick to the plan.”

  On the platform, Ben dangled like a puppet, convulsed with inner torment.

  “Hold on, Ben!” Lucy shouted above the jeering crowd, breaking free from Moon’s grip. “I’m coming!”

  “Here we go again,” Jago Moon muttered, reaching for his swordstick and following her into the fray.

  “Ben!”

  Lucy kept shouting his name, trying to be heard above the crowd. She barged her way through to the front, then made a sprint for the platform. But as she drew nearer to the baleful presence of the Nightmare Child, all of her strength seemed to melt away like wax.

  Ben appeared to have fainted and the Nightmare Child was triumphant. Lucy took three more steps towards them and then the evil cherub snapped its head towards her. Lucy froze as it locked her in its stare.

  “First your father, then your brother, and now Benjamin,” purred the Nightmare Child. “You just can’t look after your boys, can you, Lucy?”

  Instinctively Lucy’s fingers rushed to the scar that ran the length of her pretty face. The pain was so fresh that she thought her hand would come away bloody. Lucy wasn’t in the Tower of London any more, she was back at that day, the worst day of her life. The day that haunted her in her darkest dreams.