Whitechapel Gods Page 15

  The mechanical man chuckled, though it was a forced sound, betraying worry. His face creased perceptibly and he cast a halfhearted search around him.

  Suddenly eager to help, Aaron opened his jaws and emitted a click. The sound bounced back and the area jumped to life as if lit with an electric torch. In a nest of twisting pipes some six or seven leaps distant crouched the third of their party, struggling to right himself and moving with obvious pain. Ghosts had gathered all around him, and floated in a rough sphere. The man pointed his rifle at one.

  He should not be afraid of them, Aaron thought. He leapt from the coat to a nearby beam, clipping on to one edge with his six limbs.

  Follow me, Aaron cried, surprised to find nothing more than a click and a whirr escape his throat.

  “Your pet’s escaping again,” the old man called.

  “His Majesty is merely flexing his legs. Exercise serves even the greatest of men,” said the mechanical man, “and rats.”

  Aaron found himself clinging upside down as he approached the nest and the ring of ghosts. He had never realised before that they were solid—after a fashion. Air currents shaped through them, defining their features in layers of continually shifting ash and smoke.

  He clicked at them. Two turned to look.

  The sudden movement startled the besieged man, who swung his rifle about and let fly. Aaron’s senses exploded for an instant, as if the atmosphere had turned solid. For a moment he stumbled, swaying above the drop.

  “You unsporting bastards,” the mechanical man bellowed, “hiding out there like foxes on the moor! Have the decency to shoot me to my face.”

  Another blast rang out, followed by three more. Each obliterated Aaron’s senses, until he teetered on three limbs, tail flailing and jaws gnashing for purchase.

  The beam glittered into being.

  “Christ—Tommy, it’s me!”

  Another shot. Another blinding field of white.

  The body shuddered and gave out. Aaron dropped from his perch.

  The air splayed rivers of light across his vision, rippling and gorgeous, flowing from nose to tail.

  Will I die when I land? he wondered. Will the rat live? Will the man?

  The rat screamed with rat terror and went limp at the behest of its instincts. The man turned his eyes downward and despaired.

  I do not want to die. There is still so much left undone.

  Memories came to him, then: images of other men like himself who were his friends; of a vast city of wasted human life; and overshadowing all, two towering creatures—one of brass, one of iron; one a hammer to crush the soul, the other a mouth to devour it.

  He remembered his own name. He remembered his mission.

  Joseph! Help is coming!

  His buzzing rang from the beams as he fell.

  Bullets sparked off the beams all around.

  Oliver squashed himself farther into the tangle of piping and clamped his hand down over his hat.

  The last ricochet bounced into oblivion and the pipes hummed with dissipating vibration. It would be a minute before Tommy’s clumsy hands could reload.

  “Are you quite finished?” Oliver yelled.

  The answer came back meek and wavering. “Ollie?”

  “Yes, it’s me, you sot. Didn’t you hear me the first two times?”

  “Well…there was a good deal of noise.”

  “What, were you itching to mount me on the parlour wall?”

  “You shot me first.”

  “I didn’t know you were there. I was shooting at…” Ghosts? He slumped back against an irregular bend in the pipes, wondering if he really was losing his sanity. Maybe it was the height, and the thought of all those seconds of empty air before impact with a beam or a quick end on the streets below.

  Something Tommy had said tingled his mental bell.

  “Did you say that I shot you?”

  “Clean through the chest,” Tommy called back. “I will, of course, be charging you for the clothing.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Aside from the hole? The picture of health. I might mention, as well, that these express rifles were a fine choice—hit like rhinoceroses.”

  Oliver shook his head in disbelief. “Can you see any way across, Tom?”

  “Can’t say I see much at all. Only way’s a thin couple of pipes that a monkey would balk at.”

  Oliver squinted, but could make out little against the grey air. The dull glow of Tom and Phin’s lanterns bobbed in the distance like a two-headed will-o’-the-wisp. He retrieved the matchbox from his sack and lit his own lantern, which had blown out during the fall. The light revealed only the immediate nest of pipes and the two Tommy had mentioned, which zigged and twisted and looked thin and frail besides.

  “Looks as if there’s no way across, gents,” Oliver called. “I’ll descend from here and try to meet up.”

  “Aye, Captain. Last one to the ground buys the round!”

  Oliver felt certain Tom was saluting.

  The will-o’-the-wisp moved on downward. Oliver leaned the express rifle against two close pipes and began to reload. He might have told them about his twisted ankle, he supposed, but that would have only worried them enough to attempt a foolhardy rescue. What sort of leader required a rescue? And he’d been embarrassed quite enough today, thank you very much.

  In fact, it seemed all he could manage lately was to make a mess of things.

  Well, I have two uninjured limbs, at least. That’s enough to affect a climb.

  He made to rise, then retreated back to his uncomfortable nook as the pain flared in his ankle. He clipped the lantern to his belt and began to massage his throbbing muscles.

  After a few minutes’ rest, he tried the ankle again, finding it sturdy enough to bear weight. He rose, buckled his sack and rifle to his back once more, and fished around for a possible route of descent.

  Eventually he settled for an angular assortment of pipes and wires that resembled a ladder as one may have looked in an opium dream. The descent proved no more or less troublesome than previous ones had, and before long he had set foot on wide, solid beams.

  He stopped to rest, sipped at his canteen, and polished his goggles to clear his vision. The human-seeming wisps of smoke had gone, but the burning in his mind remained, dulled, as if fallen into a light slumber.

  Dark and heat and height had begun to take their toll: he felt exhausted. He downed another sip of grainy water and thought of Missy—Michelle. She never let anyone else call her that. Why hadn’t he noticed before?

  Because it was just another of the woman’s damnable mysteries, that’s why. She liked her secrets, that one. She had a look, he reflected, a queer expression that crept onto her face in certain instances of Oliver’s kindness, which she hid behind a quickly crafted smile. Perhaps it was to keep him guessing, perhaps for other reasons—he might never know.

  His train of thought breached the point at which it became more uncomfortable than continuing the descent, so Oliver stowed his water, checked his straps, and shuffled to the platform’s edge.

  No more yellow paint. Nothing below but a mass of near-vertical pipes slick with condensation; nothing to the sides but silent ashfall; the only way onward, a treacherous slide down the pipes with no peripheral means to reduce speed. His injured hand stung just looking at it; his guts clenched and squeezed like kneaded bread. He spoke just to get away from his own thoughts.

  “For our great and noble queen,” he said to himself, then shook his head. “We’ll do the strangest things for a lady.”

  He flung his feet off the edge and dropped himself over.

  “Peculiar, that,” Mulls whispered.

  Bergen did not bother to look. Mulls had been repeating those same words over and over for the past hour. It was a jungle fear—the fear of silence. Those few rich men and journalists he’d taken through Africa in earlier days had shown similar reactions, talking gaily and commenting on every damn thing as if noise alone would keep
the snakes at bay. When he told them to keep quiet, they curled up like chastised little boys.

  But he needed Mulls sharp, and so tolerated the outbursts.

  By now they were well below Aldgate Tower, and it was past two in the morning. Another hound attack had left Bergen’s shoulder burned by the heat and chafed by the steam rifle’s straps. Penny had come through, doing much better with his flasher than with a rifle. He now held the flasher’s copper-tipped striking rod in front of him like a knife at all times, and his other hand effected a constant slow rotation of the charging wheel at his belt.

  The boy didn’t seem to tire. He stood watch during their rest stops, took lead on climbs through rubble and old buildings, and even ranged a bit when Bergen stopped to get their bearings. His stance never wavered from its catlike grace, and he did not relax for even an instant.

  He is an animal, that boy, Bergen thought. A predator born by accident in a human womb.

  Aldgate had an underbelly, though its residents preferred to call it a “subconcourse.” In an effort, perhaps, to raise their status, they had installed a dazzling array of electric lights all across their ceiling and in their streets, and it leaked through the haze into the downstreets with enough power to illuminate their route as by moonlight.

  That light allowed Bergen to keep better tabs on Pennyedge. Bergen’s senses had been alert for some time to the boy’s attempts to circle and approach him from behind.

  Bergen led them beneath Aldgate to the side closest to Commercial Street Tower, where their quarry was reputed to have fallen. The two towers were so close as to be nearly leaning on each other, with the outward-sloping base of the Stack mingling into their support beams.

  The stench was vile. Aldgate residents, with their rich variety of imported foods, produced some of the most pungent shit Bergen had ever had to endure. Its odour cut through even the omnipresent stench of ash and smoke. They had passed earlier one of many vast septic pools, centred seven storeys below the primary sewer drains, and they had all nearly choked on the air.

  “Peculiar,” Mulls muttered.

  Bergen forgot himself and snapped: “Can you make any other comment?”

  “But that’s someone moving, that is.”

  Mulls nudged his rifle to the left. Bergen’s eyes shot to the location indicated.

  Someone moving. Not a hound, or a clickrat, but a man, crawling.

  “Penny, flank.”

  The boy vanished to the right without a second glance.

  “Mulls, cover him.”

  Mulls nodded, then ran off to a suitably high outcropping of rubble, where he nestled his bulk between two rotten beams and set his rifle’s barrel atop the remains of a plaster wall.

  Bergen carefully set the steam rifle down, then reached for his Gasser. His right hand shook under its weight as he lifted it, so he decided to leave it holstered. He was a fast enough draw with his left.

  He approached from an oblique angle, through ruined buildings rather than along the old street. If his quarry noticed any of them, he gave no sign.

  Bergen examined the man through the rotted holes of his hiding place: definitely human, crippled, struggling to pull himself along on his forearms, dragging unmoving legs behind like a grotesque train. Bergen spotted a flat, circular case wedged in the crook of his left arm.

  And there’s our prise.

  He stood. The quarry noticed him immediately, staring dumbstruck for a long moment as Bergen approached. Then the man erupted with laughter.

  “You find something funny?” Bergen growled.

  The man gagged, coughed up brown oil, then resumed laughing.

  Bergen squatted down. The man’s fit choked itself out, and between ragged breaths he tilted his face upwards. Only one red eye blinked up at Bergen, the other having been destroyed by the fall along with the entire right side of the man’s face.

  “Yer not one of Bailey’s men, are yeh?”

  Bergen shook his head.

  “I should have known better than to hope. For a moment I thought the lad might have devised some flying machine after all. Yeh here for the tape?”

  Bergen nodded, and held out his hand.

  “Bugger all.” The man hung his head for a moment. “Not much to be done about it, looks like: won’t be no running, nor fighting. Just answer one question of a dying man and answer true.”

  “Fine.”

  “Are ye gonna use it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s a due turn o’ luck.” The man grabbed at the case with his left hand. The broken fingers scraped over its surface, unable to close together. “Mind?”

  Bergen retrieved it for him. He wiped some of the slime and blood from it on his trouser leg. The broken man, relieved of his burden, collapsed to the concrete.

  “Now,” he said, his voice muffled by the wet ground, “will it be a mite of conversation, or should we get on with the shooting?”

  Bergen slipped the sidearm out of its holster with his left hand. “I am curious how you managed to survive the fall,” he said. “I expected to find a corpse.”

  “Oddest thing,” the man said. “I’ve no heart, apparently. Rest o’ me broke like twigs, but this thing in me chest kept pumping away. The lad knew, somehow. He pushed me over, murdering, brilliant, young man. He knew I’d survive.” He chuckled. Oil burbled up from his mouth.

  Aaron Bolden. He was an extraordinary man, my friend.

  Bergen felt a powerful yearning to comfort the dying man, to tell him that his sacrifice would make the difference in the rebellion. Bergen made a quick check of the surrounding street: empty, with twenty feet to the nearest obstacle. If he was there, Penny would hear, and so Bergen said nothing.

  “I have a daughter,” the man said. “Beautiful girl, big-boned like her mother. She was going to move to Edinburrough with a tramp of an Englishman—a coal-backer, of all people! Loves the chap, though.”

  Bergen nodded, already agreeing to the next request.

  “Ellie McWhyte,” he said, “though she might be Ellie Pearson by now. Just give her me love.”

  “I will.”

  “Yer awfully polite for a German fellow. You have a name, so’s I can put in a good word with St. Peter?”

  He should shoot the man now—end this conversation, this dying attempt at camaraderie, before sentiment put him in danger, but Bergen had been living amongst thieves and villains so long that a few words of an honest man glittered like honey in his ears. It was stupid, but the man deserved to know he was dying beside a friend.

  Bergen leaned close to the man’s ear, so that his lips almost touched it as he spoke. He dropped the German accent and let his native Dartmoor shine through.

  “Nicholas Ellingsly,” he whispered. “Rest in peace, friend.”

  Bergen stood and shot the man through the forehead.

  The sight of the twitching body sewed shut any hint of sentiment. When Penny appeared out of the dark at his side, Bergen’s expression had become as cold as before.

  And now you know I shoot left-handed. Well, who are you going to tell?

  “Five minutes for food and rest. Then we head back.”

  He walked back to the steam rifle. Penny’s eyes narrowed to razor slits and followed him step for step. Bergen stripped aside his mask and took a pull of water from his canteen, trying to quell the nagging fear creeping up through his stomach.

  For the first time, Penny had come right up behind him, and Bergen hadn’t noticed.

  Chapter 10

  The second principle of the forge is Method, or perhaps Technique. The artisan must be skilful in all aspects of Her craft. Such perfection comes only from long practice, which inevitably litters the floor with the misshapen remains of Her failures.

  —V. iii

  Missy had not been truly introduced to drink until she met Thomas Moore. Matron Gisella had laid down strict rules concerning imbibing by her girls: they were not to have any at all, except if the client bid it. Even then, they were to
touch scant a tenth of what the client consumed. Missy had rarely had occasion to even smell brandy or scotch, as the majority of the customers were upstanding, proper gentlemen who came into the Matron Gisella’s house to vent their carnal lusts and then flee into the night like robbers.

  Sit up straight; fold your hands across your lap. Hold your head upright, your knees together. You are a shy, naive gentlewoman.

  Missy drained her glass and poured another. The brandy seared its way down her throat.

  No, she had been introduced to drink truly on the third night that she had been invited to Sherwood Forest. She’d walked in on them unannounced, unobtrusive as she had been trained. Thomas had been caught mid-swallow, choked on his mouthful, and then scrambled to hide the glass by slipping it half full into his pocket. Thinking back, perhaps she’d wanted to spare him the embarrassment.

  She’d stepped over to him, relieved him of his drink, and tossed the whole of it down her throat without so much as a sip to gauge it.

  Your sleeves shall be crimped and even. Your hem shall be free of stray threads. Every hint of lace shall be sparkling white.

  That vile liquid had been the strongest of Tom’s collection. It had taken all Missy’s aplomb to remain upright and charming as the fire surged into all her limbs, then her brain and her lips, and then lit her cheeks like twin suns rising on a winter morning.

  But she’d held her composure and had reigned in her laughter at their gapes. And for one glorious, memorable evening, the matron’s voice had been silent.

  You shall move to reveal not ankle nor wrist nor neck lest the client bid you or take the initiative himself. Should your client wish you to surrender to his advances, then do so. Should he wish you to resist, do so.

  The glass was full again. She started in on it without delay.

  Sherwood stood empty. Heckler had taken watch at the lift with a pair of street urchins Oliver held sometimes in his employ. The rest of the crew were likely rotting in the downstreets by now, and Oliver with them.

  She swallowed, and examined the amber liquid as it caught and mutated the light of the single oil lamp.

  Always remember that your client has paid for you. I expect that he should come away satisfied and that he should return to my house when the mood next strikes him. I expect to be spoken of highly in the circles. A lady has only her reputation, after all.