Whitechapel Gods Page 16

  More brandy scalded her throat. Since that third night at Sherwood, she had made alcohol her daily tonic, to keep the Matron Gisella silent.

  She poured the brandy onto the floor, for tonight it had lost its power.

  A good lady doesn’t cry. Only if the client wants you to cry shall you permit yourself. Oh, don’t worry yourselves; he will make it amply clear.

  Gisella was lecturing from some long-ago memory. Missy had heard the speech dozens of times and remembered it perfectly: always the same wording, the same sharp gestures, and the same piercing glare.

  She stomped one foot into the puddle of liquor. Droplets splattered her dress and shoes.

  You wouldn’t approve of this at all, would you, Witch?

  My, my, isn’t someone testy? Have you a reason for throwing a tantrum like a child of six?

  Missy refilled the glass. She sipped it, realising suddenly how light-headed she was.

  What if they didn’t come back? What if Bailey’s mad crusade left them all corpses and Sherwood stayed this empty forever?

  Then you will come back to me, my little one. When you were brought to me, you were coated in dirt and crawled on your hands and knees. You were born a dog, little girl, by God’s hand. That kind of filth never truly comes clean.

  She felt oily inside and out with perspiration. It was too cruel to contemplate, that her new life should be wrested from her after three short months. Oliver had not even asked where she came from or what she had done before. Nor would he, or any of them. Here she had found men who did not judge her, and a place to rest her feet.

  Her throat cringed as the brandy scorched it again and she refused to think on such things any further.

  A rap sounded at the door.

  Oliver had told her never to answer that door. One of the men should always do it and even they should always be armed. The caller was to be checked by peeking from the second-storey windows, and the door traps released only if it proved to be one of the neighbourhood folk.

  Well, Oliver wasn’t there, and she had a gun. Even if things became dangerous, she could defend herself. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done so before.

  Gisella had been silent that night as well.

  She drained her glass and tottered to her feet. The world spun. She snatched the lamp from the card table and her handbag from the chair. She politely forced the doorjamb aside and staggered into the hall.

  The rap came again.

  “Hold on,” she cried, though it may not have emerged so eloquently.

  Each stair smacked heavily against her feet as she descended. The railing pressed inappropriately into her side.

  The rap sounded again, suddenly pounding against her ears like thunder.

  “You, sir,” she said accusingly to the door, “have no manner of patience at all.”

  Her fingers found the right switches, pulled the right chords. The deafening clicks told her Heckler’s traps had been withdrawn. She grasped the handle and yanked the door wide.

  A face stepped out of her nightmares and into the foyer.

  “Oh, mother of mercy!” The handbag fell from her fingers. The lamp tipped and burned her hand with its hot glass.

  “Heh. I see you remember me.”

  Her knees buckled like so much wet cloth and she crashed to the ground on her tailbone. The lamp bounced on the floor and rolled away. It can’t be real, she screamed. He can’t be here.

  The intruder righted the lamp with a deft flick of his cane.

  “Gisella was distraught when you left, Michelle. Even my considerable powers of persuasion were barely enough to keep her from murdering you.”

  The man closed the door.

  “Imagine my surprise to find you here, of all places, in the lair of my recent rival. The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways. Don’t you agree?”

  A hobgoblin face beneath a fur top hat. Gnarled bone-white clawed fingers reaching from a black coat as large as the night sky. All the girls knew him, all had felt his nails tearing at them, heard his voice commanding them. Gisella rendered them helpless with her potions and then he came in fevered dreams, a visage of terror half remembered upon waking.

  Sweat slicked her hands. The floor tilted and rolled as she scrambled for the bag, and for the cool, comforting lump of steel inside. Suddenly he was in front of her, squatting. He jammed a handkerchief over her face and a jolting ozone stench blasted up her nose.

  “The yellow man calls this beng lie, my dear. It is Gisella’s favourite, as I recall.”

  Her nails raked over the handbag’s edges, spinning it towards her. Her legs and fingers began to twitch, then to numb.

  “Gisella needed my help to train her little whores, you see,” said the man. “You were one of my earlier attempts, as I recall. Probably, there is no one to blame but myself for your present waywardness, but I was new to this then. One learns, doesn’t one, child?”

  The clasp of the handbag fell apart beneath her fingernails and the bag yawned wide. Her fingers snaked inside, the motion in them dying one by one. The muscles in her back jerked and she collapsed, knocking her head on the floor.

  You didn’t think he would find you, you stupid girl? You came into the world dirty and vile and pretend at decency. It is God’s will that you be found.

  The edges of her vision swam with tears. The room swung like a pendulum. The man crouched like a gargoyle next to her, reaching skeleton hands for her face.

  “Gisella will give me a tongue-lashing, it’s true, but I’m afraid I shan’t be returning you to her just yet.”

  His fingers pressed into the skin of her forehead and scalp. The contact burned and sent shoots of pain deep into her head and neck.

  “I had to look to the East for this process, you know,” he said. “It requires a certain exercise of the mind and the energies, but it makes Mesmer and Braid into simpletons by comparison.”

  His words blurred, one into the other, until they hissed and crackled together. Missy slipped deep down into a warm pool of thick liquid. His voice came to her in flickers of dream thought, as flashes of hot and cold and terror.

  “Listen, now, little one. Follow carefully my every instruction. You will not remember any of this until I command you. When I do so, you will answer all of my questions truthfully and without evasion. You are to remain with Oliver Sumner. Do as he asks, and act as you always have. Remember all you see and hear.”

  A pause. Mind distant across expanse. No movement.

  Scared cleared his throat.

  “My dear, I want you to discover why the Great Mother finds Oliver Sumner so attractive.”

  Missy vomited on herself. She choked, spat, sat up.

  The foyer was empty. A single lamp lit the dark from its place on the floor some three feet away.

  Oh, goodness. The mess! My lord, the smell!

  She scrambled to her feet, gasping in horror at the hideous stain on her blouse. She snatched the lamp and fled to the bathroom. She filled the washbasin with water from the room’s iron bathtub, then stripped off her shirt and submerged it.

  If you put your coat on and run straight home, they’ll never know. Just bundle the shirt and take it in a basket—surely they keep a basket somewhere.

  Filth follows you like a hungry dog, dirty girl.

  Shut up, you shrew.

  Missy held the lamp up and surveyed herself in the mirror. Her hair had fallen out of its tight bun; her lip-stain had run down the length of her chin.

  “Not right at all,” she murmured.

  She screamed and jumped back, nearly dropping the lamp. She’d seen…No, it couldn’t have…But it had been there…an ogre’s face grinning at her from the mirror.

  It wasn’t him. He wasn’t here.

  His voice whispered to her, from far away or from inside her own ears, she could not tell.

  “Tick, tick, tick.”

  At the first sound Oliver unhitched the express rifle and lugged it into his arms. At the second he had it butt to shoulder
ready to fire.

  Damn it, this was not just a product of his imagination. Something had been stalking him for the past hour.

  He didn’t even know where he was. He thought he was heading northeast, though after the long, confusing slide down to street level, he might have gone any which way. His hip-mounted lantern provided only enough illumination to see three strides around him. He probably stood out like a lighthouse down here, though he’d rather that than be in complete dark.

  The sound came again: a heavy crunch, a shifting of debris out in the ruined buildings of Old Whitechapel. His bandaged hand twitched on the stock and the single unwrapped finger on the trigger.

  When the streak of white blasted into the light he’d let the shot off before he even had time to register it. The heavy slug escaped into parts unknown, kicking Oliver nearly off his feet with the recoil. He stumbled and brought his rifle to bear on the object approaching him.

  It was a clickrat. Moving slower now, it tottered forward on its six legs, maw opening and closing in random rhythm. The noise had been far too loud and slow to be from a clickrat, and that left one plausible alternative.

  He’d hoped to catch up with Bailey’s crew before the hounds found him. It should not have been difficult to spot seven lamplights in absolute dark. Most of the buildings of Old Whitechapel had long since decayed into lumps of sodden debris, so the terrain was mostly clear, but multiple trips to the tops of said mounds had garnered him nothing but more black all around.

  And probably brought me to the attention of every whelp creature down here. Damned foolish.

  The clickrat ticked a few steps closer. It sat back on its stubby tail and wailed a low buzzing sound, then tilted its head and regarded him in a pose resembling curiosity.

  “Jeremy Longshore!” Oliver said. The clickrat bounced back to its legs and scuttled up next to his shoe.

  Oliver smiled down at him. “You clever little bastard. You must mean Phin and Tom aren’t too far. Tom!”

  His voice echoed away into the dark. A growl like glass being ground down reverberated back to him.

  Stupid. Oliver swung the express rifle back into position and began scanning the shadows as much as his fogged goggles would permit.

  Jeremy Longshore hopped a foot forward and bobbed his nose in a direction to Oliver’s left. Oliver swiveled to face the rifle that way, just as a black and silver shape broke the perimeter of the lamplight.

  He put a bullet into its shoulder. The hound twitched, but did not back off.

  Jeremy Longshore leapt forth and confronted the creature, balancing on tail and two rear legs and clicking into its face. Oliver shot the hound again, this time in the flank as it reared back to take stock of its second opponent. The impact jerked it to the side, but it barely seemed to notice, its attention fixed on Jeremy Longshore.

  Oliver swept away the gun smoke with his left hand, keeping unsteady aim on the hound as it circled right, its sleek muzzle poking into the clickrat’s striking range. Jeremy Longshore stood his ground, emitting an unceasing string of clicks in patternless rhythm. Oliver orbited the clickrat as well, keeping it between him and the hound.

  The thing would eventually figure out that Jeremy was bluffing and crush him. Could Jeremy keep its attention if he bolted? Oliver had no delusions about outrunning it if it chased him.

  The hound paused and dipped its head. From deep inside its silvery, steel-sheathed ribs, Oliver heard a ticking—like someone tapping a wooden spoon on a large pot. After a few moments of overlap, they began to tick one to the other, then the other to the one. Back and forth: a conversation.

  Oliver squinted hard at the pair. For an instant, the hound seemed to have a human face, indistinct and blurred, like a botched daguerreotype. The face tilted and changed, shifting into and out of expressions that Oliver could not quite identify. Jeremy, as well, took on an aspect far more human seeming. It was something in his bearing, in the gestures made with his front two legs.

  The conversation ended, and for a long moment the two stared at each other. Then Jeremy dropped to all six legs again, and the hound turned and slunk out of the light. Jeremy Longshore ticked a few times and scuttled back over to settle beside Oliver’s shoe.

  Oliver remained perfectly still until the hound’s receding footsteps passed into the distance. Then he lowered his rifle and breathed.

  “You’re a handy fellow,” Oliver said. Jeremy clicked. “Remind me to stop thinking that Tom is crazy.”

  Oliver considered the mechanical animal winding around his feet. Tom hadn’t had time to train the thing to do what it had just done. Jeremy himself was different from his kin.

  “Can you lead me to Phin and Tom?” Oliver asked, thinking it was worth an attempt.

  Jeremy clicked and buzzed, then started off at a fair clip into the darkness.

  “Slow down!” Oliver called, and limped after.

  The creature led him on a chase past tumbled beams, ruined buildings, and pits of dank slime. The rotted underworld passed through the arc of his lamp, fading into view from illuminated mist and seeping back into the absolute shadow of Shadwell Tower that flanked him and loomed always over his shoulder.

  He scrambled along as best he could, hobbling on his ankle as the pain swelled with each step. He called out again and again for Jeremy to hold back, but the little creature tore ahead, hell-bent on whatever goal it had chosen. It escaped the range of his lamplight as they entered what might have once been a public square; the constant jumble of beams, debris, and upturned chunks of roadway gave way to an unbroken succession of tightly fitted bricks.

  The pace wore on Oliver’s lungs. Even through the mask, the air was coarse and heavy with particulates. The heat, unnatural even for Whitechapel, provoked an unending sweat that beaded and ran down his neck, slick and sticky in the oily air.

  Panting, Oliver finally halted the mad dash. Holding his breath and his nose, he carefully lifted the mask and splashed some water in his mouth. It tasted of ash, but calmed for a moment the tickle in his throat and the rampant thirst drying out his lips and tongue.

  Out in the dark, the skittering of clickrat legs faded.

  No use trying to follow now.

  He set himself and his rifle gingerly down on the brick and rubbed at his ankle. He scanned his surroundings and made out nothing beyond the flickering lamplight but for a far-off glow. It might have been a hint of the bright lights of Aldgate.

  If so, then that way was northwest, where Bailey’s crew would be heading. And since I couldn’t possibly trace my way back to the stair…

  Oliver wiped his goggles, chewed a piece of jerked beef, and put some more oil in his lantern. After a few minutes’ rest, he struggled back to his feet and began walking. For twenty or so steps the bricks rolled beneath his feet, unchanging. Then he came to a low wall of concrete, topped with a twisted and rusted wrought-iron fence: too tall and too uneven to climb. He unhooked the lantern from his belt and lifted it up. The light cast dancing doppelgangers of the fence on the wall beyond. Something twisted and fled as the light struck it.

  I hope that was Jeremy, Oliver thought, knowing it wasn’t.

  Oliver tilted the light farther back, revealing the façade of a building reaching high above the fence’s top. Mortar had worn away between the blocks used to build it, leaving deep black slashes on its pale surface.

  A sudden scuffing sounded from behind the fence. Oliver hefted his rifle to face forward in one hand, then leaned into the fence and panned his lamp back and forth. The gap between the wall and the building seemed devoid of anything, including debris. A sparkle caught his eye at the far right of the lantern’s light.

  Red? He took a few strides down the wall to the right.

  Red and yellow and purple and blue, a jumble of colours glowing in the flickering light. It resolved itself into the shape of a stained-glass window.

  It’s a church, he realised, then smirked. A white chapel.

  He panned his lantern upwards, revealin
g an arched top to the window, a peaked roof, and hints of a steeple at the light’s farthest edge. This was not a church as he knew them, as little decrepit buildings constructed from scrap and tolerated by the cloaks so long as they stayed that way. No, this church was a magnificent structure, designed to stand out from the city around it, bold and proud. It was a piece of that London spirit that Hews and Bailey always went on about. Oliver felt a welling of uncomfortable emotion: some mixture of pride, longing, shame. What was he supposed to feel at this sight? London wasn’t his city. England wasn’t his home.

  Maybe it could be.

  When the clacks sounded behind him he knew it was already too late to run. He hooked his lantern to his belt again and wrapped both hands around the express rifle. He took a deep breath, held it, let it go. Then he turned.

  Faces: brass eyes, steel teeth, iron bones, and long snouts. Shapes: canine and simian, some hunched parodies of human, even sporting a few last remnants of flesh and hair. Not a sound from any of them, nor breath disturbing the air.

  Oliver’s own breath and heartbeat suddenly became thunderous.

  The circle was tight against the wall on either side. He counted seven hounds, maybe two dozen clickrats of varying composition, a legion of Frankensteins behind that had once been men, fading shadow over shadow to the edge of the light. None of the clickrats sported the silver colour of Jeremy Longshore.

  He fitted his bandaged hand around the stock and curled one finger on the trigger. The barrel shook wildly. Hold together. You’ve been in worse spots than this—remember the battle in Marlow Square?

  Only that had been Boiler Men, and Boiler Men were slow. One might run away.

  Oliver risked a glance over his shoulder. The fence might be scalable, if he abandoned his pack and his rifle.

  The dogs could leap it, or might simply bite through. No good.

  Oliver skipped his eyes back to his grim audience. There had to be a route of escape. He noted two gaps wide enough to run through, assuming the hounds held still. He could maybe hold them off with the rifle…