Whitechapel Gods Page 20

  His heart-clock began to fall out of rhythm. “Brothers?” he said. “Answer me, you disobedient libertines.”

  At a whirring and grinding from behind, Westerton grabbed for another shell from his pocket and scrambled to reload.

  That’s it. Get closer, Englishman. Get up where I can see you.

  Rapid, plodding footsteps accompanied the noise. At the last moment Westerton whirled and discharged the weapon into the centre of the massive shadow closing in on him. The shadow jerked and halted.

  Westerton laughed aloud. “Take that, traitor. A taste of the Good Lord’s justice.”

  The shadow swiped out a hand and ripped the gun from Westerton’s fingers.

  “What do you know?” it said, pointing to its belly. “Got me a matching pair now, Chief.”

  “Wh-what?” Westerton stammered. “You’re a cloak! You’re a bloody crow, that’s what you are! Fickin put you up to this, the no good bastard.”

  Then a voice from behind: “It occurred to me that you probably don’t see very well in the dark, Mr. Westerton.”

  That made his heart-clock twinge painfully. He was out of balance, his perfect order disturbed. He felt an infirmity creep into his knees, and spun around to find two figures, one hunched as if aiming a rifle, the other tall and thin. He pointed accusingly at the taller one.

  “You! You’re under arrest.”

  “I’m very busy right now, Westerton,” said the man, “and I can’t have you or yours prowling about the Underbelly looking for me.”

  At that Westerton cackled. “Do your worst, villain. Kill me again if you like. I’ll simply come back for you tomorrow, and I’ll have more men next time, now that I know where you’re hiding.”

  “Ah, yes, that. Well, surely you don’t think I hired that young lad to show you to my real hideout.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know your face. That is all I need to find you again.”

  “Be that as it may, I’ll need a few days more. I’m going to have my associate shoot you and then we’ll be tossing you off the tower.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Listen closely, Canary. I’m going to give you your gun back before we drop you. Use it only to defend yourself. The hounds shouldn’t bother you unless you become hostile.”

  “You…savage.”

  He’d intended something more eloquent, some scathing words to put these renegades in their places. Well, perhaps a sterling display of violence would suffice. One second was all he needed; a quick squeeze or a quick jerk and the battle was won even if they shot him down. A single tick of the clock.

  The Ticking Lord had long ago taken away his pain, and then his fear of death. He hesitated only an instant, then lunged.

  The third man shot him in the throat. The big man dragged him back by his collar, while the others closed in. He took seven rounds in the stomach and chest before his assailants were done. In each flash Westerton absorbed the grim-faced glare of his adversary, memorising its creases and features until he knew them as well as his own.

  Body forced out of harmony, he slumped to the ground and found he could not move.

  It doesn’t matter. The Lord protects me. The Lord will bring me back to harmony so that I can strip the eyes out of that fucking creature and break his skull with my fingers.

  His senses went dark, and he was alone with the ticking of his own heart.

  The Ninth Prophecy was delivered to me as follows:

  Whether this year I see will be a time for mourning or celebration I do not know, for so much will be lost and in a single stroke so much gained. How can She contemplate such an act, and how can I, knowingly, consent in its execution? I do not understand this strange path Providence seems to have laid out for me, to be a vessel for two warring minds and to aid in the slaying of one by the other.

  For She will kill her mate, of this I am certain. Since the vision has come to me they have both consented to its propriety. Even He, the Great Machine, knows it is fated to occur, and though He cannot give the act His blessing, for such sentiment was long ago banished from His mind, His very incapability of considering another outcome admits his tacit consent.

  This is madness, and yet She is not mad. She, after all, existed before She took Him as Her lover. Was He man or machine before that horrid affair? I cannot say. The answer is there in this terrifying new mind of mine, if I dare to ask for it. But I dare not. I haven’t the courage.

  Another is coming…Isee…

  I will name this my Tenth Prophecy, and it was delivered to me thus:

  She will take a mortal lover, a new consort to fill the place of Her murdered spouse. Who this will be I cannot yet see, but he will be a creature of logic, as the Great Machine was in the beginning. She has been angry for so very long, and this poor man will bear the penalty for Her suffering. My mind trembles when I dare to dwell upon it.

  This man is to be moulded as one moulds clay or stone. What She desires of him is Her secret to keep, though She would tell me, if only I was not such a coward.

  Almighty God, why did they pick me? Of all the whelps wandering London’s streets, why am I to be so cursed? For I know, too, what I am to suffer, what terrible deeds I am to perform at the behest of these creatures from Beyond.

  I call these things my Eleventh Prophecy, and will speak on them no more.

  —IX. ix–xi

  Candlelight gave poor illumination at farther than reading distance, and she hadn’t made any sound. She just had a way of being noticed.

  Oliver closed the Summa Machina and set it on the short wicker table.

  “Miss Plantaget,” he said. He rose, approached her, then swept up and kissed her gloved hand. Her hair was down and fell about her shoulders. The soft light seemed to glow beneath her skin as her lips spread in a smile. Realising he’d been staring, Oliver cleared his throat. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She cocked her head and blinked lazily at him. “I suppose you’re aware that there are perfectly good reading chairs out in the lounge, not to mention better light.”

  “Solitary contemplation can be good for one,” Oliver said. “Phin says the Hindus and the Japanese do it all the time.”

  She fixed him with a stare he found unreadable.

  “I don’t doubt that Phineas says it,” she said. “He also says he once owned a pet sea serpent he called Lila.”

  Oliver chuckled to hide his growing unease. Why was she looking at him so intensely?

  “I haven’t heard that one before.” Oliver straightened his vest, then the suspenders beneath it. “What is it?”

  “Thomas is awake again. I thought you would like to know.”

  “Thank you.” He made to push past her. When she didn’t move aside, he waited.

  “Is there something else?” he asked.

  Her eyes searched his.

  “Michelle?”

  “Oliver,” she began. Several expressions passed over her face in rapid succession. “It’s the German.”

  Oliver sighed. “He’s a sullen bravo, I know. I’d stick him with a different crew if I thought any of the others survived.”

  “You got word, then?”

  Oliver nodded. “Joyce’s address was hit by the Boiler Men early this morning. The cloaks assaulted half a dozen other places at the same time. I can’t say there’s much hope.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Missy’s face readjusted into the subtlest expression of sympathy, and suddenly all the sadness he hadn’t wanted to feel flushed over him in one wave. No Joyce, no Sims, none of the other crews. Oliver knew how it would have happened: echoing footsteps coming up the street, a blast of steam through the door, another through a window, leaving the men to choose between fleeing into the street and being shot or hiding inside and being broiled alive.

  During the Uprising he’d seen it happen to a neighbourhood family, and he’d run to his secret tunnel and hid. They’d chosen to stay inside, and he’d listened to the mother scream for more than an
hour before the Boiler Men got around to executing her. That memory had always been caught on the question of whether she was screaming for her children or screaming from her own pain. Silly thing to wonder about, all these years later.

  A warm finger poked into his arm.

  “Come back, Oliver,” Missy said, a soft, petite smile on her red lips.

  Oliver cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was just—”

  She held her finger up to interrupt. “I don’t care to know where you were just then, Mr. Sumner. The past is really not something one should worry over. Don’t you think?”

  She lowered the finger. Her eyes awaited agreement.

  “Right,” Oliver said finally. “That’s a sensible piece of advice.”

  “I’m glad you agree.” She drew her finger through the air as if following the path of a fly, eventually landing it on an unseen piece of furniture. “Getting back to my original question…”

  “The German. Right.” She is a distraction. “I know he’s abrasive and I don’t want to make excuses for him…”

  “Then don’t.” Missy’s look became harder.

  “…but right now he’ll do us more good than otherwise. You should have seen his shooting, Michelle.”

  “It might be better that I didn’t,” she said. “He’s an evil man, Oliver. That’s as clear as day to me.”

  “I wouldn’t have chosen him, for certain.”

  “Then kick him out. Let Heckler use that ghastly steam gun of his. He can’t be trusted; surely you can see?”

  Missy looked to be in genuine earnest—no, in panic. He watched Missy’s jaw and lips tighten.

  “He can’t be controlled.”

  It’s the same expression as the last mission, he realised. She wore the same one just after she’d stabbed…Oh my.

  “I think he can be,” Oliver said, trying to reassure her without exaggerating his chances. “I’m keeping an eye on him and I’ve got Hews doing the same. I think we can keep him in line. Besides, he wouldn’t give up his cannon willingly, I don’t think.”

  Missy scowled. Her fingers fidgeted on her handbag. “There are other ways to get it away from him, you know.”

  Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “What did that mean?”

  A small gasp, and then Missy was all smiles and fluttering eyelashes. “Just a suggestion, Mr. Sumner, an attempt to be helpful. You were once a thief, were you not?”

  Oliver smiled back, allowing himself to be led from the subject. “I know many people would have considered me one. This may be a different situation.”

  “Well, there you are.” Missy gathered arms close to her stomach and tipped her head to him. “Just a suggestion, then. Well, please just…Well, watch him, would you?”

  “I said we would keep him in line.”

  “Then, my gratitude, Mr. Sumner.”

  “Anything for a pretty face, Miss Plantaget.” A very pretty face indeed.

  She smiled at him, then strode into the foyer as if she had somewhere very important to be.

  Dismissing Missy’s strangenesses for the time being, Oliver stowed the Summa Machina on his bedside table. The language made perfect sense to him even though he had never so much as looked at it before. This oddity had been accompanied by a burning in the back of his skull, identical to when he had sighted the ghosts on the rusted stair.

  He hurried down the hall to one of the unused chambers that Dr. Chestle had converted into a sickroom.

  Oliver swung the door open and flinched at the smell of alcohol and the greasy odour of Tom’s sweat. Thomas lay shirtless atop the covers of the room’s single bed. The doctor sat on a short oak stool to the right, sewing shut the new gaping hole in Tom’s stomach. Jeremy Longshore lay curled in one corner like a dog.

  “ ’Hoy there, Chief,” Tom said with a wave.

  Dr. Chestle calmly pressed Tom’s arm back to the bed. “Please try not to move, Mr. Moore.”

  “Ah, the doc’s a bit grumpy this morning, Ollie. Seems he’s a bit miffed about me being shot. Imagine!”

  Oliver walked up to the bed and inspected the wound. “Bigger than the last one, Tommy,” he said.

  “Three inches side to side,” Tom said. “You could drop a shilling through me.”

  Oliver laughed automatically, trying not to betray his trepidation. Black veins lanced across Tommy’s chest beneath the skin. They radiated from the flasher burns on his ribs and shoulder, like the tunnels of burrowing worms. Dark grey patches discoloured large portions of his arms and stomach. His chest was a patchwork of scars, notably the group of them over his heart.

  “I am a right mess, aren’t I?” Tom said.

  “No uglier than usual, chum,” Oliver said. Tommy’s face was a wreck as well. Chestle had patched some of the wounds closed with stitches and bandages, but the left eye was still nothing more than burned, burst flesh. The right watered constantly, but he seemed to be able to see from it, and that was a start.

  “Bet my arm doesn’t seem so strange now, eh?” Tom lifted his mechanical arm to show the point where iron bones pierced out of malformed human muscle.

  Chestle again pushed the arm down.

  “Kindly lie still, Mr. Moore.” The doctor was sweating almost as much as his patient. Oliver detected the faintest tremble in the man’s hands.

  “Best follow his directions, Tom,” Oliver said, “or I might have to shoot you again.”

  The poor doctor’s eyes flared wide.

  “The man is quite the disciplinarian, Doctor,” Tom said. “Of course, I would have shot him as well if my aim wasn’t so lousy.”

  The doctor paused. “That’s appalling. That’s no kind of talk for civilised men to engage in.”

  Oliver laid a pitying hand on his shoulder. “There’s not a word of it untrue, Doctor. Surely Hews warned you about us.”

  The doctor cleared his throat and admitted, “He did not praise your good sense.”

  Oliver rubbed his own jaw, where the stubble had progressed to the soft beginnings of a beard. “‘Good sense’ is a relative term, I’m afraid.”

  The doctor finished the final stitch and cut away the excess string with a penknife. “Good sense is good sense, Mr. Sumner. I’m advising that Mr. Moore stay confined to bed for now. He may have whatever food bolsters him but should refrain from imbibing for the time being.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try teetotalling,” Tom said.

  “I would see you outside, Mr. Sumner,” said the doctor.

  “I’ll be there presently,” Oliver replied.

  Dr. Chestle packed up his equipment and left to wash his hands.

  As soon as the door shut, a groan tore out of Tom and he curled his hands over his belly.

  “Easy, Tommy, easy.” Oliver fetched a cloth and dabbed at the big man’s leaking eye.

  “Bloody, I’m all right. Just feels like a rat eating my liver, is all.”

  Oliver’s guts had long since knotted irretrievably. He tried to speak and found his mouth dry.

  Tom scowled at him.

  “Now don’t you dare go and tell me you’re sorry for dragging me out on business last night. I had to be there in case things went sour, and we both agree it’s a better thing that I got shot than someone else.”

  “Ah, Tom…” Oliver felt tears coming to his eyes and blinked them back.

  “I’ll go out again, Ollie. Often as you need.” Tom gestured after Chestle. “I’m a walking dead man, and the cutter knows it. I’d rather spend my last days pounding on cloaks than lying in bed like a grandma.”

  Oliver clasped him on the shoulder, trying to smile. “That’s my lad.” Oliver jabbed his thumb at the doctor’s bag. “Don’t think he’d mind.”

  Oliver left the room as Thomas stole himself some brandy.

  He found Dr. Chestle in the bathroom, drying his hands with a frayed towel that had been in the building since Oliver purchased it. Grey and red wisps swirled in the large bowl that stood in for a proper sink. The tub was half full, it being the cre
w’s only way of storing water; plumbing was reserved for Aldgate and Cathedral Towers.

  The doctor looked half dead himself: pale skin, unkempt moustache and hair, eyes sunk deep into the head. Oil and blood stains marred his white shirt and vest.

  “Tommy seems to be under the impression that he hasn’t long to live,” Oliver said.

  Chestle’s sigh was like the gurgle of air escaping a punctured lung.

  “I’m unable to tell you how much time he has, Mr. Sumner.” The doctor finished with the towel and hung it over a bent iron drying rack nearby. “I had one patient die on me in a matter of days. Some are still holding on despite all sense. Once the disease turns, there’s no way to know.” The doctor began absently rubbing his left hand where brass nibs poked through the skin.

  Oliver crossed his arms. “Don’t figure there’s a cure.”

  The doctor spent a minute smoothing his moustache. “I’ve spent most of my career studying this ailment, Mr. Sumner. So have my colleagues. We’ve yet to determine a viable cause, much less a cure.”

  Oliver knew the cause—not that a man of science would believe it. Oliver offered his hand and the doctor took it.

  “Thank you for your help, Doctor. The Underbelly could use a man of your talents.”

  Chestle smiled at that, but shook his head. “I have patients in Bishop’s Gate and Fenchurch who need me, Mr. Sumner, but your offer is appreciated.”

  “Then how about the offer of a few hours’ rest? We’ve an empty room if you’d like to make use of it.”

  “Your offer is very kind. I may.”

  Oliver escorted him back to the sickroom and left before the doctor realised his brandy was missing.

  He detoured to Heckler’s room briefly to check his progress.

  The young American looked up from the tiny desk they’d acquired for the work of translating the tape. He set his fountain pen aside and mopped his brow with a well-used kerchief.

  “What can I do for you, suh?”