Claws of Evil 1 Page 17

  “Ben...” His lips made the shape of the name but no sound came out. I’ll find you.

  “So how come you’re sat here, twiddling your thumbs?” Ben asked Jago Moon.

  “Because, young Benjamin,” Moon explained wearily, “the Uncreated One told me to wait here for you.”

  “So you get messages from a higher power, is that what you are trying to tell me?” Ben wasn’t sure about any of this. “Nice trick if you can do it.”

  “And you can do it,” Moon replied. “That is just one of the many skills that it will be my onerous duty to teach you...if the Uncreated One can grant me sufficient patience.”

  Mollified by the warmth that lay just beneath the surface of Moon’s words, Ben went to his old friend’s side.

  “Here, we can use these,” said Moon, reaching into his jacket pocket.

  “Two fountain pens? Very helpful.”

  “They look like fountain pens,” Moon snapped. “But each one is packed full of gunpowder.”

  Ben’s eyes lit up.

  “All you need do is extract the fuse like this...” Moon continued, twisting the pen and pulling out a short length of wire. “Light it like this, then shove it into the keyhole...and Bob’s your uncle! We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  “And what happens after we’ve blown the door?” Ben asked, while the pair of them took cover.

  “Oh,” said Jago Moon, his heavy brows drawn into a frown. “The Uncreated One has just told me that you are in charge after that.”

  When Ruby heard the distant rumble of the explosion, she knew that somehow it had to be Ben Kingdom and she smiled. She had loitered as near to the cells as she dared without drawing attention to herself, although she hadn’t decided if she was going to help Ben break out or just try to see him one more time through the bars. Whatever she did, she had to try to explain what happened, to tell him that she was just obeying Carter’s orders, to say that she was sorry at least. Her heart began to beat rapidly as she headed in the direction of the blast, and she wasn’t sure whether it was due to shock or some other, more dangerous, emotion.

  Ruby Johnson was not used to feeling this way. Uncertain. Confused. She wanted her world to be black and white again. She had worked so hard to develop her public persona: Ruby Johnson, so confident! Ruby Johnson, so self-assured! Except that she wasn’t, not really; not on the inside where it mattered. And it was all Ben Kingdom’s fault.

  As discreetly as she could, Ruby set off in the direction of the bomb blast. Others would come running soon, she knew that, but she wanted to get there first.

  A thought struck her as she ran. It surprised her at first, but the more she rolled it around in her mind, the more right it felt.

  If Ben was escaping from the Under, he might want some company. Perhaps she could leave the Legion after all.

  Emerging from the matchwood that used to be a door, Ben linked Moon’s arm through his, and began to pick his way through the maze of underground corridors.

  Ben knew that he didn’t have the luxury of being able to deliberate on his choices, he would just have to go with his gut. “If you are going to start talking to me, Uncreated One, this would be a really good time!” he breathed. He dragged Moon onwards, trying to put as much distance between them and the cell as he could.

  “Quickly, Benjamin,” warned Jago Moon. “I can hear footsteps.”

  “Well, bully for you,” said Ben, feeling the pressure.

  Ben hesitated at the junction of two tunnels, one well-lit, the other filled with shadows. Less candles equals less use, Ben reasoned, and chose the dark path.

  It felt like the right decision at first.

  But as they plunged headlong from one pool of light to another, he started to worry. They were definitely heading away from the busy communal areas at the hub of the Under, but Ben had no way of knowing whether that was good or bad.

  When they reached the last of the torches, Ben took one off the wall and brandished it ahead of him. For some time the passage had been sloping steadily downwards, but the only direction that Ben really wanted to be taking them was up and out into the light. No other tunnels led off this one either apparently, not to the left or the right, and so they had no choice except to keep going onwards. It was growing colder too, Ben noticed, and twice he felt cold water drip down on him from the roof. These were not good signs. Ben had the sinking feeling that this was going to turn out to be a dead end, with the emphasis on dead.

  “We have to turn back,” Ben decided.

  “It’s too late,” said Moon sadly, shaking his head. “The Legion are on our heels.”

  “How many?”

  “Only three by the sound of it – one of them is more stealthy than the others, probably a girl.”

  “Three?” said Ben. “We can handle them.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Moon, “but I’m not sure how we’d fare against their companion.”

  Then Ben heard it too, echoing down the tunnel: the hideous shrieking of a Feathered Man.

  Was it really that simple? Ruby wondered.

  If Ben could walk away from this life, why shouldn’t she?

  She passed the cell door, which was hanging off its hinges, a ragged hole where the lock had once been, and it made a smile break out on her face.

  “What a team we could make, Ben Kingdom,” she said appreciatively.

  She picked up her step.

  There weren’t many tunnels that Ben could have taken from here and she had a hunch that Ben would have headed straight for the wrong one.

  The boy needs me, she thought happily.

  The water was dripping more heavily from the roof now.

  It hissed as it rained on the torch and Ben prayed that they wouldn’t be trapped down here in the dark. The tunnel continued to slope downwards and the walls had become oily with slime and running water, making Ben grimace each time his fingers connected with the slick stonework, as cold and repellent as rotting flesh.

  Ben’s feet were sodden. Brackish water had seeped through his boots and with each step the water was getting higher. It was at his ankles already and the tunnel still showed no sign of curving upwards and out.

  “We must be under the Thames,” said Moon, holding fast to Ben’s arm as they did their best to negotiate the slippery stones.

  “That at least explains the smell,” said Ben, wrinkling his nose against the stench of filth and decay.

  “We need to hurry, Benjamin,” Moon urged. “Our pursuers are getting nearer.”

  “I’m amazed we’ve had such an easy run of it so far,” Ben confessed. It was surely just a matter of time before the Legion caught up with them, he knew. His only hope was that they could make it to the surface in time to have it away on their toes.

  Moon squeezed Ben’s arm so fiercely then that it made Ben wince.

  “What was that for?”

  “Brave heart, Benjamin, I can hear footsteps ahead of us too.”

  “How many?” asked Ben.

  “It sounds like hundreds,” Moon replied.

  A sonorous bell rang through the Under.

  Ruby knew what it meant. It was the call to arms. Someone else must have discovered Ben’s escape. Ruby could hear the pounding of running feet, orders being shouted, somewhere a baby screaming. The Feathered Men had been roused too, she realized with a shudder, their piercing shrieks adding to the pandemonium.

  Ruby Johnson ran on. She was running out of time.

  So the boy had escaped.

  Why am I not surprised? thought Carter.

  After all, if Ben Kingdom really was the Left Hand, the Son of the Sinister, then he would have guile and cunning aplenty. That was why he had deliberately pushed the boy into a corner, to test his mettle; to see how he would react. If Ben gave in to anger and hatred, then all well and good; the sooner he could fulfil his destiny at the dark heart of the Legion.

  If, however, Ben was overcome by weaker emotions instead, then he was sure to go running to the Watc
hers. Such feeble qualities as mercy and forgiveness and love would be welcomed there, Carter scoffed.

  And this was where the true brilliance of his scheme lay, Carter congratulated himself. It was not by chance that Ben had been placed in a cell with that reprobate Watcher, Jago Moon. Carter knew that if Ben did try to break out, then Moon would be only too happy to take the boy straight to the Watchers’ lair. All that Carter need do was let the pair of them run, and allow them to lead him straight to wherever the Watchers had pitched camp that night.

  He would follow at a distance, and then unleash the Feathered Men.

  The Watchers were bound to be keeping the Coin somewhere in their eyrie. No doubt that grasping hag, Mother Shepherd, would be clutching it tight to her withered bosom. He would tear their encampment apart to find it, and tear out her heart for good measure.

  Tonight was win-win for Claw Carter.

  The Christmas presents just kept on coming. And he hadn’t even been a good boy.

  Ruby knew that the light around the bend in the tunnel had to belong to Ben.

  She could hear two sets of feet sloshing about in the water and so she had assumed that Ben had felt obliged to take the disgusting old blind man along with him. That wasn’t important for the moment; they could always ditch him later, Ruby decided.

  She was taking it nice and carefully, relying on the light from Ben’s torch in the distance. The floor of the tunnel had been made treacherous by the muck of the River Thames and the water was already up to her thighs. Each well-placed step she took narrowed the distance between her and Ben and she was beginning to feel rather pleased with herself again.

  Then she heard a sound which stole all her confidence away.

  A dreadful squawking noise, shrill and angry, filled the tunnel behind her with its wrath.

  Mickelwhite had known that Ben would make a move, and so he and Bedlam had been waiting for it. They had a few old scores to settle with Ben Kingdom, and just to ensure they proved their point, they had brought a friend with them.

  It was amazing what sort of loyalty you could buy for a leg of mutton, Mickelwhite thought.

  “They’re coming,” said Ben. He could see the flicker of another torch approaching from the gloom behind them and hear other feet wading through the water accompanied by the terrible screaming of the Feathered Men.

  “They’re coming,” said Jago Moon, his blind eyes staring into the tunnel ahead of them.

  It was then that Ben finally heard what Moon had been hearing all along; the insane song of a horde of rats swimming towards them out of the black.

  A Feathered Man was pouncing along the tunnel towards Ruby, bounding from wall to ceiling and back again, finding purchase on the stonework with its talons. Ruby could see its beak snapping, the thin yellow tongue protruding, desperate for the taste of flesh. The creature had a metal collar around its neck, attached to a long length of chain. And on the end of that chain was Captain Mickelwhite, the Feathered Man dragging him forward with each lurch, like a bloodhound on the scent.

  Blundering through the water beside Mickelwhite, a flaming torch in his hand and a nasty smile on his face, was John Bedlam. Ruby’s heart sank.

  “On the hunt too, eh?” Mickelwhite said. He seemed delighted to meet her. The feeling was not mutual.

  “Look!” shouted Bedlam, pointing wildly. “He’s there!”

  Mickelwhite let the chain slip through his fingers and the Feathered Man leaped free.

  “Kingdom will rue the day he betrayed the Legion,” said Mickelwhite with a spiteful leer.

  Ben was trapped.

  Behind them, one of the Feathered Men was crawling along the roof of the tunnel, its round eyes filled with hate, its beak clacking. Mickelwhite was there too, with his pet bully-boy, John Bedlam. Ben could see them as they turned a corner in the tunnel and came into view: two assassins in the torchlight.

  Ahead of them, the water was writhing with rats. Fat body upon fat body. A sea of vermin rushing their way.

  For all that – the terror, the horror, the promise of a painful death – only one thing hurt him: the girl who had led Mickelwhite straight to him.

  “Ruby!” He shouted her name with such force that flecks of hot spittle came out with it. “I hate you!”

  He could see her skulking behind Bedlam; there was no light in her eyes. “I thought you were my friend,” he added, but not loud enough for anyone except Jago Moon to hear.

  At that moment, the first of the rats found him in the waist-deep water, and began to clamber up his torso, punching small holes in his shirt and chest as it scrabbled for a grip. More rats climbed out of the water onto his arms, his back, his hat; it was as if they had been shipwrecked and he was an island. Every part of Ben’s brain was in revolt; he would have screamed except he was afraid that a rat would take refuge in the cave of his mouth.

  Ben thrust the torch into the mass of rats, not caring if he burned himself in the process. The stench of scorching fur met his nostrils, but it was hopeless: for every rat that fell away, two more took its place. The Feathered Man would be upon him in seconds too; the black plumage of its head loomed at him like an executioner’s cowl.

  So much for the promise of power, thought Ben.

  Then a desperate idea struck him and while he continued to fend off the rats with his flailing torch, Ben reached inside into his pocket with his free hand.

  “Don’t do it, boy,” said Moon, when he heard the rasp of the fuse being lit and realized what Ben was planning. “You’ll bring the roof down on us!”

  “Too late,” said Ben as he jabbed the second pen-bomb into the soft mortar between the bricks in the tunnel wall.

  Perhaps it was his proximity to death, but a strange urge took over Ben at that moment and he reached into his pocket to draw out the Coin that had been slumbering there. He held it aloft between his finger and thumb and twisted it so that it caught the torchlight. Even the Feathered Man halted, recognizing the significance of the small piece of silver.

  “I’m joining the Watchers,” Ben shouted, “and I’m taking your precious Coin with me!”

  Moon stepped in then and took control. He grabbed hold of Ben with surprising strength, manhandling him up the tunnel and out of the immediate line of the explosive that was about to go off in his face.

  “For the Hand of Heaven,” said Moon with despair, “you ain’t too bright, are you?”

  Ben didn’t have time to respond, because at that instant Moon shifted his weight and threw them both down beneath the surface of the water, while above them the tunnel blossomed with flame.

  Jago Moon held Ben beneath the water while the world turned white. Eventually they both broke the surface, coughing and gasping, their heads emerging through a bobbing layer of rat corpses.

  In the last flickering flames of the explosion, Ben surveyed the scene. The blast hadn’t been enough to bring the River Thames flooding down on their heads, thank goodness. The thick London clay continued to hold back the waters, but for how much longer he couldn’t be sure. However, a huge chunk of the tunnel wall had collapsed, blocking the passage completely, with the Feathered Man and the Legion trapped on one side, and Ben and Moon on the other.

  There wasn’t time to think about who the blast might have killed.

  Ben could hear someone or something clawing against the rubble on the far side, so he knew that not everyone was dead. Had Ruby escaped? Did he care?

  With a hiss, the flame of Ben’s torch gave up the ghost and the darkness around them became absolute.

  “Come on,” he said to Moon affectionately. “Take me home.” He picked up his battered hat and, even though it was dripping wet shoved it on his head. Then he let the blind man lead him along the tunnel, the scraping of talons on stone echoing in their minds.

  Sniffing and listening all the way, Moon eventually brought them to the foot of a rusted ladder. With every step, he longed to tell Ben about the Coin that he was carrying but he remembered Mother Shepherd’s
warning. She felt that the safest course of action was to allow Ben to be blissfully ignorant. She was afraid that Ben would do something rash if he knew what the Coin really was. Moon raised an eyebrow; she wasn’t wrong on that score, and besides, he reasoned, they would soon be back amongst the Watchers and Josiah could take possession of the damned thing and destroy it once and for all.

  “I smell clean air,” he said.

  Ben went first and heaved open a trapdoor. He had never been more delighted to breathe in the stink of the Thames. Cleanish air, anyway, thought Ben.

  It was the early hours of Christmas morning and the sky above was the indigo blue of ink on water. It took Ben a couple of seconds to gain his bearings. They were on the south side of the Thames, close to the riverbank. Old Father Thames had sheeted over completely, squeezing the hulls of ships in its frozen grip. St Katharine Docks sat opposite, beside the Tower of London itself. Almost home soil, Ben realized with relief. They were in Pickle Herring Street, and above them was the new bridge that daily continued to push its head above the London skyline.

  “Tower Bridge,” said Moon when Ben told him where they were. “The Uncreated One be praised.”

  “It’s only a bridge,” said Ben.

  “Wrong again,” said Moon, and he tousled the hair of the Hand of Heaven while he still had the chance.

  Mickelwhite and Bedlam had almost ruined it all. They had raised the alarm too soon, and then gone rampaging on their own personal vendetta.

  If you were tracking a beast to its lair, it was vital that the creature didn’t know it was being stalked. If Ben Kingdom hadn’t brought the roof down on their stupid heads, Carter would have done it himself.

  As it was, the explosion had worked in Carter’s favour.

  No doubt Ben and Moon thought that they escaped. What they didn’t realize was that they had not only sealed their own doom but they had condemned the Watchers too. The ageing tunnel, which they had so clearly signposted as their route, only had one exit.

  Carter smiled with sadistic glee; he knew exactly where they were headed and, if he responded quickly enough, he had time to prepare a welcoming party for them.