Claws of Evil 1 Read online

  Ruby looked on; the cat that’d got the cream.

  Carter’s mouth was suddenly dry. The inscription was accurate. The decoration was of the right period too; an eagle with its claw on a ship’s rudder. The edges were imperfect, but that was only to be expected; it had been crimped from a silver sheet, not poured into a mould. That was how they made coins in the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago.

  Jimmy returned with Ruby’s drink, but neither she nor Carter paid him any notice. Carefully, Professor Carter picked up the silver coin by the edges and held it closer to the light.

  “Do you know what this is?” Carter asked.

  “A Roman coin, like you asked for.”

  “Oh no.” He shook his head slowly. “It is so much more than that. This is a piece of history. There were thirty of these coins in the beginning, and we, the Legion, already hold twenty-nine of them. Some people call them the Coins of Blood.” He smiled. “I call them an opportunity.”

  Of course, like any army, the Legion had its ranks. Carter was not cannon fodder like Jimmy Dipps and all the other ragamuffins. Carter was a knight commander, but he too was a man under authority. His orders were to pass the Coin onwards and upwards to Mr. Sweet; respectable Member of Parliament by day, schemer and murderer by night. And orders were orders, he supposed; except the expression “finders keepers” kept springing to mind. If he was the one with the power of the Coins, then Mr. Sweet would be answering to him.

  The power to control men, to bend them to your will. Who doesn’t dream of that? he wondered.

  He pinched the coin lightly between forefinger and thumb, noticing the slightest tremble in his hand. Then he turned the coin over and his triumph turned to ashes in his mouth.

  Instead of the image of the Phoenician god Melkart, he saw the fat face of the Emperor Tiberius winking back at him. He’d got the wrong man.

  “No!” The word escaped his lips in a roar of disappointment. Carter hurled the worthless coin away with savage disgust before scanning the room for another means to vent his rage. Jimmy Dips cowered when Carter’s eyes fell upon him. Even the unflappable Ruby Johnson averted her gaze, her face grey.

  “It’s not the one,” Carter snarled as he leaped to his feet, and he brought his claw down across the table in a single vicious blow, cleaving it in two.

  The Jolly Tar wasn’t all that jolly any more. The air had turned blue with curses. Glass broke. Fists flew. The monkey screamed.

  Ben had more on his mind than a bit of monkey spit though. His head was spinning and he needed to get out. He weaved his way through the crowd as swiftly as he could, doing his best to avoid getting punched in the process.

  When he made it to the door and the frosty night air hit him, he drank it down in great gulps. What was happening to his life? First he had seen little Molly fall prey to the Weeping Man. Then he’d managed to single himself out as the next victim in the process. And he couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened when his fingers touched Jago Moon’s, but he did know that he wanted to get as far away from the crazy old man as possible.

  He remembered Moon’s mad eyes and ominous words and began to feel his head reeling again.

  Pull yourself together, he told himself firmly, and after a final determined drag of cold air, he drew himself up straight and rolled his shoulders back.

  To his disappointment, he realized that he hadn’t even managed to pick up his book in all the confusion, but there was no way that he was going back in to face Moon again. At least he’d managed to pocket his farthing though, and with that thought he began to head for home. True, it wouldn’t be much warmer there than it was out here in the street, and it stank worse than a tramp’s armpit in August, but home was still home.

  As he walked back through the snow he let his mind wander through his best-loved stories. Mummies...vampires...Spring-heeled Jack...the Red-Legged Scissor Man... Anything to take his mind off the real horror that was encroaching on his life from every direction, he thought grimly.

  His imagination was always full of the mysterious and other-worldly; something he must have got from his mum, he supposed. After all, she had believed in a good, caring God and guardian angels who watched out for you...and what could be more incredible than that?

  Was there some divine protector looking down on him? he wondered. Fat chance, he thought and laughed out loud at such a ridiculous idea.

  Silently, the Watcher on the rooftop followed Ben’s movements, just as the Weeping Man had ordered her to do.

  Lucy Lambert had seen the boy as soon as he left the Jolly Tar. He was just like all the others she had observed: oblivious. Oblivious to the truth about the world he was living in. Oblivious to the war which was raging all around him.

  Totally oblivious to the role that he was destined to play.

  The Weeping Man hadn’t said as much, but it was obvious to Lucy that this was more than just a routine survey-and-report mission. The tone of his voice had implied that this boy was important somehow, and now that she saw Ben Kingdom in the flesh, the ferociously ginger hair was something of a giveaway.

  Lucy knew the words of the prophecy as well as any other Watcher, and they came unbidden to her mind.

  One will come to lead the fight, to defeat the darkness,

  bring the triumph of the light.

  One will come with fire as his crown,

  to bring the Legion tumbling down.

  One will come with fire in his eyes,

  to pierce through the veil of wicked lies.

  One will come with fire in his heart,

  to overcome all odds and play his part.

  One will come with fire in his hand,

  to purge the evil from this land...

  She stopped then. The final verses always terrified her.

  If this Ben Kingdom really was the one, then the final verses would terrify him too.

  With one hand resting against the chimney, Lucy leaned forward to look at Ben more closely. There had been false alarms before; other boys that the Watchers had put their hopes in, only to have those hopes turn to dust. Lucy flicked back her head to set free the hair that was blocking her vision. If the prophecy had spoken of a girl instead, then the battle would have been over and done with by now. She decided to raise the point the next time she had an audience with Mother Shepherd, the leader of the Watchers; she was a woman, she would understand.

  Although the snow had eased off, the wind was as sharp as a butcher’s knife and it sliced around her legs, willing her to fall. She shifted her stance slightly, using her skyboots to get a better hold on the slick roof tiles, feeling the ice crunch reassuringly beneath their studded rubber soles. She didn’t feel any danger of slipping; she was a Watcher and the Watchers were trained to go where others would never dare.

  She didn’t feel cold either. Well, perhaps that wasn’t quite true; she was cold, but she wasn’t freezing. She wore the Watchers’ uniform: a long trench coat; leather gauntlets; brass-rimmed goggles so that she could see in any weather; and a light bag slung across her shoulder containing her other, more specialized, equipment. She had tied a scarf around her mouth too. She looked quite dashing, she thought. The one thing that spoiled the look was the livid red scar which ran down her right cheek and the patch that covered the socket where her eye used to be.

  Ben Kingdom was on the move and she ran a parallel course along the rooftop, keeping low, like a cat. It was merely a precaution; she had never been seen before. No one in London ever looked up.

  Beneath her gaze, Benjamin laughed at some joke of his own. Oblivious and foolish, she decided.

  Only a fool would walk into danger with a laugh on his lips.

  As much as he tried to distract himself, Ben’s thoughts could not stray far from the night’s events. It had been a busy few hours, and no mistake. He wished he could believe that Mr. Moon had been rambling drunk. He wished that Molly had stayed hidden. He wished that he could forget the way that the Weeping Man had called hi
s name. He wished that it wasn’t Christmas time and he didn’t feel the pain of his memories. But as his father never tired of telling him, wishing didn’t make it so.

  All the way home, Ben sensed that he was being followed; there was an itch inside his skull that told him he wasn’t safe yet. Trying his best to make it look nonchalant, he stole a glimpse over his shoulder. The street was far from empty. He saw a couple of sailors, rolling home on sea legs lubricated with ale; a downstairs maid, clearly out after her curfew and regretting it; some street boys like himself, killing a few more hours with monkeyshines and skylarks; a matchstick seller, praying for one last sale before bedding down. What there wasn’t, as far as Ben could see, was a man in a long black coat, carrying a sword and looking for him.

  He chose to believe that he had imagined the feeling that he was being stalked, but by the time he reached his front door, his nerves felt as frayed as old rope. With one more furtive glance, he turned the key in the lock and he was in, almost tumbling over the doorstep to be swallowed up by the shadows of the hall.

  Made it.

  Ben enjoyed his triumph for a whole second before he realized he was not alone. A deep voice spoke to him from the darkness of the hallway, and the hairs stood proud on his neck.

  “What’s this, Ben Kingdom?”

  A red glow on the stairs and the soft crackle of burning tobacco led Ben’s eyes to a filthy old pipe, and behind that, sucking away at its stem, a filthy old man.

  To his relief, Ben realized that it wasn’t the Weeping Man waiting to take him away, or Jago Moon with more helpful messages of impending doom; it was only Mr. Wachowski, the ageing Polish sailor who shared their crowded boarding house.

  “Made you jump, didn’t I?” said Mr. Wachowski, who clearly thought this was a joke worthy of the finest music hall. By means of an encore he followed it up with a phlegm-rattling cough that was the best laugh he could manage with the lungs he had left.

  “No,” Ben lied defiantly. “You didn’t.”

  Jago Moon followed Benjamin Kingdom all the way from the Jolly Tar, only content that he was safe when he heard the front door click shut.

  Stupid boy, he thought to himself; so wrapped up in his stories and world of make-believe that he didn’t realize he was already part of the greatest adventure of them all. You even need a blind old man to make sure you get home in one piece.

  Although his eyes were worthless, showing him a murky world of shadows and ghosts, Jago Moon’s hearing was exceptional. Since his sight had been stolen from him many years ago, he had trained his mind and body every day, learning to detect even the most subtle nuance in the air around him. He was able to pick out one voice in a crowded room and know how far away the talker was. He could picture what they were wearing by the sound of their clothes: silk swished, cotton chafed, linen rasped, crinoline rustled, wool muffled. He knew a spider was crawling up a wall by the drumming of its legs; could tell the difference between more than a dozen different tobaccos just by the sound of their burning.

  Moon had also discovered that a man’s footstep was as unique as his face. Length of stride told him everything he needed to know about height; the heaviness of the footfall revealed weight, build, balance and bearing. A nervous man had a hesitant step; a self-assured man walked with a confident stride, his heels striking the ground like the snap of a whip. Soldiers walked differently to sailors, to costermongers, to bankers, to idlers.

  Ben had been easy to follow and, from the sound of his gait, some of his usual cockiness had left him, which had to be a good thing. He was wearing the same boots that he always did, the ones that were too big and slopped around the skinny feet inside. He had walked home cautiously, putting more weight on his toes than normal. Three times he had scuffed on the cobbles when he’d tried to hurry; another telltale sign of someone who was scared.

  Ben was right to be afraid, thought Moon. If the Watchers knew his name then the Legion wouldn’t be far behind.

  Moon smiled with the few teeth he owned. He had jumped out of his skin when he felt the raw power flowing from Ben’s hand. There had always been a sneaky suspicion in the back of Moon’s mind that there was something special about the boy, but he had never thought that Ben Kingdom might be the one to fulfil the prophecy.

  Me ears are good, but even I can’t hear hair colour, he thought, his smile widening.

  Benjamin Kingdom, who’d have thought it? How might a cocky lad with a smart tongue and a knack for finding trouble be transformed into the Hand of Heaven, the leader whose wisdom and self-sacrifice would guide the Watchers to glory? It was very much the Watcher way to choose the least likely to rise the highest, but this might be stretching the point: there wasn’t a soul the entire length of Old Gravel Lane who had a good word to say about the lad.

  Jago Moon laughed to himself; he didn’t suppose people had much that was pleasant to say about a blind old madman like him, either.

  A furtive dragging sound from the far end of the Lane snapped him from his reverie. In his experience, slow sounds spoke of stealth and secrets. He focused his keen ears; there it was again. The grating of metal on cobblestones; a manhole cover being lifted. Instinctively Moon grasped his cane more tightly. The Legion had arrived. Like insects, thought Moon, crawling out from beneath a stone.

  Although he knew that Mother Shepherd was certain to disapprove, Moon couldn’t stop himself from hating the Legion. The Watchers were governed by truth, the Legion was ruled by lies. The Watchers rescued people, comforted them, helped them to be set free from the chains of poverty, hopelessness or despair; the Legion used people, exploited their burdens, fuelled the fire of their bitterness until they were angry at the whole world.

  And then there was the small matter of the Legion wanting to unleash the powers of Hell and usher in a reign of evil on earth.

  The Watchers believed in love, but when it came to the Legion, Moon was an advocate of tough love. He gripped the handle of his cane and silently hoped that a Legionnaire would stray within swinging distance.

  Moon’s ears told him that there was a Watcher on guard on the roof above Ben’s room. He could hear the flapping of their trench coat, the crunch of their skyboots on the icy slates. The footfalls were very light so it must be one of the younger ones, he reasoned. Probably a girl, judging by their grace. His grin grew wider. He didn’t envy the Legionnaire who tried to mess with a Watcher girl; they were all as tough as hobnailed boots.

  He stood in the shadows, braced for action; he was no pushover either. The aching cold and the arthritis gnawing at his knuckles had put him in the mood for cracking a few Legion skulls. It might be a good night after all.

  Ben watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust as Mr. Wachowski’s laughter dislodged something wet inside the man’s lungs. Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, the old man rocked back and forth, hacking and coughing, until he finally shifted the blockage and, with a look of triumph, spat it out onto the tiled hall floor.

  “Mr. Wachowski!” A woman’s voice rang out from the direction of the kitchen and the old man went stiff at the sound. “Mr. Wachowski,” their landlady, Mrs. McLennon, continued, “are you spitting in my house again?”

  “No,” said Mr. Wachowski in his rich Polish accent, and then smiled at Ben at a lie shared, showing him a row and a half of brown teeth.

  “Well, I will certainly not be the one mopping it up. This is a clean house –” she pronounced it “hoos” in her Scottish brogue – “a Godly house,” she continued, “and I will not have blasphemers and heathens spitting on my tiles.”

  As she emerged from the kitchen to inspect the evidence for herself, Ben bid them both a quick “Goodnight”. He left them arguing in the hallway, Mrs. McLennon quoting the scriptures and Mr. Wachowski mumbling the filthiest obscenities that a Polish sailor could think of.

  Ben smiled as he climbed the creaking stairs. Home sweet home.

  The ground floor of the house was all taken by the widow, McLennon, who lived alo
ne with a mean-tempered cat who ate better than Ben did. In the basement there was Mr. Wachowski, who had arrived in London as a young man with a great vision of importing Polish pickles and becoming rich. Sadly for him, somewhere along the line the plan had fallen short and so his life now mainly consisted of smoking and spitting.

  On the first landing there were two rooms and two families. The longest serving residents of the two were the O’Rourkes: Mr. O’Rourke, a coal whipper at the docks, whose skin was ingrained with black even after his Sunday wash; Mrs. O’Rouke, a sturdy and well-built woman, who scrubbed doorsteps for richer women but never seemed to resent them for it; and four little O’Rourkes, Jimmy (seven), Jenny (six), Catherine (three) and Stephen (two). “Plus two in Heaven, one more on the way,” Mrs. O’Rourke had told Ben last week, with a pat on her belly that was beginning to round. She had smiled at him as she always did, but there had been a tear in her eye, and Ben hadn’t been sure whether it was a happy tear or a sad one.

  The O’Rourkes brought two welcome sounds to the house: laughter and an Irish fiddle. But their neighbours in the next room brought only one sound: shouting. Mr. Viney shouted at Mrs. Viney because no one would take him on at the docks again. Mrs. Viney shouted at Mr. Viney because other men could find work if they wanted to. Mr. Viney shouted at the boys (Walter and William) because they were always underfoot. Mrs. Viney shouted at the boys because they were breaking their mother’s heart with their wicked ways. Walter and William shouted at each other because it was the only thing their parents had taught them to do.

  The first floor was the noisy floor.

  Ben climbed the last set of stairs to the attic room and then paused outside the door. He could hear two sets of snores and entered as quietly as he could. He wasn’t bothered about waking his brother, Nathaniel, but he didn’t want to trouble his father. He crept in and took a position by the window. He needed to know that the Weeping Man wasn’t out there, waiting for his moment to strike.