Claws of Evil 1 Page 8

  “With all my heart,” Lucy replied without hesitation. “So long as I am on the winning side.”

  Mother Shepherd laughed. “Then you need to start having faith in Benjamin Kingdom,” she said, “because if he is the Hand, then he will be the one to bring this war to an end.”

  Quietly, Lucy spoke the last lines of the prophecy:

  “One will come to pay the cost; if he fails all is lost.

  One will come in suffering and pain,

  to know betrayal and be wounded again.

  One will come to choose the way;

  eternal darkness or the endless day.”

  Lucy paused. “Poor boy,” she said. “But I have to ask what would happen if Ben chooses the Legion?” Her tears were replaced by a steely glare. “He’s already more than halfway down that path. What if Ben becomes their leader instead of ours?”

  “We have one great advantage,” said Mother Shepherd. “The Legion only know that we are waiting for the arrival of the Hand of Heaven.” She paused. “They don’t know that the chosen one could equally turn out to be the Hand of Hell.”

  “But what if they corrupt him? Fill him with their lies?” Lucy asked again.

  “If it is his destiny, then Benjamin Kingdom will become the Hand, nothing can stop that,” said Mother Shepherd. “My most fervent prayer is that he joins the Watchers and fulfils his destiny as the Right Hand of Heaven.” Her lips creased into a smile but there was no warmth in it. “However, if Ben turns his back on us and throws in his lot with the Legion, then he will rule them as the Left Hand of Hell.”

  “And then we’ll be left to pick up the pieces, I suppose,” said Moon.

  “No, Mr. Moon, then we’ll all be dead,” she said flatly. “And I pity those left living.”

  In the end, they threw Ben out of the laundry. Literally.

  Two of the Chinese men picked him up bodily, bundled him up the ladder and then tossed him out into the street. I’m lucky to escape with me hat, Ben thought, as he brushed himself down and tried to gather what remained of his dignity.

  “Thanks for the tea!” he called with deliberate joviality, as the trapdoor was slammed and bolted against him. “Thanks for nothing, Ruby Johnson!”

  The Coin, he thought angrily, as he stomped away. This was all about the Coin.

  Ruby hadn’t really been interested in helping him at all, he realized; she was just out to line her own pockets. No doubt someone had seen Pa and his strange Egyptian benefactor. The docks weren’t short on spying eyes and blabbing tongues.

  Ruby Johnson had really put him on the spot back there. He’d tried to bluff, of course, claiming complete ignorance, but she wasn’t having any of it. She’d actually made him turn out his pockets! And then, when even that didn’t convince her, she had frisked him herself; all under the watchful gaze of Cho Jee and his handy meat cleaver. It had taken all of Ben’s knack with sleight of hand to keep the Coin out of sight and even then it had been a close-run thing. She’d found the farthing but she’d let him keep that. He’d lost the silver spoon though, but since that wasn’t really his, he probably shouldn’t count it.

  Still, thought Ben, I didn’t come away entirely empty-handed.

  When her search came up with nothing, Ruby had leaned towards him and placed a single, soft kiss on his forehead. “You’ll just have to owe me,” she’d breathed, before abandoning him, and disappearing behind the white sails of the sheets.

  Ben didn’t know how he felt about that kiss, and although it had made him feel warm at the time, it wasn’t enough to keep out the savage cold now.

  He buried his hands in his pockets and stamped off into the night.

  He knew that he was running out of options. He couldn’t go back to his room. He didn’t dare find a quiet corner and doss down in case the Weeping Man came looking for him again. His father and brother were missing, Jago Moon was mixed up in this in ways he couldn’t begin to think about, and Ruby Johnson had dropped him quicker than a hot coal. There was only one place left for him to go, and so he walked on through the night, sticking to the shadows, watching the rooftops, and trying, for once, to stay out of trouble.

  He didn’t spot anyone spying on him but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there. Who were the Watchers? Ruby hadn’t given him any clues.

  Ben thought about it all as he made his way along the embankment of the Thames. When he got to the De Keyser’s Royal Hotel, he rummaged in the bins round the back and managed to find a stale roll before one of the kitchen hands saw him and chased him away with the promise of a whipping. The bread was hard and going green around the edges, but Ben chewed it industriously and it kept him going down Chancery Lane and High Holborn. It was the only thing to touch the inside of his belly since Mrs. McLennon’s broth the morning before and his stomach growled in gratitude.

  The sun was just scratching the sky when the British Museum finally came into sight: the grand expanse of the façade, two wings on either side; the great colonnade of Ionic columns, tall and proud; the statues in the portico standing guard, so real they could almost be alive. Professor Carter would be inside, he knew. He might even have some answers too.

  In spite of the terrible fatigue that threatened to overwhelm him, Ben broke into a run, his aching feet breaking fresh snow until he fell down exhausted on the museum steps.

  Even in that desperate state, without the energy left to lift his face up out of the snow, he found his hand irresistibly drawn to his pocket. Although he had only known trouble since it had arrived, his single clear thought before unconsciousness took him was this; keep the Coin hidden, keep it safe.

  Instead of returning it to his trousers, he tucked it tight beneath the band of his hat, content that no one would think of looking there.

  Sleep took him and held him tightly.

  Ben did not see the Watcher with the scarred face, nestled quietly amongst the statues, patiently biding her time.

  Ben was woken by the smell of bacon and eggs. He wondered for a moment whether he had died in the snow and this was Heaven, and then he saw the face of Professor Carter looking down at him.

  “Eat, boy,” said the professor, his weather-beaten face a map of wrinkles as he smiled. “There’s more where that came from.”

  Ben ate with the enthusiasm that only a starving boy can muster.

  “I’m the same when I’m on expedition,” said Carter. “When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, make the most of the one that you’ve got.”

  Ben looked from the professor’s strong face to his great bone claw, and smiled. Could there be anyone better to come to your rescue? he wondered.

  Carter settled back into the embrace of his leather chair, seeming to take great pleasure in watching Ben polish off a second rasher of greasy bacon and a thick slice of fresh bread.

  In the comfort of Carter’s room, surrounded by all the skulls and bones, the ancient objects from countries he had never heard of, Ben always felt absolutely safe and secure. Since that first day when he had brought the professor an arrowhead he had fished from the Thames, Ben felt as if this should be his home.

  Even as he thought that, he was filled with guilt for betraying his father. The last piece of bread was dry and difficult to swallow.

  “So,” said Carter, as the final mouthful went down, “why have you staggered halfway across London to die on my doorstep?”

  Ben began his garbled story while Professor Carter sat and listened. Ben told him everything: about the Weeping Man and Jago Moon, about his room being destroyed, about Ruby and Mr. Smutts. The only thing he left out was the small fact that the Coin hadn’t been stolen when his room was ransacked. It was right there in his hatband. Never out of his thoughts.

  He wasn’t even entirely sure why he was keeping the truth from the professor. It was peculiar, he thought, almost as if the Coin itself didn’t want to be shared. When he had taken it from the hiding place in his room, his plan had been simple: to show the professor, get it valued an
d return it to his father. Now he had other ideas, and chief of those was to hang onto the Coin for a little while longer. It was his, wasn’t it? Why should he share it with anyone?

  When Ben was finished talking, Carter sucked the air between his teeth and his expression grew sombre.

  “And now the Watchers have the Coin.” Carter spoke quietly, his voice as dry as dust stirring in a crypt.

  “I think they must have taken it when my room was destroyed,” Ben lied.

  Lucy Lambert stood on the edge and looked down.

  Before this life, before the Watchers found her, the highest she had ever been was her father’s shoulders. Now she was a denizen of the Above, the secret world of the Watchers. She could see the people walking along Whitechapel Road below, their hats pulled down firmly, their shoulders hunched up against the cold. None of them lifted their eyes towards her. She was as good as invisible on the roof of the London Hospital. She could have called out, but she knew her voice would never reach their ears.

  Lucy became aware that she was not alone on the rooftop and turned to see a small girl, standing hand-in-hand with a powerful figure in a long black coat. It was the new girl, Molly Marbank, if she remembered rightly. Lucy smiled, her hand inadvertently rising to her face as she did so, covering the eyepatch and the scar: constant reminders of her own childhood. Molly made a sweet figure, Lucy thought. They had managed to find a Watcher long coat in something like her size; Molly looked as if she was playing dress-up in her father’s clothes.

  “It’s time to go,” said the Weeping Man, his deep voice both strong and tender at the same time. He was so full of contradictions, Lucy thought. The rumours were wrong, for one thing; he didn’t cry all the time. Very often he would merely wear a serious expression on his face. Quite frequently he would even smile, and that was such a wonderful thing that the smile would almost take on a life of its own and run through the Watchers’ camp, touching as many lips as it could.

  He did cry, but only when something hurt him. And what normally hurt him, Lucy had discovered, was when other people felt pain. He cried for all the things that made Heaven sad. Some people called him the Weeping Man, but his real name was Josiah. Lucy only ever called him “sir”.

  She followed obediently and grinned as she saw the excitement on Molly’s face. How many years ago was that me? Lucy asked herself.

  “Follow me, little one,” Josiah said to Molly.

  Lucy brought up the rear while Molly meekly followed the Weeping Man back across the rooftop, studying where he put his feet and matching his every step across the tiles. Lucy could see Molly’s six-year-old legs almost running in order to keep up with his purposeful strides. She knew that Molly was still learning, but speed was of the essence. It was a busy life being a Watcher, Lucy knew full well. There were plenty of cries for help in a city like London.

  “Are you ready?” Josiah asked Molly as they neared the edge of the roof. Molly nodded vigorously. Lucy knew what was coming next; it was the most exhilarating and the most terrifying feeling in the world.

  Josiah scooped Molly up and tucked her under one arm, as if she weighed no more than a bag of flour. Then the big man took half a dozen steps backwards across the flat roof of the London Hospital, adjusted his balance to account for the small girl he was carrying, and then ran, full pelt, towards the edge and the drop beyond.

  Molly clung on with all her might, her tiny knuckles white, but Lucy knew that Josiah would never drop her. Or, at least, he hadn’t dropped anyone before, as far as she knew. It was too late to say anything now though, because they were already in the air.

  Lucy wished that she was on the ground at that moment, but only so that she could look up and see them making the jump from one rooftop to another. It was as if they were flying. Josiah’s strong legs ran on nothing, his sure feet landing them safely on the other side. Lucy had lost count of the number of times she had seen Josiah jump, but the thrill had not diminished. If anything it was growing stronger.

  Mostly the Watchers crossed the gap between buildings using extendable ladders, or death slides, or sometimes even pole vaults. But the most skilled boys had the gift, and Josiah was the most gifted of them all. Josiah made it look easy. He could leap and bound across rooftops and make seemingly impossible jumps with the grace of a mountain lion.

  Sometimes Josiah reminded Lucy of her father. Not so much in the way that he looked – but in the way that he made you feel: safe. Protected. The boys said that the Watchers were an army, but really it was more like a big family, made up of children like her; the ones who had nothing in this world except each other. Boys and girls who tried to be brave, but were bruised inside or out.

  Lucy watched as Molly and Josiah landed on the far side with a scrunch. And then she followed. With a small run-up, she threw herself into the arms of the air, trusting to experience that her momentum would carry her in an arc onto the lower roof on the other side of the road. The wind lifted her golden hair around her head and she could feel the smile splitting her face in two. It wasn’t just the Watcher boys that could jump.

  Lucy landed like a cat, her legs bent low, one hand touching the roof tiles for balance. Then Molly reached for Josiah’s hand and all three of them ran on across the rooftops together.

  “I know the Watchers,” Carter said. “Or more properly I should say I know of them. They are a...society, let’s call them that, and my path and theirs have intersected a number of times in the past.” He smiled grimly. “I know for a fact that they are established right across the Middle East,” he continued. “I have had dealings with them in Jerusalem and Cairo with varying degrees of success.” He said this with a sideways glance at the claw where his hand used to be. “I have reason to believe that there are smaller units operating right across the East.” He began to list exotic names from his travels, while Ben sat enthralled. “In Carpathia; Transylvania; Constantinople, I’m certain of; Moscow too probably, although I have no firm evidence of such. I even heard a rumour that there was a Watcher cell in Paris for a brief while, although I never did discover what they were doing there.”

  “But who are they?”

  Carter took his time before replying, tapping the tip of his claw against his desk, not caring about the scars it left in the leather inlay.

  “Who they are, I can’t answer you,” he said. “Their members change, their numbers rise and fall. One group can be scattered or disbanded, only for two more to spring up in their place. What I can tell you is this...” And he leaned forward as if to impart a great secret. “They take people, they brainwash them, they turn them into one of them and...I’ve devoted the best part of my life to working towards their destruction.”

  The boy looked surprised at that last remark.

  “What?” said Carter. “You didn’t think I spent all my time in this stuffy museum, did you?”

  While they spoke, the professor observed the Kingdom boy intently, just as he would one of his specimens.

  Ben was keeping something from him, obviously. The boy didn’t have the Coin with him, he knew that much. He had gone through his pockets and searched inside his boots while Ben had been unconscious, but Carter was convinced that he wasn’t being given the whole story. Did the Watchers really have it, as Ben suggested, or had the cunning lad stashed it somewhere? Carter smiled a thin smile. This is how it always starts when the Coins are at large; one lie leading to another, as the claws of evil begin to dig into your soul.

  It occurred to Carter that nobody knew that Ben Kingdom was here. He looked at Ben and then at his own savage claw. There was nothing to stop him from making Ben tell him everything.

  And yet he held back.

  Whatever the truth was, the Watchers had already focused their attentions on Ben and so one way or another the boy’s fate had become entangled with his own. He would keep Ben Kingdom close, Carter decided, if only to frustrate the Watchers’ ambitions. There was definitely something about this boy which made him stand out from the other st
reet rats, he thought.

  “You should join me,” Carter said, baiting his trap with flattery. “Men like you and I need to stand up against the Watchers.”

  He saw Ben’s chest inflate and continued to pour on the honey. “You’re clever, you’re brave.”

  “Well...” said Ben, full of fake humility.

  “Don’t be modest, boy. How long have I known you?”

  “Two years.”

  “No? I’d swear it was longer.” Carter could see that Ben was lapping it up. “Anyway, I feel that I know you well enough to let you in on the biggest secret of my life. I’m not alone in my battle with the Watchers, Ben, I’m part of an army called the Legion and we are waging the oldest war the world has ever known.”

  One look at Ben’s eyes convinced Carter that he had found a rich vein of curiosity and he continued to mine it deeply, talking at length about the glorious Legion and all that it could offer a young soldier like Ben. Careful to exclude any mention that it could cost him his life. And soul.

  “Can you imagine it, Ben?” said Carter. “You and I, comrades in arms?” He came around the desk and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “When a man is part of the Legion, he knows that his life stands for something; he can be proud of what he is doing. Do you know for certain that your life has purpose, Ben?”

  “When I’m not learning how to make barrels, I fish other people’s rubbish out of the stinking mud of the Thames,” said Ben. “I’m getting by,” he shrugged. “Purpose doesn’t come into it.”

  “How would you like to travel the world with me, Ben? Break free from the petty rules that keep most of the human race penned up like sheep?” Carter’s voice rose as he pushed home his advantage. “You could join me on my expeditions around the globe, help me to uncover new treasures, and when the call to arms comes we could fight side by side against Watcher oppression! Think about it, Ben, all that we could achieve together.”