Claws of Evil 1 Page 9

  “But what about my father, my brother? I told you they were missing, remember?”

  A flame of doubt showed on Ben’s face, and Carter spoke quickly to stamp it out.

  “Your family don’t care for you, Benjamin. Haven’t you worked that out yet? Your father is probably working an extra shift at the docks and never bothered to tell you. He’ll be home again this evening and back to ignoring you as usual.”

  Carter realized too late that he had overplayed his hand. The flush of excitement left Ben’s face, transforming it into a cold, granite slab.

  “I’m going now, professor,” said Ben.

  “Wait!” said Carter. He grasped hold of Ben’s coat, but not quickly enough to stop the boy from slipping out of it and sprinting towards the door. As a parting gesture, Ben slipped his fingers behind a tall glass display cabinet and, with surprising strength, sent it crashing towards the floor.

  “Catch!” shouted Ben Kingdom, and then he was gone.

  How dare Carter speak about his father like that?

  Leaving the satisfying sound of breaking glass behind him, Ben stormed from the British Museum without once looking back. Outside the cold was waiting to bite at him, worse now that he had lost his coat too, but he welcomed it; the chill matched his mood. For a while he slouched along, kicking snow ahead of him. Then he heard the rapping of horse’s hooves on the cobbles and, spotting a smart four-wheeler, decided that he would rather ride than walk.

  He waited for the carriage to pass by and then quickly ran out into the road behind it. The trick here was twofold: to jump onto the footplate at the rear without being spotted by the driver, and then to keep your head down and not let go no matter what. Fortunately Ben was a past master. He leaped on, making it look easy, and was soon being carried down Drury Lane towards the Strand.

  It wasn’t long before he started to feel more like himself and he even started to cheekily doff his hat at some of the passers-by who spotted him taking his free ride on the back of the brougham. A woman with the starched collars and funereal expression of a governess appeared especially mortified by his audacity and he treated her to his most impudent grin.

  “Well, really!” she exclaimed. Her expression was priceless and as Ben laughed out loud he felt some of his anger washing away.

  He thought about Professor Carter’s offer. Part of him was tempted. Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to travel the world with a man of such learning? He imagined the sights that they might see together: pyramids in Egypt, lost tribes in Africa; all the things that he had read about and dreamed of late at night. And then there was the question of joining the Legion and he liked that idea too. Being part of a secret society, working in the shadows to keep London safe. Wouldn’t that be the sort of life that any boy would yearn for?

  Unfortunately, Ben couldn’t forget what Carter had said about his family, and he wasn’t sure that he could forgive him either. All this talk about treasure-hunting and ancient wars was all very well, but what about actually helping Ben to find his pa and Nathaniel?

  When he considered Carter’s callous words more calmly, Ben supposed that it was a possibility that Nathaniel and his father had stayed on at the docks for some reason and that nothing had happened to them... Yet the more he thought about it, the less likely it felt. Something inside told him that the Coin had brought trouble raining down on their heads too. They might have been hurt; they were certainly in danger. And it was up to him to sort it out.

  He had hoped that Carter would help him track down his family, but he could forget about that now. There was no point in going to the police either. They’d never listen to a street urchin like him, especially if Constable Wilde had let slip the small incident of the manure-flavoured Christmas present that Ben had sent him. He was running out of ways to turn.

  It seemed obvious that the Watchers had something to do with his father and brother disappearing, and that at least meant that he knew where to start his search. Mind made up, Ben hopped off the back of the carriage and waved at the driver, who, noticing Ben for the first time, returned Ben’s wave with a clenched fist and a cheery line in blasphemy.

  Happy to be taking matters into his own hands, Ben headed for home and ran through his three-step plan once more to test it for flaws. Firstly, he was going to borrow his brother’s spare jacket. Secondly, he was going to climb up on the roof. And thirdly, he was going to go looking for trouble.

  How can I fail?

  “What do you mean, you gave our clothes away?” Ben needed to hear her say it again to make sure that he had got it right.

  “I donated them to the Seaman’s Mission,” Mrs. McLennon explained. “It’s a very worthy cause,” she said.

  “Since when were you allowed to dispose of possessions that don’t belong to you?” Ben was outraged.

  “You never said you’d be coming back,” she stated, as if that made it suddenly alright.

  Ben was too angry to speak. He flicked his gaze over Mrs. McLennon’s shoulder, and when she turned to see who was behind her, he brushed past her and charged up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached his room, it was as if he had gone into the wrong house by mistake.

  All the broken furniture had been removed and the hole in the roof hastily patched with a sheet of tarpaulin. Mrs. McLennon had swept the room and hung a clean curtain at the window. There was a new washstand against the wall with a fresh china jug sitting on it. Where there had been three thin mattresses on the floor, now there was a single wooden bed, with a blanket stretched tight across it and a sailor’s chest at its foot. And standing beside it was the sailor himself, who looked up with shock when he saw Ben.

  “’Ere, what’s your game?” the man bellowed through his seafaring beard.

  Ben didn’t have time to answer before Mrs. McLennon arrived on the landing behind him, panting heavily. Ben turned on her. “Why are you doing this? I live here!”

  “That’s where you are wrong, Benjamin Kingdom, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t take that insolent tone with me.”

  The bushy-bearded sailor glowered, the veins standing proud on his neck. “Would you like me to put this young whippersnapper outside for you, Mrs. McLennon?” he asked. To Ben he looked like a bulldog, straining at the leash.

  “I have had all of this behaviour that I can stand!” the widow declared. “Comings and goings in the night, disreputable people loitering around my door, such damage to my rooms – damage costs money, you know.”

  “What about my father and Nathaniel? How can they find me when they come back if you’ve put me out on the streets?” Ben protested.

  “They won’t be coming back,” said Mrs. McLennon coldly. “A new ship was in, recruiting hands for a trip to the Americas. Doubtless that’s where they have gone.”

  First Carter, now her, thought Ben. Was it so easy for everyone to believe that his own father and brother had just upped and left him?

  A numbness took hold of Ben. His deepest fear was that his pa didn’t want him. Was that what Mrs. McLennon saw when they sat together around the breakfast table?

  She began to usher him down the stairs towards the front door, the burly sailor backing her up, but Ben didn’t have the strength to make a fight of it.

  “Key,” she said with outstretched hand as they stood on the threshold.

  Mutely, Ben handed it over.

  “I’ve destroyed those disgusting books you were reading too,” she told him. “I put them all on the fire. No wonder you have no morals when you feed your mind with wild tales like that.”

  Ben wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t give her that pleasure.

  Mrs. McLennon paused then and pulled something from the pocket of her apron. “I’ll not let you go out onto the streets empty-handed though,” she said. “I do have a heart.”

  She put a small book in his hand and it was then that Ben really had to fight back the tears. He recognized it immediately; it was his mother’s Bible. “I’ve repaired it as best I can,�
� said Mrs. McLennon. “Keep it close now, you hear.”

  He would have thrown it back in her face there and then if it wasn’t all that he had left to remind him of his family. Instead, he took it gratefully.

  “We paid rent up until the end of the month,” he said quietly.

  “No refunds,” she said firmly. And with that, yet another door was shut to him, never to be reopened.

  Gazing out across the frozen Thames, Ben did a quick recount of his recent luck.

  He was homeless, thanks to Mrs. McLennon’s charity. He was unemployed, since Mr. Smutts’s workshop had been burned to the ground, and he couldn’t bed down there for the same reason. He had walked out on the professor and his pride wouldn’t let him go back...not yet anyway. His father and Nathaniel were still missing; he refused to consider that they might have gone to sea and left him behind. He was being stalked by a group who called themselves the Watchers. Oh, and lest he forget, the Weeping Man who took children in the night was looking for him by name. What a great Christmas this was turning out to be.

  Fat, wet flakes of snow fell on him and he reached into his pocket to touch the dog-eared Bible for comfort. For a second it was almost as if the soft, worn leather was his mother’s hand...and then the moment was gone. In truth, Ben couldn’t remember a happy Christmas.

  In three days’ time it would be 25th December. His birthday.

  Christmas morning. When he was born and his mother died.

  Merry Christmas, Ben.

  Unlike Benjamin, Molly Marbank had food in her belly and a blanket across her shoulders. It was warm where she was, and dry, and although she missed her daddy every day, she was starting to feel safer and happier with the Watchers. Living so high above the ground was taking some getting used to, but she wasn’t scared.

  How could she be scared when the man who looked after her carried such a large sword?

  Like all of the children in the Watchers, Molly had free rein of their camp, although she did have to stay out of the way sometimes when the grown-ups were setting up. The Watchers never slept in the same place twice, which meant that every morning there was a great deal of work to do: packing up their equipment, cooking pots, sleeping mats, oil lamps, ladders and crossing planks; taking down the canvas shelters that they erected each night, stowing the poles, coiling the ropes. Mother Shepherd always chose where they would stay. She would go and pray quietly and then come and tell everyone where the Uncreated One had guided her to.

  Since she had been rescued, Molly had slept soundly beneath canvas on the roof of the Bank of England, the roof of the French Embassy – with a lovely view over Hyde Park – and had spent last night on the roof of the Elephant and Castle Theatre, New Kent Road, listening to the music rising up through the rafters. Before that she had been sleeping in the gutter and in doorways, so she really felt that she was going up in the world.

  Tonight Mother Shepherd said that they would be camping on the roof of Liverpool Street Station, so once again everyone was hard at work breaking down the tents and getting ready for a long trek. There wasn’t very much that Molly could do and, spotting Josiah sitting quietly, she skipped over to join him. She was always full of questions and her new best friend always had an answer.

  He was running a whetstone along the edge of his sword to keep it sharp. When he spotted her, he looked up with a smile.

  “Hello, little one,” he said.

  Molly beamed and moved closer so that she was standing next to him. Josiah’s sword was beautiful she thought, if swords could be beautiful. It shone like silver, even on a cloudy day.

  “What does that say?” she asked, pointing to a word engraved on its blade.

  “It says Peace,” Josiah replied. “That’s what my sword is called.”

  Molly nodded. “Do all swords have names?”

  “They do in my family,” he said softly.

  Taking an oiled cloth, he smoothed it over the length of the blade and then slid Peace back into her sheath. Molly could see that Josiah was looking unhappy again. She reached out with her fingers and touched the dark locks of his hair that tumbled around his face.

  “Why are you sad, Josiah?”

  “Because I think I’m going to have to use my sword for the first time,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because evil never sleeps,” Josiah replied.

  A single tear rolled from his eye and Molly used her fingers to brush it away.

  “You’ll be alright, Josiah,” said Molly.

  Josiah didn’t answer.

  How dare he?

  Claw Carter sifted through the debris of his display cabinet, taking out the bigger shards of broken bone in the hope that some of his treasures might yet be rescued. He picked up half a human jaw, then dropped it again in despair. It had taken him nine months to travel up the Amazon to steal the sacred skull of the Bat People; it hardly seemed worth the effort now. Rising to his feet, he paused for an instant and then ground it into dust with his heel, stamping out his fury. He was not accustomed to being turned down, and certainly not by a mere boy.

  Still, Ben Kingdom knew how to make an exit, he’d give him that.

  There was definitely more to the lad than met the eye. He could see why the Watchers would be so keen to make him one of theirs; Ben wasn’t your common-or-garden street rat.

  One of the privileges that came with being a knight commander of the Legion was that Carter had access to the Dark Library, hidden deep within the Under. There was no other library of its kind in the world. What wonders it held! What treasures! Scrolls that had been rescued from the blaze of Mesopotamia; lost volumes of ancient knowledge; every book that the Holy Roman church had declared blasphemous; everything that was forbidden...they were all there.

  Professor Claw Carter read the same way that he ate: voraciously. He had gorged himself in the Dark Library, ripping out the blood-red secrets until he was full. It was a historian’s dream, to possess all the secrets of the ancient world, and he didn’t stop to count the hours that he had spent pursuing that goal. More importantly, it gave Carter the upper hand. The Council of Seven never deigned to enter the Library; perhaps they considered themselves above something as menial as learning, Carter mused. Whatever the reason for their complacency, it left room for a man of ambition like him. Wars were won by the man who knew his enemy’s weaknesses and who had learned from the lessons of the past. Knowledge was power.

  Within the cold calculating machine of Professor Carter’s mind a cog turned, and thoughts of Ben Kingdom clicked into place with a fragment of forbidden text.

  The conclusion was so sudden, so shocking, that Claw Carter stopped in his tracks.

  A ranting madman had written of a boy. A boy who had the potential to channel the power of Heaven or Hell. A boy born on the Saviour’s Day, who could overthrow the rule of law and usher in the days of chaos; if he so chose.

  A boy with red hair.

  Carter was dragging on his coat even as he left his rooms. He had been wrong the first time. He’d thought that flattery was the bait to snare Ben Kingdom, but the boy had wriggled off that hook. It was time to try a different sort of lure.

  Ben had been watching the baked potato man for about five minutes, planning his move. It would have been easier to buy one, but all he had in his pockets was a farthing and that wouldn’t stretch. He had the silver Coin too, but that wasn’t for wasting on luxuries like food. So while he savoured the taste of butter and pepper on the air, and tried to ignore the salt and stink of the Thames, Ben waited for his chance.

  The vendor was an old sailor, with grizzled whiskers and a wooden leg. Ben could see that the man was standing so close to his brazier full of burning coals that his false leg was beginning to smoke slightly. If it caught on fire that would be a good diversion, he thought, although he probably didn’t want to hang around that long.

  There was a fair crowd around the potato seller and Ben edged his way in, being careful not to make any sudden moves or do anythi
ng that might catch the man’s eye. Softly softly, catchy monkey, Ben thought to himself, drawing his hand up inside his sleeve so that he wouldn’t burn his fingers when he went for the grab. Just a little closer...

  He was inches away when a hand clasped his wrist fast and a voice whispered sharply in his ear. “Hold it right there, sunshine.”

  That’s it, Ben thought, the game’s up.

  Then he took a closer look at the hand. The green-gloved hand.

  “That was the most amateur approach at a swipe I’ve seen in a long time,” the girl said.

  “Ruby Johnson!” exclaimed Ben, surprised at how pleased he was to see her, considering that she’d left him in the lurch last time.

  “The very same,” she said, her eyes all wide and innocent. “I’m like a bad penny, aren’t I? I just keep turning up.”

  In all his life, Ben had never met a girl quite like Ruby Johnson.

  She was wearing velvet trousers for one thing, which was quite shocking for a girl, even if she undeniably suited them. She was different to the girls on Old Gravel Lane, who were mainly rough as rats, in Ben’s opinion. No, Ruby had class. She was different to the girls in Mr. Cowper’s ragged school too. They were quiet and serious, speaking only when spoken to and scribbling studiously on their slates rather than meeting his eye. Ruby Johnson’s eyes, by contrast, were almost inescapable. They were always on him, sometimes with such blazing intensity that he didn’t know how to cope and had to snatch his gaze away before he got burned.

  Ruby’s eyes were simply dazzling, Ben thought; the sort of jewels that men might fight for.

  For the remainder of the day, Ruby led Ben through the city and he looked on with a smile as she cast her spell everywhere they went. At the Jackdaw Inn, one flash of those emerald eyes gained them the best seats in the house and a steak and ale pie apiece, all courtesy of the florid landlord and absolutely gratis. In a quiet corner of Soho, a German Jewish tailor provided Ben with the first new jacket he had ever owned, and instead of taking money, the man had kissed Ruby’s gloved hand and thanked her for coming.