A Christmas Odyssey cn-8 Read online

  “You mean you believe Lucien that he didn’t do it,” Squeaky concluded, not sure if he was pleased, frightened, disgusted, or maybe all three. He had not felt so confused in years, maybe not ever. He could not afford all this … feeling.

  “Do you know of some reason I should not?” Henry said.

  Squeaky swore vehemently and from the heart. “ ’Cause it’s bloody stupid! It’s dangerous,” he hissed. He wanted to shout at Henry, but he could not afford to make such a noise right outside Ash’s rooms. “You can’t go around just believing anything anyone wants to tell you! You could get taken—”

  “I said ‘reason,’ ” Henry corrected him gently. “Not fear.”

  “Fear’s a reason!” Squeaky was exasperated. “It’s one of the best reasons I know. It’s kept me alive, with my skin whole, for fifty bleedin’ years!”

  “And has it made you happy, Squeaky?”

  “Yes!” He waved his hand in a gesture of denial. “No! Well—I’m alive, and you don’t get very happy dead! What a question to ask!”

  “You don’t have to come and see Ash if you’d rather not,” Henry told him.

  That was the final insult. “You trying to say you don’t want me?” Squeaky demanded. This hurt, badly.

  “Not at all.” Henry smiled and took Squeaky’s arm. He turned to Crow. “Come, Dr. Crow, let us see if the poor man will accept our deal.”

  Our deal? Ours? Squeaky was about to protest, then realized he really wanted to be included. He banged on the door and then threw it open.

  The room inside was empty. Squeaky was crushed with disappointment.

  “We’ll wait,” Henry decided. “At least for a while.” He sat down on the filthy floor.

  They had not long to sit. When Ash returned he was still wearing the absurd lavender coat. His face seemed even more gaunt, the white painted skin stretched over the bones of his skull. He used the stick to prod the ground, as if he were not certain that it was firm enough to hold his weight.

  “Well!” he said with interest. “And what do you want this time? You found Lucien. And Sadie.” He said her name slowly, as if it hurt him.

  “Indeed,” Henry replied. “But we did not find Rosa or Niccolo. I think you could help us with that.”

  Squeaky looked at the terrible face, which was like a chalk mask. Crow was right; one of his eyes was hazel, the other quite definitely green. Perhaps Henry was right too that Rosa was this man’s daughter. It made a sort of tragic sense.

  Ash stood motionless as a garish figurine.

  “In order to give them a Christian burial,” Henry went on. “Or Rosa, at least. Perhaps Niccolo doesn’t deserve one. They don’t do that for men they hang.”

  Ash smiled. It was sad and horrible. “He wasn’t hanged. Not strong enough to lift him, you see.” He raised his hands, but stiffly, as if they would not go higher than his shoulders.

  “How did you kill him?” Henry inquired as if it were no more than a matter of courteous interest.

  Ash tapped his stick with his other hand. “Dagger in here,” he replied. “Very useful. Had a proper sword once. Haven’t the balance to hold it anymore now. Dagger will do. He didn’t even see me. Just killed my beautiful Rosa. I put the blade through his heart. I was surprised how much he bled.”

  “He probably took a little while to die,” Crow observed. “People don’t bleed much after they’re dead.”

  “Really?” Ash looked only mildly interested. “A Christian burial? Why?”

  “Because I want something from you,” Henry replied. “Of course.”

  “What?”

  “That you tell people the truth, so Lucien is not blamed for either death.”

  “And you’ll bury Rosa, decently, like a Christian?”

  “I will.”

  “Where is she?” Henry said wearily.

  Without speaking again Ash turned, leaning awkwardly on his stick, and led them out of the room. In the passage he started in the opposite direction from the one they had taken before. After a hundred feet or so they went into a small side room, cold and dry, where two bodies lay side by side on a table. One was a young woman, her long dark hair loose around her face, her hands folded as if totally at peace. Her eyes were closed. Even so, her features were a finer, almost beautiful echo of what Ash’s might have been in his youth, before disease spoiled them.

  Her dress was matted with blood where someone had stabbed her over and over.

  The man, by contrast, bore only one wound, to the heart. His arms were by his sides.

  They stood in a few moments’ respectful silence. It was Crow who broke it.

  “I’ll carry her,” he said quietly. “Do you have a cloth of any kind to wrap around her?”

  When they were far beyond the hall and heading toward the way up, they came face-to-face with Sadie, and behind her Lucien and Bessie.

  Henry stopped instantly, Squeaky, Crow, and Ash close on his heels. One glance at Henry’s face was enough to show that he did not understand, but Squeaky did. It was all now horribly clear. Sadie had been so eager to help because she needed to see where they were keeping Lucien. Now she had gone back to collect him—for Shadwell! Always his servant, bought and paid for with the cocaine she could or would not live without.

  Bessie had come as well, either with them or close after. Her ridiculous sense of loyalty would make her do that. Now they were all trapped. He didn’t even need to turn around to know that the way would be closed behind them.

  Shadwell was there in the half-light, as Squeaky had known he would be. He did not even notice if he was tall or short, except that he wore a frock coat, like an undertaker. It was his face that dominated everything else, every thought and emotion. The lantern on the wall threw his left side into high relief, illuminating the bony nose and sunken cheekbones, the wide, cruel lips. The darker side was only half visible, the eye socket lost, the bones merely suggested, the mouth a shapeless slash on the skin.

  There was an instant’s utter silence, then Henry spoke.

  “Mr. Shadwell, I presume?” he said quietly. His voice was absurdly polite, and shaking only a very little.

  Shadwell remained motionless where he was. “And you, sir, must be Henry Rathbone.” His reply was almost gentle. As Sadie had said, it was a voice that crept inside the head and remained there.

  “I am,” Henry agreed. “We would be obliged if you would allow us to pass. We are taking the body of Rosa in order to give her burial.”

  “Ah, yes, Rosa.” The man let her name roll on his tongue. “What an unfortunate waste. She was hardly Sadie, but she was still worth something. By all means bury her. Put a Christian cross above her empty soul, if it gives you some sense of your own worthiness. It will fool neither God nor Satan.”

  Squeaky gulped. He wished Ash had not had to hear that.

  “All obsequies for the dead are to preserve our own humanity,” Henry answered him. “Reminders of who we are, and that we loved them. The present is woven out of the threads of the past.”

  Shadwell inclined his head a little, allowing the light to shine on his face, making it look worse. “A silken rope to bind you,” he agreed. “I will let the good doctor go, taking Rosa. The rest of you stay. I dare say in time I shall find a use for you.”

  “And Lucien,” Henry added.

  “And Bessie!” Squeaky insisted. How could Henry forget her?

  “You make a hard bargain,” Shadwell responded. “What do you think, Sadie? Could you teach this bony child to be a good whore?”

  Squeaky looked at Sadie. Her face should have been beautiful, but now there was an ugliness inside her that soured it.

  It was Lucien who moved. He stepped toward Shadwell, his head high, his arms held a little forward, still protecting his wound.

  “I’ll stay. I’ll do whatever you need, even bring in men from my own society who want to come, if you let all these go, including Bessie. I’m of far more use to you than she’ll ever be. She doesn’t know or care how
to please men. She has no art at all.” He stood a little straighter, his eyes never leaving Shadwell’s. His face was yellowish gray in the sullen light.

  Shadwell’s eyes widened, like sunken pits in his skull. “You trust my word?” he asked incredulously.

  Lucien tried to smile, and failed. He was shaking. “Of course not. I shall bring to you every greedy and twisted man who can pay you, for as long as I know they are safe, including Bessie.”

  “Indeed. Or you’ll do what? Are you threatening me?”

  “Or I will kill myself,” Lucien said simply. “I am no use to you dead, but alive and willing, I can bring men—and more women as lush as Sadie.”

  A look of anger and surprise filled Shadwell’s terrible face.

  Lucien had won the bargain, at least for the moment. He knew it. His skin was ashen. He was entering a real hell: one that he understood intimately, could taste on his tongue and in his throat, and one that would never leave him.

  Henry Rathbone was smiling, and tears welled up in his eyes. He watched and said nothing. That was when Squeaky knew that, for him, Lucien had redeemed himself.

  Henry took Squeaky by the arm very firmly, so that his fingers dug into Squeaky’s flesh, and pulled him away.

  Bessie was on Squeaky’s heels. Crow followed, still carrying Rosa’s body. Ash was nowhere to be seen.

  They walked as quickly as they could along the tunnels and passages, and up the flight of steps, slippery underfoot, lit only by a couple of rush torches soaked in pitch.

  Bessie pulled so hard on the tails of Squeaky’s jacket she very nearly tore the fabric. He stopped and whirled around on her, then did not know what to say.

  Behind him Crow stopped as well, leaning against the wall, breathing hard. He carefully allowed the weight of Rosa’s body to rest on the ground.

  “We in’t goin’ ter leave ’im, are we?” Bessie said, her voice trembling.

  “No,” Henry answered her. “But we must think very carefully what we are going to do, and how. I think we are far enough away to take a rest. And we must keep our promise to Ash, wherever he has got to.”

  “ ’Im?” she said in disbelief. “ ’E’s a—”

  “It is our promise, not his,” Henry reminded her. “But quite apart from that, he did keep his bargain.”

  “So where is ’e then?” she demanded.

  “Probably watching us, to see if we keep our part,” Crow said wryly. “He doesn’t know you as well as we do.”

  Henry gave him a quick smile. Squeaky thought of all the sane, sensible people above them in the daylight, preparing for Christmas, buying gifts, getting geese ready to roast, mixing pastries and puddings and cakes. He could almost smell the sweetness of it. There would be wreaths of holly on doors, music in the air. Sometime soon there would even be bells. These people knew what Christmas was supposed to be.

  “But we’re going back for Lucien?” Bessie insisted.

  “Of course we are,” Henry assured her. “But we must do it with a plan. We have no weapons, so we have to think very carefully. Crow, you had better take Rosa’s body somewhere safe, where it can come to no possible harm, and where we can be sure it will be given a Christian burial, should we find ourselves in a position where we cannot attend to that ourselves.”

  “You mean if we’re dead!” Squeaky snapped.

  “I would prefer not to have put it so crudely, but yes,” Henry agreed. Then he turned back to Crow. “Do you know of such a place? Perhaps friends who owe you a favor? I am willing to pay; that is not an issue. I will write an I.O.U. that my son will honor, should that become necessary. Surely in your professional capacity you are acquainted with undertakers?”

  Crow smiled, almost a baring of his teeth. “A few. It will take me at least half an hour to see to it.”

  “Then you had better begin,” Henry urged. “In the meantime we will consider what weapon we can create that will be of use to us in battle against Shadow Man.”

  Crow picked up Rosa’s body again. He staggered a little under her weight, although she was slight.

  Squeaky realized how far he had carried her already, without a word of complaint or the request that someone else take a turn.

  “We need a good weapon,” he said unhappily, although a fearful idea was beginning to take shape in his mind. He did not want to look at it, not even for an instant, but it was there, undeniable.

  “Crow!” he shouted.

  Crow stopped. He was almost at the next bend in the passage. “What?”

  “Bring some matches,” Squeaky called. “Lots of them.”

  Henry stared at him. “Fire?” he said hoarsely. “For God’s sake, Squeaky, we don’t know anything about the airflow down here, or which tunnels lead to which others. We could end up killing everyone.” His voice cracked. “We could end up setting fire to half of London!”

  “I’ll bet that little bastard Ash knows,” Squeaky said darkly. “You shouldn’t have let Crow take the girl’s body. You gave away the one thing we could have bargained with.” How could Henry be so clever and so stupid? Squeaky would never understand some people.

  “We already used it,” Henry pointed out.

  “Well, we could’ve used it again, if you hadn’t let Crow take her!” Squeaky protested.

  “No, I couldn’t. Quite apart from the morality of it, it isn’t very wise.” Henry smiled. “How can a man trust me if I’ve already cheated him once?”

  Squeaky was obliged to concede that there was a certain logic in that. “Do you wish me to go and look for the little swine?” he offered.

  “There is no point. You won’t find him if he doesn’t want you to.”

  Squeaky swore. He really needed more words if he was going to continue in Henry Rathbone’s acquaintance. Everything he knew was insufficient to express the pent-up emotions inside him, the rage, the pity, the sheer, blind frustration of it all. Not to mention the fear!

  There was a tiny sound behind him and he swung around. Ash was standing no more than a couple of yards away.

  “Don’t creep up on people!” Squeaky shouted at him. “You could get yourself killed like that.”

  Ash looked at him in disdain. “Not until after you’ve killed Shadwell,” he replied. “You need me until then.”

  Henry looked at him. “We don’t intend to kill Shadwell, just to rescue Lucien, and Sadie if she wishes it.”

  Ash leaned on his cane. Henry offered him a hand to steady himself and he took it, reluctantly. “Same thing,” he said. “He won’t give up, and he knows these tunnels and passages far better than you do.”

  “Then you are quite right when you say that we need your help,” Henry agreed. “We need to have some form of plan by the time Dr. Crow returns. He has gone to take Rosa’s body to where it will be safe, and buried properly, if we find that we cannot do it ourselves.”

  “I know.”

  Henry opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. “Do you know these passages well enough to help us?” he said instead.

  “Of course I do,” the man replied. “What is your plan?”

  Henry smiled ruefully. “We have very little yet. We wish to rescue Lucien and Sadie, and prevent Shadwell from following us out. The only weapon we have is fire.”

  Ash pulled his grotesque face into an even more bizarre grimace. “Then we must get Lucien out. We can set fires that will trap Shadwell so that he cannot follow you. Sadie will not come. Lucien may. You must be prepared for any answer, and willing to leave them, or you will be burned as well.”

  “We know,” Henry agreed.

  Henry dug around in his pockets and found a piece of paper on which Ash could draw a plan of the tunnels, steps, and passages through buildings where Shadwell would likely be, along with the direction of drafts, and so the way fire would travel.

  “We’ll have to wall him in,” Ash explained. “Here.” He pointed to the end of a network of pathways.

  “Doesn’t he have an escape door, a back way o
ut?” Squeaky asked. “I would.”

  Ash smiled. “That way.” He put his fingers carefully on the paper. “Into the sewers.”

  “As long as we get Lucien,” Henry said quietly, his face pale. “We may have to forgo getting Shadwell too.”

  Ash touched the paper again. “If we set fires here, and here, and maybe here, too, then we’ve got him. You’ll need to collect as much rubbish as you can, stuff that’ll burn easy.” He smiled. There was something ghastly about it, and Squeaky found himself turning away from the sight. “I know where they keep the oil for the lamps,” Ash went on. “And the tar for the torches along the tunnels where they can use a flame. We’ll have a fire to make hell proud.”

  By the time Crow returned they had collected oil, tar, several piles of tallow candles, and as much old wood and rags as they could find without robbing people whose attention they could not afford to attract.

  They crept forward together. Ash led the way, tapping his stick on the ground to make certain of it so his nerve-dead feet did not trip him. He was followed by Henry, Crow, Bessie, and Squeaky, all carrying or dragging behind them roughly made sacks of candles, pieces of wood, tins, bottles, and jugs of oil, and buckets of tar. When they reached the places the man showed them, they very carefully laid their fires, sometimes with a fuse made of torn and knitted rags soaked in oil, aided by a little tar. There was no time for error or for waiting and watching.

  With shaking hands Squeaky lit a match, held it as still as his trembling hands would allow, then touched it to the rags. It ignited immediately. The flame raced along it and caught hold. He jerked back, watched it for another moment to make sure it was not going to die, then ran as fast as he could to the second site to set it burning too.

  He knew Crow was doing the same with the other fires.

  Henry, Bessie, and Ash made their way to the heart of Shadwell’s territory, expecting to meet him around every corner or through every door or archway.

  When they finally did, it was deeper than they had been before. They crossed a last threshold into a clean, stark cellar with doorways to both the right and left, and one to the back. The last must lead to the sewer, the other to the tunnel where the fire was already approaching. Shadwell was sitting in an armchair with Lucien in a chair opposite him. Sadie stood casually by a table with a cabinet next to it, filled with tiny carved wooden drawers.