Wild Boy and the Black Terror

  Contents

  Part: I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Part: II

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  Part: III

  35

  36

  37

  About the Author

  For Mum and Dad,

  who always encouraged

  PROLOGUE

  MAYFAIR, MARCH 1842

  Zero degrees and falling.

  This was the winter that would never end. It was so cold that the air itself seemed on the verge of freezing solid. In elegant Mayfair, everyone shivered in scarves and shawls, minks and muffs and fox-fur mantles. Fogs of breath turned to crystals, glimmering in the cones of lamplight thrown onto the snow. Servants scraped ice from pavements, stamping their feet as much for warmth as to find a grip on the treacherous paths. A coachman snapped an icicle of snot from the end of his nose. A milkmaid kicked and cursed a frozen pail.

  From the doorway of Lock & Co., London’s most fashionable hat shop, the Servant watched them all. He tried to hide his mounting excitement, but his breath betrayed him, coming out in quick, frozen clouds. Tonight was the first test of his Master’s power.

  He tilted his hat, shadowing his eyes as they scanned the street for an appropriate target. In a way it seemed silly. All of these people would die soon enough, once his Master arrived. But after all their preparations, selecting a victim at random seemed unsatisfactory. Surely his Master would send him a sign?

  And then, there he was: the perfect victim.

  The man was short and squat, with a belly so large it hung to his knees. His cheeks were squashed together, as if an unseen force pressed against the flesh, upturning his nose into a snout and narrowing his eyes to dark slits in sweaty pouches. The man’s fur coat looked like it had been stripped from a diseased dog, but overall his appearance was more like that of a hog.

  This man did not belong in Mayfair. He had no business in its private clubs. He knew nothing of creaking leather armchairs, clinking crystal glasses or billiard rooms clouded with smoke from the finest imported tobaccos. Nor did he carry any parcels from the area’s exclusive fashion boutiques. All he held was a small wire cage. And in the cage was a crow.

  No, the hog man did not belong here.

  And how he loved that.

  He walked in a waddle, swaying with the motion of his pendulous gut. With each step, the crow scrabbled in its rusty prison. As he passed Lock & Co., the hog man thrust the cage at the Servant’s face and gave a high-pitched giggle, and with it came a spray of spit. He had no idea that he had just sealed his own fate, or that it would be the worst possible fate of all.

  The Servant followed.

  He turned from the street and into an alley, flicking up the collar of his greatcoat. Frosty wind rattled the icicles that hung from a spluttering gaslight. And then the Servant walked in darkness as the alley turned, turned again and became a tunnel.

  The smell of stale urine was so thick that he raised an arm to cover his nose. The rumble of carriages from the street was replaced by howls and growls, beery singing and the breaking of glass. A wooden sign hung over the end of the passage. Two words had dried in dribbles:

  There were no rats and no castle. Rather, the passage led to a dilapidated coaching inn – a lamplit courtyard surrounded by crooked balconies, hanging gutters, windows without glass and roofs without tiles.

  The Rat’s Castle was a tumour in the heart of London’s finest district, a den of thieves and every other class of criminal that preyed on the area: the cracksmen and magsmen, the footpads and garroters, the till-lifters, dog-snatchers and regular old housebreakers that prowled the streets of Mayfair when the lamps went out.

  Around the courtyard, each room was dedicated to a different vice. In one, opium smoking; another, bare-knuckle boxing. In a corner room, the room to which the hog man waddled with his wire cage, there was crow-fighting. But the loudest cheers came from the inn’s tavern. Inside, a dwarf danced on the bar, dressed in a costume of rat skins and old wigs. A poster on the door announced the play, the same show that had been performed all winter in penny theatres across the city:

  “Wild Boy.”

  The Servant spat the name as if it had dripped into his mouth from one of the inn’s gutters. A few months ago, this city had been gripped by the fear of a circus freak called Wild Boy and an acrobat named Clarissa Everett. They were thought to be killers, savages. They still were by many people.

  The Servant’s lips curled into a sneer.

  He would show them something to really fear.

  But first a test and perhaps a little fun. He unhooked a lantern from the wall and made his preparations.

  “Excuse me?” he called.

  He raised the light, putting himself in silhouette – the top-hatted, well-tailored shape of an affluent gentleman. He tried to look like an easy target; lost and scared and ripe for robbing.

  The hog man licked his lips. “Lost, are you, Mister—?”

  “I am the Servant.”

  The hog man gave another childlike giggle. He came closer, feet crunching in the snow. “That so? Your Master hiding around here, is he?”

  “He is not here. Not yet.”

  “On his way then?”

  “You should not have put that bird in a cage.”

  The hog man’s pig-slit eyes widened to black beads. He marched so close that flecks of his spit sizzled against the Servant’s lamp. “Don’t you tell me my business! Now, before I cut out your tongue, you’re gonna tell me who this Master is of yours, and when he’s getting here.”

  The Servant lowered the lamp. A twirl of dark smoke rose from the flame. “He is a demon, since you ask. And he will be here soon.”

  Another spray of spit, another giggle. “Haw-haw! Demon, he says! Sorry, mister, I don’t believe in demons.”

  “You really should.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll just—”

  The words turned into a gasp so deep, the hog man’s gut rose to his waist. He clawed at his limbs, as if suddenly under attack from stinging insects. His eyes stared wildly around him at invisible enemies that seemed to attack from the dark.

  “No!” he shrieked. “Not that. Not them!”

  The colour of his face changed from pink to ash grey, and then brilliant white; as white as the snow to which he fell with a thump. His fur coat opened to reveal his vast, wobbling stomach. Dark lines slid over white skin, like long black worms. They were his veins. They were turning black, slithering across his chest, up his neck and over his face.

  The hog man stopped thrashing and lay still.

  Finally the Servant allowed himself a small smile. He knew it was not appropriate to gloat. This was, after all, a mere test of his Master’s power.

  But how it had worked.

  How well it had worked.

  He picked up the cage and smiled at its feathered prisoner. The crow’s beady eyes glinted, and the crow gave a loud, satisfied caw.

  The Servant carried the bird back into the tunnel and to the street. Frosty wind swept along the pavement, but he did not shiver. He felt as if molten lava flowed th
rough his veins.

  He opened the cage and the crow took flight. It swooped down the street towards a turreted gatehouse in the middle of a long red-brick wall.

  St James’s Palace. The Servant watched the building for a long moment. It looked like something from a fairy tale. Its golden gatehouse clock shone in the moonlight, and each crenellation was perfectly crowned with snow.

  But the Servant knew that it was a house of secrets and lies. That palace was home to the Gentlemen – the secret organization of scientists and spies that protected Britain from her enemies. Yet here he was, surely the greatest enemy the Gentlemen would ever face, just yards from their stronghold. And they didn’t have a clue.

  They would, though, soon enough.

  That was why the fire burned inside the Servant. That was why he smiled.

  He thought again about the last monster that had terrorized this city. The Wild Boy of London. His grin widened, and with it came a laugh so loud that it seemed to carry the crow higher, over the palace and up towards the shivering stars.

  Terror.

  He would show them terror.

  He would show them what terror truly meant.

  1

  It was that dream again. The dream of the show.

  The only dream.

  It was a dream that Wild Boy could smell. The reek of damp wood mingled with greasy smoke from the caravan’s oil lamp and the turgid stench of the fairground field; that stew of rotting peels, churned-up mud and steaming dung.

  The smell of fear.

  Then came the sounds: whoops of tipsy laughter, shrieks from the circus tent, and the crows on the caravan roof cawing like they always cawed, like they were laughing. Freak, they said. Dirty, filthy freak.

  Outside, showmen called to the crowd in voices rough as sandpaper.

  “Marvel, ladies and gentlemen! Marvel at the sensation of the Two-Ton Man. He’s so fat that only hogs can love him.”

  “Stay away, ladies and gentlemen! Stay away if you are of a delicate disposition. Or do you dare behold the horror of the Pig Faced Lady?”

  “Hear what they say, ladies and gentlemen! Hear what they say about Wild Boy! He’s half-monster, half-boy, but all freak. Poke him, punch him or kick him for a penny.”

  Wild Boy drew his knees to his chest and gripped them tight. Through a hole in the stage curtain he watched the showman – Augustus Finch – usher a small crowd into the caravan. The web of scars across Finch’s face gleamed in the swaying glare of the ceiling lamp. Spit glistened on his lips.

  “Gather round, ladies and gentlemen,” Finch said. “Get in close to get a good gawp at the freak.”

  On the roof, the crows cawed louder. Wild Boy felt the pulse in his throat, his heart pounding at his ribs.

  But there was something else. He had a feeling that something was wrong with this scene, that somehow he didn’t belong here in the freak show.

  He was a freak, wasn’t he?

  He leaned over the edge of the stage and considered his reflection in the yellow-brown contents of Finch’s chamber-pot. All he could see of his face were his huge eyes, bright and green and gleaming like emeralds. Everything else – his cheeks, his chin, his nose and neck – was hidden by thick brown hair. It was the same hair that covered every inch of his body, other than the palms of his hands and the scratched-up soles of his feet. The hair that had caused his parents to abandon him as a baby on a workhouse doorstep. The hair that made him a monster, locked up alone until the day he was sold to the freak show. His freak show.

  No! He didn’t belong here anymore. He’d escaped this place. He’d found something else. A friend, a purpose…

  Unless that had been the dream?

  The audience pressed closer, sweating, dribbling, dangerously drunk. Finch grinned, flourishing a hand. “Wild Boy! Wild Boy! The ugliest freak at the fair.”

  “No…” Wild Boy gasped.

  “Freak,” the crowd chanted.

  “Please…”

  “Freak,” the crows mocked.

  “NO!”

  Wild Boy opened his eyes.

  He lay flat in his bed, his chest heaving with gulping, gasping breaths. The hair on his face was soaked with sweat. The longer strands stuck to the pillow.

  An image from the dream flashed through his mind. He scrambled from the bed and into the darkness beneath. He waited, curled up tight, for his heart to settle.

  “That ain’t me no more,” he breathed – those same words he repeated every night. “That ain’t me.”

  He slid from under the bed and rose into the silver moonlight. The bedroom window was open, and icy wind rustled the hair on his face. The cold felt good, waking him further from the dream. But not far enough.

  At the washstand, he poured water over his face, soaking the hair on his cheeks and the pallid skin beneath. He could just see himself in the mirror: the hair sticking up at strange angles no matter how often he brushed it down, and his big green eyes twinkling beneath.

  Once, he had shuddered at that reflection. He knew now that he was more than the image in the mirror, but that didn’t banish the memories. After four months, the freak show still seemed so close.

  He was haunted by that caravan.

  It didn’t help that this room was so similar – a cramped attic space with a greasy garret window and slatted walls that creaked in the wind. It smelled the same too, the musty air tinged with damp. But really, Wild Boy’s new home was as far from a freak show as he could imagine.

  He pushed the window wider and climbed outside.

  It was viciously cold but the night was clear. The full moon hung like a silver shilling over a jumble of rooftops that framed the four courtyards of St James’s Palace – snow-dusted attics, lead gutters and twisted chimney stacks. Ice glinted on every surface, as if the roofs had been sprinkled with diamonds.

  Brushing hair from his eyes, Wild Boy looked down to the palace’s largest courtyard, a square of cobbles surrounded by arched brick colonnades. Flagpoles jutted from the arches, hanging icicle flags. A lonely lamp stood in the centre of the courtyard. A single crow perched on top, ragged and hunched.

  “Bloomin’ crows,” Wild Boy muttered.

  He pulled his coat tighter around his hairy chest, comforted by its embrace. He’d worn this coat – a red military tunic with gold buckles – for the whole time he’d lived on the freak show. He hated thinking about those days, but couldn’t bear the thought of wearing anything else. This coat was part of him as much as all the hair. And he never wore shoes. They weren’t exactly comfortable with all the hair on his feet.

  The crow flapped away as a carriage rattled through the courtyard gatehouse. A golden symbol gleamed on its door: a large letter G.

  The cabin doors opened and two men emerged, dressed identically in frock coats, tight white breeches and shiny beaver-pelt top hats.

  “The Gentlemen,” Wild Boy said.

  Those men were members of the secret society that had been protecting him since he fled the freak show. He stepped back from the edge of the roof. The Gentlemen were a very secret society. They wouldn’t be pleased to catch him spying.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder.

  Wild Boy whirled around, but all he saw were snow and moonlit footprints.

  Excitement shone in his emerald eyes. Impossible as it seemed, someone had leapt over him and landed without a sound on the edge of the roof. Only one person could do that, and that was why Wild Boy grinned.

  Clarissa.

  He rose and stepped forward. A faint fog of breath drifted over his shoulder. She was following him, having fun.

  Not for long.

  He kicked back a heel, catching her in the shin. There was a startled cry and then a punch that found only frosty air as Wild Boy dropped to the snow. He rolled back, crashing into Clarissa’s legs so she tumbled over him and onto the roof.

  He sprang up but again she was gone.

  “Up here, thickhead.”

  Clarissa Everett stood high on a ch
imney stack. She was half a silhouette, her long black coat lost to the night. But her rust-coloured hair shone almost golden in the moonlight, and strawberry freckles flared across her pale face.

  “I won,” she said.

  “Won? You’re shaking with fear.”

  “Ain’t shaking. I’m shivering.”

  “Ha! I don’t shiver.”

  “Cos of all your hair.”

  “No, cos I’m tougher than you.”

  “I’ll shave you in your sleep. Then we’ll see if you shiver.”

  “Shave me and I’ll break your arms.”

  “Break my arms and I’ll break your face.”

  “What with? Your arms will be broken, remember?”

  Clarissa bit her lip, considering how the violence could be accomplished. “I’ll do it with my feet,” she decided.

  Delighted with her own cunning, she leaped from the chimney and somersaulted in the air. She cartwheeled along the narrow ledge, as carefree as if in a summer meadow.

  She was showing off, and Wild Boy loved it. He remembered the first time he saw Clarissa perform at the fairground. She’d danced effortlessly along the high wire, dazzling the circus crowd in her red and gold sequins. It was strange to think that they’d been enemies back then – until they were framed for murder. Everyone had turned against them: the showmen, the police, even Clarissa’s mother. Their quest to catch the real killer had led them to the Gentlemen. Since then, they’d barely been apart.

  Clarissa landed beside Wild Boy. Her hair hung wild around her face. “You had that dream again, didn’t you?”

  “Just a dream,” Wild Boy said.

  He almost laughed. Just a dream.

  “You ever think about it?” he asked. “What happened at the fairground, with the killer, and then your mum?”

  Clarissa looked away. Her frozen breaths quickened and her hands curled into fists. Then she sprang back and continued to flip around the rooftop obstacle course. But now the movements were fiercer, the landings harder. Her boots sank deeper into the snow. “Let’s do something fun,” she said. “Something dangerous.”

  Wild Boy knew he shouldn’t think about the past. They’d been through so much. They were branded monsters, hunted for a reward. Most of London still thought they were monsters, at large somewhere in the city. But they were safe here, under the protection of the Gentlemen. Now they could have a little fun.