Wild Boy and the Black Terror Page 6

  Four wax drops dotted on the floor, marking the spot where Lucien had stopped. It wasn’t hard to see which book had interested him: the only one with its dust unsettled. It was halfway up the shelf and bound in pigskin.

  Wild Boy moved closer, reading the title on its spine.

  He drew a sharp breath.

  “Demons?” he breathed.

  He pulled the book down, setting his candle into its space on the shelf. Slowly, he turned the pages. What he saw made his fingers tighten. The book was full of monsters. Strange, unearthly names flicked past – Abbadon, Behemoth, Gamigin, Leviathan – with descriptions and drawings of grotesque creatures. Parts of different animals melted into each other, faces twisted with pain. There were lions with serpent’s tails, goats with wings, misshapen toads with claws as long as kitchen knives. Each drawing was surrounded by magical symbols, pentagrams and ancient scripts.

  Wild Boy felt sicker and sicker with each page.

  He stopped at one that was stained with Lucien’s wax. Here was the most terrifying drawing yet: part crow, part man. The beast had ragged black wings, curling talons and eyes that beamed black light in every direction. Its lips were peeled back, revealing vicious barbed-wire teeth. The creature was screaming.

  No, Wild Boy realized with a shudder: it was laughing.

  Its name was printed in thick black type.

  He comes sometimes as a crow, sometimes as a man, and sometimes in both forms at once. Destroyer of cities. Bringer of plagues. He makes his enemies witness the blackest memories of all things past.

  Wild Boy read the entry again, his fingers growing so tight around the page that they crinkled the parchment. He didn’t believe in demons or anything like that. He’d seen enough horrors in real life. But he remembered Prendergast’s face. The terror in his eyes, the invisible horrors that tormented him in those moments before he died…

  “No,” he said, firmly. “I don’t believe in demons.”

  He tore the page from the book and stuffed it in his pocket. He reached to take the candle from the shelf, but stopped. His detective instincts took over, and he saw something he wasn’t looking for. Spiders had spun homes in the space behind the book, but the cobwebs were broken. It didn’t make sense; why would Lucien have reached that far back on the shelf?

  Rising to tiptoes, Wild Boy slid his arm deeper into the space. A spider scuttled across his hand, tickling his hairs. He felt the back of the shelf, prodded the wood, tapping, testing…

  The wooden panel flipped open. There was something hidden behind it.

  “Ha,” he said, and then bit his lip, fearing he might be heard.

  Every hair on Wild Boy’s body tingled. He couldn’t wait to tell Clarissa he’d found a clue without her. She’d be furious.

  Eagerly, he slid the item from the secret compartment. It was a small ebony box, similar to the one the killer had sent to the Queen. He plucked off the lid and groaned. Whatever had been in there was gone. All that remained was an outline in dust, about the size of a plum, where an object had sat.

  But it was still a clue. Whatever had been in the box, Wild Boy was certain it was important to the case. He and Clarissa would find a way to get it after she got back from Lady Bentick’s dinner.

  Already grinning at the prospect, Wild Boy slid the box back. He pushed the hatch shut. It closed with a hollow thud.

  Wild Boy turned to leave, but stopped.

  That thud.

  He had heard it before.

  It was the sound he’d thought was the library door closing, the thud he thought was Lucien leaving.

  A grey hand grabbed his arm. It threw Wild Boy so hard against the shelf that books crashed down on his head.

  Lucien glared at him. His arms trembled and his voice boomed like musket fire. “What are you doing here, boy? What did you see?” He leaned closer, blasting Wild Boy with stale breath. “This isn’t one of your detective games! This is beyond anything you can possibly comprehend.”

  He pushed Wild Boy harder, causing more books to fall. Wild Boy didn’t fight. He wasn’t bothered about the beating; he’d taken worse, and from nastier people. What worried him then – what scared him to his bones – was the look in Lucien’s eyes.

  This man had led armies into battle. And yet something about this case terrified Lucien Grant. And that terrified Wild Boy too. He wanted to get away from him. Far away.

  Just as Lucien opened his mouth to shout, Wild Boy hocked up a ball of spit and fired it between the Gentleman’s lips. Shock caused Lucien to relax his grip, freeing vital inches for Wild Boy to swing a knee at his groin.

  Lucien’s eyes widened and he made a sound like a bagpipe.

  Twisting free, Wild Boy kicked him again between the legs, and then again, harder. He turned and pelted between stacks of shelves.

  Every instinct urged him to keep running, but he forced himself to stop in the library doorway. Whatever Lucien took from that box could be his biggest clue yet. He had to find out what it was, but he could think of only one way. One very painful way.

  Lucien stumbled closer, red-eyed and roaring. “Bloody boy!”

  Wild Boy clenched his fists, ready for the impact. “Come on, old man!” he yelled. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

  The Gentleman slammed into him like a locomotive, and they tumbled together back into the cloister. The blow knocked the breath from Wild Boy’s body, but he managed to turn as he fell, so that Lucien’s head cracked against the stone ground.

  Blood seeped from a cut on Lucien’s forehead, forming crimson crystals in the snow. His eyes rolled as he struggled to stay concious.

  Retching for breath, Wild Boy crawled closer. He rummaged through Lucien’s coat, searching for the object from the box. All he found was Lucien’s snuff tin. He dropped it and was about to search again, when Lucien’s hand shot up and grabbed his arm.

  Wild Boy tried to pull away, but the grip on his wrist was like a vice. When Lucien spoke again he didn’t sound angry. His voice was urgent, imploring – desperate, even.

  “Wait…” he groaned. “Marcus…”

  Wild Boy stopped tugging his arm. Did he say Marcus?

  “God’s sake…” Lucien said. “Marcus … in danger…”

  The fire fizzled out inside him and he slumped back to the ground. Wild Boy held onto Lucien’s hand, shaking it and then shaking his whole body.

  “Oi! Oi, wake up. What did you say about Marcus? What danger?”

  “Hey. Hey, you!”

  A Black Hat marched from the drawing room. He saw Wild Boy crouched over Lucien, saw the blood in the snow. His face creased in horror. “Alarm!” he hollered. “Sound the alarm!”

  Wild Boy turned to flee back into the library, but he knew he’d be trapped. Instead, he dived over the cloister wall and into the brambles that filled the courtyard garden. Thorns tore at his hair and scratched his face as he wriggled through the thicket. He heard a bell clang inside the palace – the Gentlemen’s alarm. The cloister filled with bobbing lights, frightened questions and frantic commands.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s Wild Boy. He attacked Lucien.”

  “He’s still here somewhere, in the brambles.”

  “Surround the garden. Find him.”

  The Gentlemen were too wary of the thorns to come after him. Instead, they grabbed antique lances from the drawing room wall, and guarded the garden on all sides. They began to jab the weapons into the thick bushes.

  “Give up, boy!” one of the men called. “You can’t stay in there forever.”

  Snow sprinkled from the brambles, soaking the hair on Wild Boy’s face. His heart was going berserk with fear; for himself, and for Marcus. He’d seen Lucien’s eyes, heard the urgency in his voice. Marcus was in trouble, which meant Clarissa might be too.

  He had to get to them. Somehow he had to.

  Tearing his coat from the thorns, he crawled to the edge of the brambles. He was yards from the drawing room door, but one of the Gentlemen
stalked closer. The man rammed his spear into the brambles. The blade shot past Wild Boy’s face, so close it sliced the hair on his cheek and dug into the ground.

  The Gentleman yanked the weapon from the bush. “Anyone see him?” he said. “He’s here somewhere.”

  Wild Boy burst from the brambles. He barged into the man, knocking him over, and charged for the door.

  “There!” one of the other men cried. “He’s there.”

  Wild Boy darted back into the palace, through the Drawing Room and along a hallway. Several Gentlemen charged towards him, rushing to investigate the alarm. Wild Boy screamed at them, waving his arms.

  “Outside! A monster! It’s eating your pals.”

  The men ran faster, right past him. Wild Boy kept going, past the Tapestry Room and down corridors, until he reached the Guard Chamber that led to the entrance courtyard and out of the palace.

  He had to get to Marcus and Clarissa.

  Through a window, he saw Dr Carew laying Prendergast’s corpse in a cart and covering it with a tarpaulin. Wild Boy turned, considering the antique rifles and flintlock pistols hanging in diamond patterns on the Guard Chamber wall.

  He made a decision.

  9

  “We have spoken before about controlling your emotions.”

  Marcus’s fingers locked tighter over the top of his cane. The carriage jolted as it rode over cracks in the road, but somehow the Gentleman remained still, not one silver hair slipping out of place. “You must learn to think less with your fists and more with your head.”

  “Can’t think with nothing at the moment,” Clarissa replied. She curled up more tightly on the seat, exaggerating a shiver. “Brain’s frozen solid.”

  Marcus laid his coat over her, and she sank beneath its thick fur trim.

  “Anyway,” she said. “All that stuff at the palace was Wild Boy’s fault.”

  She bit her lip, fighting a smile. Although she had lived on the same fairground as Wild Boy for three years, she’d only really known him for four months. Even so, she’d never felt closer to anyone else. It was a strange relationship. She would stand beside Wild Boy in any fight – through anything – and yet they delighted in landing each other in trouble. She would never snitch on him for something he’d actually done, but she was quite happy to make up stories about things he hadn’t.

  “It was all Wild Boy,” she said. “In fact, I think I saw him steal a—”

  “Enough, Clarissa. You both need to learn restraint.”

  Clarissa tensed. She didn’t take well to being scolded, even by Marcus. She sank deeper beneath the coat, hiding the flush she could feel spreading across her cheeks. “You ain’t my father,” she muttered.

  The carriage jolted again, and a strand of hair slipped over Marcus’s golden eye. He brushed it back with a gloved finger. “You should not dwell on what happened with your father or your mother.”

  “You don’t know nothing.”

  Clarissa felt bad for snapping. The fact was, Marcus knew everything about her past. That was his business. But just knowing about things was different from living through them. He hadn’t been there when her father ran off with one of the freak show performers, and he hadn’t watched it drive her mother crazy, turning her into “Mad Mary Everett”, that bitter witch. He wasn’t chased by her hunting dogs. He had no idea how that felt.

  Clarissa curled up even smaller on the seat. She couldn’t remember the mother she once loved. All she could picture were those raging eyes. She could still hear that hate-filled cry when her mother discovered her helping Wild Boy escape. “Get them. Get both of them.”

  “That woman’s dead to me,” she said.

  Eager to change the subject, she threw back the coat and grinned at Marcus. “You and Wild Boy are much more fun anyhow, even though Wild Boy’s a thickhead.”

  Marcus opened his mouth to disapprove, but she cut him off. “He ain’t as clever as you think, you know. I mean, he is, but he ain’t. He’s no cleverer than I’m good at circus skills, is he?”

  She prodded her guardian’s knee, seeking a response. The smallest of smiles cracked Marcus’s stony face, but it was enough.

  “You are equally talented,” he conceded. “That is why you both must learn to master your emotions. Your past is your past. That is where it should remain. If not, it will control you.”

  Was it that easy for Marcus? Clarissa wondered. What did she really know about her guardian’s past? Even Wild Boy hadn’t been able to detect much. Eventually they’d given up trying to find out. They were both just happy he was on their side.

  “I cannot protect you for ever,” Marcus said.

  “Stop saying that,” Clarissa replied. “Course you can. Anyhow, once we crack this case for the Queen, you won’t need to. She’ll probably make us lords.”

  “That is utter nonsense. But you are correct in thinking that solving this case would prove your value to the Gentlemen. That is why we are visiting Lady Bentick this evening.”

  Clarissa sat up. “Eh? I thought this was some fancy dinner to teach me about society.”

  The carriage slowed. With the end of his cane, Marcus parted the curtain to look outside. “Clarissa, I have no desire to teach you about society. Certainly a few manners would do you no harm, but on the whole, society is a dreary place for which you are far too interesting.”

  “You mean we’re on the case right now?”

  “We are following a lead.”

  “Wild Boy didn’t say nothing about no lead.”

  “It is not something of which he is aware. I wish it to remain that way until I have more information. There is a possible…” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “A possible connection between the Queen’s story and Lady Bentick. It is a delicate matter that requires careful handling. I arranged this dinner to make enquiries. Wild Boy would have insisted on coming, and we both know that he could not.”

  “He’d probably have jumped onto the back of this carriage if he knew.”

  “Precisely.”

  She laughed at the idea, but talking about Wild Boy was even more painful than Marcus’s probing about her past. This was the first time they’d been apart, even for a few hours. She had considered staying with him, but hadn’t wanted to let Marcus down. And, well, it felt nice to wear a posh dress, even though she’d never admit it.

  Now she didn’t regret coming – not one bit. No way she was keeping this secret. Wild Boy would be so annoyed when he found out she’d investigated the case. She’d tell him the moment she next saw him, and she couldn’t wait.

  The carriage stopped. The door swung open with a rush of cold air. Gideon looked inside, beady eyes peering from beneath a heap of snow-covered capes and coats. He bowed to one side, making it clear the greeting was only for Marcus. “We’re here, sir.”

  They had arrived in a square of townhouses set around a private, railed-off garden. Most of the buildings looked the same – dark and stern, with polished marble steps, and stone columns guarding doors. Beyond tall windows, Clarissa glimpsed servants carrying silver trays and crystal decanters through hazes of cigar smoke.

  One house was different. Scalloped arches at the front were carved with intricate floral arabesques, and lit by hanging brass lamps. The larger, central arch framed a brass-studded oak door with ivory elephants on either side.

  “Lady Bentick’s house,” Gideon said.

  A servant stepped from the door, dressed in a saffron turban and white tunic brocaded with gold. He looked like the Indian magicians Clarissa had seen around fairgrounds, but she didn’t need Wild Boy’s detective skills to tell her that the man wasn’t really Indian. He had white skin and seemed ill at ease with the turban, raising a hand to hold it in place as he dipped into a low bow.

  “Mr Bishop,” he said. He nodded at Clarissa. “Fräulein Bishop. Her Ladyship is expecting you.”

  Clarissa looked at Marcus. “Fräulein Bishop?”

  “This evening,” he replied in a whisper, “you are
my niece from Bavaria.”

  “Bavaria?”

  “So you do not have to talk. Lady Bentick has an old fashioned habit of being offended by foul-mouthed children. Remain silent and try not to steal anything while I make the necessary enquiries regarding our case.”

  They were led into an entrance hall that was even more extravagant than the front of the house. Clarissa wondered if Lady Bentick had got a deal on white marble. Almost everything was carved from it. Marble arches led to corridors on either side, and a sweeping staircase rose from the centre, with a balustrade of carved arabesques. The floor was chequered marble – black and white squares all over – and stone thrones stood on either side of the door. Stuffed peacocks watched from recesses around the hall, with fanned tails and glaring marble eyes. Bronze lamps burned coconut oil, giving the air a sickly sweet smell that made Clarissa gag.

  “Strange place,” she said. She tried to whisper, but it came out too loud and echoed around the bare walls.

  The turbaned servant scowled at her as he sank into another bow. “Her ladyship will be with you momentarily,” he said.

  The man retreated down one of the corridors. Clarissa watched as he issued orders to two other servants in Indian costume.

  “What’s with the Indian stuff?” she asked.

  “Lady Bentick and her husband lived there,” Marcus said. “They became obsessed with the place.”

  “Where’s her husband?”

  “Highgate Cemetery.”

  “My darlings!”

  Lady Bentick came down the stairs, moving slowly to exaggerate the drama of her entrance. The trail of her muslin gown was so long that it still had several steps to descend as she tottered towards them across the chessboard floor. She held out her arms to show off the fat gemstones set in her rings.

  “Oh, my darlings,” she repeated.

  Earlier that evening, when Clarissa had met the Queen, she’d been surprised by how modestly the sovereign was dressed. This was what she expected. Lady Bentick was drenched with jewels – necklaces, earrings, bracelets – as if the contents of a treasure chest had been tipped over her. Her face was hidden by a layer of make up that gave her the appearance of a porcelain doll, and a heap of grey curls balanced precariously on her head.