Wild Boy and the Black Terror
Read Wild Boy and the Black Terror Online
Authors: Rob Lloyd Jones
For Mum and Dad,
who always encouraged
M
AYFAIR
, M
ARCH
1842
Z
ero 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 through 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.
