Wilful Impropriety (52 page)

Then sudden pain ripped at his guts. Lind bent over, clutching at his stomach, the kiss forgotten. He was so empty, so hollow, as if he’d never swallowed a morsel of food in his life. When had he last eaten? Days? No, it felt more like weeks ago. Starving, he scraped at the cobblestones for whatever grime he could lift on his finger.

•   •   •

Tupp regretted charming Lind. He only wanted to see him smile and laugh. Then the kiss . . . how long ago had been the last time he’d kissed another? If he could not remember, then too long. But was the kiss freely given? Was a kiss bought by too much ale the same as one given by magic?

Tupp had not anticipated how fragile Lind had become. He had to forcibly lift the lad up from the ground, restrain him from filling his mouth with dirt and frozen water. Lind’s sense of daring had cracked like old lacquer. Might there be anything left even if Tupp did manage to satisfy all the Folk the lad had wronged?

When they reached Gilspir Street, the famine in Lind’s gullet had faded to a distant echo. Tupp doffed his hat at the gilded cherub roosting above on the Fortune of War’s outer wall. Inside, the taproom reeked of harsh tobacco, burned grease and stale, spilled beer. Tupp led the way through the crowd toward a bench set against the far wall where a bony fellow, face hidden under his wide-brimmed black hat, sat hunched talking in whispers to a swarthy bloke with greasy hair falling into his eyes.

“Eur Du’s an ankou, a gloomy lot,” Tupp whispered to Lind. “When the sun’s up, he works as a mute at funerals, walking in the train, dressed all in black. But moonlight brings out his true nature. Before the earth settles on a grave, he’s digging it back open. None sacks a corpse faster than Eur Du.”

•   •   •

The bony man lifted a hand to beckon them closer. The unkempt bloke snatched a sack from the floorboards, glared at Lind, and then left. Tupp sat down in his place.

“So, the sprite brought his foundlin’.” Air whistled past the remains of Eur Du’s nose and made his thick accent all the harder to understand.

“We’re partners.” Lind forced himself to meet the ankou’s gaze. Eur Du sounded French, and looked pox-riddled as well. Perhaps the Continent was also infested with goblins.

“Of course.” A hand scratched the ragged hole below his narrowed dark eyes. “Manee interestin’ dealin’s happen here. Do you know this place’s historee?”

Lind sighed. Why did all the Folk waste so much time dwelling on the past? Yesterday belonged to bad dreams. Greed demanded the mind stay sharp and consider tomorrow’s worth.

“No? Bodee-snatchers favored this house. Resurrectionists. They’d prop all the bodees on these benches ’round the walls. Had the owner’s name underneeth. Wouldn’t bee the leest surprise’ if right under your ass there might’ been a corpse.”

Something grabbed hold of Lind’s ankle, freezing skin and bone. He cried out, and the patrons of the Fortune of War looked up from their mugs to mutter and stare.

Eur Du’s and Tupp’s laughter made his face flush. Pranks annoyed Lind unless they were meant as a distraction before a theft. Tupp’s amusement felt like a stab in Lind’s back.

“So you have . . . ?” Eur Du asked.

Tupp grinned and took from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of newspaper. His nimble fingers unfolded an advertisement for replacement teeth that held a pinch of golden powder settling into the creases. Glamour. The dust every Folk in London needed. Not only to disguise their presence, but to fend off iron sickness as well.

The ankou leaned forward. His breath stank like spoiled meat, and Lind wondered how much of the tavern’s stench began with Eur Du. “Is
mad
, is good.”

Lind slid the paper way from Eur Du. “Now, your offer?”

The ankou lifted his hat. Fine white hairs, perhaps cobwebs, covered his speckled pate where he kept safe a jeweled ring, which he lifted loose and set on Tupp’s open palm.

“As you say, is good.” Tupp turned the ring so the smaller red stones sparkled around their older brother. Then he passed it on to Lind. The silver band was cold to his fingers, as if freshly dug from the mounds of snow outside. Or the hard, frozen earth. He imagined Eur Du at work with his shovel, prying at a coffin much as a hungry man would take a knife to a closed oyster.

“Get us drinks, sprite.”

Tupp hesitated a moment, then headed for the taps.

Eur Du scraped free a flake of skin hanging from his cheek with one cracked nail. “Eur Du can smell death as perfume. You wear it. Old. Your mother, yes? Bringin’ you into the world took her out, yes? That makes you start life a murderer. Eur Du respect that.”

Lind slid a hand into his coat and gripped the handle of his knife. Now he hated this one. Perhaps all the Folk. He imagined plunging the iron blade once, twice, into Eur Du’s chest.

“But then,” the ankou muttered as a black ribbon around his hat rose like a threatened serpent, “all your kind die so easilee, so fast. If I do not see you tomorrow, I assume you dead.”

Lind reached for the glamour, folding the edges of the newspaper shut. “Best enjoy this. You’ll not see another pinch more from us.”

A chuckle wheezed through Eur Du’s tiny, sharp teeth. “Do you reelee think he will keep you well, brammig? We may not be able to utter untruths, but know that we can never be trusted. When you no longer amuse the sprite, he will forsake you.” The ankou’s arm shot forth and covered Lind’s hand with its own, a leathery touch that masked an iron grip. “An’ then, we’ll be waitin’.”

Lind managed to slip his hand free. Small grains of earth clung to the lines of his knuckles. Grave mould, he was sure. “You think I trust Tupp? You’re wrong, bogey. I know he’ll soon be bored of me.” He made a show of turning away from the ankou to hide his lie. He watched Tupp carry mugs in each hand. Tupp wore his usual grin, which, for a moment, softened the growing hardness in Lind’s chest. For a moment. Then Lind slid the knife out of his pocket and opened the blade. “I’m expecting your lot as well.” He hoped his hand did not shake as he stabbed the blade down hard in the wood, a splinter’s length away from Eur Du’s fingers.

•   •   •

Before Tupp set the mugs onto the table, he waited for Lind to pry loose the knife and return it to his coat. He smirked. So not all Lind’s bluster was gone. Tupp lifted up his hat to reveal a third mug, which he set in front of Lind.

“So we have a deal, Eur Du?” he asked.

The ankou nodded as he slid the glamour close.

The watered beer tasted sour, as if the stink in the ankou’s hair had settled on the drink’s surface. Tupp started pouring out his mug on to the floorboards and Lind was swift to catch as much of the stream in his own emptied mug. “Why waste beer on haunts?” Lind said, while staring at Eur Du.

Out on the street, Tupp turned to Lind. “I’ve some errands. We’ll divide the take tomorrow night. At the Bridge of Sighs.” He took a few steps, remembered that he had traded away his last pinch of glamour, and then turned back. “And bring the rest of the glamour.”

“What? Why?”

The Folk cannot lie. The words cannot leave their mouth. They remain trapped in the imagination. And so he could only say, “Because I have no more of my own.”

“But you kept more than me.”

“Would you have all of London see me?” Tupp asked.

“How do I know who might see you when I have no idea where you go? Errands. Always errands. I want one night to spend together, but you always run from me.”

“I’m not sure you know what you want of me.”

Lind opened his mouth, then covered it with one palm, as if stifling his words. Perhaps, Tupp wondered, mortals could not tell the truth. “Nothing. Go. Tomorrow at the bridge.”

Not every one of the Folk inside London despised or preyed on mortals. One spent most of his time beneath the ground, within the environs of the massive tunnel running underneath the Thames.

It took him a while to find the bluecap tapping at the walls. His calling out “Firma,” startled the fairy. Firma blinked its enormous lanternlike eyes. It dropped a small pick and clutched the soiled cap from its head, revealing a corona of pale blue flames rather than hair.

“Few sprites venture down here, Smatterpit.”

“Yes.” He had never sold glamour to Firma. Bluecaps were rarely seen by miners or diggers. And if they were, it was welcome because they were seen as warning mortals of unsafe conditions. But they had crossed paths before, years ago, and Tupp knew that Firma was one of the very few Folk in London to have kept a mortal lover for decades.

“I need a favor.”

The bluecap coughed. Or maybe giggled. “None of the Folk comes to me for . . . for anything.”

“I cannot offer much—”

“What favor?”

“Tell me how you have kept your mortal happy for so long.”

“Bessie.” Firma smiled. “She has burrowed into my heart. I’d not have it any other way.”

“But she will die. You will go, but she will die. How can it be more than just some grand banquet, enjoyed for a brief time, but then—”

“But you always remember the banquet. Each course remains with you no matter how you pick away at the plate. I’d not want to miss the meal for fear of the bill.” Firma patted Tupp on the shoulder. “Loving anything is not about possessing it. See,” he said and reached down for a clod of earth. “I love this dirt, this earth, this England. But do I own it? No. I am merely passing on my way through it, and it meets my touch and sight and smell—” Firma breathed in the dirt “—for a moment. A moment I can cherish or not, but why not cherish then?”

Tupp nodded at this newfound wisdom. “My debt—”

“You owe me nothing.”

“But . . . but . . . that is not how we do things.” He did not know how to react to generosity.

“You asked me how I have kept my Bessie happy. It is also because I give freely.”

“Then I should do the same,” Tupp said, and realized there was another of the Folk he had to see, to talk to, that night.

•   •   •

Hot brickwork burned Lind’s palms and knees. Weak light, distant above, teased his eyes. The air tasted heavy with ash, cousin to the soot that blackened every inch of stone and skin and forced him to breathe through his nose or gag and choke. He inched upward along the tight throat of the chimney, then stopped. As a gangly ten-year-old, Lind could easily scurry up tight passages, but it had been six years since last he swept, and a diet of stout and meat had filled out Lind’s frame. He found himself wedged tight.

Angry whispers began where he should be alone. Clearing soot was silent, awful work. After the first bitter mouthful, climbing boys kept lips pressed tight unless they dared to call for help. He clawed at the rough edges to push himself toward the roof.

A rough voice from the drawing room below echoed in the chimney like a dog’s barking. Mr. Barling demanding Lind climb higher. The whispers became titters. Something sharp bit at the soles of his bare feet. Mr. Barling must have borrowed a hatpin from the missus, perhaps the one with a gaudy faux pearl at the end. A lit match would be next.

Lind struggled but could not inch higher. His lungs ached for a good breath. He knew that if he started to panic, the walls of the chimney would seem to draw closer. Beneath him, the stream of curses came faster and higher pitched, as if the other sweeps giggled at the fireplace’s mouth.

Fresh pain along his shins stirred Lind. He blinked at the sunlight that slipped through drapes encrusted with dust and grime. Morning in the room he rented at the end of New Kent Road. He dreamed too often of the past, as if his sleeping thoughts regretted ever running away from Barling’s basement.

He tried to wipe the nightmare from his face but found he could not raise a hand. Another binding pulled taut around his neck.

First he cursed, then he struggled more.

The same titters from his dream sounded around the room, soft as a whisper till they deepened to a final gurgle, the laugh of infants. His vision restrained, Lind glimpsed several small shapes scurrying by the cracked plaster walls, around the ends of the drapes, near the mattress. Rats didn’t move on two legs. Rats didn’t stink like a heap of soft apples.

“Out! Out,” Lind screamed and heaved hard against whatever strings or cords tied him down.

Something landed on his stomach, forcing a groan from his lips. Heavier than a rat as well, with tiny limbs around a sallow, pear-shaped frame. Layers of amber-colored wings fluttered. If not for the brass nail it held over him, Lind might have smirked. “The dust of our kin. We want.” Tiny, glittering eyes moved back and forth. “Our dust.”

He felt cool air on his lower legs. The others must have ripped apart the sheets at the foot of the bed.

It repeated its demand, shrieking the last words and stomping a foot on a rib.

Pixies. The last he’d seen had been caged by Bluebottle the spriggan, a fence at his rag-and-bone shop. He ground them to powder, to glamour, and forced Tupp to collect from the Folk of London. Lind had once felt a sense of sympathy toward Tupp for being under the spriggan’s control. Released when Lind and Tupp robbed him, the pixies had swarmed over the spriggan. A horrible but deserved end. But it would have been wasteful to leave behind the milled glamour, so Lind took bags of the stuff.