Rise of the Darklings (6 page)

Emily sighed. Their da had disappeared three years ago now. A year or so after that, their ma vanished as well. William had been having bad dreams ever since. Sometimes they weren’t too bad, like this one, but other times they were truly frightening, causing him to wake up in the night, screaming in terror and bathed in sweat.

They’d never found out what had happened to their parents. Their da had been away on business when he went missing. The landlady at the lodging house where he’d been staying said he’d gone to bed and locked his door, and the next morning there was simply no sign of him. His door was still locked from the inside. It was as if he’d simply … vanished. Ma went to the police. They looked into the disappearance but gave up after a few days when they couldn’t find any clues. They said this kind of thing happened all the time. People vanished.

Then the same thing happened with their ma. She just
disappeared. Didn’t come home from the shops one day. This time Emily hadn’t gone to the police. If they’d found out she and William were alone, they would have separated them and sent them to the workhouse.

Emily stroked his hair. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “You’ve had worse.”

William mumbled in agreement and snuggled down under the blankets again. He closed his eyes, ready to go back to sleep.

“Hoy,” whispered Emily. William opened his eyes a crack. “Don’t get too comfy. You’re to speak to Mrs. Derry about work in the shop, remember?”

William nodded sleepily. “I’ll remember,” he said with an enormous yawn.

Emily stood up. She took a last look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then left their small room and stepped into the dark corridor of the tenement building in which they lived. She pulled open the front door and felt the sharp bite of the cold against her cheeks, the last remnants of sleep leaving her as she breathed in the frigid air.

She stepped onto the deserted street, wondering if this was what all twelve-year-old girls had to go through every day of their lives.

Emily wanted to get to the market early that morning. Mrs. Eldridge had promised an extra bunch of watercress to whichever girl got there first and helped lay out her wares. An extra bunch wasn’t much, but it meant a sweet pudding for William if she managed to sell it.

Emily walked briskly along the narrow streets of Cheapside, her hands thrust deep into her coat in a futile attempt to keep warm. She ducked through a tenement and onto a road that took her into Church Lane. Laundry lines crisscrossed high above between the buildings. Someone had left a sheet out overnight; it had frozen solid and hung heavy on the line, weighing it down so that the rope looked about ready to snap.

A broken railing between two buildings gave Emily access to the labyrinth of backstreets that wove around and behind the main thoroughfares of London. The dingy pathways were thin and suffocating, the buildings leaning in on her. Emily had been warned not to travel through the alleys, but she always did. If she had to choose between a scolding and walking extra miles in the freezing cold, it wasn’t a choice at all.

Emily was halfway to the market when she heard the noise up ahead. She came to an abrupt stop, almost slipping on the icy cobblestones.

She waited. There it was again: a scuffling sound coming from around the corner. And … something else. She frowned. It sounded like pieces of metal clacking together.

Emily looked around, wondering what to do. She could head back onto the main streets, but that would add another half hour to her journey, time she couldn’t afford to lose. Victoria Ashdown had said she planned on getting to Mrs. Eldridge before Emily did, and Emily couldn’t let that happen. Victoria thought she knew everything just because she was fourteen. There was no way Emily was letting Victoria get that extra bunch of cress.

She crept forward until she stood near the mouth of the adjoining alleyway, leaning against the exposed redbrick of a grocery shop. She listened for a moment but still couldn’t place the sounds.
Only one way to find out
, she thought, slowly peering around the corner.

She had expected something simple. Maybe some tramps fighting over some food. Or some cutpurses divvying up their ill-gotten gain after a night of thieving.

But what she saw made her freeze with shock, her eyes going wide with amazement as she tried to take in the scene before her.

An almost silent battle was being fought in the shadows of the lane. But there was nothing ordinary about the battle being fought before her.

Because not one of the participants stood any higher than Emily’s knee.

About half of the fighters wore dark furs and old, tatty leathers. Their bodies were covered in black spiral tattoos, clustered so thickly that it was difficult to see the skin underneath, causing the creatures’ yellow eyes and sharp teeth to stand out in contrast. Those they were fighting wore more natural-colored attire—brown leathers and earth-colored clothes. They also had spirals on their skin, but nowhere near as many as their enemies. Their markings had been applied in a pale blue ink, making them harder to see.

Dark blood covered the fighters as they battled in the tight confines of the alley, the only sound the frantic scraping and scuffling of feet on the wet cobblestones and the fierce clattering of bronze swords and daggers.

As Emily watched, one of the injured creatures broke away. An arrow caught him in the back and he collapsed, twitching, not five feet from where she stood. He lay there for a second, then melted into the cobbles, his skin liquefying into a bloody puddle that gave off the stench of bad meat.

Emily stood transfixed, her heart thudding fearfully in her chest. She should run away. She knew that. What if they saw her? But she couldn’t seem to get her legs to work.

Suddenly, a piercing whistle shrilled in the distance. Emily
jumped, clamping a hand over her mouth. That sounded like a crusher’s whistle. Were the police coming to investigate? A moment later the first whistle was joined by another, this one farther away but growing steadily closer.

The fighting in the alley stopped abruptly, as if the whistles were some kind of prearranged signal. The creatures froze in place and cocked their heads, listening as they drew in ragged breaths. Then the creatures sheathed their weapons and stepped away from one another. The black-painted ones closed their eyes and faded into the shadows. Emily strained to catch a glimpse of them, but it was as if they had simply disappeared. The others slipped between gaps in the walls or into the gutters. Emily saw a few of them climbing the dirty facade of the building that faced the alley, pulling themselves up onto the roof and vanishing from sight.

In five seconds the creatures were gone. Emily stepped reluctantly into the lane and waited a moment to make sure nothing was about to jump out of the shadows. The buildings seemed to stretch higher here. The sky was a thin slit of black pinpointed with brittle stars.

What had she just witnessed? Were they
goblins?
Gnomes? Faeries? They couldn’t be, surely? Those kinds of things didn’t exist. They belonged in storybooks, like the ones her da used to read to her. Not out here in the real world.

But what else could they be? She certainly hadn’t imagined seeing them. Emily hurried through the alley, wanting to be as far away as possible before the owners of the whistles arrived. The passage turned sharply left here, and Emily could see a faint orange glow coming from where the alley fed back into the streets. She ran toward the light.

She didn’t get far. A silhouette rose slowly out of the shadows that pooled at the bottom of a wall. Emily staggered to a halt. She couldn’t move, could only watch in numb horror as the shape revealed itself to be that of a tall, thin man, his spindly arms and legs unfolding like the limbs of a spider. Emily looked over her shoulder, thinking she could run back the way she had come, but there was another shape approaching, this one round and fat. He had a whistle in his mouth, which shrilled with every puffing breath he took. There was nowhere for her to go.

The man in front of Emily walked toward her, brushing his hands together, as if to dislodge any loose dirt he might have picked up. He was so tall and thin, his clothes so tightly fitting, that the impression she got was that of a skeleton in a velvet suit. His elbows stuck out to either side, and she could see the low orange glow of the dawn through the triangular gaps.

She stared up at the man. The early-morning sky framed the dark silhouette of his head and top hat. She couldn’t see
much of his actual features, just the tiny pinprick of light glinting in his black eyes.

He stopped in front of her and sighed, expelling a cloud of white breath into the cold air, and lifted the hat from his head. He lowered it against his stomach, then drummed his long fingers on the top.

Barump
.

Barump
.

Barump
.

Emily swallowed. She wanted to say something, anything, to break the spell, but the muffled noise of his fingers seemed to drown out her thoughts.

“And what, pray tell, do we have here?” asked the man.

He bent forward to get a better look at her face, his features slowly revealing themselves as he did so. His jutting nose arrived first, cutting through the shadow like a ship’s prow through black water. It was long and straight, the nostrils flared, as if he was trying to catch the scent of prey.

“What is your name, girl?”

Emily resisted the urge to step back. She forced herself to find her voice. “Emily. Emily Snow.”

He stared at her for another second before responding. “Well, Miss Snow. What are you doing out so early in the morning? Hasn’t your mother ever told you the streets are a dangerous place for children?”

“I’m not a child,” snapped Emily. “I’m twelve.”

“Is that so?” The thin man straightened. “You hear that, Mr. Blackmore? She’s
twelve.”

The fat man took the whistle out of his mouth. “I heard her, sir.”

The thin man turned his attention back to Emily. “Forgive me,” he said. “Where are my manners?” He took a step back and bent over in a sweeping bow, the hand holding the hat brushing the wet cobblestones. “My name is Mr. Ravenhill,” he said, straightening up. He frowned, brushing a smudge of dirt off his hat. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you are doing here? And please don’t lie. I have a nose for untruths.”

As if to underline these words, he sniffed, then exhaled. Emily could smell aniseed and tobacco on his breath.

“I … I was on my way to Farringdon, if it please you, sir,” said Emily. She’d always found it best to pretend subservience to adults.

“What for?”

“To buy a penny’s worth of cress. I sell it every day, to get food for my family.”

“Is that so?”

“Yessir. I took the shortcut, because Victoria Ashdown said she was going to get there first and take the best of the bunches.” She trailed off and looked at the ground, waiting
for the man to respond. She heard the fat one shift impatiently behind her, huffing with the slight exertion.

“What do you think, Mr. Blackmore? Is she telling the truth?”

Mr. Blackmore sucked in a huge gulp of air. “I reckon so, Mr. R. She’s just a child. No sense in her to lie.”

“Which just goes to show how much you know about children, Mr. Blackmore.” Mr. Ravenhill tapped his hat again, then reached a decision. “But in this case, I think you are correct in your assumptions. You may go, child.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.” Emily stepped to the side and got ready to run. An outstretched hand stopped her. She looked up into Mr. Ravenhill’s eyes.

“Where do you live?”

“Cheapside, sir. Blackfriars Road.” As soon as she said the words, Emily cursed herself. Why had she said that? You don’t tell anyone where you live! It was one of the first rules that Jack had taught her.

“Best not come this way again, girl. These alleys are dangerous. No telling what might happen to someone like yourself. Understand?”

She did, more than he knew. But she simply nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Be off, then.”

Emily did not wait for a second invitation. She ran as fast
as her legs would carry her. At one point she heard a noise off to her right, and for a panic-stricken second she thought they had changed their minds and were coming after her. But nothing happened, and she skidded around the corner into the warm light of a gas lamp.