55

  “This is never going to work!” Wally moaned.

  “It will,” Timmy said. “We've been undercover before with Sarpel, and it worked, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but that was with Sarpel! He's a mad genius of disguise, and we’re a pair of bellends dressed in old threads that we found in my nan’s cupboard!” Wally huffed and pulled the tattered shirt tighter around himself.

  “I think we look perfect. Our murderer isn't going to be expecting a pair of undercover coppers dressed as vagrants! We'll have the element of surprise!” Timmy said confidently.

  “I don't know, I've got a bad feeling about this, Tim.” Wally said, pulling at the itchy clothes.

  “This is the only way we're going to catch this guy. We can't let this murderer get away so he can go after Marney again, is that where you want?” Timmy said his voice was slightly harsher than intended.

  Wally's eyes went wide.

  “‘Corse not,” he mumbled shamefaced.

  “Then this is what we need to do. We just have to post up in the RatHoles and keep our eyes open. You heard what Marney said, she interrupted the murderer last time, and he didn't get to finish whatever it was doing, so we just have to wait for him to come back.”

  “I feel like the lamb wot finks ‘e's got the jump on the butcher." Wally rolled his eyes and hunkered down.

  Timmy chose to ignore him; he was getting much better at that the longer he worked with Wally. They were back in the RatHoles again after putting together a hasty stakeout plan and raiding Wally's nan's cupboard for their disguises. The day was grey and cloudy with a fine mist of rain in the air. The fog was so thick they could barely see down the street, let alone the sky. Their whole world was one big white ball of smoke. The RatHoles were quiet. Far too quiet. So peaceful in fact, all you could hear was the drip of overflowing gutters and the odd scuttle of rats in the darkness. Word had gotten around, and as they were wont to do in the city, rumours flew and became established facts in just minutes and hours. The most virulent of these rumours was that the RatHoles were cursed because too many innocent people had lost their lives in the place, and now the spirits were coming back for vengeance. This was mixed in with conspiracies about how the Government was trying to decrease the population in the RatHoles by poisoning the water. But the story whispered in the darkest corners of the RatHoles was about the bad man. Rumour had it that he was some sort of shaman snatching souls and bending them to his will for dark purposes. That he crept up through the floorboards while you slept and ripped your soul out of your body through your mouth.

  Tommy and Wally traversed through the cobbled streets of the RatHoles. At first, they had moved cautiously, but as they became more used to their disguises, they adopted the hunched over, shuffling pace of those who had nothing to do and nothing to gain. Thanks to Marnie, they knew where the killer last struck, and it seemed like he was going back to the same feeding grounds again and again. Timmy suspected that the bodies they had found only a few days prior were also this creature's handy work. They now found themselves in a ramshackle tenement dripping with damp and wet. The air was somehow frigid here despite the humidity outside. As usual, Timmy and Wally were met with frosty unreserved suspicion from the other addicts. But, if there was one thing that they were adept at, that was communicating a sort of hapless patheticness that made them seem nonthreatening. Eventually, they melted into the background of the place, just another thread in the tapestry of despair that adorned the RatHoles. They tried to ask questions to find out what had been going on, but they were met with such dark and distrustful stares and cold silence that they had given up for fear of breaking their cover. Now they simply sat hungry, cold, wet, tired, and waiting for a murderer to reappear. No wonder Wally was in the best of moods. The fog was so heavy that they didn't even know the sun had set until things began to darken and shadows appeared and then disappeared into the night. The tenement began to slowly fill up with more and more addicts drifting in from the cold. Like most pack animals, the addicts had decided there was safety in numbers. Timmy had never seen so many addicts in one place, and he even saw weapons. He watched dirty hands clutching at rusted blades, broken pipes, and damp-ridden bits of wood as if those could protect them from the bad man. Others had taken a more spiritual approach to their defense. Timmy saw various odd sigils and signs painted above doors or splashed across the entranceways. Fires were being lit, and odd-smelling powders were thrown into them while people mumbled and chanted. Fear was thick here, and Timmy knew they were in the right place.

  "'Ow much longer do you think we've got to wait?" Wally asked, tucking his arms under his armpits, in a vain attempt to stay warm. "And how do we even know that he's gonna make an appearance? We could be freezing our arses off here with all these smelly burners for days before he comes back."

  "That hasn't been the pattern," Timmy said. "You know from the reports, bodies have been dropping every single night in the RatHoles. That means he'll be coming back."

  "Why would this loonie be coming back every night and killing burners? Does he want to get caught or something?"

  "It's a demon ritual," a creaking voice spoke from the shadows.

  Timmy and Wally jumped so hard the rotten wood creaked under their backsides, and for a moment, they thought they might collapse through the floor.

  "Who's there? Wally demanded.

  "The bad man comes at night! He takes souls with him in the morning!" The voice cackled behind them.

  From within the shadows, a leathery old face appeared, all yellow teeth and yellow eyes and yellow skin, decay written across every etch on his face.

  "The bad man, he's a soul snatcher. He's going to complete a demon ritual to summon his overlord."

  "What are you talking about, you batty old git?" Wally snapped at him. "And don't you know it's rude to go listening to other people's conversations?"

  "Do you know about this bad man?" Timmy asked him, gently elbowing Wally. This was the first person that had spoken to them since they arrived.

  "Oh I know all about him. He's here to summon the demons and he's using human souls for the sacrifice." The old man said in a sing-song tone of voice.

  "Wot you listening to him for? He's clearly demented," Wally said.

  "Have you seen him?" Timmy asked, ignoring Wally.

  "I have," the old man whispered, looking around over his shoulder as if demons would appear from the shadows behind.

  "When?" Timmy asked.

  "T'was but two nights ago. I watched him snatch four souls and take them with him, screaming and crying to the darkness," the old man hissed in a hushed tone of voice, his yellow eyes widening to the brink of madness.

  "What did he do?" Timmy asked.

  "He took their souls!"

  Right yeah, but I mean, how did he? Did he have like a big sack or something over his shoulder?" Wally snorted derively.

  "Oh no. First he kills you, but he's got to kill you quietly," the old man said conspiratorily. "He can't leave a mark on the body otherwise, the Demons won't want to inhabit it."

  "So he doesn't stab or strangle, anything like that?" Timmy asked.

  "No boy, it's just a pinprick."

  "What?" Timmy said.

  "They say it's a shard of shinbone from the demon overlord himself. One poke from it and you're dead." The old man waved his hands exaggeratedly, his lips puckering and crusting over.

  "So he pokes you with something?" Timmy clarified.

  "Aye, a bone shard of the Demon Lord, I told you."

  "And they die straight away?" Timmy asked

  "No, they die horribly, screaming, convulsing, unable to breathe, unable to speak. It's because the Demons got in them, boy. The Demons got them around the throat, strangling them and watching them die slowly. They say is one the worst ways to go." The old man's voice became a strangled whisper.

  Timmy swallowed dryly. That sounded exactly like the bodies they had found for the last few days.

  "How many people do you think this bad man has killed?" Timmy asked, a part of him not even wanting to know the answer.

  "Dozens, perhaps thousands, maybe millions over the centuries. You see, the bad man is a malignant spirit that reincarnates again and again to wreak havoc on us ungrateful human beings. It's our punishment for our greed, our lust, and our evil. You see these wretches before you? These people are just the symptoms of a broken society. This is what happens when a few have the most and the rest are left to fend for themselves, you get this!" He waved his arms dramatically at the burners huddled around them. "You get the pathetic drippings, the last vestiges of humans, desperate to just keep going from one day to the next with no idea why. That's why the bad man targets us, not only because no one cares but because we don't even care. For some, it's a sweet relief when they look into the eyes of the bad man and they feel the prick of the demon's bone because they know, for just a few more seconds of agony, it will be over. It will be over. It will all be over. It will all be over." The old man crumpled over and dropped to the floor hugging his knees rocking backwards and forwards and repeating the phrase staring into the flames.

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  Timmy looked at Wally, and slowly they both backed away from the old man and found themselves another place to sit where they could watch the entrance to the building.

  "You don't believe all that, do you?" Wally whispered to Timmy.

  "What, that there's a demon overlord and the bad man is sacrificing souls to him?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Not really. But it still begs the question, why is this person doing this? I might not believe in demons and soul snatching and stuff, but I'm really starting to believe that there's evil in this world, real evil."

  "You're only just figuring that out?" Wally said, drawing his knees closer to him and trying to stay warm. "You know I used to fink these people were just dirty scrotes. That it was their choice to become burners and they deserved to live like this."

  "Yeah..." Timmy said, shame biting at his throat as he looked around at the amassed misery around him.

  "But then we met Marney... and she ain't a scrote," Wally said. "She's just a girl... and the world 'as been cruel to 'er... and she ended up 'ere. That old man might be a fruitcake, but he is right about these people, they're just victims. Victims of the city, the way it doesn't care for anyone but the powerful and the rich. It's like you gotta be evil in this city otherwise you end up like this."

  Timmy sighed and stared into the fire across the room and then looked out the window. He'd always been somewhat of an optimist. When you spend your whole life getting bullied by everyone, including your own mother, you sort of have to believe things are going to get better eventually. But now, with the things he'd seen he was starting to wonder if that was really true.

  They didn't speak much after that. The night grew darker and colder, and the fog thickened. Eventually, the burners began to fall still. There had been some excitement when some sort of substance was produced by a few groups of burners and they imbibed and drank cheap liquors that smelled like gas fumes and slowly, one by one, they fell into a stupor where they stood, where they sat, and where they lay. Some were so still, Timmy wondered if they were even breathing. Timmy felt his eyelids droop, and Wally had long since fallen into one of his patented 'I'm not asleep, but really I am asleep' sitting-up poses. The fire had burned down and even the whimpering and moaning of the burners was finally starting to quiet.

  There was no sound in the RatHoles. That was strange. Valderia was always noisy: it was the city that never shut up. There was always some drunk singing into the night, or a carriage and horse trundling by, or crime happening. The inner city was always alive. Even in the quiet suburbs, where Timmy was from, there was always the sound of cats, foxes, dogs, and rats fighting nightly for supremacy over the city's cobbles. In the RatHoles there was nothing, just the absence of life.

  Timmy shivered, and it wasn't just from the cold, it was from a feeling that something wicked was coming this way. He itched his palms and stared out the grimy window. The sun was gone and even the moon was hidden behind the fog, there was nothing but darkness outside of the window. He suddenly felt like they shouldn't be here. Like this was just one stupid, brash idea that Timmy had gotten carried away with as usual. That was the problem with Wally, he often left the thinking to Timmy, and Timmy wasn't the brightest glowstone in the draw. They should scarper from here. They could always go back to the hospital and tell Marney they tried, that they stayed all night in the RatHoles and there was no sign of the bad man, she wouldn't know either way. He sighed and looked down at the grimy floor. He would know though. He would know he was a coward. Wally would know as well, although Timmy always felt like Wally was more comfortable with open cowardice. Timmy's heart was beating faster and faster and his palms had started to sweat despite the cold. His itchy shirt began to itch more, and his trousers felt strangely tight. He tried to take deep breaths and calm himself, but the sweat kept pouring.

  With shaking hands, Timmy reached for the half-drunk bottle of cheap spirits they had purchased to go with their disguises. He took two quick nips of the foul-tasting liquid. He placed a hand over his mouth to smother his coughs. Timmy took a deep breath and sighed with resignation. He felt the spirits burning its way down his throat and settling in his stomach, radiating a numbing warmth through him. After another moment or two, he took a deeper slug and then another. The pleasurable sensation of numbness radiated through Timmy, his panic subsiding. His breathing slowed. He didn't even feel cold anymore. That was nice. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Timmy kept sipping at the spirits, finding the more he drank, the less foul it tasted and the better he felt. Before long, his eyes began to droop. He shifted from his sitting position to a more comfortable one, resting his back against the wall, his head drooping. Before long he was snoring gently, his chin resting on his chest.

  *

  Wally’s eyes fluttered open. His brain hadn’t cleared the fog of sleep, but some animal sense shot his body back to life. He blinked heavily twice but that same instinct told him to remain still. His eyes swivelled, peering through the near blackness. He saw Timmy, sitting against the wall, his hands folded across his chest as he snored gently. He could hear the heavy breathing and fitful moans of those around him. But there was another noise. A disturbance in the air. Wally slowly lifted his head and saw a tall figure in a long black coat and black bowler hat, picking his way around the sleeping bodies, his back to Wally. Wally’s heart thudded in his chest. Unconsciously, he held his breath and stayed perfectly still. The figure stepped over a sleeping body, his feet making the barest shuffling noise as he looked left and right at the sleeping Burners. And he was whistling softly. Wally strained his ears and picked up the sound of a half-remembered nursery rhyme. The figure stopped finally in front of a group who had ended their nights slumped next to each other in a row against the wall. Wally saw something appear in the figure’s gloved hand. He couldn’t make out what it was in the darkness. The figure crouched down, still whistling softly, as he raised the object and then quickly jabbed it into the skin of the Burner.

  “No,” Wally whispered.

  He wanted to move. He wanted to spring into action but his body was frozen. The figure was so big and imposing. He radiated violence and malice. That same animal instinct that had woken Wally now whispered at him to lay his head back down and close his eyes. To pretend he had never woken up and that he had seen nothing. The figure turned to the next sleeping Burner with another needle in his hand. This one was only a girl, and in the darkness, she could have been Marney.

  “No,” Wally said again, this time slightly louder.

  The whistling stopped.

  The figure, crouched over the young girl, needle raised, turned his head, and looked over his shoulder towards Wally. His face was bathed in darkness, but Wally could see the cold twinkling of his eyes like two black beads.

  “Stop,” Wally said, forcing his body to start moving. “Stop… in the name of the law…” Wally was still only mumbling, but his voice was gaining strength.

  He put his hands down and pushed himself off the floor. The figure saw him in the darkness.

  “Stop! In the name of the fucking law!” Wally cried out at him, throwing himself to his feet, his chest heaving and his fist clenched.

  Timmy snorted awake.

  “What?” Timmy slurred, knocking the now empty bottle from his lap.

  “It’s him!” Wally roared, anger, indignation, and adrenaline threw aside his fear. “The murdering bastard!”

  The Burners began to stir and wake up.

  “It is?” Timmy cried out, trying to pull himself to his feet. “You’re under arrest!”

  The figure sprang up from his crouch and bolted.

  “No, you don’t!” Wally shouted as he leapt over half-conscious burners and threw himself at the fleeing figure.

  He wrapped his scrawny arms around the much bigger man. The figure in black didn’t miss a stride as he tried to extricate himself from Wally. They crashed through the poorly barricaded door and onto the landing of the dilapidated four-floor tenement. The man in black twisted and slammed Wally, shoulder and head first, into the banister. Wally groaned but did not relent. He clung to the man, unable to outmuscle him, he had decided to simply become dead weight. He clung to fistfuls of the man’s coat, one of his arms tangled with the man’s. Timmy suddenly appeared in Wally’s peripheral vision. He had a chunk of brick in his hand which he launched at the assailant. He hit him on the base of his neck and staggered him briefly.

  “Yeah! Get ‘im Tim!” Wally yelled.

  Timmy cast around for another chunk of brick, but the man in black had run out of patience. He swung Wally like he was a small child through the banister, whipping his coat off as he did, and dropping him hard on the steps. Wally wheezed as the air was driven out of him, bits of banister crashing around him as he slid bonelessly to the bottom of the stairs. The man in black spun on Timmy and kicked him hard in the gut, sending him stumbling backward. Timmy groaned, clutching his stomach, desperately trying to get his wind back.

  “Silly little piggy,” the man in black growled as he advanced on Timmy.

  Timmy looked up and realised the man was wearing a black balaclava around his face so that only his eyes were visible. But those eyes. They were the most vicious and cruel eyes Timmy had ever seen. They were black and merciless. Soulless. He spun the knife in his hand as he slowly closed the gap between them. Even though Timmy couldn’t see his face, he knew the man was smiling. He was enjoying this. He raised the knife, and Timmy threw his hands up to protect himself, squeezing his eyes shut.

  Thonk!

  The man in black grunted. He staggered and almost tripped over Timmy. Behind him stood Wally, holding a thick knot of broken bannister, covered from head to toe in plaster and dirt. He clutched his ribs and his badly wounded side while raising the stick defiantly at their assailant. He swung again, but the man in black grabbed the stick with one hand, lunging forward with his dagger at Wally's exposed stomach.

  "No!" Timmy screamed, throwing himself forward at the man's leg, clutching desperately, while trying to reach for the dagger. He bundled into the back of the man, throwing his stab wide, and Wally was able to shrink himself out of the way just in time for the blade to pass by his ribs, opening up another slice in his already wounded torso. The man in black raised the dagger again but didn't have the space to spin it point down at Timmy, so instead he brought the heavy pommel down on the front of his exposed skull.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  He landed three vicious blows to the top of Timmy's skull, splitting the skin open on top of his head. Blood poured into Timmy's eyes, but still he clung to the man's leg. He could feel blood dripping down his ears onto his neck and across his face. He scrunched his eyes up, waiting for the final deadly blow. But it never never came. Timmy looked up, squinting through the blood in his eyes, and saw Wally wrestling desperately with the man. He had both hands wrapped around the man's wrist, pushing the dagger away from Timmy's exposed head and neck. They fought back and forth in the cramped hallway, the man in black unable to unleash his terrifying strength, stumbling as he tried to extricate himself from Timmy's desperate grip whilst battering Wally with his free hand. He punched the scrawny boy across his cheekbone, forehead, and nose, bringing down hammer blows that crunched bone and split skin, but still Wally refused to let go.

  "Get off me!" the man in black growled at Wally as he laid about his battered face and head.

  His fists were almost the size of Wally's entire face. A final blow landed across the bridge of Wally's nose. His legs wobbled and then gave out under the terrifying force of the man's fists, and he was thrown to one side. The man in black spun on Timmy and brought down the pommel of his dagger again straight into Timmy's face, crunching into his cheek and sending sparks flying across his vision. His hands loosen around the man's legs. Timmy's desperate fingertips scrabbled, trying to get hold of the man again, but it was too late. The man yanked his leg free and stamped on Timmy viciously. Timmy looked up through blurred eyes full of blood and pain, waiting for the dagger to come. Instead, he saw the fleeing back of the man in black. He spared enough time to dig one last nasty kick into Wally's ribs as he passed and then shot off down the stairs and out the tenements, grabbing his coat as he went. Timmy watched him disappear into the fog, and just like that, the killer had escaped again. Timmy groaned and laid his head back, falling into unconsciousness, grateful for the few minutes of oblivion.