9

 

 

Carnegie didn’t hesitate. With a snarl he grabbed hold of Scabble and hurled the little man in the direction of the sailors. They had just enough time to bundle him out of the way before the wereman’s charge – an onslaught of teeth and claws that managed to engage all three of them.

The tiny office struggled to contain the combatants: the windows rattled with every punch and the wooden walls creaked with every curse. As he scanned around for a weapon with which to help Carnegie, Jonathan spotted Scabble crawling out through the door on his hands and knees. He raced across the room and grabbed hold of one of the little man’s legs, dragging him back inside the cabin.

“No!” Scabble cried, kicking out wildly.

Jonathan had pulled Vendetta’s ledger from his bag, and was about to bring the book down on the thief’s head when a large weight crashed into the side of him. Jonathan hit the floor hard, his landing only partially softened by Scabble himself. Dazed, still clutching hold of the ledger, Jonathan caught sight of an earring flashing in the light, and a tattoo of a mermaid etched on weather-beaten skin. An arm was pressing down across his chest, pinning him.

As Jonathan’s head began to clear, a leering, scarred face filled his vision. Over his assailant’s shoulder, Carnegie was occupied by the other two sailors, trading vicious slashes for their barrelling forearm blows. Jonathan was on his own.

With his free arm, the sailor pulled out a belaying pin from his belt – a long wooden club with a handle. He raised it above his head, his earring gleaming.

“Sweet dreams, laddio,” he said.

Suddenly Jonathan knew what to do. With a giant effort he forced his left arm free, reached up and yanked the earring from the sailor’s ear. The sailor screamed, clutching his bloodied lobe. With the grip loosened, Jonathan twisted his body and followed up with a swift knee to the groin. His assailant crumpled like an accordian, allowing Jonathan to roll free.

The pandemonium showed no sign of relenting. Carnegie had disposed of one of the sailors, and was now attacking the other. Scabble was lying winded on the ground, immobile.

“Get the girl!” he called out weakly to his henchmen.

In response, the sailor with the bleeding ear got to his feet and went after Raquella, who had taken up a position behind Scabble’s desk. Jonathan raced after the man and tried to rugby tackle him, only for the sailor to brush him off with a trailing arm. Jonathan’s nose exploded with pain – then, through his tears, he saw Carnegie step between Raquella and the sailor.

For a couple of seconds neither the wereman nor the final sailor moved. Then, without warning, Carnegie stepped up and unleashed an earth-shattering roar inches from the sailor’s face. As the man blanched with horror, Carnegie picked him up and hurled him through the window overlooking the river. There was a scream, and then a splash as the sailor hit the water.

Suddenly it was very quiet, and very still. Carnegie glanced across at Jonathan, his eyes narrowed. “You all right, boy?”

Jonathan nodded, holding his nose, which was bleeding profusely. The wereman strode over to Scabble and lifted him up off the floor. He bunched a hairy fist.

“OK, OK!” Scabble cried out, shielding his face with his hands. “I’ll tell you everything! It was a moonstone!”

Carnegie’s brow furrowed. “What was a moonstone?”

“Vendetta’s order. It’s a kind of quartz . . . rare. . . I stole it direct from a steamer that had just come in from the east.”

“What did Vendetta want with it?”

“He didn’t tell me,” the thief sobbed. “That’s all I know, I swear!”

Carnegie relented, dropping Scabble into a forlorn heap on the floor. “For once, I’m going to take you on your word. For your sake, I hope I don’t regret it. We’ll see ourselves out. Oh, and Dexter?”

The thief looked up groggily, to see Carnegie nod at the stolen crates in the corner of the room.

“I’ll be back to collect those silks when the Succession’s over. Keep an eye on them for me, will you?”

 

Outside, the shadows were starting to lengthen along the waterfront. Carnegie buttoned up his overcoat and inhaled a deep breath of the salty air, apparently invigorated.

“That was fun,” he said brightly.

Jonathan eyed the wereman grumpily, dabbing at his nose with a bloody handkerchief. “For you, maybe. You weren’t the one having your nose broken.”

“What are you complaining about, boy? A broken nose gives a man character. Darkside women don’t trust a man with an unmarked face.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Raquella was staring out over the murky waters, lost in thought. She turned back to look at them. “I’ve never heard Vendetta talk about moonstones before. I can’t imagine what he’d want with one.”

“Me neither,” Carnegie agreed. “Let’s go see what some old friends can make of it.”

 

The offices of the Darkside Informer were located in the tanning district on the east side of the borough. Pedestrians hastened through the shadows of giant factories. Industrial chimneys weaved a blanket of poisonous smoke over the rooftops, the smell of leather so thick it left an aftertaste in the mouth. Even by the low standards of Darkside, this was a grimy, insalubrious area.

Which made it the perfect hideout for the journalists of the Informer. They were marked men in the borough: Darksiders liked their secrets to stay secret. On his previous visits to the newspaper, Jonathan had found the office to be a gloomy, furtive place, where every stranger was greeted with suspicious glances and watchful eyes. This time, however, as the three of them entered the building, he heard an unfamiliar sound above the rumbling of the printing presses: laughter.

Jonathan came into the main office, and blinked with surprise. The dismal atmosphere had vanished. The boarded windows had been freed up, allowing the room’s occupants to see the Darkside skyline as it retreated into early-evening darkness. The coal stoves had been lit, and were pumping waves of warmth out into the office. Gas lamps burned fiercely on every desk, chasing away the shadows and casting a rosy glow on to the faces of a group of journalists as they sat around swapping stories. Engrossed in a particularly long tale, not one of them acknowledged the new visitors.

The storyteller was a man Jonathan knew well: Arthur Blake, editor of the Informer. Always comfortable recounting his great deductions and daring deeds, the rotund man had his audience in the palm of his hand. Despite the fact that Jonathan was never entirely sure that Blake’s stories were true, he couldn’t help himself: he laid the bag containing the ledger down on the nearest desk and crept closer to listen in.

“. . . So no one knew what had gone on, but when I looked over the photographs of the wedding I noticed that one of the footmen in the background had a rather familiar mole on his left cheek. It was none other than Owen Galbraith, the celebrated thief!” Arthur paused, allowing his audience to digest this fact. Then he sighed, and continued hurriedly: “Sadly, by that time Galbraith was long gone, and so was the bride’s necklace, but it made for a first-rate exclusive. . .”

At the back of the room, Carnegie snorted loudly with amusement. “You’re quite the detective, Blake. Ever thought of taking it up full-time?”

Arthur looked up, his chubby face breaking into a smile. “Carnegie!” He hopped out of his chair and waddled over to shake hands.

“Everyone seems remarkably cheery in here,” the wereman muttered, as Arthur enthusiastically pumped Jonathan and Raquella’s hands. “Is it payday?”

“Better than that,” Arthur laughed. “It’s the Succession. With the Bow Street Runners out, a journalist’s life becomes altogether easier. We can even walk the streets unharmed. Though we still have to get the edition out tonight.” He turned and clapped his hands. “Back to work, everybody!”

The reporters drifted slowly back to their desks. When Arthur spoke again, it was in a conspiratorial whisper. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“What do you know about moonstones?”

The portly editor raised an eyebrow. “As much as any man on my salary can be expected to. They’re expensive minerals that have to be specially imported – they don’t tend to turn up in the Lower Fleet, if you catch my meaning.”

“What are they used for?” asked Jonathan.

“Mainly ornamental purposes: decorating mirrors, lamps, watches. . .”

“Doesn’t sound like a typical Vendetta purchase,” Carnegie rumbled.

“The vampire’s involved?” asked Arthur.

“According to Dexter Scabble, and there’s a payment in Vendetta’s ledger to prove it,” Carnegie replied. He turned to Jonathan. “Where is it, boy?”

“I left it over – hey!”

From nowhere, a boy had soundlessly crept up to the desk behind Jonathan and now sat idly flicking through the ledger, his feet propped up on another chair. The boy looked up and winked at Jonathan, who grinned with recognition. Harry Pierce was the son of James Ripper, who had died at his brother Lucien’s hands. With James dead, Harry no longer had any claim to the Ripper’s throne, and had instead settled down as a journalist at the Informer. Although at first Jonathan had despised Harry’s airy, arrogant demeanour, he had come to respect the boy’s bravery, and knew better than most that beneath his frivolity lay a serious soul who had never really recovered from the death of his father.

Not that this was easy to tell right now. Harry was beaming from ear to ear, completely unaffected by Carnegie looming over him.

“That’s not yours to read, Pierce. I don’t recall giving you permission.”

“It’s not yours to read, either,” Harry retorted. “Did Vendetta give you permission?”

“We didn’t have the opportunity to ask him,” Raquella answered sharply. “My master is hunting Jonathan, and we have to find out why. All we know is that it is tied in with Thomas Ripper’s death, and the moonstone Vendetta bought from Scabble.”

“Hmm. . .” Harry mused as he pored over the ledger. “Interesting. You said something about moonstones being used in watches, right? Well, you might want to investigate this payment here.”

Jonathan followed Harry’s finger along the final page of the ledger to a small, innocuous payment above the Scabble entry:

 

 

“Bartlemas is a watchmaker on the other side of town,” Harry explained. “And Thomas Horne, well, I hardly need to tell you who he is.”

At the mention of the second name, Arthur Blake looked up sharply, brow creased in thought. “Incredible. I wonder that this means?”

“I thought it was interesting too,” Harry said happily, blowing the fringe out of his eyes. Looking up at Jonathan and Carnegie’s blank faces, he chuckled. “You don’t know who he is, do you?”

“Not yet,” Carnegie growled, “but if you don’t tell us sharpish, there’s going to be some unpleasantness.”

“Really, Elias,” Arthur tutted reproachfully, “I’d have thought that you would have recognized the name. Especially given the current circumstances. . .”

Carnegie groaned loudly and put his head in his hands.

“Who is it?” asked Jonathan. “What’s going on?”

“Whatever it is,” the wereman replied grimly, “it’s bigger than I could have imagined.”

“Oh,” Raquella said suddenly. “I see.”

“I don’t!” Jonathan cried out. “Who’s Thomas Horne?”

“Most Darksiders knew by him by his real surname,” Harry added. “The one he took up after the Blood Succession. I called him Grandfather.”

Jonathan started. Harry’s grandfather was Thomas Ripper. Then it came to him – all the Rippers lived under assumed surnames until the Succession. Thomas Ripper must have grown up as Thomas Horne. And was still using that name to pay Bartlemas thirty years later. Carnegie was right – something very big was taking place in Darkside, and Jonathan was being inexorably dragged into it.

Harry closed the ledger with a merry thump. “Aren’t you glad you stopped by?”