Malarkey steered them with the flow downstream, a mite from the great concrete abutment and into a bricked nook with a lower vaulted ceiling that brushed Riley’s crown as he followed Malarkey in. They huddled together inside the pitch-black corner, a whirlpool of filth swirling down a minor sinkhole between their feet.
Malarkey was forced to bend low so his door-knocker beard brushed Riley’s ear.
“I wants you to know, lad,” he whispered, “as you’ve been a decent cove to me recently, that there will be no surrendering should it come to it. Otto Malarkey ain’t fleeing tail out for the pleasure of a bullet to the brain pan. If we are rumbled, then I is going to bestow the Order of the Boot on these future coves, if that’s what they be. You blend in with the larger floaters and make yer way clear.”
Riley could not help but be a little indignant at the very notion that he could blend with the larger floaters.
“What?”
“Sorry,” said Malarkey contritely. “I meant to say, make your way clear. Don’t squeal to Figary.”
“But…”
“Shhh, now, lad. We are as the dead.”
Darkness hung over them like a blanket and in consequence, sounds appeared amplified. They heard with crystal clarity the gurgle and hiss of water flowing past their hiding place. They heard the occasional distant cluster of squeaks as a huddle of rats clicked past on their claws. And they heard the inexorable approach of trained men. There were no shouts or barging splashes, just slight rhythmic sluicing of the underground river of waste.
They are approaching from both ends of the tunnel, thought Riley. A pincer movement.
As they huddled in their corner, slowly the light revealed itself, brightening by a single shade the darkness upstream. Perhaps there was a breach in the arches, or perhaps a manhole had been left open. Either way, Riley was glad of the light, as it had come to symbolize life to him, even though he realized that they would be visible to their pursuers should they think to search the niche.
The waiting was almost unbearable. More than once the notion popped into Riley’s mind that it would be better to abandon all caution and run hell for leather to their manhole. At least then the cursed wait would be over.
I had thought that never again in this life would I be as afraid as I was with Garrick, but now that familiar dread has returned to my gut.
And then a peculiar thing happened in that dank hellhole: Riley’s fear evaporated.
I cannot possibly survive yet another brush with old Jack the Reaper, he realized. Soon I will be at the Pearlies, with my dear mum waiting there for me.
This notion made him smile, a smile he quickly extinguished in case his teeth might glow.
Just because a fellow doesn’t fear the big drop no more, doesn’t mean he welcomes it.
Now, instead of fear ruling his thoughts, Riley’s natural intelligence rose to the surface.
I will not be blending with the larger floaters, he thought. I will be fighting beside my king.
And these soldiers might be surprised at how well he could fight; after all, Riley had been trained in the martial arts by his erstwhile master: Albert Garrick.
Otto Malarkey will realize my worth before I go, he vowed silently.
The men drew nearer from both sides, until they congregated in a dark huddle directly in front of the niche. Malarkey and Riley held their breaths, tensing themselves for battle, but black as the tunnel was, their nook was blacker. Shadows upon shadows, folded in velvet layers. Even a bat would pass them by. They could not be seen from beyond spitting distance, and the first one to venture inside that radius would pay the price for it.
Or so a reasonable person would think.
Then came a familiar voice from the bunch.
“You there, crouching in your nook. We can see you clear as day.”
Farley. The murdering tattooist.
Bluff. It must be.
Malarkey’s fingers gripped Riley’s shoulder and it was clear he thought the same.
Bluff. They got nothing but front.
The voice spoke again, flat and mocking. “Yes, that’s right, Otto. You two boys hug each other tight, and perhaps we’ll just go away.”
Malarkey removed his hand, and Riley knew what was next. The king was a tosher, and he fancied his chances in a tunnel.
Farley’s voice floated from the shadows. “I see you, Malarkey, reaching into your pocket all sneaky. What have you got in there? A blade? Some old one-shot piece? Or even my gun, which is almost out of bullets?”
This was no bluff. The traitor could see their every move. “You two are literally up that creek everyone keeps talking about. Would you like to see how far up the creek you are?”
He snapped his fingers and all at once a dozen focused red beams sprang from the darkness.
The devil’s eyes, Malarkey had called them. Where they went, death followed.
The beams sought out the hiding pair and painted their faces and chests.
“You know what the lasers are, right, Otto?” called Farley. “You’ve seen one before, when I put down your animal of a brother. So come on out, and we’ll go talk to the Blessed Colonel. We only want to talk.”
The shadowy mass shuddered as the men laughed. No one believed this.
“Very well, that’s not the whole truth,” admitted Farley. “We only want to talk…first.”
Riley felt Otto squat low, and he knew this was not the bended knee of submission, but the crouch of a wild cat gathering itself to pounce.
Sorry, Your Majesty, thought Riley, reaching into his vest packets for some paper twists. This time I go first.
Riley stepped high onto Otto’s horizontal back, then threw himself up and out, directly into the path of a dozen crisscrossing laser beams.
The common wisdom is that a person traveling in time should not touch anything or interact with anyone, but what if someone touches and interacts with you?
—Professor Charles Smart
LONDON SEWERS, 1899
Lunka Witmeyer appeared one hundred percent ready for action as she stood beside Major Farley in the sewer water, but internally she was experiencing something of a professional crisis. There were several contributory factors, the main one being the time tunnel trip itself. This was a pretty beyond the call of duty kind of experience, and yet Clover Vallicose was acting as though they had done nothing more extraordinary than take the wrong exit from the highway. It was all very meant to be as far as Clover was concerned. Destiny sucked them back in time a century or so and dumped them in musty catacombs that were shrinking Witmeyer’s sinus cavities to pinholes and demoting her, as a woman, to a second-class citizen. Witmeyer did not like being a second-class citizen, and she was smart enough to see the irony in the fact that she was resenting the treatment that she herself had dished out to others for so long.
The tracker in Malarkey’s boot tells us he is in the adjacent sewers, which is too close for comfort. Do you think you can handle a local gangster? Box had asked her.
This was language Witmeyer could understand.
And a hundred more like him, she had said confidently.
No need for hyperbole, Sister Witmeyer. Answer plainly and there can be no misunderstandings. In my opinion, bluster and exaggeration lead to crossed wires, which is…
Let me guess, Witmeyer had thought. Inefficient.
Inefficient, Clayton Box had said.
And even worse than being lectured by Box was the fact that apparently Clover had become Box’s right-hand woman, while she herself was trolling the sewers, hunting for strays.
You go with Major Farley, Clover had told her (ordered her, in fact) thirty minutes ago. I can’t leave the Blessed Colonel at this delicate point in the operation.
The Blessed Colonel, indeed.
Box was like any other man. He liked having his ego st
roked, and as long as Clover kept filling his head with tales of how venerated he would be in the future, she would be guaranteed a place at the Blessed Colonel’s side.
And though Witmeyer was obeying Clover’s order, her heart wasn’t in the work; she was only doing it on the off chance that she would get to stamp on this Malarkey’s face and put the smile back on her own. But even this hope of a little lighthearted entertainment was snatched from her by Box’s addendum to Clover’s command: Oh, and Witmeyer, bring him back here alive, if possible. Otto Malarkey has been plotting against me, and I need to know what he has set in motion.
In her current mood, Lunka Witmeyer half felt like joining Malarkey in his plot, whatever that might prove to be. It was likely that there was in fact no mysterious plot, and this so-called King Otto was simply a common thug sniffing around the peripheries of the group he once controlled, searching for a way back in. This entire mission was a fool’s errand, and a Thundercat’s time should not be wasted on it.
I am not being appreciated, she realized now, up to her knees in human and animal slop. I might as well not even be here.
The resentment and bitterness choking Witmeyer’s heart were new emotions to her. In many ways Witmeyer’s social development had been drastically stunted by her career choice, in that her mode of interaction with others was usually violent and intimidating. In matters of the heart she was very much an adolescent. At this precise moment, more than a century outside her comfort zone, standing in a torrent of filth with people who openly despised her, Witmeyer was confused and lonely, which made her very receptive to the emotion that was about to break over her in a tidal wave of endorphins.
On both sides of her, the colonel’s soldiers were having a fine time watching Malarkey and his boy through their night vision goggles, and strobing them with their laser sights.
“You know what the lasers are, right, Otto?” called Farley. “You’ve seen one before, when I put down your animal of a brother. So come on out, and we’ll go talk to the Blessed Colonel. We only want to talk.”
The men laughed, and Witmeyer got the feeling they were laughing at her as well as Malarkey.
Paranoid. I’m getting paranoid.
“Very well, that’s not the whole truth,” said Farley. “We only want to talk…first.”