Otto Malarkey dragged his thighs through the sewage, bearing Riley aloft as if he were nothing more significant weight-wise than a Gladstone bag.
Up ahead, behind his lumped ramparts and crenellations, sat King Rat, eyes a-gleaming, whiskers twitching with mild curiosity.
“You ain’t about to be liking this, Yer Washup,” said Malarkey to the rodent, testing the tunnel wall with his fingertips and finding the vibration he expected. And as every tosher worth his canary knew, vibrating walls had more poison behind them than the skin of a plague blister; steer well clear of vibration in the underworld, as no good ever came of a tremble.
No steering clear this time, thought Otto.
“Come out, my beauties,” he called, and he threw all his weight and prodigious strength behind a charge directly at the center of the humming wall, knocking out a chunk of masonry and revealing a furred darkness behind. And to incite the necessary frenzy, he put his boot to the belly of King Rat himself, sending him skimming along the stream, chittering his indignation.
We are under attack, he doubtless squeaked. To arms, brethren. To arms.
The rats erupted from the hole in a wave of claws and teeth, their squeals of outrage sounding eerily like human baby squeals. They flowed like a shoal of fish in a tight funnel that crashed over the heads and shoulders of Box’s men, drawing horrified screams from even the hardiest soldier.
“Hey ho,” said Malarkey, his momentum carrying him past the rat stream, and as he was hefting Riley, the boy was also clear.
Riley hung suspended from his regent’s grasp, watching from his upside-down position as their pursuers made a lightning transition from hunters to hunted. They began firing their weapons, sending bullets ricocheting from the walls and ironworks, but their efforts were futile. They may as well have been shooting the wind. The rats seemed to flow around their gunfire and latch on to their presumed enemies with tooth and claw. It was a sight that matched anything Riley had previously witnessed for pure horror, made all the more ghastly by the gloom and darkness, which left the brain free to shade in its own details.
The sounds, thought Riley. The sounds of nightmare.
Flesh being torn by sharp teeth and muffled screams.
They dare not open their mouths, he realized.
And suddenly Riley was on an upward arc, swinging toward the top section of the ladder into a shaft of blessed light.
“Grab on, boy!” shouted Malarkey.
And grab on Riley did, as though not just his life but the fate of his soul depended on it. He threaded his arms and legs through the rungs, pressing his cheek to the cold steel, taking a second to gather his faculties before attempting to climb to safety.
Below him in the sewer, a black river of vermin writhed past, bearing Box’s troops along like logs in a flood. They screamed now, their resolution not to open their mouths having been trumped by terror, and Riley felt a ray of pity in his cloud of revulsion. These were men, after all, and no man deserved to die in such a horrible manner.
Otto Malarkey laughed aloud as they avoided the grim stripping of their bones by mere inches.
“I spent some time in the circus, lad,” he said, his mood positively ebullient. “As a catch-man on the trapeze, I was stationed mostly. Observe.”
Anchored only by the tips of his toes, Malarkey swung his torso downward, thrusting both arms deep into the deadly tide of red eyes and vicious teeth. He closed one eye as his hands scrabbled among the tails and fur, as though searching for the shining shilling in a lucky dip.
“Gotcha,” he grunted after a moment, and he hauled his hands out of the rat river, each bearing a prize. Farley and the future lady. The ladder creaked under the extra weight, and several bolts popped from their holes. Malarkey’s muscles were stretched tight as piano wires and his eyes bulged from the effort.
Farley’s nose was busted flat to his face and his eyes were wild.
“Otto, please,” he said, desperately, knowing there was surely nothing he could say to extricate him from this particular circle of hell. “I can help you.”
“You can help me,” said Otto calmly. “You can help me live with myself, knowing I have avenged dear Barnabus.”
And as he was not essentially a cruel man, Malarkey delayed proceedings no further and simply dropped Farley into the furred pit of certain death, where he was instantly subsumed by the ripple of tails and shadows.
Without another glance at his brother’s killer, Otto switched his attention to the lady.
Malarkey took her in a two-handed grip by the collar of her strangely-cut greatcoat, and she in turn gripped his forearms. They hung like that wordlessly for a moment, and then the lady twisted one hand free and reached for her sidearm.
Plucky, thought Otto. A true revolveress.
“I ain’t going to drop you, lady,” he said even as the gun swung toward him. “We can go down for the big tumble together.”
The future soldier took a bead on Otto’s forehead. The gun spoke of death, but her eyes told another story.
“I am Otto, at your service,” he said, trying not to let the strain of bearing this magnificent creature’s weight show on his face.
“King Otto,” she said, and then she shook her head slightly, sending the red sunset rays flickering along the length of her hair.
I’ll be damned, thought Otto. I’ll be damned if she ain’t feeling this strange feeling too.
“I am Lunka Witmeyer,” said the Amazon. “Thundercat.”
“Thundercat,” said Otto. “I do not doubt it.”
Malarkey made a decision then to finally use the muscles built by his years on the French catch trapeze to bring a moment’s happiness to his turbulent life.
And so, with the malodorous gas from sewerage bubbles rising, and with the rustle and squeak of rat stampede gushing around Witmeyer’s boots, Otto strained and huffed, heaving Lunka Witmeyer slowly higher, inching her toward him, pulling her into the light.
It is more beautiful she gets, he realized. Her eyes are like to drill holes in my heart.
Witmeyer knew what was coming. Three times in her life men had attempted to kiss her. One was dead from trauma, one from shock, and the third survived but walked with a limp.
She felt herself tense, but not from the usual revulsion. She was suddenly nervous, anxious. She half wished to be dropped and half wished to never be let go.
For his part, Malarkey, who had kissed a hundred lassies, suddenly wondered if he should practice the mechanics on someone else first. What if his technique failed to impress? What if he kissed this girl once and never again? Should he not be reveling in his righteous vengeance? Was this new obsession disrespectful to the memory of Barnabus?
Riley called from above. “In the name of heaven, will you kiss or quarrel? I am for quitting this blasted hellhole.”
Impudence indeed, but it did the trick.
It’s now or never, thought Otto.
Now, now! thought Witmeyer.
And so Ram kissed Thundercat, and suddenly neither bed of roses nor mountain slope could compare with Her Majesty’s sewer for romance. In fact, from this moment on, Otto Malarkey could never so much as sniff a chamber pot without a faraway look creeping into his eyes.
Forever they kissed—or perhaps it was merely five seconds. At any rate, the sinews in Otto’s tree-trunk arms began to sing, and Malarkey was forced to deposit his sewer-catch on the tunnel floor, now that the carnivorous tide of rodents had passed.
“Remember me, Lunka,” he said softly as he swung himself upward and quickly scaled the ladder.
Witmeyer watched this man disappear into the sun—or so it seemed from her vantage—and long after he had gone she called after him.
“I will remember you, King Otto.”
And it never occurred to her then or later that she should have shot him.
On the street, Otto lay on his back, tears of pain running down his cheeks, holding his agonized biceps.
“Do you think the angel saw?”
Riley stood over him, nonplussed. “Saw which, my king? The crybaby tears, or the puppy-dog weakness in your limbs?”
“Either.”
“She saw neither,” said Riley. “The angel was blinded by your…majesty.”
Malarkey smiled and breathed deep of the fetid air. “Good. Very good. How looks my hair?”
Riley remembered once hearing Chevron Savano use an adjective most sarcastically.
“Awesome,” he said. “Totally awesome.”