Rated PG for language
by Jess Nevins
Special thanks to Alicia Germer for an incredible editing job.
What Has Come Before: By threat of blackmail the aging gunfighter and hero the Gunhawk has been dragged from his retirement in the wilds of Idaho. Flown on a special aircraft to London, and shown the secret base of a special group of British government operatives, he finds that he has been brought to England to track down one man: Jack the Ripper.
The Gunhawk carefully daubed the ends of his mouth with his napkin and then placed it beside his plate. "I'm not quite sure I heard you correct, Mike."
Mycroft exchanged knowing smiles with two of the other four figures at the table. His expression was arch. "We wish you to apprehend Jack the Ripper, Mr. Jones."
The Gunhawk said, "Uh-huh. I'm supposed to track a trail that's ten years old? Pull the other one, Mike, it's got spurs on it."
Mycroft smiled and ducked his head. "You will forgive me my little jest. We do not wish you to catch the Jack the Ripper, Mr. Jones. His case, as you know, was never solved by the Metropolitan Police." Mycroft's eyes glinted with a private humor. "However, a series of murders have recently been committed in Whitechapel--the scene, you might recall, of the original killings. The victims, then and now, were fallen women. And, as with the original murders of Bloody ‘88, the manner in which the tarts were carved is particularly...gruesome."
His smile faded, and his large, round face became unusually serious. "We have firm reasons for believing that this is not Springheel Jack returning to his old haunts. No, it is some new individual come to make the lives of the poor women of Whitechapel still worse."
The cynical-looking man wearing a police inspector's uniform muttered, "A shame he's not putting the touch on the men of Whitechapel. It might finally get them looking for work."
Pulling a pipe and envelope of tobacco from a sidepocket, the Gunhawk said nothing. He carefully tamped the tobacco into the cup of the pipe and played the flame from a pocket lighter over it. "So why me?" he said. "This sounds like something for your police, not for me. They got a lot more resources than I do, and they know the area better."
Mycroft said, "Come, come, Mr. Jones, you underrate yourself! Even on this side of the Atlantic we have heard of your skill and prowess as a manhunter; it was you, after all, who ran the madman, Paulo Costa, to ground."
Through a swelling cloud of thick, gray, sickly-sweet-smelling pipe smoke, the Gunhawk eyed Mycroft. "Ayuh. You're forgettin', Mike, I dealt with you before. Your style ain't changed. You butter up your capons real good just before you stick your knife into ‘em. What's the real reason you want me here?"
Mycroft chuckled good-naturedly. "That, my dear Mr. Jones, must remain my own knowledge, and none others'. But surely there are enough other reasons for you to stay and aid us? There are the women to think of, after all. Jades and trollops and dollymops they may be but undeserving of attention such as this, you would agree? You would be paid for your time, of course. And, more to the point, surely you've not lost your taste for the thrill of the hunt? Does your blood not sing, even if only a little, at the thought of pursuing some miscreant, of following him over rooftop and under the streets, ignoring all his attempted evasions, until finally you hold his collar in your hand and he cries, ‘Hold, enough!'? Can you look me in the eye, with all honesty, sir, and tell me that a prolonged senescence in the frontier of America is preferable to this?"
The Gunhawk, tempted despite himself, looked around, pipe in hand, and signaled a servant over. The Gunhawk took an empty bowl from the servant's tray and emptied his pipe into it and handed the bowl back to the servant. He refilled his pipe and puffed thoughtfully.
Mycroft waited, then said, "I had hoped this reminder would not be necessary, but copies of the letter Mr. Radley bore could easily be printed."
The Gunhawk squinted angrily and snarled, "You sumbitch, I knew that was comin'."
"I had hoped for your voluntary cooperation, but I will accept it flavored with resentment." He ponderously rose to his feet. "And now, Mr. Jones, it is time you began your investigations. Mr. Wisdom, here," and he gestured at the cynical-faced man in the police inspector's uniform, "will acquaint you with your accommodations. I expect daily reports from you. Good day, Mr. Jones."
And with that he lumbered to the near wall and pushed on a section, which revolved, carrying him behind it.
The man Mycroft had called "Mr. Wisdom" looked at the Gunhawk and said, "Just another of His Nibs' fish, eh, mate?"
The Gunhawk glowered at him. "I ain't no `fish,' boy."
The man smiled and raised his hand in a peace-making gesture. "No offense, Jones, but you're one of his fish, just like the rest of us. He plants his hook, then reels you in. He's done it to all of us at one point or another."
The Gunhawk glared, and then shrugged. "Best get this over with. Show me to my digs, Wisdom. I'm already sick of this muck you folks call air."
The man thumped his chest and grinned, "Good for the lungs, friend. And call me `Eddy.'"
The Gunhawk nodded and stood while the other three resumed their meals. As Wisdom led the Gunhawk through a door and down a hallway, the Gunhawk thought to himself about the last time he had been a part of a team such as this, and barely suppressed a wince at the thought.
Several floors up, Mycroft stood in a darkened room staring at a strange figure. Although it looked human from the waist up, below that it seemed attached to, or somehow carved from, a thick table, on the top of which was a chessboard and set of pieces scattered across the board.
Mycroft waited, finally saying, "You're playing Weisskopf's game?"
The figure answered in an oddly human voice. "Yes. I am playing out the remoter possibilities of a pawn-heavy attack."
Mycroft eyed the board. "Mate for black in 14 moves."
"Incorrect. White Queen to Queen's bishop 4, check in 3 moves."
If Mycroft colored with embarrassment, it was impossible to tell given his usually florid complexion. "Events unfolded as you predicted, Moxon. He refused to join without some form of coercion."
The figure did not respond.
Mycroft said, "I will continue to disagree with your conclusions in this matter, however."
"The data is clear. It is your accompanying suppositions which affect your judgment."
Mycroft grunted and left the room, and the figure returned to contemplating his chess game.
The Gunhawk looked around the room, which was Spartan even by the Gunhawk's standards, containing only a cot, a closet, and a small nightstand. He looked back at Wisdom, who shrugged. "Mycroft, he doesn't like us to spend time down here unless we're sleeping. He wants us out on the streets doing legwork. He says to leave the thinking to him."
Gunhawk muttered, "Same old Mike." He slid back his mask, rubbed his eyes, replaced the mask and said, "Then we'd best get started. Sooner I can get back to m'cabin, the happier I'll be."
Wisdom looked at him sadly. "Sorry to break it to you, Jones, but once Mycroft sets his hook, he doesn't ever let go. You're here for good, I'm afraid."
The Gunhawk looked at Wisdom and shrugged. "We'll see about that. For now, why'n't you take me back to the others. I got me some questions I want to ask them."
"Don't you want to change? What you're wearing now is a bit," his voice trailed away as he sought for the right word, "conspicuous."
"That's the point. We want Jack Junior to know we're coming. Rabbits is easier to hunt once you flush ‘em from their hole."
"This man we hunt is no rabbit, Mr. Jones. A rabid badger or bear, if such a thing is possible."
"So much the better. He hears we're coming for him, he'll either bolt or try for us. If my name is really as well-known as Mycroft says, this jasper will hear I'm looking for him, and he'll do something stupid. I've hunted his type before; just settin' still ain't an option for them. They either rabbit, or they fight. Usually they'll try to dry-gulch you. Either way is fine with me. I done made m'livin' survivin' traps and ambushes. I doubt our boy's got the smarts to set up somethin' I can't fight my way out of. I--" He stopped and looked Wisdom up and down for a moment. He said, "How long you been a, what do you folks call them, a bobby?"
Wisdom stared. "13 years. How did you know? What did Mycroft tell you?"
The Gunhawk shook his head. "Nuthin'. I just know what a copper looks like. I seen enough of them in my life. You always worked for--what did Mycroft call this?"
"He didn't. We're...all I can tell you is that we're part of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police."
Gunhawk looked sharply at Wisdom. "`All you can tell me'? Can tell me, or will tell me?"
"Both. Much of what Mycroft plans, he won't talk about--at least, not to us. I don't know why he felt it necessary to send Radley all the way to America just for you. I mean no offense, but I sincerely doubt that you'll be able to find anything the rest of us weren't able to. We have manhunters here in England, even in London itself. They may not have your years, but they aren't novices at The Game, either."
The Gunhawk nodded. "I was wonderin' about that myself, but you heard Mycroft. I asked him, and he wouldn't say."
Wisdom nodded. "As for what I won't tell you, well, I suppose there is no harm in you knowing this, at least. I am the liaison between Metro and the Special Branch. Which means I know things--secrets and the like--which I simply can't divulge."
The Gunhawk slowly nodded. "Alright, I can see that. Fair enough. Tell me this, though: is the Special Branch still the ones to handle `political crimes'?"
"Yes, that is still our brief."
"Then what the hell am I doing here? Ain't nuthin' political ‘bout these murders, is there?"
Wisdom shook his head. "Not so far as any of us is aware. Except in that they pose some threat to the Throne, I suppose. You'd have to ask Mycroft about it."
Gunhawk said, sourly, "And he won't tell me squat. Alright, best lead me back to the others. I got some questions for ‘em."
After returning to the large cavern, which Wisdom described as the "Vehicle Hall," Wisdom and the Gunhawk returned to the Tube Stop tunnel entrance, the spot from which Gunhawk and Radley had emerged from the teardrop-shaped vehicle.
The three were waiting for them, their stances and expressions showing impatience and exasperation. The woman said, "I hope you have something else planned besides keeping us here all hours?"
"Mebbe," the Gunhawk said. "First I wanna know who you three are. I like to know who I'm riding with."
The woman looked down at him and then at Wisdom, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. Gunhawk, catching the motion from the corner of his eye, scowled and said, "I don't know how y'all run things over here, but from where I'm from, you join someone's team, you tell them about yourself, and them you, so's there's no unpleasant surprises later on. You want me for this, I need to know I can depend on you." He crossed his arms, his frown deepening. "If that ain't the case, then you best fetch Mike right now and tell him to get me a new team."
They looked at each other. The the tall black-haired man said reluctantly, "I...do not believe that will be necessary, Mr. Jones. Edward, Mycroft did give us some discretion in what we do."
Wisdom said, "He wouldn't like this, John, you know that."
"John" said, "I can't say as I care for his methods, either, which I suppose makes us equal, he and I. Regardless, Mr. Jones' reasoning is persuasive to me." He turned to the Gunhawk and offered his hand. "Dr. John Silence, Mr. Jones."
The Gunhawk shook his hand, noting the great strength in Silence's grasp. He said, "Pleased to meet you, Doc. What's Mike got you here for--takin' care of the wounded?"
Silence shook his head. "No, and please, call me John. At least, that is not my primary purpose; although, I am quite capable of that, if need be. No, Mr. Holmes dragooned me into the Special Branch due to my experience with the supernatural."
The Gunhawk's expression faltered. "The supernatural? What, ghosts and such?"
Silence said, "Would that it were that simple. No, Mr. Jones, my experience and training is for far darker beings. I've done the occasional ghost-breaking, but unlike my confréres John Bell and Flaxman Low, I'm equipped for more than the simple debunking of hoaxes."
Gunhawk cocked his head as Silence spoke; then he said, with a quizzical expression, "How long were you in India, John?"
Silence smiled. "Seven years, Mr. Jones, at the Temples of Jagannatha in Calcutta and the Saivistas at Dehra Dûn. How did you know?"
"Visited there back in ‘83, after we left here. We ended up chasing Loveless all the way around the world. We...." His voice trailed away. "Well, anyhow, I learned to pick up the accent." He turned to the woman. "What's your story?"
She gazed down at him, not saying anything for a moment. She wore her black hair short, not even down to her shoulders, and her face, with its high cheekbones, pine-green eyes, and naturally determined expression, was beautiful to the Gunhawk. Her body was just the type the Gunhawk liked: slim and muscular, the kind of physique a man could break himself on. Her costume seemed to be all of one piece and constructed of tough, worn, black leather. It was both shirt and pants, which the Gunhawk found both shocking and arousing. Everyone knew what what kind of woman wore pants, and even though the Gunhawk knew fashions had changed in recent years (he had tried to keep up with the news, and he had seen Georges Sand and Amelia Bloomer speak a couple of years back), there was still too much of the old West in him. He was feeling like something left over and left behind, and more and more he'd been wondering what place there was for him in the new century. The Gunhawk realised he'd been staring at her and shook his head vigorously. "Sorry. It's just...been a while since I been around a woman."
"This isn't how you act when you're on a job, is it?"
He shook his head, feeling his ears flush with embarrassment. "Naw."
"Good. Last time I traveled with someone who thought with his privates, I had to leave him for the lions."
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded twice. "You ain't one of these British ladies, then."
Wisdom snorted quiet amusement, and she shot him a venomous before answering the Gunhawk. "No. And I'm not one of Holmes' Pillow Ladies, either. I'm me, and nobody else."
He nodded again. "You ain't said who you are yet, though."
"My name is Sultana. You won't have heard of me, Gunhawk. I've never gone to the United States, and what I've done doesn't make the papers."
The Gunhawk slowly drew a cigarillo from a breast pocket. He lit a match with his thumbnail and then lit the cigarillo, considering her through a squint and the smoke of the match. "Uh-huh. Tell me where you've been, then."
"Kôr, the Roraima Plateau, K'un-Lun, places you haven't been in fifteen years."
He continued to eye her, puffing thoughtfully. "You seem to know a lot ‘bout my life."
"Oh, I kept myself very well informed about your doings, Gunhawk. Your penny dreadfuls were quite popular over here. I read all of them growing up."
"Uh-huh. You'd be about 25 now?"
She smiled indulgently, the sort of patronizing smile men and women give their grandparents when they thought the old-timers were being foolish or going addled. "Oh, yes. But you retired, and I grew up. You got old while I was going to Africa and finding things you never dreamt of. Oh, yes, I'm very aware of your life, Gunhawk. I've had to be aware of anyone who might be a...competitor."
"You got anything goin' for you aside from your size and attitude?"
She smiled again, brighter still. "I'm stronger than anyone you'll have ever met, and quicker. And much less vulnerable to harm."
"And you don't think I should be here, do you?"
Her smile became genuine. "Meaning no offense to you, Gunhawk, but no. You aren't necessary. The Branch has plenty of men and women as capable as you were in your prime, and we've no time to be shepherding someone who could hurt himself just getting out of bed in the morning."
Silence stared at her. "Good lord, Sultana, that is an unwomanly statement, even for you."
She turned a cool look on him. "In the veldt, Doctor, there is no room for British morés. Strength and speed are all. His presence will slow us down and could weaken us when we need strength."
The Gunhawk said, "Well, shit, Sultana, you persuade Mike of that and I'll be on m'way."
The others looked at Wisdom, who shook his head. "Out of the question."
Sultana grimaced and the Gunhawk shrugged. He turned with some reluctance to the tall blond man who had so repulsed him earlier. "And you?"
The blond man opened his mouth to speak, but Wisdom immediately overrode him. "Mycroft does not think you need to know that, Mr. Jones. You can refer to him simply as `Mister Ona.' His identity is privileged information. What he can do...if necessary, you will discover that for yourself."
Gunhawk looked at Wisdom, who coolly locked gazes with him, obviously insistent on this point. After a moment the Gunhawk shrugged and nodded. "As you like. Ain't my affair if you want to keep secrets from your team; although if this gets me shot I will come back for you, Wisdom."
Wisdom looked somewhat regretful as he said, "I'm quite certain that Mycroft would see to me were that to happen, Mr. Jones. You forget, I think, that you aren't the only one here against your will. Mycroft is a modern Damocles, and there are swords over all of our heads."
Gunhawk nodded. "Right. So how's about showing me where these murders of yours took place? Sooner begun sooner finished, as my ma used to say."
Sultana smiled sweetly. "Was that during the American Revolution?"
As Wisdom called for another of the teardrop-shaped vehicles the Gunhawk muttered, "This is gonna be a long day."
Seven hours later the five descended from a carriage at the intersection of Prospect Place and Wapping Street. The Gunhawk, balefully eyeing the soot-filled sky and the weak sunshine trickling through it, turned his collar up against the wind. He studied the murder site, the ruins of a burned-out pub in which the prostitute had plied her trade. Wisdom and the others watched disinterestedly. They had been examining other murder sites with the Gunhawk through the morning and into the afternoon, but they had already been to each location after the murders had first been committed. Gunhawk turned to Wisdom. "Y'say that the last murder was this one?"
Wisdom sighed heavily. "Yes."
"And it took place only Monday?"
"For the last time, yes."
The Gunhawk looked around, not liking what he saw: tenements and hovels with heaps of refuse and offal in front of the buildings. The stench of raw sewage hung heavy in the air. From glassless windows suspicious and frightened eyes gazed down at him. He looked at the other four. Wisdom was tapping his feet with impatience and glaring with obvious disgust at his surroundings. Rather than brief looks followed by a perusal of the police reports, he had reacted with irritation when Gunhawk had insisted on prolonged searches of the murder sites. Wisdom's mood had worsened with each search. Sultana was holding herself aloof. Silence was not quite huddled beneath his greatcoat, and "Mister Ona," whose beautiful but sickening face, like a worm-filled peach, was distracted. He was staring off into space and whispering in a melodious and pain-filled voice, "I can smell the blood...Oh, Creator, I can smell it." He had said that at all five murder sites.
Gunhawk said, "Wisdom, your police found no trace of this guy?"
"No," he sighed.
"Let me see if I've got this straight: it's 12:30 in the morning, early Sunday. Half of London's working women are walking by this spot with their customers, this poor whore gets her liver and lights removed and her face cut off, and then this guy leaves--all without anybody hearing or seeing anything?"
"Yes. You must understand, Mr. Jones, that the citizens of Whitechapel distrust the police, and whatever it is they know they refuse to share with us. Someone undoubtedly saw something, but no one will tell us anything."
Gunhawk pointed at the dirigible-filled sky. "No chance he could'a used one'a them to get away?"
Wisdom, showing some interest in the Gunhawk's words for the first time, considered the question for a moment. "I suppose it's remotely possible, but we control the most mobile, and the others would not be easily acquired or abandoned, and we haven't heard of any stolen balloons. Besides, you are crediting our man with far greater resources than he has. No, I'm quite sure he fled on foot."
The Gunhawk mulled this over as he looked around him. "Y'might be right, but only halfway. Someone who does work like that ain't gonna be clean. Ever see someone skinned? Hell of a lot of blood in the human body. This guy, whoever or whatever he was, would'a been covered in it. Someone would'a seen him, especially on a crowded street, and not all of them would be unwilling to say somethin'. Unless nobody really did see him."
Gunhawk pointed at a nearby sewer grate. "Our boy didn't hide in Whitechapel, and these folks ain't protectin' him. I think he went under Whitechapel."
Wisdom shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Jones. We have it on good authority that no one out of place traveled through London Under that night."
"`On good authority'? Whose?"
Wisdom, his irritation flaring into anger, snapped, "That needn't concern you."
The Gunhawk said mildly, "You done dragged my ass halfway around the world for this. I'd think you'd listen to what I got to say."
"We did not bring you here to make us listen to things we already know not to be true!"
The Gunhawk turned to the blond man. "You, `Ona,' or whatever your name is--you been sayin' you can smell the blood. You mean that?"
"Ona," startled from his contemplation of distant smokestacks visible above the low rooftops of Whitechapel, looked at the Gunhawk as if from a very great distance. "Yes," he said softly, his voice a breathy and musical hum that raised the hackles on the Gunhawk's neck and caused strange, almost sexual feelings to shoot through his body. "I can smell the blood. I can hear her screams. I can feel her soul escaping from her tortured body. I can smell it all."
The Gunhawk pointed at the grate. "Go take a sniff over there and tell me what you get. Take off the grate and hop in if you can."
With a smooth, balletic motion "Ona" glided over to the grate and pulled it free with a yank of his hand. He dropped into the open hole. The Gunhawk heard a distant splash, followed by a quiet, hair-raising moan. "Oh, Presence...the blood...the blood..."
The Gunhawk walked to the hole and, holding his breath against the rank stench emerging from it, said, "Did he go that way?"
"...yes...oh, in the name of Shining City, the blood..."
The Gunhawk walked back and said to the distressed-looking Wisdom, "Dunno who was informin' you, but I think they somehow ain't as reliable as you thought." He looked at the others. "I say we use `Ona' here to track our boy."
The others looked at each other, clearly nonplussed. Gunhawk waited, hearing only the whistling of the wind and the faint moans of "Ona." Silence finally said, "I...do not believe that would be a good idea."
"What?"
Sultana, showing for the first time something other than confidence--the Gunhawk thought that her uneasiness might almost be fear--said, "We...have an agreement..."
"What?"
Wisdom said, "We don't...go into London Under without advance warning..."
The Gunhawk sighed and closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them and composed himself. Keeping his voice calm, he said, "Sounds t'me like y'all got some things t'tell me `bout. If you want me to catch this feller, y'got to tell me enough to do m'job."
Silence and Sultana looked at Wisdom, who was clearly torn. He finally said, "Mycroft...would not approve...but..." He sighed. "Mr. Jones, you have to understand that Mycroft drills it into us that everything we do must be kept secret and hidden. `Let secrecy be your byword.' If I've heard Mycroft say that once, I've heard him say it a hundred times." Silence and Sultana nodded as Wisdom went on. "And between that, and everything he doesn't tell us, or the lies...and we have to think about what will happen if he decides to use what he's got on us..."
"Look, Wisdom, he brought me here t'do a job, and now you're dancin' around and not givin' me what I need to do that job. I'm sorry he's blackmailin' you as he is me, but the only way I can get back home is to find this jasper. Now, y'wanna tell me what's going on, or am I gonna have to go down into the sewers by m'self?"
Wisdom sighed heavily. He took off his bowler, ran his hand through his hair, and looked up as dirty snow began to fall from the slate-grey sky. He said, "Might as well get out of this stuff. At least it's warm in the Under; although Mycroft will have my head for this, I shouldn't wonder..."
Wisdom led the other three into the open sewerhole, using the iron rungs set into the stone wall of the hole to climb down into the tunnel. Wisdom walked a dozen yards down the tunnel to an open area where four other tunnels converged. There he stopped and waited for the others to catch up with him. "Ona" was the last to catch up; he had stopped moaning, but his face reflected his obvious misery and his right hand was twitching.
Sultana was examining her boots and cursing under her breath, and Silence was choking on the heavy, warm, moist, rank air of the sewers, but the Gunhawk merely lit a cigarillo while he looked around, his match's flame igniting numerous sparks in the methane-heavy air. The tunnels were circular, about eight feet in diameter with small ledges had been set on the floor beside the main trenches carrying the water-born refuse. The stone of the tunnels were covered with slime and greenish algae. On the ceiling directly above them was written or carved in glowing yellow characters, "16C."
The Gunhawk said, "What're those for?" and pointed at the characters on the roof at the same time that Silence said, "Merciful Heaven, the stench!"
"That's the marking system that is used by...those who live here," Wisdom said.
The Gunhawk nodded. He said to Silence, "You think this is bad, you should have been in the sewers `neath Shanghai back in `84. Now that was foul."
Silence glared at him. "That is hardly a comfort to me currently, sir."
The Gunhawk nodded and offered him a cigar. "Try smokin' this. It'll help dull the smell."
Silence reluctantly took it an slid it into his breast pocket. "Maybe later. Thank you."
The Gunhawk said to Wisdom, "So, now y'wanna tell me what the story is?"
After a moment Wisdom said, "What you must understand is that there are two cities, Mr. Jones. There is London Above--the city you and I are most familiar with, the most important city in the world, the home to three million Englishmen and women, the capital of the Empire. And then there is the city below London, home to perhaps 150,000 men and women--beggars, thieves, and worse. We call it `London Under.'"
He gestured toward the tunnels and the stone walls. "No one knows for sure how old these are, or how far they go. I'm told some of the deeper tunnels predate Londinium, and the Romans built that almost 1500 years ago. Certainly sections of the tunnels were used by the Druids in their blood sacrifices.
"London Above is...perhaps ‘ruled' is the wrong word. But there are individuals and groups who have power and influence as there are in any city and especially in any capital. Not just the obvious ones, but also people like Mycroft and the Special Branch, and the Chinaman who took over Moriarty's network after the Great Detective saw to the Professor back in ‘91.
"However, unlike London Above, there is only one power in London Under. His name is `Lord Horrabin,' and what we know for certain about him is very little. We know that he has been the leader of the beggars of London--their king, you might say--since at least 1810. There is some record of a conflict involving him and the poet William Ashbless and a group of mad Egyptians during that winter. We believe he is some kind of sorcerer, else how else could he have survived since then, unchanged?"
He paused and waited for some kind of reaction from the Gunhawk. Getting none, he said, "So the idea of magic doesn't strike you as absurd?"
The Gunhawk emphatically shook his head. "I seen enough of it to know it exists. Hell, anyone who's been through Navajo or ‘pache territory could tell you it's real."
Wisdom nodded. "Good. Then you'll believe me when I say that we have reason to believe that he is invulnerable to harm and seemingly immortal. We have reports of his surviving knives and bullets.
"Beyond that almost all we know is rumor. It is said that he wears the makeup of Joey The Clown--or that he is Joey The Clown, come to life. The street people claim he walks on stilts both above ground and below, that he cannot bear the touch of the ground. We hear stories of dark rituals he is said to conduct down here--cannibalism and worse. Those are supposed to give him an arcane power. The deformed beggars were, it's said, made that way by him."
The Gunhawk puffed on his cigar and said, "You said somethin' ‘bout an `agreement'?"
Wisdom nodded somewhat reluctantly, the Gunhawk thought. "Horrabin has sent...intermediaries...to Mycroft demanding that he reach an arrangement with him. There'd been certain cases where Branch men were forced to pursue enemy agents into the sewers. It seems that Horrabin had not taken well to those intrusions into his domain.
"Now, Mycroft Holmes is not a man to whom one makes demands. He naturally refused. After that, Branch men, if they went into London Under, disappeared, and the Branch suffered various inconveniences--our vehicles broke down at bad times and our families were harassed. This was back in ‘94, when we were busy with the Brotherhood of Freedom, and Mycroft didn't have the time to deal with Horrabin as he deserved. So Mycroft agreed to the deal, and since then we've let Horrabin alone and left London Under to its own devices. And we give a day's warning before we go into Horrabin's territory.
"Now do you see why coming down here is a bad idea? You risk breaking the treaty and worse by doing this, Mr. Jones. I ask you: please reconsider. Your actions will lead to, at the very least, our deaths. Mycroft would not approve."
The Gunhawk unbuttoned his coat and loosened his guns in their holsters. "No dice, Wisdom. `Ona,' lead the way." Twitching and occasionally uttering small groans, `Ona' set off, making his way to the south and deeper beneath the city's surface, the others carefully following him.
Author's Notes:
Moxon is from Ambrose Bierce's 1893 story, "Moxon's Master."
John Silence is from Algernon Blackwood's John Silence novels.
(John Bell and Flaxman Low were occult detectives published soon after
Blackwood's stories debuted)
Sultana is from Belot's 1879 novel, A Parisian Sultana.
Kôr is from H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, among
other novels.
Lord Horrabin is from Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates.
The "Brotherhood of Freedom" is from Griffith's 1894 Angel of the
Revolution.
The Roraima Plateau is in the Amazon basin, in Brazil. During the Victorian era there was a great vogue for writing "lost world" stories set there; the 2000-ft cliff leading to it had not been scaled at that time, and it was imagined that plant and animal life might have remained unchanged there for millions of years, which would have meant that dinosaurs (or other, still wilder creatures) still existed there.
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