Chapter Twenty-one

I n the end, Violet threw Josef out.

“You’re getting under our feet,” she said, “and we don't need an audience. Come back in an hour. And bring some tea and biscuits when you do.”

Perhaps seeing Josef’s unease at leaving, Alex said, “I'll be all right. We can trust them.”

“More than you can trust each other,” Vi muttered and closed the door in Josef’s face.

He stood staring at the frosted glass for a few moments, considered spending the hour wandering the halls of the museum in search of tea and biscuits, and decided he could do something more useful with his time.

A few minutes later, he was crowding into a third-class carriage at South Kensington and heading straight for the Clarion . He had no idea what the day would bring, but he knew one thing for sure: if the ghoul didn’t get them, The Society probably would. Which was why he needed to see May while he had the chance; he needed some insurance.

It was a long twenty minutes, but at last the train rattled into Blackfriars and Josef trotted up the stairs from the station, heading back into the bright morning. After weeks of grey skies, the day had dawned bright and clear. Once, that would have been welcome, but these days, clear skies promised more Gotha incursions. Odd, to think about that. The war felt very far away now that death was stalking him here in London, but the war couldn’t be forgotten. Not by him, nor by anyone. Besides, in a way, this was all part of the war. The slaughter in Europe had woken the ghoul to gorge on the battlefields, and from there they’d spread to London and to who knew how many other cities across the continent.

If the people knew that …

He mulled over the idea as he pushed open the office door and climbed the stairs to the Clarion’ s newsroom. The disarray following The Society’s raid had been cleared up, and only the organised chaos of a busy newspaper remained. May, as usual, sat at the heart of it with her head down, reading at her desk. The door to her office stood open, and so Josef didn’t bother to knock.

“May?” he said, when she didn’t immediately notice him. “Can I have a word?”

Her head shot up, eyes widening. “Good God, Joe, you look like something the cat dragged in. What happened?”

He opened his mouth to respond— I've got tangled up with a stupidly noble, lying toff, and we both might be dead by teatime —and said, “Had a close call with one of the Gothas last night.”

“Bloody hell!” May had never been ladylike, nor wanted to be, and Josef relished that enormously. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?” He had the strong impression she wasn’t referring to bumps and bruises. May still thought he was shell- shocked, after all. Well, today he was , but not for the reasons she imagined.

“Knocked the stuffing out of me,” he admitted, stepping further into her office, and closing the door behind him. “But no damage.”

Her expression remained doubtful, but she waved him towards the visitor’s chair. “Did you get any pictures?”

“Pictures?” Christ, he hadn’t even thought about it. Some journalist he was. “Too dark,” he said. “Sorry.”

Her eyebrows rose. “What’s going on, Joe?”

Too uncomfortable to hold her piercing gaze, he dropped his eyes to the desk instead. Papers sprawled everywhere, and under a sheaf of them, he saw the corner of a photograph poking out. One of his.

“I…” He hesitated over the lie, but the truth was impossible. She’d think he’d gone doolally, and he needed her to trust him. “I need you to publish this in the Clarion , not in a pamphlet that half a dozen people will see.” Reaching into his pocket, he set before her the words he’d written. No mention of ghouls, only the mundane horrors of war. The truth people needed to see and hear. It was only a first draft, but it would have to be enough. “I know people won’t like it, but what are we here for if it’s not to tell people things they don’t like?”

May looked at him, then pulled the paper across the table, unfolded it, and started reading. It wasn’t elegant prose, but it was a heartfelt account of Sykes’s death among the corpses at the dressing station. As vivid as Josef could paint it with his inadequate words, far less eloquent than the picture. But that, he knew she’d never publish.

“Joe...” May shook her head, but he could see the tremble in her lips as she gazed at his words. “It’s… very distressing, and it definitely breaches DORA.” She looked up at him. “They’d shut us down.”

“Then we regroup, change the title of the paper, and start again.” Leaning across the desk, he grabbed her hand. “This war is destroying us. Destroying our humanity. It’s turning good men into animals. Worse than animals. If you knew—” He took a breath. “For God’s sake, May, we’ve got to do something before there’s nothing left of us but monsters.”

May stared at him, slowly tugging her hand free. “I don’t know,” she said, raising her voice when Josef started protesting, “ but I will consider what you’ve said. There’s a lot at stake here. You know that.”

He did know that, although following the rules had never seemed more pointless. He also knew that this was the best offer he’d get; May had her own priorities, and he’d said his piece. He’d done all that he could.

The clock on the wall above her desk read a quarter past ten. Josef pushed to his feet. “There’s one more thing before I go.”

May leaned back in her chair, looking up at him. “Are you resting, Joe? Taking care of yourself?”

Ignoring the questions, he said, “You remember that envelope I gave you before I went to the front? Have you still got it?”

May stilled. “You mean the one with your will in it? And your Post Office Savings book? Of course I have it, but Joe...” She sat up straight again. “For God’s sake, what do you mean? Why are you asking?”

From his pocket, he produced his notebook. It contained all his notes about the ghoul and The Winconian Society, including names and the address of their Mayfair club. Holding it out to May, he said, “Put this with the rest, and read it if anything happens to me in the next couple of days—”

May shot to her feet. “Joe, what the hell’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you. I just need you to keep this safe.” He set the notebook on her desk. “And if you read it, just…do what you think best. Every word of it is true. I swear.”

Coming around from behind her desk, May glanced at the notebook, then back at him. “Joe, promise me you’re not about to do something stupid.”

He laughed; it sounded too harsh. “You know I could never promise that.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “You’ve not been right since you came back from the war, and I’m worried about you.” She scanned his face, her eyes full of concern. “Please, Joe, we’ve lost too many good men.”

He took both her hands in his and tried to be as honest as possible. “Look, it’s not like that. I’m just in a spot of bother, that’s all. With luck, it’ll all be fine and dandy.”

“What kind of bother? Let me help you.”

“Keeping this safe is helping me. And if you do read it, believe it. That’s all I ask.”

To his surprise, she threw her arms around him in a swift, hard hug. “Be careful, Joe. I’ll need you after they shut us down for publishing that bloody photo, so make sure you’re here to help, all right?”

He nodded stiffly but refused to make any promises. “You take care of yourself, May. London might not know it, but she needs the Clarion now more than ever.”

Then, settling his cap in place, he turned and walked out of the newsroom. Very possibly, for the last time.

***

Alex was waiting on the museum steps when Josef got back.

Either the cold air, or Lottie’s treatment, had brought the colour back to his cheeks. When he spotted Josef, he lifted his hand in greeting and trotted down the stairs towards him.

Josef’s heart performed a mortifying little somersault at the sight, which he chose to ignore. “You look better,” he said when they were close enough to speak.

“I smell like a dish of potpourri,” Alex grumbled, touching his shoulder to indicate the dressing beneath his coat. “But it seems to be helping. They gave me something for the pain as well.”

“Morphine?” Josef frowned; the last thing he needed was Alex falling asleep on him in the middle of a fight. He studied his eyes, but there was no sign of pupil dilation.

Without breaking eye contact, Alex drew closer, lowering his voice. “Something better, I think. More, um, witchy.”

Helplessly, Josef found himself smiling fondly at his seriousness. Fondly? Ugh. “As long as it’s working, I suppose it don't matter.”

“My feeling exactly.” Alex cast a cautious glance up and down the busy street. “And now I’d better get to work.”

Josef followed his gaze, darting from face to face in the crowd. There was no mistaking his wariness. “I suppose The Society will be looking for us?”

“If not now, soon. Dutta could only have delayed his report until this morning. Come on,” he set off along Cromwell Road, “let’s walk.”

Falling in at his side, Josef said, “He’d really have shot you, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes. And he’d have expected me to do the same for him had the situation been reversed.”

Josef dug his hands deeper into the thin pockets of his coat. “Your lot don’t half love a noble sacrifice. I’d have thought the war would have knocked that out of you.”

He felt, rather than saw Alex look at him. “If by ‘my lot’ you mean the aristocracy, then I suspect the war will have knocked it out of us—or at least, some of us. But if you mean The Society, then no, the war won’t make a jot of difference. They’ve been at war for a thousand years.”

“They?” Josef said, catching his eye.

“We,” he corrected, although without much conviction.

“Lottie and Vi aren’t part of The Society, I take it.”

Alex’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Definitely not. The Society doesn’t tolerate dabbling in the occult. It has a very black-and-white perspective on these things.”

“But you don’t.”

After a pause, Alex said, “No, I was taught differently.” Then, changing the subject, he added, “What I need to do now is find the damned nest. Dutta and I were looking for it that night we ran into you in the sewer.”

Josef snorted. “You say that sentence as if it wasn’t completely mad.”

Catching his eye again, Alex smiled. “Oh, it is completely mad. I’m just used to this particular kind of madness, that’s all.” His humour faded. “I plan to start there, but there’s no need for you to put yourself in any kind of danger—”

“Oh, shut up,” Josef said. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

Alex frowned. “I didn’t realise seeking a cure would involve this much risk. I have nothing to lose, but you —”

“I have you to lose.”

His words drew them both to an abrupt halt next to the museum railings. Alex stared at him, wide-eyed. “You… Do you?”

Irritated and embarrassed, not quite meeting his eye, Josef said, “ Don’t I?”

“Well, yes. If that’s…” Alex stumbled. “I mean, if our friendship is something you’d like to…to continue?”

“Apparently, I would,” Josef said, lifting his chin defiantly only to find Alex watching him in smouldering delight. Josef’s cheeks burned, despite the cold day, but he found himself smiling. “And that’s even madder than the rest of this bloody nonsense.”

Alex gave a short, startled laugh. “Yes,” he agreed. “By far the most improbable.”

Improbable didn’t even begin to cover it. “So,” Josef said, aware suddenly that they were standing on a street corner, grinning at each other like idiots, “do you have any idea where in the sewers this nest is?”

Alex shook his head, clearing his throat as he glanced around them. “Ah, no. We hadn’t had any luck until we came across you.”

Came across him fighting for his life.

“Because the ghoul found me ,” Josef said slowly. “I had Sykes’s photograph in my pocket.”

Their eyes met. “Do you have it still?”

Josef tapped his coat pocket. “Do we go back there? It was close to the surface, where the bomb had opened the sewer. I don’t suppose they’d lurk anywhere that easy to find.”

“No,” Alex agreed, “their nest will be somewhere hidden, preferably disused. Normally, you’d only find them in abandoned graveyards, or crypts. Places like that.”

“Normally?”

Alex looked grim. “The war has made a charnel house of Europe and a feast for the ghoul. As their numbers grow, so they become bolder.”

“Like the trench rats,” Josef said. They’d grown fat and bold too. Nature’s opportunists.

Another memory stirred: Sykes’s dying words at the dressing station.

They come for the dead .

Creeping out of the sapper tunnels that wormed beneath no man’s land, skulking through abandoned trenches, and collapsed foxholes, to gorge themselves on slaughtered soldiers, heedless of rank or nation. Men had dug those tunnels and trenches, men had slaughtered men in the hundreds of thousands, and the ghoul were feasting on the carnage. Like rats, they were opportunists, clever, resourceful, and remorseless.

You’d find them anywhere you’d find rats.

“I saw one in a Tube tunnel,” Josef said abruptly. “At least, I think I did. I saw its eyes in the dark.”

“Tube tunnels would be too dangerous.” Alex frowned. “Although easier to navigate, cleaner and dryer than sewers.”

“And closer to potential prey.”

Alex shrugged, conceding the point. “But they couldn’t live there, could they? Not with all the trains.”

“I suppose not. But are there parts of the Underground that aren’t used? Like sidings or some such?” Truth was, Josef had no idea. His only real interest in trains was getting from A to B.

Alex looked thoughtful, though. “Yes,” he said, “that’s possible. But scouring the Underground for disused sidings is hardly practical.”

“Obviously, we’d need a map.”

“I don’t suppose you happen to have one?”

Josef huffed. “No, but I do have a library card.”

“As you’ve previously mentioned.” An amused smile tugged at one corner of Alex’s mouth. “Is that the sort of thing they’d have in a public library?”

“Oh, you can find anything at the library.”

Alex’s smile broadened for a moment, then failed. “Maybe so, but I think it would be more sensible to return to the sewer, somewhere we know they’ve been.”

“You mean loiter about, wait for one to show up?” That sounded like a terrible plan.

“Tactically,” Alex said, sounding slightly affronted, “It’s the soundest option.” Then he conceded, “But, truth be told, I’d rather not spend my last hours loitering in a sewer.”

“Alex…” Josef trailed off. “Look, the point is, they won’t be your last hours if we find a bloody ghoul.”

“And get some of its blood, without killing it.”

They both knew the odds of success were low, though neither spoke the thought aloud.

Alex rubbed a hand over his jaw, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a packet of gaspers. He offered one to Josef, and they both lit up. As the smoke curled into the still morning air, Alex said, “I don’t like it, but I think it might be a good idea to divide our resources.”

“I don’t like it, either.” Josef took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. “What do you mean?”

“You try to find a useful map of the Underground, while I take the photograph and go back to the sewer.”

“Alone? Come off it.”

Alex’s jaw set. “We’ve no choice. We need to cover as much ground as possible before I…” Perhaps unconsciously, he touched the place on his shoulder where he’d been bitten. And although it was hidden beneath his clothes, Josef felt as though he could see the festering wound clear as day. His skin prickled at the thought.

And it told him how much time they were looking at—don’t buy any green bananas, as his dad might have said. Alex had hours, perhaps a day before things got sticky. Josef swallowed, his stomach griping painfully, and his thoughts shying away from what that end would mean. “Even so,” he said, “splitting up is a crap idea.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Tactically—”

“Don’t give me tactics,” Josef growled. “Tactics got 20,000 men killed at the Somme in one bloody day. Sod tactics. We need to stick together, not let some ghoul or your Society friends pick us off one at a time.”

Alex’s brow furrowed as he smoked, gazing down at the pavement. Thinking, thinking… Abruptly, he gave a curt nod and lifted his head. “Yes, you’re right. It’s safer if we stick together. Someone should keep a close eye on me.” Then, to Josef’s astonishment, he reached beneath his overcoat and jacket and pulled out his gun, offering it grip-first to Josef. “Do you know how to fire this?”

He did, as it happened; he’d learned all sorts of things back in his radical youth. Nonetheless, he lifted his hands in refusal. “I’m sure you’re a better shot.”

Alex’s expression tightened as he offered the gun again. “A bullet through the head will stop a ghoul. Especially a…a newly minted ghoul.”

Newly minted? Fucking hell. Josef’s breath caught in horror. “You can’t ask me to do that.”

“I’m not asking,” Alex said. “I’m begging. If we fail, if we run out of time, I might not be able to…to act for myself. I need to know that you’ll act for me.”

Josef shook his head, even as he took hold of the offered gun. Alex didn’t let go. “Promise me,” he said. “Swear you’ll spare me that end.”

Throat too tight to speak, Josef looked at him. The idea of taking this man’s life was horrific, but the idea of seeing him turn into a monster was a thousand times worse. “All right,” he said thickly, “I swear.”

With a curt nod, Alex said, “Thank you.”

“Let’s just make bloody sure we don’t get into that situation,” Josef said, tucking the gun into the back of his belt to hide it from view. He didn’t want to draw any attention from the coppers.

“Right then,” Alex said, adjusting his coat. “Lead the way to the library...”