The Claws of Evil

Standing there on the rooftop at midnight, Molly Marbank felt very grown up indeed.

Josiah was brilliant, she thought. He let her stay up way past her bedtime and he was teaching her how to be a Watcher too. She had an extending ladder folded tight in her backpack, along with some supplies for the night and her own set of hand hooks for using on the slide ropes. She was getting quite good at running in her skyboots, even though she said it herself, although she wasn’t brave enough to try a jump on her own yet.

She was also making some new friends.

Molly had met all sorts of people in the Watchers. There was a blind man called Mr. Moon who was quite scary, although the others said he was fine once you got to know him. And there was a lovely old lady who looked after them all, and she was called Mother Shepherd, although Molly had called her “Granny” once by accident and everyone laughed. Just having them around made everyone feel safe.

And there were the others too, of course, standing side by side with her now on the roof tiles, London unaware below them: Josiah, the great and mighty Weeping Man; Lucy Lambert, a girl with a fiery temper, probably explained by the angry scar that she tried so hard to hide; Ghost, the African boy who never spoke a word and got his name because he moved so silently; and Nathaniel, her new big brother.

Molly smiled. What would anyone think if they could see them now?

“Watcher filth,” said Mickelwhite.

It was the stroke of midnight when they spotted them. Stark silhouettes against the night sky. Five spies hiding among the chimneys.

“Let’s get ’em,” hissed John Bedlam through gritted teeth.

Ben wasn’t sure whether Bedlam was filled with anger or frozen to the marrow. Chances were it was a bit of both. He knew that he was freezing cold and pretty cheesed off himself. They had been skulking around in the backstreets for what felt like ages, waiting for a glimpse of their enemies. It had got boring quicker than he’d expected. All soldiers were restless when they weren’t fighting, he supposed.

Plus he was getting a terrible crick in the back of his neck.

Ben was temporarily stunned when they finally found their foe. It was like looking into a mirror. The Watchers were just another gang of raggedy girls and boys. Although the Watchers had better jackets, he noted with envy.

They were too far away to make out their faces. All Ben could tell for certain was that there were four small childlike Watchers and a fifth, larger adult one. Pulling out the telescope he had stolen earlier, Ben put it to his eye to confirm his fear. There was no mistaking that outline. The long coat. The tall hat. It was a man that he had hoped never to see again. A man in black who carried a sword and cried in the night.

“It’s the Weeping Man,” said Ben quietly.

“Then we’ll have to be especially careful not to be seen,” said Mickelwhite, “but the plan remains the same. We follow them at a distance, find out where their base is tonight, then return to the Under for reinforcements.”

“And then we come back and start smashing heads,” said Bedlam.

“And rescue my brother,” Ben added.

“That too,” said Bedlam with markedly less enthusiasm.

Mickelwhite split them into three groups, to increase their chances of tracking the Watchers, he said. Ben guessed the real reason though: Mickelwhite couldn’t stand the sight of him.

Jimmy Dips and Mickelwhite went one way, Schulman and Bedlam another, leaving Ben and Ruby Johnson alone.

“So,” said Ben, not certain where he stood with Ruby any more.

“So,” said Ruby.

“Are you ready for this?” asked Ben.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Ruby replied.

“Fine,” said Ben.

“Fine,” said Ruby. “Let’s go.”

Lucy spotted them first. “Movement, down there!”

“Quick,” said Nathaniel Kingdom, taking out his rope ladder and fixing it to the guttering with a swift sailor’s knot that he’d learned at the docks. “It could be him,” he said with excitement. Ghost nodded his agreement, his beautiful eyes bright in his dark face.

“I’ll go first,” said Lucy, swinging herself out over the edge of the roof, unmoved by either the height or what she might be facing when she reached the bottom.

Only Molly Marbank hesitated, seeing Josiah’s expression. “What are you thinking?” she asked him.

Josiah closed his eyes before answering. “Nathaniel believes that one word from him will be enough to bring his brother over from the side of darkness and into the light.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Molly was confused. “Don’t you want Benjamin to join the Watchers?”

“Yes, it is what I want,” said Josiah. “More than anything. But Nathaniel has got his hopes up and I fear he might be terribly disappointed.” The Weeping Man sighed. “The human heart can be so difficult to predict.”

Molly still didn’t understand. “But it’s such an easy choice,” she said. “I came straight away, didn’t I?”

Josiah smiled at her and she felt a warm glow in her young heart. “Yes, you did, little one,” he said.

“And what about you?” she asked excitedly. “Was it a difficult choice for you?”

“No,” Josiah replied. “But you know that my heart is not human at all.”

For some reason, Ruby had stopped running.

Ben could see her a short way ahead of him, standing stock-still at the junction of three roads. From her expression, he guessed that she had found the Watchers. Or more likely the Watchers had found her.

A flutter of movement on the edge of his vision drew his eyes up to a chimney stack, three storeys above the ground. There was a rope tied around it and stretched out taut across the street to the two-storey houses on the other side. The shadowy movement came again, followed by a scuffing sound as spiked boots struck the tiles. As Ben stared, a Watcher took a running leap into the air and, with the fluidity of motion born of practice and great bravery, flung a small metal hook around the rope and clung to it with both hands. With the rushing noise of a sail unfurling, the Watcher flew over Ben’s head, riding down the rope to land, running, on the opposite rooftop.

Suddenly Watchers seemed to be appearing from all sides. Rope ladders clattered to the ground and figures dropped down them soundlessly, all dressed in the Watcher uniform of long coats and aviators’ goggles, faces hidden beneath scarves. They were only street kids like him, Ben reminded himself, but he was outnumbered. He wished that he had stolen something more useful from the Egyptian, like a cudgel so he could defend himself. What am I going to do with a telescope? Magnify them to death?

The Watchers regarded him coldly. Mickelwhite had led him to believe that the Watchers were cowards who would run rather than stand and fight. This lot seemed intent on proving Mickelwhite wrong, however, and as much as Ben would enjoy his beloved captain being mistaken, he was disappointed that he was going to have to take a beating just to prove a point.

“Ruby!” he shouted – there was nothing to be gained by being quiet any more. “Come on,” he urged her. “We can hold them off together while we wait for reinforcements.”

Ruby came running towards him then, her mouth set in a hard line. He knew that he could rely upon her. In seconds she was beside him. Ben flashed her a quick smile, but it fell completely from his face as Ruby reached inside her jacket and withdrew a long, thin knife.

Blimey, thought Ben, this could turn nasty.

The Watchers began to move in and Ben positioned himself so that he and Ruby were back to back.

“We can take ’em,” he said, more boastfully than truthfully, but it felt like the right thing to say. “You and me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruby. Her words scared him more than anything else; he had never heard her sound so defeated.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, still trying to have enough bravado for the pair of them. “There’s no one I’d rather have beside me.”

“No. You don’t understand. I’m sorry for this,” said Ruby as she grabbed him in a headlock from behind and held the tip of the knife hard between his ribs, ready to pierce his heart.

“This is Benjamin Kingdom!” she shouted to the Watchers. “If you want him to live, give me the Judas Coin!”





For a long cold second, nobody moved. And then it seemed as if everybody did.

Ben grasped Ruby’s knife hand and wrenched it away. Strangely, she hardly put up any resistance at all, as if the spirit had already gone out of her. He knew that the Judas Coin could only be the piece of silver that he had been clinging to as if his life depended on it. What he didn’t know was why everyone wanted it so badly. Ben didn’t have time to think about that now though, because the Watchers fell on both of them in a blur.

A Watcher with a shaven head and ebony skin charged at Ruby. He pounced like a panther and sent her staggering back, the knife falling from her hand and skittering across the cobbles. At the same time, another Watcher rushed in close to Ben and, with a sweeping kick, hooked his legs out from under him. Ben fell flat on his back and felt the air knocked from his lungs as the Watcher leaped on him and pinned him down.

Everything was going too fast for Ben. He was shocked that Ruby had sold him out – he’d never seen it coming – but he could be glad at least that she had shown her true colours before he’d started to really like her. Two-faced, money-grabbing back-stabber, he thought angrily. Life would be so much easier without a girl like Ruby around. In the meantime, he had other things to worry about. The Watcher that was holding him down was very light, but strong with it. Their knees were pressed deep into his shoulders, preventing him from lifting himself off the floor, while their small hands held Ben’s arms back above his head.

For a moment Ben thought that he had been beaten by a child younger than him, but when he looked more closely he could see that it was worse than that: he’d been thrown to the floor and was being pinned down by a girl. He bucked wildly in an attempt to knock her off, but to his frustration she stayed on him as if she were breaking in a troublesome pony.

“Don’t struggle,” she said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

The girl had honey-coloured hair that stirred constantly around her face in the night air. A small mouth, set in a determined line. One clear blue eye; just the one, Ben couldn’t help but notice. The other was hidden beneath an eyepatch that surely had something to do with the scar that ran from her hairline, disappeared beneath the patch, and then re-emerged to make the full journey down her pale cheek.

He became aware of heavy bootsteps, crunching across the cobbles towards him, coming to a halt when they arrived at Ben’s head.

This night keeps getting better and better, he thought as he looked up and braced himself for a kicking.

The figure gazing down at him was clearly a Watcher, from the spiked boots to the long coat and brass goggles; all the accoutrements of the opposing army...except for the face.

“Hello, Ben,” said a familiar voice, “I’ve been looking for you.”

Part of Ben had started to believe that he might never see his family again, so finding Nathaniel standing in front of him sent such a wave of relief surging through Ben that he could hardly contain it.

At a signal from Nathaniel, the girl released Ben and he picked himself up off the floor. Ruby was nowhere to be seen. Good riddance to bad rubbish, he thought angrily; although he couldn’t help wondering if she had managed to get away to safety.

He looked at his brother.

For that instant, there was only the two of them in the whole of London. He could hear shouts and scuffles from the nearby alleys as Mickelwhite and the others clashed with the Watchers. But none of it mattered.

“Nathaniel,” said Ben quietly.

Then, with a warmth that caught Ben totally off guard, Nathaniel threw his arms around him and hugged him. Ben saw something in Nathaniel’s face that he had never seen there so clearly before. He saw love.

A hundred questions rushed to Ben’s mind. Where’ve you been? Are you hurt? Were you there when the room was destroyed? Are the Watchers keeping you prisoner? And biggest of all: Do you know where Pa is?

The expression in Nathaniel’s eyes was enough for Ben to boil all of those thoughts down into three small words. He leaned forward to embrace Nathaniel again and whispered into his ear. “Come with me!”

“No,” said Nathaniel. “Don’t be stupid, Ben. You come with me. Quick!” he added. “The Watchers are waiting for you.”

Ben was confused. First Ruby had sold him out. And now Nathaniel was dressed as the enemy and asking him to go over to the other camp.

When Ben had been convinced that his brother was a prisoner of the Watchers everything had seemed so simple, but the fact that Nathaniel was with them willingly troubled him. For all that their father preferred Nathaniel, Ben had always believed that he wasn’t that different to his big brother. How could they end up on opposite sides in this war?

So much had happened in the last few days that he didn’t know who to believe any more.

“Come on, Ben,” Nathaniel urged, as he headed back towards a rope ladder and prepared to climb it. “We haven’t got time to hang around.”

Nathaniel was right on that account, of course; Ben could hear Mickelwhite and Bedlam approaching. It was time to choose sides.

Ben’s feet remained rooted until the youngest Watcher stepped forward from the shadows and settled the matter for him. He hadn’t really given her much thought until now; she was such a little scrap of a thing. But as she moved closer and held out her hand Ben remembered the last time he had seen those frail fingers.

“Molly!” he declared, and she responded with a gap-toothed smile. She looked happy and well-fed, Ben thought. And she definitely wasn’t dead. So that could mean only one thing – the Weeping Man was not a killer after all.

And the Legion were full of lies.

“I’m coming, Nathaniel,” Ben yelled, running to the foot of the ladder that his brother was already climbing. For a second he stood amazed as all the Watchers, little Molly Marbank included, ascended up their own ropes as swiftly as rats in the rigging. Only Nathaniel remained, hanging back and waiting for Ben.

Ben’s face felt funny and he had to touch his mouth before he recognized what was wrong. He was smiling again; a huge lopsided grin that he couldn’t contain.

I was getting bored of the Legion, anyway, he thought as he took the rope ladder in his hands and prepared to follow Nathaniel up onto the rooftop.

“Quickly!” Nathaniel insisted again. “We haven’t got time to play games, Ben, what are you waiting for? You haven’t given them Pa’s coin have you?”

Ben froze. The smile dead on his lips.

All his peace abandoned him and in its place came a surge of pure fury.

The Coin!

You just want my Coin!

Ferociously, without any clear thought except anger, Ben started to climb after his brother, hand over fist.

We’ll see about that!

London had changed since Lucy had first heard the name Ben Kingdom. She could sense it deep within her and other Watchers had reported it too: darkness was on the rise. It wasn’t anything that she could put her finger on, more a subtle shift in the atmosphere. In the streets, in the drinking houses, in the factories, in rich houses and poor, tensions were becoming frayed, like wire that had been drawn too taut and was ready to snap. Rows were breaking out across the city: husband versus wife, father versus son, friend against friend. It was the presence of the Coin, she had no doubt; Watcher history taught that those cursed pieces of silver were always accompanied by bloodshed. First came the jealousy, then resentment, then the murderous rage.

One thing was for certain, Lucy realized as she looked back over her shoulder – the Legion were becoming bolder. You either had to be very foolhardy or very brave to follow the Watchers up onto the rooftops, but that was exactly what this brigade was doing now. I just pray that they don’t catch up with us, Lucy thought, as she bounded across the tiles.

Lucy was a good enough fighter. Mr. Moon had taught her well but that didn’t stop the swell of fear in her belly. She wasn’t afraid for herself – it was Molly she was scared for. It had been a mistake to let her come with them at all – she should’ve been safely tucked up at the eyrie – but what was done was done. Lucy hung back and drew a small length of pipe from her backpack. She gave a quick flick of her wrist and the metal tube telescoped out until she was holding a quarterstaff, which she spun about her, cutting through the air. With her good eye, she signalled to Ghost, who drew out his crossbow and began to lay down a covering fire.

Nathaniel was still lagging behind them. He was holding them back but it was hardly his fault. He hadn’t had time to get used to his skyboots and so he wasn’t much quicker than the Legion as he staggered and slipped across the roof.

Ghost crouched and sent another bolt speeding towards the pursuing Legionnaires. The trouble was that he wouldn’t hit any of them, Lucy knew. Unless there were no other options, Ghost wouldn’t ever shoot to kill. Ghost was a true Watcher, and violence was not the Watcher way.

Ahead of them Josiah was picking the safest path for their escape, while Molly clung to his hand for dear life. Every now and then the little girl looked up at the Weeping Man, and Lucy could see the way that he smiled down at her, with no trace of fear or panic on his beautiful face. Which was more than could be said for Nathaniel Kingdom. Nathaniel appeared terrified as he stumbled and skittered over the slates towards them.

And finally came Ben Kingdom, running with determination. Falling, picking himself up. Running again.

Perhaps Nathaniel had been able to persuade him after all?

Ben was going to kill him.

But he would have to catch Nathaniel first.

In spite of the blood pounding inside his head Ben was aware that he wasn’t alone on the roof. On the periphery of his vision he could see Hans Schulman making heavy weather of a rope ladder and Jimmy Dips stuck halfway up a drainpipe, apparently unable to go up or down. Ruby Johnson was nowhere to be seen. Only Mickelwhite and Bedlam had made it up onto the roof tiles and both were following in hard pursuit.

Ben had to admit that the Watchers were incredible, racing away with the sure-footedness of mountain goats. Some gaps they simply jumped, giving them no more thought then he did to jumping a puddle. To cross the bigger drops, Ben could see that the Watchers used ladders or planks which they must have hidden on the roofs in advance, only putting them out to span the gaps when they needed to, and then pulling the bridge across after them once they were on the other side.

But the most impressive thing was the way that they moved. They seemed to leap with such ease, using gutters and walls as springboards, giving the impression that they were skipping away rather than fleeing for their lives. Ben did his best to follow his brother, but he had to think about each step. Twice he had slipped, sending broken slates spinning into the darkness.

Mickelwhite, for all his lankiness, had a certain grace and his long legs were closing the gap. John Bedlam, on the other hand, who possessed not one single ounce of poise or elegance, was making ground on the fleeing Watchers based solely on his desire to start a fight.

Ben studied the Watchers as he ran, copying what they did as best he could. He was beginning to work out the surest way to plant his feet on the roof tiles, and had learned that the quickest path was along the ridge at the apex of a roof; so long as he didn’t look down. He dumped his bags and rid himself of his armour as he ran, stripping off anything that would slow him.

He was gaining on Nathaniel and his entire left arm throbbed in anticipation.

Nathaniel wanted to steal his Coin.

He would pay for that.