The Maleficent Seven

“Been passed over for promotion a few times, that it? Finally figured you ought to be climbing that corporate ladder, taking on a position of authority in the Sanctuary − would I be about right?”

“Yes. Yes, you would.”

“So you requested this assignment, did you? Figured with that many agents and Cleavers around, you’d never even have to get close to the action. Right?”

“Right,” he said, and sobbed.

“You figured hey, it’s only two people. Only two fugitives we have to apprehend, and you wouldn’t have to actually do anything, but it’d still be down on your record, yeah? You’d still be part of it. You’d still share in the glory.”

“Please don’t kill me, Mr Sanguine.”

“Don’t ruin the ending,” Sanguine snarled, and threw Jethro against the wall. Jethro covered up, expecting an attack. Instead, Sanguine just stood there.

“What do you do in the Sanctuary?” he asked.

“Different things,” Jethro answered, keeping his eyes down. “Administrative work. Nothing glamorous or... dangerous.”

“You know what I heard? I heard all you guys were planning on declaring war on the Irish Sanctuary, that’s what I heard. I heard the English Council and the German Council and the Americans and the French and most everyone else was planning on going in there and taking over.”

“I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“No? Pity. It’d have been something to talk about to delay the inevitable.”

Jethro swallowed thickly. “Inevitable?”

Sanguine nudged his sunglasses further up on the bridge of his nose. “Seems to be an awful lot of activity around here lately, and not just cos of us. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Just to inform you, lying right now would not be the best move you could possibly make.”

Jethro hesitated. “There’s a... It’s...”

Sanguine gave a little sigh. “Let me make it easy on you. It’s something to do with a prisoner, isn’t it?”

Jethro nodded. “An escaped prisoner.”

“Why, that just happens to be one of my favourite kind. The escaped prisoner in question wouldn’t happen to be Springheeled Jack, now would it?”

“You... you know?”

“Of course we know. Why d’you think we’re in town? Now, a guy like you, Jethro, an up-and-comer, if you will, he’d be inclined to keep abreast of developments in the search for said escaped prisoner, now wouldn’t he?”

“He would. I mean, I would. Yes. Please don’t kill me.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Jack’s on the run, and you folk are closing in on him. I wanna know where the search is being concentrated. And don’t bother lying. As you can see, some facts I already know, so you better be sticking to them ’less you want me in a bad mood.”

Jethro swallowed, and did his best to stand a little straighter. “Let me go. You let me go and then I’ll tell you. You can’t... you can’t threaten me. I have the information you want and… and you’re not going to kill me before I tell you. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“People scare better when they’re dying.”

Jethro stopped trying to stand straight. “The East End,” he croaked. “Spitalfields. We have it closed off. Nothing can get by the cordon without us knowing about it. He’s trapped. He’s got no way out.”

Sanguine grinned. “Jethro, you have been a most helpful captive.”

“Are you... are you going to let me live?”

Sanguine’s grin grew wider. “Not even remotely.”

With Jethro, the second Jethro, lying dead in the alley amid the junk and the debris of London, the ground cracked and crumbled beneath Sanguine’s feet and he sank into the cold embrace of the earth. He moved down to absolute pitch-black, to a darkness no human eye could penetrate, and he watched the dirt and rock shift before him, the individual grains undulating in streams, like a school of fish, flowing round him and allowing him through.

He stopped for a moment, listening to the vibrations that spoke to him louder than any voice, then burrowed sideways. He slowed as the ground parted, opened for him like a door, and harsh light spilled in against his sunglasses. Sanguine had no eyes to hurt, and he stepped on to the train platform, feeling the wall close up behind him. The platform was almost empty, five people waiting there, not one of them having noticed his arrival.

The rumbling beneath his feet intensified, told him where the train was, how fast it was moving. Then he heard it approach, and moments later, he watched it appear, brakes whining as it slowed. The doors opened. People got off, people got on. Sanguine brushed a few flecks of dirt from his shoulder and slipped through the doors before they closed. The carriage was empty, and he sat.

He looked at the leather coat in his hands. He wasn’t worried about Tanith. She’d get away. He knew she would. She’d probably led those Cleavers a merry dance, then disappeared, leaving them floundering, with only her mocking laugh to assure them she’d been there at all. He’d meet up with her soon enough and he’d give her back her coat, and they’d kiss, and he’d stroke her hair, and she’d tell him about all the Cleavers she’d killed. She was everything he’d always wanted in a woman. Beautiful, smart, tough, twisted.

Sure, she was utterly devoted to this Darquesse person, this woman that all the psychics had dreamed about, the one that was going to end the world. Tanith had glimpsed the future, and the Remnant part of her was looking forward to all the devastation and destruction that was on the horizon. Was it healthy, loving someone who wanted to help end the world? He freely admitted that it probably wasn’t. And he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Some little nugget of information she’d been holding back about who this Darquesse was or where she’d be coming from. He let that go. He didn’t mind that. People have secrets, after all. He had secrets. But apart from all that, they were a match made in heaven. Soulmates. Partners in crime.

And when this little caper of hers was over, he was going to ask her to be his wife.

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he steps leading down were stone, old and cold and cracked. The walls were tight on either side, and curved with the steps as they sank into darkness. The girl’s parents didn’t say much. Her father led the way, her mother came behind and the girl was in the middle. The air was sharp and chill and not a word was spoken. Her mother hadn’t been able to look at her since they’d arrived at the docks. The girl didn’t know what she’d done wrong.

When the steps had done enough sinking, they came to a floor, and it was as good a floor as any, she supposed. It was flat and solid and wide, even if it was just as cold and old as the steps had been, and the walls, and the low ceilings that kept the whole place from caving in around them. The girl didn’t like being underground. Already she missed the sun.

Her father led them through a passage, turned right and walked on, then bore left and kept going. They walked on and on and turned one way or the other, and the girl quickly lost track of where they’d been. It was all sputtering torches in brackets, feeble flames in the gloom.

“Remain here,” her father said once they’d come to an empty chamber. She did as she was told, as was her way, and watched her parents leave through another passage. Her father held himself upright and seemed suddenly so frail. Her mother didn’t look back.

The girl stood in the darkness, and waited.

And then she waited some more.

Eventually, a man wandered in, dressed in threadbare robes and broken sandals.

“Hello,” he said. Even with that one word, he didn’t sound English. The girl had never met a foreign person before.

“Hello,” she answered, and then added, “pleased to meet you,” because that was what you said to strangers upon first making their acquaintance.

He stood there and looked at her, and the girl waited for him to say something else. It wouldn’t have been right for her to speak. She was a child, and children had to wait for their elders to initiate a conversation. Her father had been very strict about that, and it was a lesson she’d learned well.

“Do you have questions?” the man asked in that strange accent that clipped every word.

“Yes. Thank you. Where am I, if I may ask?”

“You do not know?”