Justin Fisher - The Darkening King

“That’s the fifth time they’ve caught up with us now. How are they doing it?”

Ned had to admit, the BBB had been impressive. He thought back to the way they’d taken out the tea drinkers, how deftly they’d worked their batons and guns.

“I was there when they raided the circus,” said Ned. “They were a hopeless bunch of jossers! But this time and the last few times they’ve caught up with us, they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. It’s like someone’s been teaching them.”

Olivia was now wrestling with the door handle to their room and, as she did so often, switched off to her two men’s ramblings.

“And anyway,” agreed Ned’s dad, “Mavis’s is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the entire Hidden underworld. If the Hidden can barely find it, how does a squad of suited jossers even know it exists in the first place?”

And then the door opened.

“With help, of course.”

Standing in the doorway was the grey-suited, fox-haired man Ned had seen at Mavis’s – the same man he had seen some months previously during the BBB’s raid on the circus. Just behind him was a gaunt, smallish agent who was again wearing a grey suit.

Ned’s mum was glaring at them angrily, clearly annoyed that they’d removed the one obstacle between her family and the building’s corridor with the simple turn of a handle.

“My name is Mr Fox. This is Mr Spider, my associate.”

Mr Spider’s eyes were wide and bulbous and he took in the Armstrongs carefully, eyeing each one with meticulous attention.

“I am very sorry about the darts but you have proved to be rather hard to talk to in the past.”

It was only then that Ned realised his backpack was missing, and much more importantly – there was no sign of Whiskers! His heart started to beat violently. Whiskers, his dear old Whiskers, who had seen him through more scrapes than he could count – where was he?

“What have you done with my mouse?!”

And as the words burned on his lips, a shadow by Mr Fox’s legs started to move. Mr Fox’s eyes flitted to the floor.

“Please ask your creature to stand down, Ned. I really am trying to be nice. Your ticker has been taken to our R and D department to check that he’s functioning properly.”

Ned’s dad formed a compact ball of ice by drawing in the air molecules around the room with an audible fwup . It was about the size of a walnut and Ned had seen the man blow holes through steel doors with far less. A second later and the ice had turned to hardened glass.

“Do you know, he said this might happen,” said Mr Fox with an air of resigned certainty.

“Who said? Who’s been helping you?” seethed Ned’s dad, the newly formed glass ball now hovering between them both with clear intent. “Was it one of the Shar’s men? Or Atticus and his tin-skins?”

“It was I,” said a voice, as Mr Fox’s informant appeared from behind him and walked slowly into the room.

There was a swagger to the way he walked, and a jolliness to the twitch of his moustache. He was wearing his signature striped trousers, a worn military jacket with broken braiding and tassels, and a severely beaten top hat. Aside from some deep shadows under his eyes, a clear sign that he’d had little sleep, he was the same wax-moustached Ringmaster as ever.

“Bene?” was all Ned could manage.

“Hello, pup,” said Benissimo with a smile.

Which promptly fell away when he saw the look on the face of Olivia Armstrong, who then proceeded to pummel the man’s arm. Ned and his father watched in awe, Terry’s ball of glass having landed on the floor with a clunk as his wife administered Mr Fox’s informant with swift and painful justice.

“ Months , we looked, all of us!”

Whack!

“And all that time you were here with these men, these revolting men in grey?!”

Whack!

“Livvy, if you could just let me explain!” said Benissimo, who did little more than raise his arms in a useless and rather timid defence.

“Explain why you abandoned us?! Explain this !”

Whack!

“Madam, the man can heal, but he still feels pain – please refrain from hitting him,” tried Mr Fox.

Olivia Armstrong, nun and agent, stopped. Her eyes turned to Mr Fox.

“How did you do it?” she shouted. “How did you turn the greatest leader of all time into an informant?”

What was quite clear was that Ned’s mum had absolutely no interest in Mr Fox’s answer, nor for that matter did Ned’s dad, or the enlarging shadow that was Gorrn as he inflated to fill the rear of the room. The Armstrongs were about to blow when Benissimo decided to tell them what, exactly, was what.

“Livvy, you’ve got this all wrong. Mr Fox works for me.”

arbarossa sat at his stone table, glaring out of the window. In front of him lay the great sweeping carpet that was the Siberian taiga. Down below in his fortress’s iron belly the Darkening King stirred. The butcher could feel him, in the pores of his skin and the pit of his stomach. The Darkening King had a hunger that knew no bounds, a wish to devour, to rule, to reign. In that they were very much alike.

He looked down at the roasted pork that Sar-adin had so carefully prepared. It was, as always, just the way he liked it, its skin glazed to a perfect crackle, boiling fat oozing from its sides, and on a different day, in a different mood, he would have devoured it all till his chest was awash with grease and dripping. But Barbarossa had a different hunger and it would not be fed through his gut. Atticus Fife sat beside him drinking from a goblet of fine red wine. For some strange reason the man did not show fear in his company – if anything, he seemed to consider himself an equal.

Barbarossa supposed he had been a little vague about the arrangements between them. Perhaps Atticus believed himself to be important to him? A partner, even? He had been the second-in-command to the great Madame Oublier after all – the Circus of Marvels’ Prime, their one-time leader. Not that he’d done her any good. In fact, the tin-skin had betrayed her and the poison that had ended her life could not have done so without him. Well, Barba wouldn’t let the same happen to him. The man clearly needed some chivvying up, which was just as well, as Barbarossa was in the mood for a little “chivvying”.

“Walk with me, Atticus.”

Barbarossa led him away from the great hall down a set of spiral steps. Behind them Sar-adin followed quietly. The Central Intelligence had done exactly as ordered. He had built them a fortress that could not be taken. But something still troubled the butcher, even now. Until the Darkening King returned to his full power, they could, conceivably, still be undone no matter how many tin soldiers he had, or fanged and wicked creatures fought for him. Barbarossa did not like “odds”. So close to his prize, only certainties would do.

“The fair-folk will come, Atticus, and they will try to stop us.”

“What remains of them, yes.”

“And what does remain of them?”

“The pinstripes who still answer to me have heard word of a growing force in St Albertsburg.”

Barbarossa grimaced but continued leading the way.

“A growing force … Do you know how a force grows, Atticus?”

“We have banned all flights between the Veil, Barba, and my men are—”