William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

perhaps Dante was right: death was not a ceasing to exist, but an endless journey through hell—a pit like this, full of strange, half-heard noises, whispers without words, not human anymore.
    All senses were distorted. Damp clung in the nose and on the skin. There were gas jets on the walls, and in the dusklike light she could see people moving like shadows, most of them women. They seemed to be buying and selling, by touch as much as by sight in the flickering gloom, as if it were one nightmare arcade of stalls, a sort of hell’s market. Sound was heavy and unnatural, a susurration of feet and skirts and snatches of voices.
    “Don’t stare!” Sutton warned her under his breath. “Yer ’ere ter catch rats, not sightseein’, Miss ’Ester.”
    “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Who are they all? Do they come down here every day?”
    “Most of ’em don’t never go up,” he answered. “We might ’ave ’alf a mile ter go.”
    “Whom are we looking for?”
    They were keeping to the middle of the way, but as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she was more aware of alcoves to the side. Those hollows must be where people might eat and sleep and—from the rank odor that now filled the air—conduct other aspects of their lives. It was a whole subterranean world, always damp and yet without natural water. She tried to ignore the scurrying of inhuman feet, the rattle of claws, or the pinpoint of red eyes in the shadows.
    “People ’oo live in one tunnel often know things about other tunnels,” Sutton said in answer to her question. “Everythin’ ’ere ’as to be fetched from somewhere else. I’ll find yer a tosher ’oo knows the ’idden rivers as well as the ones on the maps, an’ mebbe someone ’oo knows a navvy or two ’oo’s bin ’urt an’ in’t so quick to defend ’is old bosses. Jus’ leave the askin’ ter me, right?”
    “Right.” She said only the single word, keeping her voice low, as if the shadows could remember her. They continued deeper under the river, where the silence was broken only by voices so low that they seemed wordless amid the scraping and the hiss of the gas jets. Every now and then there was the clang of metal on metal or the duller thud of wood as someone worked. It was an eerie world where daylight was unknown.
    Sutton pressed on, stopping now and then to greet someone by name, ask a question, make a wry, bitter joke. Hester hated it. There was no wind, no plants, no animals except rats and the occasional dog. Snoot trembled with excitement at the scent of so much prey, looking up at Sutton and waiting for the word that never came.
    They had already spoken to five people and were nearly half a mile under the river when Sutton found the man he most wanted. In the yellow glare of the gas his face looked cast of metal. It was scarred down one side, his ear torn and his hair tufted where the scalp had been ripped away. He was lean, and his hands were gnarled and huge-knuckled with rheumatism.
    “ ’Allo, Sutton!” he said with surprise. “Not enough rats fer yer in the Palace, then?” He grinned, showing strong teeth.
    “ ’Allo, Blackie,” Sutton replied. “I done such a good job they’re all gorn. ’Ow are yer?”
    “Stiff,” Blackie replied with a shrug. “Can’t get arter ’em fast enough no more. Got ’elp, ’ave yer?” He looked at Hester curiously.
    “Not much use yet,” Sutton told him. “But ’e’ll do. In’t built fer navvyin’.”
    Blackie looked at Hester thoughtfully, and she stared back at him, refusing to lower her eyes. Blackie laughed. It was a wheezy, cheerful sound. “ ’Ope ’e’s clever, then. ’E in’t good fer much else, eh?”
    Hester wanted to respond, but she remembered just in time that she could not mimic the accent she would have if she were really learning to be a ratcatcher. Nor could her voice sound like that of a boy of the height she was.
    “Navvyin’ in’t so clever.” Sutton shook his head. “Too chancy these days. Railways are one thing, tunnels is ’nother.”
    “Yer damn right!” Blackie agreed.
    Sutton looked at him closely. “Yer reckon one of ’em’s goin’ ter cave in, Blackie?”
    “That’s wot they’re sayin’.” Blackie curled his lip, making his lopsided face look less than human in the yellow light. “Word is ’em stupid sods is gonna keep on cuttin’ till they cross a river an’ drown ’alf the poor devils wot are diggin’ there like a lot o’ bleedin’