Assassin's Creed: Underworld (22 page)

Abberline had heard about the exhibition journey
but went home to see Aubrey first. ‘You think you can make it down?’ he asked him.

‘No, Freddie, but you pop along if
you’ve a mind. Say hello to the old gang for me. You going in uniform, are you?’

Abberline looked down at himself. ‘I figure
our friends will have more on their minds than looking out for me. Plus I can make my way
through the crowds more easily as a peeler. There are still some who have respect for the law.
Oh, one more thing.’

From the draw of his roll-top desk, Abberline
took a naval spyglass that he extended then closed with a satisfying
click click
.
‘Think I might be needing this,’ he said, and with that he took his leave into the
balmy September evening, feeling a little guilty about leaving Aubrey behind, truth be told;
after all, it wasn’t so long ago that he, Abberline, had been the one to brood, with
Aubrey doing his best to shake him out of it. How was Abberline returning the favour? Exactly.
He wasn’t. He was off gawping at big nobs taking train rides when he should have been
investigating whatever fiddle it was Cavanagh had going. Fraud was his best guess. Some kind of
embezzlement scam. It was the not-knowing that was the
problem – the
not knowing how to make it safe for Aubrey to rejoin his family.

Lost in thought, he made his way along a roadway
crowded with traffic, where the air seemed to crackle with the constant trundle of horse and
carriage. An omnibus passed, packed with men on the upper deck, and to Abberline their top hats
were like chimneys. In the distance smokestacks poisoned the East End with ribbons of thick
black smog.

Just as predicted, the crowds were heavy at
King’s Cross and he was glad of his bobby’s uniform as he elbowed his way through to
the fence surrounding the site.
Hypocrite
, he thought. You’re not above using
your own status when it suits you. Around him was the usual crowd attracted by such events:
families with children on parents’ shoulders, sightseers, men in suits and women in
bonnets – a general air of expectation. Abberline put them to his back and stood with his
hands on the fence posts feeling like a man imprisoned as he stared out across the site.

What a change it was from usual. Where the shaft
was, he could see a new wooden structure with steps leading downwards. The whole site had been
spruced up. Wagons and carts were lined neatly at the far end of the site, and there were no
mountains of spoil awaiting their turn to be taken away. Just an empty apron of mud, a series of
lit glaziers providing light, and then the trench itself, where lamps had been strung up so that
it looked almost pretty, like a fairground.

As for the tunnel, it was mostly covered. What
had spent so long as a groove in the earth was now a bone fide
railway
line. All, that was, apart from one short stretch nearest to the newly built steps, which
awaited the covering process. Aside from that, Abberline was looking at a real underground
railway.

There they were, the men who had helped it
happen: various Metropolitan Railway bigwigs that he didn’t recognize, as well as a few
familiar faces: Cavanagh, Marchant, two of the punishers, Smith and Other Hardy (and that was a
point, where was the third, the charming Hardy?) You had to hand it to the murdering scum, he
thought. Whatever their racket, whatever their fiddle, whatever crime they had perpetrated in
the name of the underground railway, they’d done it. They got the bugger built.

With them was the Indian lad, Bharat Singh.
Abberline trained his spyglass on that handsome implacable face. There was something different
about him today, thought the peeler. His eyes seemed to move nervously. Abberline kept his
spyglass to his eye as, with introductions over, the group began to move across the apron and
towards the new steps, the railway company men breaking into a polite smattering of applause as
they passed.

The group reached the steps, but before
descending were due to greet a gang of foremen. Mr and Mrs Charles Pearson were ushered forward.
There was more shaking of hands as they were introduced to the foremen by Bharat Singh.

When that was over, Cavanagh thanked the foremen
and, with doffed caps, they left. Bharat went to move away as well, to follow the foremen, but
Abberline saw Cavanagh’s hand shoot out, take Bharat by the upper arm and usher him
towards the steps instead.

Then they were gone. The
cap-doffing foremen moved away, the railway bigwigs stood consulting their watches, awaiting
their turn, and the line of navvies stayed where it was – a guard of honour, or maybe just
a guard – and a curious silence descended. Until from the tunnel came the whistle of a
steam engine, and great chuffs of smoke passed through the planks of the uncovered section as
the driver stoked his engine.

The train was about to pull off.

Further along the fence was an enclosure where
the bigwigs’ carriages were tethered. There stood drivers chatting, smoking pipes or
tending to their horses.

There was nothing unusual about the scene, but
even so Abberline’s gaze went to it, his eyeglass lingering there. For some reason he was
sure he’d seen something out of place, as though he’d walked into a familiar room in
which a piece of furniture had been moved.

Then it hit him. How the devil had he missed it
for so long? Standing there at the fence, bold as brass and with his eyes on the events at the
tunnel, was a man in white robes.

The Ghost had seen the future. It was a future in
which he was inducted as a Templar, and the more he was trusted by them, the closer to their
inner circle he went, and the more value he had for the Assassins.

Which meant they wouldn’t let him leave.
Even when this operation was over, they would make him stay, and he would have to do it because
the innocent life of Charles Pearson had paid his way to purgatory.

He wasn’t prepared to do that, and so
he’d decided that when Cavanagh dismissed him he would go to the carriage enclosure as
arranged and there he would tell Ethan his decision. That he was out.

Disarm Ethan if necessary. Hurt him if needs be.
But end this right now.

Except Cavanagh hadn’t dismissed him.
Instead the director had ushered him towards the steps – ‘You know, I’ve
changed my mind, I really think you should see this.’ – and he had descended with
the rest of the party.

He’d flashed his boss a quizzical look.
I should be taking up position
. But Cavanagh dismissed it with a quick
don’t-worry shake of his head. Why? His mind raced. Would there be time afterwards? Was
that the game Cavanagh was playing? Was this all part of an ongoing test of The Ghost’s
mettle?

Or was it something else?

At the makeshift platform stood a locomotive and
two carriages. The group proceeded to the front one and Cavanagh led the way inside.

‘As you can see, our newest carriage is
most commodious,’ said Cavanagh, welcoming the Pearsons into it with a flourish.
‘Compartments and arm-rests in first class make overcrowding impossible, while the
leather-upholstered chairs mean that even our second-class passengers will enjoy the utmost
comfort at all times.’

‘There are no windows,’ said Mrs
Pearson with a touch of panic in her voice.

‘Ah yes,’ said Cavanagh. ‘But
windows are not necessary in an underground train, Mrs Pearson. Besides, first-class passengers
shall have the benefit of gas lighting. The gas is carried in long India-rubber bags in boxes on
top of the carriages, and when we pull off you will see that the gas lighting easily provides
enough light by which to read a morning newspaper.’

They took their seats, with the Pearsons and
Cavanagh at the far end, and the rest towards the rear, where a door provided a portal through
to the second carriage.

Pearson thumped the tip of his cane excitedly on
the boards. The driver appeared at the open door, gave them a thumbs up with a gloved hand,
grinned at the dignitaries, and then closed the door and went back to the locomotive. Gas lamps
flickered but the darkness was kept at bay, just as Cavanagh had said it would.

With a clank and a trundle, the train moved off.

The Ghost felt
Marchant’s gaze on him. Smith and Other Hardy were staring at him too. All had the eyes of
men who were hungry for their supper. The absence of Hardy – so far unexplained –
began to gnaw at him. At the other end of the carriage, the Pearsons and Cavanagh kept up a
polite conversation but The Ghost wasn’t listening. He was wondering what malice lay
behind the stares of his companions.

The train pulled in at Farringdon Street and let
out a great belch of smoke. Moments later the driver opened the carriage door and peered inside
to check on his passengers, as well as basking in the compliments on the smooth journey from Mr
and Mrs Pearson. A short while later, and they were on the move for the return journey to
King’s Cross, Mr Pearson reaching for his pocket watch to check the journey time.

But …

‘My watch,’ he said, fumbling for it
but not finding it.

The train clanked on.

‘What is it, dear?’ said Mrs Pearson.
Cavanagh had leaned forward with false concern. The Ghost began to feel a new onset of dread,
daring to hope that the Solicitor of London had merely misplaced his pocket watch, but knowing
somehow that there was more to it than that, knowing that whatever it was involved him.

All eyes in the carriage were on Pearson now,
watching as he patted his belly. ‘No, no. My watch and chain is definitely
gone.’

‘When did you last have it, dear?’
Speaking loudly over
the noise of the engine, Mrs Pearson’s voice
seemed to shake with the movement of the train.

‘I can’t remember.’

Other Hardy called out from the end of the
carriage. ‘You had it on the platform, sir –’ he flashed a grin at The Ghost
before continuing – ‘if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, because I saw you
take it out and consult it.’

‘Oh well, that’s a relief, then it
must be around here somewhere …’ Pearson planted his cane on the boards and got
shakily to his feet, already struggling with the movement of the train.

‘Charles, sit down,’ admonished Mrs
Pearson. ‘Mr Cavanagh, if you would be so kind as to ask your men to look for the watch
…’

‘Of course, madam.’

As Marchant and the two punishers went through
the motions of looking, The Ghost’s mind raced, desperately trying to come up with a
solution. He surreptitiously checked the pockets of his jacket, just in case the watch had been
planted on him, and then raising his eye to the two punishers, caught them smirking at him.

No, they hadn’t planted the watch on him.
Not yet.

‘No, no watch here,’ said Marchant,
steadying himself with a hand on the carriage shell.

The Ghost sat motionless as though watching the
whole scene through glass. Cavanagh was sticking to the script, a picture of false concern for
poor Pearson’s missing pocket watch. ‘Then I must ask that you men turn out your
pockets,’ he said. ‘No, better still … turn out each other’s
pockets.’

They did as they were asked.
They went through the charade. The Ghost was near rigid with tension now. Knowing where this was
going but unable to do anything about it.

He felt a tugging at his coat. ‘Oh dear,
sir,’ said Smith or it might have been Other Hardy, but it didn’t matter, because
the trap was sprung. ‘I believe I may have found Mr Pearson’s watch. It was in the
pocket of young Bharat here.’

Smith took the watch to Pearson who identified it
and, with a rueful look at The Ghost, replaced it in his hip pocket. Meanwhile, Cavanagh had
stood, the very picture of fury, a man whose trust had been betrayed in the worst possible
circumstance. ‘Is this true?’ He glared at The Ghost. ‘Did you take the
watch?’

The Ghost said nothing, just stared at him,
mute.

Cavanagh turned to his guests. ‘Mr and Mrs
Pearson, I offer you my sincerest apologies. This is quite unprecedented. We shall place Bharat
under arrest. Mrs Pearson, may I ask that one of my men accompany you to an adjoining carriage,
away from this young thief? I fear he could well turn nasty.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Pearson, concern
etched on his face. ‘You should go.’

Marchant wobbled up the carriage towards Mrs
Pearson, giving her an oily grin as he held out his hand in order to accompany her away from the
nasty mess that was to come. She left, meek as a lamb, with a fearful, uncomprehending look at
The Ghost as she passed.

Now they were alone.

And then, just as the train
pulled into King’s Cross, Cavanagh drew a pearl-handled knife and plunged it into
Pearson’s chest.

Cavanagh opened the carriage door in order to call
out to the driver, congratulating him on a smooth journey and telling him they would alight
presently.

And then he closed the door and turned back to
where Pearson lay with his legs kicking feebly as the life ebbed out of him. Cavanagh had
hammered the knife directly into his heart before withdrawing the blade, and Pearson
hadn’t made a sound; in the next carriage his wife was oblivious to the fact that the
Metropolitan Railway director had just stabbed him to death.

Anticipating The Ghost might make a move, the two
punishers had grabbed him, pinning him to his seat. Cavanagh smiled. ‘Oh my God,’ he
said, ‘the young Indian ruffian has killed Charles Pearson.’ He wiped his blade
clean on Pearson’s body and sheathed it, then looked at The Ghost. ‘You would never
have done it, would you?’

The Ghost looked at him, trying to give away
nothing but sensing it was too late for that anyway.

‘“
Blowpipe
”, that was
good,’ said Cavanagh. ‘I liked that. You telling me you wanted to use a blowpipe
gave me everything I needed to know. It told Mr Hardy everything he needed to know too, and
he’s gone with a squad of men to apprehend or possibly kill, I can’t say I am much
troubled either way, your friend and my enemy, Ethan Frye.’

The train seemed to relax as
the locomotive exhaled steam. The Ghost thought of Ethan. The born-warrior Ethan, an expert in
multiple combatant situations. But careless Ethan, prone to error.

‘He is as good as dead, Jayadeep, as are
you. Ah, that surprises you, does it? That I know your name. Know your name, know your weakness,
know your protector would be along to take over a job you didn’t have the backbone to
complete. The jig is up, I’m afraid. You played a good game, but you lost. Mr Pearson is
dead, the Assassins are finished and I have my artefact.’

The Ghost couldn’t disguise another look of
surprise.

‘Ah yes, I have the artefact,’ smiled
Cavanagh, enjoying his moment. ‘Or should I say –’ he reached to scoop up
Pearson’s cane – ‘I have it now.’

He presented the cane up and The Ghost saw that
its handle was a bronze-tinged sphere about three inches in diameter. ‘There,’ said
Cavanagh, and his eyes were aflame, his lips pulled back over his teeth, a strange and ugly look
of love at first sight. ‘
This
is the artefact. Recovered by labourers some weeks
ago and given to Mr Pearson as a token of their esteem. And Mr Pearson liked it so much he made
it his cane handle. But Mr Pearson walks with the angels now. And he won’t be needing his
cane.’

Standing at the carriage enclosure, Ethan Frye
had watched the dignitaries descend the steps and wondered why they’d taken The Ghost
– and tried to dismiss a queasy sense that maybe something was going wrong.

Next he’d seen the great smoke emissions as
the train
pulled out of King’s Cross, and he’d waited as it
went to Farringdon Street then returned, and he’d stood patiently, awaiting the emergence
of Mr and Mrs Pearson, daring to believe that all would still go to plan.
I’m sorry,
Mr Pearson
, he thought, and reached for the blowpipe beneath his robes.

From within the ranks of carriages, Ethan was
being watched. He was being watched by a man who drew a knife that glinted in the moonlight, who
when he smiled, revealed a gold tooth.

Coming closer, Abberline saw that he
wasn’t the only one making his way towards the enclosure. From among the crowds a group of
labourers had materialized and were moving in on it too. He stopped and lifted out his spyglass,
leaning forward over the fence to train it on the man in robes. He stayed where he was,
oblivious to the approaching danger, still starkly visible, yet somehow invisible. Abberline saw
that he held something by his side and it looked like … Good God, was that a blowpipe?

Now he swung his spyglass to peer into the
thicket of carriages. The navvies were still approaching, and also …

Abberline caught his breath. If it wasn’t
his old friend Hardy. The punisher had his back to him but it was unmistakably him. Abberline
watched as Hardy caught sight of one of the labourers and tipped him a wink.

The trap was about to be sprung.

Abberline began to move towards the enclosure
more quickly. He no longer cared about robed men and whether they fought for good or bad. What
he cared about was giving Hardy a greeting from Aubrey, and his truncheon
was in his hand as he pushed his way through the crowds then vaulted the enclosure fence.
He threaded his way through the parked coaches. Once more he was glad of his peeler’s
threads when one of the oncoming navvies saw him approach and turned smartly on his heel,
feigning interest in something behind him. He was a few feet from Hardy now, and the punisher
still had his back to him, still watching the man in robes. What he and the man in robes had in
common was that both thought themselves the hunter, not the prey, and that was why Abberline was
able to come up behind Hardy undetected.

‘Excuse me, sir, but can I ask what
business you have in the carriage enclosure?’

‘
Business
,’ said Hardy,
turning. ‘It’s none of your bloody business is what it –’

He never said the word ‘is’.

As it turned out, he would never say the word
‘is’ again, because Abberline swung as hard with the truncheon as he could and it
was a vicious attack and not one worthy of an officer of the law, but Abberline had stopped
thinking like an officer of the law. He was thinking about the weeks of pain. He was thinking
about the scars made by a brass knuckleduster. He was thinking about a man who had been left for
dead. And he swung that truncheon with all of his might, and in the next moment Hardy had a
mouthful of blood and teeth and an appointment with the dirt at his feet.

To his right Abberline saw a powerful navvy
snarling as he came to him with a cosh in one hand. There were other navvies coming too, but
through the carriages Abberline caught a glimpse of the man in robes, who was now aware
of the disturbance at his back and was turning, tensing. At the same time,
Abberline felt the navvy’s cosh slam against his temple and it felled him, dazed, his eyes
watering and head howling in pain, just a few feet away from where Hardy was already pulling
himself to his knees, with his chin hanging at a strange angle and his eyes ablaze with fury
– and a knife that streaked out of the darkness towards Abberline.

Abberline rolled but then found himself pinned by
the legs and feet of the navvy, looking up to see the man towering over him, a knife in his
hand.

‘
He’s mine
,’ said
Hardy, although because of his injury it sounded more like
hismon
, but the navvy knew
what he meant and stayed his hand as Hardy, his lower face a mask of blood, lurched towards
Abberline, his elbow pulling back about to strike with the knife.

‘
Stop
,’ said the man in the
robes, and Hardy jerked to a halt mid-strike as he felt the mechanism of the Assassin’s
hidden blade at his neck.

‘Call off your man,’ said Ethan.

They heard the running feet of
reinforcements.

Hardy spoke, and through his broken jaw and teeth
it sound like
gufferell
but Ethan Frye knew what he meant and engaged his blade and it
tore through Hardy’s throat, emerging blood-streaked and gleaming from beneath his chin.
At the same time Ethan drew his revolver with his other hand. A blast tore the night and the
navvy pinning Abberline spun away. Ethan wheeled. His revolver spoke again and again, and more
bodies fell among the carriages. At the first shot panic had taken over the crowd and their
screams spooked the horses. Terrified coachmen flung themselves to the
ground.

Ethan was empty but the attack had faded and so
he dashed to where Abberline lay. ‘I’m Ethan Frye,’ he said, reaching out to
help Abberline off the dirt. ‘And it appears I owe you a favour. I will not forget this,
Constable Abberline. The Brotherhood likes to pay its debts. Now, if you will excuse me, I have
some pressing business to attend to.’

And with that he vaulted the fence and took off
over the mud towards the shaft. Men in suits scattered at the sight of this wild figure pounding
over the planks towards them. More importantly the squad of navvies at the tunnel edge saw him
coming too, but with just four of them between him and the steps, he wasn’t too concerned,
and he flipped the blowpipe from beneath his robes. Still on the run he plucked two darts from
his belt, clamped them between his teeth, brought the blowpipe up to the first dart, loaded and
fired.

The closest man fell with a poison-tipped dart in
the neck. Out of deference to Pearson Ethan had assembled an expensive poison that was painless
and fast-acting. Apart from the prick at his neck, he wouldn’t have felt a thing. Had he
known he’d be using them on Templars, he would have dipped them in the cheap stuff.

He reloaded. Spat the second dart. Another man
fell. A third drew a cutlass from under his jacket and came forward, cursing Ethan. His mouth
shone with saliva and he was slow, and Ethan took no pride in deflecting his first blow,
anticipating an easy scooping strike and then stepping into his body and jabbing back with the
blade. He whirled
swiftly away to avoid the dying man’s final
blood-flecked cough and met the last man at the same time. This one was better, faster, more of
a problem. Again, this one had a cutlass, and again he began with a chopping strike that Ethan
knocked away, trading two more blows before driving his blade home.

The other navvies were closing in, but he reached
the structure first, not bothering with the steps themselves, shinning down the timber uprights
until his boots met the planks of the makeshift platform, and there before him stood the
stationary train. Nothing strange about it at first glance.

Then he felt the earth move. A rumble. An
unmistakable movement. Enough to rock him on his feet. The timbers on the unfinished tunnel roof
began to tumble.

Inside the carriage The Ghost had watched as
Cavanagh bent and smashed the cane on the floor, pulling the orb from the shaft that he tossed
away. Smiling, the triumphant director held up the artefact for inspection. Greedy eyes went
from the bronze globe to The Ghost; the two punishers goggled and even The Ghost felt a tremor
of something indefinable in the air, as though the artefact had found its worshippers and was
showing itself to them. He thought of lightshows and depthless knowledge and understanding
– and then saw death and destruction, and great explosions on battlefields, and wondered
what he had helped unleash on the world. His job had been to recover that artefact. At the very
least prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. He had failed.

‘Can you feel
it?’ Cavanagh was saying. The sphere seemed to glow in his hand and, yes, unless they were
all experiencing the same hallucination, they could all feel it.

It was humming.

Suddenly the door to the adjoining carriage was
flung open and Marchant was back, slamming the connecting door and cutting them off from Mrs
Pearson, oblivious Mrs Pearson, who no doubt wondered when they were due to disembark.

‘Ethan Frye’s coming,’ said
Marchant breathlessly. At once the waves of energy that seemed to pulse from the orb increased
in intensity.

‘
What?
’ said Cavanagh.

‘Mrs Pearson wanted to be let out, so I
opened the door and saw Ethan Frye at the top of the steps.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘Back to me. He had his back to
–’

The door to the carriage opened. At the same
time, lightning fast, Cavanagh whirled and threw his knife, and there was a short scream from
the doorway.

Ethan
, thought The Ghost. But it was the
train driver’s body that fell into the carriage.

They all felt it. The earth seemed to move. There
was a distinct rumble and Cavanagh looked at the object he held, fixing it with a terrible,
power-drunk gaze. And was it The Ghost’s imagination or did it seem to glow more brightly
– almost boastfully?
Look at me. Look at what I can do.

And then the world caved in.