The Demi-Monde: Winter (44 page)

It was the thought of falling into a river of diluted shit that brought Ella to her senses. She fastened her hand onto Sergeant
Zawadzski’s belt and pressed her other arm against the sewer wall for support.

Splaying her legs against the current, she tried to stand up straight, managing to bash her head painfully against the top of the sewer as she did so. The sewer tube could only have been five foot or so in diameter, so she had to crouch to shuffle forward. How she was going to endure walking cramped and crooked in this hellish place was beyond her.

She heard a splash – and a whispered ‘fuck’ – as Vanka waded into the water. Above her the manhole cover was replaced and in that instant Ella was enveloped by a total and unrelenting darkness. It was like being buried alive. And to make things worse it seemed that the walls of the sewer glowed with a faint but very eerie green luminescence.

She felt PINC trying to tell her things, trying to explain about LunarAtion, trying to orientate her but she was so scared and so fucking cold that she ignored it. She felt dizzy, weak, helpless. Ella had never had any real sympathy for people who claimed they suffered from claustrophobia, but now …

A hand grabbed her belt from behind, steadying her. Vanka’s mouth was at her ear. ‘It’s okay, Ella. I’m here. Take deep breaths.’

Thank God for Vanka.

The crocodile began to edge forward, shuffling and sliding in the fetid blackness.

It was a nightmare. Twice Ella fell – each time stumbling over a brick or a stone lodged on the floor of the sewer – immersing herself in the shit-thick water, desperately struggling to keep her mouth closed, trying not to swallow the effluent that now so liberally coated her hair and face, spitting away the despicable taste on her lips. And both times it was Vanka who hauled her up by her belt and back onto her feet.

She had no idea how long they walked; time had no meaning in that terrible darkness. All she knew was that they had been walking long enough for her to be numb from the waist down and covered in shit and sweat from the waist up. She was tired to the point of exhaustion.

Suddenly she felt Sergeant Zawadzski slither to a halt in front of her and a moment later his voice whispered at her ear. ‘We’ve got to cross a junction. Keep very, very quiet. Róza will be lighting a lantern for a moment. Pass this message on to the Colonel.’

Ella did as she was told and then waited in the darkness. And as she stood she realised that the sound of rushing water that had been the only accompaniment to their progress had been augmented by a low rumbling noise coming from overhead. The SS, she guessed, must be moving steamers around on the surface. She could hear the pounding of the heavy wheels on the cobbles, could feel the thud of their huge pistons as they passed, could imagine the weight of the enormous, heavy vehicles pressing down on her.

A light flared.

Ella flinched, screwing her eyes tight shut before cautiously opening them. By the lantern’s flickering light she saw that they were at a crossroads of the sewer system, a junction where two sewers met, the two streams merging to form a heaving rapids, the waters swirling in a turbulent whirlpool. Ella shook her head: no one – well, no one as tired as she was – would be able to pass across that maelstrom without being washed away.

Obviously Róza had anticipated the problem: she delved down under the water and hauled up a long steel pole that had been pre-positioned there. She laid the pole across the mouth of the sewer set at right angles to their route. ‘Hold hard to the pole,’ she whispered. ‘Put your weight against it, it’ll stop you being taken by the current. And for the Spirits’ sake, be quiet:
the Anglos are right above us and they’ll be listening.’ The girl beckoned Sergeant Zawadzski forward and with him holding tight to the end of the pole, Róza used it to shimmy across the whirlpool to stand at the opposite side of the crossroads. Once settled she waved to Norma to follow her.

The girl did her best, but even in the lantern’s uncertain light Ella could see that she was scared witless. She was about halfway across when disaster struck. Thinking about it later, all Ella could suppose was that one of the bricks skittering about in the churning water had smashed into Norma’s damaged knee but whatever it was the girl screamed and her leg buckled. In that instant she lost her footing, was caught by the current and was gone, washed down the sewer to their right. Instinctively Ella made to lunge forward to grab her but Vanka yanked her back.

‘She’s lost …’ he shouted but any further debate was ended when the manhole cover directly above their heads was wrenched back and a lantern on a rope lowered down.

‘There!’ yelled a voice. ‘A Polish sewer rat.’

There was an ear-splitting explosion as Sergeant Zawadzski fired his revolver: the lantern exploded in a shower of glass and the sewer was plunged back into darkness.

‘Retreat,’ Sergeant Zawadzski snarled, and before Ella quite knew what was happening she was being hauled along the passage they’d just marched down. There were more thunderous blasts of gunfire, yellow and red light flared in the tunnels, the tang of cordite mingling with the stench of excrement. Suddenly there was a mighty explosion and a shock wave of sound bellowed through the sewer, shoving Ella over, throwing her into the fetid water. She was dragged to her feet by Vanka as Zawadzski loosed off shots, the flashes as the revolver fired blinding her. Ella could barely think as she staggered, gasping and spluttering, after Vanka and Sergeant Zawadzski.

Behind her she could hear shouts of men in pursuit and every now and again a bullet whined overhead, flicking from side to side as it caromed off the impervious Mantle-ite of the sewer wall.

Sergeant Zawadzski, lost in the pitch-black labyrinth, pulled a lantern from his bag and lit it. It was a suicidal thing to do. Without light they were running blind, but so too were the pursuing Anglos. Immediately the lantern was lit there was a fusillade of shots from the SS.

As she desperately tried to duck away from the bullets, Ella realised that thanks to PINC she was a natural sewer rat herself, a sewer rat who didn’t need light to know where she was going. ‘Douse the lantern,’ she ordered. ‘I know the way … follow me! Keep the current at your back! This branch of the sewer circles around under Odessa. Get there and we’ll be able to pick up another route that gives out on the Rhine near the new railway bridge.’

‘You go on,’ said Sergeant Zawadzski. ‘I’ll hold them here.’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid, this is no time for heroics,’ shouted Vanka. ‘Make a stand and they’ll settle you with grenades. Our only hope is to run.’ He grabbed Ella by the arm and dragged her down the sewer shaft. The current was behind them now, pushing them forward, threatening to topple them over. The frigid water was deeper too; it raced past Ella at chest height, making her gasp with the pain as the cold invaded her body.

Another explosion.

The Anglos were throwing grenades in front of them as they advanced. The noise of the explosions was louder … nearer …

‘To the left, to the left,’ she shouted. ‘Move, for the love of the Spirits, move!’

Bullets snarled around them. Suddenly Sergeant Zawadzski pitched forward as though he had been kicked in the back.

Scrabbling around in the darkness, Vanka tried to pull Zawadzski to his feet but it was useless. ‘Dead …’ Vanka pronounced, then wrenched the Sergeant’s pistol from his hand and passed it to Ella. ‘Fire at them. Make them keep their distance. Don’t let them get near enough to lob a grenade.’

She grabbed the huge pistol by its barrel. It was so hot that it burnt through the leather of her gloves and scalded her hand. She ignored the pain. Just as she’d seen in cop movies she held the revolver two-handed and pointed it back along the sewers. She pulled back the trigger. The bang as the pistol fired was deafening but still Ella kept pulling the trigger until the gun was empty.

Now all there was left to do was run.

It was Ella’s PINC-inspired knowledge of the sewers that saved them. She led Vanka in a perplexing and confusing series of turns and backtracks until, finally, she managed to throw off the chasing Anglos. Then …

‘There!’ she heard Vanka shout as he lurched along. It took a moment for Ella to make out what he was talking about. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead was the end of the sewer, illuminated by the unmistakable lights of the city. Spirits lifted by how close to salvation they were, the two of them staggered as fast as they dared towards the sewer mouth.

Then, before she had a chance to realise what was happening, the slope of the sewer pitched forward and Ella found herself being hurled towards the river as though she was riding a water chute.

The only thought she had as she tumbled was ‘Why didn’t PINC warn me?’

What is reBop? That, cats and kittens, is a real killer-diller question. So let me lay it on you straight, no chaser: reBoppers are the beat-daddies toot cool who dig jad music, the music most wigged-out and wonky coming to us from the fly and sly hombres who liveth in the nuJu Autonomous District of NoirVille. But think not that reBop is just about the music. Dig to the maximum that reBop is a way of life and a way of afterlife. ReBoppers are zoned in and mucho de able to diggeth the most secret and strange of DemiMondian happenings. In terms of the dark, dark WhoDoo magic they are, like, high, fly and too wet to dry.

– Greetings Gate, Let’s Agitate:
Cab Calloway, Bust Your Conk Books

It took a moment when Ella woke up for her to remember where she was. She remembered being spewed out of the sewer, remembered landing in the icy-cold waters of the Rhine, remembered Vanka dragging her ashore and bustling her through the night-black alleyways of Berlin and she remembered him bringing her to these rooms which belonged to …

She struggled for a moment trying to recall the name. It was a funny name.

Rivets.

That was it: Rivets, the young guy who seemed to be Vanka’s friend, who had taken them in and given them a bed for the night. It was Rivets who’d shown her to the bedroom she was now occupying. She remembered taking off her foul and soaking wet clothes, wrapping herself in a blanket and lying down on the bed, but after that, nothing.

She focused her sleep-heavy eyes towards the clock ticking on the wall. It was two o’clock … two o’clock in the afternoon if the sunshine streaming in through the window was any indicator. That meant she’d been asleep for almost ten hours. Using an elbow she levered herself into a sitting position – trying to ignore the protests of her aching body as she did so – and looked around. It was really quite a pleasant bedroom, with high ceilings and elegant furnishings. It was also very neat and tidy, the only jarring note being the pristine white shirt hanging from the wardrobe door with a sheet of paper pinned to the collar.

Odd.

Grudgingly relinquishing the warmth of her bed, she swung her legs out from under the covers, got to her feet and stretched, arching the pain and the cramps out of her back and reaching high with her arms until her muscles announced that they were recovered from the torment of crouching in the sewers. Then, keeping her blanket wrapped tight around her, she tripped over to see what was written on the message.

Good afternoon Ella,

I’ve had to pop out for a couple of hours. I’ll be back at 4 o’clock. I suggest that you spend the time ridding yourself of some of the friends you’ve brought with you from Warsaw and making yourself presentable for a night on the town. You’ll find some towels
and other useful items on the dresser. I’m sorry but your clothes were beyond salvaging so I’ve had them burnt. I’ll bring you a new wardrobe back with me. In the interim all I can offer you is the use of one of my shirts.

Your friend
Vanka Maykov

It took nearly an hour, four big pans of piping hot water, lots of scrubbing, savage use of a nit-comb and nearly all of a bottle of Mrs Murdock’s Patented Lice Lotion before Ella began to feel clean and human again. Spirits revived, she’d put on Vanka’s shirt and then set about brewing herself a mug of coffee.

She was just enjoying a second mug when a very smartly dressed Vanka arrived back at the rooms, looking freshly barbered and laundered and with his arms laden with boxes.

‘Ah, so Sleeping Beauty returns to the land of the living,’ he announced as he placed the boxes onto the table. ‘You look marvellous, Ella, and I have to say that that shirt never looked as good on me as it does on you. How are you feeling?’

Ella curtsied her appreciation of his compliment. ‘A little battered and bruised but still in one piece. You were very considerate regarding the toiletries.’

‘I trust you found everything you needed. Please, treat my humble apartment as you would your own home.’

‘This is your apartment?’

‘It’s a bolt-hole I have in Berlin, but because of fears that it might be being watched by that swine Skobelev I’ve steered clear of it of late. Rivets has been looking after it for me.’ Vanka must have sensed the unvoiced question. ‘Rivets is my partner in crime. He helps me with some of my more unorthodox business ventures.’

As explanations went it explained precisely nothing, which Ella guessed was exactly what Vanka intended. ‘What’s in the boxes?’ she asked as she settled down on the couch.

‘Presents … presents for you.’

‘Oh, good: I adore presents.’

‘The sad fact is, Ella, that having seen you in that shirt I find myself loath to give them to you. You have very fine legs and it is therefore with some reluctance that I must provide clothes designed to hide them from view.’ With that he tapped a finger on top of the packages. ‘But first an apology: I must confess to have taken advantage of you when you were asleep last night.’

The sudden concerned look on her face provoked a laugh. ‘Forgive my clumsy phrasing: I took advantage of you to measure your feet whilst you were asleep. I have taken the liberty of selecting two costumes for you. Louffie Louverture – the man we are to negotiate with regarding the delivery of blood to Warsaw – has a penchant for fine clothes and beautiful women so no expense has been spared! And all this is courtesy of Aleister Crowley and the really quite outrageous fee he paid for us to put on the séance at Dashwood Manor.’ He opened the first box. ‘This costume is quite mundane: it is something a fashionable young lady might wear in the afternoon.’