The Claws of Evil - By Andrew Beasley Page 0,11
guide the Watchers to glory? It was very much the Watcher way to choose the least likely to rise the highest, but this might be stretching the point: there wasn’t a soul the entire length of Old Gravel Lane who had a good word to say about the lad.
Jago Moon laughed to himself; he didn’t suppose people had much that was pleasant to say about a blind old madman like him, either.
A furtive dragging sound from the far end of the Lane snapped him from his reverie. In his experience, slow sounds spoke of stealth and secrets. He focused his keen ears; there it was again. The grating of metal on cobblestones; a manhole cover being lifted. Instinctively Moon grasped his cane more tightly. The Legion had arrived. Like insects, thought Moon, crawling out from beneath a stone.
Although he knew that Mother Shepherd was certain to disapprove, Moon couldn’t stop himself from hating the Legion. The Watchers were governed by truth, the Legion was ruled by lies. The Watchers rescued people, comforted them, helped them to be set free from the chains of poverty, hopelessness or despair; the Legion used people, exploited their burdens, fuelled the fire of their bitterness until they were angry at the whole world.
And then there was the small matter of the Legion wanting to unleash the powers of Hell and usher in a reign of evil on earth.
The Watchers believed in love, but when it came to the Legion, Moon was an advocate of tough love. He gripped the handle of his cane and silently hoped that a Legionnaire would stray within swinging distance.
Moon’s ears told him that there was a Watcher on guard on the roof above Ben’s room. He could hear the flapping of their trench coat, the crunch of their skyboots on the icy slates. The footfalls were very light so it must be one of the younger ones, he reasoned. Probably a girl, judging by their grace. His grin grew wider. He didn’t envy the Legionnaire who tried to mess with a Watcher girl; they were all as tough as hobnailed boots.
He stood in the shadows, braced for action; he was no pushover either. The aching cold and the arthritis gnawing at his knuckles had put him in the mood for cracking a few Legion skulls. It might be a good night after all.
Ben watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust as Mr. Wachowski’s laughter dislodged something wet inside the man’s lungs. Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, the old man rocked back and forth, hacking and coughing, until he finally shifted the blockage and, with a look of triumph, spat it out onto the tiled hall floor.
“Mr. Wachowski!” A woman’s voice rang out from the direction of the kitchen and the old man went stiff at the sound. “Mr. Wachowski,” their landlady, Mrs. McLennon, continued, “are you spitting in my house again?”
“No,” said Mr. Wachowski in his rich Polish accent, and then smiled at Ben at a lie shared, showing him a row and a half of brown teeth.
“Well, I will certainly not be the one mopping it up. This is a clean house –” she pronounced it “hoos” in her Scottish brogue – “a Godly house,” she continued, “and I will not have blasphemers and heathens spitting on my tiles.”
As she emerged from the kitchen to inspect the evidence for herself, Ben bid them both a quick “Goodnight”. He left them arguing in the hallway, Mrs. McLennon quoting the scriptures and Mr. Wachowski mumbling the filthiest obscenities that a Polish sailor could think of.
Ben smiled as he climbed the creaking stairs. Home sweet home.
The ground floor of the house was all taken by the widow, McLennon, who lived alone with a mean-tempered cat who ate better than Ben did. In the basement there was Mr. Wachowski, who had arrived in London as a young man with a great vision of importing Polish pickles and becoming rich. Sadly for him, somewhere along the line the plan had fallen short and so his life now mainly consisted of smoking and spitting.
On the first landing there were two rooms and two families. The longest serving residents of the two were the O’Rourkes: Mr. O’Rourke, a coal whipper at the docks, whose skin was ingrained with black even after his Sunday wash; Mrs. O’Rouke, a sturdy and well-built woman, who scrubbed doorsteps for richer women but never seemed to resent them for it; and four little O’Rourkes, Jimmy (seven), Jenny