The Claws of Evil - By Andrew Beasley Page 0,8
expected; it had been crimped from a silver sheet, not poured into a mould. That was how they made coins in the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago.
Jimmy returned with Ruby’s drink, but neither she nor Carter paid him any notice. Carefully, Professor Carter picked up the silver coin by the edges and held it closer to the light.
“Do you know what this is?” Carter asked.
“A Roman coin, like you asked for.”
“Oh no.” He shook his head slowly. “It is so much more than that. This is a piece of history. There were thirty of these coins in the beginning, and we, the Legion, already hold twenty-nine of them. Some people call them the Coins of Blood.” He smiled. “I call them an opportunity.”
Of course, like any army, the Legion had its ranks. Carter was not cannon fodder like Jimmy Dipps and all the other ragamuffins. Carter was a knight commander, but he too was a man under authority. His orders were to pass the Coin onwards and upwards to Mr. Sweet; respectable Member of Parliament by day, schemer and murderer by night. And orders were orders, he supposed; except the expression “finders keepers” kept springing to mind. If he was the one with the power of the Coins, then Mr. Sweet would be answering to him.
The power to control men, to bend them to your will. Who doesn’t dream of that? he wondered.
He pinched the coin lightly between forefinger and thumb, noticing the slightest tremble in his hand. Then he turned the coin over and his triumph turned to ashes in his mouth.
Instead of the image of the Phoenician god Melkart, he saw the fat face of the Emperor Tiberius winking back at him. He’d got the wrong man.
“No!” The word escaped his lips in a roar of disappointment. Carter hurled the worthless coin away with savage disgust before scanning the room for another means to vent his rage. Jimmy Dips cowered when Carter’s eyes fell upon him. Even the unflappable Ruby Johnson averted her gaze, her face grey.
“It’s not the one,” Carter snarled as he leaped to his feet, and he brought his claw down across the table in a single vicious blow, cleaving it in two.
The Jolly Tar wasn’t all that jolly any more. The air had turned blue with curses. Glass broke. Fists flew. The monkey screamed.
Ben had more on his mind than a bit of monkey spit though. His head was spinning and he needed to get out. He weaved his way through the crowd as swiftly as he could, doing his best to avoid getting punched in the process.
When he made it to the door and the frosty night air hit him, he drank it down in great gulps. What was happening to his life? First he had seen little Molly fall prey to the Weeping Man. Then he’d managed to single himself out as the next victim in the process. And he couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened when his fingers touched Jago Moon’s, but he did know that he wanted to get as far away from the crazy old man as possible.
He remembered Moon’s mad eyes and ominous words and began to feel his head reeling again.
Pull yourself together, he told himself firmly, and after a final determined drag of cold air, he drew himself up straight and rolled his shoulders back.
To his disappointment, he realized that he hadn’t even managed to pick up his book in all the confusion, but there was no way that he was going back in to face Moon again. At least he’d managed to pocket his farthing though, and with that thought he began to head for home. True, it wouldn’t be much warmer there than it was out here in the street, and it stank worse than a tramp’s armpit in August, but home was still home.
As he walked back through the snow he let his mind wander through his best-loved stories. Mummies...vampires...Spring-heeled Jack...the Red-Legged Scissor Man... Anything to take his mind off the real horror that was encroaching on his life from every direction, he thought grimly.
His imagination was always full of the mysterious and other-worldly; something he must have got from his mum, he supposed. After all, she had believed in a good, caring God and guardian angels who watched out for you...and what could be more incredible than that?
Was there some divine protector looking down on him? he wondered. Fat chance, he thought and laughed out loud at such