I promise you that. We'll get him."
Harry shook with fury and a grief that Jazz knew the others didn't yet understand.
"Hey," Gob piped up. "Where's Cadge?"
Jazz turned away from them. She hugged herself. Hattie came over and slid her arms around Jazz.
"Harry?" one of the boys prodded.
"They caught him. The Hour of Screams caught up to them. They might've done it anyway, madness
or not, but they beat him. I'm sorry, pets. I loved him so. Sweet boy, swift of mind and hand. But he's dead.
That was the other task I mentioned —saying good-bye to Cadge."
****
Jazz heard the water before she saw it. The soft hiss and gentle burble echoed off the stone walls of
the old tunnel. Where they walked now, no train had ever run. This corri-dor seemed part of an ancient
structure, the cellar of an old London building that had been destroyed. No doubt some other edifice had
been erected in its place, but its roots re-mained.
Stevie led the way with the industrial torch Cadge had nicked that morning. Leela and Bill took up the
rear, also carrying lights. Jazz and Hattie stayed on either side of Harry, just in case he stumbled. More
than anything, he needed to rest and recuperate, but he refused to do so —re-fused even to let them begin
the process of moving to their new sanctuary—until Cadge had been seen to.
Marco and Switch had gone with Stevie to get the body. Yeah, the body. Not Cadge. It's not
Cadge anymore. Just the shell he left behind. Jazz figured if she kept telling herself that, she might stop
wanting to scream every time she had to be near his corpse. In the shelter, their old home, they'd managed
to find a suit bag —the kind business travelers carried—and zipped him into it. The sight troubled Jazz. It
might not have felt so wrong if it had been black, but the bag was a bright cobalt blue. Marco and Switch
carried it between them and, though the others offered to take a turn, they re-fused to share the burden.
They passed through a stone archway at the end of the corridor and emerged on a stone-and-earth
embankment. Stevie clicked off his torch, for enough light filtered down through grates above them to see
perfectly well.
A river flowed beneath the streets of London, thirty feet wide and deep enough that the water
churned as it sped by. Jazz stared at it in amazement, then looked around at the crumbling foundations of
the walls on either side, at the newer stone supports, and above at the concrete and steel in the roof that
hung above the river.
"Where the hell did this come from?" she asked.
"Didn't come from nowhere," Stevie said, staring at the water. "River came first. Y'know Fleet
Street? Named it af-ter the Fleet River. Once upon a time it was aboveground, but they buried it. Must run
for four or five miles under the city."
Harry stepped between them, reaching out to put one hand on Jazz's shoulder and one on Stevie's.
"True, Mr. Sharpe. The River Fleet's got a great many stories, some of them full of mystery and some of
sorrow. This part of the river here used to be called the Holbourne, which meant hollow stream or some
such in the old Anglo-Saxon. That's where modern Holborn originated, with the river. But like so many
other pieces of London's history, the river has been buried and forgotten."
Silence descended. The kids all gathered on the river-bank. Marco and Switch set down the suit bag
with Cadge's body in it.
"Take a moment, my friends," Harry said at length, his voice a rasp of emotion. "Cadge was a good
lad. One of the sweetest boys, one of the kindest hearts we'll ever know. The world above might have
forgotten him, but we never will."
"Never," Hattie agreed.
"Never," the others all echoed, Jazz included.
Her chest tightened and she wiped moisture from the corners of her eyes.
"We won't forget what Cadge did for us nor what was done to him."
Jazz glanced at Harry, wondering if he would cry. But instead his face was grim and cold. He did not
look like the kindly old thief she had always seen him as. Just then, Harry Fowler looked dangerous.
"All right, lads," he said, and nodded.
Marco and Switch picked up the suit bag, swung it once, and launched it as far out into the river as
they could. It struck the water and went under, dragged by the weight of the dead boy inside, but then
bobbed up again, moving swiftly in the current.
"Where —"Jazz began, but her voice broke. She cleared her throat and looked at Harry. "Where
does