Unwritten Books 3 - The Young City (23 page)

Edmund’s eyes tracked along the warehouse floor. “It has just become harder. Aldous is heading for our storeroom.”

Rosemary stood up. Peter turned around. All peered past the edge of the crate and saw Aldous, flanked by Rob (his nose bandaged again) and a group of other boys, striding forward purposefully.

Rosemary swallowed hard. “He doesn’t look happy.” Aldous entered the hallway. Despite the presence of people moving boxes, the warehouse seemed to go quiet. The three glanced at each other. “Hide or run?” asked Peter.

Yells erupted from the hallway, followed by the scuffle of feet.

“Hide!” gasped Rosemary, and they ducked back into the shadows.

Aldous emerged from the hallway and stopped dead, holding back the tide of boys that ran into him. He scanned the warehouse floor. Rosemary watched him from behind the crates. There weren’t that many places to hide, and Aldous knew it. She could see him checking off the less likely places: the part of the floor he’d walked down, other parts with too much open ground to cover. His gaze settled on her stack, and he strode toward it.

“Run!” She shooed Peter and Edmund out the other way.

They staggered into the open, past youths who almost dropped the boxes they were lifting in surprise, past others who just stood looking to anybody for guidance and finding none until Aldous shouted, “Seize them!”

Straight out of a B movie, Rosemary thought. But it did the trick. Men ran toward her. She knocked aside the first boy that grabbed at her. They were halfway across the floor, racing for the front door. Edmund dragged Peter along.

“Five dollars to the first man or boy who secures that woman and those two men!” Aldous bellowed, pointing.

Then the place came alive. Dozens of men and boys jumped up from behind crates, dropped boxes to the sound of breaking glass, and ran. Rosemary grabbed Peter for extra speed, but a circle converged on them. They kicked and punched, but there were too many.
Rosemary gasped as she was grabbed from behind. Peter and Edmund vanished beneath the melee. Rosemary fell to the floor. Bodies pressed on top of her. She curled up into a ball to protect herself from flailing limbs.

“Stop!” Aldous yelled, and the seething mass on top of them froze. “Get them on their feet.”

Rough hands grabbed Rosemary under the shoulders and hauled her up. They set her beside Edmund and Peter, who looked battered and bruised.

Aldous marched up to Edmund and stood face to face with him. “When did you grow a backbone?”

Edmund drew himself up. “Much too late, I regret. I should never have helped you. I will not help you again.”

“Fair enough,” said Aldous. “Take them to the port.”

They marched their prisoners across the warehouse floor and past the double doors into the underground port. There, they halted. Aldous nodded to the boy nearest him. “Order everybody out.” The boy nodded and left. The port started to clear out.

Rosemary frowned. “What are you doing?”

Edmund tried to step forward. “Aldous, no, I’ll do anything —”

Aldous pinched the bridge of his nose. “Edmund, I’m going to kill you anyway. It is better to die defiant than to expire snivelling.”

Rosemary shot upright. “What?” She struggled against the restraining hands.

“I am sorry, Miss Watson,” said Aldous. He nodded to another boy. “Fetch me a crate. We’ll nail them in to drown.”

“No!” Rosemary gasped. “Smuggling is one thing, but murder?”

“Sir,” said the man holding Rosemary. “You can’t —”

Rob shouldered him aside and grabbed Rosemary’s arm. “I’ll take things from here. You go tend to the warehouse.”

“Why don’t you just shoot us?” said Peter bitterly.

“Because the presence of bullet holes would leave the police no doubt that it was foul play,” said Aldous. “As for why I am doing this, I’m afraid Faith Watson leaves me no choice.”

Rosemary blinked, then broke into a grin. “She escaped, didn’t she?”

“I appear to have miscalculated,” said Aldous. “With Faith Watson trapped and soon to be captured, I thought I could interrogate you at my leisure, but my scouts confirm that she has left the sewers and has almost certainly gone to the police with quite a story to tell. My hope is to discredit her: to suggest that her story is the overwrought imagination of a woman whose mind has been broken by the tragic death of her family in a boating accident.”

“You haven’t actually met Faith before, have you?”

A boat docked at a nearby jetty and the oarsman
hopped out and came running over. “Mr. Birge, sir?”

He waved him off. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Around them, the gaslights flickered. The bricks began to take on a phosphor glow.

Peter frowned. “What, the —”

“But sir,” the young man persisted. “The northern drop points — the boys up there have done a runner. There’s no sign of them or the merchandise we traded for.” He stopped short, staring at Peter, Edmund, and Rosemary, lined up by the water’s edge.

Rosemary took a deep breath. “The portal is flowing downstream!”

Rob shook her. “Be quiet.”

“Don’t hurt her!” Peter tried to strike out at Rob, but his captor pulled him back.

“Sir?” said the oarsman. “What’s going on here?”

“None of your business!” Aldous snapped. He glared at Peter and Rosemary. “Stop struggling, you two! Don’t make me gag you again, Miss Watson.”

“Don’t you see?” Rosemary’s voice rang off the brick and gaslight. Heads rose. “Don’t you understand? The gates are disappearing. Aldous has left all your friends trapped in the future!”

Faces blanched. Eyes shifted. Uncertainty rippled through the port.

Rob clapped a hand over Rosemary’s mouth, then cried out as she bit him again. “Are you going to just stand there and let him kill us?” she yelled.

“Quiet!” Aldous shouted. “Rob, silence her!”

Rosemary choked as Rob wrapped an arm around her throat.

Aldous clenched his fist. He clicked his lighter faster, sparks flashing in the dim light. “What’s taking that crate so long?” He turned and saw the warehouse doors standing open, a crowd of boys standing there, watching, blocking the way, arms folded. He glared at them. “Get back to work!”

They didn’t move.

Aldous strode toward them. “I said, get back to work!”

Then a sound stopped them all. A low, echoing moan slipped across the water and resonated through the walls and jetties. The gaslights guttered. Some went out. A stagnant-smelling breeze ruffled their hair and caught at Rosemary’s skirt.

“What was that?” muttered Edmund’s captor.

“The wind, nothing more.” Aldous rounded on the obstinate crowd. “What did I just tell you?”

The river moaned again. The sound was low at first, then rising until it wailed like a dying man. The phosphor glow slid downstream, seeping up the walls and shining off the jetties until everyone blinked against its brilliance.

“What is this madness?” Aldous growled.

Then the water started flowing backwards. The boys on the boats yelled and scrambled onto the jetties as the
river sank and Lake Ontario flowed in. Wood clattered on sodden wood. Water slapped on stone.

Rosemary kicked back against Rob’s knee. He yelled, then clutched at her, but Rosemary was fighting for her life and screaming at the top of her lungs. Peter struggled and struck back against the boy holding him. Edmund stared, then caught his staring captor unawares with a punch in the face.

A rumble drowned out whatever noise they made. The water shook. Around the corner of the tunnel, a giant wave rolled into view, filling the tunnel to the ceiling. The boys on the jetties rushed for the warehouse door, fighting their way through the shocked and panicking crowd. Edmund and his captor dove into the crowd for safety. Peter shoved his after them, then turned to Rosemary, who was still fighting with Rob.

Rosemary felled Rob with a punch and turned for the door. Peter grabbed her wrist, then fell when Rob tackled Rosemary, knocking her into him.

The water rushed toward them, smashing the first jetty to splinters.

Rosemary rolled around and kicked Rob in the face. He clutched his nose, yelling, and they were free. Peter hauled Rosemary to her feet, grabbed her hand, and ran for the warehouse door.

Behind them, Rob screamed.

They reached the door just as the wave hit. It knocked them into the warehouse and drove them to

the floor. Water rushed over them, then receded. Peter and Rosemary, soaked, struggled up on their hands and knees, and stared. They were at the centre of a great, spreading puddle. Behind them was the sound of breaking wood as the port snapped.

A stunned silence descended on the warehouse. People picked themselves up.

“Is everybody all right?”

“Jim? Has anybody seen Jim?”

“What the hell happened?”

Then the front doors burst open, and a mass of constabulary came through the opening. “Right! This is a raid! Everybody stay where you are!”

The crowd of boys broke in all directions. Some fell to the floor. Others looked for escape routes, and panicked when they found none.

“It’s the cops!”

“We’ve got to get out of here!”

Still more ran at the officers, hands in the air, pointing behind them.

“I had nothing to do with it!”

“It were Mr. Birge! He was going to murder that young lady!”

“I saw everything, copper!”

The stream of officers filled the front part of the
warehouse. Gloved hands clapped on scruffy shoulders and hauled kicking lads out the door. Others fanned out into the crowd. “Come quietly, now. We’ll take your statement at the station. Co-operate, and we’ll be lenient.”

Peter helped Rosemary to her feet, and then staggered when a policeman grabbed him by the shoulder. “Come on. You’re coming with us.”

“Hey!” yelled Rosemary, scrambling after them.

Peter gaped. “What are you —,” he grunted as the officer hustled him into the crowd. Rosemary vanished from his view, blocked by the crowd of confusion. “Look, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not with these people; I was their prisoner!”

“Tell it to the judge, son,” said the officer.

“He’s right. Let him go,” said a woman’s firm voice.

Faith stood in front of them, her dress stained and torn, her hands on her hips. The officer let go of Peter and tipped his hat to her before turning and darting back into the crowd.

“I see you’ve brought the cavalry,” said Peter, trying to straighten his jacket.

Faith tilted her head at him. “No, I brought the police.” She stopped short at the sight of his wrists and snatched them up. “Your hands! They’re hurt!”

Peter tried to shrug. “They’ll heal.”

“Not without proper care!”

“Never mind that now.” He snatched his hands away. “Where’s Edmund? Where’s Rosemary?”

Faith scanned the crowd, then perked up. “Edmund!” She ran to where another officer was hauling Edmund away. “Officer, wait! That’s my brother!”

She slipped, catching herself on a fallen crate. She stood staring at the contents, which had burst out and spilled over the floor. The brown puddle reeked of alcohol. She rounded on her brother. “Edmund!”

He looked up, flinched, and looked beseechingly at the officer, but Faith grabbed his arm. “Edmund! Do you mean to tell me that you took up with ... with ... bootleggers and rum-runners?” She balled her fist.

Edmund cringed. “Faith, I ... I —”

“You stupid, stupid, stupid man!” She thumped his chest and shoulders. “How could you? How could ... You could have been killed!” And she broke down, sobbing. Edmund caught her, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

Peter approached, but kept a respectful distance. Then an officer touched his arm. “Since Miss Watson is occupied, I’ll tell you. We have control of this place. There’s plenty of evidence and plenty of people willing to point the finger at Mr. Birge. Tell Miss Watson she’s earned a substantial reward for breaking this smuggling operation.”

“Have you found Aldous Birge?” asked Peter.

“Peter!” Rosemary’s shout cut through the hubbub. Peter snapped up and stared in horror at Rosemary being dragged back toward the river port by Aldous, a gun to her throat.

“If anybody follows me,” Aldous bellowed. “I will shoot this young lady.”

She clawed at the arm around her neck. “Don’t just stand there, you idiots! Arrest him!”

The crowd of boys and police officers parted as Aldous dragged Rosemary to the port doors.

Peter ran through the crowd after them.