The Devil's Fever

Prologue

Covent Garden.

London.

1892.

Dusk had fallen on the market.

The Costermongers shouted away the last of their wares, some of the flower girls packed up for the day and some dressed up for the night.

The first thing that hit you was the smell. The rot of the unsold food, the musk of people forced into tiny space after tiny space, all desperately trying to make their pennies before the night came. Rats were commonplace, dashing in and out of stalls, pinching any scraps they could, dancing between the feet desperately trying to crush them.

Connor stood on the corner of Kings Street. He knew the top-and-tails would be heading up from St Martins Lane towards the Opera House. He knew this was where the money would be.

He wouldn’t be robbing them. He’d learnt that lesson already. Peelers protected the men in the sleek black hats and the women in the delicate fabrics more than anyone else.

It was easier to look all sad, give them the eyes and hope for some cast-off coppers.

Less hassle. Less beatings. More reward.

Connor wasn’t stupid, he was surviving.

A few well-to-dos walked past him with their noses covered from the stench, giving him short shrift and walking past like he was invisible. He was used to it. There were so many people in this town it was easy to block them all out.

He wasn’t perturbed, he knew the game - a hundred failures to the one win you need.

He spoke to them again and again, “Please sir” “Madam I’m starving” “Spare a penny for the Irish poor” but nothing. A collection of rejections and looks of disdain.

He hated them all did Connor, but they were his way to eat tonight.

He spotted the fat one from a mile off.

Red-cheeked, a sail’s worth of fabric fashioned into a waistcoat barely covering his vast belly, a walking vessel of gout with hands that had never seen a day’s work.

Also, he had a woman with him.

They were always more likely to pay if they had a woman with ’em.

Connor shouted across at them, “Please sir, please, spare some change for the London poor?”

The man stopped stock still ahead of him. Stared him up and down with eyes sunk far back in his fat swelled face. Tried to bore as deep into Connor’s soul as a look could.

Connor didn’t blink. He was smaller, he was younger and he hadn’t eaten for a day but he knew he could take this guy without much fuss.

In fact, he wanted to.

He wanted to pound his privileged face into a bloody mess that even his sickly perfumed woman friend wouldn’t recognise.

But he didn’t.

He just stood there and waited for the rich man to talk.

“Irish I presume?”

Connor swallowed the anger rising in his chest and replied.

“That I am sir, and I beg of you to give me the coin to-”

But the rich man didn’t let him finish. He held out a silver coin a few inches from Connor’s face.

“Dogs and mongrels and heathens the lot. That blood in you is dirty my boy and you shall never shake it off. My family have earned this coin and you want me to give it to you for nothing? How will you learn to strive if you are handed what you didn’t earn Fenian?”

The blood rose in Connor as he watched the coin return to the rich man’s waistcoat pocket.

“At least the whores do something for their money.”

And at that he left, casually striding towards the Opera House, a newfound righteous bounce in his step.

Connor didn’t shout after him.

There would be no point.

He just stood there beginning to feel the cold as the night continued to swallow the market.

He turned and began to head back to his tenement, at least he could huddle for warmth until the Opera kicked out and the wine they had quaffed might loosen their purse strings more.

As he made his way down the street he caught something out of the corner of his eye

A movement.

A scurry.

Fucking rats he thought as he went on his way, turning into the alleyway on Rose Street.

The walls were close and the street was damp from the piss thrown from the flats above, but Connor just ploughed forward, hunched up from the cold beginning to nip at his skin.

Another sound.

He stopped and looked. He’d been jumped too many times to miss the signs.

“I didn’t get any coin so if you want to beat me go for it but there ’int no money for you”, he shouted, the words bouncing back off the wet, brown brickwork.

When no reply came he carried on.

He’d be home soon, have a laugh, huddle for warmth, and then back out for the late-night scene. It might not be a wasted day after all.

He turned the corner and, at the end of the alleyway, he could see a silhouette; a black, featureless outline against the fading light.

The kid was smaller, certainly weaker, and looked to have lost an arm. Connor knew he could take him.

“If you want to go we can go but I don’t fancy your chances boy”, Connor boomed down the narrow lane.

A loud hissing sound emanated from the silhouette. Hostile. Angry. Inhuman.

“What the-”

But it was too late, the smaller boy was bounding towards him, possessed by brutal ferocity and driven by a hunger to tear at Connor’s flesh.

As teeth bit through skin and blood poured onto the street Connor fought with all he had but it was not enough.

The younger boy tore at Connor’s neck and his nails clawed at his prey in desperation. Connor fought with all he had but the one-armed boy was far too strong.

Connor whispered a prayer as the two lost boy’s eyes met.

Bloodshot, dark and possessed somehow, the creature continued to feast with insatiable greed.

The life ebbed from Connor and his corpse was left cold in the alleyway, the one-armed boy had a taste for it now and was looking for his next victim.