The Romans built the original catacombs under what was then called Londinium, so they could go down there and do things in private they knew their gods wouldn’t approve of. The Romans believed that if their gods couldn’t see what they were doing, it didn’t count. Very practical people, the Romans.
After the Romans declined and fell and got the hell out of Britain, other people moved in and used the tunnels for their own purposes, extending them as they went along. London Undertowen has been greatly expanded and added to, down the centuries, by many hands, for many reasons. It’s sunk deep in the bedrock, well below the underground trains, and used by all kinds. These days the dark tunnels and galleries are home to everyone from the Sleeping Tygers of Stepney to the Slow Subterraneans. From the Dark Fae to the Night Gaunts to the Sons of the Old Serpent. You can find aliens, kobolds, dream-walkers and downbound souls, and even the deformed children of celebrities and lust demons. Abandoned and forgotten by their parents, they thrive in the dark and the cold and plot terrible revenges on the world that should have been theirs. And no, they don’t ride around on giant albino alligators that were flushed down toilets when they got too big to be pets. That’s only an urban legend. The Lost Children eat alligators, and wear their teeth as crowns on their bulging, misshapen heads.
London Undertowen: home to any who have good reason to prefer the dark to the light. The lost and the fallen, the cursed and the corrupt. Neutral ground for all the groups and individuals who wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. The kind who play too rough for the Nightside, or are too sick, or sickening, for the World Beneath. It’s where the underpeople go to hide and scheme and do awful things, far from the sight of man.
Just the place for Satanists to party.
“I’ve been down there a few times,” I said slowly. “The ambience is awful, and the company is worse.”
“Louisa loves it there,” said Isabella.
“She would,” said Molly.
“Is she . . . ?” I said.
“No,” said Isabella. “She’s still excavating the Martian Tombs.”
“Still?” said Molly. “What the hell is she up to there?”
“Last I heard, trying to raise up something that would talk to her.”
“Oh, this can only end badly,” said Molly.
“That’s Louisa for you,” said Isabella.
“Look,” I said firmly, “I am still waiting to hear what makes this so urgent that you had to come bursting in here to interrupt our quality time.”
“The Satanists’ meeting is scheduled for one a.m. tomorrow morning,” said Isabella. “Some three hours from now.”
“The thirteenth hour,” said Molly. “Satanists can be terribly sentimental about some things.”
“Three hours from now?” I said.
“Give or take,” said Isabella. “I’d get moving, if I were you.”
“Just once, I’d like some downtime between emergences,” I said wistfully. “A weekend off in a nice hotel, with room service . . . I need my beauty sleep.”
“Getting old,” said Molly, prodding me somewhere indelicate.
“I’ll meet you both there, in Under Parliament,” said Isabella, averting her gaze from such a blatant display of fondness. She snapped her fingers and disappeared from my bedroom.
“I thought she’d never go,” said Molly. She leaned companionably against me and trailed the fingertips of one hand across my bare chest. “Now, where were we?”
“You never told me that granting you access to the Hall also allowed your sisters access,” I said sternly.
“Do you expect me to tell you everything?” said Molly.
“When it involves Drood security, yes!”
“You can be very stuffy sometimes, Eddie Drood,” said Molly.
She turned abruptly away from me, got up from the bed and gave her full attention to getting dressed, with her back to me.
“I’ve killed the moment, haven’t I?” I said.
Molly said nothing—very loudly. I sighed, rolled regretfully off the side of the bed and wandered round the room, picking up bits of my clothing from where I’d flung them earlier.
“Don’t you dare put those back on,” said Molly, without looking round. “They’ve been through a lot, and little of it good. Dump it all in the laundry basket, and pick out some fresh ones.”
“They were fresh yesterday. . . .”
“That was yesterday!”
We got dressed. Molly chose an impressive backless, shoulderless creation from the pocket dimension she kept in the back of my cupboard. I was never allowed to look into it, which made me suspect she kept other things there as well, apart from dresses, but I never asked. I chose a smart but nondescript three-piece suit, because I was going to have to enter the House of Commons in order to reach Under Parliament, and I didn’t want to stand out. Or be in any way memorable. I put on an old Etonian tie. Might come in handy. I waited until Molly was putting the last touches to her makeup in the dressing table mirror, and then tried a hopefully innocuous question.
It’s hard to keep a relationship going when there’s an argument in the room.
“We’ve got a good three hours until the Satanists’ little bash gets under way. Do we have to leave now?”
“I do,” said Molly. “You can hang around here if you want. I have somewhere to go first.”
“Where?”
“The Wulfshead Club. You are, of course, perfectly free to go and wake up all your council members, and make a full report, and listen to them discuss everything in great detail before finally authorising you to investigate the situation, but I am off. Right now. Things to see, people to do. It’s not that I don’t trust Isabella, you understand, or her fascinating friends and allies . . . but I’ll feel a lot better once I’ve confirmed their information through some friends and allies of my own. And that means a short, sharp visit to the Wulfshead.” She finally turned to look at me. “You can tag along if you like, while I pin people to the wall and ask them pointed questions; just don’t embarrass me. You can usually trust Isabella to tell you the truth, but you can’t always trust her to tell you everything. Forewarned is forearmed, and since we won’t be able to take any weapons into Under Parliament for fear of setting off all their alarms . . .”
“I’ll go as Shaman Bond,” I said, when she finally paused for breath. “He won’t seem out of place, either in the club or London Undertowen. People expect him to turn up anywhere. I’ve put a lot of work into establishing that reputation, for times like this. And people will say things to Shaman that they wouldn’t dream of discussing in front of a Drood.”
“Good,” said Molly, smiling for the first time. “I like Shaman. He’s good company.”
“But he’s me. . . .”
“Not always.”
“I can be good company. . . .”
“Stuffy,” said Molly airily. “Definitely stuffy.”
The Merlin Glass couldn’t take us directly to the infamous Wulfshead Club, semilegendary watering hole for all the really interesting and dangerous people on the fringes of reality . . . because the club’s defences wouldn’t allow it. So instead it dropped us off in a garbage-strewn back alley somewhere in the grubbier part of London’s Soho. Access points to the club are always changing, drifting back and forth across the seedier parts of London. The Wulfshead isn’t actually in the city; in fact, there are those who claim it isn’t even on Earth. As such. But you can access the club from selected very secret locations in every major city in the world. As long as you’re a member in good standing, of course.
The alley was full of uncertain shadows, a flat amber light sprawling across black garbage bags and the nastier sort of litter from the single streetlamp at the mouth of the alley. A cold wind was gusting, picking up a few leaves and playing with them, but not strong enough to move anything else. The tang of fresh urine was sharp in the air. Molly ignored it all, staring intently at one particular part of the bare brick wall that seemed no different from any other. She ignored the obscene graffiti, nodding slowly as her witchy Sight showed her the signs beneath the signs. She said the current passWord, and a great door of solid silver appeared in the wall before us. As though it had always been there, and we hadn’t noticed it till now. The dully gleaming metal was deeply etched with threats and warnings in angelic and demonic script, the disturbing characters sharp and clear, actually painful to merely human eyes. I stepped forward and pressed my left hand flat against the unnervingly warm metal, and the door swung slowly inwards. Attempting entry to the Wulfshead Club is never going to be easy, because if for any reason, good or bad, your name is no longer on the approved list, the door will bite your hand off. One of the many reasons the Wulfshead has never felt the need for a bouncer at the door.