They pushed their way through the crowd until they could see the grimy facade of St Osbert’s Church, which fronted directly on to the street. The traffic was still deafening, but as they came nearer, Josh thought he heard a muffled drumming sound, with a sharper rat-a-tat-tat! on top of it that echoed and re-echoed all the way up Fleet Street.
Nancy reached the church door and twisted the handle. “It’s locked,” she said. “I thought churches were always supposed to be open.”
Josh gave the handle a hefty tug. The door was definitely locked and bolted, and it was made of studded black oak. There was no possible way of forcing it open.
“What do we do now?” asked Nancy.
“I saw a couple of stationery stores around the corner. Maybe they have candles. I don’t know. Maybe we can improvise something out of sealing wax. In any case, I think the best thing we can do is get the hell out of here.”
They had almost reached the lower end of Chancery Lane. The muffled drumming grew louder and louder, and the rat-tat rhythm was bouncing off the windows all along Fleet Street like hailstones. It was then that they saw what everybody was hurrying away from.
It was frightening because it was so solemn, and so out of place, like a funeral being held in the street. A procession of men all dressed in black, old-fashioned clothes, cloaks and britches and tall black hats were making their way up Fleet Street, past the Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, led by two dog-handlers with four black dogs between them, straining at their leads. Behind them came six or seven drummers, also dressed in black, with wide triangular black caps that looked like rooks’ beaks. The larger drums were beating a dead-slow march time, poom and poom and poom. The smaller drums were rattling out an aggressive volley of noise that made it almost impossible to think.
Behind the drummers came a group of ten or eleven men, all wearing tall black hats and black capes that trailed along the sidewalk. They carried drawn swords, which Josh could see glinting in the gray daylight. Their faces looked gray, too, until Josh realized that they were wearing hoods over their heads … hoods with exaggerated black eyes painted on them.
“The Hooded Men,” said Josh. “This may be London, 2001, but they still have those Puritan guys patrolling the streets.”
“Come on, Josh, I think we ought to stay way out of their way.”
“You’re right. Let’s get back to Star Yard. Maybe we won’t need candles for the trip back.”
They jogged up a Chancery Lane whose sidewalks were increasingly deserted. A few spots of rain began to fly in the wind. They reached Carey Street and crossed over to Star Yard.
As they entered it, however, two young men came toward them. One of them was dressed with almost ridiculous elegance in a long gray coat with a black velour collar. The other was much more bulky, with a round brown face that looked half-Burmese.
Josh took hold of Nancy’s arm and drew her to one side of the yard, so that the two young men could pass them. But the thin young man stopped right beside them and the larger one moved himself in front of them so that they couldn’t go any further.
“What is this?” said Josh. “A mugging, or what?”
“Depends what you’ve got to offer, guvnor. We’re always on the lookout for novelties. Especially if they come from over there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The thin young man leaned forward and looked into Josh’s face so closely that he could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. He was elegant, he was so handsome that he was almost beautiful, but he was a wreck.
“Jack be quick?” he ventured. “Now do you know what I’m talking about?”
Twelve
“What do you want?” asked Josh. “If you’re thinking of mugging us, you’re out of luck. We don’t have any money at all.”
“You’re a Yank,” said the thin young man, cocking his head on one side like a parrot. “How about that, then? We don’t often get Yanks.”
“Look, we’re just tourists.”
“Tourists? You’re taking a chance, ain’t you?”
“What’s wrong with being a tourist?”
“What’s wrong with being a gob of spit in a hot frying pan? You ought to thank your lucky moons that the Hoodies didn’t catch a hold of you first.”
The Burmese-looking youth had his eyes half-closed in concentration and his hand cupped to his ear. “They’ve just turned the corner, Sy. We’d better get weaving.”
The thin young man took hold of Josh’s arm with a bony hand covered in silver rings. “Come on … let’s scarper before the dogs pick up the scent.”
“Listen, pal, we’re not going anyplace. Especially with you.”
“You ain’t got much in the way of viable choices,” said the thin young man. “You can’t get back through the door, not today. So it looks like the dogs’ll have you, less’n you follow us along. You ever see a man noshed on by dogs? Not an appetizing sight.”
“You know about the door?”
“What door?”
“You said we can’t go back through the door, not today. So you know about the door.”
“I know where you and your good lady come from, guvnor; and I’ve got a good guess where you’re going now. But it’s no use your trying to get back there, not till the same time tomorrow. Surprised you didn’t know that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s as plain as mud, guvnor,” he said, and slowly spun his finger in the air. “You can only go through the door once in every turn of the earth. Don’t matter which way. Once only per diem and that’s your lot.”
“So we can’t go back until the same time tomorrow, at least?”
“Not now, guvnor. And if you and your good lady don’t want to end up as two matching dogs’ dinners, you’d better come along with me and San here, quickish.”
Josh hesitated. With the Hooded Men bearing down on them, he badly wanted to get them both back to the “real” London. But it looked as if they had run out of time. The dogs were barking and the drummers were drumming, and even if the thin young man weren’t telling the truth, they still didn’t have any candles.
Josh could hear the high excitement in the dogs’ voices, and he knew exactly what they were yapping about. These were dogs who could smell that their quarry was close. These were dogs who smelled blood.
“How did they pick up our scent?” asked Nancy.
“Simple, missus. You lot always smell different. I can smell you myself. Soap and scent and death, that’s what you lot always smell of. Even the geezers.”
The drums came racketing nearer. The Hooded Men reached the corner of Carey Street and began to ricochet like grapeshot off the Bankruptcy Court buildings.
“Josh,” said Nancy, urgently.
Without warning the dogs came sliding and snarling around the corner with their handlers barely able to hold them back. As soon as they saw Josh and Nancy and the two youths, however, the handlers let out whistles of encouragement and snapped the dogs off their leads. Josh didn’t recognize the breed, but he could see that they had the barrel chests and unlockable jaws of pit bull terriers. They came bounding across the street barking insanely – spit flying, claws scrabbling on the cobbles. One of them launched itself toward Nancy as if it had been shot out of a catapult. It knocked her down to the sidewalk and started to tear at the fringes of her leather coat.
The Burmese-looking boy turned and ran up Star Yard as fast as he could; but the thin young man stayed where he was, drawing out a triangular-bladed craft-knife and crouching down in front of the dogs, daring them to go for him. “Come on, pooches! Who wants their lights cut out?”