Rise of the Darklings Read online

  EGMONT

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  First published by Egmont USA, 2010

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Paul Crilley, 2010

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.paulcrilley.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Crilley, Paul.

  Rise of the Darklings / Paul Crilley

  p. cm. — (The Invisible Order ; bk. 1)

  Summary: After saving a piskie’s life, twelve-year-old Emily Snow finds herself in the middle of a centuries-old war between rival fairy factions and a secret society named The Invisible Order.

  eISBN: 978-1-60684-238-6

  [1. Secret societies—Fiction. 2. Fairies—Fiction. 3. London (England)—History—1800–1950—Fiction. 4. Great Britain— History—Victoria, 1837–1901—Fiction. 5. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C869276Ri 2010

  [Fic]—dc22 2009025150

  This novel is based on the short story “The Invisible Order,” which originally appeared in the anthology Under Cover of Darkness, published by DAW, 2007.

  CPSIA tracking label information:

  Random House Production • 1745 Broadway • New York, NY 10019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  For my family,

  Caroline, Bella, and Caeleb.

  It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.

  —EPHRAIM GOTTHOLD LESSING (1729–1781)

  Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

  —C. S. LEWIS (1898–1963)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  In which Emily sees something she thought belonged in stories and runs afoul of the villainous Mr. Ravenhill.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In which Spring-Heeled Jack offers to help Emily navigate the crowds at Farringdon Market. A surprise in the shadows leads to revelations about the fey.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In which Emily meets Merrian the half-giant and hears revelations about a hidden London. Mr. Ravenhill returns.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The wrath of the Dagda. Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth awake from their watery slumber.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In which Emily returns to Merrian’s shop and discovers what a True Seer is. The attack.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In which Emily walks among the fey and discovers a hidden world.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In which Emily travels through the realm of Underlondon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In which Emily enters the Twilight Court and meets the Faerie Queen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kidnapped! In which Emily has to make a decision. Black Annis watches.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In which Emily meets the Sisters and the Colonel tells her a gruesome story about India.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In which the All-Seeing Eyes watch Emily. A magical artifact stolen from Merlin. Inside the Royal Society.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In which Emily asks Jack for help and they take a brief boat trip on the Thames.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In which Emily and Jack sneak inside the Invisible Order.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In which Emily and Jack are trapped inside Ravenhill’s office.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In which Emily finds more than she bargained for inside the vault.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In which Emily discovers a part of Seven Dials she never knew existed and meets a peculiar gnome called Mr. Pemberton.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In which Emily gives the stone to the Faerie Queen and asks for her help in searching for William.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  In which Emily loses hope.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In which Corrigan helps Emily, William, and Jack escape. The Sluagh attacks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In which Emily and Corrigan part ways and Emily receives help from an unexpected source.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  In which Emily is finally told the true history of the Invisible Order.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In which danger lurks in the fog and help arrives from an unexpected source.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  In which Corrigan comes up with a plan that involves a visit to the Landed Gentry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In which Emily, Jack, Corrigan, and Mr. Pemberton struggle to decipher the riddle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In which our heroes sneak inside St. Paul’s Cathedral and much whispering is done despite a nasty surprise awaiting them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  In which Emily meets the Dagda and he offers her the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In which Emily returns to the offices of the Invisible Order and searches for Merlin’s Tower.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  In which Emily ventures inside Merlin’s Tower.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Jack and Corrigan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In which Emily comes to a sickening realization.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The final temptation.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  In which Emily faces the final choice.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  In which Emily sees something she thought belonged in stories and runs afoul of the villainous Mr. Ravenhill.

  FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  ON THE FIRST DAY OF EMILY’S ADVENTURES.

  On the day she found out about the hidden war being fought in the dreary streets of London, Emily woke up praying for snow.

  She knew it was selfish, but if it snowed she wouldn’t have to work. She wouldn’t have to trek to Farringdon in the freezing darkness and buy her penny’s worth of watercress. Instead, she could simply crawl back into bed with her younger brother and sleep till sunup.

  Emily lay shivering beneath the sheets, staring up at the shadowy black water stains on the ceiling and listening to William’s steady breathing.

  Please be snowing, she thought, closing her eyes tightly.

  She repeated these words to herself a few more times, then slipped out of bed and pushed aside the torn net curtain that covered the window. She wiped away the mist from her breath and stared out onto the street.

  Frost winked and glittered in the moonlight, a thin layer of gleaming white that reminded her of the powdered icing on Mr. Warren’s cakes. Disappointment welled up inside her, a heavy weight in her stomach. There was no snow.

  She sighed and lifted her coat from the old rocking chair, pulling it around her shoulders as she stepped over the prone bodies of the new tenants. Emily didn’t know who they were. She just knew they paid their money to Mrs. Hobbs yesterday, and the landlady had told them to sleep on the floor in the room she shared with William. That was the way of it in Cheapside. Her ma once said they were actually the lucky ones. Some landladies put fifteen people into a room. Emily had heard that when they did this, people sometimes died in their sleep. They sealed the windows to keep warm and breathed one another’s air until there was nothing left to go around.

  For days after she heard this, she
used to wake up and listen to make sure William was still breathing.

  Thinking of her brother made Emily glance at the bed. William was awake, watching her as she got ready.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” she whispered.

  “Had a dream,” he mumbled.

  Emily sat down on the edge of the thin mattress. She smoothed the blankets around his thin form, making sure there were no gaps. “A bad one?”

  He shrugged beneath the covers. “I dreamt that Ma and Da were back. Ma was making us breakfast, and you and Da were reading stories like you used to. But then they started to fade away. They were shouting for help, but we didn’t do anything.”

  Emily sighed. Their da had disappeared three years ago now. A year or so after that, their ma vanished as well. William had been having bad dreams ever since. Sometimes they weren’t too bad, like this one, but other times they were truly frightening, causing him to wake up in the night, screaming in terror and bathed in sweat.

  They’d never found out what had happened to their parents. Their da had been away on business when he went missing. The landlady at the lodging house where he’d been staying said he’d gone to bed and locked his door, and the next morning there was simply no sign of him. His door was still locked from the inside. It was as if he’d simply … vanished. Ma went to the police. They looked into the disappearance but gave up after a few days when they couldn’t find any clues. They said this kind of thing happened all the time. People vanished.

  Then the same thing happened with their ma. She just disappeared. Didn’t come home from the shops one day. This time Emily hadn’t gone to the police. If they’d found out she and William were alone, they would have separated them and sent them to the workhouse.

  Emily stroked his hair. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “You’ve had worse.”

  William mumbled in agreement and snuggled down under the blankets again. He closed his eyes, ready to go back to sleep.

  “Hoy,” whispered Emily. William opened his eyes a crack. “Don’t get too comfy. You’re to speak to Mrs. Derry about work in the shop, remember?”

  William nodded sleepily. “I’ll remember,” he said with an enormous yawn.

  Emily stood up. She took a last look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then left their small room and stepped into the dark corridor of the tenement building in which they lived. She pulled open the front door and felt the sharp bite of the cold against her cheeks, the last remnants of sleep leaving her as she breathed in the frigid air.

  She stepped onto the deserted street, wondering if this was what all twelve-year-old girls had to go through every day of their lives.

  Emily wanted to get to the market early that morning. Mrs. Eldridge had promised an extra bunch of watercress to whichever girl got there first and helped lay out her wares. An extra bunch wasn’t much, but it meant a sweet pudding for William if she managed to sell it.

  Emily walked briskly along the narrow streets of Cheapside, her hands thrust deep into her coat in a futile attempt to keep warm. She ducked through a tenement and onto a road that took her into Church Lane. Laundry lines crisscrossed high above between the buildings. Someone had left a sheet out overnight; it had frozen solid and hung heavy on the line, weighing it down so that the rope looked about ready to snap.

  A broken railing between two buildings gave Emily access to the labyrinth of backstreets that wove around and behind the main thoroughfares of London. The dingy pathways were thin and suffocating, the buildings leaning in on her. Emily had been warned not to travel through the alleys, but she always did. If she had to choose between a scolding and walking extra miles in the freezing cold, it wasn’t a choice at all.

  Emily was halfway to the market when she heard the noise up ahead. She came to an abrupt stop, almost slipping on the icy cobblestones.

  She waited. There it was again: a scuffling sound coming from around the corner. And … something else. She frowned. It sounded like pieces of metal clacking together.

  Emily looked around, wondering what to do. She could head back onto the main streets, but that would add another half hour to her journey, time she couldn’t afford to lose. Victoria Ashdown had said she planned on getting to Mrs. Eldridge before Emily did, and Emily couldn’t let that happen. Victoria thought she knew everything just because she was fourteen. There was no way Emily was letting Victoria get that extra bunch of cress.

  She crept forward until she stood near the mouth of the adjoining alleyway, leaning against the exposed redbrick of a grocery shop. She listened for a moment but still couldn’t place the sounds. Only one way to find out, she thought, slowly peering around the corner.

  She had expected something simple. Maybe some tramps fighting over some food. Or some cutpurses divvying up their ill-gotten gain after a night of thieving.

  But what she saw made her freeze with shock, her eyes going wide with amazement as she tried to take in the scene before her.

  An almost silent battle was being fought in the shadows of the lane. But there was nothing ordinary about the battle being fought before her.

  Because not one of the participants stood any higher than Emily’s knee.

  About half of the fighters wore dark furs and old, tatty leathers. Their bodies were covered in black spiral tattoos, clustered so thickly that it was difficult to see the skin underneath, causing the creatures’ yellow eyes and sharp teeth to stand out in contrast. Those they were fighting wore more natural-colored attire—brown leathers and earth-colored clothes. They also had spirals on their skin, but nowhere near as many as their enemies. Their markings had been applied in a pale blue ink, making them harder to see.

  Dark blood covered the fighters as they battled in the tight confines of the alley, the only sound the frantic scraping and scuffling of feet on the wet cobblestones and the fierce clattering of bronze swords and daggers.

  As Emily watched, one of the injured creatures broke away. An arrow caught him in the back and he collapsed, twitching, not five feet from where she stood. He lay there for a second, then melted into the cobbles, his skin liquefying into a bloody puddle that gave off the stench of bad meat.

  Emily stood transfixed, her heart thudding fearfully in her chest. She should run away. She knew that. What if they saw her? But she couldn’t seem to get her legs to work.

  Suddenly, a piercing whistle shrilled in the distance. Emily jumped, clamping a hand over her mouth. That sounded like a crusher’s whistle. Were the police coming to investigate? A moment later the first whistle was joined by another, this one farther away but growing steadily closer.

  The fighting in the alley stopped abruptly, as if the whistles were some kind of prearranged signal. The creatures froze in place and cocked their heads, listening as they drew in ragged breaths. Then the creatures sheathed their weapons and stepped away from one another. The black-painted ones closed their eyes and faded into the shadows. Emily strained to catch a glimpse of them, but it was as if they had simply disappeared. The others slipped between gaps in the walls or into the gutters. Emily saw a few of them climbing the dirty facade of the building that faced the alley, pulling themselves up onto the roof and vanishing from sight.

  In five seconds the creatures were gone. Emily stepped reluctantly into the lane and waited a moment to make sure nothing was about to jump out of the shadows. The buildings seemed to stretch higher here. The sky was a thin slit of black pinpointed with brittle stars.

  What had she just witnessed? Were they goblins? Gnomes? Faeries? They couldn’t be, surely? Those kinds of things didn’t exist. They belonged in storybooks, like the ones her da used to read to her. Not out here in the real world.

  But what else could they be? She certainly hadn’t imagined seeing them. Emily hurried through the alley, wanting to be as far away as possible before the owners of the whistles arrived. The passage turned sharply left here, and Emily could see a faint orange glow coming from where the alley fed back into the streets. She ran toward
the light.

  She didn’t get far. A silhouette rose slowly out of the shadows that pooled at the bottom of a wall. Emily staggered to a halt. She couldn’t move, could only watch in numb horror as the shape revealed itself to be that of a tall, thin man, his spindly arms and legs unfolding like the limbs of a spider. Emily looked over her shoulder, thinking she could run back the way she had come, but there was another shape approaching, this one round and fat. He had a whistle in his mouth, which shrilled with every puffing breath he took. There was nowhere for her to go.

  The man in front of Emily walked toward her, brushing his hands together, as if to dislodge any loose dirt he might have picked up. He was so tall and thin, his clothes so tightly fitting, that the impression she got was that of a skeleton in a velvet suit. His elbows stuck out to either side, and she could see the low orange glow of the dawn through the triangular gaps.

  She stared up at the man. The early-morning sky framed the dark silhouette of his head and top hat. She couldn’t see much of his actual features, just the tiny pinprick of light glinting in his black eyes.

  He stopped in front of her and sighed, expelling a cloud of white breath into the cold air, and lifted the hat from his head. He lowered it against his stomach, then drummed his long fingers on the top.

  Barump.

  Barump.

  Barump.

  Emily swallowed. She wanted to say something, anything, to break the spell, but the muffled noise of his fingers seemed to drown out her thoughts.

  “And what, pray tell, do we have here?” asked the man.

  He bent forward to get a better look at her face, his features slowly revealing themselves as he did so. His jutting nose arrived first, cutting through the shadow like a ship’s prow through black water. It was long and straight, the nostrils flared, as if he was trying to catch the scent of prey.