Throwback Thursday ~ ‘Blackthorne and Rose: Agents of DIRE’ by KG McAbee

There is a particular and odious smell which permeates the underworld.

Do not mistake me, I pray. I refer not to the traditional underworld in the Greek sense, nor indeed to the somewhat warmer Christian iteration. I speak instead of the world beneath the greatest city in the world, London. Oh, there are smells above without number: fumes from coal, the sharp tang of steam driven engines, the reek of the Thames and the odour of those who do not wash as regularly as one might desire. But below street level, in the endless sewers, where all the discards and effluvia of the masses of people and animals above collect in fierce and noxious profusion, and ferment, and stew, and blend, and decay …

Of course, the recently dead have their own distinct subset of smells. The recently dead such as the one who now stalked towards me, his bare feet sloshing through the sludge, white bones protruding through grey and tattered flesh.

This particular reanimate appeared to have been, in life, a blacksmith. Or perhaps a dock worker. Even in his rotting condition, he still had huge arms, broad shoulders, a massive chest, and when he reached me, he would no doubt tower over me, though I am not a short man.

Just my luck. These walking dead have only been appearing for a few months. What are the odds that I would run into a blacksmith? Why should I not have the luck to meet a freshly dead who was, while living, a stooped clerk, ill-fed beggar, or workhouse reject?

There was no help for it. I set my bull’s-eye lanthorn down, reached over my shoulder, and pulled out my sword. I have tried carrying one in the usual fashion, on a belt about the waist, but really, it ruined the hang of my jacket.  Simply could not be borne.

“Argh!” announced my foe.

Or perhaps it was “Grargh!”

It was a trifle difficult to make out his exact phrasing, as he had clearly been dead for some time and his tongue appeared to be missing. His colour was a mottled grey-white which is so dreadfully distasteful. One of his eyes was hanging out of its socket, lying on his cheek like a desiccated grape and bouncing as he shambled forward in the slow but inexorable fashion of his kind. His scalp hung in strips, bone showing through beneath matted hair, and several fingers were absent. The remaining fingers, however, looked quite capable of ripping my throat out and having me for tea. And not in the pleasant sense of cups of Darjeeling, little pink cakes, and cucumber sandwiches.   

I took a two-handed grip on my sword. I believe I looked rather dashing. It was a shame Rose wasn’t there to admire me. Still, I would give her a blow-by-blow description of my bravery later.

That was, of course, if there was a later.