Shadows Over London by Christian Klaver

Author:Christian Klaver [Klaver, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CamCat Publishing

He jolted awake later with a shout that echoed off the stone walls. He sat gasping on the bench for a short time, then got painfully to his feet.

His door had a large, heavy grate. He looked out into the hallway and flinched when he saw that his wolf wardens were standing watch over the door. They sat, two dark shadows in the faint candle light, facing his cell as if there were no other prisoners in all of Newgate to attract their attention but him. They didn’t pant like wolves, or even breathe as far as Henry could tell. They sat entirely still, like foul machines gone suddenly inert.

The high window behind him was still dark. More gates clanged down the hall, this time closer. Henry’s hands gripped the grate hard enough to cut off the blood to his fingers. Someone was coming.

The two sentries stirred themselves suddenly, whining and slinking down to their bellies. This frightened Henry even more. What creature struck fear into wolf corpses?

The farthest candle in the hall, flickering all this while, guttered out.

Henry had the impression somehow that the light might still be burning, but obscured by . . . something. The next furthest candle winked out and one of the wolves whined and Henry gripped the grate harder to keep his hands from shaking. In the weak light, Henry could make out black smoke rolling down the hall towards him.

The candle directly across from Henry’s cell door was the only light left now.

The darkness shifted and it came out.

Another zombie wolf.

No. This was bigger, lots bigger, a huge, shaggy beast the size of a cart horse that walked on all fours. Henry sensed somehow that this wolf shape was the primal source of the other wolf creatures. This, this was the real monster.

It crossed the open space in absolute silence. Nothing that huge should be able to move without making any noise. The other two wolves slithered out of its way.

It sat in front of Henry’s cell and regarded him from the other side of the grate. It was a gruesome regard, Henry realized with a cold pit opening in his stomach, because it had no eyes. Only empty sockets. There was also a ring of hairless pink flesh running around its neck from where someone, long ago, had tried to hang the beast and failed.

But as horrific looking as the thing was, that was as nothing compared to the terrifying presence of the thing. A nightmarish panic rolled off the thing in waves. It hit Henry like a sledge hammer to the gut and he cringed back from the door.

He flung himself into the farthest corner from the door and even crawled frantically under the hard bench. It was as much as he could do not to pass out. He lay, shivering, under the bench and tried not to scream. Little whimpering noises were escaping from him and he could not control them.

Someone else was approaching now.

Henry could distantly hear the clicking sound of boot heels.

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