Birth of a Killer Read online

  Not being a man of the world like Traz, Larten thought there was still hope. He gurgled happily when Traz moved aside, then gripped Vur’s legs and dragged him out of the vat. His cousin was heavier than normal, his clothes soaked, and Larten was still dizzy from the blow to his head. But it only took him a couple of seconds to pull Vur clear and lay him on the floor.

  “Vur!” Larten called, sprawling beside his motionless cousin. When there was no answer, he turned Vur’s head sideways and pried his lips apart to let water out. “Vur!” He slapped the silent boy’s back. “Are you all right? Can you hear me? Did he—”

  “Silence!” Traz barked. When Larten glanced up, blinking back tears, the foreman added coldly, “There’s nothing you can do for him. The gutter rat’s dead. All that’s left for him now is the grave.”

  Chapter Four

  As the world seemed to spin wildly around the dazed, sickened Larten, Traz faced the rest of the cocooners. He was only worried about protecting his job. He didn’t care a shred for the bedraggled remains of the murdered Vur Horston.

  “Listen up!” Traz roared, glaring at one and all. “The savage little rat attacked me. Everybody saw it. I was defending myself, and it’ll go bad for anyone who says different.”

  Traz cast his gaze around, challenging the children to disagree with him. They all dropped their heads, and Traz puffed up proudly. He had nothing to fear. None of these cowards would speak out against him.

  “I’m going to hang his body off a hook out back,” Traz boasted. “I want you to study it long and hard before you go home. This is what happens to vicious fools who attack their foremen. We won’t be having any revolutions in this factory!”

  Already, in his mind, he was exaggerating the boy’s act of defiance. He would tell the owners that several of the brats attacked him. Claim it was an organized revolt, that the Horston boy was its leader. Fake regret and say that he had to kill Vur for the good of the factory. Let them believe there were others who were plotting against them. If they believed there was a threat to their profits, they’d give Traz a medal for working so hard to suppress it.

  Men of wealth were easy to appease. If you kept money flowing into their pockets, they backed every move you made. They wouldn’t care that he’d killed an orphan, not as long as he could put a price on the cur’s head.

  On the floor, Larten was staring at Vur with horror. The dead boy’s right eye was closed, but his left was open a fraction, as if he were winking. Larten wished Vur was playing a joke. He wouldn’t mind if his cousin sat up and laughed at him for falling for the trick. Larten would cry with joy if that happened.

  But Vur wasn’t acting. Larten had seen death many times—an older sister, children in the factory, corpses in the street waiting to be collected. There was no mistaking the chilling stillness of the dead.

  “Out of my way,” Traz sneered, pushing Larten aside.

  Larten hadn’t been focusing on Traz’s speech. He didn’t know what the foreman intended to do with Vur. In his bewildered state, he thought Traz was trying to help.

  “It’s no good,” Larten whispered. “You can’t help him. He’s dead.”

  Traz cocked an eyebrow at Larten and laughed. “Help him? Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to hang him from a hook and teach you all a lesson.”

  Larten gaped at the burly foreman.

  “Go home to your father,” Traz huffed. “Tell him he’s lucky I let you live. I could have killed you too for attacking me. But because I’m a merciful man, I’m letting you go.”

  Larten didn’t move. He had been crying, but the tears dried up now, and a cold fire ignited at the back of his eyes.

  “Go on,” Traz said, picking up Vur and slinging him over a shoulder as if he were a sack of cocoons. “You can have the afternoon off. But be back here first thing tomorrow. And tell your father he can pick this one up on Friday—I want to hang him for a few days like a pheasant.”

  As Traz turned away, Larten calmly picked something off the floor. He would never remember what he’d grabbed. The area was littered with every sort of castoff—nails, old spools, broken knives, and more. All he knew was that it was sharp and cool, and it fit perfectly into his small, trembling hand.

  “Traz,” Larten said with surprising softness. If he’d screamed, maybe the foreman would have sensed danger and jerked aside. As it was, Traz simply paused and looked back, half smiling, the way he would if an old friend hailed him in a park on a Sunday.

  Larten stepped forward and drove his hand up. The boy’s eyes were flat, as devoid of expression as Vur’s, but his mouth was twisted into a dark, leering grin, as something vile and inhuman inside him rejoiced at being set free.

  When Larten lowered his hand, whatever he’d picked up was no longer in his palm. The object was now buried deep in Traz’s throat.

  Traz stared at Larten through a pair of wide, bulging eyes. He didn’t drop Vur. Indeed, his grip on the boy tightened. With his free hand, he tried to pull out the object that was stuck in his windpipe. But there was no strength in his fingers, and the flesh around his neck was slippery with blood. His arm fell by his side. He opened his mouth and tried to say something, but only blood gurgled out.

  Still staring at Larten, Traz fell to his knees, swayed for a moment, then slumped. He lost hold of Vur, and the boy’s body rolled away from him.

  The silence in the room was more frightening than any bellow of Traz’s had ever been. The children were transfixed. Vur’s death had been unexpected, but it hardly counted as a cataclysmic event in this factory of misery. But the slaying of Traz had shaken their world to its core. Nothing could be the same after this.

  Larten licked his lips and began to lean forward. The hateful thing inside him wanted to retrieve the object from Traz’s throat and use it to stab out the dead foreman’s eyes. But as his fingers stretched out before him, he shuddered and blinked, then took a step backwards, shocked by what he had done and had been planning to do.

  Feeling sick and bewildered, Larten took a couple more steps away. As he was backing up, his gaze flickered from Traz to Vur, and realization of what he’d done struck him like a lightning bolt. He had killed a man. And not just any man, but Traz, the darling of the owners. Nobody in the neighborhood liked Traz, but he had been respected. Larten would have to answer for the foreman’s death, and he knew what form that answer would take—a carefully knotted hangman’s noose.

  Larten didn’t try to appeal to the other children, to ask them to help him or to lie on his behalf. They owed him nothing. If they stood by his side or tried to hide his identity, they would suffer too.

  Turning wildly, fighting against a wave of bile, Larten searched desperately for the door—he had become disoriented and didn’t know where it was. As soon as he sighted it, he ran for his life.

  As if the children had been waiting for this signal, one of them raised a finger, pointed at the fleeing boy, and screeched, “Murderer!”

  Within seconds they were all screaming Larten’s name, pointing, howling like banshees. But they did nothing except scream. No one tried to follow him. There was no need. Others would take care of that. A full, fearsome mob of righteous executioners would soon be hot on Larten’s trail, each member of the pack eager to be the first to string up the cold-blooded, orange-haired killer.

  Chapter Five

  Larten ran without any real sense of direction. He hadn’t explored much of the city beyond his own neighborhood, but he knew every last inch of the area around the factory, all the alleys, roads, ruins, and hiding places. If he had been thinking straight, he could have slipped away quickly and cleanly or found a spot where he could hide until night.

  But Larten was in a panic. His best friend had been murdered in front of him, and he’d killed a man in response. His heart was pounding, and he fell often, scraping his legs and hands. His head was a bedlam of noise and terror, his only clear thought—Run!

  If a mob had formed swiftly, they would have found Larten flailing ar
ound the streets outside the factory, losing his way and backtracking, an easy target. But the adults who answered the calls of the children were thunderstruck. They pressed the witnesses for detailed descriptions of Traz’s last moments. If anyone had thought to give chase, others would have immediately joined them. But in the chaos, everyone assumed that a group was already in pursuit of the boy, so precious minutes passed without anybody making a move.

  Outside, Larten had turned down a dead-end alley. He was looking behind him for pursuers, so he ran into a wall and fell with a cry. As he picked himself up and rubbed his head, he spotted a girl no more than four or five, sitting on a step and studying him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Larten shook his head.

  “You’re hurt,” the girl said.

  Larten didn’t know what she was talking about. When she pointed at his head, he rubbed it again, looked at his fingers, and saw that he was bleeding. Now that he was aware of his wound, pain kicked in and he grimaced.

  “My mommy can fix you,” the girl said. “She fixes me when I get hurt.”

  “That’s all right,” Larten croaked. “I’ll be fine.”

  “She gives me a cup of tea with sugar,” the girl said. “Sugar,” she repeated boastfully. “Have you ever had sugar?”

  “No,” Larten said.

  “It’s lovely,” she whispered.

  Larten stared around. The worst of the panic had passed. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t feel so afraid anymore. He was still a long way from normal, yet he began thinking of what he should do and where he could go. He had to get away quickly, but he’d only be able do that if he held his nerve.

  “Thank you,” he said to the girl, and headed back up the alley.

  “For what?” the girl asked.

  “Calming me down.”

  She giggled. “You’re silly. Come back and play.”

  But Larten had no time to waste on play. There was only one game of any interest to him now—beat the hangman.

  From the alley he took a right turn and soon had left behind the neighborhood where he’d spent all his life. Though he wasn’t sure of the surrounding area, he had a vague idea of the shape of the city and moved in an eastern direction. That was his quickest route to the outskirts. He didn’t run but walked briskly, head down, not making eye contact with anyone.

  Nobody paid attention to the thin, dirty, bloodied, trembling boy. The city was full of lost, wounded strays just like him.

  At the factory, someone finally asked what had become of Traz’s killer. When people realized the boy had escaped without even a halfhearted challenge, they were outraged—nobody had liked Traz, but a rebellious brat like Larten Crepsley couldn’t be allowed to stab a hardworking foreman to death and waltz away freely. A gang took to the streets and was soon joined by dozens of others as word of the murder spread. Life was monotonous in those parts, and a chase was a major attraction. Men, women, and teenagers joined the workers from the factory, brandishing knives, hooks, and any other sharp implements they could find. More than one also took the time to root out a good length of rope. Mobs were never shy of volunteers when it came to the office of hangman.

  By the time the mob was fully formed and storming through the streets, Larten was out of danger’s immediate range. Their cries didn’t reach him or alert any of the people he was passing. With no sign of a chase party, he was able to keep calm and carry on at a steady pace.

  It never crossed his mind to go home. He knew that was the first place the mob would look for him, but that wasn’t the reason he avoided it. If he thought his parents would try to protect him, he might have returned. If he believed people would grant him a fair hearing, maybe he wouldn’t have fled. If there was any justice in the world, perhaps he’d have thrown himself at the feet of his accusers and begged for mercy.

  But nobody would care about Vur Horston. Children in factories were killed all the time. As long as the owners made money, they didn’t mind. But the killing of a foreman was a scandal. An example would have to be made, to stop other workers from following Larten’s lead.

  Larten’s father was a thoughtful, caring man, and his gruff mother loved him in her own way, but life was hard, and poor people had to be practical. They couldn’t save him from the mob, and Larten didn’t think they’d even try. He figured they would hand him over and curse him for being a fool and losing his temper.

  Larten had never heard the phrase “burning your bridges.” But he would have understood it. There was no home for him in this city anymore. He was all alone in the world and marked for death.

  It was evening by the time Larten cleared the city. The sky had been dark all day, and now it began to blacken with the coming of night. There was a cruel bite to the air. Larten had no coat, and he shivered in his short-sleeved shirt. He was hungry and thirsty, but the cold was his main concern. He had to find shelter or he’d end up like one of the stiff, frozen street people he’d often seen.

  Hunching his shoulders against the cold, Larten walked along the main road for a while, then took a dirt track. His vague plan was to find a village and hide out in a cowshed or a barn. He didn’t know how long a walk it would be, but he guessed it couldn’t be more than a few miles.

  If it hadn’t started to rain heavily, Larten would have kept going. Maybe he’d have slipped along the way, twisted an ankle, and perished of the wet and cold in the open. Or maybe he’d have made good time and found shelter, stolen a few eggs in the morning, and set off in search of a job. He might have scraped by, worked hard, earned some money. Perhaps he’d have lived a good life, married and had children, and died at the ripe old age of forty or forty-five.

  But Larten’s destiny didn’t lie in a ditch or any of the nearby villages. Rain soaked him, forcing him to look for immediate shelter. A tree would have been fine, but the clouds looked thundery, and he’d heard tales of people who had been struck by lightning under trees. There were no caves that he knew of. That left…

  Larten looked around, praying for inspiration, and through a brief break in the rain his prayers were answered. He spotted the heads of tombstones and realized he was close to a graveyard.

  Larten had only been to a graveyard once before, one Sunday when he and Vur had trekked to the northern part of town, where a large cemetery stood. They’d gone hoping to see ghosts, having heard tales of headless horsemen roaming the rows of graves. Of course, they didn’t see any–ghosts mostly came out at night–but they saw plenty of monuments to the dead.

  The poor of the city were carted off to be dumped in mass graves, nothing to mark the spot where they lay. Those with money secured a grave. Wealthy people bought tombs.

  Graves and tombs were of no use to Larten, but some of the truly rich invested in family crypts, small houses for the dead. If they kept the dead dry, they could keep the living dry too, at least for a night.

  Larten didn’t know if this small graveyard would boast any crypts. But on the off chance, he abandoned the path and splashed through sodden fields, fearfully edging his way towards the home of the (hopefully) sleeping dead.

  Chapter Six

  The graveyard was larger than Larten had imagined, and while it was no match for the lavish city of the dead to the north, there were a few crypts jutting out of the crop of crosses and tombs.

  Larten scrambled across the graves, muttering prayers to every god he’d ever heard of, eyes cast low. He wanted to look every which way at once, to check for ghosts, witches, demons. But he thought that if he saw them, they would see him too. By not looking, he hoped no ghosts would notice him, so he kept his eyes on the ground. It was a foolish notion, but it gave Larten the courage to go on.

  He couldn’t get into the first crypt that he tried—the doors were sealed shut. There was a chain on the woven copper gates of the next. He tugged at the gates as hard as he could, and the chain gave a little, but not enough.

  Larten thought he heard movement behind him. He stood, head lowered, e
xpecting an attack. When nothing leapt out of the growing darkness, he looked around for another crypt, then hurried towards it.

  He almost didn’t try this door. It was on hinges and slightly ajar, but it was carved of stone, and he doubted he had the strength to move it. But rain was lashing down, exhaustion had set deep into his bones, and the next crypt was some way off. So, with no real hope, he grabbed the edge of the door and pulled.

  The door slid open so smoothly that he slipped and fell. Landing with a splash in a puddle of rain and mud, he tensed and peered into the darkness. Maybe the door had opened so easily because something inside had pushed out at the same time he’d pulled. But if a ghost was lurking within, Larten couldn’t see it.

  Are you mad? a voice very much like Vur’s whispered inside his head. Don’t go in there. It’s a place for the dead.

  But Larten was out of options. If he didn’t find shelter there, he doubted he’d find it anywhere. As terrified as he was by the thought of spending the night in a crypt, he had a better chance in there than out here. So with one last quick prayer, he got to his feet, wiped his hands dry on his trousers, then ducked and entered the crypt.

  At first he thought it was pitch-black. But he closed his eyes for a while, and when he opened them again, he could see fairly well. There were glass panels in the ceiling. That seemed strange to Larten, but maybe some of the people buried here had been afraid of the dark.

  He remained by the door while his eyes adjusted, then studied the crypt. There were brick walls on either side, behind which the coffins were stacked. A strange sort of ornamental fountain in the middle. No sign of any ghosts.

  Growing braver, Larten moved away from the door, into the center of the crypt. It was cool here, but warmer than outside, and a lot drier. He rubbed his arms up and down, trying to generate heat. He’d have to take off his clothes later to let them dry, but he was wary of undressing too soon, in case a ghost rose from one of the coffins and attacked. He didn’t want to have to flee naked through the graveyard!