Veszico gave a little nod, twitched her wings, and a bright blue light emanated from her as she rose from Jack’s hand. The faster her wings beat, the brighter she shone until she was a floating ball of light. She took off like a bullet in the direction of the bridge and was soon lost from sight.
Jack broke into a run across the long bridge away from the Tower. The rain blew against him, somewhere high above a scream was lost on the wind, and on either side of him the moat creatures stirred and writhed beneath the tempestuous waters.
In his cell, the Hatter sat leaning against the wall licking the blood that dripped from his forehead to his lips. The Hatter giggled, then laughed, then chortled, then guffawed; he tittered, he snickered, and he chuckled, and then screamed at nothing. High above the Tower, lightning splintered across the sky.
Chapter One
Robert Darkly
Robert Darkly was miserable. And not just miserable; he was really miserable. His right pant leg was soaked up to his crotch, which was fast becoming uncomfortable and this only added to his miserable state. The rain poured in London’s East End, which caused puddles that large vehicles simply couldn’t resist driving through, hence the soggy pant leg. Some would ask what the problem was as Robert had already walked three blocks in the rain without an umbrella and was already suitably soaked.
The reason Robert had no umbrella was because he had left it at work. The main problem there was that Robert no longer had a job due to a recent incident that involved Robert and his boss and a stern firing. His umbrella, which had been given to him by his adoptive mother as a twenty-seventh birthday gift, was one of the things he’d forgotten to grab on his way out as his brain grappled with what had just happened.
“Come in here, please, Robert,” his boss had asked and Robert had obeyed.
“Yes, sir?”
“Sit down, Robert,” said his boss and Robert obeyed.
“You’re fired.”
“Sorry?”
“No use apologizing now, what’s done is done.”
“I’m fired?”
“Reiterating the fact is going to do nothing for you. Clean out your desk and get out.”
“But this is so sudden. The company is doing well; I thought my work was excellent. Well, not excellent but not that bad, anyway,” explained Robert.
“Don’t get me wrong, Robert, we think the world of you, you’re a top notch accountant, excellent with numbers. Time for you to go, though, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t understand.”
His boss laughed. “You and me both, my friend, makes no sense to me either.”
“Then why am I being fired?”
“It was the strangest thing. We had our usual managers meeting this morning and your name came up. We all thought you were doing a fantastic job and we were all impressed at how you handled that Jenkins file.”
“I’m so confused.”
“We had our coffee and then we made the unanimous decision to let you go.”
“Unanimous?”
“Unanimous! Strangest thing, like I said. But we hope you’ll be very happy with whatever it is you end up doing.”
And with that the phone rang, the boss answered it and waved Robert, who was still fairly dazed, out of his office.
Robert staggered out into the sea of cubicles that constituted the accounting monolith of Chikum Finance. Several heads peered up over their cubicles and stared at Robert, who was replaying the conversation over in his mind.
“All right there, Robby?” said Martin.
Martin was one of the few people at Chikum Finance that Robert could actually stand. Or at least tolerate for small amounts of time. This was despite the fact that Martin’s eyes were situated far too closely together.
“Yeah,” replied Robert.
“Oh. They told you, eh? Thought they might’ve waited ‘til later in the week.”
“You knew?”
“Well, yeah, mate. It was a big secret, ya know, so obviously everyone around here knew about it.”
Robert glanced at the sea of cubicles and most of the heads bobbed back down below their fabric-encased walls. “Well, that’s just great, isn’t it?”
“Uh… is it?”
“No, it’s bloody not,” said Robert and stalked off out of the building, completely forgetting to take his umbrella with him. An hour later, he found himself standing on the corner of a street he didn’t recognize soaked to his skin and getting constantly wetter. Every few minutes, a bus would drive through one of the various, well placed puddles and splash him. He didn’t care. He was miserable.
He decided to head west. He lived in the West End of the city in a small leaky apartment with ancient fixtures and high rent. His landlady was a turbulent old bat named Gertrude who never removed the rollers from her hair because she believed it would ruin the curl. Robert didn’t feel like seeing Gertrude right now, but he did feel like going home and taking a bath.
Baths always relaxed him; as far back as he could remember it was his favorite thing to do, and if anything had even the remotest chance of curbing his misery it was a nice hot, relaxing bath. The one thing Robert’s apartment had going for it, and the primary reason that he took the place, was the antique bathtub. It was beautiful white porcelain with a high hanging shower head, clawed feet, and a set of taps that would make members of the Antiques Road Show wet themselves. Yes. A bath would be a good idea.
A double decker whooshed by and drenched Robert.
Miserable.
He turned and headed west, nearly knocking over a pretty young girl with auburn hair and the kind of face that wasn’t pretty, wasn’t ugly, but lived in that special place in between the two. By the simple act of almost bumping into her and noticing her hair colour, he was immediately made even more miserable. Sarah had auburn hair. Sarah didn’t live in that special place in between pretty and ugly, she lived very much to the North of pretty, over the mountains and far away. She was gorgeous. And up until last night, she had been Robert’s on again, off again girlfriend. This time it was off for good. In the past, they had fallen out for whatever reason, usually ridiculous stuff. Robert would forget to take out the trash and Sarah would get angry. That easy mistake would turn into World War Three and they would break up, only to get back together again the following day realizing they were just fighting over something petty. This time, she had no good reason. The breakup was over nothing. She’d just called it quits. Robert spent the day heartbroken. Sarah had gone to Paris to shop for the day. The two of them had never really balanced in the way a healthy couple should.
Sarah was petite, with long, flowing, auburn hair and greenish-grey eyes. Robert was tall, almost lanky, with messy brown hair and an awkwardly chiselled face. Sarah had graduated from Oxford and majored in Psychology. Robert had attended the University of Manchester where he barely scraped together enough credits to graduate with a degree in accounting. Sarah liked animals and had always kept a cat as a pet. Robert was allergic to cats; they brought him out in a rash. Sarah was funny and social and captured the attention of everyone in any room she walked into. Robert was ignored in a corner like a stained piece of carpet that’s hidden by placing the TV stand over it. Sarah had a family that could be traced back generations without the slightest hint of divorce. Robert’s adoptive parents separated when he was six years old, and he had tried several times unsuccessfully to find his real parents who apparently didn’t exist anywhere in the entire world. Sarah exercised. Robert didn’t. Up until last night, Robert had truly believed that opposites attract. Now he believed that it was all a matter of perspective.