Lady of Brass

(Method of the Kill #2)

Jonathan Maloney

The sun was setting.

Over a city made into a smear, a horizon of haze and foul smells were rendered visible. Smoke stacks belched out coal smog, which hung in the air before drifting down to drown the unfortunate in filth. Split by a river and spreading like an open wound, oozing and suppurating, London city snarled and spat, coughing its tar-filled lungs into the face of the cloudy, mourning sky.

Even at its best, London city in the last years of the nineteenth century was always lacking. The finest architecture, or most well tended parks would always have something that lingered in the corners; the presence of an unfortunate reminder that this, the oldest and grandest city in England, had spent the better part of nearly two thousand years accumulating a layer of grime and corruption that could not be pried out of it with any amount of effort. And though there surely had been such an effort made in the past, a concerted desire to try and conceal the centuries old foulness here and there, in some places such effort had been forgotten. And in some, it had never been tried at all.

Bugsby’s Marshes were located on a curled crone’s finger of land thrust into the path of the river Thames, bearing the brunt on both sides of muck brought in and out with the tide. The upper, and oft ignored, corner of Greenwich, whichever way the wind blew, it brought with it the soot and stink of different industry, all mixed in with the perpetual reek of the turbid river.

It was here that people eked out a life which was disregarded by those around them. Clinging to the riverbank and awash in the stench of it, buildings huddled amidst the ruin. Some were old, wrought of stone and of such foundations that they had been reused and refitted and given new purpose for centuries. Some were nothing more than shacks, cobbled together out of refuse and rubbish.

Most were something in between. Decrepit buildings, origins lost to time, gradually sinking into the muck that they were set upon, being consumed by the passage of years into the soft, water-laden mud. They were endlessly crumbling, repaired in only the loosest fashion by the flotsam that swept up on the tide. Bits of broken ships that had sunk any number of years ago were prominent in the creation of walls, or roofs—sun bleached timbers with only the faintest echoes of the desperate prayers and screams of the men who had drowned trying to cling to them. The ghosts of the dead were thick in that stinking marsh, silent but knowing, witnessing the slow demise of all that dwelt in the wretched swamp’s embrace.

Nestled in the depths of this stench and morass, jutting against the water and crowded on both sides by buildings that were in equal measure ruins, was a waterfront dive. Presumably at some point in the past, some enterprising soul had decided that what people really needed in the Bugsby’s Marshes was a convenient spot for them to drink and forget that they were actually in the Bugsby’s Marshes. It was a rundown building made of weatherworn timbers, run through with dry rot and held together only by the rust clinging to the nails that would likely shatter under the most weightless of pressures.

Nevertheless, someone dwelt there. The latest in a line of proprietors that held onto the place because no one would ever buy it from them; a burly man, with scars and burns up his bared forearms, and a protruding lower jaw that thrust out pugnaciously at the whole world. He stood behind his bar, bereft of patrons and drinks both, and was seemingly satisfied with it. The common room was small, with a staircase leading to the gloomy rooms above that seemed to have been never used, lit by a couple of lanterns that were fitful even in the sunset light. The fireplace was full of dried firewood but unused—kept and ready for a particularly cold night, but in this early summer those were a far off future, even in infamously unseasonable London.

So when the scrape of the door, leading out to the river of mud that was the exterior street, was heard, the air of the place turned hard, wary, and unsure, full of suspicion and caged paranoia. A young man in a coat a size too large for him slipped inside, closing the door behind him before approaching the bar. He walked with a peculiar nervousness in his step that he was trying to overcome by being overtly bold, but instead, it served to make him appear even more out of place by his uncomfortable energy. He was young, handsome in an ordinary sort of way, with a shock of mousey blonde hair and a smile that radiated terror as he approached the barman, whose battered face twisted yet further in a sign of silent displeasure. The approaching youth seemed to have that effect on people.

“Good evening, sir!” he said with only a trace of a squeak in his tone. “Might I trouble you for a dram of warming spirit? I fear I have a bit of a thirst.” A few small coins were laid on the bar, to counter the spectacularly awkward exchange.

The barman flicked his gaze down to them without uncrossing his arms, and the request hung in the air long after its echoes faded. One could not help but consider that this scenario was something unheard of in this nameless bar, and as such the dulled universe needed a moment to filter this occurrence into the mind of the silent barman. The overlarge jaw worked, grinding on blackened teeth. A syllable was grunted in response, before the scarred arms unfolded. The figure started to move, with a slowness that creaked as badly as the stool upon which the newcomer sat himself, gingerly testing the weight to see if it was about to collapse and, unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion, chose instead to stand.

The newcomer looked around. His gaze lingering briefly on the upstairs rooms, before drifting over the rest of the establishment. Customarily, this was the moment where one made a polite mention of the place they were in, finding some words to try and compliment the surroundings. This was not possible, and such words were choked out of the lungs instead, blasted out by the sheer magnitude of such an insurmountable lie to overcome. A darkened glass with an even darker, unknown rotgut sloshing around in it was thrust towards him and the coins snatched up, as the young man offered a hand, finally introducing himself and, in so doing, setting the stage for the act to come.

“How do you do, sir? My name is Bartholomew Bartleby, but you may call me Mister Barty.”

A cheerful tone, and a hopeful one, as that hand remained out, trembling with nervous energy. The barman stared at it, then at the face it belonged to with its terrified, anxious grin and, in defiance to all evidence to the contrary, reached out with one large and sweating hand more akin to a paw, and shook Barty’s own once with polite camaraderie.

“S’Bob,” he mumbled out, and that seemed to be it. There may have been any number of nicknames given to the fellow, but they were not to be shared, it appeared.

Barty nodded in acceptance, wiping his hand as surreptitiously as he could on his coat. Introductions were aside and yet for all the humble simplicity of the barman’s moniker, Barty remained quite fearful. He had come to this nameless bar with a purpose, and it was time to make that apparent.