The Case of the Missing Mummy

Chapter the Thirteeth or Cat's Attempts to Resolve the Escape of the Serpent-Man

The thick fog around the wagon Cat was hiding under, clung to the ground. It was so opaque that Cat could barely see the cobble stones beneath her, suspended under the villain's wagon. Her body was wedged in a way that was at once unpleasant and comfortingly familiar. She was used to tight places because of the bolt-hole she kept in the sewers. The closeness of her precarious place made her feel secure in a way that few other places could - she always felt safe in cramped quarters.

Surveying her surroundings, her eyes fell on the ring the footman had flung away, after discovering that Lady Dubshire had slipped it into his pocket. It was just at the edge of her vision, barely visible through the fog. The ring was under the cart and sparkled invitingly.

Greed was a natural instinct for a street rat, but her nature was far craftier than the average slum dweller, How can I use this? She mused to herself. Cat began to reason to herself, For the Lady Dubshire to be so willing to hand out jewelry, she must have a way to track it… which means when the old bat tries to get her ring… I can use it to lead a rescue party to where I am… or where the wagon is.

Cat reached down to pick up the flash[1], but before her fingers brushed the surface, revulsion filled her. The ring felt slimy and evil in her mind, so she decided not to touch it. She wanted to fling it away from herself, even as she never wanted to touch it. Her plan, to tie the ring with a bit of twine to the spoke of a wheel, died.

If I'm near this ring, she thought then the old witch will accuse me of theft. That would reflect poorly on Lady MacNeal. She was trying to justify the feeling she got. It was one she had gotten a few times before, normally when dealing with strange men on the street. It was one of the reasons she dressed as a boy. Fewer men were interested in a lad's flesh than a girl's. But even with the disguise in place, she had felt men leer at her, felt the hair on the nape of her neck rise in fear and disgust. Dread curled around her soul as she looked at the ring.

I must think of a different plan… She thought as she freed a hand to fumble in her pockets. Twine, bit of broken knife, three nails, some copper wire… a few gears, five marbles and a few pieces of coal. The coal was freshly nicked from the Pickering's house. It was her habit to filch a few pieces at every opportunity. Coal was too expensive for her to be able to purchase and was a necessity in the cold air of London. Her bolt-hole had a tiny tot FATSCO[2]coal burning stove in it. Each piece of the six inch diameter stove had been carefully stolen and then reassembled in her hole. The chimney had been painstakingly dug through the walls until she had reached a real chimney.

The family she had inserted her chimney into was prosperous enough that they cleaned their chimney enough to prevent the thing from clogging, which would have been disastrous for her. Asphyxiation was not something she was interested in experiencing. But the family couldn't be too prosperous either. If they were really wealthy, then the hole she made would have been noticed and ultimately, plugged.

Cat had formed the habit of using the clinker[3]and ash from her stove and used it to mark her territory in the dank sewers. Humans, ghouls and even smarter animals would turn tail and run when they came to her marks. She had worked hard to get that reputation for that area… and to make sure that reputation wasn't connected to her. Cat was quite pleased with some of the traps she had created for her underworld lair. If hadn't taken many deaths for sentient beings to know not to cross her lines.

That was something she was particularly pleased with. As a street rat, she felt a certain level of kinship with the other rats and didn't wish them harm. She just needed her own safety first. That was why when she had seen one of her traps dragging Thorn under the mucky sludge she had rescued him, pretending to be fellow wanderer. She had warned him off of ever returning to the area and he had spread that warning.

With a coruscate[4]of insight, she looked at the coal, turning it in her hand and decided that making a mark would be worth the loss of coal. Maybe I can bill Lady MacNeal for it? The thought was foolish, of course. Not that the lady wouldn't pay, no. She would happily give Cat an entire crate of coal, but Cat liked to earn her way. Do things herself. That was why she kept her hole in the first place instead of joining a gang.

Another reason she carried coal, one hidden in her mind even to herself, was that she always had an itch to write. She

was, of course, illiterate, but the hunger to write still burbled inside of her. Letters were shrouded by confusion in her mind. But there was a set of symbols that was not.

With the coal held awkwardly between two fingers and her thumb Cat leaned down and drew the thief’s symbol for "Place to Fence Goods". Then, inspired by the sound of slithering above her, she drew a few wiggly, snaky lines. She finished with a sigh and eyed her work. It'll do. I just hope I can keep it up.

As Cat clung to the underside of the wagon, she heard the thugs load the sarcophagus and what sounded like two sacks full of trinkets. One by one, the thieves climbed in. Cat had expected to hear screams of fear or pain almost immediately. There were snakes in the wagon, after all. But the men seemed to not to notice, or not to mind. I bet they haven't noticed yet. Cat thought. No true man of the Empire would sit in a box of snakes willingly.

The wagon pulled away from the Pickering's. The street lamps only serving to make the fog around them glow eerily. Cat kept her coal pressed to the cobblestones, hoping to leave a trail. She was also hoping that the stones wouldn't take her fingers off. The way the wagon was gaining speed, it was going to become a real possibility soon.

The wagon rounded a corner at break neck speed, turning so fast two of the wheels lifted from the street. It was as if that were the sign for pandemonium to break loose above. Screams erupted from the wagon. One of the wheels hit a poorly maintained cobble and the wagon was jostled.

A human fell from the wagon, his head striking the stone with a sickeningly wet crack. She had seen falls that ended in sounds like that before. A man didn't walk away from that.

Another man fell from the wagon, his arm twisted terribly under him. Cat tried not to focus on the sounds of hissing, the shouting and the fighting going on above her. From the way the horses were swerving, it was clear there was a physical argument over who was in control of the rigging.

The more erratic the turns became, the more Cat tried to focus on leaving a trail. Her piece of coal had dissolved to nothingness, the result of too many puddles in the streets. Before it finished disintegrating, she pulled out a second piece of coal and began to use it instead. I'm going to run out of coal at this rate. She bemoaned the loss of her resources.

Even as her second piece of coal was dissolving to little more than a nib, the horses’ hooves skidded on the street, for they were being pulled so strongly one of the horses sat on its haunches. The wagon, which had been attempting to turn, hit a raised stone curb causing it to tumble over spilling the contents of the wagon; corpses, treasure and snakes onto the dingy streets and flinging Cat after them. She was flung so violently that she landed yards away. The breath whooshed out of her lungs and she lay stunned on the ground.

Corpses were strewn about the street, their bodies bloated with venom, faces twisted in agony. The boarman lay only a few feet from her, foamy saliva dried on his lips and chin. A serpent, jet black and with a terrible hood, bit the face of the man. It was as if his continued warmth offended the creature. The elapid[5]turned its horrible head toward her, and made a single preliminary movement toward her.

Cat lay still, hoping that her bright powder blue livery would fail to attract additional attention. She sent up a tendril of hope to the Divine that He would turn the snake from her. Her breath was slow and quite, trying to appear dead, though she knew that hadn't saved the boarman. Cat's eyes were trained on the overturned wagon, the naga, the snakes and the treasures that had been stolen from the Pickerings. She was determined to harvest as much information as she could with the time she had. A few pieces were scintillating[6]in the cold light of the gas lights having fallen from a bag that had torn as if they were stars fallen from the night's sky.

The snakeman, still dressed as some sort of Egyptian priest, picked up the headdress that had been stolen and placed it on his head. He lifted his hands into the air like he was about to call down a storm and spoke, "Tssss!" his words were nothing more than hissing sounds but the serpent from the boarman's corpse and the other snakes as well turned to him. There was a moment of hesitation before they slithered over to him.

The naga used his tail to grab the sarcophagus while one hand was busy with the two sacks full of stolen goods and the other lifted the lid to the sewers.

My domain. She thought watching him descend into the inky blackness of her home. The snakes he had with him made her wary. It would be a long time before she forgot the puffy face of the boarman. But… The sewers are MY land. If I allow those serpents to live there I will never be safe, every rustle will make me dream of them…

She crept to the sewer hole and peered in. There was little light, but that wasn't what she was hoping for. She strained her ears, listening. She heard the grunts and groans of someone carrying a heavy object, along with the scrapes as it dragged against the tunnel. Voices reached her ears and then the scratching sound stopped. The hissing of snakes was constant, but also retreating.

Cat drew the "Place to Fence Goods" symbol at the edge of the sewer and slipped inside the black portal. The fetid, warm and moist air embraced her like an old friend. The serpents movements disturbed the sewer's putrid winds and directed her more clearly than if they were making a glowing path.

Her boots clicked on the stone ledge as she dropped down from the worn metal ladder. In the slums, the ladders were worn thin from the many hands that used them and rusted from the constant moisture in the air. In this posh neighborhood the ladders into Lower London were rust free, relatively new and clean compared to the rest of Lower London.

Cat's familiarity with the environment told her that she had a boot width and a half before she would fall into the muck bellow. Not something that she ever wanted for herself. Assuming a man wasn't eaten by the creatures living in the putrid, murky waters; it was likely that he would come out with a sickness. Thorn would have succumbed to the sickness if she hadn't brought him to one of Lady MacNeal's shelters for orphans.

The Lady herself had the healing touch, though few if any priests acknowledged that a woman could, and her gentle hands had carried the boy back to life. It had left a lasting impression on Cat and solidified her view of the Lady.

The wretched serpents could be heard slithering against the stone. Lower London echoed confusingly to all but the most familiar, which meant that should they hear Cat coming, she knew they would not know from which direction she came. It gave her confidence as she pursued them. She was unaware that snakes of all kinds used their bodies to detect tiny tremors of movement from the ground.

Rats crept along the ledge as well. In general, they were comparable in size to a cat. When she paused they crawled over her boots with no regard to her. Their indignant squeaks as they passed all the regard that they gave her. Those rats didn't worry her. It was the rats that were the ones as large as a hunting hound that concerned her. Their size made them feel entitled and they were ferociously mean.

She could smell her clinker mark not far ahead. If they cross it some of them will be killed, quite the bonus. However… I don't want them to lose the goods.

There was a quiet "snick" sound, followed by the familiar thud of a bolt pinning something living to the wall. That was lucky. Did it hit the snakeman? She considered, No, that wouldn't have pinned him, there isn't enough force in the bolt to fling that guy across the sewer. It must have been one of the little snakes. Little was a relative term here. Each serpent had been between one and two meters, which was quite large to Cat. However, all the elapids were significantly smaller than the naga.

Cat heard three more of her bolt traps going off. One probably hit the sarcophagus, for it had clearly struck stone. A second missed everything entirely; she would be able to reset that one without having to… procure… another bolt. The third… she didn’t know where it had gone; couldn’t tell by the sounds, but it sounded like it hit something fleshy.

Cat passed the cobra pinned to the opposing side of the tunnel. She hesitated; I will have to come back for that. Maybe I can make a trap from it… Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for that. If the snake was there when she returned, she would see what use it could be, if not, that was life.

She followed them until the tunnels split and the naga headed away from her territory. The hissing of snakes echoed all around her. How did they get around behind me? She was surrounded by cobras and she could hear the faint sounds of the sarcophagus being dragged away, leaving her trapped and her goal slowly creeping further away.

[1]Slang for jewelry

[2]The smallest available stove

[3]The remains of coal that won't burn

[4]Sparkle, twinkle, flash, glitter. Used in particular with regard to flashes of wit or intellectual illumination.

[5]A snake with permanently erect fangs in the front of the upper jaw: New World coral snakes, the cobras and more Australian snakes.

[6]Sparkling