Things for William over the next thirty six hours were a bit of a blur. There were periods of lucidity where he would snap out of whatever particular kind of haze he was experiencing hour to hour, to find himself doing anything from rolling in bed with some baker's daughter or tailors son, trying his hand at a game of darts but hurling the bottle at the wall rather than the dart itself, or putting a cocker spaniel in a chokehold over a meat pie that had fallen to the ground. Benders like this were not uncommon in his ordinary life, but now he was able to truly bask in the joy of debauchery earned through hard work, stress, and mortal peril. He had never felt he really deserved his little pleasures before, but now that he knew what it was to put in a few days' hard labor, he felt much more connected to the commoners he so enjoyed sharing his revelries and indulgences with.

As he began to come down somewhat from the initial monstrous high of his separation from the gaelic tyrant that was Gavina, he seemed to return to his body in a manner similar to a spiritual guru coming home after some grand experience of astral projection. But rather than returning to a sense of rest and enlightenment, his consciousness suddenly found it’s corporeal form covered in dirt, gravy, and suspicious white powder, stumbling away from a run down pub with the screams of men, women and what sounded like a donkey emanating from it. Concerned about his potential part in that state of affairs, or more accurately concerned with the reparations that may be sought after from him in the form of pounds sterling or pounds of flesh.

He picked up his stumbling gate to something resembling a wobbly jog, ignoring the fact that he was missing a shoe, though the squelch of mud, or what he could only naively pray was mud, through his sock and between his toes made that somewhat difficult. Once he was what he determined to be a safe distance from the scene of the chaos, he stopped to straighten himself out and get his bearings. He spotted a group of street urchins and called out to them as friendly and sober as he could imagine.

“Good morning! Could you fine young fellows kindly tell me exactly where I am? I seem to have lost my way and am having a devil of a time figuring out what to do next”.

“Oi, it aint morning you fop, s’past noon”. The shortest of the boys called out in a petulant tone that far outweighed his diminutive stature.

“Yes thank you, not sure that was the most important thing that I said, but I appreciate the update. Now, about where the hell it is I have wound up?”

“S’gonna cost ya”.

“Yes yes fair enough, tell me where I am and where the hell I can get out of this blasted daylight and there's a nice shilling in it for you”.

“Make it three or we’ll thump ye one and take the other shoe ya drunk poof”.

William thought it over a moment and came to the only sensible conclusion to this mess.

“Tell you what”. He addressed his words to the other gutter rats around the apparent leader.

“We’ll call it ten, and you lot beat the piss out of that little bastard while I make my way to whatever haven you can direct me to.''

“You fukin what”? Was the last thing the miniature mafioso could say before eight pairs of hands and feet set about granting him the worst beating he had received in his short (in every sense) life.

One of the youths took pause from the festivities to address William with considerably more respect than his compatriot.

“Sorry bout all that, you're in Old Nichol, east uh the river, and if your lookin for somethin ta do, there's a bear pit three blocks west-a ear, should be gettin ready for th’ evenins showings ear soon. It’s in a fake lumberyard with a brown bear painted on the entrance, can’t miss it”. He turned back to the flailing pile of limbs and threw in a few kicks and punches to earn his share of the take.

“Why thank you my good man. That’s all I wanted was a bit of help, and I was happy to pay for the privilege of your guidance. Honestly it doesn’t serve to be so unpleasant to someone who is already offering to give you what it is you want. Fine showing from the lot of you by the way, I should dare say he will be feeling that in the morning, evening and afternoon. Oh! Before I forget myself, I offered you a high price for that fancy footwork”. He reached into a trouser pocket and produced a handful of mysteriously greasy coins, and counted out ten before tossing them across the street to the now tiring younglings.

They cheered in excitement and swarmed the scattered currency like pigeons attacking a handful of feed. Satisfied that he had done his good deed for the day, William turned on his heal like some prussian soldier at parade, and began his march through what had to be the poorest slum in London to find his salvation from the dull dreariness of his surroundings, feeling jovial at the promise of a good nights show of violence, and at the reminder of why he loved children so much.

He managed to limp his way the three blocks to his destination without further incident, though there was no shortage of shady looking customers who might have liked to take advantage of someone in such an obviously compromised and vulnerable state, but luckily he was so disheveled that most assumed he had nothing worth stealing at this point and let him pass unmolested. Past crumbling houses, bursting tenements, rat filled ale houses and whores so desperate they walked the street at mid-day, he shuffled along until he reached a large wooden wall built up against a small brick storefront. The wall was painted, as the young boy said, with the crude image of a rampant brown bear. Though it was early, already there was a line of men beginning to form outside the door. A fat balding man with a thin black mustache and no neck to speak of unlocked the front door and began shouting for customers to enter and have their money ready.

William joined the queue and when it was his turn to enter he produced the eight pence entry fee and was directed to an exit in the back of the shop which opened up to a large, if a bit shoddy, arena of sorts. There was a large hole dug in the ground roughly forty or fifty feet across and ten feet deep, lined with blood stained pine boards and with a thin layer of sand covering the bottom. Wooden bleachers circled the structure and the patrons who entered before him began to take their seats. Several employees circled the area, distinguishable by their matching dingey black top hats and red handkerchiefs, barking the lineups for the night, selling laddels of piss warm beer from half rusted buckets, and just generally attempting to stir life into the crowd to get them excited to toss their money away gambling on the day’s festivities. By the sound of it, the first event was set to be a rat killing. A small dog, likely a terrier of some kind, would be let loose on the sands of battle against a small swarm of rats, and depending on how humane this particular venue was, bets would either be taken on how many rats the dog could kill in a given time, or on how long the poor creature could keep killing them before being overwhelmed.

As it turned out, it was mercifully the former arrangement, and not the latter. William avoided placing any money down on the exhibition, as he had little interest in such small stakes competition. He sat through several more displays of bestial violence as the day plodded along, indulging in not an insignificant number of dips from the piss bucket. He bore witness to several rounds of fighting cocks, with feathers and blood flying through the air. He took in the bloody sight of a trio of fierscome hounds taking on the biggest, nastiest wild boar he had ever seen in his life. Victory came at the cost of two of the dogs' lives, but the final stood proud and glorious, his muzzle caked in crimson blood. A jersey bull by the name of Lucifer faced off against a scraggly and starved brown bear. Hate vs. Hunger the fight was billed. William placed five pounds on the bull, believing that such a magnificent beast so hell bent on breaking free of the docile prey status of the common bovine should possess more than enough spirit to tackle base hunger and arrogance from an apex predator like the bear. His bet was well placed, for unlike in the bible, lucifer did triumph, but at the cost of his own radiant life. It took a good deal of arguing with the bookies by several drunk and angry customers to convince the bookies to pay out the winnings, as they were of the opinion that both animals dying constituted a draw. In the end, money was paid out, and William bought a round of drinks for both sides of the conflict to soothe tensions.

After a long day of blood and gore, of bull and boar, with the sun having finally set on foggy London town, it was time for the main event. Rather than yet another display of mindless violence and base survival between beasts, there was to be what was being billed as a “legendary'' bout of fisticuffs by two local champions of the arena. The ringmaster for the evening, the same neck-less, mustachioed individual who had been drumming up spectators outside this afternoon, took center stage and began to work his verbal magic on the audience.

The crowd by this point had swollen from a handful of listless drunks frittering away their last few pennies on the only entertainment that wouldn’t leave them with a sore head or an itchy crotch, to a full house of citizens from every walk of life. There were day laborers and whores, shop keepers, street urchins and craftsmen mingled about with the odd gentlemen slumming it up for the evening, not unlike William, but whose appearance and behavior was much more in line with their place in society than the filthy and ragged young aristocrat.

“LAY-EES AND GENTLEMAN, BOYS AND GIRLS, PREPARE FOR A DISPLAY OF MARTIAL PROWESS THE LOIKS OF WHICH HAVE NEVER BEFORE GRACED THE BOXING RINGS OF THIS FAIR CITY. FISTS WIW FLY, BONE WIW BREAK, BLOOD WIW BE SPIWT! OUR CONTESTANTS TONIGHT HAVE CRAWLED FROM THE BLACKEST OF HOLES FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT AND PLE-SHA, TONIGHT ONLY! TO MY LEFT” The corpulent showman gave a flourish of the hand and looked to his left side just as a great, burly bear of a man dropped onto the sandy pit floor.

“FROM THE BEER-ALLS OF MUNICH, ROIGHT HERE TO OUR LI-LL SLOICE A PARADOIS, WEIGHING IN AT A BEASTLY SIXTEEN STONE, GUUUUUNTER HEFTIIIIIIG!!!!!”

A roar of excitement and approval rang through the crowd at the introduction of the hulking, bearded teuton. He stood shirtless, though the coarse brown hair that covered his torso disguised this fact well, with a chest as broad as a keg of ale. He sported a shiny shaved cranium, but his face was crowned with a magnificent bushy beard that would have been the envy of any American lumberjack. Like many of his people, he did not appear to be a man of great flamboyancy, forgoing any sense of showmanship of crowd work. He instead opted for the strong, silent treatment and simply stretched his considerable muscles and glared menacingly about from place to place.

“TO ME ROIT!” Continued the announcer of the evening festivities.

At this signal, one of the most magnificent creatures William had ever laid eyes on emerged from the crowd and leaped like some great cat into the fighting pit, a wicked grin plastered on his mustached face, a gold tooth sparkling in the light of the lanterns lit to replace the now dormant sun.

“THE FOULEST WRETCH, THE MEANEST SNAKE, THE SWEETEST SINGER TO EVA STALK THE STREETS A LONDON, THE MAN WHO MAKES OLE JACK THE RIPPA PISS HIS TROUSERS, WEIGHIN NO MORE THAN SEVEN STONE, TOOOOLEY!”

Half the crowd openly cheered and shouted words of support to the tall, lanky Irishman, the other half appeared either disgusted, uneasy, or some combination of the two. He too was shirtless, exposing pale skin, marked with dozens of colorful, odd, and obscene tattoos. Bloody knives, hungry rats, nude women, and plenty more. All mingled and swam across his scarred white flesh, spanning the length of both arms, and from the waist to the middle of the neck. He strutted around the ring as proud and arrogant as one of the fighting roosters from earlier in the day. He jeered and called out to the crowd, blowing kisses to the women, and making threatening gestures at the men, all with a wide smile on his face that somehow conveyed the pure, innocent joy of life one usually only found in a child, and the sheer knowing maliciousness of a predator starring at unknowing prey. He removed a worn out bowler hat, tossing it to a pretty young lady in a choice spot at the edge of the pit, revealing a head of close cropped hair the color of rust, that traveled well down the sides of his chiseled face, and coming together over his upper lip to form the great red beast that crowned his wicked smile. All in all he presented a dramatically opposite figure to his opponent.

“My god he is magnificent”. Said William to no one in particular.

“He’s a bloody devil he is”. Came a reply from one of the bookies, making his way around the arena taking bets.

“Got more blood on ‘is hands than the royal army he does. Sneaky, underhanded bastard. Always good for a show though”.

“I must have him”. William said in a dream like voice, before remembering where he was and who he was around.

“As my champion of course”. He quickly amended, not really thinking anyone in this place would allow an alternate interpretation to cross their mind.

“I’m putting everything on the Irishman with the evil smile. Ten pounds”. He declared before bending over and removing his remaining shoe, eternally grateful that it was not the one he had lost in his stupor.

He reached in the bottom and produced two five pound notes, folded several times over and smashed flat as flat could be. An emergency fund of sorts he was sure never to leave the house without.

“Beh’er off payin im ta throw the foit for ya, but it’s your money guvna”.

The announcer’s voice once again cut through the noise of the crowd, drawing the attention of all and causing the ruckus of the better to quiet down.

“ALL ROIT GENTLEMEN, WE WANTS A NOICE CLEAN FOIT, BUT NOT TOO CLEAN. NO EYE GOUGIN, FISH HOOKIN, OR SCROTE SQUEEZIN.”

“Good news fer you fella, doubt you could get yer hands around it!” Interrupted the Irishman, to the laughs of his fans and detractors alike.

“NO RABBIT PUNCHES OR BITTIN. OTHA THAN THAT, GIVE THE FOLKS A BLOODY GOOD SHOW, HEAVY ON THE BLOODY EH!?” The ringmaster called out to his audience, ignoring the comment from Tooley, and the crowd heartily approved of the sentiment.

“NOW SHAKE HANDS AND GO TA YA CORN-UHS, WHEN THE BELL RINGS, FOIT!”

At the word fight, Tooley launched himself like a shot from a cannon at the big German and threw a punch that connected directly with a crunch from his broad nose.

“From Dublin with love sweetheart”! Tooley jeered at his shocked victim.

The crowd went wild at the dirty punch, for good and for ill, in favor and against. The announcer ran as fast as he could away from the two fighters and scrambled up a ladder that had been lowered for him. The German took two steps back and grabbed his snout in shock and pain.

“Scheisse!” He grunted into his cupped hand before remembering why it was he was here.

He did so just in time to tuck his right arm in and guard his ribs from a wide arcing kick. He quickly countered and grabbed the leg, but Tooley took that moment to fling his weight to the side and hurl the other limb at Heftigs unprotected left flank. His leg made contact with the side of Gunthers head, but the awkward position Tooley had taken to make the kick had generated little momentum, and so the attack did little but stun the big man and cause him to release his captured leg, which was more than enough for the slippery mic. The German was able to recover quicker this time, and finally took the initiative to strike at Tooley with one of his mighty, meaty fists.

The punch was a slow but powerful right hook that, had it connected, would have taken off the Irishman's head at the shoulders. But as luck and skill would have it, Tooley ducked the punch and came up with a savage uppercut, connecting square with the underside of Heftigs jaw. A weaker man might have faltered right there, but Heftig had been a bare knuckle champion across western and central Europe, and was more than capable of absorbing such a hit. He took the pain and used the now closed distance between him and his opponent to throw a hard jab to the stomach that finally found it’s target. Tooley doubled over momentarily, the wind seemingly taken out of him and Gunther did not give up the chance to land a crushing knee blow to the grimey face of the Irishman.

Tooley staggered backwards, clearly shaken but managing to keep his composure so as not to leave himself vulnerable to any surprise attacks. Heftig raised his fists and made his way towards Tooley, muscles wound tight as a snare drum and ready to explode forward like a steam drill.

The cocky mic began to dance around the by this point, furious German fighter, hurling abuse at him as he did so.

“You know, I always heard you German’s could take a hell of a pounding, and between your head, and your sister's cunny last night, I see the rumors are true”.

This drove Gunther to spend precious energy throwing a predictable punch straight at Tooleys mouth, which he was able to evade with ease.

“You know, I was havin a chat with yer dear old ma the other day, and I couldn’t fer the loif a me figure out why it was she wouldn’t respond. Wouldn’t ya know it, turned out I was talkin ta one a those bloody pig heads in the butcher shop window the whole time”.

“Du verdammter bastard!!!” Another burst of rage, another missed chance at revenge as Tooley once again sidestepped the attack.

“Talkin’a pigs, I find the laws concernin beastiality in your country a wee bit strange. Here, ye catch a man fuckin a farm animal, they toss ya in jail loik the devient ye are. But in yer da’s case, they just made him marry the poor thing! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!” The Irishman cackled at his own hateful rhetoric.

This sent Heftig over the edge and he sprang at his abuser like a raging bull, fist raised high in indignant fury. Tooley, in stark contrast to his earlier strategy, stood statue still and allowed Gunther to land a hit to the chest, folding himself in to reduce the impact of the blow.

“Arrogant hurensohn!!!” The big German roared as he threw a second punch, connecting with Tooleys left cheek, again the Irishman made no move to dodge or retaliate.

Heftig, now confident in the result of the bout, threw a third blow, harder and less controlled than the others, in an attempt to finish the fight with a single, gargantuan strike.

“Du stirbst schwein!!!”

Rather than allow his brains to be dashed out however, Tooley sprung his trap. Lured into a sense of false security, the German put all his weight and strength into a single clumsy strike, thus throwing himself off balance, with too much momentum pulling him in a single direction to redirect quick enough to save himself.

Tooley ducked and dodged the beefy arm of his attacker, and used the stored energy in his crouching legs like a spring, he launched his full weight upwards with a twist of the torso and brought a mighty blow to the side of Heftigs skull. This sent the big man stumbling, but Tooley did not relent. He threw a hard kick that caught Gunther in the knee with a nasty snapping sound and an inhuman howl of pain. As he crumbled down into the sand, only one leg semi-supporting the rest of his weight and his arms busy clutching the pained appendage, the Irishman continued his assault with a one two combo of wide haymakers from each arm, snapping Heftigs head to the left, then to the right. The final blow was a true work of showmanship, with Tooley taking a step back before springing into the air, tumbling forward and bringing a booted foot in a pinwheeling arc down on top of the Germans skull with an audible *thump*

The big man slumped face down into the gritty earth, not a sound escaping his mouth. Tooley, now laying on his back, quickly hopped to back up raising both arms high as he declared himself the victor. The crowd went wild, with some jumping and cheering at the fact their bets had been well placed, while others were overcome with the sheer rush of the violence they had witnessed. Others were less enthusiastic, as they forfeited their cash for the evening to the merciless bookies, while other more sour-faced individuals were simply disappointed to see Tooley still drawing breath. One such patron observed the now semi conscious Heftig beginning to stir on the ground, and sought to correct events….

William took the whole spectacular mess in with a level of arousal and excitement he hadn’t felt in some time. Here was this man, whom seemingly everyone here knew by some sort of frightful reputation, fighting a brute of a foe at least twice his size in a no doubt low paying prize fight, going at it like some sort of demented jester. The night was cool and misty, but he could feel his temperature rising. The wolfish devil was laughing and jeering at the losing spectators as they cursed him for their poor choice of champion. As Tooley reached a hand out and the young woman from earlier returned his bowler in exchange for a kiss blown her way, to the annoyance of her male escort,. That was when William saw trouble.

On the opposite side of the pit from where Tooley was standing, a patron with a particularly disagreeable expression reached into a coat pocket, and withdrew a short, triangular dagger. The man looked down onto the sands and saw Heftig beginning to stir, and tossed the blade down into the arena where it landed next to the still dazed German’s head. Gunther noticed this and stared for several moments at the weapon as though unsure what to do next. Suddenly inspiration struck him like a bolt of lightning, and he grabbed the blade as he halued himself back onto his feet. The thrashed teuton saw Tooleys back turned and thrust the tip of his dagger right at his gloating foe's kidneys. Even if he was to turn there would be little chance for him to avoid being impaled one way or another.

“Watch your fucking back man”! William called out to his new hero, hoping desperately he was not too late to stop the tragedy about to occur.

Tooley did not spin around. He did however, drop like a stone down to his hands and knees, causing the burly boxer barrelling towards him to trip and come crashing down flat on his face, right back at square one. Hopping back to his feet, Tooley looked around briefly to identify his generous guardian angel. He spotted William staring at him with a look of relief that not many folks would have in reference to his life being spared, so he felt safe in assuming this was the man who had cried out.

“Many thanks for the word a warnin”. He remarked with a wink and a smile that sent William swooning.

“I am turning into quite the fan girl” He mused silently.

“And here I thought I was manning up quite nicely these last few days” But he could hardly be blamed for being so taken with such a confident and brash figure, particularly one as handsome, in a threatening, unapproachable way.

William continued to gaze at Tooley in admiration, but was more curious than anything about what was going to happen next. He need not wait long to find out.

Tooley stood over his fallen foe and began to chastise him as though Heftig were a misbehaving child, and not an attempted murderer.

“Now mr. Heftig, why would ye go and do somethin as foolish as all that? Are ya really such a bad sport”? He hauled off and aimed a kick straight into Heftigs rib cage, earning a deep groan of pain from the half conscious man.

“Here I thought we was havin such a lovely foit. Sure, I moit’ve cheap shoted ya there in the beginnin, and I take full credit fer that. But you got plenty a good licks in yerself, and I never broke a single rule asides from that”. Tooley brought a heel down hard on Heftigs right hand and ground it hard into the sand.

“Yet here we are, you tryna kill me, and me havin me reputation on the line, tryna think how it is we can get past this nastiness”. He leaned over and grabbed Gunther by the arm and collar, and rolled him over so he was facing up towards the night sky, Tooleys wicked grin smiling down on him in a manner that conveyed not the least bit of friendliness.

“I tink ya need a lesson in sportsmanship mate, and I know just th’way teh drive it home”. Tooley bent and picked up the knife that moments ago almost ended his life, and twirled it about in his hands like some kind of carnival act.

“Let’s just give ya a little reminder why you should always take yer loss loik a man”. He then gripped the blade firmly by the handle and jumped down on top of the big man's chest, driving the point into his forehead.

The screaming was guttural and loud, calling the attention of everyone watching, stopping many in their tracks who were on their way out the door. But like so many horrors, it was impossible to look away. The German thrashed about and cried bloody murder, but he was too tired and in too much pain to get the mad Irishman off of him, and so he lie helpless under the blade of his opponent. After what felt like an eternity but could only have been roughly a minute, for the blade was sharp and Tooleys hands swift, he stood up, revealing his handiwork. A single word, “CHEAT” was carved across the man's cranium in ragged, bloody letters, a terrible reminder of the lesson learned.

Tooley stepped back from his victim and allowed him to clasp his hands to his forehead in a vain attempt to slow the bleeding and dull the throbbing pain. This lasted but a moment more before exhaustion, pain and loss of blood finally took the big man down for the last time, as he collapsed into the sand, unconscious.

“My god that was ghastly”. William voiced to no one in particular, though he couldn’t say he had much sympathy for the one who did just try to stab a man in the back over a boxing match.

He couldn’t really say much, he had not exactly been a saint recently himself, or ever if he was to be perfectly truthful.

“That’s Tooley. I could’a told the kraut not ta bother if he’d a had a mind to ask me. Hard to pull a move like that on one as slippery as the Irishman”. The statement came from a bookie approaching William with a wad of pound notes.

“Ear’s yer winnins my good man. Smart bet that was, never does ta bet against ole Tooley. Slick and quick as they come”.

Ignoring the fact that this same man had spoken to him like an imbecile for placing the bet in the first place, William vented his curiosity at the bookie.

“Yes I see that, but who exactly is he? Where is he from, and why does everyone here, save for my own ignorant self, seem to not only know him, but have quite strong and polarizing opinions of him”? The young noble inquired as he snatched his winnings, not bothering to count them out.

“He’s Tooley. Far as I know, he’s from all over. Wasn’t quite sure until now if you was one of them upper class types what come down ear for a bit a underworld fun, what with how shite you look, no offense. But if you don’t know why folks is scared of that bloody devil, that settles it. He’s a gutter rat what does any job needs doin. For the right price. Local gangs, shop owners, political types use im to settle things what need settled, but who can’t be seen as havin anythin to do with it. Never known im to say no to anythin really. And when ya don’t stay loyal to no one person or group, ya tends to upset a lot a folks”.

“Hmm not the picky type eh? Personally I approve, why tie yourself down when opportunity could knock at any door”.

“Whatever you say milord. Appreciates ya business, and do recommend our fine show to any of your distinguished friends who find the entertainments on the upper side a bit dull”.

“Oh believe me, I shall spread word like the plague, my good man. Before you go, could you tell me where I might find that tall drink of poison”? Williams eyes didn’t leave Tooley as he climbed up out of the pit opposite of him, snatched a fist full of cash that must have been his winnings from one of the event organizers, and walked out of the lumberyard as the crowd parted for him like the red sea.

“Can’t imagine why you’d want ta meet the likes of him in the street, but it’s no business a mine sir. When we invite im over for a fight, we oft as not find im drinkin at the Kings Head. Pub over on Cheshire street. I’d stay away me’self though. He knows you got money to throw around, he’s just as liable to follow ya home and gut you and yours, and take everythin ya got”.

“Your concern is moving, but considering the housemates I keep, I’m not sure I would make the same bet I laid down tonight in that scenario. Thank you”. He replied before stuffing a pound note in the mans jacket pocket.

“And have a wonderful evening”.

William wove through the crowd and entered back into the storefront, before catching a glimpse at the worn out clock on the wall. It read eleven o'clock. He almost took no real notice of this until suddenly he was struck with the realization that he must have been out and about for two days. This was the evening they were meant to return to the library and see what it was mr. Smelyanski had discovered in Gavina’s fathers notes. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach and all warm fuzziness brought on by the booze and the brawling and the boys was replaced with the icy realization that he was likely in for a beating, perhaps without any of the leading verbal abuse to give him time to prepare.

He dashed out of the building, shoving several patrons out of his way and jumped into the first open taxi he could find, ordering the driver to step on it, and incentivising him with his winnings for the night. He prayed that some form of delay or misfortune had struck his comrades, and his tardiness would not be of note. He stuffed a cushion taken from one of the seats down the front of his trousers just to be on the side of caution.