Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

Cripper opened the door and they stepped out into the fourth floor. They were in a large open plan foyer for the floor. The lifter was to their left, with a little man in a booth stamping paperwork. Next to him was a large staircase leading up with a barricade of chairs and broken bits of wood blocking the way. The barricade was manned by four very flamboyantly dressed young men with rollicking mustachios and brightly coloured riding jackets. They wore white gloves and long ivory boots. In their hands they casually brandished clubs and bats while smoking small black cigars with elegant pomposity. One of the men was serving tea to the others while they chuckled about some wittism or the other. They looked like they were ready for a battle or an evening soiree at the manor to break out at any moment. The men eyed Cripper with naked suspicion but, before too long, they found themselves anxiously blowing on their teas under Cripper’s ferocious gaze.

“They the reason we can’t take the stairs?” Ridley asked quietly after they had passed and Cripper nodded.

“Stupid weak Whits lost the stairs two weeks ago,” he grunted.

As they made their way across the foyer, Cripper led them down one of the floor’s arterial corridors. After only a few steps, he stopped and cocked an ear like a wild animal. Nairo listened intently, after a few seconds she could make out the faint sound of a brawl. There was a glass smash, pounding feet and roaring voices dancing down the corridor towards them.

“Not that one,” he said and walked over to the next corridor.

This one took a sharp right and the became narrower as they went further in, to the point that Cripper had to hunch and Ridley and Nairo had to walk one behind the other to get the trolley through. They came out suddenly to a staircase and for a moment Cripper stopped perplexed.

“Why can’t we just use this staircase?” Ridley asked.

It was a very steep staircase, every step being almost half a foot climb.

“That’s why,” Nairo said, pointing to the top where the staircase simply ended.

“Why would you build this?” Ridley asked incredulously.

Jimmy poked his head out from under the cloth the map held in his hands.

“Shit!” Ridley cried, leaping back.

“Go back ten feet and look… left,” he said before disappearing under the cloth.

“You forgot he was there didn't you?” Nairo asked, smirking at Ridley.

“Didn’t forget,” Ridley said sheepishly. “Just didn’t remember right then and there.”

They retraced their steps and came to a long portrait of a particularly lithe bald man with a monocle and a moustache that stretched further than his ears.

“Stroke it,” Jimmy said from under the cloth.

“What?” Ridley asked.

“Stroke it. It’s a secret door.”

Ridley looked at Nairo who shrugged. Ridley huffed and then gingerly ran his fingers across the painting's surface.

“You gotta stroke him!” Jimmy said.

Ridley cursed at him and then ran his fingers gently across the face of the politician.

“Lower. Lower…”

“Jimmy!”

Jimmy's disembodied laughter stopped when Ridley toe punted the bottom of the trolley.

“Ow! It’s a door you wally! Pull it open.”

Cripper grabbed the edges of the painting and swung it open revealing a door hidden behind it.

“Old trick the oppos use to cover up entrances,” Jimmy explained.

“Does the absurdity of all this not register for you?” Ridley asked.

“It’s just the way things are done.”

“The way they’re done,” Cripper agreed in a way that ended Ridley’s questions.

They stepped through the painting into another one of the homogenous hallways of the House.

“I swear I’m starting to feel like we’re going round in circles.” Ridley muttered as he eyed the hallways around them.

“I know… I feel like we’ve passed that painting before,” Nairo agreed, pointing at a painted portrait of a bald headed man with a monocle and a boiled egg for a chin.

They continued on in silence for another few minutes, Cripper at the head, furtively looking down corridors as if he expected trouble at any moment. The big man was tense. Nairo guessed subterfuge was wholly unfamiliar to the behemoth. Cripper had the aura of a man who waded through life shouldering every obstruction out of his way rather than stepping around it. But he was tense. Nairo felt it as well, something animal instinct at the base of her neck, between her shoulder blades. A feeling that they were flirting too close to the edge of chaos.

Cripper directed them down another hallway before coming to a halt. He cocked his little ear. Nairo held her breath. She felt it before she heard it. The floor trembled under their feet. Then she heard it: the thunder of thudding feet and screaming.

“Sounds like some serious democracy going on down there,” Ridley said.

“Should we go left?” Nairo asked Cripper.

His dark eyes darted down the corridor and he shook his head. Nairo followed his eyes and saw the flickering shadows of figures charging towards them. Jimmy poked his head out from under the trolley to see what the commotion was and his eyes grew wide.

“Go back!” he cried out

Ridley spun the cart sharply just as something heavy and porcelain shattered against the wall behind him. The sound of screaming and shouting was coming from everywhere.

“Move!” Cripper boomed.

He grabbed Ridley by the scruff of his neck and deposited him on the trolley. He scooped Nairo under one arm, grabbed the trolley with his free hand and barreled back down the first hallway. Nairo, who was facing backwards, watched as two groups converged out of the other hallways and slammed into each other like crashing waves of brightly coloured cloth and ever more colourful language. In the cramped space she saw the frantic waving of clubs and crushing pummelling of men being smashed against walls and stomped on. The corridor turned sharply right and the sight of the melee was snatched from her. More disconcertingly, the sounds of violence were growing in intensity behind her.

“Not in there!” she heard Ridley cry.

“Too late,” Cripper grunted.

She heard doors slam open and there was a second where she felt them lose momentum. The second passed. Her whole world spun and then was sucked up into a tsunami of chaos. Limbs. Fists. Bats. Coats. Shoes. Blood. She was awash in the swirling torrents of combat.

“Ridley!” Nairo felt a body slam into her and then a hand grab the back of her jacket.

She was yanked to her feet just in time for a fist to smash off the back of her skull. Nairo stumbled to all fours, her muscle memory screamed at her stunned body to stagger back to her feet. She spun, hands raised and saw Ridley in the middle of three dark coated men. He had one of them in a head lock and was frantically kicking and punching at the others. With adrenaline thumping through her body, Nairo charged at the man to Ridley’s left. She speared him around the waist and dragged him from his feet. He grabbed at Nairo’s hair and yanked her head downwards as they tumbled. Nairo slammed her elbow into where she guessed his throat was and was rewarded with a satisfying gurgle. She pulled herself free and leapt at the third assailant only to be slammed into by a gaggle of men. They stumbled over Nairo’s choking victim and collapsed in a writhing pile of frenetic violence. Nairo struggled under the weight of two men who had continued to throw punches and knees at one another as they fell. A heavy black boot caught her in the lip as she fought for air. Kicking at anything she could, Nairo squirmed and fought desperately from under the pile. She felt a sweaty hand grab hers and yank. She slid from the pile and gasped for air.

“C’mon Sarge, you gotta stand.”

Nairo gasped and took Ridley’s hand. She pulled herself to her feet and pushed her hair from her face. They were in the middle of some sort of domed chamber that was the central point for five corridors. There was fighting everywhere. Mobs of dark coated men and men in brightly coloured morning coats clashed all around them. Men were rolling across the floor. They fought on the balconies. They fought in the doorways. There was even one particularly uneventful fight happening from the swinging chandeliers.

“There’s no way out,” Ridley huffed next to her as he fought to catch his breath.

“Work to the wall!” Nairo shouted over the cacophony.

Ridley nodded and together they wormed and fought their way through the melee. It had gotten to the point where the men were becoming unintelligible masses of limbs and weapons. She kicked and punched at everything and she was in turn kicked and punched from just about every angle she could imagine and a couple she didn’t want to imagine.

“We have to get out of here!” Ridley said as he clutched the wall gasping for air, sweat pouring down his face.

“It has to die down soon!” Nairo replied. “How long can they keep this up?”

“What’s that noise?” Ridley asked.

Nairo perked her head up and looked round before turning back to him, ashen faced.

“Is that…”

“Horses?”

The rumble grew louder. A few men fighting by the main doors stopped to look. Suddenly, the main doors to the chamber exploded open and four enormous horses thundered through. They carved through the mobs of men, scattering them everywhere. Behind the horses came a charging phalanx of more colourful morning jacketed men, white gloved, fists raised. They swept through the chamber sending the dark coated men scattering down the joining hallways.

“Wot ho! Scum! Ruffians! Running away from a frightfully good dust up! Cravens!” The lead horseman whipped his horse in a circle and wagged his fist at the fleeing backs of his foes. Nairo looked at him curiously and as he turned to face her she broke out into a broad grin.

“Barney!” she cried and waved to him.

“Miss Sally! Bloody good of you to get stuck and give the oppos what for!” He smiled and waved, resplendent in an all white long coat and breeches. He wore a gilded golden breastplate like a fairytale knight and in his hand was a thick riding crop that she imagined spent more time on the backs of the ‘oppos’ than horses.

“Is that a horse?” Ridley asked nonplussed as Barney hopped off and walked to them. “Did you just ride in here leading a damn cavalry charge?”

“Can’t resist a spot of theatrics every now and again, Master Ridley.” Barney pulled off his white leather riding gloves and shook Ridley’s hand jubilantly.

“Barney! You legend amongst men!”

“Wot ho James! Lovely day for it, no?”

Jimmy whooped like an excited hound and bounded towards Barney gripping him a fierce hug. Half of his face was covered in blood, but his eyes were bright and alive, dancing in the bath of crimson as he grinned and patted Barney on the back.

“Can always rely on Barney to have your back!” Jimmy said, grinning at them. “So you finally done the horse thing?”

“Thoughts? Dreadfully tacky no?”

“No way. They’ll be retelling this one over a pint for years to come, mate.”

“So we all saw the horses right?” Ridley said, looking around.

“Yes, Ridley.” Nairo patted him placatingly on the arm.

“Best we keep moving before the troops gather again,” Jimmy said.

“Right ho! Stay on plan. Come come!” Barney flapped his hands at them and began walking them back through the shattered double doors.

“Cripper!” Jimmy cupped his hands and shouted to monolithic form sat down across the hall.

Cripper looked around and then rose slowly. Nairo noticed he had been sitting on three squashed and unconscious men.

“Have fun?” he asked as Cripper arrived.

“Woz alright,” Cripper answered as they followed Barney.

“Watch out for horse muck!” he called over his shoulder. “The way mine was relieving itself you’d think he’d been summoned to the chief whip’s office after Thursday tea!” Barney chortled and strode down the corridor shaking hands with the other men in their bright coats.

He led them back down the hallway he had led the charge through and he wasn’t exaggerating about the horse droppings. There were piles of it dotted through the hall. Men whooped and slapped Barney on the back as he walked.

“In here,” Barney called back to them after extricating himself from another enthusiastic handshake. He pushed open a nondescript office door just off the main hallway.

Inside there was a thin man with a monocle and a twirly moustache. He wore a deep maroon velvet frock coat and riding boots that came up past his knobbly knees.

“Captain,” Barney said, throwing a small salute. “Apologies, I thought the room was unoccupied!”

“No, no. No problem Barnibus, I was just vacating to rendezvous with the troop on the front line. Give ‘em a bit of the old praise and tickle. Well fought battle and all that.”

“Jolly good, sir. Wonderful bit of personable combat that was.”

“So I heard! A cavalry charge! Bloody good bit of showmanship that was Barnibus. Very good.” He laughed and slapped Barney on the arm with a rolled up paper as he walked out.

“Great grandpappy was a cavalryman. In the genes!” Barney laughed with the exact same pitch and volume as the man as he opened the door and saluted him out of it.

“Lock that, Barney.” Jimmy sat down on the edge of the mahogany coffee table and lit a smoke. He busied himself with wiping the blood from his face and checking his hands for new cuts and bruises. Ridley threw himself into the big comfy couch and sighed with relief that he was alive.

“What was that?” he asked after a few seconds.

“That? Oh nothing, just a bit of a dust up,” Barney said as he unclipped the heavy breastplate. “Phwoar, think I’d rather risk the enemies’ sabres than trot about in that all day.”

Nairo laughed, despite herself, and gently eased herself into a chair.

“Bit of a dust up?” Ridley said incredulously.

“Had two of 'em already this morning,” Barney said with a beaming grin. “But I do know what you mean! Bloody knackering barebacking that nag down the hall. Let me tell you this, horses are just not built for the hallowed halls of democracy.”

“Well at least we know now,” Jimmy said sagely. “Right, let’s get back to work. Barney, how are we sorted for getting through to the ninth floor?”

“Not a bother, apparently Phineas and the chaps have jerry rigged a pulley through a couple condemned offices. Will plonk us nicely in the centre of the ninth floor.”

“Perfect. Barney, you might wanna dress in something a little less… conspicuous.” Jimmy said looking at Barney’s gleaming white attire.

“Jolly good,” Barney said, striding over to a cupboard in the corner of the room. “I imagine there will be something a bit more demure in here.” He opened the cupboard and began flicking through a selection of garishly bright morning coats. “Ooh, I daresay I do look ravishing in summer pink.” He pulled out the jacket and held it up to his chest.

“Not exactly subtle is it?” Jimmy said.

“Right you are. Hmm, afraid plum washes me out. And I wouldn’t be caught dead in last season’s autumn green… midnight blue it is then!” He whipped out a dark blue coat and had it on a single exquisite flourish.

“Looks good,” Jimmy said, not looking up from the map he was studying. “Right, let’s pack up and get a move on. Only eleven more floors to go!”