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London is a city of rivers. Besides the Thames, there exist its many tributary creeks and rivers, most of them culverted and pressed into service as sewers for the great metropolis. The River Fleet flows under Holbein and Fleet Street and emerges as a drainage outlet in the embankment wall beneath Blackfriars Bridge. The Rivers Tyburn and Westbourne and the Effra in Southwark suffered similar fates as the population bourgeoned and the offal pouring into the Thames became insufferable. But a few open waterways emptying into the Thames remain—the Regents Canal, the Limehouse Cut and, farther east, the River Lea.

On the day following the attack on the Lambeth Lads and the Drury Lane Gang and the death of Detective-Inspector Lock, the fog lifted and the afternoon warmed enough for a few families to venture to Victoria Park to picnic and to row on the boating lake.

One family consisting of a young father and mother, a baby boy in a pram and a little girl in a blue dress and white bonnet brought some bread along and the girl was feeding a swan through the railing of the low fence separating the path from the boating lake. The boy in the pram was sitting up watching his sister and laughing with delight as the swan dipped its graceful neck to pluck the bread floating on the water when the bird was suddenly yanked beneath the surface. The boy gave a cry, the girl started back in horror.

On the lake, boaters turned to see why the child was screaming when a pair of waterlogged hands gripped an oar and upset the boat. Other hands dragged first one then another of the boaters into the water.

Two brothers bicycling on the Regent’s Canal towpath came upon a man in soaking clothes. As the man was fat and blocked the path, they had no choice but to stop. The older brother stopped well before the encounter, but the younger, newer to cycling and not yet adroit at the art of braking, almost ran into the man, and seeing his pocked and swollen face and milky eyes, veered before the reaching hands could grasp him. Unfortunately, he veered the wrong way and splashed into the canal where anxious hands thrust from the water received him and pulled him under.

Stunned by the sight of his brother’s reception and the fat man moving toward him with surprising speed, the older brother just had time to turn his bike and sprint off screaming at the top of his lungs.

All over London Town where water met land, such occurrences were common. From the Limehouse quaysides to Battersea Park Pier, workers and pedestrians were attacked. And by and by, as reports circulated from precinct to precinct and what seemed like the ravings of mass hysteria gained credence and journalists and city administrators demanded answers, the police could no longer deny something monstrous was afoot.

***

He was being followed.

The word was out: the law was looking for him for Lock’s murder.

Unable to return to his kip—not that the slugs knew its location, but they were thick in the streets around the Walk—Will passed most of the day in a shed behind the Lambeth Workhouse. When the bread and cheese Kate gave him ran out and a bleary sun hung over the Nine Elms Gas Works, he ventured forth.

He didn’t know how many of his own lads were free. He suspected some of them might be picked up for questioning or tossed in the hole till they talked—which they wouldn’t. But he’d left it to Kate to spread the word to the boys to invite all the hooligan gangs to a meeting. A tall order and make no mistake, as some would think it beneath them to meet with the Lads, while others nursed dreams of revenge. He asked Kate to convey the importance of diplomacy to his emissaries, an art he’d never mastered himself. But with a common deadly enemy in their midst, it was important they put aside their differences and postpone vendettas for a future date.

Kate and the Lambeth Gals would do some persuasion of their own, try to work through the hooligans’ girlfriends to convince their men to put grudges on hold and meet. They’d have a harder time convincing the female members of rival gangs; he’d seen them brawl and, if anything, their fights were far more vicious than their male counterparts, consisting not of face-scratching and hair-pulling but of good straightforward punching and blocking that would make a prizefighter proud. Several were proficient with a straight razor.

Now he was being followed. He glanced back, feeling exposed, but saw nothing as he passed the glassworks’ long brick exterior. He doubted it was his imagination. You come up on the street, you develop a sixth sense when something’s not right. He was being followed and make no mistake.

He turned a corner, ducked into a doorway, waited, chopper in hand.

When no one passed, he emerged, turned left—and walked into Police Constable Dennis Foley.

Foley had his knife hand in an iron grip in an instant. Though he remained tense, ready for anything, Will didn’t move. He was more than handy with his fists but no match for the Lambeth boxing champ three years running.

Most coppers’ heads were weak and you could kid your way out of a tight spot. If you were on lookout while your mates were cracking a crib, you could offer to go look and thereby warn them to grease off. Or, so long as you didn’t have the swag on you, if you got caught coming off a roof or hanging in an alley, tell him you thought you heard something and, suspecting some fanlight jumper, you thought you’d investigate. But not Foley. Coming up in the same neighborhood as Will, he knew all the dodges.

“You’re out of uniform,” Will said. It was true: instead of his dark-blue Melton togs, white 137 L on his collar, Brunswick star glinting on his helmet, the rookie wore a grey waistcoat over a white shirt, a herringbone flat cap and the corduroy trousers of a working stiff. As was ever the case, Foley’s aggressive mustache was betrayed by his kindly eyes. “Why are you following me?”

“I was suspended.”

Will saw how Foley’s superiors must have taken his story. “They didn’t believe you. And now you want me to back your story.”

“I’m not taking you in.”

“You still haven’t answered my question: Why are you following me?”

Foley looked disgusted. “Cops ain’t doing anything. They’re gathering evidence. Lord Mayor’s pressuring the Commissioner for answers, the Commissioner’s pressuring the forensics guy from the City police and he’s got constables out looking for bodies but there are none. They all disappear into the water.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I grew up on the next block over from you. I know the Lads have got their ears to the street and know what’s what before the sergeant’s finished the morning muster.” He paused, looked Will levelly in the eye and released his hand, trusting Will wouldn’t use the chopper on him. “I’ve heard you’ve called for a meeting. I want to be there.”

Will eyed him right back. Where Will, being averse to regular hours, reading—other than the Illustrated Police News and penny bloods—and sitting indoors for any length of time without a beer in one hand and a cheroot in the other, pursued his education on the street, Foley attended public school before joining the constabulary. Still, they came from the same neighborhood, shared the same neighbors, ate the same bangers and eel pies. Even attended the same church—Foley sitting in its pews listening to the old doffer and putting money into the offering box; Will making withdrawals from said box.

“No way.”

“I’m coming. This is bigger than cop versus hooligan. We’ve got a common enemy. You’ve put differences aside.”

“Can you?”

Foley stared at him.

“They’ll want your blood.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

***

At the Polytechnic—a philanthropic endeavor established for the betterment of London’s working-class youth—members of rival gangs could come together and vent their hostilities in a refereed ring instead of with belts and shivs on the docks and back alleys. The Poly also offered evening vocational classes for young men and women who aspired to be more than van boys or costermongers or pickpockets and enter the world of clerks and mechanics.

Not that Will ever considered taking a trade! The thought of working for anyone for the paltry earnings apprentices made with fixed hours six days a week he found appalling as well as impractical—he could make more in one day than apprentices and costers made in a week and without rising at dawn to be at work by six. He wasn’t opposed to rising early to intercept a beer delivery or other lucrative opportunity, but for the most part afternoons and evenings and the occasional night job suited him fine. On a good day, he could make upwards of fifteen shillings passing snide coin in shops and public-houses.

Still, he had to give Rev. Wills, the guiding light behind the Polytechnic’s success, grudging respect. The man was a bona fide do-gooder, accepted everyone as they were. And if you came to Poly to watch a fight, you never had to listen to a sermon before a match. And there were free eats afterwards.

The climbing ropes and gymnastic rings of the multipurpose facility were raised out of the way and the parallel bars, vaulting horses, Indian clubs and barbells were moved to the sides. The spectator gallery above the gymnasium floor was deserted. It’d be full of observers on nights when the roped-off squares of the “rings” were set up and a half-dozen refereed matches going on at once.

The turnout was better than Will expected. Delegates from most of the North and South London gangs were present. Will was pleased to see the gangs’ captains among their crews, loss of face being a greater humiliation than a busted head. Besides a significant showing of London’s male gangs—the Dove Row Gang, New Cut Gang, Abby Street Boys, Clerkenwell Boys, East End Gang, Drury Lane Gang, the Elephant and Castle Gang in their finery, The Battersea Velvet Caps, the Wandsworth Scuttlers, the City Road Gang, the Green Gate Gang, the Golden Lane Gang, the Bow Commoners, and the Limehouse Reapers—Kate had managed to persuade quite a contingent of female gang members to attend. Chief among them were representatives from the Forty Elephants, the infamous, tough-as-they-come, all-female gang and counterpart of the Elephant and Castle Gang.

While the costermongers, laborers, mechanics, apprentices, and vagrants that made up the bulk of the gangs wore corduroy trousers secured by broad leather belts with heavy buckles that doubled as weapons (many a gentleman had lost his watch and wallet and a great deal of blood to those belts), the male Elephants were dapperly dressed in plaid jackets and bowlers. George Fish, their broad-shouldered, mutton-chopped leader, even sported a silk, cream-colored ascot.

The ladies of the Forty wouldn’t dream of wearing the dresses they stole from posh High Street shops but sold them to pay for the finery they bought from the very shops from which they stole. Jane, their Queen, was regally dressed in a green silk gown that would not have looked out of place in a West End townhouse.

New Cut Beth had brought five of her girls. Razor Lil, Bill Drummond’s girl, was present along with a few of hers. And a couple dozen other female toughs made a fearsome-looking group.

Police Constable Foley’s presence caused a stir.

“What’s he doing here?” Dirk Bogart, chief of the New Cut Gang smacked a shillelagh he took off an Irishman against his palm as if warming up for a head-splitter.

To his credit, Foley stepped forward and faced down the crowd. “I’m here to help,” he said.

He was drowned out before he could continue.

“We don’t need no stinkin’ slop’s help!”

“Fuckin’ nerve!”

Will held up his hand. When the uproar quieted enough for him to be heard, he said, “By now you’ve all heard about the deaders coming up from the river and canals and grabbing folk.”

“Floaters,” a Green Gate Gang member said, waving a newspaper. “The papers’re callin’ ‘em ‘floaters.’”

“Deaders, floaters, stinkin’ river scum,” Will said impatiently. “They ain’t human. They killed Tim Peck—”

“And Lem Carey and Jonas Falk,” Bill Drummond said.

“And Seth Barnett . . . and Kyle Harrington . . . and Millie Billingsley,” others added.

It was obvious to Will the men and women gathered here had some idea of what they were dealing with.

“It’s the rapture.”

The speaker was Lyle Trilling, son of a Wandsworth minister, a man of the cloth who had a heavy hand with the belt. Trilling had found a better family in a gang, something a lot of the present company had in common. Though most of the men wore bowlers or caps, Trilling held his black velvet flat cap in his hands, as if remembering his manners in the presence of ladies.

“I’m no bible thumper,” Will said, “but I don’t think there’s anything in the good book about flesh-eating dead people rising up from the river.”

“Then it must be the water.”

Heads turned. The speaker was a sandy-haired lad in a boiled white shirt, one of the Golden Lane Gang out of North London. Seeing him and two of his mates standing between and outnumbered by members of the City Road and Dove Row gangs—all of them fierce rivals—and no one drawing belts or knives gave Will hope they might pull this off.

“Satan knows with all the shite and rot and corpses of animals and people thrown in, maybe the river’s had enough!”

Foley spoke up. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the devil’s doing or the river’s,” he said. This time no one interrupted him. “As Will said, these things kill. And they can’t be killed. You can stop them if you chop them up.” He looked to Will for confirmation. Will nodded. “And I imagine burning them would slow them down. Point is, if—as the papers are saying—everyone they kill joins their ranks, it won’t be long till half of London is them preying on us.”

He paused to let that sink in.

“But they’re in the river, right?” said an Abby Street Boy. “And in the canals. How’re we supposed to fight them? You don’t expect us to swim, do you?”

That got a nervous laugh from a few. Even Bogart cracked a sour grin, his gold tooth glinting under the lights. Many a lad dreamed of knocking that tooth out of the big man’s mouth, but few dared try. Will flashed on the image of Bogart’s bowler floating on the tide while the shillelagh-wielding braggart took his chances on the muddy bottom. He dismissed the thought.

“If I may,” Foley said in a commanding voice—a directive not a request. No one dissented. “As you observed, they’re coming out of the river and the canals.”

“Right,” Will said when no one else would be caught agreeing with a copper.

“And we can’t fight them in the water.” That was a given. Though some of the lads present were excellent swimmers, among them were those who wouldn’t think of wetting their feet unless there was profit in it. “So we need to draw them out.”

“How?” several voices spoke at once.

“The question is where? The river’s too open. They’d have the advantage. It’s got to be somewhere we can contain them, surround them if possible.”

“The West India Dock,” Frank Peck said, itching for action.

“Too big. There’s upwards of eighty acres of water in the basin.”

“St. Katharine’s then,” said a Bow Commoner.

Will watched Foley. He figured he was thinking the same thing. St. Katharine’s was smaller. The locks and swing bridge could be manipulated to trap the floaters in the basin and there were warehouses and walks on all sides.

“We’re forgetting something,” Foley said. “The canal.”

It was true. According to the news out of North London, the creatures had infested the waters of the Regent’s Canal.

“The Limehouse Basin,” George Fish said, raising a ring-laden hand to his clean-shaven chin that protruded like a naked prominence between his bushy side-whiskers.

Foley nodded. “Small, contained by swing bridge and locks, and the Regent’s Canal empties into it.”

“How do we lure them in?”

“We use bait.”

“What bait?”

Constable Foley’s gaze encompassed everyone in the room. “You’re looking at it.”