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Prologue
By rights, Basil told himself as he shivered in the dawn light outside Ratigan’s suite, he ought to be a fag-master himself. But he had no interest in allowing one of the lower boys access to his room and person, and somehow his refusal to take on any fags himself had resulted in Ratigan claiming him.
He had spent the entire first term this year torn between fury and amusement; that the head boy wished to make his own life more difficult with attempts to control Basil was inherently ridiculous. That Basil had somehow slipped into unthinking obedience to Ratigan’s demands, however, left a sour taste in his mouth.
The most infuriating part was how jolly much Basil admired Ratigan. The mouse was a genius; clever, confounding and compelling, though Ratigan had always been touchy about his family history. Basil had kept mostly to himself the first five forms, preferring to keep his attention on his experiments and honing his observational skills, but Ratigan had been notable as a particular target for the boys of limited cranial capacity but excellent form on the field. It had gotten bad enough at one point that Basil knew the masters had been debating interfering, but a sudden run of terrible fortune for the rugby team had thinned the herd of bullies. The stragglers had been edgy and extremely deferential to Ratigan for the remainder of their tenure as students, and the combination of Ratigan’s prodigious growth spurt and the example of the upper years’ respect had laid the foundations for his ascension to his current position.
Basil had thought it was a sign of weakness of mind and character in the other boys, but it seemed he was just as susceptible to Ratigan’s charm and ruthlessness as any of the others.
‘My very dear Basil,’ Ratigan purred behind Basil’s ear, and only an heroic exertion of self-control kept Basil from jumping as the other boy’s hot breath ghosted over his neck and the faint ache of bruises in the shape of Ratigan’s teeth already darkening there. He’d dallied too long in thought, and Ratigan had roused. ‘Surely you know you needn’t rush out like a thief in the night. My rooms, after all, are quite private.’
His hands closed on Basil’s hips and Basil shivered under the sudden rush of warmth in his belly. He’d always made certain to leave before Ratigan woke after their assignations, but this time he’d been distracted by his musings. Stolen moments with other students were a fact of life at school, and Basil had always been rigorous at maintaining a strict line between the quiet nights of whispers and pleasure and the harsh light of day. One mistake after another with Ratigan.
He’d been afraid of losing himself, and as he let Ratigan coax him back into the snug, back out of his pyjamas and under the covers, he knew his fear was well-founded. Basil groaned and surrendered to the glorious wrongness of Ratigan’s gentle hands.
It was too addictive, Ratigan’s hold on Basil too complete for him to be able to follow Ratigan to Rodentbrige. He sighed, spreading his legs, and started to plan his escape.
He was going to have to disappear.
Several years later…
Basil rushed into his rooms, shedding the accoutrements of an able seaman on shore leave haphazardly. He noted the presence of another mouse and absently made a series of deductions. The plaintiff’s case was of no interest, he decided three steps into the room. If he managed to find the blasted beard, he might still be able to follow the suspected villain to-
‘I say,’ the mouse said, haw-haw tone and volume confirming many of Basil’s deductions about his visitor. ‘You are Basil of Baker Street?’
‘You’ve just been sent down from Musford,’ Basil said, throwing a cupboard open in the hopes Mrs Judson hadn’t yet tidied inside. The beard was nowhere to be seen, though there was a set of moustaches he’d thought lost.
‘You believe your accusers to be engaged in nefarious plots, though clearly-’ Basil turned to give the young toff an unnecessary-for-deduction yet delightfully effective for clearing his sitting room look. ‘-you are not innocent of the charge of drunkenness. I expect the supplemental charge of ungentlemanly conduct is also supportable.’
The mouse hunched his shoulders a little. ‘Well, yes-’
‘Then what,’ Basil threw his hands up. ‘Are you doing here? The dons aren’t likely to take you back unless your pater familias makes a donation large enough to build a new college. Which he will not.’
The mouse’s breath hitched, and Basil felt a moment of regret for his ability to target sore points so easily before he’d paused to consider the justice of the blow.
‘You have it mostly right,’ the mouse said after a moment to collect himself. ‘I was sent down, I did spend many a night carousing. And I would like you to investigate those who pointed the bledlows at me. But not to restore my place. They are bad mice, Mr… Basil. And I fear they mean some catastrophic harm to the Empire.’
‘Oh yes?’ Basil threw himself into his chair, slinging his legs over the arm and tipping his head back to stare into the fire. ‘Students are so renowned for their empire-toppling. Get some rest, get drunk a few times. You’ll see things differently in a few days.’
‘They are dangerous, I tell you!’ his tone slipped into desperation, and Basil could tell it would only take a few more refusals before his visitor gave up and went to drown his sorrows.
‘And I am not interested,’ Basil gave him a curt nod. ‘Good night.’
‘Tch!’ the mouse threw his hands up. ‘And to think Professor Ratigan is also falling for their ruse!’
‘What did you say?’ Basil sat up, so swiftly he barked his elbow on the chair. ‘Who is falling for the ruse?’
‘P-professor Ratigan, head of Mathematics,’ the mouse said, thrown by the sudden reversal of Basil’s attitude but rallying in the manner of his class. ‘Charming fellow, far too obliging. When Peaslee started attending his lectures and inviting him to their meetings, the Professor started attending their gatherings. Bad business, I fear what they’ll do to him.’
Basil leapt to his feet and stalked around the room, abruptly full of bubbling energy and conflicting urges. Ratigan was no waif to be taken in by nefarious parties. He was always and only ever the ringleader. Whatever nonsense his visitor imagined, and from the twitching and frequent abortive signs of the cross Basil expected it was some hocus pocus, Ratigan was certain to be behind the plot. Perhaps he was running some sort of smuggling operation through Musford? This Peaslee might be one of his underlings.
‘Tell me everything,’ Basil demanded, coming full circle and seizing his visitor by the shoulders to press him into the guest chair. ‘Starting, I apologise for my rudeness, with your name.’
****
The honourable Douglas Dalziel, “E-M” to his friends, laid out a lurid and almost farcical tale. There were a group of researchers, he said, visiting from Mouseketonic University in the Americas.
Their leader had started a secret society, much to the amusement of the colleges, though its popularity had dimmed the collective mirth somewhat.
Basil listened impatiently as Dalziel painted pictures of odd rituals and strange behaviour, all of which sounded stock-standard for university clubs. He leaned forward in his chair as Dalziel told him about Ratigan’s apparent courting by this group of Americans obsessed with theatrical secrecy and strange philosophies. Strange philosophies Dalziel was certain were revolutionary and filled with dark magic, with an eye to dragging the good folks of the Empire into the hideous nightmare of republicanism.
‘And so I thought I’d better warn the Professor,’ Dalziel said, slumping in the chair. ‘But someone must have squealed, because the bledlows seized me that night, and by morning I was on the train to London.’
‘Hmm,’ Basil steepled his fingers and pursed his lips. There was certainly something happening at the university; Ratigan’s presence guaranteed it. He was going to have to investigate in person, despite the risk. Dalziel’s report was too hazy, too full of lurid terms and flights of fancy to be entirely useful.
Still, it was a fascinating case, and surely after all these years Ratigan had if not forgotten Basil, at least had his memories dimmed. Basil’s usual disguises would be protection enough against discovery, and he might be able to expose Ratigan for the criminal mastermind he was.
There had been whispers in the seedy underbelly of London of a flamboyant and charming... rat... who had slowly choked out all competition, his network of influence stretching from the lowest tosher to all the way to the highest lord. The whispers always dipped a little lower in volume at the accusation of Ratigan’s parentage; the truth of it obvious to a blind mouse but far too dangerous an accusation for even the roughest of company where word might get back to a certain ear.
Wherever people could be induced to harm their fellows, there was Ratigan! Influencing from the shadows and tightening his grip on the commerce of the black markets. Terrorising the good folk of London Town, devising a dozen masterful crimes a week, taking his cut from the successful mice and ensuring the silence of the failures with brutal methods…
It had been clear from the outset it was his old fag master, but Basil had shied away from confronting Ratigan. He had remained unsure whether he could trust himself around the mouse. But Basil was a child no longer, and his many successes gave him confidence he would be able to control himself.
‘Mister Dalziel,’ Basil announced, launching himself to his feet and dragging Dalziel up too by the wrists. ‘I shall take your case!’
****
It was almost absurdly easy to insinuate himself on the campus, cloaked in some eye-catching whiskers and conspicuously expensive dress. Basil attended lectures and tutorials throughout the school of mathematics, engaging in a series of mildly obnoxious personal habits to discourage any of the students or tutors from wishing to get closer to him.
Ratigan was, to Basil’s lack of surprise, an eminently engaging teacher. He had a gift for enthralling his audience, he knew his material, and he was adept at finding a multitude of explanations to ensure the lesson was learned.
Basil was chagrined to discover the years and his knowledge of Ratigan’s nefarious dealings did little to dim the intensity of his regard for the mouse. It frightened him a little, and it was an effort to make himself sit in the third row rather than the last; to be close enough for observation and not so far as to feel protected by anonymity.
It was three torturous weeks before Basil caught wind of anything untoward, and true to form it was nothing to do with Ratigan. Hawker, one of the Americans in Peaslee’s club, vanished wholly and without warning. In what was the most interesting turn, no one seemed to notice other than Basil. Ratigan spent a few lectures sending frowns towards the now-empty seat, which was even more intriguing, but he never once made reference to his truncated class.
A few days later, two more of the club disappeared; a timid and forgettable pair from Devonshire who had been whispering to one of the more gregarious students after Ratigan’s lecture the previous day. The gregarious student sat beside Peaslee, rather than in his usual seat. Very interesting.
After the conclusion of the lecture (and damn Ratigan for enticing Basil to devote precious brain-attic space to formulae), Basil and his collection of off-putting affected habits skulked in an alcove outside the hall as Peaslee and a few earnest fellows crowded around Ratigan to feed his enormous self-regard to colossal size.
Ratigan preened under the flattery and graciously allowed one of the crowd to carry his notes as he swept into the brisk air and past Basil. Peaslee had to break into a trot to keep up with Ratigan’s pace, his pale and bespectacled face twisting in discomfort as he chased Ratigan.
‘...and we would very much appreciate your attendance tonight,’ Basil caught, Peaslee’s words breathless and low. Ratigan laughed and waved acquiescence offhandedly, not seeming to pay much attention to his honour guard, and Basil was startled to catch two of the crowd giving each other triumphant smirks as they trotted after Peaslee and Ratigan. That was not the behaviour of devoted underlings, though it was possible the smirking was related to some other stimulus.
Basil lingered in the alcove for a few minutes after the crowd had disappeared into another building, then he raced towards his lodgings. Whatever it was the Mouseketonic representatives intended, he would be best served in his own guise and with a selection of tools with which to detain the villains.
And, he smiled to himself, Ratigan.
****
The Mouseketonic mice were abysmal at subterfuge, Basil thought to himself as he easily trailed three hooded cloaks through the quiet streets of the town later that night. Though, he admitted, it was possibly not truly in the spirit of a purported secret society at a university to be secret so much as exclusive and filled with play-acting. Their lack of care indicated either a newness to crime or a lack of awareness of Ratigan’s machinations.
They were certainly holding their meetings in a strange location for children of the upper classes, Basil frowned as the town grew rougher and dirtier as the three conspirators continued to an abandoned warehouse at the very end of a row of equally-empty structures. Even the river sluggishly curling past seemed foul here. It was the sort of location Basil would never ordinarily traverse unless disguised or well armed and accompanied by a stout companion. The foolish students were just begging to be relieved of their worldly goods and possibly their lives by an opportunistic predator.
The night was chill enough that they were the only beings around, though. The students performed a complicated knock and traded ridiculous passcode phrases with the doormouse when the door opened. Basil noted the patterns of each down, though he had other plans for entering.
As soon as the door was closed, Basil darted over to the house and skirted the wall, looking for an unguarded access point. He found a crack just large enough for ingress, squeezed through and crept along the dim space which had once been a closet of some sort until he could hear voices.
‘-And what, pray tell my dear Peaslee,’ Ratigan’s rich tones echoed through the open space, amused tolerance the most obvious note. ‘Is the object of tonight’s gathering? I note you are all in costume; ought I to have finagled a cloak from my valet?’
Peaslee’s reply was too low for Basil to hear, and he sped his steps a little. The light ahead flickered; candle ends, and a lot of them. Very atmospheric, and perfect for Basil’s purposes as it would be near impossible to pick out an intruder in such poor light.
‘My patience is not infinite,’ Ratigan was saying as Basil edged around the doorway and darted behind a pile of crates containing rusted tins and rotted straw. ‘I would like you to dispense with the cryptic nonsense.’
‘All is nearly ready,’ Peaslee said, eyes fever-bright and hands clasped in front of his cloak. ‘We simply await the final player in our drama.’
Basil leaned forward, listening as hard as he could for a clue as to what the students were waiting for. He was concentrating so intensely that the impact of a hand on his shoulder startled him enough to let out a yelp.
‘Right on time,’ Peaslee said with a smug grin. Three fairly burly mice surrounded Basil and hauled him into the better light of the centre of the room. ‘Professor, as sacrifice tonight allow me to present a thorn in your side: Basil of Baker Street!’
‘R-r-r-r-really?’ Ratigan’s lips spread in a slow, delighted grin. ‘However did you know? And it isn’t even my birthday.’
Basil considered struggling in the grip of the goons, but they had an admirably solid grip on his arms and the odds were more likely to shift in his favour if he acted defeated for a while.
Ratigan sashayed closer and closed his fingers on Basil’s chin to lift his face. He winked theatrically as Basil scowled at him. ‘What a treat.’
There was something about Ratigan’s mien… Basil blinked, and Ratigan swept across the room to take up a brandy snifter with a generous measure of amber in its bowl. Ratigan half-turned away, facing Peaslee and to all appearances ignoring Basil, but Basil could feel his attention like a brand.
‘I had thought it might be more surprising,’ Peaslee said, with a credible attempt at sounding unfazed. Basil, however, and no doubt Ratigan as well could detect an undercurrent of irritation. ‘To find him in town, let alone captured by us.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Ratigan turned and seized Peaslee’s hands to swing him in a seemingly-exuberant circle. ‘You have no idea how you have moved me with this token. I am utterly overwhelmed.’
Peaslee brightened, and Basil frowned at the artifice. Surely even an average intellect would be able to register the momentary crease of Ratigan’s brow, the tightness of the lines in his brief smile?
But apparently Peaslee was primed to accept Ratigan’s capitulation. He flushed alarmingly and turned to wave his compatriots closer.
‘As for the lack of surprise, well. I’ve known of his presence these last three weeks,’ Ratigan turned a toothy grin on Basil. ‘Really, my dear. Do you think me so narcissistic I don’t know the faces of my own students?’
Basil straightened his shoulders and gave a haughty sniff. ‘I arrived in your class four weeks ago, Ratigan.’
Ratigan blinked and let out a hearty chuckle, slinging his arm around Peaslee and pulling him close. Peaslee’s breath hitched a little at the force of Ratigan’s grip, but he went willingly enough when Ratigan steered him across the room and away from Basil. Basil stared at Ratigan’s lips, trying to catch even one word as the burly mice seized his wrists and wrapped them tightly with cord behind his back. Absently, Basil tensed the muscles and angled his arms to ensure as much laxity in the resulting knots as possible.
It wasn’t likely to make a significant difference, but such efforts were reflexive.
After a lengthy conversation, punctuated with many wrist flourishes and at least three distracting laughs where Ratigan’s head had tipped towards the ceiling and drawn all eyes in the room. Basil had taken due advantage of the general distraction and was finally confident the bindings were not insurmountable. Why, exactly Ratigan had chosen to give him this opportunity was yet to be ascertained, but Basil was confident the opportunity would yet present itself first to escape and then to interrogate.
The burly mice crowded closer as Peaslee and Ratigan returned to the centre of the room, claws digging into Basil’s flesh in a manner to which he was violently opposed.
‘I say!’ Basil yelped as one of the brutes pulled him awkwardly backwards. ‘I don’t bend that way my good sir!’
The most satisfying thing about doing battle with mice within the upper echelons of society, yet remaining below the stratum of the true aristocracy, was that they tended to believe in fair play. The brute relented with admirable speed, and the looped rope around Basil’s wrists slackened the requisite two inches before being drawn tight.
‘Are all present who art required?’ Peaslee said suddenly, voice ringing on the ancient stones of the house in a rather more theatrical manner than his usual.
‘Aye,’ several mice replied, hooded cloaks obscuring all but their noses as the crowd closed the circle. At least thirty-five participants, Basil noted, excluding himself and Ratigan. He dismissed the reflexive deductions about their respective lives and desires and shifted his shoulders a little to loosen the tension building in his muscles. There were a number of items in the room which might be turned to his purpose, but thankfully no prepared weapons he could see. Basil rather thought the assembled crowd would be unlikely to get creative with the furnishings, and if he managed to slip his bonds he was agile enough to dodge the larger, queensbury-disdaining specimens.
The crowd flowed in an almost artful fashion, forming three concentric circles of bodies without any obvious cue from a master of ceremonies. Basil found himself at the centre of the tableaux, thrown a little off-balance as the circles started to rotate, the inner and the outer turning widdershins and the central one moving clockwise.
Frowning, Basil turned his attention to the ropes around his wrists. The assembled mice started murmuring; something low and monotone which sent an odd buzz down Basil’s spine.
The harmonics, he told himself firmly. Some replicable effect of certain tones being played simultaneously lending a listener a sense of unease. Perfectly rational. Something worth devoting a few weeks to studying for a monograph, after the miscreants had been handed over to the constabulary.
He glanced up to note the relative positions of the students and was startled to see Ratigan’s intense gaze focussed on himself rather than the ballet of cultists. Oddly, Ratigan remained outside the outermost circle, almost concealed in the shadow of the stairs leading to the foreman’s office. There was something almost feral in his gaze, Basil noted before he was distracted by a strange sense of space over his right shoulder.
‘The deuce…?’ Basil twisted, wrists almost free of the cord, and he sagged. It shouldn’t have been possible; certainly there was no scientific explanation for the nauseating miasma which the air seemed to be radiating. He tried to focus on the epicentre, but his eyes insisted on skating off to one side or another as the chanting crescendoed and the circling mice suddenly stilled.
‘All hail,’ the crowd chanted, in distressing unison. Basil shook his head; the chant seemed to be continuing at the sub-audible level, reverberating in his very bones. ‘Welcome, Lord!’
There was a strange sort of popping moment; Basil felt his gorge rise and settle before he could even think about retching, and the room fell silent. His breath seemed unusually harsh and loud in his own ears as he turned to face the strange yawning chasm which was suddenly sucking at his mind. Every one of the mice circling him had fallen silent and still. Basil narrowed his eyes and noted the disturbing stillness in every face as he twisted the final loop of bindings free and raised his fists to defend against whatever it was the Americans had summoned.
The rope slipped past Basil’s wrists and slithered to the floor, but none of the crowd seemed to notice. Frowning, Basil stooped to gather the hemp and wrap it around his hands. If nothing else, he reasoned, the cushioning the fistful would provide might prevent broken or bloodied knuckles and thus a row with Mrs Judson and a fortnight of discomfort.
‘ALL HAIL,’ the assembled mice chorused, at a volume which made Basil jerk and draw a deep breath.’HAIL, LORD!!’
Basil glanced over the assembled crowd and found himself chilled at the blank adoration on every face. It was one thing to desire power, that was pedestrian, but this was unsettling. He pivoted slowly, eyes skating over Ratigan and the assembled cultists before he finally found himself facing the centre of the concentric circles.
Basil felt his breathing speed up as his fists sagged; the centre of the circles, the space now immediately in front of him was indescribable. It looked and felt somehow like a bottomless pit and a looming wall all at the same time. Basil’s eyes kept wanting to slide off to some other focus, but his rational mind wouldn’t let him. He found he could only look on the space obliquely, the corner of his eye the most contact Basil’s rebellious body would allow.
A hole in the world, Basil thought wildly, uncertain what he even meant by the idea yet certain he was correct. Somehow, using some unrecognised science, the cultists had torn a hole in reality. Impossible, yet clearly extant. Basil clenched his fists, claws digging painfully into the rope as he attempted to regain control of himself and his reactions. An impossibility which existed either required an admission of insanity or a re-examination of the hypothesis. Neither was an attractive prospect.
There was a sound from the impossible hole in the world, at once right by Basil’s ear and further away than he could conceive. The sound reverberated in his bones, and Basil felt his heart speed; that pleased rumbling growl was the stuff of every rodent’s nightmares. Feline and of prodigious size, with undertones which twisted in Basil’s ears and had him fighting to remain on his feet.
Through the corner of his eye, Basil perceived motion in the air. He still couldn’t bring himself to look straight at the hole, but something was approaching from wherever it led. Something so large the very house trembled as the approaching presence purred and stalked closer. There was a surge of cold, horrifying something from the hole and the three rings of mice stopped moving like they’d been turned to stone.
He was panting, Basil realised with some affront. An unaccustomed and utterly irrational panic freezing him from taking advantage of the blank and creepily-still cultists. The growl rumbled again, and Basil let out an unintentional whimper while trying and failing to push his way out of the circle past immovable mannequins which yet breathed.
He was going to die and whatever the idiots who’d summoned it thought, so were they!
‘My dear boy,’ Ratigan’s voice in his ear startled Basil out of his panic. ‘You weren’t planning on giving yourself up so easily? It would cheapen my memory of the conquest so.’
Basil turned a furious glare on Ratigan even as the blackguard’s hand closed over Basil’s hip and pulled him with that unsettling strength out of the sacrificial circle, cloaked mice toppling unheeded as Ratigan pushed the pair of them through.
‘I say!’ Basil tried to struggle out of Ratigan’s grip, but despite dedicated study, his tricks were no match for Ratigan’s brute strength. ‘Unhand me!’
Ratigan smelled the same, Basil noted with a wild, distracted desperation. The sole difference was the new top note of expensive cologne. Something custom blended, Basil deduced, shoving aside the automatic checklist of scents as irrelevant. Who cared whether the interplay of tobacco and lime and bay rum with a strange sooty bitterness was apparently calculated to leave Basil tense and breathless? This was a cold and vicious master of the underworld, not some pleasant acquaintance with whom to spend a lazy Summer day.
He even felt the same, too, Basil noted with despair. The press of his body and the sense of restrained power even more intoxicating for its long absence.
‘You wound me, Basil,’ Ratigan murmured, turning Basil to face him in the circle of his arms. ‘And I think not. I’ve done some research, after all.’
‘What?’ Basil blinked and let his fists rest against Ratigan’s lapels as he frowned up into the smirking face. Everything seemed to be ninety degrees away from normal, and the confusion and lingering terror were enough to curtail his struggles in favour of asking for an answer which made sense. ‘What?’
‘Delightful,’ Ratigan grinned and drew in a theatrical breath, closing his eyes as though there was some rarified scent to be savoured. ‘I have missed you, dear boy. But we need to move quickly; the creature must be stopped, and there is but one way to do it!’
‘What?’ Basil said for a third time, blinking at Ratigan’s utterly characteristic avoidance.
Ratigan’s eyes slitted and before Basil could react, he was being bent back. He was almost horizontal a moment later, supported by the iron bands of Ratigan’s arms, his ankles tangled with Ratigan’s in a futile grasp for leverage.
‘My dear,’ Ratigan purred, looking triumphant, teeth flashing in the low light as he grinned. ‘We must become one.’
‘One what?,’ Basil said, scowling up at Ratigan’s face and somehow not able to summon the will to struggle.
Ratigan’s grin widened and he swept down to claim Basil’s protestations in a kiss. Basil felt his nostrils flare, the intoxicating scent of Ratigan sending a charge down his spine.
It had been the same in school, Basil thought with no small irritation. Ratigan’s overwhelming everything leading him down paths his rational self disdained, yet utterly irresistible in the moment. He yielded to the assault, telling himself how angry he was with little conviction and much guilty pleasure.
‘I have missed you,’ Ratigan purred into Basil’s neck as he pulled back.
Basil flushed and made an effort to relax his claws’ grip on Ratigan’s shoulders. ‘I barely remembered you.’
‘Liar,’ Ratigan smiled and shifted his grip so he was pulling Basil’s left thigh around his own waist. ‘Oh, the things I’ll do to you my darling boy!’
The floor trembled and a piercing howl split the night. Basil flinched as Ratigan’s grip on his waist tightened. With a frowning glance towards the hole in the world, Ratigan drew Basil a few steps further from the circles.
‘And I would prefer to take my time, but alas events outpace us,’ his mouth twitched up lopsidedly, and he tore Basil’s waistcoat and shirt open, scattering buttons and Basil’s watch chain in all directions.
Basil scowled and grabbed for his dignity and his shirt, enjoying no success with either endeavour even as Ratigan stooped and lowered him to lie on the rough floorboards. Before Basil could object, Ratigan had him pressed into the dusty boards, Basil’s legs splaying automatically around Ratigan’s powerful hips.
‘My dear,’ Ratigan purred, twitching rhythmic little thrusts against Basil and nipping at the edge of his ear. ‘Surely your prudishness isn’t profound enough to condemn the world to an unending nightmare?’
Basil dug his fingers into the soft skin at the lower edge of Ratigan’s ribcage and did not thrust up into the glorious hard heat. ‘Explain.’
Ratigan grinned, sharp teeth flashing in the candlelight. Slowly, deliberately, he placed one hand by Basil’s neck and pushed himself up, weight balanced between his hand and the knees holding Basil’s legs open as his free hand stroked lightly over Basil’s throat. Ratigan bent forward and pressed his lips to Basil’s ear.
‘There are things, Horatio, beyond your philosophies, and they wish us harm,’ Ratigan’s free hand slipped down between their bodies, opening Basil’s flies with a louche expertise that had Basil’s nostrils flaring. How many mice had Ratigan had since their parting? One would be too many, it was unbearable.
‘I can accept evidence when it stands before me,’ Basil bit out, twitching his chin towards the horrible blankness without letting himself look at it. ‘Even if I cannot rationalise it as yet. You claimed to have a plan, Ratigan?’
Ratigan’s teeth flashed in a wild grin and he gripped Basil by the hips to heave him over. Basil slammed his hands against the splintering floorboards and tried not to hate himself for the way his knees spread to give Ratigan the room to work. His trousers were an uncomfortable pressure against his upper thighs until Ratigan growled and not-quite-roughly wrestled Basil into position to drag the constraining clothing down.
‘Oh my dearest,’ Ratigan murmured, one claw tracing over the mound of Basil’s scrawny buttock as though it were a delectable work of art. ‘How many years have we wasted?’
Basil gasped, a thousand nights rising behind his eyelids and a million possibilities chasing them. He shook himself and his head, scowling even as his hips canted back towards Ratigan. ‘None. No wasted years, freedom and the work are their own ends-’
‘Shh,’ Ratigan laid his chin on Basil’s shoulder, his hot, solid bulk constraining in the best possible way as Basil trembled against him. ‘Give yourself over and we can rid the world of an existential threat. Open for me.’
Basil shuddered as Ratigan’s knuckle pressed against his hole, dry and skirting the edge of too much. He failed completely at restraining his hips’ hungry press backwards, let alone the desperate sobbing breath as Ratigan pushed just inside.
‘Dear boy,’ Ratigan licked at the edge of Basil’s ear, twisting his finger before pulling away and returning moments later slicked with candle tallow. Basil choked back a laugh at the brutal practicality. ‘When this is over I shall spend my time making you writhe until you apologise for running away.’
‘You’ll be waiting a long time,’ Basil said, managing to keep his voice steady even as he pushed back, chasing the sensation of Ratigan slick and inside him again. ‘I won’t break.’
‘I’d never want you to,’ Ratigan purred, pushing a second finger in. ‘You are far too delightful to ruin. Unfortunately, we are running short on time for now.’
Basil swallowed a groan as Ratigan withdrew his fingers and shifted to press his well-slicked cock in. It was almost overwhelming, the familiar stretch and the shameful sense of rightness as Ratigan pressed inexorably forward, one hand gripping Basil’s hip and the other braced on the floor.
‘You were going to tell me the plan,’ Basil managed to gasp out as Ratigan fully seated himself. ‘Your plan for… whatever is going on?’
‘Ahh,’ Ratigan made a pleased noise and started to thrust gently. ‘The being on the other side of Peaslee’s door is the very antithesis of life. A yawning chasm of hungry otherness from somewhere beyond. Really, it’s a mystery why people insist on attempting to summon them, it can never end well.’
Basil dug his fingers into the floorboards to brace himself and worked at not making any noises. ‘Quite. But let us table the issue of sense and rationality for the moment. What are we doing?’
Ratigan dragged his tongue over the curve of Basil’s ear, humming a pleased note before putting his lips right by the canal. ‘My dearest Basil, we are demonstrating life in its most primal form as a bulwark against the horrors which lie outside our reality. In order to save the world.’
‘Oh,’ Basil shivered and gave in to the urge to wrap a hand around himself. ‘Well that’s jolly good, then.’
Before Ratigan could offer a riposte, there was a sound from the hole-which-was-not. A yowl which sent a shudder down Basil’s spine and had Ratigan’s talons digging painfully into his hips as it echoed around the room. Even the frozen cultists, oblivious even to the debauchery happening in their midst, seemed to tremble under its unsettling reverberations.
‘I fear time is running short,’ Ratigan said, chest heaving against Basil’s back. ‘If we-’
But whatever he was going to say was lost as an impossibly-large paw shot through the unholy hole, claws extended and three times longer than a mouse, the appendage giving off a chill the likes of which Basil had never encountered. He stared as four of the cultists were impaled, bright blood and terrified screams there and gone again in the blink of an eye as the hideous paw vanished again. A smug warbling purr bounced around the ruined summoning circle and Basil felt helpless, disbelieving tears spring forth.
‘Hrmph, very well then,’ Ratigan shifted his grip on Basil and before Basil could form a protest, Ratigan’s teeth were sinking into the sensitive flesh of his neck, locking him into a reflexive frozen tension as Ratigan drove forward in powerful thrusts.
Basil let out a keening wail, his paralysed hand falling from his straining cock to be replaced by Ratigan’s. Five tugs and he spilled, so forcefully he blacked out momentarily.
‘My,’ Ratigan grunted, words muffled by the mouthful of Basil’s neck he was gripping but tone still blazingly smug. ‘Very… dearest…’
He twitched, teeth breaking the skin at the nape of Basil’s neck just as the monstrous paw thrust back into the room. Basil watched, still powerless to move as Ratigan pushed deep, as the massive appendage swept across the floor, knocking candles and cultists askew in its frenzy. It wanted, Basil was suddenly and horrifyingly certain, himself and Ratigan. A silently howling hunger radiated from the other side of the hole as the paw fumbled around, knocking a candle into a pile of oily rags against the wall. The rags caught with gusto, flames licking through dust and refuse until they reached the dry and cracked wall.
Ratigan grunted and found his completion as the entire side of the shadowy room went up in flames, light reflecting in the frozen, dread-filled eyes of the remaining cultists. The invader let out a scream that made Basil and Ratigan both curl forward in terror, and with no further ado the hole and the presence had vanished. Rationality and reality rushed back in like the tide.
Ratigan’s teeth loosened at last and Basil slumped to the floor in a boneless heap, utterly enervated and heart racing only slightly less so than his brain.
Rather than the usual rapid-fire string of deductions following one from the other, Basil was overwhelmed by mere flashes of sensation. The shape of the flames spreading across the floor and up the wall. The old-new feel of Ratigan above him. The tattered edge of the robe on the cultist standing beside the blood splatter from one of his ill-fated fellows, its spreading shape reminiscent of Hyde Park. The scent of the floorboards and the spreading puddles at the feet of three remaining cultists.
‘We must move,’ Ratigan said, tone urgent. It was odd to hear him anything short of self-possessed, Basil noted. It felt a pity to disappoint him, but Basil could hardly feel his face, let alone muster the energy to follow directions. The evening had undone him. A great pity to die here in such an ignominious manner, but at least the invading creature had been thwarted.
‘Tch!’ Ratigan withdrew, swift and quiet noises as he righted his own clothing followed by his strong grip pulling Basil up and settling him over Ratigan’s shoulder. ‘Much as I appreciate the compliant silence, I trust this is a temporary affliction.’
Basil frowned, scrabbling for control of his own body as Ratigan strode past the still-petrified cultists without even glancing at them in the spreading firelight. Basil managed to turn his head in time to see one of the cultists’ robes catch, flames rushing up to engulf the poor mouse before Basil could blink.
‘Wait!’ he managed to croak, but Ratigan ignored him. Basil swallowed around a feeling of helplessness and closed his eyes hard. Mere moments later, the quality of the air changed and Ratigan’s stride slowed, the chill in the air reviving something of Basil’s senses even as Ratigan stooped and laid him gently on soft turf which smelled fresh and clean and the absolute inverse of the thing which the cultists had tried to summon.
Basil drew a deep breath to flush away the memory of the invader, eyes still closed even as he relaxed into the chilly grass. The night air was cold and clear; the sort of country smells which were charmingly alien to Basil’s city-trained nose wafting in the background in a soothing reminder of reality.
Basil inhaled a second time, but the acrid scent of the fire was abruptly overwhelming, and he found himself sitting up to stare aghast at the structure he had so recently finessed his way into. The flames were already licking out the windows, a glow which had not failed to awaken the human portion of the town, if the honking panicked sounds emanating from the nearest structure were anything to go by.
‘We must go back!’ Basil struggled to his feet and took a few unsteady steps towards the burning building. ‘They’ll die.’
‘A fitting fate,’ Ratigan said, matter of fact as he wrapped an arm around Basil’s waist and drew him back from the flames. ‘They were, after all, attempting to impose that same fate on every mouse living. I find myself unable to regret this turn of events.’
Basil clenched his fists. ‘Renowned as you are for your charity, that is a strong condemnation indeed.’
Ratigan chuckled. ‘I believe in the right of each creature to make his own mistakes, my dearest. And a key element of that right is the right to take the consequences of those mistakes. They were not innocents, darling. They were traitors to the entire world and to God.’
‘What?’ Basil twisted to frown at Ratigan. ‘What god do you believe in? And since when?’
Ratigan smiled and shifted his grip on Basil so they were facing each other, the firelight playing on his features in a manner Basil could not label either demonic or romantic without further study.
The knowledge mice were burning in said fire lent the first interpretation weight, Basil thought distractedly.
‘I’m Catholic,’ Ratigan said, tone fond and amused.
‘What?’ Basil blinked. ‘...what?’
Ratigan’s smile widened. ‘My name’s Padraic, my dear, what did you think?’
‘Honestly?’ Basil shrugged and made an unsuccessful attempt to loosen his own grip on Ratigan’s lapels. ‘I thought you were an invert and beyond all earthly concepts of morality.’
Ratigan threw his head back and laughed, delighted. ‘My dearest Basil. Catholics don’t mind that sort of thing, it’s largely about incense and robes. And guilt, but on that topic the church and I part ways. Life is too short for hair shirts.’
There was an almighty cracking sound, and the former warehouse collapsed on itself, flames roaring up towards the clear night sky. Basil drew in a sharp breath, aghast and relieved in equal measures at the finality of it.
Well, the finality for this side of the Atlantic. Peaslee and his fellows had to have learned their ritual somewhere. Rooting out the source of the rot at Mouseketonic was likely to be a challenge worthy of the name.
Ratigan sighed. ‘There went a full three quarters of my more promising students. Why are the brightest ones so drawn to reckless actions?’
Basil turned to give Ratigan a disbelieving stare.
‘Well,’ Ratigan continued, smiling brightly. ‘I shall require until term’s end to arrange a sabbatical. I trust you can get your own affairs in order in that time.’
‘What?’ Basil twisted his features into confusion. ‘Are you planning to abandon your life of crime at last? Paris is lovely that time of year.’
‘Paris is lovely at any time of year, remind me to take you some time,’ Ratigan ran a hand the length of Basil’s spine. ‘My dear, I have made something of a study of the cult. Surely you are not so stubborn as to refuse my assistance ridding the world of them?’
Basil glanced at the ruins of the warehouse, then back at Ratigan’s fierce smile. He sighed.
‘Shall I arrange the passage or would you rather?’