London, 1846

The fetid reek of human waste hit Gideon like a punch as he followed his fellow toshers through the outflow points of the city's sewers and into the tunnels themselves.

Three months he'd been doing this, and he didn't think he'd ever get used to that smell.

Three of the men with him didn't even seem to notice anymore, but they'd been doing this for years. At the head of the group was Walter, a veteran tosher with just a few wisps of white hair still clinging to his head. Ralph and Jim followed close behind, then Gideon, and behind him was Roy, the youngest of the group. Not even old enough to grow a proper beard yet, Roy had only recently joined their group after a previous tosher had disappeared in the sewers.

Disappearances happened more often than Gideon liked to think about. The sewer system was fast, and even people like Walter, who'd been toshing for most of his life, knew that hundreds of miles of tunnel remained unexplored, even by veterans like him. It was all too easy for toshers to wander too far from the main branches and get lost in the endless labyrinth of underground passages. If someone got lost down here, their options were limited. They could starve to death, or drown when the tide came in, filling the tunnel with foul water from the Thames.

"Rat," Roy cried, pointing, and Jim reacted quickly, stamping down on the furry body and snapping the rat's spine.

"Well done for spotting it," Jim said, clapping Roy's shoulder, and the boy smiled proudly.

Down in the sewers, rats were a serious threat and any tosher knew to avoid them if possible. Gideon had heard horror stories of lone toshers being overcome by huge hordes of rats and devoured down here in the dark, until there was nothing left by bones, submerged beneath the waters until the remains inevitably drifted towards the Thames where they'd be discovered by other toshers, or mudlarks working the flats of the river.

Even a lone rat was dangerous. Walter had told him of the times he'd been bitten by sewer rats, and the bites had festered until they'd formed ulcers with hard cores in the middle – hard as a stone. In those instances, Walter had had to cut the bite clean with a lancet and squeeze out the poison, and he had the scars to prove it.

At least Gideon didn't have to worry about that.

He hadn't meant to return to London.

This was where he'd been turned into a vampire, where he'd cast off his human life, and when Nicholas had said he wanted to leave, shortly after he'd turned Gideon, Gideon hadn't protested.

Now two years had passed since he ended things with Nicholas and struck out on his own, and the tide of life had carried him back to the city.

As a human, he'd never had to worry about money, but all that had changed when he became a vampire. At first he'd been able to rely on Nicholas's ample finances. Now he had to earn his own.

But life was horribly hard in London for so many people. The state offered almost no safety net for the poor, and the majority of Londoners struggled to eke out an existence in crowded, stinking slums. Gideon had found himself in the same boat when he arrived here, friendless, penniless, and with no idea what to do with himself.

Then he'd discovered the toshers, the men who made a living by sneaking into the foul depths of London's sewers at low tide, and combing through the raw sewage in search of any treasures that might have washed down from the streets above – bones or scraps of metal or bits of rope that could be sold to rag-and-bone men, silver-handled cutlery, and on good days, coins that had been dropped into the gutters.

It was dark, smelly, and unpleasant work, but it could be surprisingly lucrative. On average, Gideon was earning six shillings a day, enough to keep a roof over his head and protect him from the sun during the day.

"Queen Rat won't be coming for you tonight, Jim," Ralph teased, glancing over his shoulder as Walter led them deeper into the sewers. "Not after you killed one of her own."

Jim snorted. "I wouldn't fuck her even if she wanted me to."

Ralph looked anxiously around the dripping tunnels, as if Jim's disrespect would summon the supernatural Queen Rat herself.

"What's the Queen Rat?" Roy asked.

"The same story they told me when I first joined them," Gideon replied.

"Ain't no story, boy," came Walter's gruff voice. "Queen Rat's as real as you and me."

Roy looked at Gideon, waiting for an explanation.

"Supposedly Queen Rat is a supernatural creature who lives down here in the sewers. Her true form is that of a rat, but she can also turn herself invisible, and she uses that power to follow toshers as they work. If she spots a man that she likes, she'll take the form of a beautiful woman and attempt to seduce him. If he satisfies her, she'll grant him good luck, and he'll be sure to find plenty of riches that night. If he doesn't please her, she'll grant him bad luck. He might find nothing for the rest of his life in the sewers, or he might simply drown," Gideon said.

The story sounded ridiculous to him, but he tried to keep the scepticism from his voice. Walter and Ralph truly believed it.

Jim hit Gideon with his shoulder. "Typical posh boy, missing out the best bit."

"What's the best bit?" Roy asked, looking from Gideon to Jim.

Jim moved closer. All toshers wore small lanterns when they ventured into the sewers, strapped to the right side of their chests, and the light cast deep hollows on his face.

"When Queen Rat turns into a human woman, you won't necessarily know who she is," he said.

Besides the fact that Victorian women didn't generally wander around in the sewers, Gideon thought.

"But she can't quite shake off her true rat form. Now maybe you won't notice it if you're fucking her in a dark corner somewhere, but it's said that her eyes reflect light, just like an animal's, and on her feet, she has sharp rat claws growing from her toes," Jim gleefully continued, and Roy blanched. Jim lowered his face. "Next time a woman lifts her skirt for you, make sure you check her feet."

Gideon wasn't convinced that Roy had even slept with a woman yet, but he didn't say anything.

"Hush. We're almost at the grate," Walter warned. "Cover your lanterns."

Evidence of the grate lay a few feet up ahead – a shaft of weak moonlight cutting through the dank gloom of the tunnels. Even though it increased the risk of getting caught, Gideon preferred it when they worked closer to the surface, rather than venturing into some of the deep tunnels, running forty feet beneath the city. Even a vampire could stray off the path and get lost forever in a place like this.

He was dressed the same as the other toshers – in a greasy velveteen coat that had large, deep pockets, and dirty canvas trousers, with a canvas apron, and a dark lantern strapped to his chest. He carried a bag on his back, and an eight foot pole in one hand, ended with a large iron hoe – a deeply important tool for any tosher, used to dig through the much of the sewers for anything that could be cleaned up and sold. As they drew near to the grate, he took his bag and covered the lantern with it, and the others did the same, until the only light in the tunnel came from that grate.

Toshing had always been dangerous work.

Many of the countless tunnels were rotten and crumbling, prone to collapsing and killing the poor sod who disturbed them.

Large pockets of noxious fumes, or foul air as it was known, could accumulate, and if disturbed, they'd prove instantly fatal to anyone who breathed them in.

If the Thames sluices were raised while the toshers were still down here, they'd be hit by a vast surge of rancid water, and they'd either drown or be smashed to pieces by the sheer force of the water.

People got lost in the dark, many never to be seen again.

Rats often moved in savage, insatiable swarms, sometimes as many as a hundred at a time, and they would fearlessly attack a tosher on their own. That was one reason most of them scavenged in groups.

Due to those dangers, it had been made illegal four years ago for anyone to go into the sewers unless they had permission – something which toshers wouldn't be granted – and a reward of a full five pounds was offered to anyone who informed on them. Hence the reason most toshing was done at night, with nothing but the lights of small lanterns to guide them through the dark.

Everyone knew that toshers still worked the sewers, and it wasn't uncommon for small groups to gather around the grates up on the streets, waiting for any glimpse of the men at work so they could report them and claim the reward.

Any time toshers were near a grate, they had to be very, very careful.

"Well, posh boy?" Jim nudged Gideon.

Walter had more experience than all of them combined, but most of his work had been before toshing was declared illegal. When it came to trying to avoid detection he wasn't really any more experienced than anyone else. Gideon, on the other hand, had vampire ears. If people were gathering around the grate above them, he'd be able to hear it.

The others didn't know how he always knew whether there were people there or not, but after months of working with him, they'd come to trust his judgement, even Walter.

Gideon carefully listened.

"There's no one there," he said.

"Good lad," Walter said, but Gideon caught Jim looking at him with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

He was never sure if Jim liked him or not. A Cockney through and through, he'd been very vocal in his surprise when Gideon had first joined them. Years of wandering, and so many instances of sleeping rough meant that Gideon didn't look so different to these other men, but he couldn't hide that his accent was clearly that of higher breeding, and that had seemed to raise Jim's hackles. They'd worked well together over these past few months, and Jim teased everyone, but when it came to Gideon, there was sometimes a hard undercurrent to his words.

Still keeping their lanterns covered, they hurried past the grate and further down the tunnel.

The whole thing seemed ridiculous to Gideon. Toshing had been made illegal because of the dangers it posed to people, but nobody did this line of work because it was fun. They did it because life in the city was bloody hard, and they were in desperate need of money. The same people who purportedly worried about toshers dying down in the dark, and made it illegal so as to protect them, didn't give a single damn that the toshers ho would then starve to death because they had no other way of earning a living.

"Gideon, do you believe in Queen Rat?" Roy asked, falling into step beside him.

Gideon lowered his voice so the others couldn't hear him. "No, I don't. It's just a story, like the sewer hogs."

Roy bit his lip. "A mate of mine did some toshing under Hampstead, and he swears the hogs are real."

Common folklore among toshers was there a race of ferocious wild hogs lived down in the sewer. They'd been born when a pregnant sow accidentally wandered down here and got lost, and since then the breed had multiplied and grown savage.

Gideon didn't believe a word of it.

"This is a good spot," Walter announced, coming to a stop.

They weren't far from the grate, but that was often where the best finds were.

Veterans like him knew the secret cracks that lay in the rotting brickwork beneath the rank sewer-waters, where money often got caught up in the spaces where mortar had worn away.

This was where things got messy.

Sometimes toshers sieved the raw sewage to see what they could find lurking in all that foulness. Other times, like now, they just plunged their arms straight in and dug through the mud and the shit to find those sought-after coins. It wasn't just human waste they had to contend with – the bloated corpses of cats and dogs were common, along with rotting offal from the slaughterhouses and great heaps of dung from stables and pig-styes. The stench was eye-watering – even worse for a vampire.

Walter stooped, so that the light from his lantern played over the sewer-waters. "Tonight's going to be a good night, lads," he said, cracking arthritic knuckles. "I can feel it in my bones."

Jim grinned and got to work, plunging his arm up to the elbow into the filth.

Gideon was considerably less enthusiastic.

They worked quietly, the only sounds the sloshing and sucking as various finds were pulled free, and Ralph's occasional off-key humming.

After half an hour or so, Roy abruptly straightened up, his face grey.

"If it has to come up, then let it," Walter advised, not looking up.

Roy staggered away from them, clutching his stomach and hunching over. He didn't get far before he vomited.

"The smell does it for us all when we're not used to it," Ralph said.

"Except posh boy over there," Jim said, looking at Gideon.

"Maybe you're just jealous that the lad's got a stronger stomach than you," Walter said to Jim, giving Gideon a little grin.

Roy retched again, spitting out bile. He leaned against the wall, gasping and gagging, and a scraping groan echoed through the tunnel.

The toshers froze.

"What was that?" Ralph said, paling.

"Maybe it's Queen Rat," Jim said, smiling darkly.

The groan came again, and suddenly Gideon realised what was happening.

"Roy, get away from the wall," he shouted, and started running.

Roy pushed off the wall and backed off a couple of steps, turning to look behind him.

Mortar dust showered down as rotten brickwork groaned and shifted, and then came down.

Roy screamed and threw up his arms to protect himself.

The wall tumbled down.

Gideon had already launched forward, moving with inhuman speed to put himself between Roy and the bricks that were crashing down. Roy collapsed to the ground, his legs buckling under the weight of sheer terror, and Gideon stood over him. Crumbling bricks rained down, and a big section of wall slammed into Gideon's shoulder; he snarled with pain as it dislocated. Another chunk of brick fell from the roof and glanced off his head, splitting open his scalp. Blood washed down his face and he blinked, shaking his head to keep it out of his eyes.

Roy still lay at his feet, mouth hanging open.

"Move," Gideon snapped, through gritted teeth.

The wall was a dead weight on his injured shoulder, and hot blasts of pain rolled through his body, but if he didn't hold it up, it would fall and crush Roy.

Ralph scrambled forward and pulled Roy out of the way.

Gideon weighed his options.

The roof overhead looked solid enough, but he was no expert. If he shoved this section of wall back, it would hit the rest of the tunnel and possibly destabilise it further. But if he let it drop, then the vibrations from the impact might also destabilise the tunnel.

Gideon squeezed his eyes shut. His head hurt and blood kept flowing down his face, and his dislocated shoulder was a pulsing ball of pain. He couldn't keep this up for long.

"Run," he said, his voice strained from the effort.

Walter took a hesitant step forward. "Just hold on, lad, let us help."

"You can't."

Walter started to say something, but Gideon didn't hear what it was, because another brick fell, striking his knee and causing it to buckle, and then he couldn't hold up the wall anymore.

He fell, but – using vampire speed – managed to roll to the side as he went down, so that the main structure of the wall crashed onto the sewer floor, rather than flattening him.

The dull boom shook the rest of the tunnel, and more clouds of mortar dust rained down, as the impact from the wall sprayed filthy sewage everywhere. Gideon lay on his back, feeling the phantom thud of a racing heart. Could he have survived if he'd been under that wall? He was really glad he hadn't had to find out.

Slowly, he climbed to his feet.

One arm hung at his side, and he gingerly probed the socket. At least it was only dislocated and not broken, but it still needed to be put back into place. He stumbled away from the collapsed section of tunnel, and the other toshers quickly moved out of his way, all of them watching him with wide eyes.

"Lad?" Walter said, his voice quieter than normal.

Gideon grabbed the wrist of his injured arm and pulled, trying to guide the ball of the bone back into his shoulder socket. Stars burst in his vision and he stifled a scream, but on the third try, his shoulder finally slid back into place. Then he leaned against the wall, eyes closed. That was the most physically painful thing he'd ever experienced, and the pain didn't go away just because his shoulder was back in the socket.

"You saved my life," Roy said in a trembling voice.

Gideon turned to look at them, still leaning against the wall.

Roy's face was awed, but Walter and Ralph were staring at Gideon with disbelief. And Jim? His expression was dark with anger and mistrust.

"What the hell are you, posh boy?" he growled.

Gideon flinched.

"Jim," Walter started.

"Don't," the younger man snarled, his voice rough with anger. "You all saw what he just did. That ain't normal."

Gideon tried to lie. "Bricks aren't as heavy when they're rotten –"

"Shut up!"

Silence fell, broken only when Roy spoke up again.

"He saved my life, and I don't much care how he did it," he said, glaring defiantly at Jim.

Jim spat into the sewer-waters. "It ain't normal," he said again.

A spike of panic overrode the pain in Gideon's head and shoulder.

One thing that Nicholas had always reminded him was that vampires had to be careful. Humans had a nasty history of fearing what they didn't understand, and slaughtering what they feared, and it was in vampires' best interests to keep themselves hidden.

These last two years on his own, Gideon had managed to keep his true self hidden, like he had been taught.

Now it was all out in the open.

The other toshers didn't know what he was, and Roy really didn't seem to care, but Jim did, and Gideon didn't trust him with this kind of secret.

He realised then that his time here was over.

Maybe Walter and Roy would keep quiet about what they'd seen here, and he wasn't sure about Ralph, but Jim never would.

It was too dangerous to stay.

So he ran.

Ignoring Walter and Roy calling after him, he ran back the way they'd come, not even pausing to check that it was safe to pass under the grate. His lantern cast shifting beams of light on the floor, walls, ceiling, and his head wouldn't stop bleeding, but he swiped the blood from his eyes and kept running.

The bag of assorted bits and pieces that he'd dug up from the sewer filth bounced on his back. He had money stashed away at the inn where he was saying, enough to get him out of the city and onto somewhere new, but he'd stay just long enough to sell what he'd found.

And then?

Then he'd have to find somewhere else to work and live.

London wasn't safe anymore.

He told himself that it was alright, that he hadn't planned to stay anyway, and that life hadn't exactly been good here, but running because he was afraid was different to leaving because it was time to move on.

Or maybe it wasn't.

As he scrambled out of the outflow point and onto the stinking mudflats, painted silver under the light of the moon, Gideon paused.

Vampires could never stay for too long in one place because they were afraid they'd be discovered by humans if they did. So in a way, it was always fear that drove them from place to place, and that meant that it didn't make a difference if Gideon left the city in a few months time or if he fled now.

But it did feel different.

He started to run again, pulling the lantern off his chest and extinguishing it before shoving it into one of his deep pockets. He couldn't risk anyone on the streets guessing that he was a tosher, but he kept the lantern rather than throwing it away because it might come in useful later.

He had no idea where he would go or what he'd do when he got there, but he tried to think positively.

This wasn't the end of something.

It was the start of something new.

Next week will be a double update day :D