Free Pax Britannia: Human Nature by Jonathan Green

intensity ahead of them, the passageway they were following steadily lightening until the three of them stood huddled at the entrance to a wide open atrium within the rookery. They were on the ground floor, which was covered in rough planks, the space opening up to a height of at least three storeys above them.
    Daring to peer further around the edge of the door jamb, Ulysses saw a spider's web of wooden walkways, suspended rope bridges and ladders of one sort or another. From somewhere near his waist Sidney whispered: "It's all right, they're not here."
    Ulysses looked again. The web of walkways was slung with glowing hurricane lamps and guttering torches, even the occasional caged halogen light. He could see little in the dark spaces between the hazy spheres of light but still his senses told him that the situation hadn't changed and that the potential threat facing them was no different than when they had started on their journey into the rookery
    "Are you sure?" he asked, just the same.
    "Sure I'm sure. They'll all be out dipping the pockets of the rich."
    "So where will we find the Magpie?"
    "'E'll be in 'is counting house," Sidney said, his voice a breathy whisper. "Come on, it's this way."
    "Feathering his nest, I suppose," Ulysses said, trying to make light of the situation, but it was a poor attempt to hide how he was really feeling.
    The boy started out across the middle of the floor beneath the walkways, scampering ahead as before, only something had changed. Halfway across the void Ulysses realised what it was.
    He stopped and Nimrod halted too. A moment later, realising Ulysses' footfalls over the boards behind him had come to a halt, the boy stopped and turned.
    "Come on, guv'nor!" he hissed. "Whatcha waitin' for? Bleeding Christmas?"
    "Where's your monkey?" Ulysses asked, his voice still quiet but nonetheless commanding for all that.
    "What?" the boy asked, his face a picture of pure incomprehension.
    "Where's your monkey?"
    Ulysses could feel the dull throb of his hypothalamus swelling to a subconscious ache. Something wasn't right.
    His head snapped back and he looked up into the glowing constellation of lamps suspended above them. There was movement at the corner of his eye. He followed it and saw another scampering shape elsewhere at the periphery of his vision.
    Squinting, he began to see shapes forming amidst the contrasting shadows and sunspots.
    And then, there on a walkway ten feet above his head, he saw, quite clearly, a lithe black and yellow shape run along a rope stretched taught across the void, seeming to defy gravity with its inverted aerial run. It wasn't Sidney's missing companion, but another simian altogether.
    And then there were more. As if he now knew what he was looking for, Ulysses could hardly miss them. There were rhesus monkeys dangling from ropes and walkways, gnawing nuts and bits of fruit; spider monkeys by the dozen, family groups gathered on shelf-like perches attached to the walls; mandrills scaling vertically suspended ropes. He even thought he could make out the squatting shape and orange fur of an orang-utan on one of the higher levels, half-hidden in shadow behind a balcony.
    "Don't bother answering that," Ulysses said coldly, his hind-brain hot with alarm, his grip on the gun in his hand tightening to knuckle white. "Where's the Magpie?"
    Preternatural awareness flashed through his brain like a migraine.
    "Right here!" came a cackle from the rafters above them. "As is you, Mr Quicksilver, as is you. Right where I wants ya!"

Chapter Six
     
    One for Sorrow
     
    "Welcome to the House of Monkeys, my fine gentlemen."
    Ulysses peered up at the rows of balconies above them, shielding his eyes with one hand to try to cut out the glare from the myriad lamps hung from the network of walkways.
    His whole body was tensed, ready to spring into action, although Ulysses didn't rate their chances; he and Nimrod were like sitting ducks where they stood out in the open.
    "Mr Magpie, I