The next time Hsu Jaeshin and Elim Green encountered one another Hsu was planning to break into Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.

A flash of pink in a shop window caught Hsu’s eye.  Someone was buying TAB cola and he realized that it was Elim, the boy in the green bepatched coat.

He waited for him outside the store.  “What is wrong?”

Elim grinned crookedly.  “Hey Spyboy!  What do you mean?”

“You are buying TAB.  Are the Toothsome here?  On this side of the river?”

“Oh that!  This is where I buy my supplies.  My cousin’s family owns the store.”

He sighed in relief.  Ratmen in downtown London was not a headache he wanted today.

“Hey um... someone did finally come and block our sewer access.  Bricked and bolted it with razorwire.  And welded the sewer grates.  So... thanks.”

“I kept calling the UK helpline until they sent someone.”

Cleaning up those loose ends from their joint adventure in the sewers had been only one of Hsu’s problems.  He had moved into a cheaper apartment, begged an old smartphone from his neighbor and dealt with the unpleasant bowel consequences of taking industrial-strength antibiotics.  He accepted those gladly because the wounds on his chest had not become infected despite swimming in the sewer.

The scars were horrific though.

“What are you doing here?  Job interview?”  Elim indicated the Korean man’s nice clothes.

“No, I am....”  He hesitated.  Should he tell the street rat?  The useful street rat?  “Have you ever seen the TV show It Beggars Belief?”

“Weird new-age stuff hosted by that guy who used to play Superman?”

“Yes!  Did you hear,” he leaned closer, “about the new crystal skull?”

---

Most crystal skulls were fakes created by German artisans to pass off as genuine Aztec artefacts.  But a few were the real deal – solid blocks of crystal carved into the shape of a human skull which were purported to have psychic or paranormal properties.

This new crystal skull was not Aztec though, nor was it a solid block!  Every fold and hollow of a human skull had been replicated in shimmering crystal; a perfect human skull but made of quartz instead of bone.

It had to be fake.  A modern 3D print based on a CAT scan... except that it was perfect.  All of the facets and internal crystallizations followed natural bone growth patterns.  There was evidence of concussions and ingrown teeth and the nose was slightly off-centre.

Perfect in its imperfection.  It could not have been carved by human hands and no 3D printer could replicate those growth patterns.  Beautiful, impossible and desirable.

The skull had been stolen.

---

“Is there a reward?”

“Yes!  €40,000 for the return of the skull.”

Elim whistled.  “And you want to search Saint Paul’s Cathedral?”

He frowned.  “Not really?  But you saw the reconstruction the TV show did, putting clay over a cast off the skull to show what they would have looked like with muscles and skin?”

“You really think it’s the missing archaeologist?”

That had been the scandalous stinger for the TV special.  Their facial reconstruction based on the skull bore an uncanny resemblance to a female archaeologist who who had disappeared 18 months prior – crooked nose and all.  A coincidence?

“I don't know.  But a lot of people are looking for the skull and I know one thing they don't.  The last place Bethilda Andersen was seen alive was in the labyrinth under St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

“How do you know this bullshit?” Elim said skeptically.

He blew out a breath.  “Because Bethilda used to have my job!”

---

His old security clearance granted both of them access the restricted area under St. Paul’s Cathedral.  His Intelligence Taskforce branch had shut down so abruptly that it had never been cancelled.

The old guard was skeptical about Elim but finally allowed them both to enter after a sharp warning that Hsu should keep a sharp eye upon him.

“This doesn’t look much like a labyrinth.” Elim complained once they reached the Cathedral’s foundations.

Hsu Jaeshin suppressed a smile.  “Count your steps.  Walk forward and turn left.”

He repeated these instructions three more times.

“Are you back where you started?”

Elim’s eyes went wide.  “No, this is a different corridor!”

“These are the old corridors from before the 1,087 fire.  If you walk far enough down here you can see the very earliest foundations, hidden up in turns and corners.”   Seeing Elim’s reaction he hastened to add “It’s not a time machine!  The old basements are just layered on top of one another and looped up through a higher dimension.”

“Oh well then that makes perfect sense!”

Hsu grinned at him.  “Anyway, Bethilda Anderson was an archaeologist who worked for the same Intelligence Taskforce I did.  In late 2016 there was an alien ‘event’ here and everyone was called up to clear out these tunnels.  Including Bethilda, even though she was just a junior analyst.”

“Including you?”

“I was in the arctic studying icebergs at that time.  I hadn’t even been scouted by the UK branch.”

The corridors were like an unmarked maze.  All different, yet similar enough that any priest or worker wandering between versions of the Cathedral’s foundations could easily convince themselves that they had simply gotten lost.

Elim watched the walls, then backtracked a few corners.  “So cool.”

“Scary actually.” said Hsu.  “The Taskforce only discovered this warren existed in 2016!  There was an alien base down here.  They tried to...” he waved vaguely because he did not actually know.

“Tried to what?”

Hsu gritted his teeth.  “We call it the Second Decapitation.”

“Dude.  Best alien plan name ever.”

Hsu grunted.  He was mapping the tunnels on a notepad, using multiple colours of ink to keep track of the overlaid corridors.  He honestly had no idea what they might find.  A dead body would have smelled up all of the corridors and Bethilda Anderson had been missing for 18 months.

As if echoing his thoughts Elim asked “Do you think that all of the passages down here are mapped?”

“Normally I would say yes... but an old cathedral like this could have secret rooms or concealed passages, and since everything is overlaid....”

“You could be hiding almost anything down here.”

“Exactly!”

They explored the corridors, tapping on walls and feeling for cracks or flowing air that might indicate a secret opening.

After a few minutes doing this Elim quietly asked “That Toothsome died, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You feel weird about that?”

He blew out a breath.  “Yeah.  He was an intelligent being.  He died because...” he trailed off.  “On the flipside... the Toothsome died because he was trying to eat my throat and bit into my phone battery instead.  Plus he killed that little girl – ”

“Sarah.” supplied Elim.  She had lived in his building.

“Right!  He did it to himself and he was awful by our ethical standards....”

“But you still feel weird.”

“I killed someone.”

“Total asshole.”

“Oh, completely awful!” he agreed.

Elim nodded.  What more could be said?

They traced back their steps backwards to see if corridors and rooms below the Cathedral connected differently depending on the direction.

Hsu was finally forced to admit “This might be a dead lead.”

“Maybe.  How tall was Bethilda?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hm.  What was archaeological specialty?”

“Pre-Roman Britain.”

“I get half, right?”

“What?”

“If we find the skull I get half of the reward.”  It was not a question.

“If you help me find it!”

Elim reached up and put his hand on Hsu’s shoulder, pulling him downwards.

“What are – ?”

“People in the past were shorter than modern Britons.”

Hsu’s head reached the same level at Elim’s and he saw.  A series of seemingly random scratches, shadows and other marks upon the corridor wall suddenly lined up to create the foreshortened figure of a cross with fluted curving lines on either side.  The marking has been made so gently and so long ago that the symbol would have been invisible unless viewed from exactly this height and this angle.  Hidden in plain sight.

“The fleur-de-lys!”

The curving arcs of a stylized flower symbol was unmistakable.  It looked like a lily whose petals were bound abound their middle or possibly a sheaf of wheat.  An image created across multiple surfaces which only existed when viewed from this height.

He grinned at Elim.  “I bet Bethilda was short like you!”

“I'm not short I'm concentrated!”

Up close the symbol vanished entirely and Hsu was forced to take several steps back to relocate its centre.  He murmured “The fleur-de-lys symbol is definitely pre-Roman.  It dates back at least 3,000 years and is found in cultures throughout the world.”

“It’s a lot older than that.” snorted Elim.  “It was't even originally a human symbol.”

Hsu looked at him quizzically.

Elim grinned.  “That’s what the cool old lady I mentioned said.  It is the holy symbol of a species of reptile which lived on Earth before man.”

“You discussed ancient symbols?”

“We discussed vampires.”

He again traced the cracks towards the centre.  “Actual vampires, not penanggalan?”  His fingers found a gap which went up at an angle.  He shone his phone’s light.

Elim was at his side with a pocket knife.  He eased the unfolded blade into the crack and probed around.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he was pushed aside.

There was a soft click an the wall shifted slightly.  “I picked the lock.” he said smugly.

They pressed on various parts of the wall until they found a spot that caused it to swing open with a slightest sound of shuffling paper.

They had just found a secret room below Saint Paul’s Cathedral!

Special Copyrights notice:

Torchwood: Pack Animals © Peter Anghelides 2008.  Toothsome and other elements from that story appear with the permission of the copyright holder.

The story Rat Men of Paris first appeared in More Fun Comics Magazine volume 1 #8 in 1952.  It is in the public domain.

The story The Reign of the Reptiles first appeared in Wonder Stories volume 7 #3 in 1935.  It is in the public domain.