Connects with: Gift of the Dark, The Stream of Life & Sepia and Silver
Streets of London © May 2020 E. C. Hibbs
London, England
August 1888
I staggered along the alleys and backstreets, bouncing off the walls like a drunkard. My clothes hung in rags. They were all I had managed to scavenge to cover my nakedness. The air was hardly fresh, but it was from the outside. After so long spent in the tiny, lightless, windowless room, it pressed on my skin and sliced my lungs. Each breath was like inhaling liquid gold. It rushed through me, finer than opium, hollowing out my bones.
My vision was sharper than I knew it should be. I saw the grains in bricks and the chips in the mortar which held them together; the shiny slick of oil atop a puddle; the soft ghostlike smoke of tobacco. Everything was so detailed. Every sound, sight, smell. It took all my control to not fall to my knees under the pressure of it. What had happened to me?
A foolish question. I knew very well what had happened. And now I was free. I just needed to get home, find my brothers…
“Oliver! Charley!” I tried to call. My voice wheezed as though I had been strangled. When had I last used it to any real extent? Ten years, two months, and twenty days…
I spotted a policeman. Frantic, I seized his wrist.
“Oliver and Charley Wotton!” I gasped. “You… know them?”
The officer recoiled at the sight of me, the smell. He pushed me into the street.
“Please…” I whimpered. Was that the correct word? Yes, I was sure it was…
I opened my eyes. The memory vanished. There was no policeman. I was alone, and darkness was absolute. Silence covered me like a blanket.
A mere dream of the past, nothing more. I was no longer that desperate, gasping waif. My body had filled out, my ragged locks were cut back, and my limbs were clothed in more substantial fabrics. They were stolen, of course, but what did that matter? Garments were ultimately forgotten just as much as people were.
Had my pale, wretched self from all that time ago seen me now, I know he wouldn't have recognised me. And he would have been horrified at what he found. Eyes turned black as jet, expression cut by cold indifference, finding pleasure in the taste of the liquid he had once spurned in horror. But what control could I gain over such matters? I had no choice in the beginning, and no human could help a vampire except than in such a way.
My lodgings, such as they were, stood plain and dust-laden. This was one of the oldest mausoleums in the Circle of Lebanon. I had no need for fancy furnishings, only a place to rest my head during the hours of daylight. It was here that I had lurked, turned myself over to the animal within, and allowed it to be liberate. The great art of life, after all, was sensation.
The bones of my latest meal lay sprawled in the corner: a homeless urchin with no family and no future. He had served me well for six years, and now there was nothing left of him. Several decades ago, I would have seen myself in his features; what I had come from. I would have tried to refrain from hurting him. But those cares had long been quashed by hard reality.
There was some relief in the stagnancy of the cemetery, but that now ceased to stimulate, too. I could have been blindfolded, taken pencil and paper, and drawn any angle, every letter upon every grave, from memory. For so long, this had been my territory: a place where no other demon would dare to tread. But, as I had numerous times in my long existence, I was growing jaded. And boredom did not sit well with me.
I ran my hand across my throat, and felt the smooth scar tissue which encircled it. Old. So very old.
In an instant, my decision was made. I would leave this place. If new experiences could not be afforded to me, then perhaps I could find some company with memory, no matter how terrible.
I removed a stack of letters from a hole in the wall, then I stepped out of the door, into the blissful embrace of night. The magnificent cedar tree spread its limbs over my head like a giant spider. Crosses and sculpted angels protruded from greenery painted with shadows. The only sounds were the soft footsteps of a passing fox or shuffling hedgehog.
I closed my eyes as I walked, and traversed the paths with perfect assurance. I had haunted Highgate for years; watched as it expanded further and further into the city. I thought of all the dead, encased in stone and Earth, decaying around me. They knew the release I never would.
When I came to a more open area, I rolled my shoulders, and a pair of great bat wings unfurled. Then I ran, beat the air with them, and let my feet leave the ground. I rose high into the sky, pulling the shadows close like a garment, so no wandering eyes might see me below.
The carpet of London stretched before me in a labyrinth of light. Far away on the banks of the Thames, I heard Big Ben strike ten o’clock. I flew south, skimming the clouds with the edge of my wing. Even hundreds of feet in the air, I could feel the cloying humidity of summer creeping through the streets, like blood along a network of veins.
Blood… Yes, so much of it, down there…
I fixed my eyes on a dark area close to the river. My heart skipped a beat at the sight. I hadn’t returned there for so long. I had frequented numerous slums to take my meals, but never this one.
Before I could ponder my decision, I steeled myself, and descended.
Any fleeting hope that I might have held of the place being improved was immediately dashed. Buildings stood crooked and discoloured, like rows of rotten teeth. A plethora of disgusting odours invaded my nose and sprung up around my shoes. People and rats alike crawled over each other, scratching at flees, scurrying down alleys, pissing into the open gutters. It was a cesspit of loneliness and desolation, heaving under the weight of itself.
And yet, if I could truly assign the word home to anywhere, it was here. Whitechapel. Here, I had been born. Here, I had grown. Here, I had been abducted, taken beneath these very streets, and turned into what I became.
I concealed myself in a dingy lane, pulled in my wings, and removed the shadow. I was dressed comfortably, but my time spent in cobwebs and grave-dust had ensured my appearance remained threadbare, and no-one paid me any mind as I walked. Indeed, I stunned myself by how quickly my old gait returned. It was as though the paths of my childhood awakened memory in my muscles. I slouched, though not too much; kept my eyes keen, but not to the extent of inviting trouble. Everybody here would be hiding some kind of weapon, and while I would have no problem dispatching anyone, conflict was the last thing I wanted.
I shook my head as I picked my way through the filth. So much death. Even coming from a city of corpses, it was the living city which was truly deceased. So much of this place remained the same. How? In the century since I had been here, a revolution of machines and technology had made London the capital of the entire world. And yet, I swore the same old cobbles lay here, covered in the same old waste.
I paused when I drew close to a dark alley. My blood ran cold to see it, gaping like a maw. As a naïve nineteen-year-old, I had gone down there, one night in 1769. It had spelled my final walk as a human.
Such a toy I had been. Never again.
A middle-aged bangtail suddenly leered at me. The smell of her blood, muddied with alcohol, filled my nose. My mouth immediately dried. I needed to drink. I had a mind to drag her into the dark right then and drain her…
No. I sensed she would be a banshee. It was better for me to lurk, like a waiting panther, and strike when they thought they were safe.
“Lonely tonight, love?” the whore smiled, coiling a finger about her hair.
I regarded her coolly. “On your way.”
“Oh, don’t be frightened, dearie.”
“I said, on your way. Now.”
She pouted, but nevertheless straightened her velvet bonnet and wandered off, singing to herself. I caught a few lines before her voice was swallowed by the other noises.
“My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long…”
A peculiar tune. And rather apt. She didn't know how much truth of those lyrics might be applied to me.
All these foolish humans. That woman had looked at me as though I was a lost little boy. It was enough to make me smirk. Twenty-nine, I might have appeared, but almost a hundred and twenty years had passed since I was that age in actuality. I had wandered the squalid streets before even her great grandmother was the apple of anyone’s eye. And in another hundred and twenty, when her own great grandchildren might gaze up at the same empty sky, nothing would have changed.
Then I noticed something else. Not a sound of any kind, but an odour. It cut through the unpleasant miasma; I hadn’t smelled it for decades. Sharp, bitter, almost vinegar-like. Vampire venom.
There was another here somewhere.
I froze. Had I stepped onto a demon’s territory? No, I realised, as I sniffed harder. This venom was young still, younger than my own. If it was another like myself, then it was of the type which would not be a threat.
Intrigue settled over me. It had been so long since I’d felt any sensation, or met any other vampire.
As though of its own accord, my hand rose to my chest and felt the outlines of the letters through my coat. The last time I had truly known another seemed like it had happened in another life. George had been like me, and yet separate: able to experience the things I never could. He could age and die; could walk in the sunlight. A different kind of vampire. Indeed, a different kind of man.
But this wasn’t George. Just like my brothers, he was gone.
I followed the scent like a bloodhound, along routes which returned to me like the memory of a dream. It led me past a cluster of filthy dosshouses, onto Whitechapel Road, and I had to pause near a pub to catch my breath. I knew the place perfectly, but after so long in Highgate’s silent darkness, the sudden onslaught of noise and movement was akin to being pounded by a relentless tide. How had I once lived among this; been able to filter through all the cacophony?
At least back then, in the previous century, I’d had Oliver and Charley. They were long dead now. Everyone was dead. These people around me would soon be dead. All were simply walking corpses already, drinking and whoring themselves to their graves with aimless sloth. There was nothing to them, save for the blood in their veins. How I was glad to not be among them any longer… and yet, how I yearned for it. To be given that choice, to be able to lie cold in the ground, and never wake up…
No. I had thought like that before, and knew how much it unsuited me. I would find this other vampire, and see what sport I might use him for, to chase away the boredom.
As I walked off, I spotted a tattered sign for a local theatre. Macbeth, featuring James Hayes and Sibyl Gray. I smirked as I recalled the details of that story, and fancied my own hands painted as red as Lady Macbeth’s. They had been, so often, and the time was long gone when I had cared.
The scent became stronger. I rounded a corner, and my eyes finally fell upon its source. Huddled against a wall was a cowering figure. A tall man bent over him, burying kick after kick into his stomach.
“Keep your thieving hands to yourself, scrounging idiot!”
“Please!” the figure yelped. “Leave me alone!”
I was stunned. Not by the sight – beatings were scarcely out of the ordinary around these parts – but because the whimpering boy was what I’d smelled. He was the vampire? That scrawny shell of a man?
I shook my head. Who was I to judge? I myself had looked worse than him, once.
“Enough,” I said.
The tall man turned and sneered at me.
“Who the Hell are you? Piss off! this ain’t none of your business!”
“Leave him be,” I warned.
“Oh, you want in on this as well, do you, lad?”
The man took a threatening step towards me. His foot hadn’t even landed before I focused all my concentration on him. In an instant, my will wrapped around his body, pinned his limbs with invisible ropes, and I tossed him against the bricks like a ragdoll.
All the arrogant ire evaporated from his features. I glared at him; let him look into the black depths of my eyes. He might not know what I was, but it was certainly something not to be trifled with. He staggered upright and fled like a terrified little girl.
I turned to the boy. His irises were a bright ruby red, and on his throat was a characteristic scar, barely finished healing. Yes, he was young in transformation, as well as in years.
“Don’t be frightened,” I said. “I’m like you.”
The boy didn’t move. “I can’t do that! Flinging people about like that!”
“But you thirst for blood? And you can walk in the sunlight, but it pains you?”
At that, he glanced at his fingers. Sure enough, I noticed lines of fiery red blisters snaking along them, as though he had rubbed the flesh with nettles. But I knew the true origin was nothing so mundane.
I extended my hand. The boy grasped it, and allowed me to help him to his feet. Now he was no longer curled in on himself, I realised that, though gangly, he was the same height as me. A greasy mop of dark hair hung about his hollowed face, and one eye pointed upwards slightly, so it appeared he was at once looking at me and over my shoulder. Beneath a long overcoat, a dirty leather butcher’s apron was strapped across his front.
Aware that remaining in once place for too long would be unwise, I pulled him down the backstreets. After a few minutes, I came to a lonely yard, overflowing with discarded rotten vegetables.
“Hey, mister, thanks for that,” said the boy. “He would have killed me if you hadn’t come along. But who are you? And what do you know about me?”
His drawling voice cracked as he used it, as though he hadn’t drank all day. But I knew it wasn’t from a lack of water. I wondered if he had tasted blood at all since the venom ran through him. In any case, he would need some soon, otherwise he would lose control and sink his teeth into everything that moved.
“About you?” I replied dryly. “Only that you’re alone. Your scent was the only one I found, so I wager the one who turned you is nowhere around. That means you were bitten and then left alone, without a chance to give permission. And that, in turn, means that you will someday become as I am, when you complete your transformation.”
“Eh? In English, mister, please,” the boy complained.
I rolled my eyes. How easy it was, after so long fed on the words of higher classes and the texts of literary masters, to forget how simple these people were.
Then, like a lightning bolt, an idea came to me. I was so weary of everything, so why could I not inject a little interest back into my life? This boy was perhaps easier meat than the humans around us. He knew nothing; was as much a nobody as them. If I groomed him, could I myself not be wanton, and find new sensations, while I wove him into a safety net beneath me?
The more I pondered it, the more I came to like it. Now, to see where I could take it.
“I am a vampire,” I said, as though I were talking to a child. “So are you. But I’ve finished the change, while you are still going through it. You didn’t ask to be as you are, but it happened anyway, and now you don’t know what to do. But I do. I can help you, teach you how to survive.”
The boy stared at me. “You’re taking the piss.”
“Do your own eyes deceive you?” I asked, and unfurled my wings.
He yelped in terror, but I kept tight hold of his wrist.
“I told you, don’t fear me. I won’t harm you. Let me help you. I know you have no mentor, nobody to turn to. Have I not saved your life already tonight?”
I pressed the wings against my back until I felt them disappear. Then I released him, but kept my hand out.
“You can call me Jack Ruthven.”
The boy looked at my palm as though it were the jaws of a dangerous animal. But he swallowed – wincing as he did so – and shook it.
“Eddie Anthony,” he said, “apprentice butcher.”
I smiled. “So you are.”
My vision was sharper than I knew it should be. I saw the grains in bricks and the chips in the mortar which held them together; the shiny slick of oil atop a puddle; the soft ghostlike smoke of tobacco. Everything was so detailed. Every sound, sight, smell. It took all my control to not fall to my knees under the pressure of it. What had happened to me?
A foolish question. I knew very well what had happened. And now I was free. I just needed to get home, find my brothers…
“Oliver! Charley!” I tried to call. My voice wheezed as though I had been strangled. When had I last used it to any real extent? Ten years, two months, and twenty days…
I spotted a policeman. Frantic, I seized his wrist.
“Oliver and Charley Wotton!” I gasped. “You… know them?”
The officer recoiled at the sight of me, the smell. He pushed me into the street.
“Please…” I whimpered. Was that the correct word? Yes, I was sure it was…
I opened my eyes. The memory vanished. There was no policeman. I was alone, and darkness was absolute. Silence covered me like a blanket.
A mere dream of the past, nothing more. I was no longer that desperate, gasping waif. My body had filled out, my ragged locks were cut back, and my limbs were clothed in more substantial fabrics. They were stolen, of course, but what did that matter? Garments were ultimately forgotten just as much as people were.
Had my pale, wretched self from all that time ago seen me now, I know he wouldn't have recognised me. And he would have been horrified at what he found. Eyes turned black as jet, expression cut by cold indifference, finding pleasure in the taste of the liquid he had once spurned in horror. But what control could I gain over such matters? I had no choice in the beginning, and no human could help a vampire except than in such a way.
My lodgings, such as they were, stood plain and dust-laden. This was one of the oldest mausoleums in the Circle of Lebanon. I had no need for fancy furnishings, only a place to rest my head during the hours of daylight. It was here that I had lurked, turned myself over to the animal within, and allowed it to be liberate. The great art of life, after all, was sensation.
The bones of my latest meal lay sprawled in the corner: a homeless urchin with no family and no future. He had served me well for six years, and now there was nothing left of him. Several decades ago, I would have seen myself in his features; what I had come from. I would have tried to refrain from hurting him. But those cares had long been quashed by hard reality.
There was some relief in the stagnancy of the cemetery, but that now ceased to stimulate, too. I could have been blindfolded, taken pencil and paper, and drawn any angle, every letter upon every grave, from memory. For so long, this had been my territory: a place where no other demon would dare to tread. But, as I had numerous times in my long existence, I was growing jaded. And boredom did not sit well with me.
I ran my hand across my throat, and felt the smooth scar tissue which encircled it. Old. So very old.
In an instant, my decision was made. I would leave this place. If new experiences could not be afforded to me, then perhaps I could find some company with memory, no matter how terrible.
I removed a stack of letters from a hole in the wall, then I stepped out of the door, into the blissful embrace of night. The magnificent cedar tree spread its limbs over my head like a giant spider. Crosses and sculpted angels protruded from greenery painted with shadows. The only sounds were the soft footsteps of a passing fox or shuffling hedgehog.
I closed my eyes as I walked, and traversed the paths with perfect assurance. I had haunted Highgate for years; watched as it expanded further and further into the city. I thought of all the dead, encased in stone and Earth, decaying around me. They knew the release I never would.
When I came to a more open area, I rolled my shoulders, and a pair of great bat wings unfurled. Then I ran, beat the air with them, and let my feet leave the ground. I rose high into the sky, pulling the shadows close like a garment, so no wandering eyes might see me below.
The carpet of London stretched before me in a labyrinth of light. Far away on the banks of the Thames, I heard Big Ben strike ten o’clock. I flew south, skimming the clouds with the edge of my wing. Even hundreds of feet in the air, I could feel the cloying humidity of summer creeping through the streets, like blood along a network of veins.
Blood… Yes, so much of it, down there…
I fixed my eyes on a dark area close to the river. My heart skipped a beat at the sight. I hadn’t returned there for so long. I had frequented numerous slums to take my meals, but never this one.
Before I could ponder my decision, I steeled myself, and descended.
Any fleeting hope that I might have held of the place being improved was immediately dashed. Buildings stood crooked and discoloured, like rows of rotten teeth. A plethora of disgusting odours invaded my nose and sprung up around my shoes. People and rats alike crawled over each other, scratching at flees, scurrying down alleys, pissing into the open gutters. It was a cesspit of loneliness and desolation, heaving under the weight of itself.
And yet, if I could truly assign the word home to anywhere, it was here. Whitechapel. Here, I had been born. Here, I had grown. Here, I had been abducted, taken beneath these very streets, and turned into what I became.
I concealed myself in a dingy lane, pulled in my wings, and removed the shadow. I was dressed comfortably, but my time spent in cobwebs and grave-dust had ensured my appearance remained threadbare, and no-one paid me any mind as I walked. Indeed, I stunned myself by how quickly my old gait returned. It was as though the paths of my childhood awakened memory in my muscles. I slouched, though not too much; kept my eyes keen, but not to the extent of inviting trouble. Everybody here would be hiding some kind of weapon, and while I would have no problem dispatching anyone, conflict was the last thing I wanted.
I shook my head as I picked my way through the filth. So much death. Even coming from a city of corpses, it was the living city which was truly deceased. So much of this place remained the same. How? In the century since I had been here, a revolution of machines and technology had made London the capital of the entire world. And yet, I swore the same old cobbles lay here, covered in the same old waste.
I paused when I drew close to a dark alley. My blood ran cold to see it, gaping like a maw. As a naïve nineteen-year-old, I had gone down there, one night in 1769. It had spelled my final walk as a human.
Such a toy I had been. Never again.
A middle-aged bangtail suddenly leered at me. The smell of her blood, muddied with alcohol, filled my nose. My mouth immediately dried. I needed to drink. I had a mind to drag her into the dark right then and drain her…
No. I sensed she would be a banshee. It was better for me to lurk, like a waiting panther, and strike when they thought they were safe.
“Lonely tonight, love?” the whore smiled, coiling a finger about her hair.
I regarded her coolly. “On your way.”
“Oh, don’t be frightened, dearie.”
“I said, on your way. Now.”
She pouted, but nevertheless straightened her velvet bonnet and wandered off, singing to herself. I caught a few lines before her voice was swallowed by the other noises.
“My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long…”
A peculiar tune. And rather apt. She didn't know how much truth of those lyrics might be applied to me.
All these foolish humans. That woman had looked at me as though I was a lost little boy. It was enough to make me smirk. Twenty-nine, I might have appeared, but almost a hundred and twenty years had passed since I was that age in actuality. I had wandered the squalid streets before even her great grandmother was the apple of anyone’s eye. And in another hundred and twenty, when her own great grandchildren might gaze up at the same empty sky, nothing would have changed.
Then I noticed something else. Not a sound of any kind, but an odour. It cut through the unpleasant miasma; I hadn’t smelled it for decades. Sharp, bitter, almost vinegar-like. Vampire venom.
There was another here somewhere.
I froze. Had I stepped onto a demon’s territory? No, I realised, as I sniffed harder. This venom was young still, younger than my own. If it was another like myself, then it was of the type which would not be a threat.
Intrigue settled over me. It had been so long since I’d felt any sensation, or met any other vampire.
As though of its own accord, my hand rose to my chest and felt the outlines of the letters through my coat. The last time I had truly known another seemed like it had happened in another life. George had been like me, and yet separate: able to experience the things I never could. He could age and die; could walk in the sunlight. A different kind of vampire. Indeed, a different kind of man.
But this wasn’t George. Just like my brothers, he was gone.
I followed the scent like a bloodhound, along routes which returned to me like the memory of a dream. It led me past a cluster of filthy dosshouses, onto Whitechapel Road, and I had to pause near a pub to catch my breath. I knew the place perfectly, but after so long in Highgate’s silent darkness, the sudden onslaught of noise and movement was akin to being pounded by a relentless tide. How had I once lived among this; been able to filter through all the cacophony?
At least back then, in the previous century, I’d had Oliver and Charley. They were long dead now. Everyone was dead. These people around me would soon be dead. All were simply walking corpses already, drinking and whoring themselves to their graves with aimless sloth. There was nothing to them, save for the blood in their veins. How I was glad to not be among them any longer… and yet, how I yearned for it. To be given that choice, to be able to lie cold in the ground, and never wake up…
No. I had thought like that before, and knew how much it unsuited me. I would find this other vampire, and see what sport I might use him for, to chase away the boredom.
As I walked off, I spotted a tattered sign for a local theatre. Macbeth, featuring James Hayes and Sibyl Gray. I smirked as I recalled the details of that story, and fancied my own hands painted as red as Lady Macbeth’s. They had been, so often, and the time was long gone when I had cared.
The scent became stronger. I rounded a corner, and my eyes finally fell upon its source. Huddled against a wall was a cowering figure. A tall man bent over him, burying kick after kick into his stomach.
“Keep your thieving hands to yourself, scrounging idiot!”
“Please!” the figure yelped. “Leave me alone!”
I was stunned. Not by the sight – beatings were scarcely out of the ordinary around these parts – but because the whimpering boy was what I’d smelled. He was the vampire? That scrawny shell of a man?
I shook my head. Who was I to judge? I myself had looked worse than him, once.
“Enough,” I said.
The tall man turned and sneered at me.
“Who the Hell are you? Piss off! this ain’t none of your business!”
“Leave him be,” I warned.
“Oh, you want in on this as well, do you, lad?”
The man took a threatening step towards me. His foot hadn’t even landed before I focused all my concentration on him. In an instant, my will wrapped around his body, pinned his limbs with invisible ropes, and I tossed him against the bricks like a ragdoll.
All the arrogant ire evaporated from his features. I glared at him; let him look into the black depths of my eyes. He might not know what I was, but it was certainly something not to be trifled with. He staggered upright and fled like a terrified little girl.
I turned to the boy. His irises were a bright ruby red, and on his throat was a characteristic scar, barely finished healing. Yes, he was young in transformation, as well as in years.
“Don’t be frightened,” I said. “I’m like you.”
The boy didn’t move. “I can’t do that! Flinging people about like that!”
“But you thirst for blood? And you can walk in the sunlight, but it pains you?”
At that, he glanced at his fingers. Sure enough, I noticed lines of fiery red blisters snaking along them, as though he had rubbed the flesh with nettles. But I knew the true origin was nothing so mundane.
I extended my hand. The boy grasped it, and allowed me to help him to his feet. Now he was no longer curled in on himself, I realised that, though gangly, he was the same height as me. A greasy mop of dark hair hung about his hollowed face, and one eye pointed upwards slightly, so it appeared he was at once looking at me and over my shoulder. Beneath a long overcoat, a dirty leather butcher’s apron was strapped across his front.
Aware that remaining in once place for too long would be unwise, I pulled him down the backstreets. After a few minutes, I came to a lonely yard, overflowing with discarded rotten vegetables.
“Hey, mister, thanks for that,” said the boy. “He would have killed me if you hadn’t come along. But who are you? And what do you know about me?”
His drawling voice cracked as he used it, as though he hadn’t drank all day. But I knew it wasn’t from a lack of water. I wondered if he had tasted blood at all since the venom ran through him. In any case, he would need some soon, otherwise he would lose control and sink his teeth into everything that moved.
“About you?” I replied dryly. “Only that you’re alone. Your scent was the only one I found, so I wager the one who turned you is nowhere around. That means you were bitten and then left alone, without a chance to give permission. And that, in turn, means that you will someday become as I am, when you complete your transformation.”
“Eh? In English, mister, please,” the boy complained.
I rolled my eyes. How easy it was, after so long fed on the words of higher classes and the texts of literary masters, to forget how simple these people were.
Then, like a lightning bolt, an idea came to me. I was so weary of everything, so why could I not inject a little interest back into my life? This boy was perhaps easier meat than the humans around us. He knew nothing; was as much a nobody as them. If I groomed him, could I myself not be wanton, and find new sensations, while I wove him into a safety net beneath me?
The more I pondered it, the more I came to like it. Now, to see where I could take it.
“I am a vampire,” I said, as though I were talking to a child. “So are you. But I’ve finished the change, while you are still going through it. You didn’t ask to be as you are, but it happened anyway, and now you don’t know what to do. But I do. I can help you, teach you how to survive.”
The boy stared at me. “You’re taking the piss.”
“Do your own eyes deceive you?” I asked, and unfurled my wings.
He yelped in terror, but I kept tight hold of his wrist.
“I told you, don’t fear me. I won’t harm you. Let me help you. I know you have no mentor, nobody to turn to. Have I not saved your life already tonight?”
I pressed the wings against my back until I felt them disappear. Then I released him, but kept my hand out.
“You can call me Jack Ruthven.”
The boy looked at my palm as though it were the jaws of a dangerous animal. But he swallowed – wincing as he did so – and shook it.
“Eddie Anthony,” he said, “apprentice butcher.”
I smiled. “So you are.”
*
I bade Anthony wait for me while I stole back onto Whitechapel Road. There, I quickly spotted a woman leaning against a graffiti-laden wall, bottle of gin in hand. I lingered, shadows concealing me from view, until the thoroughfare became somewhat quieter. Then I lunged.
My hand came down across her mouth, while the other pressed firmly on her neck. She put up a struggle, but I had practiced my craft for too long for her to resist, and she soon fell unconscious. Unseen, I lifted her into my arms, left the bottle to spill its contents across the cobbles, and returned with her to the yard.
Anthony’s eyes widened when he saw her.
“She’s pretty.”
“I didn’t take her for her looks,” I reminded him coldly, and brushed back her hair to expose the throat. “Have you done this before?”
“No.”
“Then listen. You must consume blood, as well as food and water, if you are to survive. Bite here, on the front.”
“Bite?” Anthony withdrew a vicious blade from inside his apron. “But I’ve got this.”
“You don’t need that. Your teeth are sharp enough,” I said.
Anthony let out an inane giggle. The sound grated on my ears, but I allowed myself to see it in a positive light. He was a simpleton; hardly the calibre of vampiric company I’d shared in the past, but I expected as such from the slums. And a fool would be much easier to control than one with the ability to think.
“Watch me first,” I instructed, then pushed my incisors through the woman’s flesh.
A hot spurt of blood filled my mouth. Her memories flashed before my eyes, but I ignored them and swallowed quickly. Then I drew away, with one hand upon the wound to stem the flow, and beckoned Anthony closer. He leapt upon the site without needing to be told.
I sat on my haunches and watched. I heard the woman’s heartbeat slowing, then ceasing completely. Anthony continued drinking until it became too difficult, and reared his head back with a gasp.
“Did you enjoy that?” I asked with a wicked smile.
He seemed unsure about how to answer. It was clear from his glittering eyes that he had, but I saw a flash of fear in them as well, and I couldn’t tell if his hands were shaking from ecstasy or worry.
I gathered the corpse, opened my wings, and flew with it onto the roof of the building. Then I returned to street level and picked up Anthony. He shrieked as his feet left the ground, but I hissed at him to keep quiet.
“Nobody will see us here, nor find that,” I said, nodding my head at the woman. “I’ll dispose of it shortly. Well done. The first is always… well, memorable, I suppose is the correct word.”
Anthony fiddled with a tear on the front of his apron. He had been less tidy than me, and fresh blood shone against the dull brown leather. But it would wash off easily, and care came only with practice. After all, none could not be expected to master table manners as infants, and even more so when they were driven by the urges of a night creature.
“It tasted good,” Anthony admitted, and licked his fingers like a child. “But… won’t I go to Hell now?”
I smirked, shaking my head. “We’re already in Hell. Do you think, if Hell exists, it’s any worse than what you see in front of you?”
Anthony frowned. I wondered if such a philosophical question had ever been put to him before.
“So, what now?” he asked timidly.
“You need to protect yourself, so I can do the same,” I answered. “Keep out of the sun wherever possible. I can’t walk in it; to do so would kill me, but not you. Not yet, anyway.”
“What?”
“Let me explain. I was like you, once. After being bitten, we are called juveniles, while our bodies react to the change. Eventually – it varies from person to person – you go through the final transformation.”
“That’s what happened to you?”
“Yes. Your wings appear, your eyes blacken, your teeth lengthen, so you can turn others, if you please. Your speed will also increase. But it’s not without its weaknesses. No sunlight, of course. And you must never, nor allow anyone else to ever, utter your full name again.”
Anthony’s brow creased. “Why?”
“It will cause you more pain than you care to imagine,” I said.
“Really? So if I said your name, what would happen?” he asked. Then a look of mischief fleeted through his eyes. “Jack Ruthven!”
Nothing happened, as I knew it wouldn’t. However, I still leaned over and struck him hard across the face.
“A fine way to thank the one who just put food in your belly,” I snarled.
Anthony held a hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry…. I didn’t mean… It was just a joke!”
“No, it wasn’t,” I snapped. “But still, isn’t it fortunate that the name I gave you is an alias? What makes you think Jack Ruthven is my true identity, Edward Anthony?”
I spoke with such cold warning that my companion trembled. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to keep this dog in check. As with any pet, all I needed to do was feed it and give it sufficient attention, and it would follow me around with perfect loyalty. And then, when the bodies began to pile up, slaking my thirst as much as his own, he could take the fall for both of us.
I glanced into the street, and watched a policeman wander listlessly by, his truncheon swinging from his hand. Such a long, wonderful way to fall.
I allowed myself to relax, and removed the letters from my pocket, to ensure none had been misplaced. I regarded the handwriting on the yellowed paper, and the numerous postmarks in the corners: Geneva, Venice, Pisa, Ravenna, Kefalonia, and finally, Missolonghi.
“Who’re they from?” asked Anthony in a timid voice.
“His name was George. You wouldn’t know him,” I said.
“They look old.”
“They are. Though not as old as me.”
“What are you on about? You’re only a few years older than I am.”
“So it would seem,” I muttered. “That is another aspect of our nature which will become apparent to you when the end arrives. Time will stop on you. Whether you see that as a blessing or a curse is the only choice you have.”
“Eh? You mean I’ll live forever?”
“In a fashion.”
A stupid grin tightened over Anthony’s brown teeth.
“We’re like God, then? Oh! I can’t believe all this! Tell me I’m dreaming!”
“You might wish yet that it was only a dream,” I said bitterly, and drew back my collar to expose the ring of scar tissue around my neck. When Anthony saw it, he recoiled in shock.
“They caught me once. Hanged me,” I continued. “I’ve lived several lives; been called many names. The first was here, with my brothers. The second, alone, under these streets. The third, before I frequented Highgate Cemetery, was in the west of the city, where I tried to be good. Around that time, I met a remarkable man who became a confidante, even if he could never truly see me. He and a companion saved my life, and allowed me to begin anew. I took the name Ruthven on April 1st, 1819, to honour both of them. These letters are all I have left from that time.”
I ran a finger over the ink on the youngest envelope. The Greek letters below the stamps were as crisp as the day I had received it.
“But they’re both dead now,” I sighed. “Sixty-four years, three months, and nineteen days.”
Anthony blinked. “You remember it to the exact day?”
“Living in the moment is a useful skill,” I replied wistfully.
A part of me wondered why I was bothering to be so open with the simpleton, but I enjoyed listening to my own voice, and knowing that another’s ears heard it. It had been so long since I was able to write, let alone speak, of anything regarding my innermost nature. It was for the sake of my sanity, and I could rest in the knowledge that even if I hadn’t frightened my new pet into submission, none would believe him if he talked. To the outside world, there was no such man as Jack Ruthven. Never had been.
Anthony was a nobody, and I knew that not with some elevated sense of class, but of experience. I had come from the same gutter he did. I understood how the scum of the street were ignored and spat on, even as they begged for help. What I wouldn’t have given, in the days I was naïve, to have a hand – any hand – extended to me. Indeed, when it finally was, it led to the end of everything.
And now Anthony had taken it, too. For as long as he could alleviate my boredom, he belonged to me.
My hand came down across her mouth, while the other pressed firmly on her neck. She put up a struggle, but I had practiced my craft for too long for her to resist, and she soon fell unconscious. Unseen, I lifted her into my arms, left the bottle to spill its contents across the cobbles, and returned with her to the yard.
Anthony’s eyes widened when he saw her.
“She’s pretty.”
“I didn’t take her for her looks,” I reminded him coldly, and brushed back her hair to expose the throat. “Have you done this before?”
“No.”
“Then listen. You must consume blood, as well as food and water, if you are to survive. Bite here, on the front.”
“Bite?” Anthony withdrew a vicious blade from inside his apron. “But I’ve got this.”
“You don’t need that. Your teeth are sharp enough,” I said.
Anthony let out an inane giggle. The sound grated on my ears, but I allowed myself to see it in a positive light. He was a simpleton; hardly the calibre of vampiric company I’d shared in the past, but I expected as such from the slums. And a fool would be much easier to control than one with the ability to think.
“Watch me first,” I instructed, then pushed my incisors through the woman’s flesh.
A hot spurt of blood filled my mouth. Her memories flashed before my eyes, but I ignored them and swallowed quickly. Then I drew away, with one hand upon the wound to stem the flow, and beckoned Anthony closer. He leapt upon the site without needing to be told.
I sat on my haunches and watched. I heard the woman’s heartbeat slowing, then ceasing completely. Anthony continued drinking until it became too difficult, and reared his head back with a gasp.
“Did you enjoy that?” I asked with a wicked smile.
He seemed unsure about how to answer. It was clear from his glittering eyes that he had, but I saw a flash of fear in them as well, and I couldn’t tell if his hands were shaking from ecstasy or worry.
I gathered the corpse, opened my wings, and flew with it onto the roof of the building. Then I returned to street level and picked up Anthony. He shrieked as his feet left the ground, but I hissed at him to keep quiet.
“Nobody will see us here, nor find that,” I said, nodding my head at the woman. “I’ll dispose of it shortly. Well done. The first is always… well, memorable, I suppose is the correct word.”
Anthony fiddled with a tear on the front of his apron. He had been less tidy than me, and fresh blood shone against the dull brown leather. But it would wash off easily, and care came only with practice. After all, none could not be expected to master table manners as infants, and even more so when they were driven by the urges of a night creature.
“It tasted good,” Anthony admitted, and licked his fingers like a child. “But… won’t I go to Hell now?”
I smirked, shaking my head. “We’re already in Hell. Do you think, if Hell exists, it’s any worse than what you see in front of you?”
Anthony frowned. I wondered if such a philosophical question had ever been put to him before.
“So, what now?” he asked timidly.
“You need to protect yourself, so I can do the same,” I answered. “Keep out of the sun wherever possible. I can’t walk in it; to do so would kill me, but not you. Not yet, anyway.”
“What?”
“Let me explain. I was like you, once. After being bitten, we are called juveniles, while our bodies react to the change. Eventually – it varies from person to person – you go through the final transformation.”
“That’s what happened to you?”
“Yes. Your wings appear, your eyes blacken, your teeth lengthen, so you can turn others, if you please. Your speed will also increase. But it’s not without its weaknesses. No sunlight, of course. And you must never, nor allow anyone else to ever, utter your full name again.”
Anthony’s brow creased. “Why?”
“It will cause you more pain than you care to imagine,” I said.
“Really? So if I said your name, what would happen?” he asked. Then a look of mischief fleeted through his eyes. “Jack Ruthven!”
Nothing happened, as I knew it wouldn’t. However, I still leaned over and struck him hard across the face.
“A fine way to thank the one who just put food in your belly,” I snarled.
Anthony held a hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry…. I didn’t mean… It was just a joke!”
“No, it wasn’t,” I snapped. “But still, isn’t it fortunate that the name I gave you is an alias? What makes you think Jack Ruthven is my true identity, Edward Anthony?”
I spoke with such cold warning that my companion trembled. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to keep this dog in check. As with any pet, all I needed to do was feed it and give it sufficient attention, and it would follow me around with perfect loyalty. And then, when the bodies began to pile up, slaking my thirst as much as his own, he could take the fall for both of us.
I glanced into the street, and watched a policeman wander listlessly by, his truncheon swinging from his hand. Such a long, wonderful way to fall.
I allowed myself to relax, and removed the letters from my pocket, to ensure none had been misplaced. I regarded the handwriting on the yellowed paper, and the numerous postmarks in the corners: Geneva, Venice, Pisa, Ravenna, Kefalonia, and finally, Missolonghi.
“Who’re they from?” asked Anthony in a timid voice.
“His name was George. You wouldn’t know him,” I said.
“They look old.”
“They are. Though not as old as me.”
“What are you on about? You’re only a few years older than I am.”
“So it would seem,” I muttered. “That is another aspect of our nature which will become apparent to you when the end arrives. Time will stop on you. Whether you see that as a blessing or a curse is the only choice you have.”
“Eh? You mean I’ll live forever?”
“In a fashion.”
A stupid grin tightened over Anthony’s brown teeth.
“We’re like God, then? Oh! I can’t believe all this! Tell me I’m dreaming!”
“You might wish yet that it was only a dream,” I said bitterly, and drew back my collar to expose the ring of scar tissue around my neck. When Anthony saw it, he recoiled in shock.
“They caught me once. Hanged me,” I continued. “I’ve lived several lives; been called many names. The first was here, with my brothers. The second, alone, under these streets. The third, before I frequented Highgate Cemetery, was in the west of the city, where I tried to be good. Around that time, I met a remarkable man who became a confidante, even if he could never truly see me. He and a companion saved my life, and allowed me to begin anew. I took the name Ruthven on April 1st, 1819, to honour both of them. These letters are all I have left from that time.”
I ran a finger over the ink on the youngest envelope. The Greek letters below the stamps were as crisp as the day I had received it.
“But they’re both dead now,” I sighed. “Sixty-four years, three months, and nineteen days.”
Anthony blinked. “You remember it to the exact day?”
“Living in the moment is a useful skill,” I replied wistfully.
A part of me wondered why I was bothering to be so open with the simpleton, but I enjoyed listening to my own voice, and knowing that another’s ears heard it. It had been so long since I was able to write, let alone speak, of anything regarding my innermost nature. It was for the sake of my sanity, and I could rest in the knowledge that even if I hadn’t frightened my new pet into submission, none would believe him if he talked. To the outside world, there was no such man as Jack Ruthven. Never had been.
Anthony was a nobody, and I knew that not with some elevated sense of class, but of experience. I had come from the same gutter he did. I understood how the scum of the street were ignored and spat on, even as they begged for help. What I wouldn’t have given, in the days I was naïve, to have a hand – any hand – extended to me. Indeed, when it finally was, it led to the end of everything.
And now Anthony had taken it, too. For as long as he could alleviate my boredom, he belonged to me.
*
August drew on. Rain hurled itself upon the city in torrents. Streets became rivers, and the stink of the slums rose so headily, I could scarcely bear to step outside. I concealed myself in an abandoned attic on Dorset Street, laid among the dust and rotten crates, and listened. So much noise: carriages, footsteps, cock fights, yowling cats, drunkards and bangtails staggering about. I almost wished for the pitiful hearing of my human youth.
Through a tiny crack in the roof slates, I watched a red dusk; imagined the light was blood flowing on a course through the whole of London. My disgusting, terrible, beloved city. I had no belief in good and evil beyond constructs of the human mind, but she was such a curious mixture of them, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Such filth, promise, poverty and luxury, side by side and hand in hand. She was the epitome of all life; an ever-spinning wheel, laid out in stone.
I saw Charley and Oliver’s faces in my mind. Poor and sad we might have been, but at least we’d had each other. Then my memory morphed them, made them ten years older, when I’d found them again after crawling out of my prison. They hadn’t recognised me at first, and when they did, they realised what I had become. Charley had drawn a knife and stabbed me in the stomach, and thus I learned how conventional methods were useless for killing me. Nevertheless, I’d lingered, watching them as best I could, until they were driven into a filthy workhouse. Then typhus had swept through like a fire, and left me alone once again in the unforgiving world.
I thought of the catacombs beneath the cobbles: the twisting network of old sewer systems and forgotten chambers which had been my own Hell. No light, no air, no company. I had become as the animals down there.
I wondered, did a section of the tunnels run under the very house I now sat in? Where was my old cell in relation to this place?
I chased the notion away. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I would walk among the human rats here, but never again would I go looking for that place of horrors.
I needed distraction. As evening drew in, I left the attic, wandered a street market and pocketed a loaf. I had honed my thievery skills as a child. My brothers had always sent me after dandies, to swipe their wallets and handkerchiefs. Even after all this time, my fingers hadn’t lost their deftness.
I walked off with practised nonchalance, ate half of the bread, then used a coin to purchase a glass of beer. It was cheap stuff and almost made me gag, but in its way, it continued to provide a hint of nostalgia. Alcohol was safer than water in these parts. Always had been.
I sat at the bar, smelling the blood all around me, until after midnight. Then I exited and met Anthony on the corner of Whitechapel Road. To my amusement, he was still wearing his butcher’s apron.
I tossed him the second half of the loaf. He tore it apart with his teeth, narrowly missing taking a bite out of his own blistered hand. His eyes wandered towards mine, bright red, the pupils dilated. He needed to drink.
“Let’s go hunting,” I smiled. “I’ll do the work, alright?”
He nodded, still stuffing bread into his mouth.
“You’ve stayed out of the sun?”
“Yes. It bloody hurts.”
“As I warned,” I replied curtly. “Now, stay behind me, and when I say, draw the shadows around yourself, like I’ve taught you. And, mark me, not a sound.”
He nodded again. Satisfied, I led him away, into the dark passageways where no lamps burned. As usual, I saw perfectly well: the lights from elsewhere in the East End lit the low clouds putrid orange, until the entire sky seemed like the echo of some distant inferno. If my little pet still held any reservations about us being in Hell, he was about to lose them.
I noticed a drunk whore wandering down a street, black velvet bonnet drawn tight around her face. Perfect.
I immediately pushed Anthony into the mouth of an alleyway. The whore slumped against a wall and let out a stream of indecipherable mumbles.
To my surprise, I recognised her. She was the one who had approached me a few weeks ago, and she was singing the same song. Her voice was terrible, but it struck a chord with me, and I couldn’t help but listen. A curious part of me wanted to hear the entire ditty.
“How cold the wind does blow, true love; how gently drops the rain.
I never had but one sweetheart, and in cold grave he was lain.
I’ll do as much for my sweetheart, as any a young girl may.
I would sit and mourn all on his grave, for a twelvemonth and a day.
And a twelvemonth and day did pass; the ghost did rise and speak.
Oh, who sits upon my grave, and will not let me sleep?
‘Tis I, ‘tis I, your one true love, for a twelvemonth and a day.
One kiss from your dear lips, sweetheart; one kiss is all I pray.
My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long.
'Twas down in Cupid's Garden, where you and I would walk.
The fairest flower that ever I saw has withered to a stalk.
The stalk is withered dry, sweetheart; the flower will ne'er return.
And since I lost my one true love, what can I do but mourn?
When will we meet again, sweetheart? When will we meet again?
When the autumn leaves that fall from trees
Are green and spring up again.”
I stood as though struck. I had never heard that song before, but it twisted my stomach. Had a vampire written it? I wouldn’t be surprised. Those lyrics…
Another woman spotted her and approached. She tutted loudly and tried to help her up. I gritted my teeth. Miss Black Bonnet was easy meat, but I needed her to not be the centre of attention. I needed her alone.
“Honestly,” the second woman groaned. “Come on, girl. Get back to your doss.”
The first whore gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Can’t. I ain’t got enough. I have had my lodging money three times today, and I have spent it!”
From the state of her, I didn’t need to ponder what she had used her coins for.
The second woman shook her head pitifully. “Well, mind how you go, Polly. Alright?”
The two walked in opposite directions, and my heart softened with relief. I tapped Anthony’s wrist. It was time to move.
We tailed Miss Black Bonnet to Buck’s Row, and, finding the street empty, I pounced. As I had in the past, I pressed on her neck until she fell unconscious, then laid her down on the pavement and motioned for Anthony.
He watched with macabre glee as I made the first bite. The whore shrieked, but I quickly muffled it with my hand. When I had taken my fill, I shuffled back and let my pet follow suit.
Then, to my alarm, he withdrew the knife he’d shown me when we had first met.
“What the Hell’s that for?” I asked.
“I want to have some fun,” said Anthony. “Can I? Please. I haven’t been able to do any work in weeks because of this vampire stuff. I miss it.”
I wrinkled my nose in revulsion, but a small part of me conceded. Why not? She was dead. There was nobody else around. And hadn’t I taken a semblance of joy in speaking about the vampiric nature after so long? I could allow him this, if it brought him some pleasure, and helped him continue believing I was his friend. There would be plenty of time to weight the corpse with stones and sink it to the bottom of the river.
“Don’t dally about it,” I warned. I stood up and turned my attention to my senses: looking, smelling, and listening for signs of approaching people.
Anthony gave another obscene giggle. Behind me, I heard cloth ripping, followed by the characteristic slice of metal through flesh. I was hardly averse to gruesome matters, but I still grimaced when I caught the scent.
Then, after a couple of minutes, came another sound. Footsteps, at the far end of the street.
“Time to go,” I whispered.
“Wait!” cried Anthony. “I’m not done!”
I turned around, and staggered on the spot. The level of mutilation stunned me. He had sliced the woman’s throat to the bone, and opened her abdomen; her steaming bowels spilled out of the wounds.
I grabbed Anthony by the collar and tossed him away.
“Hide!” I hissed. “Quickly! Go!”
“What’s going on over there?” a man’s voice called.
I cursed under my breath. I went to pick up the body, but it was too late. The man would see me. I had to leave it.
With a snarl of anger, I leapt after Anthony, pulling the shadows down like a cloak in mid-step. I sprang to his side and pressed my hand over his mouth. The man approached, looked around – his eyes passed directly over where we stood, but saw nothing, save for the grimy bricks around us. Believing us lost, he returned to the woman, and yelped in horror.
As soon as his back was turned, I hauled Anthony down a passageway, flung out my wings, and flew away with him. I landed on a roof, half a mile from the scene.
I narrowed my eyes. My mental grip seized him and he stumbled against a chimney stack, pinned in place.
“You damn idiot!” I growled.
“It’s fine!” Anthony insisted. “Bangtails get found around these parts all the time.”
I took him by the throat.
“I know. I was walking over their corpses before you were even born, boy. But that’s not the point. They don’t get found like that. She shouldn’t have been found like that. She should be under the Thames right now!”
“Oh, come on, Ruthven!” Anthony groaned. “Give a man a little leeway. There’s an artistry to it.”
“Artistry? Really?”
“Let me have this. Fine, we should have moved her somewhere less open, or something, I don’t know. You’re the expert. But let me do what I want, before you toss them in the river. Please.”
I didn’t blink. I brought my face so close to his, our noses touched.
“Do not give me reason to regret helping you, Anthony,” I said. “I take as kindly to that as I do to boredom. I’ll allow you to have your fun, if that’s what you want to call it, but not to the extent of putting us both in danger. I won’t be sent back to the noose on account of you. And don’t you dare implicate either of us in this. Do you understand?”
He shied away nervously, and nodded.
Without another word, I spread my wings and flew him to the riverbank, so he could wash the blood off himself. Then I left him to make his way back to his dosshouse, and retreated to my attic.
I let out a frustrated sigh. It was just my luck that I’d come by a lunatic. Having an imbecile at my side was fine, but was it too much to find one with at least a semblance of brains? Not enough to think, but enough to be sensible?
I refused to let it sour my meal. This whole affair was unfortunate, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I had lived through too much to allow the simple matter of a body to unsettle me. And we were in Whitechapel, after all. Anthony had been correct about one thing. Corpses were nothing new around this place.
Nevertheless, I endeavoured to keep a closer eye on him next time. It didn’t matter that I intended for him to take the fall. If he brought that fall upon himself in the space of a few weeks, I could hardly claim to have made a success of my idea.
Seeking distraction, and a little reassurance, I dug into one of the abandoned trunks. At the bottom, I had hidden the stack of letters. I slid the topmost one free. Missolonghi, April, 1824.
Dear Jack,
These are strange times. I have been granted the Freedom of the City – an honour, though I can scarcely find pleasure in it, amid more requests for money – and quelling uprisings which are as infuriating as they are ineffectual. In addition, my health has been lacking. After my illness – whereupon physicians were liberal in their application of the leeches – I am drained and inactive. I apologise if my hand is less legible than in previous correspondence, my friend. I am in great pain. I should not care for dying, but I cannot bear these pains. A cloud lingers on my mind’s horizon, and the more I observe it, the closer it draws to me. I cannot say if – or when – it shall dissipate.
Jack, I remember you with fondness – though I am now more certain than ever that we shall not meet again. Perhaps, if there is a place of exaltation beyond this life, I may find a way to inform you of it, though I hope you will never experience its touch. Your world is this one, for all time. Continue and endure as I know you can – ever-young, ever-resourceful, the spring shoot which grows amid the fallen leaves of autumn. This is your choice: to live, and not live in vain.
Affectionately with shadow,
Byron.
Through a tiny crack in the roof slates, I watched a red dusk; imagined the light was blood flowing on a course through the whole of London. My disgusting, terrible, beloved city. I had no belief in good and evil beyond constructs of the human mind, but she was such a curious mixture of them, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Such filth, promise, poverty and luxury, side by side and hand in hand. She was the epitome of all life; an ever-spinning wheel, laid out in stone.
I saw Charley and Oliver’s faces in my mind. Poor and sad we might have been, but at least we’d had each other. Then my memory morphed them, made them ten years older, when I’d found them again after crawling out of my prison. They hadn’t recognised me at first, and when they did, they realised what I had become. Charley had drawn a knife and stabbed me in the stomach, and thus I learned how conventional methods were useless for killing me. Nevertheless, I’d lingered, watching them as best I could, until they were driven into a filthy workhouse. Then typhus had swept through like a fire, and left me alone once again in the unforgiving world.
I thought of the catacombs beneath the cobbles: the twisting network of old sewer systems and forgotten chambers which had been my own Hell. No light, no air, no company. I had become as the animals down there.
I wondered, did a section of the tunnels run under the very house I now sat in? Where was my old cell in relation to this place?
I chased the notion away. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I would walk among the human rats here, but never again would I go looking for that place of horrors.
I needed distraction. As evening drew in, I left the attic, wandered a street market and pocketed a loaf. I had honed my thievery skills as a child. My brothers had always sent me after dandies, to swipe their wallets and handkerchiefs. Even after all this time, my fingers hadn’t lost their deftness.
I walked off with practised nonchalance, ate half of the bread, then used a coin to purchase a glass of beer. It was cheap stuff and almost made me gag, but in its way, it continued to provide a hint of nostalgia. Alcohol was safer than water in these parts. Always had been.
I sat at the bar, smelling the blood all around me, until after midnight. Then I exited and met Anthony on the corner of Whitechapel Road. To my amusement, he was still wearing his butcher’s apron.
I tossed him the second half of the loaf. He tore it apart with his teeth, narrowly missing taking a bite out of his own blistered hand. His eyes wandered towards mine, bright red, the pupils dilated. He needed to drink.
“Let’s go hunting,” I smiled. “I’ll do the work, alright?”
He nodded, still stuffing bread into his mouth.
“You’ve stayed out of the sun?”
“Yes. It bloody hurts.”
“As I warned,” I replied curtly. “Now, stay behind me, and when I say, draw the shadows around yourself, like I’ve taught you. And, mark me, not a sound.”
He nodded again. Satisfied, I led him away, into the dark passageways where no lamps burned. As usual, I saw perfectly well: the lights from elsewhere in the East End lit the low clouds putrid orange, until the entire sky seemed like the echo of some distant inferno. If my little pet still held any reservations about us being in Hell, he was about to lose them.
I noticed a drunk whore wandering down a street, black velvet bonnet drawn tight around her face. Perfect.
I immediately pushed Anthony into the mouth of an alleyway. The whore slumped against a wall and let out a stream of indecipherable mumbles.
To my surprise, I recognised her. She was the one who had approached me a few weeks ago, and she was singing the same song. Her voice was terrible, but it struck a chord with me, and I couldn’t help but listen. A curious part of me wanted to hear the entire ditty.
“How cold the wind does blow, true love; how gently drops the rain.
I never had but one sweetheart, and in cold grave he was lain.
I’ll do as much for my sweetheart, as any a young girl may.
I would sit and mourn all on his grave, for a twelvemonth and a day.
And a twelvemonth and day did pass; the ghost did rise and speak.
Oh, who sits upon my grave, and will not let me sleep?
‘Tis I, ‘tis I, your one true love, for a twelvemonth and a day.
One kiss from your dear lips, sweetheart; one kiss is all I pray.
My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long.
'Twas down in Cupid's Garden, where you and I would walk.
The fairest flower that ever I saw has withered to a stalk.
The stalk is withered dry, sweetheart; the flower will ne'er return.
And since I lost my one true love, what can I do but mourn?
When will we meet again, sweetheart? When will we meet again?
When the autumn leaves that fall from trees
Are green and spring up again.”
I stood as though struck. I had never heard that song before, but it twisted my stomach. Had a vampire written it? I wouldn’t be surprised. Those lyrics…
Another woman spotted her and approached. She tutted loudly and tried to help her up. I gritted my teeth. Miss Black Bonnet was easy meat, but I needed her to not be the centre of attention. I needed her alone.
“Honestly,” the second woman groaned. “Come on, girl. Get back to your doss.”
The first whore gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Can’t. I ain’t got enough. I have had my lodging money three times today, and I have spent it!”
From the state of her, I didn’t need to ponder what she had used her coins for.
The second woman shook her head pitifully. “Well, mind how you go, Polly. Alright?”
The two walked in opposite directions, and my heart softened with relief. I tapped Anthony’s wrist. It was time to move.
We tailed Miss Black Bonnet to Buck’s Row, and, finding the street empty, I pounced. As I had in the past, I pressed on her neck until she fell unconscious, then laid her down on the pavement and motioned for Anthony.
He watched with macabre glee as I made the first bite. The whore shrieked, but I quickly muffled it with my hand. When I had taken my fill, I shuffled back and let my pet follow suit.
Then, to my alarm, he withdrew the knife he’d shown me when we had first met.
“What the Hell’s that for?” I asked.
“I want to have some fun,” said Anthony. “Can I? Please. I haven’t been able to do any work in weeks because of this vampire stuff. I miss it.”
I wrinkled my nose in revulsion, but a small part of me conceded. Why not? She was dead. There was nobody else around. And hadn’t I taken a semblance of joy in speaking about the vampiric nature after so long? I could allow him this, if it brought him some pleasure, and helped him continue believing I was his friend. There would be plenty of time to weight the corpse with stones and sink it to the bottom of the river.
“Don’t dally about it,” I warned. I stood up and turned my attention to my senses: looking, smelling, and listening for signs of approaching people.
Anthony gave another obscene giggle. Behind me, I heard cloth ripping, followed by the characteristic slice of metal through flesh. I was hardly averse to gruesome matters, but I still grimaced when I caught the scent.
Then, after a couple of minutes, came another sound. Footsteps, at the far end of the street.
“Time to go,” I whispered.
“Wait!” cried Anthony. “I’m not done!”
I turned around, and staggered on the spot. The level of mutilation stunned me. He had sliced the woman’s throat to the bone, and opened her abdomen; her steaming bowels spilled out of the wounds.
I grabbed Anthony by the collar and tossed him away.
“Hide!” I hissed. “Quickly! Go!”
“What’s going on over there?” a man’s voice called.
I cursed under my breath. I went to pick up the body, but it was too late. The man would see me. I had to leave it.
With a snarl of anger, I leapt after Anthony, pulling the shadows down like a cloak in mid-step. I sprang to his side and pressed my hand over his mouth. The man approached, looked around – his eyes passed directly over where we stood, but saw nothing, save for the grimy bricks around us. Believing us lost, he returned to the woman, and yelped in horror.
As soon as his back was turned, I hauled Anthony down a passageway, flung out my wings, and flew away with him. I landed on a roof, half a mile from the scene.
I narrowed my eyes. My mental grip seized him and he stumbled against a chimney stack, pinned in place.
“You damn idiot!” I growled.
“It’s fine!” Anthony insisted. “Bangtails get found around these parts all the time.”
I took him by the throat.
“I know. I was walking over their corpses before you were even born, boy. But that’s not the point. They don’t get found like that. She shouldn’t have been found like that. She should be under the Thames right now!”
“Oh, come on, Ruthven!” Anthony groaned. “Give a man a little leeway. There’s an artistry to it.”
“Artistry? Really?”
“Let me have this. Fine, we should have moved her somewhere less open, or something, I don’t know. You’re the expert. But let me do what I want, before you toss them in the river. Please.”
I didn’t blink. I brought my face so close to his, our noses touched.
“Do not give me reason to regret helping you, Anthony,” I said. “I take as kindly to that as I do to boredom. I’ll allow you to have your fun, if that’s what you want to call it, but not to the extent of putting us both in danger. I won’t be sent back to the noose on account of you. And don’t you dare implicate either of us in this. Do you understand?”
He shied away nervously, and nodded.
Without another word, I spread my wings and flew him to the riverbank, so he could wash the blood off himself. Then I left him to make his way back to his dosshouse, and retreated to my attic.
I let out a frustrated sigh. It was just my luck that I’d come by a lunatic. Having an imbecile at my side was fine, but was it too much to find one with at least a semblance of brains? Not enough to think, but enough to be sensible?
I refused to let it sour my meal. This whole affair was unfortunate, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I had lived through too much to allow the simple matter of a body to unsettle me. And we were in Whitechapel, after all. Anthony had been correct about one thing. Corpses were nothing new around this place.
Nevertheless, I endeavoured to keep a closer eye on him next time. It didn’t matter that I intended for him to take the fall. If he brought that fall upon himself in the space of a few weeks, I could hardly claim to have made a success of my idea.
Seeking distraction, and a little reassurance, I dug into one of the abandoned trunks. At the bottom, I had hidden the stack of letters. I slid the topmost one free. Missolonghi, April, 1824.
Dear Jack,
These are strange times. I have been granted the Freedom of the City – an honour, though I can scarcely find pleasure in it, amid more requests for money – and quelling uprisings which are as infuriating as they are ineffectual. In addition, my health has been lacking. After my illness – whereupon physicians were liberal in their application of the leeches – I am drained and inactive. I apologise if my hand is less legible than in previous correspondence, my friend. I am in great pain. I should not care for dying, but I cannot bear these pains. A cloud lingers on my mind’s horizon, and the more I observe it, the closer it draws to me. I cannot say if – or when – it shall dissipate.
Jack, I remember you with fondness – though I am now more certain than ever that we shall not meet again. Perhaps, if there is a place of exaltation beyond this life, I may find a way to inform you of it, though I hope you will never experience its touch. Your world is this one, for all time. Continue and endure as I know you can – ever-young, ever-resourceful, the spring shoot which grows amid the fallen leaves of autumn. This is your choice: to live, and not live in vain.
Affectionately with shadow,
Byron.
*
To my horror, any hope I might have had of the murder passing quietly by were dashed. After a week in the attic, leaving only to pick some money from the richer folks, I took myself to a pub for a warm meal. I didn’t wish to hazard a guess as to the origin of the stew I was served, or indeed, what animal it had come from. In any case, it held the texture of old shoe leather, and tasted no better.
I could have sought more pleasant food and company, but nerves dragged themselves through my belly like claws. I wanted to listen, and hear how the news had impacted Whitechapel. I took a swig of beer, and let my eyes wander about the stinking room.
Another poster for Macbeth hung on the far wall. I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw it; recalled the ironic cry:
“Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!”
I didn’t have to wait long before the gossip began. With an indifference which I had spent a century perfecting, I turned my head a little closer to the bar.
“Terrible, what happened to that bangtail. Who was she again?”
“Polly Nichols, what I heard. Probably just her boys.”
“I don’t think so. She was done not three hundred yards from those other two. That’s three of them now. Three this year. I reckon it’s the same fella doing them all in.”
“Leather Apron, they’re calling him. They think it’s a slaughterer, or someone of that ilk, to have made cuts like that…”
“Oh, that’s not what they’re saying down Spitalfields way. I heard them calling him Jack the Ripper.”
My spoon froze halfway to my lips. I hurriedly recovered, and shovelled the disgusting meat into my mouth before anyone could notice my pause.
Anthony, that little bastard! Had he let slip my name? Jack Ruthven, now Jack the Ripper?
I tried to talk some sense into myself. What did it matter? I didn’t exist, and Jack was common enough. There were probably five others called Jack in this very pub. It wouldn’t be literal. Just something coined by the press to stir up sensationalism…
I finished my meal, washed it down with the remainder of my beer, and headed into the street. Miles away, I heard the distant ring of Big Ben. Four o’clock in the morning.
As I walked, mutterings filled my ears. Whores walked together like gaggles of geese, as though numbers might protect them. Word of the murder was on everyone’s lips. It unsettled me. For decades, I’d been doing this: kidnapping, killing… The last time I’d not been careful, I had ended up standing on the platform at Newgate Prison with a noose around my neck.
I touched my scar; remembered the burn as the rope bit into my skin. The drop had only been a couple of feet. I’d hung there for minutes, unable to breathe, yet unable to die…
I needed to have a firm talk with my pet. If he insisted on playing with his food, then he could at least do it somewhere out of sight.
I passed his dosshouse and sniffed. I cut through the dirt and blood of those around me, trying to pick out the scent of the venom in his system. But it wasn’t there.
I inhaled again, deeper. Then I caught a hint of it, albeit faint. Anthony hadn’t been here for several hours.
I wanted to take to the air, so I could move quicker, but decided against it. He would have walked. If I kept to street-level, it would be easier to follow the scent. Nevertheless, I shadowed myself and slipped unseen through the alleys. It wasn’t true invisibility, but surrounded by darkness, human eyes fleeted over me as though I were only a part of the surroundings. There was no need to pay attention to me. I was nobody, nothing; at most, a flicker one might spot out of the corner of his eye.
The trail led onto Hanbury Street, and immediately became stronger. Anthony was close.
I pressed myself against a wall to avoid a meat cart. It flung mud into my face from the wheels. A nearby clock chimed the half hour.
The scent suddenly overwhelmed me, and I turned around. On the other side of the street, I spotted Anthony, dressed in the long dark overcoat which he had worn on the night I found him. He was talking to a woman – I could tell from the state of her dress that she was another whore.
“Will you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
With that, she opened a door and the two disappeared inside.
I frowned. What was he doing? I had only taken him to drink a week ago. He wouldn’t need any more blood for another month. And something told me he was not intending to solicit her regular services.
I pushed out my wings, leapt off the ground, and rose above the building. At once, I spotted the two of them in a yard at the rear. The woman was on her back, Anthony bent over her, his mouth at her throat. The knife glinted in his hand.
I dropped from the sky and snatched his shoulder. He whirled on me, blade keen, but I glanced at it and sent it flying from his hand.
“What the Hell are you doing?” I demanded.
He looked up with his one focused eye. The other rolled in his skull, as though it were made of glass. Blood covered his chin and chest in a hot red smear. Never mind that it wasn’t necessary for me to partake, either; the scent almost overpowered me.
“Just having some fun, Ruthven,” pouted Anthony. “You said you’d give me this!”
“You need to curb your fun,” I snapped. “Did you talk?”
“No…”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t! They’re just all being stupid!”
“You are the stupid one here! Haven’t you heard what people are saying? There’s absolutely no need for this!”
“But I want to!” Anthony argued. “Let me have this!”
I shook my head. “Leave her be, and I’ll take a trip to the river before sunrise. Get out of the way!”
Before I could grab him, he leapt at me with such speed, I was caught off guard. He pushed me and my head slammed against the fence. Stars burst before my eyes.
I smelled blood; the sickly-sweet smell of warm flesh. Too warm. The kind of warmth which could only come from innards. I thought I might be inside a butcher’s shop, or a slaughterhouse… or an underground chamber…
I tried to fight, but my own mind pulled me down. I was running – though not through streets this time, seeking my brothers. No, now I was back in that maze of cells; naked, filthy, furious. I was an animal on the hunt, and my quarry were fleeing in terror. Those bastards who had taken me, turned me… I was free of my captivity, and they knew what they had unleashed…
I heard screams. Were they my own, or the beasts I intended to tear apart? It was impossible to tell.
And then, suddenly, I was falling. The noose cut into my neck. I heard the roar of the crowd outside Newgate, and it turned into the roar of blood in my ears, as I plunged seventy feet towards the ground. I intended to kill myself by leaping from a building, but it didn't work. Instead, I found myself in a lavish house, and two men were standing over me. One spoke in a voice like velvet.
“Forget eternity. It will only arrive one minute at a time.”
I frowned. “George?”
I heard the sound of tearing meat. I opened my eyes, and saw a squalid yard; the branches of a tree overhead. I was still dazed, and my head smarted with pain, but lucidity swam back to me, and I looked around.
Anthony was on his feet, twirling like a lunatic, knife outstretched. His face and hands were painted with blood.
“I finished this time!” he giggled. “Look, Ruthven! I’ve made such art!”
I peered at the body, and drew in a gasp. Were I of a weaker disposition, I might have fainted at what lay before me. The woman was eviscerated, her bowels upon her shoulders, and her throat cut so deeply that I could see her vertebrae.
“It’s pretty!” laughed Anthony, licking his lips. “Like God! Even He couldn’t have done better! Not at all!”
I used the wall to haul myself to my feet. Blood had spattered the panels, and came away on my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes at Anthony, and pushed outwards. He immediately fell down, with such force, his temple slammed against the property steps, and he lay unconscious.
I stood there for a moment, perplexed. I glanced between him and the corpse. Such violence… What was wrong with him? This was his idea of fun? Even to the extent of doing it when he didn’t need to drink?
I heard movement inside the building. A snarl of frustration rolled in my throat, but it quickly gave way to horror. We were trapped here. I couldn’t shadow all three of us, nor carry more than one away from the scene.
In a fraction of a second, I made the decision, and snatched Anthony. I flew as fast as I could towards the river, deposited him out of sight, tore a handkerchief from his pocket and thrust it in his mouth for good measure. Then I leapt back into the air and returned to the yard.
This was getting ridiculous. What hope did I have if I couldn’t control him?
I knew, before I even reached the building, that the body had been discovered. I cursed under my breath and went to leave, but the gossip of the evening lingered on my mind. I had a little time yet before sunrise. I could afford to listen in, and hear from the horse’s mouth what they suspected. How close they might be to the truth.
Then I smelled something else, which made my hair stand on end. More venom. But it wasn’t Anthony’s. It was stronger than that, more mature. Not the scent of a juvenile, but of a full vampire. And not one like me. It was the same scent I had first smelled upon George, so long ago.
I landed on the roof, so I could peer down from above. Several police officers were crouched around the body, lanterns in hand. People craned their heads from windows and neighbouring yards. Some exclaimed as a white sheet was brought out to shield the woman from view.
“Oh, come on! Let us see it!” a man moaned.
Despite everything, I rolled my eyes. What a typical response from around these parts. It reminded me somewhat of the baying crowd which had awaited me when I stepped onto the Newgate scaffold, as though I were a player in some Shakespearean tragedy. Macabre sights were entertainment, after all.
As softly as I could, I sniffed. The other vampire was there, somewhere, and his senses would be just as keen as my own. I needed to tread carefully, in case he realised I was close. And I couldn’t remain for long. The sky was beginning to lighten. I only had a few minutes.
“Do we know who she is?” asked the nearest officer.
“Annie Chapman.”
“Did she have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of. Where’s Inspector Abberline?”
In response, a middle-aged man with a dark beard and moustache stepped forward. He bent down beside the woman.
My grip tightened on the roof edge. It was him.
“You’re sure it’s the same one who did Nichols?” asked another officer.
Abberline nodded. “Looks like it. Similar pattern. But he’s been more meticulous this time, placing the organs in such a way. And it looks like some are missing.”
The first offer’s face paled. “Missing?”
“I can’t be sure. We’ll have to pass her over to an expert to confirm,” Abberline said. “In any case, this place is more secluded than where Nichols was done. I think he had more time. Have the constables found anything else?”
“There was a scrap of leather. Could be from an apron of some kind.”
“Let me see it.”
My stomach flipped with nerves. One of the inspectors was like me? Could there have been a worse scenario? He would be able to sniff me out – both figuratively and literally – in a way that no human officer could.
I couldn’t stay. I crept from sight, then threw out my wings and flew away as fast as possible. I didn’t dare stop or look back. I knew Abberline couldn’t follow me now, not in the middle of the scene as he was, but I took no chances.
I slipped into the attic just as the sun kissed the horizon. I heard nobody inside the building. Overcome with rage, I kicked at the boxes, crushed them to splinters and tossed them about the room. When I was spent, I collapsed against the wall.
The woman’s blood streaked my fingers. Anthony’s was still upon my coat. I pressed the tip of my tongue to it, and tasted venom. The blood of a fellow vampire was unpalatable, but I still caught a flash of memory.
Anthony was an orphan, as I had been… Thrown out of the workhouse for attacking two people with a blade… When he became a butcher’s apprentice, he’d taken knives to the carcasses needlessly; ruined a whole side of pig… Harassed women in the street… He had been turned by one of them in vengeance… And more than being an imbecile, he was mad.
Thoughts raced through my mind. He was out of control. And he was stronger than I’d given him credit for, being able to overpower me like that. What was to stop him from doing it again, or disregarding my orders altogether?
What was I going to do? I could kill him, of course… As soon as the sun set, I would go to his dosshouse, drag him away and crush the life out of him. Then, as I had for so long, I would weight his body with rocks and drop it into the Thames. That river was filled with bodies, many of them from me. What was one more for the fishes to feast upon?
But I paused. The whole point of taking Anthony under my wing was so he’d fall for both of us. I hadn’t intended for it to be within the space of a month, though what did that matter? He had set himself on a path of destruction already. All I’d done was tell him what he was. Those women would likely have died no matter how I tried to intervene.
The answer came to me in a flash of both panic and perfect clarity. I needed to let him be feral. Chaos would ensue, and bring all eyes upon this place, upon him, just as I’d planned. And while they were turned away from me, I’d slip into the shadows like a rat. I could learn from my mistakes and begin again, with another frightened little juvenile, who would be much easier to subdue.
But not here. What Anthony had done was too much. London would remain haunted for years by the whispers of the Ripper. It was no longer safe. And, I realised, my boredom hadn’t come from a lack of activity, but disillusionment with the place. I had walked every single street of this city. I knew it like the back of my hand.
But if I left, and abandoned the capital, where then, would I go?
I could have sought more pleasant food and company, but nerves dragged themselves through my belly like claws. I wanted to listen, and hear how the news had impacted Whitechapel. I took a swig of beer, and let my eyes wander about the stinking room.
Another poster for Macbeth hung on the far wall. I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw it; recalled the ironic cry:
“Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!”
I didn’t have to wait long before the gossip began. With an indifference which I had spent a century perfecting, I turned my head a little closer to the bar.
“Terrible, what happened to that bangtail. Who was she again?”
“Polly Nichols, what I heard. Probably just her boys.”
“I don’t think so. She was done not three hundred yards from those other two. That’s three of them now. Three this year. I reckon it’s the same fella doing them all in.”
“Leather Apron, they’re calling him. They think it’s a slaughterer, or someone of that ilk, to have made cuts like that…”
“Oh, that’s not what they’re saying down Spitalfields way. I heard them calling him Jack the Ripper.”
My spoon froze halfway to my lips. I hurriedly recovered, and shovelled the disgusting meat into my mouth before anyone could notice my pause.
Anthony, that little bastard! Had he let slip my name? Jack Ruthven, now Jack the Ripper?
I tried to talk some sense into myself. What did it matter? I didn’t exist, and Jack was common enough. There were probably five others called Jack in this very pub. It wouldn’t be literal. Just something coined by the press to stir up sensationalism…
I finished my meal, washed it down with the remainder of my beer, and headed into the street. Miles away, I heard the distant ring of Big Ben. Four o’clock in the morning.
As I walked, mutterings filled my ears. Whores walked together like gaggles of geese, as though numbers might protect them. Word of the murder was on everyone’s lips. It unsettled me. For decades, I’d been doing this: kidnapping, killing… The last time I’d not been careful, I had ended up standing on the platform at Newgate Prison with a noose around my neck.
I touched my scar; remembered the burn as the rope bit into my skin. The drop had only been a couple of feet. I’d hung there for minutes, unable to breathe, yet unable to die…
I needed to have a firm talk with my pet. If he insisted on playing with his food, then he could at least do it somewhere out of sight.
I passed his dosshouse and sniffed. I cut through the dirt and blood of those around me, trying to pick out the scent of the venom in his system. But it wasn’t there.
I inhaled again, deeper. Then I caught a hint of it, albeit faint. Anthony hadn’t been here for several hours.
I wanted to take to the air, so I could move quicker, but decided against it. He would have walked. If I kept to street-level, it would be easier to follow the scent. Nevertheless, I shadowed myself and slipped unseen through the alleys. It wasn’t true invisibility, but surrounded by darkness, human eyes fleeted over me as though I were only a part of the surroundings. There was no need to pay attention to me. I was nobody, nothing; at most, a flicker one might spot out of the corner of his eye.
The trail led onto Hanbury Street, and immediately became stronger. Anthony was close.
I pressed myself against a wall to avoid a meat cart. It flung mud into my face from the wheels. A nearby clock chimed the half hour.
The scent suddenly overwhelmed me, and I turned around. On the other side of the street, I spotted Anthony, dressed in the long dark overcoat which he had worn on the night I found him. He was talking to a woman – I could tell from the state of her dress that she was another whore.
“Will you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
With that, she opened a door and the two disappeared inside.
I frowned. What was he doing? I had only taken him to drink a week ago. He wouldn’t need any more blood for another month. And something told me he was not intending to solicit her regular services.
I pushed out my wings, leapt off the ground, and rose above the building. At once, I spotted the two of them in a yard at the rear. The woman was on her back, Anthony bent over her, his mouth at her throat. The knife glinted in his hand.
I dropped from the sky and snatched his shoulder. He whirled on me, blade keen, but I glanced at it and sent it flying from his hand.
“What the Hell are you doing?” I demanded.
He looked up with his one focused eye. The other rolled in his skull, as though it were made of glass. Blood covered his chin and chest in a hot red smear. Never mind that it wasn’t necessary for me to partake, either; the scent almost overpowered me.
“Just having some fun, Ruthven,” pouted Anthony. “You said you’d give me this!”
“You need to curb your fun,” I snapped. “Did you talk?”
“No…”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t! They’re just all being stupid!”
“You are the stupid one here! Haven’t you heard what people are saying? There’s absolutely no need for this!”
“But I want to!” Anthony argued. “Let me have this!”
I shook my head. “Leave her be, and I’ll take a trip to the river before sunrise. Get out of the way!”
Before I could grab him, he leapt at me with such speed, I was caught off guard. He pushed me and my head slammed against the fence. Stars burst before my eyes.
I smelled blood; the sickly-sweet smell of warm flesh. Too warm. The kind of warmth which could only come from innards. I thought I might be inside a butcher’s shop, or a slaughterhouse… or an underground chamber…
I tried to fight, but my own mind pulled me down. I was running – though not through streets this time, seeking my brothers. No, now I was back in that maze of cells; naked, filthy, furious. I was an animal on the hunt, and my quarry were fleeing in terror. Those bastards who had taken me, turned me… I was free of my captivity, and they knew what they had unleashed…
I heard screams. Were they my own, or the beasts I intended to tear apart? It was impossible to tell.
And then, suddenly, I was falling. The noose cut into my neck. I heard the roar of the crowd outside Newgate, and it turned into the roar of blood in my ears, as I plunged seventy feet towards the ground. I intended to kill myself by leaping from a building, but it didn't work. Instead, I found myself in a lavish house, and two men were standing over me. One spoke in a voice like velvet.
“Forget eternity. It will only arrive one minute at a time.”
I frowned. “George?”
I heard the sound of tearing meat. I opened my eyes, and saw a squalid yard; the branches of a tree overhead. I was still dazed, and my head smarted with pain, but lucidity swam back to me, and I looked around.
Anthony was on his feet, twirling like a lunatic, knife outstretched. His face and hands were painted with blood.
“I finished this time!” he giggled. “Look, Ruthven! I’ve made such art!”
I peered at the body, and drew in a gasp. Were I of a weaker disposition, I might have fainted at what lay before me. The woman was eviscerated, her bowels upon her shoulders, and her throat cut so deeply that I could see her vertebrae.
“It’s pretty!” laughed Anthony, licking his lips. “Like God! Even He couldn’t have done better! Not at all!”
I used the wall to haul myself to my feet. Blood had spattered the panels, and came away on my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes at Anthony, and pushed outwards. He immediately fell down, with such force, his temple slammed against the property steps, and he lay unconscious.
I stood there for a moment, perplexed. I glanced between him and the corpse. Such violence… What was wrong with him? This was his idea of fun? Even to the extent of doing it when he didn’t need to drink?
I heard movement inside the building. A snarl of frustration rolled in my throat, but it quickly gave way to horror. We were trapped here. I couldn’t shadow all three of us, nor carry more than one away from the scene.
In a fraction of a second, I made the decision, and snatched Anthony. I flew as fast as I could towards the river, deposited him out of sight, tore a handkerchief from his pocket and thrust it in his mouth for good measure. Then I leapt back into the air and returned to the yard.
This was getting ridiculous. What hope did I have if I couldn’t control him?
I knew, before I even reached the building, that the body had been discovered. I cursed under my breath and went to leave, but the gossip of the evening lingered on my mind. I had a little time yet before sunrise. I could afford to listen in, and hear from the horse’s mouth what they suspected. How close they might be to the truth.
Then I smelled something else, which made my hair stand on end. More venom. But it wasn’t Anthony’s. It was stronger than that, more mature. Not the scent of a juvenile, but of a full vampire. And not one like me. It was the same scent I had first smelled upon George, so long ago.
I landed on the roof, so I could peer down from above. Several police officers were crouched around the body, lanterns in hand. People craned their heads from windows and neighbouring yards. Some exclaimed as a white sheet was brought out to shield the woman from view.
“Oh, come on! Let us see it!” a man moaned.
Despite everything, I rolled my eyes. What a typical response from around these parts. It reminded me somewhat of the baying crowd which had awaited me when I stepped onto the Newgate scaffold, as though I were a player in some Shakespearean tragedy. Macabre sights were entertainment, after all.
As softly as I could, I sniffed. The other vampire was there, somewhere, and his senses would be just as keen as my own. I needed to tread carefully, in case he realised I was close. And I couldn’t remain for long. The sky was beginning to lighten. I only had a few minutes.
“Do we know who she is?” asked the nearest officer.
“Annie Chapman.”
“Did she have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of. Where’s Inspector Abberline?”
In response, a middle-aged man with a dark beard and moustache stepped forward. He bent down beside the woman.
My grip tightened on the roof edge. It was him.
“You’re sure it’s the same one who did Nichols?” asked another officer.
Abberline nodded. “Looks like it. Similar pattern. But he’s been more meticulous this time, placing the organs in such a way. And it looks like some are missing.”
The first offer’s face paled. “Missing?”
“I can’t be sure. We’ll have to pass her over to an expert to confirm,” Abberline said. “In any case, this place is more secluded than where Nichols was done. I think he had more time. Have the constables found anything else?”
“There was a scrap of leather. Could be from an apron of some kind.”
“Let me see it.”
My stomach flipped with nerves. One of the inspectors was like me? Could there have been a worse scenario? He would be able to sniff me out – both figuratively and literally – in a way that no human officer could.
I couldn’t stay. I crept from sight, then threw out my wings and flew away as fast as possible. I didn’t dare stop or look back. I knew Abberline couldn’t follow me now, not in the middle of the scene as he was, but I took no chances.
I slipped into the attic just as the sun kissed the horizon. I heard nobody inside the building. Overcome with rage, I kicked at the boxes, crushed them to splinters and tossed them about the room. When I was spent, I collapsed against the wall.
The woman’s blood streaked my fingers. Anthony’s was still upon my coat. I pressed the tip of my tongue to it, and tasted venom. The blood of a fellow vampire was unpalatable, but I still caught a flash of memory.
Anthony was an orphan, as I had been… Thrown out of the workhouse for attacking two people with a blade… When he became a butcher’s apprentice, he’d taken knives to the carcasses needlessly; ruined a whole side of pig… Harassed women in the street… He had been turned by one of them in vengeance… And more than being an imbecile, he was mad.
Thoughts raced through my mind. He was out of control. And he was stronger than I’d given him credit for, being able to overpower me like that. What was to stop him from doing it again, or disregarding my orders altogether?
What was I going to do? I could kill him, of course… As soon as the sun set, I would go to his dosshouse, drag him away and crush the life out of him. Then, as I had for so long, I would weight his body with rocks and drop it into the Thames. That river was filled with bodies, many of them from me. What was one more for the fishes to feast upon?
But I paused. The whole point of taking Anthony under my wing was so he’d fall for both of us. I hadn’t intended for it to be within the space of a month, though what did that matter? He had set himself on a path of destruction already. All I’d done was tell him what he was. Those women would likely have died no matter how I tried to intervene.
The answer came to me in a flash of both panic and perfect clarity. I needed to let him be feral. Chaos would ensue, and bring all eyes upon this place, upon him, just as I’d planned. And while they were turned away from me, I’d slip into the shadows like a rat. I could learn from my mistakes and begin again, with another frightened little juvenile, who would be much easier to subdue.
But not here. What Anthony had done was too much. London would remain haunted for years by the whispers of the Ripper. It was no longer safe. And, I realised, my boredom hadn’t come from a lack of activity, but disillusionment with the place. I had walked every single street of this city. I knew it like the back of my hand.
But if I left, and abandoned the capital, where then, would I go?
*
I was ready as soon as night swept in. I gathered George's letters, placed them into my pocket, then crept onto the roof. I looked across the landscape as it came alive with gaslights. The turrets of the Tower and the dome of St Paul’s loomed against the sky. I heard Big Ben’s chimes, far away in Westminster.
I let out a resigned sigh. Would I ever know this again? Perhaps, in another hundred and twenty years. For now, it was time for another life – another of my own – to come to an end.
I had been outside London before, of course, but I had always returned. I was a creature of the city. I took pleasure in seeing life and death about me; watching the walking, talking bags of blood. But Britain was a large enough place. It was filled with so many people, so many throats. All of them could be mine if I wanted. My heart had turned to ice too long ago to care.
I dropped onto the cobbles, turned a corner, and spotted the place where I had huddled with Oliver and Charley on the night I’d disappeared. Another couple of urchins sat in the same spot, against the same bricks, shivering under a discarded broadsheet.
I glanced at the headline.
I let out a resigned sigh. Would I ever know this again? Perhaps, in another hundred and twenty years. For now, it was time for another life – another of my own – to come to an end.
I had been outside London before, of course, but I had always returned. I was a creature of the city. I took pleasure in seeing life and death about me; watching the walking, talking bags of blood. But Britain was a large enough place. It was filled with so many people, so many throats. All of them could be mine if I wanted. My heart had turned to ice too long ago to care.
I dropped onto the cobbles, turned a corner, and spotted the place where I had huddled with Oliver and Charley on the night I’d disappeared. Another couple of urchins sat in the same spot, against the same bricks, shivering under a discarded broadsheet.
I glanced at the headline.
GHASTLY MURDER IN THE EAST END
DREADFUL MUTILATION OF A WOMAN
DREADFUL MUTILATION OF A WOMAN
One of the boys coughed. Pity fleeted through me, and before I could think on it, I took a shilling from my pocket and dropped it. I knew it was probably a bad idea – if ever someone had cast money aside when I was on the streets, I’d immediately tailed them. But I didn’t care. I could allow one tiny act of charity, and if anyone came after me, they would regret it.
I came to a canal side and wandered along the path. It was open here, and quiet: the perfect place to put out my wings. Then all I needed to do was turn north-west and fly until I reached the train station. I had swiped enough money to buy myself a ticket. To where, I hadn’t yet decided.
I bent by the water to wash the last of the dried blood from my fingers. Then a faint bitter aroma swept across the surface.
I paused, listened, eyes darting everywhere. I was alone; there wasn’t a human in sight. But someone else was with me. And it wasn’t Anthony.
I rose to my feet. Right on cue, Abberline appeared from the mouth of an alley and faced me. His eyes were crimson.
“So, here you are,” he said.
“And here you are,” I replied evenly.
“Who are you?”
“Do you expect me to be so liberal with a name, Inspector?”
“Not a true name, in any case.”
“Then you’re smarter than I’d otherwise give you credit for. Do you know you look and sound like a bank manager? It’s a wonder anybody has a mind to listen to you. But there is intelligence behind that beard, isn’t there?”
A flash of irritation swept through Abberline’s eyes.
“No constables to back you up tonight?” I said, with a glance at the alley. “You’re quite alone.”
“I wasn’t expecting to run into you,” Abberline said.
I smiled. “Likewise. And what do you intend, now we have found each other?”
“I intend to arrest you on suspicion of the murders of Annie Chapman and Polly Nichols,” he replied. “I smelled you at the scene this morning. I knew you were on the roof, and I knew you had been in the yard.”
I folded my arms and gave him a pointed look.
“With respect, while both of us have a certain advantage over our human friends, that’s hardly weight enough to pull me into this. What will your superiors say? On what regular assertion will you drag me before them?”
Abberline didn’t move. “Are you saying you didn’t kill them?”
“What does it matter what I say? You’ve already made up your mind,” I said.
“Then what were you doing there?”
“Even you must admit there is a certain appeal to the smell of blood, even if you weren’t the one to spill it.”
“So you know nothing of Chapman or Nichols?” he pressed.
“I know that Nichols liked an interesting little ditty, which was much more pleasant than the voice she sang it with,” I answered. “Other than that, I’m ignorant of both of them.”
It was a lie, but that was yet another aspect which my decades had allowed me to perfect. I knew, from a single glance at Abberline, that even he hadn’t been able to penetrate to the truth. I was too skilled, too old, to be caught out by one such as him.
I took a step closer, yet still he stood his ground. I couldn’t hold back another smirk. Brave boy.
“But I can give you information,” I continued. “About your Leather Apron, as I’ve so aptly heard him called.”
Abberline blinked. “You know him?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “And he isn’t me. I have no knowledge of butchering in such a fashion. I prefer to keep things much tidier.”
I watched Abberline carefully. As soon as I gave him the puzzle pieces, I saw them slotting together in his mind. Brave, and smart. Never mind if they knew what he was or not, no wonder Scotland Yard had decided to bring him in.
“So we are looking for a butcher,” he said.
“Very good,” I smiled.
“Who is he?”
“You are the policeman here, not me. I’m not going to tell you how to do your job.”
“Tell me who he is.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I quipped. “Now, I would hate to step on your toes, and I advise you not to step on mine. Let me pass, forget you ever saw me, and you’ll never hear from me again. I leave the Ripper entirely at your mercy.”
Suspicion once again clouded Abberline’s features, then transformed into arrogance.
“I can stop you. I’m stronger than you.”
“Physically, I don’t doubt it,” I said, “but you have to get close to me first.”
At once, I locked my will around him and lifted him two feet off the ground. He hung suspended, kicking out and gasping for breath. I didn’t break my smile.
“The power of the mind is a wonderful thing,” I said dangerously. “It’s too bad that you can never know it. I have over a century in my veins; that lends its own level of strength. Do you know, if I wanted to, I could look at you so intensely that your heart would stop in your chest? I wouldn’t even need to lay a finger on you. Now, I’ve been more than generous. I’ve granted you information on the Ripper. Turn around, Inspector, walk away, and don’t ever seek me out again.”
I dropped him. For a moment, I thought he might fall to his knees, but he kept his balance and turned to glare at me. However, I noticed the shine of fear in his crimson eyes, and that only increased my grin.
“You’re still a murderer,” Abberline said. “All your kind are.”
“What do you know of my kind?”
“That you cannot walk in sunlight, or die unless staked through the heart. You don’t age from the moment you completed the transformation. And you kill wantonly.”
“Once again, showing your intelligence,” I replied. “The Yard are fortunate to have you among them. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for, if you focus your attention on that, rather than me.”
“You will kill again. How many do you count, over your life?”
“What does it matter? Were they missed? Has anyone come crying to you over them? And even if someone did, did you listen?”
Abberline shook his head. “Murder is murder.”
“Needs are needs,” I countered. “You are similar to me in that respect. Can you claim your own hands are clean? Even if you haven’t taken lives, you have tasted their blood. You still steal from them. You welcomed the idea enough to consent to such an existence. Surely, that makes you even more terrible than me.”
Abberline squirmed and his pulse quickened. The sight pleased me – I had touched a nerve, and I smelled his unease. Was I the first of my kind he had seen? I hoped so. I wanted him to remember what enemies we could be.
“I won’t say it again,” I warned. “Let me pass.”
Abberline quivered. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to run at me, bind my hands and drag me away like a dog. But he also knew that if he took so much as a step, I could easily ensure it was his last. And then who would be able to sniff out my poor abandoned pet when he killed again?
Finally, he sighed with defeat, and moved aside.
I gave him a single nod, then he averted his eyes. As soon as his focus was gone from me, I shadowed myself, unfurled my wings, and flew away.
I didn’t bother looking back on my old home. I would remember it forever, and it was now part of a past which would be left to ashes. This was not my city any longer. I would find a new territory, larger than any I had held before.
After an hour, I came down near King’s Cross. When a gentleman walked past, I pressed on his neck and dragged him into a passageway with all speed. But I didn’t take a single drop of blood. Instead, I stripped him of his coat, hat, and wallet, clothed him in my own threadbare jacket, and left him to awaken. Then, suitably dressed, I stepped into the concourse.
The stink of locomotives filled my nose. The place was still reasonably busy; everyone was too occupied with themselves to pay me the least bit of attention. I made my way to the departures board and found the next train which was leaving.
At once, the form of my new existence was set. I was going to Liverpool.
The more I thought about it, the more perfect it was. Two hundred miles from London, yet still a centre of activity: the gateway to the Atlantic; a second capital, for all intents and purposes. Mine for the taking.
I approached the ticket booth and slid a banknote through the window.
“Liverpool Lime Street, please. One way.”
The operator regarded me for a moment, took stock of my appearance and refined speech. Then he placed the money under his desk and set about printing my pass.
“How long will the journey take?” I enquired.
“Just over eight hours, sir,” he replied.
I glanced at the clock above the main platforms. It was almost nine. The sun would be rising by the time I arrived, but I knew that a couple of years prior, an underground rail system had been built in Liverpool. It had reached the newspapers even here in the south. I could simply disappear down there for a day, then explore my new territory when darkness fell.
I thanked the operator, found the train and climbed aboard the second-class carriage. Shortly afterwards, the whistle split the air and the wheels screeched into life. Passengers crowded the corridor and leaned out of windows to wave goodbye, but I had no such sentiment. I had bidden farewell in my own way.
Then I paused. I was leaving another life behind tonight: a phoenix bursting into flame. A nest of ashes awaited me in the north. It only seemed fit to turn the page with another identity.
The name Jack was sour to me now. I had carried it for long enough. There was nobody alive now who might know me by that name. And I needed something unconnected to myself, to this place, to the stories of the Ripper.
An idea suddenly presented itself to me: the scrappy poster for the low-cost theatre performance. I could still see it, as though my mind had sketched the image for me to recall at any moment. Macbeth, featuring James Hayes and Sibyl Gray.
I nodded. Contented, I withdrew the letters from my pocket. I leafed through them, traced the cursive handwriting, let my fingers linger over the stamps. George’s words of wisdom echoed, phantom-like, in my ears.
“But I have lived, and have not lived in vain.”
With a deep breath, I threw the envelopes out of the window. They were scattered amid the smoke of the engine, and as London disappeared, I closed my eyes and began to sing to myself.
“My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long.
'Twas down in Cupid's Garden, where you and I would walk.
The fairest flower that ever I saw has withered to a stalk.”
I came to a canal side and wandered along the path. It was open here, and quiet: the perfect place to put out my wings. Then all I needed to do was turn north-west and fly until I reached the train station. I had swiped enough money to buy myself a ticket. To where, I hadn’t yet decided.
I bent by the water to wash the last of the dried blood from my fingers. Then a faint bitter aroma swept across the surface.
I paused, listened, eyes darting everywhere. I was alone; there wasn’t a human in sight. But someone else was with me. And it wasn’t Anthony.
I rose to my feet. Right on cue, Abberline appeared from the mouth of an alley and faced me. His eyes were crimson.
“So, here you are,” he said.
“And here you are,” I replied evenly.
“Who are you?”
“Do you expect me to be so liberal with a name, Inspector?”
“Not a true name, in any case.”
“Then you’re smarter than I’d otherwise give you credit for. Do you know you look and sound like a bank manager? It’s a wonder anybody has a mind to listen to you. But there is intelligence behind that beard, isn’t there?”
A flash of irritation swept through Abberline’s eyes.
“No constables to back you up tonight?” I said, with a glance at the alley. “You’re quite alone.”
“I wasn’t expecting to run into you,” Abberline said.
I smiled. “Likewise. And what do you intend, now we have found each other?”
“I intend to arrest you on suspicion of the murders of Annie Chapman and Polly Nichols,” he replied. “I smelled you at the scene this morning. I knew you were on the roof, and I knew you had been in the yard.”
I folded my arms and gave him a pointed look.
“With respect, while both of us have a certain advantage over our human friends, that’s hardly weight enough to pull me into this. What will your superiors say? On what regular assertion will you drag me before them?”
Abberline didn’t move. “Are you saying you didn’t kill them?”
“What does it matter what I say? You’ve already made up your mind,” I said.
“Then what were you doing there?”
“Even you must admit there is a certain appeal to the smell of blood, even if you weren’t the one to spill it.”
“So you know nothing of Chapman or Nichols?” he pressed.
“I know that Nichols liked an interesting little ditty, which was much more pleasant than the voice she sang it with,” I answered. “Other than that, I’m ignorant of both of them.”
It was a lie, but that was yet another aspect which my decades had allowed me to perfect. I knew, from a single glance at Abberline, that even he hadn’t been able to penetrate to the truth. I was too skilled, too old, to be caught out by one such as him.
I took a step closer, yet still he stood his ground. I couldn’t hold back another smirk. Brave boy.
“But I can give you information,” I continued. “About your Leather Apron, as I’ve so aptly heard him called.”
Abberline blinked. “You know him?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “And he isn’t me. I have no knowledge of butchering in such a fashion. I prefer to keep things much tidier.”
I watched Abberline carefully. As soon as I gave him the puzzle pieces, I saw them slotting together in his mind. Brave, and smart. Never mind if they knew what he was or not, no wonder Scotland Yard had decided to bring him in.
“So we are looking for a butcher,” he said.
“Very good,” I smiled.
“Who is he?”
“You are the policeman here, not me. I’m not going to tell you how to do your job.”
“Tell me who he is.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I quipped. “Now, I would hate to step on your toes, and I advise you not to step on mine. Let me pass, forget you ever saw me, and you’ll never hear from me again. I leave the Ripper entirely at your mercy.”
Suspicion once again clouded Abberline’s features, then transformed into arrogance.
“I can stop you. I’m stronger than you.”
“Physically, I don’t doubt it,” I said, “but you have to get close to me first.”
At once, I locked my will around him and lifted him two feet off the ground. He hung suspended, kicking out and gasping for breath. I didn’t break my smile.
“The power of the mind is a wonderful thing,” I said dangerously. “It’s too bad that you can never know it. I have over a century in my veins; that lends its own level of strength. Do you know, if I wanted to, I could look at you so intensely that your heart would stop in your chest? I wouldn’t even need to lay a finger on you. Now, I’ve been more than generous. I’ve granted you information on the Ripper. Turn around, Inspector, walk away, and don’t ever seek me out again.”
I dropped him. For a moment, I thought he might fall to his knees, but he kept his balance and turned to glare at me. However, I noticed the shine of fear in his crimson eyes, and that only increased my grin.
“You’re still a murderer,” Abberline said. “All your kind are.”
“What do you know of my kind?”
“That you cannot walk in sunlight, or die unless staked through the heart. You don’t age from the moment you completed the transformation. And you kill wantonly.”
“Once again, showing your intelligence,” I replied. “The Yard are fortunate to have you among them. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for, if you focus your attention on that, rather than me.”
“You will kill again. How many do you count, over your life?”
“What does it matter? Were they missed? Has anyone come crying to you over them? And even if someone did, did you listen?”
Abberline shook his head. “Murder is murder.”
“Needs are needs,” I countered. “You are similar to me in that respect. Can you claim your own hands are clean? Even if you haven’t taken lives, you have tasted their blood. You still steal from them. You welcomed the idea enough to consent to such an existence. Surely, that makes you even more terrible than me.”
Abberline squirmed and his pulse quickened. The sight pleased me – I had touched a nerve, and I smelled his unease. Was I the first of my kind he had seen? I hoped so. I wanted him to remember what enemies we could be.
“I won’t say it again,” I warned. “Let me pass.”
Abberline quivered. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to run at me, bind my hands and drag me away like a dog. But he also knew that if he took so much as a step, I could easily ensure it was his last. And then who would be able to sniff out my poor abandoned pet when he killed again?
Finally, he sighed with defeat, and moved aside.
I gave him a single nod, then he averted his eyes. As soon as his focus was gone from me, I shadowed myself, unfurled my wings, and flew away.
I didn’t bother looking back on my old home. I would remember it forever, and it was now part of a past which would be left to ashes. This was not my city any longer. I would find a new territory, larger than any I had held before.
After an hour, I came down near King’s Cross. When a gentleman walked past, I pressed on his neck and dragged him into a passageway with all speed. But I didn’t take a single drop of blood. Instead, I stripped him of his coat, hat, and wallet, clothed him in my own threadbare jacket, and left him to awaken. Then, suitably dressed, I stepped into the concourse.
The stink of locomotives filled my nose. The place was still reasonably busy; everyone was too occupied with themselves to pay me the least bit of attention. I made my way to the departures board and found the next train which was leaving.
At once, the form of my new existence was set. I was going to Liverpool.
The more I thought about it, the more perfect it was. Two hundred miles from London, yet still a centre of activity: the gateway to the Atlantic; a second capital, for all intents and purposes. Mine for the taking.
I approached the ticket booth and slid a banknote through the window.
“Liverpool Lime Street, please. One way.”
The operator regarded me for a moment, took stock of my appearance and refined speech. Then he placed the money under his desk and set about printing my pass.
“How long will the journey take?” I enquired.
“Just over eight hours, sir,” he replied.
I glanced at the clock above the main platforms. It was almost nine. The sun would be rising by the time I arrived, but I knew that a couple of years prior, an underground rail system had been built in Liverpool. It had reached the newspapers even here in the south. I could simply disappear down there for a day, then explore my new territory when darkness fell.
I thanked the operator, found the train and climbed aboard the second-class carriage. Shortly afterwards, the whistle split the air and the wheels screeched into life. Passengers crowded the corridor and leaned out of windows to wave goodbye, but I had no such sentiment. I had bidden farewell in my own way.
Then I paused. I was leaving another life behind tonight: a phoenix bursting into flame. A nest of ashes awaited me in the north. It only seemed fit to turn the page with another identity.
The name Jack was sour to me now. I had carried it for long enough. There was nobody alive now who might know me by that name. And I needed something unconnected to myself, to this place, to the stories of the Ripper.
An idea suddenly presented itself to me: the scrappy poster for the low-cost theatre performance. I could still see it, as though my mind had sketched the image for me to recall at any moment. Macbeth, featuring James Hayes and Sibyl Gray.
I nodded. Contented, I withdrew the letters from my pocket. I leafed through them, traced the cursive handwriting, let my fingers linger over the stamps. George’s words of wisdom echoed, phantom-like, in my ears.
“But I have lived, and have not lived in vain.”
With a deep breath, I threw the envelopes out of the window. They were scattered amid the smoke of the engine, and as London disappeared, I closed my eyes and began to sing to myself.
“My breast is cold as the clay, my breath is earthly strong;
And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days will not be long.
'Twas down in Cupid's Garden, where you and I would walk.
The fairest flower that ever I saw has withered to a stalk.”
*
There was an irony in my new lodgings. I had frequented mausoleums, derelict warehouses, even dosses alongside unsuspecting humans… but never did I imagine I would find solitude in tunnels under the Earth. And yet, I laid in a complex of brick and stone beneath Edge Hill. I didn’t know why the place had been built – it certainly wasn’t a sewer or anything of particular use – but it was here, abandoned, and perhaps most importantly, it was nothing like my old prison. That was enough.
By the light of a single candle, I combed my hair, and inspected myself in a small mirror as I buttoned my jacket. My face was forever unchanging, yet in clothing, I was so different now. It amused me: decades could pass and bring nothing but boredom, and then, rarely, within the space of a few months, the entire world might change.
I climbed to the surface and breathed the sooty, briny air. Even here, far from the centre of the city, I could smell the ocean, and heard the dull thuds of ships knocking against each other in the docks. The cold sharp edge of a November evening sliced my lungs like a blade. There were no clouds in the sky. It would be a cold night, but I paid that no heed. I was already as cold as the grave.
I decided not to fly, nor to shadow. Instead, I walked the streets, heading south, placing my helmet onto my head in mid-step. After several minutes, I arrived at the police station, and gave a civil nod to the officer on duty.
“Denborough,” I greeted.
“Constable Hayes,” he said in surprise. “You’re early.”
“I had nothing better to do,” I smiled. “Do you want me at Sefton Park again?”
“Aye, I know you prefer it there.”
Another officer suddenly looked up and waved a newspaper at me.
“Oi, James! Have you seen this? It’s from this morning.”
I shook my head. “One of the joys of working nights is not seeing what happens in the day.”
“Well, look anyway,” he said, and tossed the broadsheet over. I scanned the front page. Behind a perfectly-composed face, my heart quickened.
By the light of a single candle, I combed my hair, and inspected myself in a small mirror as I buttoned my jacket. My face was forever unchanging, yet in clothing, I was so different now. It amused me: decades could pass and bring nothing but boredom, and then, rarely, within the space of a few months, the entire world might change.
I climbed to the surface and breathed the sooty, briny air. Even here, far from the centre of the city, I could smell the ocean, and heard the dull thuds of ships knocking against each other in the docks. The cold sharp edge of a November evening sliced my lungs like a blade. There were no clouds in the sky. It would be a cold night, but I paid that no heed. I was already as cold as the grave.
I decided not to fly, nor to shadow. Instead, I walked the streets, heading south, placing my helmet onto my head in mid-step. After several minutes, I arrived at the police station, and gave a civil nod to the officer on duty.
“Denborough,” I greeted.
“Constable Hayes,” he said in surprise. “You’re early.”
“I had nothing better to do,” I smiled. “Do you want me at Sefton Park again?”
“Aye, I know you prefer it there.”
Another officer suddenly looked up and waved a newspaper at me.
“Oi, James! Have you seen this? It’s from this morning.”
I shook my head. “One of the joys of working nights is not seeing what happens in the day.”
“Well, look anyway,” he said, and tossed the broadsheet over. I scanned the front page. Behind a perfectly-composed face, my heart quickened.
JACK THE RIPPER CLAIMS 5TH VICTIM
WOMAN BRUTALLY HACKED TO DEATH
SCOTLAND YARD CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE GRISLY CASE
WOMAN BRUTALLY HACKED TO DEATH
SCOTLAND YARD CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE GRISLY CASE
“Bloody awful,” Denborough said. “I don’t think they’re ever going to catch the bastard at this rate. This was the worst of the lot, apparently. He cut her whole face clean off.”
“I’m sure they will find some leads soon enough,” I replied.
I spoke confidently, but it belied a flash of surprise. Perhaps Abberline was not as powerful in his deduction as I’d believed. Or perhaps Anthony had learned the hard, quick way about how to cover his tracks.
Sixty-two days had passed since I had abandoned him. In that time, he’d made three more women into his artworks. I was sure there were more, undiscovered. Perhaps he had followed in my footsteps in that respect, and left them to the river.
I didn’t care. He wasn’t my problem anymore.
I put the newspaper down, collected my truncheon and lantern, and made my way back into the night. I soon came to Sefton Park: a large swathe of blissful darkness, crowned with trees and flowerbeds. I’d often seen couples strolling there, fancying themselves something out of a romantic novel. Silly little fools. Love, like anything, was a pleasant distraction while it lasted. And it never lasted. Soon, they and their ardent pledges would be dead and forgotten.
I enjoyed my new existence, so removed from my old ones. It was a skin shed; a mask applied. How perfect a disguise: a man of the law, untouchable, unsuspicious. I had taken that page from Abberline’s book, and understood the genius of it. He might not have killed, but he was a vampire, too. The sheep bore no fear of the wolf among them when he insisted he was their protector.
It took one to know one, as the old saying claimed. I was yet to find another pet, who could divert attention as I fed. But when they came, I would be much more fastidious. In this uniform, with the Queen’s initials upon my helmet, there was no better opportunity to ensure the next fall occurred exactly as I wanted.
I was patient. I could wait for my next little juvenile. And I would not allow myself to get too close to them. All things and people of value were lost eventually, when one was, like myself, sentenced to the life eternal.
“I’m sure they will find some leads soon enough,” I replied.
I spoke confidently, but it belied a flash of surprise. Perhaps Abberline was not as powerful in his deduction as I’d believed. Or perhaps Anthony had learned the hard, quick way about how to cover his tracks.
Sixty-two days had passed since I had abandoned him. In that time, he’d made three more women into his artworks. I was sure there were more, undiscovered. Perhaps he had followed in my footsteps in that respect, and left them to the river.
I didn’t care. He wasn’t my problem anymore.
I put the newspaper down, collected my truncheon and lantern, and made my way back into the night. I soon came to Sefton Park: a large swathe of blissful darkness, crowned with trees and flowerbeds. I’d often seen couples strolling there, fancying themselves something out of a romantic novel. Silly little fools. Love, like anything, was a pleasant distraction while it lasted. And it never lasted. Soon, they and their ardent pledges would be dead and forgotten.
I enjoyed my new existence, so removed from my old ones. It was a skin shed; a mask applied. How perfect a disguise: a man of the law, untouchable, unsuspicious. I had taken that page from Abberline’s book, and understood the genius of it. He might not have killed, but he was a vampire, too. The sheep bore no fear of the wolf among them when he insisted he was their protector.
It took one to know one, as the old saying claimed. I was yet to find another pet, who could divert attention as I fed. But when they came, I would be much more fastidious. In this uniform, with the Queen’s initials upon my helmet, there was no better opportunity to ensure the next fall occurred exactly as I wanted.
I was patient. I could wait for my next little juvenile. And I would not allow myself to get too close to them. All things and people of value were lost eventually, when one was, like myself, sentenced to the life eternal.
With respect to the memories of Inspector Frederick Abberline (1843-1929), Annie Chapman (1840-1888) and Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols (1845-1888); also to Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly and Elizabeth Stride.