by Lucas Thorn
“It won’t last long enough!”
“Make it last!” Jonathan lunged like a bear, snarling. Grabbed Van Helsing’s bag and tore it open. Rummaging. Searching. “More. Give more.”
“There is no more. Not here. Not in England. All I had, I gave to you. So you would live.” His voice cut into Jonathan’s brain. “Now I regret it. I should have let you die. Then I’d never see this part of you. I could have remembered you as the noble friend I thought you to be.”
The beast’s eyes squinted, then he looked to the street. Shrugging shoulders and moving apishly away. “I’m not ashamed. Why should I be ashamed? Whores. Sluts. Slags. They deserve it!”
“You know who the police think you are? They think you’re Jack the Ripper! Do you want that to be your legacy?”
“No.” Jonathan stamped a foot. “Not the Ripper.”
“Then come inside.”
“I’m better. I’m stronger. He ripped small whores. One here. One there. I rip them all! All of them!” He let out a bestial howl, shaking his head to the sky as whistles sent alarms ringing through the streets. “All whores die!”
“Go, then,” Van Helsing spat. Suddenly disgusted. “Get out of my sight, Jonathan. And I never want to see you again. Do you hear me? Never. Don’t come to the castle. Don’t follow me. As far as I’m concerned, my friend died tonight in the vampire’s lair.”
“I saved you!”
“And I saved you. Our slate is clean.”
“I kill you.”
“Run, Jonathan. Victim to your repugnant desires, run. Run to your doom.”
The beast hesitated. His swollen face, only vaguely resembling the young man, twisted into a murderous scowl. Then he spun away and bounded down the road, bellowing curses.
He ran, heart a rushing crescendo inside his body. Energy spewed through his veins on great gushing torrents. Each hammering beat slamming his soul with a dangerous lust to kill.
In one catlike bound, he leapt over a little house. Feet not touching rooftop, he dropped down the other side. Planted himself down in the lane between two policemen who gave surprised shouts as he lashed out. His fist crumpled the face of the first, flattening the man’s expression of disbelief against the back of his skull.
“Fuck Abraham,” the beast cried. Snatched the second policeman and swung him into a wall, shattering spine. Tossed the corpse aside with a contemptuous wet thud. “Fuck all of you!”
He began to run.
Run to Whitechapel.
As fast as he could.
Wind whipping hair.
Cold frigid wind.
Cooling his skin, but not the seething heat in his belly.
The Ripper? They thought he was the Ripper?
He’d show them.
Show them all.
He scaled a townhouse in less than two heartbeats. Hands tearing chunks of masonry as he went. Rolled onto the roof and launched himself out into the air to catch himself on the gutter of a church. Dropped to the ground and stampeded into the street.
A group of men saw him coming and scampered in all directions.
One let out a shrill scream; “Stop! Police!”
Jonathan bowled into him. Wrapped a fist around the officer’s jaw and twisted. Blood fountained. A daring display of crimson as he flung the head to the ground. Laughter spilled across his lips on slavering vines of spit.
“Strong! Look at me. I am strong!”
“Christ!” A policeman stood at the end of the street and let off a shot. The bullet whizzed past, screaming into a wall close to his ear.
He turned.
Saw the policeman cocking his rifle for a second shot.
And began padding up the street, steps getting faster as he approached.
Another bullet.
This one took him in the shoulder.
He didn’t notice the projectile bounce away.
Faster.
Faster.
The policeman dropped the rifle and ran.
The beast right behind him.
With gleeful snarl, threw himself. A cannonball blasting into the policeman’s back. Rolled him over onto his back, hands ripping. Tearing. Digging into guts and pulling them free. Throwing bloody entrails wildly across the ground. Huffing and snorting.
A wolf. A bear. A wild boar.
“Look how strong I am!”
The body lay in pieces and he stomped through strings of gut to rush down an alley hardly wide enough to fit his growing shoulders. Energy snapped and arced from his shoulders on a lattice of electric venom.
He kept growing.
Muscle writhing and pulling as he ran.
Saw her.
A whore.
Old. Ugly hag, he thought. But he speared out of the dark and took her while she screamed. Slammed her against the wall and stripped her dress free with one savage tear.
His grunts mingled with her screams and the crunch of cartilage.
Ended with an abrupt shriek as both fists beat her chest, crushing her breasts and shattering ribs with such fury he punched deep into her torso. Soaking him with gore.
He reached inside the warm jelly of her corpse. Grabbed the heart and jerked it free.
Held aloft, its veins and arteries gasped their last spurt of blood. Splashing his grinning face.
Still holding this grisly prize, he didn’t even flinch as another bullet took him in the back.
Three policemen.
One lifting a pistol and taking aim. Puff of smoke.
Next bullet entered his cheek and he felt it crease the top of his tongue before cracking to a stop against a tooth.
Jonathan Harker, the beast, shrieked in rage and pain. Tossed the heart aside and threw himself down the street even as they fired again and again. Emptied their revolvers into him, blast after desperate blast. Each bullet drilling another hole, deeper than the one before as his body rushed to heal the flurry of sudden damage.
He ploughed into the uniformed trio, a screaming mountain of hate, another four came running around the corner. Dropped to their knees with the training of old soldiers. Aimed.
And shot him again.
And again.
He staggered, tasting blood.
Left arm hung limp. Numb cold spreading up from the elbow. Right still held one of the policemen. He lifted the body easy and hurled it like a ragdoll at the riflemen. While they ducked out of the way, he staggered aside and scaled the nearest wall. Awkward, but quick.
Rolled onto the roof and limped to the edge. Looked down at the scurrying men. Satisfied himself they couldn’t climb after him, hopped onto the next rooftop. Slowly gaining strength as his wounds healed with more sharp bolts of electricity.
He ran. His brain stumbling as much as his body did. Lurching from thought to thought.
Where to go?
What to do?
He wanted to enter every house. But none of them had what he wanted.
What did he want?
Whores.
Where to find them? The whistles must have sent them scurrying away like frightened rats. How would he find them now? Where would they go?
His mind glittered suddenly as spikes of light seemed to pierce his brain.
Lucy.
He’d almost forgotten her. How could he forget her? His crusade should have begun with her. How had he allowed himself to detour? Shaking his head, he thumped at his temples with his fists.
He could hear her voice.
Calling him.
Promising her body.
Taste of her in his mouth. Copper and salt.
“Slut,” he growled. “Teach you.”
Renewed vigor sent him cruising from rooftop to rooftop. A predator with the scent of blood. Her blood. He would have her.
Dominate her. Bend her back until her spine snapped.
Then split her open. Reach in and chew on her heart.
Memory of her laughter shook him, leaving him craving.
How dare she laugh at him?
W
ho did she think she was?
He’d break her.
Destroy her.
When he made it back to the orphanage, there were policemen everywhere. In the street. In the yard. Coming in and out the front doors.
Carrying a body down the path.
But he saw her. Saw her standing in the doorway. Dressed in pale white dress streaked with blood. Arms crossed across her breasts. A coat around her shoulders like a symbol of ownership.
Whose coat? How dare they take what was his!
He sniffed the air and could smell her.
She lifted her head. A smile on her face as her gaze pinned his.
Despite the distance, he could see her tongue slowly emerging and sliding across those lush red lips.
Come, she seemed to say. Come and have me.
Adrenaline. It punched through his body and scattered his thoughts again.
He startled the sky with an animal cry of rage and threw himself from the roof to charge across the road. Hit the first policeman and sent him sprawling with half his head missing. Brain and bone oozed off the beast’s bloody fingers.
He absorbed more bullets before bringing down three more and closing the gap between himself and the waiting vampire. Shook his head as a bullet skipped off the back of his skull. Left a slashing red cut.
The glory of violence and lust hammered in his guts. He rode exultation like a volcano. He was a steam-driven dragon screaming for his maiden. His arms out wide like unfurled steel wings.
A burning engine carried him onward.
The crashing of his legs.
The sheer power of every muscular stride leaving him dizzy with power.
She was right there.
Right in front of him.
Weak. Helpless.
His.
“I’m coming,” he heaved at her. “Coming for you.”
She stood frozen in the soft glare of gaslight. Completely and utterly motionless. A statue. Mocking him with her glittering eyes. Mocking him with her body.
Desperate officers rushed him from all sides. Slammed into him. Battering his shoulders and head with their rifle stocks.
Flinging them off, one by one, he thrashed free and made the foot of the stairs. Triumphant and with jaws slavering, he gazed up at her. Blood streaming down his face. Knuckles cracked as he bunched fists tight.
“I’m gonna rip you to pieces, bitch.”
“No,” Abberline’s voice said from behind her. Inside the house. Shrouded by darkness. “You won’t. The Ripper dies tonight.”
Abberline fired. Again and again. But his bullets, fired so close, were carefully aimed. He didn’t aim for Jonathan’s chest.
Content that the beast’s flesh was somehow impervious, the Inspector took what he’d learned from old stories and instead aimed for the eyes.
Jonathan’s scream rode a tide of agony as the first bullet drilled through his right eye and buried itself in the heart of his brain. The second clipped the bridge of his nose and ricocheted into his left pupil. The angle took out the entire socket, bone and all.
He dropped.
Writhing.
Squealing. Clutching at his head.
As wave after wave of red-tinted agony washed over him. The serum’s effects sputtered. Electricity ceased to snap at his bones or race through his veins.
The lights in his mind flickered as darkness came to ravage.
He couldn’t see.
Energy, torn suddenly from his body, left him inert.
Drifting in the cold dead sea miles from shore.
Lucy was the first to speak. “Is he dead?”
He felt Abberline drop down next to him. Fingers pressed against his throat. But they were distant. Like the neck wasn’t his. He moved away from it, sliding further into the ocean of agonising gloom.
“Mortimer?”
“Yes, Inspector?”
“Will you be so kind as to hand me your rifle.”
“Yes, sir.”
Click.
“You might want to look away, Miss Westenra.”
“No, Inspector. Not this time.”
Pause. In that moment, Jonathan wanted to scream, but he couldn’t move.
Not even to spill one last self-pitying tear as the man emerged from the shadow of the beast in time to witness his own death.
“I understand,” Abberline said.
Pulled the trigger and blew the last ghost of Jonathan Harker out of existence as easily as blowing the flame from a candle.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Doctor John Seward could feel the cold fist of Hell tighten its grip on his soul.
Satan’s claws inched into his body, spearing through flesh. He screamed.
Screamed as long as he could. But there’s a point at which a man could scream no more and he reached it. Passed it. Left it far in the distance along with his prayers to God, Jesus, and Mary. None of which had been answered with the promised relief their mercy might deliver.
Instead of light, he found darkness.
Shadows which reached into his veins and squirmed through his body like an ocean of worms. They explored every inch of him. Burrowed even into his heart.
Consuming him.
Leaving behind only a ghost of the human who’d been there before.
A ghost with a hunger so unholy his mind shrank from the images which flickered before his eyes.
“Lord, save me,” he whispered.
One last time.
One last hope.
Dashed to the rocks of brutal disinterest.
Whether he wanted it or not, he was the Devil’s plaything now. God would shun his existence. Shun his pleas.
He was alone and damned.
Alone with the terrifying hunger and a sound which rushed through his ears like a steaming train. Pounding through his brain with a primal beat he suddenly knew he’d been searching for his whole life. A beat which made adrenaline power through his veins.
Made his nostrils so clear on air so sharp it almost cut into his lungs with every breath. He could smell acrid smoke from a thousand chimneys. Fresh paint from the walls. Chloroform still wet on a rag tossed across his leg. The musky perfume of a woman’s sweat.
The beat thrummed louder the more he concentrated on it.
Drew water into his mouth.
Made him squirm in the bonds which kept him strapped to his bed.
Hunger.
Burning. Searing hunger.
Couldn’t move his head, but he could see her. In the corner of his eye. Slumped in a chair. Tied down. Gagged. Head bowed and shoulders loose.
Drugged.
The chloroform, the thought. The puzzle pieces fit.
She’d wake soon, though. He could tell. He had no doubt the beat he was hearing was the drumming of her pulse. And he knew enough about anaesthetics to know the subtle signs of when they were wearing off.
He tested the leather, straining hard.
If he could just snap through one, he could set himself free. Leap from the bed. Curl his fingers round her throat with the same savage possession as the Devil’s were around his soul.
Then?
Lean in close.
Taste the skin of her throat.
Just a taste.
There was nothing wrong with that, was there?
Just a lick.
He shuddered as the impulse became too much to bear. A moan squeezed through his teeth. The moan of a caged animal.
A mantra of desire began to chime between his thoughts. Bite. Bite.
Bite.
Bite.
Saliva filled his mouth, floating his tongue.
Swallowed, but it wasn’t the same. Wasn’t what he craved.
What did he crave?
Blood.
He knew it.
And the horror he should have felt was muffled by the desperate need.
“Do you want to taste her, John?”
“Lucy.” His voice croaked loose. “Where are you? I can’t see you?”
“I’m right here.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.” A giggle skittered from the dark behind him. Like scattered gems. Glittering in his ears. “Did you hear the gunshots earlier?”
He tried to nod as best he could. “I heard.”
“Jonathan Harker is dead, John. He was shot by the Inspector. His body has been taken away to be cut up and examined. Fitting, don’t you think?”
He wrestled with her words and their meaning.
Should he wail in response?
Weep?
He’d never really liked Jonathan. There’d been something vicious about the man. Something sinister. But it was hidden. Hidden deep. He frowned. Said; “Oh.”
“However, Van Helsing got away. Does that please you?”
“Yes,” he said. And meant it. “He’s a good man, Lucy. He only wanted the best for you.”
“Is that what you think? Even after you watched him ignore my screams to tear me open and explore my organs? You still think he is a good man?”
“Yes. I think so.” He sighed. “You should not judge a man by his actions, Lucy, but by his intentions. I firmly believe this. But he’ll come for me now, won’t he? To destroy me.”
“And when he does, will you fight him, John? To survive, would you kill Professor Von Helsing?” She purred as she emerged beside him. Her fingers sliding across his chest, but not touching. “Would you do it for me?”
“I…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Lucy. My darling Lucy, I beg you. He can help us. Really, he can. We don’t need to surrender to this curse. It is madness to defy your humanity. There’s still time, I tell you.”
“Time? I have plenty of that now.” Her smile never changed as she turned to the woman in the chair. “You can hear her heart, can’t you? Hear how it beats? Thump thump. Isn’t it magical?”
An ache in the back of his throat.
A python constricting the root of his tongue.
“I hear.”
Lucy drifted behind the woman, fingers exploring the long brown hair. Inhaling deep, the vampire leaned down and pressed her cheek into the crook of the woman’s neck. “She smells simply beautiful, doesn’t she?”
“Lucy…”
The vampire opened her mouth and slid her fangs into the waiting throat. Pale shards of white knifed as though through the soft flesh of a ripe peach. Slow dribble of perfect crimson slid down the penetrated skin.
