Soho Slasher: Jack Is Back: A Harbinger Crossover Novel to International Hunters, Inc.

by Ben Hopkin

  Her hands had been inside a corpse. That shouldn’t have caused such a strong reaction in her. Death was a part of her job. Her mind whirred, processing her internal process, parsing it into the stark facts that were her normal stock in trade.

  Somehow, under Kent’s tutelage, she had been transformed. She looked over to see the profiler, his eyes unsquinting in the bright light. How was he able to withstand the effects of the sun in that way?

  “Time to raid the secret annals of history,” Kent said, a smile playing across his stubbled cheek. He pulled out his cell phone, swiping across the screen to open it up to make a call.

  The phone rasped against the darkened shadow of the scruff on his face. The slight sound caused a ripple to course through Kyra’s body, as if the beginnings of Kent’s beard had traced themselves across the nape of her neck, rather than the sleek surface of his phone.

  Kent was an attractive man, from an objective viewpoint. This was information that she’d had since the time she had been old enough to recognize her attraction to men, and the occasional woman.

  But more than her investigative senses had been activated down there in the darkened basement. She could still feel her skin tingling from where her bare hands had joined with Kent’s and touched the inner parts of the women slain by their quarry.

  Drawing her attention away from her newly heightened senses, Kyra heard the faint sound of what seemed to be a groggy voice issuing forth from Kent’s cell phone. Kent’s lavender-colored cell phone. Strange choice. Guess he was more comfortable in his sexuality than even Kyra would have guessed.

  “Jimmi, where’s the stash?” Kent spoke into his phone, then made a face at whatever answer came from the other end. “Nothing? Wrong answer, dude.” There was a pause, then Kent continued. “Don’t know, don’t care. Drink a Red Bull. Fine. I’ll call Joshua.” As the profiler hung up the phone, Kyra could hear what sounded like desperate yelling spilling out from the speaker.

  Another pushed button and Kyra could hear another voice. This one seemed much more alert. Hyper even. Whoever was on the other end didn’t wait for any prompt from Kent. The sounds blended together, and Kyra was pretty sure that wasn’t just from a bad connection.

  “Nice, Joshua. I’ll check back with you in an hour.” Kent tapped the screen to end the call and grinned at Kyra. “We’re going fishing.” He turned around and started walking back into the building.

  “Wait,” Kyra called after him. “Didn’t you say we were going to start looking for the Ripper evidence?”

  “That’s right,” he said, without turning around. Kyra trotted faster to keep up with him. For someone who appeared to be strolling along, Kent was moving pretty fast. Too much more of this and Kyra would get winded.

  “But--”

  Kent held up a finger. “Think,” was all he said.

  So she did. The British government had refused all access to the Ripper case files. Kent was now trying to find them. The profiler was now walking back into the building for the New Scotland Yard. Therefore…

  “Here?” Kyra blurted out. Kent gave her a sideways look. “Here?” she repeated in a much quieter tone.

  “Well, that’s one of about three possibilities, but since we’re already in the neighborhood, sure. Why the hell not?”

  “But if the files are in here, then…” Kyra’s mind was buzzing with the potential fallout they might experience if they were found rooting around inside Scotland Yard.

  “Then Locroft is a flaming-pants prevaricator?” Kent completed her thought for her.

  “That’s one of the problems, yeah,” she murmured under her breath.

  This was not going the way she had hoped. As much as Kyra was experiencing the thrill of the clandestine operation, she had future prospects to worry about. If International Hunters got a reputation for digging around where they weren’t welcome, her team’s hard-fought successes wouldn’t be worth the breath that it would take for their next client to tell them to take a hike.

  Still, the idea of finding something that had been buried by a government’s bureaucracy, hidden for decades… it was intoxicating. Her newly sensitized skin tingled in anticipation of the chase. Her face flushed, and she waved Kent forward, trying not to notice the way his slacks shifted as he moved like a big jungle cat.

  His every move spoke of restrained power. Of the knowledge of not just competence, but complete mastery. It was palpable. It was sexual.

  He must have seen her response, as he gave her a knowing smirk. The flush deepened, spreading to every part of her being. An itch that she could feel but couldn’t quite identify urged her on.

  Her breath caught in her throat as they walked back into the building and took the elevator down to the lowest floor. Back down into the womb of her rebirth.

  Where Jack the Ripper might just be waiting for them.

  And possibly something even better.

  * * *

  Kent felt parental.

  Well, he supposed it was parental. It involved a fair amount of smugness and included a sensation of near-ownership. From what he’d seen of parents, it had to be in the ballpark.

  Kyra was turning out to be one of his greatest accomplishments. The thought of molding this near-perfect female version of himself was godlike stuff.

  Heady nectar indeed.

  As they descended in the elevator… he refused to call it a lift, regardless of where they were… Kent could feel Kyra’s eyes upon him. She read his every shift, every minute detail of his changing mood. The connection between them was a living, breathing thing. As good as it had always been with Nicole, this was a level beyond. Almost to the point of being disconcerting.

  Part of what thrilled him so much with Nicole was the constant thrill of the chase. That was absent here. With Nicole, there had always been that tug of the constant sexual tension between them that was accentuated by her reluctance.

  Maybe it was the parental part of this situation, but it was at the same time more and less gratifying to have a protégé who was so willing to go along with him. Probably for the best, as sexual tension wasn’t exactly what he was going for here.

  “So where are we going?” Kyra asked.

  “Again. Think.” Kent wasn’t about to let his pupil off the hook. This was one that she could figure out on her own. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to allow a subpar profiler loose on the world. Time for her to put her deductive abilities to the test.

  The woman’s face grew still in concentration, the slight furrows in her brow accentuated by the harsh down-lighting of the elevator car. The highlights and shadows cast by the florescent bulbs overhead played across her features.

  “They wouldn’t be amongst the regular files. Those would have been scoured over time and time again,” she mused. “And I wouldn’t think there would be too many corners of the building that aren’t well-known.”

  Good girl. She was working it out, finding the patterns.

  Her face relaxed. “The Black Museum.”

  There it was. It had taken her less than thirty seconds to come up with the answer. More than worth it to avoid any dependence she might develop toward him.

  “How racist of you,” he replied with his trademark smirk. “It’s called the Crime Museum now.”

  To her credit, she refused to take umbrage at his teasing, instead returning his smile with a steady look and a raised eyebrow. But then her face clouded again.

  “But the Black Museum’s not open to the public.”

  Kent sighed. One step forward, two back. Did she really not know with whom she was working?

  “Wait for it,” he intoned, staring at the lights on the elevator wall as they descended.

  Kyra was about to continue her dark education.

  CHAPTER 5

  Nicole waited as once more her call went straight through to Kent’s voicemail message. This time she decided to actually listen to it.

  If you’re really calling this number to try to get a hold of me, you don’t know
me very well. So don’t leave a message.

  Of course. Kent didn’t have his own phone here. Why pay outrageous international fees when you could just nick someone else’s phone and have them pay for it instead?

  And yet, in spite of the arm floating about in the river and her husband of a day and a half being inaccessible to her, Nicole felt a smile creep across her face. This was the man she had chosen to not only marry, but carry his child as well.

  Okay. Time for her to think outside the box.

  First, to deal with the arm. Nicole scanned the sides of the Thames, looking for something, anything that she could use to fish the arm out of the river.

  There.

  A Tesco bag fluttered in the breeze, caught against the side of the wall. That would have to do for the moment.

  She would have just called it in, but there were way too many problems with that. One of them being that she had no clue what the emergency number was here in London. That might have been information she should have researched ahead of time, she supposed.

  Besides, once law enforcement got a hold of her, she would never be able to finish her walking tour of London. No, she would wrap up the arm and get some unsuspecting passerby to call it in.

  But after that was taken care of, she would still have to deal with what was going on here. She might be royally pissed off about it, but where better than London to get royally pissed, right?

  Much as chasing down Jack the Ripper wasn’t her idea of a good time, it wasn’t like she hadn’t looked into the case. She might not be as up on things as her illustrious spouse, but she’d done some digging.

  At the time, she’d just chalked it up to being a good detective, but even then she must have realized on some subconscious level that this was what her trip to London was going to look like. Nicole sighed.

  This severed arm was connected to Kent’s case. She knew it.

  She also knew that, in spite of everything he did to make everyone think otherwise, Kent was not infallible. This was one curveball her husband wouldn’t be expecting.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that a severed arm had shown up in the Thames at the same time a Jack the Ripper copycat was operating. Back in 1888, listed as one of the Whitechapel murders, a severed torso of a woman was found in the cellars of the New Scotland Yard. The arms had shown up in the Thames several days later.

  That wasn’t one of the murders commonly attributed to Jack. Which meant that Nicole was in possession of information that Kent didn’t have and absolutely needed for his investigation.

  The smile on Nicole’s face grew in spite of herself. She knew something Kent didn’t. For once.

  Then the grin faded and was replaced with a scowl. Now, in spite of herself, she was part of a decade’s old wild goose chase.

  She was going to kill Kent.

  * * *

  Exiting on the first floor of New Scotland Yard, Kyra took a moment to glance at the wall in front of her, which pointed to each side, listing the room numbers that could be found in either direction.

  She was looking for room 101.

  Someone had a perverse sense of humor. Or humour, she supposed, since she was back in the UK. The Museum of Crime was found in the Metropolitan Police Department’s room 101.

  A basic course in crime. Funny.

  But as they neared the room they were looking for, Kyra couldn’t help but look back at Kent. What were they going to do? They wouldn’t be allowed to grope about down here without some official backing. And considering Locroft, that wasn’t likely to happen.

  “How are we going to--?” Kyra began.

  But Kent had anticipated her, placing a finger on her lips. She felt the touch as a searing fire that spread from the point of contact all the way down her body. There was something electric in the profiler’s being that set her ablaze.

  She shook her head and paid attention to what Kent was saying.

  “So much of what I do is about gaining access,” the profiler murmured. His words entered her ear and somehow managed to land in the same place the touch of his finger had. Kyra stifled an involuntary shiver that bled both cold and warmth throughout her over-sensitized system.

  “How--?”

  Again, he lifted a hand to stop her speech. At least this time he hadn’t touched her mouth. Kyra wasn’t sure she could take that right now. He continued speaking.

  “The reason so many know so little is because few are willing to take the risks necessary,” he crooked a finger at her, inviting her in closer.

  She leaned in, inhaling his scent. He smelled of something strangely spicy, with an underlying musk that was intoxicating. Kyra held her breath as she listened.

  “Want to know how it is that I can appear psychic?” he asked. At her nod, he whispered, “I’ll go anywhere the search takes me. Anywhere.”

  Through the haze created by the profiler’s nearness, his touch and his scent, the meaning of Kent’s words penetrated. He wasn’t an adrenaline junkie. Nor was he completely disdainful of procedure. Well, maybe he was, but not as much as he let on.

  Kent was just single-minded. The trail led where it would, and the profiler followed. No matter what.

  “What do I need to do?” Kyra whispered back.

  Without warning, Kent leaned back, speaking now in a normal tone of voice. It was jarring, and Kyra felt her balance tilt and she almost tipped over. She knew the tactic. She’d used it before herself, to great effect. Having it used on her was… unusual. And not in a positive way.

  “Get us in the room.”

  “What?” she asked, disoriented. “What do you mean?”

  “We need to get into the Black Museum. You need to get us in.”

  “How?”

  Kent’s mouth twitched up. “Figure it out.” He handed her a wadded up scrap of paper and sauntered around the corner.

  Oh. Good. At least he had left instructions. Kyra opened up the note and read it. WWKD. That was all that the message read.

  What the hell did that mean?

  From around the corner, she spotted Kent’s hand waving her toward the door. He apparently wanted her to get a move on. Fantastic.

  Moving toward the placard that read 101, Kyra’s mind raced. She needed to get in the museum that wasn’t open to the public. It wasn’t exactly locked down, but she was confident that this was something that Kent didn’t want getting back to Locroft, or anyone else here at Scotland Yard.

  What was required was that she gain access for both Kent and herself. And unless she missed her guess, it would be preferable for them to be alone.

  She rapped on the door, and a pasty-faced man who was about an inch and a half shorter than she was opened up. He looked her up and down once and then grunted a bit.

  “Did you need something, miss?” the policeman asked, his eyes widening slightly as he took her in.

  Kyra knew she wasn’t classically beautiful, but she possessed the darker skin of the Romany, striking features with large eyes that many men… and some women… found quite attractive. The man in front of her seemed to be affected by what he was seeing.

  And suddenly, Kyra knew what WWKD meant. She had to struggle to keep from bursting out in laughter.

  What would Kent do?

  Those were the instructions her mentor, her provider, her hero had left her. A suggestion that she think back to the behavior she had seen him model, and then do likewise.

  There it was.

  Charm, misdirect, seduce if need be. It was almost as if she were hearing Kent inside her head.

  So without missing a beat, Kyra put a smolder into her gaze. She returned the assessing gaze she had received from the officer just moments before, knowing that what the man saw in her eyes was appreciation.

  His pupils dilated. Kyra had him.

  No you don’t. Not yet. Explain what you’re doing here. Suspicion is a desire killer.

  The suggestion from her inner Kent was spot-on. Any hint that she was here for anything other than a look-see woul
d send the man’s radar into overdrive.

  Go with your gut instinct. Act first, think later.

  Well, her gut level reaction was to go as far away from law enforcement in her explanation as possible. And if there was something that she considered to be antithetical to the police, it had to be the press.

  “Listen,” she said, putting on a sheepish grin. “I’m a journalist.”

  The officer stiffened. “How did you get in here?”

  Shit. Her choice might have been too antithetical.

  Take it down a notch. Pull back before you lose him completely. The voice inside her head resonated with the profiler’s arrogance. It was intoxicating, this connection with him. As if he were right beside her, whispering in her ear.

  “Well, I’m not really a journalist. Not professionally, anyway,” Kyra backtracked. Putting as much embarrassment in her tone as she could muster, she continued. “I’m… I’m a… Well, I’m a blogger.”

  The suspicion in the man’s eyes softened by a small margin. “Right. But that doesn’t answer my question. How did you get in?”

  Kyra tried on a coy smile. “I have a friend who works here. Don’t want to get him in trouble.”

  The expression on the officer’s face turned to one of mild disgust. “You saw the piece on the Black Museum, didn’t you?”

  Ratcheting up the embarrassment another two notches, Kyra nodded. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she was going to go with it.

  The officer sighed. “I told those arseholes over at Time Out that if you lot came sniffing about that it was all due to them.”

  “I’m not trying to make any trouble for anyone,” Kyra murmured, looking at the man through hooded eyes.

  The curator grunted. “Hm. Well, I don’t know.”

  Kent’s imaginary voice whispered in her head. Get in close. Then get closer.

  Kyra sighed and leaned in toward the man. Again she saw his eyes dilate. She rested a hand on his upper arm and squeezed lightly.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Ah… I’m Officer Whitehorn. Er. Billy.” His voice cracked a bit as he licked his lips. The touch seemed to be working its magic.