Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  For the first time in her young life, Margo Smith discovered that hurting the people you loved was even worse than being hurt, yourself. Which was why, perhaps, in the final analysis, her mother and so many of the women in this room and out on these streets had sunk to the level of common prostitute. They were trying to support families any way they could. Margo’s mouth trembled violently. Then she simply squeezed shut her eyes and cried, no longer caring who saw the tears. She’d think up a good reason to give Shahdi Feroz later.

  Just now, she needed to cry.

  She wasn’t even sure who she was crying for.

  When Shahdi Feroz slipped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, just holding her, Margo realized it wasn’t important at all, knowing who her tears were for. In the end, it didn’t matter. The only thing that really mattered was protecting the people you cared about. In that moment, Margo forgave her mother everything. And cried harder than she had since those terrible moments in a blood-spattered Minnesota kitchen, with the toast burnt on the counter and the stink of death in her nostrils and her father’s rage pursuing her out the door into the snow.

  I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry . . .

  I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him.

  I’m sorry I hated you . . .

  Did Annie Georgina Chapman, Dark Annie Chapman’s daughter, who’d run away from her poverty-stricken, prostituted mother to join a French touring circus, hate her mother, too? Margo hoped not. She blinked burning salt from her eyes and offered up one last apology. And I’m sorry I can’t stop him from killing you, Annie Chapman . . .

  Margo understood at last.

  Kit had warned her that time scouting was the toughest job in the world.

  Now she knew why.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Skeeter Jackson was just climbing into the clothes Kit had loaned him, in the Neo Edo bathrooms, when a slim, wraith-like little girl named Cocheta, a mixed-blood Amer-Indian who’d stumbled through the Conquistadores Gate and joined the Lost and Found Gang of down-timer children, skidded into the Neo Edo men’s room, out of breath and ashen. Her dark eyes had gone wide, glinting with terror. “Skeeter! Hashim sent me for you! There is bad trouble! Please hurry!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It is Bergitta! They have taken her away—the men from the construction site!”

  The roar of insanity outside the Neo Edo, where the riot was still spreading, faded to a whisper. Skeeter narrowed his eyes over a surge of murderous rage. “Show me!”

  Cocheta snatched his hand, led him through the craziness running amok in Edo Castletown. “The Lost and Found Gang is following them! Hurry, Skeeter! They took her from the bathroom they just finished building in the new part of the station, when she went to clean the floor.”

  “How many?” Dammit, he didn’t have any weapons with him, not even a pocket knife, and those construction workers would all be carrying heavy tools. Any one of which could cut a man’s throat or spill his intestines with a single swiping blow.

  “Twenty! They knocked unconscious the foreman and several of the other men who did not agree with them, locked them into a supply room. We sent word to the Council for help. I was told to find you, Skeeter, and Hashim said where you were.”

  As soon as they cleared the mob in Edo Castletown, Skeeter and the girl tugging at his hand broke into a dead run. Cocheta led him through Victoria Station and Urbs Romae, through Valhalla, down toward the construction site, which was ominously silent. There should’ve been an ear-splitting roar of saws, drills, and pneumatic hammers echoing off the distant ceiling, but they found only silence and a deserted construction zone, tasks left abandoned on every side. The timing of the attack on Bergitta left Skeeter scowling. With the antics at Primary to preoccupy station security and most of the tourists, nobody was likely to notice the work stoppage. Or the disappearance of one down-timer from her job scrubbing bathroom floor tiles.

  “Hurry, Skeeter!”

  Cocheta didn’t need to urge him again. He’d seen enough to leave his whole throat dry with fear. “Which way did they take her?”

  “Through there!” Cocheta pointed to a corridor that led into a portion of the station where new Residential apartments were being assembled, back in another of the caverns in which the station had been built. Clearly, they were taking her where nobody could hear the screams. He was just about to ask Cocheta to get word to someone in Security, preferably Wally Klontz, when someone shouted his name.

  “Skeeter! Wait!”

  A whole group of down-timers pounded his way, with Kynan Rhys Gower in the lead. The Welsh soldier carried his war mallet. Molly was hot on his heels. Where she’d obtained that lethal little top-break revolver, Skeeter wasn’t sure. Maybe she’d brought it with her from London. Or liberated it from Ann Vinh Mulhaney’s firing range—or some tourist’s pocket. Eigil Bjarneson towered over the whole onrushing contingent of angry Found Ones. He’d managed to reclaim his sword from Security after getting out of jail. Or quite possibly he’d just broken out and reconfiscated it? Skeeter wouldn’t have wanted to argue with Eigil in this mood, if he’d been working the Security desk, which was probably in chaos anyway, after Bull’s arrest . . .

  “Cocheta says they took her through there,” Skeeter pointed the way.

  “Let’s go,” Kynan nodded, voice tight, eyes crackling with murderous fury.

  Skeeter turned to the girl who’d brought him here. He said tersely, “Cocheta, stay here and wait for other Found Ones who might be coming. Send them in after us. Give us twenty minutes to get in there and get into position, then start yelling for station security. By then, the mess at Primary should’ve settled down enough, Security might actually listen and send someone.”

  “Yes, Skeeter. The Lost and Found Gang has followed the men who took her. They will tell you which way to go. Hurry!”

  He signaled for silence, gratified when his impromptu posse obeyed instantly, and led the way back into the incomplete section of Commons at a flat-out run. They entered the tunnel which led to the new area of Residential and Skeeter slowed to a more cautious pace, silent as shadows chased by a hunter’s moon. The concrete floors had already been poured and drywall had gone up in many places. Work lights rigged high overhead cast unnatural pools of light and shadow through the incomplete Residential section, where bare two-by-fours marked out rooms and corridors not yet closed in with wallboard. Skeeter listened intently, but heard nothing. This section of station snaked back into the heart of the mountain, twisting and turning unpredictably.

  They found a teenager at a major junction where two Residential corridors would intersect when completed. The boy was dancing with impatience, but remained silent when Skeeter raised a finger to his lips in warning. That way, the boy pointed. Skeeter nodded, jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate that more hunters were on the way, and motioned for the boy to wait for reinforcements. The boy nodded and settled in to wait. Skeeter stole forward, leading his war party down the indicated corridor. Dust from the construction lay thick on every surface, wood dust and debris from particle board. The chalky scent of gypsum drywall clogged his nostrils as they pushed forward.

  Skeeter paused to retrieve an abandoned claw hammer. It wasn’t his weapon of choice, but offered lethal potentialities he could certainly make use of, and was better than bare fingernails. When they came to a door marking a stairwell, they found another member of the Lost and Found Gang, a girl of thirteen who stood watch with tears streaming down her face.

  “They went down,” she whispered, pointing to the stairs. “They had hit her, Skeeter, were laughing about raping her and killing her when they were done . . .”

  “We’ll stop them,” Skeeter promised. “Stay here. More are coming.” He glanced at the grim men and women of his posse. “I’d prefer live witnesses to testify against their up-time cronies in the Ansar Majlis. Maybe we can crack their terrorist gang wide open. But if we have to spill blood to get Bergitta out of there alive, we’ll hit �
�em hard and worry about the body count and station management’s reaction later. The main thing is, we get her out of there.”

  Kynan Rhys Gower and the others nodded silently, understanding exactly what he meant and accepting whatever happened. Pride in Ianira’s achievement, building this community, flared hot in Skeeter’s awareness, pride and a determination not to let anything happen to a single one of his new-found friends.

  The girl guarding the stairwell held the door open for them.

  Skeeter’s pulse thundered as he eased silently down the dim concrete steps. Naked light bulbs glared where ceiling panels had not yet been installed. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, another member of the Lost and Found Gang waited silently. The boy stationed here was only eleven, but had the quick presence of mind to signal for silence. He pointed to the left, mimed following the tunnel around to the right. Skeeter nodded and made sure his entire posse was out of the stairwell before continuing. The rear guard had swelled by three new arrivals, easing so silently down the stairs after them, Skeeter hadn’t even heard them join up.

  Chenzira Umi, the ancient Egyptian who sat on the Council of Seven, must have been in his apartment when the call went out, because he carried the hunting-dart thrower he’d made for himself. Shaped something like an atl-atl, it could throw a lethal projectile with enough penetrating force to bring down a hippo or a Nile croc. The Egyptian had brought with him the Spaniard Alfonzo Menendez, who’d liberated a steel-tipped pike from the decorative wall of the restaurant where he worked. Young Corydon, a Greek hoplite of twenty-three who excelled at the sling as a weapon of war, had joined them as well. Corydon clutched an entire handful of rounded stones, still dripping from the goldfish pond he’d stolen them from, and was busy unwinding his sling from under his shirt, where he’d doubtless worn it in honor of the Festival of Mars.

  Skeeter acknowledged the newcomers with a brisk nod, then motioned the way and set out in pursuit. And this time, he heard the quarry. Rough male voices drifted through the subterranean corridors, punctuated by distant, feminine cries of pain. He tightened his grip around the lethal claw hammer and eased forward, stealing softly across the concrete floor toward the inhuman sport underway somewhere ahead. Before this business was done, Skeeter vowed, these construction workers would bitterly rue their decision to indulge an appetite for revenge on a member of his adopted family.

  As a boy, he’d never been allowed to join a Yakka war party bent on vengeance.

  Now he led the raid.

  Guide me, Yesukai . . .

  The corridor they followed twisted and turned through a maze of partially completed Residential apartments, storage warehouses for equipment, pumping stations to bring water into the new section of station, stacks of dusty lumber, drywall, and cement bags, and tangles of electrical wiring and cables. Skeeter’s little band of rescuers, seven strong, now, crept closer to the distorted sounds of merriment from twenty burly construction workers somewhere ahead. God, seven against twenty . . .

  They rounded a final corner and found two more Lost and Found members crouched in the corridor, peering anxiously their way. One of the boys, eight-year-old Tevel Gottlieb, had been born on station. Hashim Ibn Fahd, a cunning little wolf of thirteen, still wearing Neo Edo livery, beckoned Skeeter forward, then placed his lips directly against Skeeter’s ear and breathed out, “They are in the warehouse just beyond this corner. They have posted no guards.”

  Skeeter risked a quick look, ducking low to the floor to minimize the chances of being seen by anyone who cast a casual glance their way. The warehouse where they’d dragged their victim was an open bay some fifty feet across, piled high with lumber and construction supplies, coils of copper wire and crates of plumbing and electrical fixtures, preformed plastic sink basins, miniature mountains of PVC pipe. Two walls were solid concrete, marking the boundary with the cavern walls just beyond. The other two were gypsum board tacked to wooden two-by-fours. One of these gypsum walls, which Skeeter crouched behind, had been completed already, awaiting only the installation of electrical outlet covers. The other was only partially complete, with drywall up along half its length. Bare wooden uprights comprised the balance of its span.

  Bergitta lay on the concrete floor along this stretch of wall, wrists wired to thick two-by-fours. Another cruel twist of wire, tightened down around her throat, prevented her from lifting her head. They’d ripped her shirt open, had cut away her bra. They hadn’t bothered to tie a gag. Her skirt lay in twists around her waist. One of them was busy raping her while others waited their turn, speaking tensely amongst themselves in what looked almost like an argument. Hashim Ibn Fahd, who’d stumbled through the Arabian Nights gate in the middle of a howling sandstorm, having become separated from the caravan he’d been traveling with, pressed his lips against Skeeter’s ear once again.

  “They argue about bringing the woman here. Some say their brothers in the Ansar Majlis will reward them when they have killed this one. Others say raping a prostitute has nothing to do with the cause and the leaders of the Ansar Majlis will be angry, for that and for attacking the foreman and others of the faith. They say the leaders came through Primary today and will punish those who take such chances at being caught. The others say it does not matter, because now that their brothers have come to the station, Mike Benson and all who run the jail will die. Soon their brothers will be free again to hunt the Templars who flock to the whore’s shrine in Little Agora. Their leader says to hurry with the woman, his balls ache and he wants his turn on her before she is dead from too many men inside her.”

  The freezing hatred in young Hashim’s eyes sent a chill down Skeeter’s back. He beckoned the two boys away from the corner, then led his band several yards back further still, well out of earshot. Speaking in the barest whisper, Skeeter outlined his plan, such as it was. “There’s too many of them to rush in there the way we are. We’ll just get Bergitta killed and maybe us, too. We’ve got to lure some of them out here, away from the others, split them up. We’ve got reinforcements coming, but we don’t know how many or when. All we can count on is ourselves.”

  Seven adults and two kids . . .

  Not the best odds he’d ever faced.

  But it would have to do. God help them all, it would have to do, because they were out of time—and so was poor Bergitta.

  * * *

  They met in a dingy, drab little pub called the Horn of Plenty on the corner of Dorset Street and Chrispin. As he had been the night of Polly Nichols’ murder, John Lachley was once again in deep disguise. James Maybrick was proving most useful in procuring theatrical disguises for him, at the same shops patronized by one of Lachley’s new clients, a popular actor at the Lyceum Theater where the infamous American play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was packing in sellout crowds bent on vicarious thrills.

  The thrills Lachley and James Maybrick sought tonight were anything but vicarious. Lachley made eye contact with Maybrick across the smoke-filled pub, making certain his disciple recognized him through the false beard, sideburns, and scar, then nodded toward the door. Maybrick, eyes glittering with intense excitement, paid for his pint of bitters and exited. Lachley finished his stout leisurely, then sauntered out into the night. Maybrick waited silently across the street, leaning one shoulder against the brick wall of a doss house opposite the pub.

  Lachley’s pulse quickened when Maybrick glanced into his eyes. Maybrick’s excitement was contagious. The cotton merchant’s color was high, even though he didn’t know, yet, the identity of the woman they were to kill tonight. The knowledge that Lachley meant to guide him to his next victim was clearly sufficient to excite the man beyond the bounds of reason. The telegram which had summoned Maybrick back to London from Liverpool had read: “Friday appointment. Arrange as before.”

  That telegram, which had triggered this meeting, would—at long last—culminate in the final episode of Lachley’s quest for Prince Albert Victor’s eight indiscreet letters. Four obtained from Morgan . . . one from P
olly Nichols . . . and the final three would be in his hands by night’s end, obtained from Annie Chapman. Three murders—Morgan, Polly Nichols, and Annie Chapman—were already two more than he’d anticipated needing to wind up this sordid little affair. He very carefully did not think about the prophetic words his lovely prisoner had choked out: and six shall die for his letters and his pride . . .

  He could not afford to indulge doubt on a job of this magnitude, whatever its source. James Maybrick, at least, was a good deal more than satisfactory as a tool to accomplish Lachley’s goals. In fact, Maybrick was proving to be a most delightful tool in John Lachley’s capable hands. Completely mad, of course, behind those merry eyes and mild smile, but quite an effective madman when it came to dispatching witnesses and blackmailers. What he’d done to Polly Nichols after choking her death with his bare hands inspired awe. The newspapers were still bleating about “The Whitechapel Murderer” and speculation was running wild through the East End’s sordid streets. The terror visible in the eyes of every dirty whore walking these streets was music in Lachley’s soul. He had more than good reason to wish a calamitous end on such women. Tormenting, small-minded trollops that they were, pointing at him and laughing through their rotting teeth, calling out filthy names when he passed them on the kerb . . .

  Lachley wished he’d taken the satisfaction of punishing that blackmailing little bitch, Polly Nichols, himself. He’d enjoyed Morgan’s final hours, had enjoyed them immensely, and regretted having allowed Maybrick all the fun in killing the loathsome Polly Nichols. He wondered what it had felt like, ripping her open with that shining, wicked knife, and found that his pulse was pounding raggedly. This time, he promised himself, I’ll do the killing myself this time, I’m damned if Maybrick shall have all the fun, curse him for the maniac he is.