Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  ‘Yes.’ I followed her gaze, then shivered. ‘But burrowed out from the warehouse walls,’

  ‘That disturbs you?’

  ‘Of course,’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It reminds me too much…,’ – I paused to consider – ‘of the hole in which the antlion traps its prey.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Antlion, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes – its larval form, to be strictly accurate.’ I smiled ironically. ‘You will recall the funnel it digs, into which inquisitive ants are then lured. The larva feeds on them, drains them of their fluids, tosses their shrunken skins aside. What is waiting here if not just such a trap? The jaws are open – the ants blunder in.’ I paused. ‘Ants like the wretches in the opium den.’

  Suzette stared at me, then shrugged. ‘I do not share your outrage. It is hard to feel concern for the fate of ants.’

  ‘So I am right? The opium den does serve as the rim of the trap?’

  There was a lengthy pause. ‘Yes,’ said Suzette at last. ‘Clearly.’

  ‘And Polidori?’ I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you mean, Polidori?’

  ‘He is its guardian. Is he not a part of Lilah’s collection, then? Not one of her trophies?’

  ‘Polidori? No.’ Suzette stared at me coldly, then laughed. ‘She would never choose him as her lover.’

  ‘That is a prerequisite?’

  Suzette inclined her head.

  ‘So is that why Charlotte Westcote is here?’

  ‘Charlotte Westcote does not live here; she was merely a tool.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘She has never been with Lilah – no. We needed a wife for Sir George, that was ad. English, of course. So we took die Westcotes on die mountain road. The mother was too ugly – we fed on her. But Charlotte Westcote made a pretty vampire. She was clever too, just what we required, and with a remarkable and immediate aptitude for vice.’

  ‘Evidently,’ I agreed. I paused. ‘And Polidori? What is he doing in this menagerie? Was he made a vampire by Lilah too?’

  ‘No, Doctor. As you know very wed.’

  ‘Then by whom?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Lord Byron?’

  Suzette inclined her head.

  ‘And so that is what Polidori is doing here now? Pursuing a vendetta against Lord Byron and the whole Ruthven clan?’

  Suzette shrugged faintly. ‘His Lordship, I gather, still has scruples about killing those who share his own blood. Polidori likes to send his descendants to him — just to remind Lord Byron of what a monster he is. Arthur Ruthven was one of those descendants. So you will recognise – in response to your original question – that Polly and Lilah had a certain congruence of aims.’

  ‘But Arthur Ruthven is long dead now. Lucy, his sister, though, is still alive.’ I swallowed. ‘Tell me, Suzette – do Polidori and Lilah still share their congruence of aims?’

  ‘Doctor.’ Suzette smiled and raised her hand. ‘I have answered quite enough, I think, for now. The game is finished.’ She turned, and this time did not wait for me. ‘You have lost, Doctor,’ she called out as she left me alone. ‘Be content with that.’ She laughed. ‘Be a sportsman, if you must.’ And then she was gone. Slowly, I too descended the stairs, considering ad I had gleaned from her. As I did so I felt, with a sudden thrill of recognition, how my mind seemed almost my own again – restored almost to its former sharpness and resolve. Yes, I had lost the game. It was too late for me. But it wasn’t myself I was playing for now.

  Polidori, it was clear, held the key. My conversation with Suzette had confirmed a suspicion I had pondered on before, that the world of Lilah’s palace was indeed like a burrowed hole dug within the fabric of the warehouse brick – and that the entrance to it lay through Polidori’s shop. That was how the addicts had been drawn in, after ad; that was how Stoker and myself had come through; that was where reality seemed to blend with the unreality beyond. For elsewhere – the entrance from the High Street, for instance, or the moorings on the Thames – the border between the two states seemed more like a wall than a meeting place, guarded by Lilah’s unsleeping consciousness, through which no one could penetrate except on her desire. Penetrate – and, of course, withdraw as wed. But through Polidori’s shop, perhaps … Polidori’s shop … What opened into infinity, after ad, would surely lead from it too – and might Lilah not then be oblivious to the escape if I left through that exit, yes, through Polidori’s shop … The data, it was true, was scarcely conclusive; the reasoning barely supported by facts; but I had no other options, no choice but to try. After ad – could the penalty for fading be worse than to endure as I was?

  Naturally, if I was to make my attempt through Polidori’s shop, then I would have to cultivate the man himself. His attic, I found, had begun to fid once again like a wed-stocked larder, as I told him myself. I could see now, as I had not done before, how some of the addicts had already been bled – but it was less their pallor which betrayed them, rather their reaction to me. For my presence would fid them with terror, even rage; sometimes they would cower before me, at other times spring at my throat – just as Mary Kelly, I remembered, had once leapt at a dog, or Lizzie Seward, in her cell, had ripped the head from a dove. These violent reactions had always puzzled me before; but now, recalling the beasts of the menagerie and how they had been formed, I wondered if the women had not somehow sensed the transfusion of their blood and sought to reclaim it, during their bouts of insanity, from any beast that might happen to fad into their hands – just as the addicts now sought to reclaim their lost blood from me. Certainly, whatever the explanation, the effect of my presence in the attic was undeniable; and to Polidori, as the addicts’ keeper, it afforded endless delight. He would often be reduced into a frenzy of his own, so violent was his laughter, and since I was always careful to share in the joke he began to encourage me, for his own amusement, to visit him more. He never liked me – he never liked anyone – but his hostility grew slowly less evident. Once, I went so far as to try to reach the shop on the floor below; Polidori froze immediately and ordered me back; yet by turning with a show of the utmost unconcern, I was able to preserve his good humour with me. For I was satisfied at that stage merely to see my suspicions confirmed; the issue was not yet ready to be forced. First of ad, Polidori had to be won.

  But I was confident, if I were lucky, that I could tempt him in the end. For there was something else I had deduced from my talk with Suzette: that Polidori didn’t know where Lucy Ruthven could be found. That he did indeed want her, a few discreet questions were sufficient to establish; for just as he had sent Lucy’s brother to Lord Byron and his death, so also, I discovered, had Polidori been promised Lucy herself. But for now, I theorized, she was Charlotte Westcote’s; certainly it was Charlotte who had taken Lucy from her room, and since I had now established that she was not with us in Rotherhithe, I had a reasonable idea as to where she might be hiding instead – with poor Lucy, presumably, beside her as her prize. Had she not told poor Westcote as much, after ad, when we had discovered her on that dreadful afternoon – that she would keep his wife as her concubine? AU this, during my rambling conversations with Polidori, I was able to intimate in passing references, and whispers, and hints. I was careful never to incriminate myself, never to propose a naked bargain to him; and likewise, Polidori never offered one to me. But the seed, I hoped, was planted; and so I paused and waited, to see if it would grow.

  And yet in truth, even if I had wished to force the crisis and make the one attempt I would have to escape, I found I had little choice anyway but to delay. For my mental powers – which for a brief, precious moment had seemed my own again – had now begun to cause me fresh concern; not from any dulling of my responses but rather from the opposite, the constant process of their heightening. How can I describe the effect? At first, as you might imagine, it had been a rather pleasant one, welcome even, for it had seemed to arise from my recovered powers of reasoning, and to
promise yet further resources of insight. But I was wrong. The insights arose, certainly; but only to fall and be at once swept away. It was as though my brain were like a heart which was pumping too fast; just as an exhausted man must gasp for oxygen, so my mind was starting to crave endless stimulation for itself, merely to satisfy its racing demand, which was pulsing, speeding, growing ad the time.

  You will remember, Huree, that the desire for mental exaltation had always been a feature of my character; yet now I was becoming its absolute slave, for the more I sought to banish the threat of boredom from my brain, the more my thirst for fresh excitements would grow. I could no longer concentrate on the details of my escape from Rotherhithe; no longer plan or evaluate; my efforts would shrivel and crumble instead. Puzzles, cryptograms, games of chess: I tried them ad, exhausted diem, threw them aside. I gave up trying to think or sit down; the fire-storm of boredom would engulf me at once. Instead I came to wander ceaselessly through the mirror-like hallways, the twisting flights of stairs, searching in vain for some escape from my mind – so burning now, so vivid and bright, demanding fuel to feed its hunger, its desires. Sometimes I would see Lilah, the barest glimpse, and my craving, for that second, would be satisfied; then she would be gone and the pain would return. If I could only find her, she would extinguish the flames. If I could only find her … But I was trapped in emptiness, on the endless flights, and I was alone. I would mount the stairs, but when I reached their summit I was back at their foot. Was there anything other in the world than these loops of steps and time? Hopelessly I climbed them, endlessly. The coals burned hotter and hotter in my brain. Every thought, every feeling would burst into flames. There was nothing the heat did not incinerate.

  ‘Here,’ said Suzette.

  I looked down at her. She had on her prettiest dress and wore pink ribbons in her plaited hair.

  ‘Here,’ she said again. ‘Seven-per-cent.’

  I took the needle. For a second, I gazed at it; then I rolled back my shirt-cuff and pinched at my vein.

  ‘Deep,’ whispered Suzette.

  ‘Deep,’ I replied.

  I thrust the point in; I plunged the piston home. For a moment all seemed clarified. As the drug purged my veins, I breathed a long, contented sigh of relief. Suzette laughed, I smiled at her. And then I screamed, for the effect of the cocaine was fading away; the flames were returning, the relief was gone. I gripped the syringe in my shaking hand. ‘No,’ I shuddered, ‘no!’ I touched the needle with my finger tip; I pricked a jewel of blood; then I stabbed the point into my arm again. This time there was no effect at all. Again I plunged; again and again, until my arm was punctured with a pattern of dots. I licked at the blood, I smeared it on my lips, but it gave me no pleasure. I looked up. ‘Help me,’ I asked. ‘Please help me, Lilah, please.’

  She paused in her embraces. Her lips, like mine, were touched with red, as she bowed her head again, licking and sucking on Suzette’s naked breasts. Together, girl and woman, they laughed in my face as they twisted and writhed, their limbs entwined, their bodies clinched tight. I took a step forward. My brain was a furnace of burning sands. Lilah paused; broke away from her kisses; turned to look at me again. Her eyes were aglitter; her lips bright and moist.

  ‘Poor Jack,’ she murmured. She smiled. ‘Ripping Jack,’ I clasped my ears. Her laughter was rising on the flames in my brain. I couldn’t block it out. I needed her. Only her touch would extinguish the heat. I tried to move, but my limbs were stone and I could only watch. How greedily they kissed. I clenched my eyes shut. But like their laughter, their lovemaking filled up my thoughts. The pain was such that it couldn’t be borne. I screamed. The noise streamed like blood, then was burned up in the flames. It would surely end now … the heat was melting the sponge of my brain. It would surely end … it would surely have to end.

  ‘Here,’ said Lilah. The silence was suddenly heavy and calm. We were standing beneath her portrait. There was no other light in die room but the single candle, flickering as before. Lilah was holding a golden dish which held a liquid that was dark like communion wine.

  ‘Wash your face.’

  I did so. At the touch of the blood I knew what to do; where to go.

  ‘See,’ said Lilah as she held the dish up to my face. The reflection was my own and yet not altogether my own. My skin was very pale, my eyes very bright; it seemed the face of an avenging angel of death.

  ‘Go,’ said Lilah. She kissed me. ‘Find your peace.’

  And so I turned and crossed the river, to where the slums were rankest and darkest with life. I welcomed my anger now, for the purpose it gave, and the promise it offered that the fire-storm would fade; one glimpse of blood, and my head was cooled; one glimpse of blood and the inferno was tamed. As I ripped the whore, the agony of dullness seemed to ebb with her life and the arid pain slipped away, purged by the flow from the gashes to her throat. The rush of sudden joy surprised me; I rose from the body and stumbled through the streets – each sensation, each thought, each emotion precious now. I stared at the filthy streets, and felt gratitude, towards the rubbish, the excrement, the faces in the gaslight, that I could see them and not suffer pain as my response, but rather the opposite, a sense of wonder and relief. Like blood through cramped limbs, I felt my disgust returning, flowing through my thoughts. I stood amongst the sewage, and on long, ecstatic breaths gulped in the scent; I touched it with my finger and tasted it. As I did so, a whore brushed past me. Her clothes were greasy and damp. I watched her as she continued down the street. She was lard-breasted, loose-hipped, reeking of flesh. I felt the prickle again, on the margin of my thoughts. Suppose I were to kid again? Just suppose! But no sooner had the thought come to me than I sought to bury it. I had already killed once; I couldn’t murder a second time tonight. Once was enough. Surely? Yes, surely. It was time that I left.

  The desire still flickered as I hurried from the slums, but I fought it down, though my mouth was very dry. The City was ahead of me; as I reached Aldgate I heaved a sigh of relief, for I had now crossed from the East End and left Whitechapel behind. I lowered my pace. Idly I wandered up Mitre Street. All seemed silent and still. Suddenly, from a passageway just ahead of me, I saw the beam of a torch; I shrank back into the shadows as a policeman turned out, then walked past me down the street. Once he was gone, I approached the passageway; I could make out a church beyond it, a small square, some ugly warehouse fronts – nothing of interest. I shrugged, and turned and prepared to walk on. Then suddenly, as I did so, I heard a woman start to sing.

  She was clearly very drunk. Even at that distance, I could smell the gin. With a shiver of delight, I turned again and walked down into the square. The woman was leaning against a wall. She glanced up at me. Her face was blotchy and red. She smiled, muttered something, then collapsed at my feet. I opened my bag; I tried to tell myself that even though I now held my knife in my hand, I would not use it – I could not justify it, not twice in one night. But even as I pretended this, a rush of excitement was lightening my veins, and indeed, as soon as I had gashed her, the pleasure was like nothing I had ever known. ‘Oh, yes,’ I moaned, ‘yes!’ as I slit across her cheek from her ear to her nose. The surgery was soon completed. Before departing, I was careful once again to amputate the uterus. I slipped it into my pocket. Then I rose, and left the reeking mess, and hurried from the square. As I turned into an alley behind the Whitechapel Road, I stumbled and almost fed into a policeman’s arms. He stared at me strangely; then he shook his head and bade me good night. How I laughed. For as I walked away from him, I could hear the first cries of horror rising from the square. The policeman turned and sprinted after me; but by then it was too late. I had already melted into the vile air of the slums; faded like a mist. But it wasn’t over yet. There would always be more. I was Jack the Ripper. I would always be back.

  I would always be back. The joy of the prostitutes’ deaths began to fade; but this one thought, mutating from an affirmation of triumph into a cry of despair, stil
l remained with me. For it was the case, I realised, that the rhythms of my transformed state had been written into my very cells: murder, euphoria, disgust, then pain; and in the end, inexorably – murder once again. How long would it persist, this cycle of horror? A thousand years, Suzette had said, a thousand years and more she had been drinking human blood. As I woke from the pleasure of my double killing, the dread of this eternity seemed more terrible than the worst agony I had yet experienced, and I was determined – in the brief moment of lucidity that I knew would be granted to me – to attempt my escape. If I could only reach you, Huree, I thought, we might rescue Lucy from Charlotte Westcote’s arms; and perhaps – just perhaps – I might be rescued from myself. Was that ever possible, do you think? Would you have known what to do? I was never to ask you, of course. But you were the object of all my hopes, Huree, as I plotted my flight. And in that place, hope was much more precious than life.

  Nor did it seem altogether baseless. For I was even given the time when I would have to make my attempt. The scale of Polidori’s hatred of Lord Byron had become increasingly evident; once having acknowledged it to me he could never stop referring to it, scratching at it like some festering sore, and he would sit muttering and cursing to himself, sometimes shouting abuse, or just staring for hours into the brazier coals. He would speak of Lucy; his eyes would light with pleasure at the thought of sending her to Byron, and her death. My own role in the fulfilment of this ambition was still never spoken of openly; but Polidori told me one evening that Lilah would be bathing the following night.

  ‘Bathing?’ I asked.

  Polidori grinned and gestured at the bodies on the floor. ‘Very – seductive – she finds it, bathing,’ he whispered. ‘Quite loses herself in the pleasure. Nothing distracts her from it – nothing at all.’