“You still haven’t said exactly what it was he saw,” Morris said. “What are we facing here?”
“A flea,” St. Cyprian said. Morris frowned, and St. Cyprian chuckled. “More or less, I mean. You’re familiar with the Sigsand Manuscript, I trust?”
“It’s a Saiitii manifestation?” Morris said, eyebrows bobbing like thin galleys on the pale expanse of his brow.
“Of sorts, I think. Something from the outer reaches. A lurker on the threshold, a second-story man who’s slipped in through an open window, if you will,” St. Cyprian said, trying to sound nonchalant. “It happens from time to time. The results are almost always unpleasant.” He retrieved his cigarette case and popped it open. He proffered it to Morris, who waved it aside.
“Are you still smoking those foul Moro things?” he said, pulling a face.
“Rolled right here in Limehouse, on the tattooed thighs of a very attractive woman of indeterminate age,” St. Cyprian said.
Morris sniffed and said, “Enough about your sordid hobbies, what about this flea?”
“There’s always time for hobbies, Morris,” St. Cyprian said. “But I take your point. Yes, it’s a Saiitii manifestation. You recall the affair with that fellow Bains that Carnacki went through, just prior to the War?”
Morris paled. “We’re facing that thing?” he hissed.
“Not quite, but close enough. I doubt it’s the same entity, but it’s from the same gang, as it were. It is something vast and malignant, which has been bundled into a puny human shape by chance or design and is now loose in London, free to feed on us pitiful material intelligences to its heart’s content. If you’d actually gone up to the garret, you’d have noticed that, beneath all the blood and mutilation, the bodies were practically mummified, as if they’d lain out beneath the sun for several weeks.” He felt somewhat heartened, as he spoke, to note that Morris was properly afraid, and sweating bullets despite the January chill. He’d met quite a few Ministry-types who didn’t have the good sense to be scared of such things. A healthy respect for the sheer pants-soiling terror of the things lurking in the Outer Spheres was conducive to odds of survival, he’d found.
Not that he’d faced such before. Oh, he’d put the kibosh on a few rogue manifestations here and there, but this was something different. Not that he was planning to tell Morris that. It wasn’t just showmanship. The tenuous truce between the office of the Royal Occultist and the Ministry existed solely because the Ministry thought that he knew things they didn’t.
If they ever realized that he was, by and large, as in the dark as they were about what occurred under the skin of reality, they’d redouble their efforts to absorb the office into their sphere, and he’d find himself out of a job, and likely detained as an asset, just like the unfortunate plods standing around him, breathing into cupped hands and glaring about darkly. The thought sent a shudder through him. No, it was best not to let Morris know anything, until he had to.
“Which means—what?” Morris demanded.
“They were drained of their ectoplasm, their spirit-stuff, their psychical juices—it’s a flea and that is what it feeds on. What it must feed on, in order to anchor itself here, in this plane of existence. It didn’t need the blood, which it was happy enough to spill as it gorged itself on their psyches.” St. Cyprian punctuated his statement by stabbing the air with his cigarette, causing Morris to flinch. “It’s not a blood-drinker, like our terrestrial fleas, but a soul-eater. And it’ll need a steady diet to keep its seat at the table.”
“So why are we after Jadwiga, then? It sounds like we should be hunting this thing down!” Morris said as he dabbed at his face with a handkerchief plucked from his coat pocket. “We have the public good to think about.”
“I told you, it will be looking for him. It has his scent. These entities aren’t intelligent, not as we define intelligence at any rate, at least not at first. Right now, it has no more self-awareness than a shark, or a tiger, regardless of the borrowed body it’s walking around in, and like a shark or a tiger, once it has the scent of blood in its nostrils, it’ll follow the trail until it finds its quarry. There were three survivors, and Jadwiga will be the easiest of the three to find, and, if we’re lucky, at least one of the others is with him.”
“You said ‘not at first’,” Morris said doubtfully. “That implies that at some point, it will be intelligent.” He didn’t sound happy about that fact, and St. Cyprian couldn’t blame him.
“Oh yes, quite,” St. Cyprian said. “They adapt, you see. They…” he gestured helplessly, trying to think of the right word, “They fill the space they’re in, and take its shape, rather like water in a jug. They take on the…qualities of the shape. This one has hollowed out a man. Eventually, it will begin to think as a man. And that’s when things will get a tad…difficult.”
“What do you mean by difficult?”
“Right now, it has no idea where it is, or what’s going on. But when that changes, it may decide that it doesn’t want to leave. So let’s see our unwelcome visitor out on its phantasmal ear before then, what?” St. Cyprian looked around. “I do hope everyone’s armed. I have no doubt it’s already on the trail of the survivors.”
“And what’s your plan when we find him, or them?” Morris said.
“Have you ever hunted tigers?” St. Cyprian said.
“No, have you?”
“Perish the thought,” St. Cyprian said. “But I’ve read quite a few issues of Boy’s Own, and I think I’ve got the gist.” He sucked on his cigarette and expelled a stream of smoke from his nostrils. “Ah, there she is,” he said.
Gallowglass stood in the alley beside the laundry, and waved them over. St. Cyprian led Morris and the others over, and Gallowglass greeted them with a terse, “I think I’ve found him, but he’s in pretty pitiful shape.”
“How pitiful, exactly?” St. Cyprian said, dropping his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with his foot.
“Come and see,” Gallowglass said, leading them around behind the laundry, where the building hung out over the Thames. The extension protruded right over the waterline like a parapet over a moat. Gallowglass led them up a creaking set of rickety stairs into the extension. A raw-faced, shave-pated pugilist-type lay in the doorway at the top of the stairs, his eyes closed, his jaw slack and a goose-egg of substantial girth marking the back of his head. St. Cyprian glanced at Gallowglass, who shrugged. “I assumed you wanted to get in and out without attracting any attention,” she said as she stepped carefully over the unconscious man and shoved the heavy, reinforced door open. The hinges squealed, but there was no reaction from within.
Inside, it was ill-lit and the scratch of unseen rats accompanied the creak of the rough planks beneath their feet. The damp of the river, just below their feet, rose up through the gaps between boards to clasp them in clammy, cool fingers. The floor was dotted with trap-doors and St. Cyprian shivered as he considered what they were likely for. Why bother moving a body, after all, when you could just roll them into the river? The Thames had been London’s unofficial communal graveyard since well before the Romans had set their standard, and that hadn’t changed in the intervening centuries.
Bunk-beds lined the shabby walls and two rows bisected the centre of the room, reminding St. Cyprian of the barracks he’d been unfortunate enough to occupy during the War. Each bunk was occupied with a limp figure, sunk in drug-addled dreams. The floor was similarly occupied, with heavy sack-pillows thrown into the corners and unconscious men tossed upon them, to keep the path between beds clear.
Most lay silent, but some murmured to each other in low voices, the pitch of those conversations rising and falling abruptly and strangely. Metal pipes were clutched in desperate claws, red light waxing and waning with the poison in each bowl, and lips smacked as they fastened themselves around the pipes to suckle at the dragon’s teat.
“Let’s be quick about this,” Morris grunted, waving forward one of his men. “Find him. I don’t want to be in
here any longer than I have to be.”
“No one said you had to come in, did they?” Gallowglass muttered. Morris glared at her, but didn’t reply. The men moved through the rows, hunting their quarry. St. Cyprian drew close to his assistant.
“How soon before the proprietors notice we’re back here?” he murmured.
“Depends on whether they care,” she said. “The customers ain’t complaining, are they?”
“It’s not them I’m worried about. I—” He blinked and winced. It was as if something had suddenly delivered a short, sharp poke to his third eye. Gallowglass glanced at him.
“What?” she said. For once, she sounded concerned. He tried for a smile, but feared that it came out as a grimace.
“I don’t know.” He felt nauseous, as he had in the garret. There was an oily taste under his tongue, and a chill that came from neither the cold nor the damp on his skin. He looked down at the floor. For a moment, he thought he’d felt cobbles beneath his feet. And he thought he’d heard—what?—a policeman’s whistle, perhaps, and the clatter of a carriage’s wheels. He shook his head and looked past her. One of the men was gesturing to them. He hurried towards the man. “Is this him?” he said. The man on the bunk certainly resembled one of the men he’d seen in his vision, albeit dishevelled and stinking of opium and not wearing a magician’s robe. Not waiting for an answer, St. Cyprian sank to his haunches beside him and reached out a hand to shake him awake. “Mr. Jadwiga?”
Bleary, red-rimmed eyes cracked open. “Who,” the man croaked.
“You, I hope,” St. Cyprian said. “Mr. Jadwiga, you are in great danger.”
“It killed them,” Jadwiga slurred. “Eddowes shot it, but it killed them anyway.” St. Cyprian recalled the gunman he’d seen in his vision, who’d sent the entity running with a flurry of shots. Was that Eddowes, then? It was a curious name. One he’d heard before, but he couldn’t recall where. He looked down at the man.
“But not you,” St. Cyprian said, “At least not yet, and not today, if I can help it.” He leaned close, wrinkling his nose as the opium stink hit him in the face. The latter clutched a long, intricately carved opium pipe to his chest, as if he was a child and it was a favoured toy. “Where are the others, Jadwiga? Surely you must know where your lady friend went…”
Jadwiga tensed, limbs quivering. “I can smell fog,” he grunted. “I can hear women, and carriages and—and—and a bell? I can taste grapes. Why do I taste grapes?” His face crumpled and he grabbed St. Cyprian’s arm. “What—what time is it?”
“Ten, or thereabouts,” St. Cyprian said, glancing at his pocket-watch.
“Ten? Ten! What day?” Jadwiga croaked. St. Cyprian told him. Jadwiga moaned. “No, no, no, I only had a few pipes, just one or two, to steady me. I told her I would come for her.”
“Her,” St. Cyprian repeated, “Your partner?”
“Aife,” Jadwiga said hollowly. “I told her to hide with her friends in Bow, that I would come and get her when things had calmed down. I just needed a quick pipe, to steady myself. What time is it? Why are you lying?” he said, grabbing at St. Cyprian and half pulling himself from his bunk. St. Cyprian shook him off and Jadwiga said something unintelligible and sank back down into his stupor. St. Cyprian frowned and stood.
“Right, get him up. We have to get him out of here before—”
The heavy door that led to the laundry suddenly burst off of its hinges and slammed to the floor. A man’s body rolled off of it, his windpipe open to the elements. Whatever had torn out his throat had done so with more enthusiasm than precision, and blood still spurted in thin geysers from the savaged flesh. Voices, raised in consternation, drifted through the open doorway, followed by a tall, thin shape, which stooped to enter.
For a moment, the only sound was the plip-plip-plip of blood dripping from the silvery length of sharpened death dangling loosely from the newcomer’s grip. Then there came a wet chuckle, and in that sound, threaded through it and just below the surface, St. Cyprian heard the rattle of a carriage, the clop of horse’s hooves and the scream of a woman.
“It’s bloody Jack the Ripper,” one of Morris’ men whispered hoarsely. And it was. From the crown of the old-fashioned top-hat to the surprisingly pristine spats, the apparition that faced them was every inch the blood-thirsty Victorian bogeyman. Though no one had ever really seen Saucy Jack, everyone knew what he looked like regardless. A long cloak hung from his shoulders and his hands were hidden beneath white cotton gloves, just like a proper gentleman. But there was nothing gentlemanly about the leer on its face, or the inhuman hunger that burned in its eyes. It was every artist’s rendering and heated witness account come bounding to life, like a tiger out of the tall grass. The air around the newcomer stank of blood and pain and his face was stretched tight and shiny with an ugly light. The cloak rustled, as if in an unfelt wind, and the shadowy edges of it seemed to grab the walls and it stretched towards them, snuffing lamps and lanterns as it came.
A wave of alien malevolence washed over St. Cyprian, and the world quivered at the edges, like the pages of book caught in a strong wind. The creature before them was no more the real Ripper than St. Cyprian was, but it had wrapped itself in the fancies of the man whose shell it wore, and had pulled from his mind the sounds and smells of the East End, as it had been, when the flesh and blood primogenitor of the idealized and nightmarish facade it wore had stalked through cobbled cul-de-sacs. Like birds rising before the approach of a cat, the sound of carriage wheels and the stink of smog and poverty struck St. Cyprian’s senses like hammer blows. The discordant sounds and images were nothing more than the lashing of its tail, the padding of its paws through the tall grass, but no less potent for all that.
It looked at them, head cocked, grin impossibly wide. It was a tiger’s grin, displaying not so much cheerfulness as allowing for the proper appreciation of the number and length of the displayer’s teeth. “He’s all eyes and teeth,” Gallowglass hissed.
“Oh he’s more than that,” St. Cyprian said hoarsely. The man—the Ripper—stepped over the dead man, head cocked like a hound on the scent. “Get him up, get him up!” St. Cyprian snarled, gesturing sharply at Jadwiga. “We have to get him out of here!”
The Ripper quickened its pace, still chuckling. The sound wasn’t laughter, not really. It was more akin to the grunt of a lion as it stalked its prey across the veldt. He heard the tearing of flesh in that sound, and the sigh of a dying woman. Red streaks seemed to trail after the Ripper as it walked, like dreams of spilt blood.
Then there was a shout and in the Ripper’s wake, a number of roustabouts plunged into the room, hefting clubs, knives and scarred fists. The Ripper paused. A hiss of breath escaped its lips and it glared at St. Cyprian and the others for a moment more.
Then, as if satisfied that they were no immediate threat, the Ripper spun back to face its new opponents and raised its weapon. The blade looked like an overlarge athame, but St. Cyprian knew that it was no more a real blade than the cloak that flared out around the Ripper’s shoulders was made of actual cloth. It was all part of the same stolen ectoplasmic caul that had enveloped whatever unfortunate soul that the Ripper rode, making him over into the grinning and lunatic-eyed phantasm before them. With a growl, the Ripper plunged across the floor, blade snaking out like an adder’s sting.
6.
A man screamed as the athame punctured his belly hard enough to hurtle him up against the ceiling. More of them piled towards the Ripper, wielding clubs and fists with abandon as they tried to swarm the chortling nightmare. The athame carved a silvery comet trail through the hazy, pungent air, and tore through a bristle-jawed enforcer’s jugular, splattering the floor and wall with red.
The Ripper’s giggle wafted through the air, and didn’t abate even when a cudgel crashed down across the side of its head. The blow didn’t so much as knock the top-hat from its head, and the Ripper whipsawed about, carving the front of its attacker’s skull off as neatly as a chef might chop an o
nion. St. Cyprian was unable to tear his gaze away from the slaughter. Even as distracted as he was by the sheer amount of red painting the air, he could see that the creature’s blows were doing more than simply chopping and stabbing—the flesh of his victims withered and shrunk, as if something were being taken from them. It was drawing their ectenic force from them, even as it killed them. Like some outsize leech, it was slurping at their vital essences.
What little St. Cyprian knew about the things that inhabited the outer spheres could be fitted neatly on the inside lid of a soup can. Despite what he’d said to Morris, the Sigsand Manuscript wasn’t as informative as he’d have liked. He’d known that they could possess people in extreme cases, but what he was witnessing was, as far as he was aware, unprecedented. Then, most of what was written about such entities was hearsay or the product of overactive imaginations at best or madness at worst, Sigsand aside. They were as alien as they were abhorrent and as dangerous as any earthly predator.
The Ripper’s laughter slithered through the air towards them, insinuating itself into their ears and hearts, as it butchered the proprietors of the opium den with abandon. The blade began to move faster, zipping back and forth like a hornet. Men screamed and died, and the Ripper moved through it all like a typhoon of carnage, seeming to swell in size and monstrousness with every step. It killed the addicts as they stumbled from their berths, and even when they didn’t, shattering bunks and bodies with ease. For a brief, horrible moment, St. Cyprian was reminded of a fox loose in a henhouse. Addicts and guards alike began spilling out through the front and back doors of the opium den, crowding the paths between beds.
Morris stared, frozen, the revolver he’d drawn from his pocket hanging forgotten in his hand. His men were no better, their jaws slack, their eyes wide as they were buffeted about by fleeing punters. St. Cyprian glanced at Gallowglass, who glared at the murderous phantom like an alley-cat eyeing up a rival. Her lips skinned back from her teeth and she dug for the Webley-Fosbery as the Ripper spun around, casually backhanding one of its remaining enemies towards them. The tip of the Ripper’s top-hat scraped the ceiling; it was taller than it had been, and bulkier, as if it had grown bloated on the havoc it’d wreaked on the unfortunates who’d chosen to face it, rather than scarpering out the back like their more prescient fellows.
The Whitechapel Demon Page 6
