Night Falls Darkly

by LENOX, KIM

  He trained his silver-black gaze upon a rat scuttling along the gutter below, and a shadowy excitement rippled through him.

  How can they catch me now? one of the Ripper’s letters had taunted.

  Perhaps they couldn’t. But Archer would.

  How had he forgotten, if even for the space of an hour, what he was? Although he preferred the solitude and comfort wealth could provide, he belonged here, amongst the lowest of the low. He was no mannered suitor. No guardian, lover or friend.

  He was a hunter. A killer.

  He owned the night.

  Odd that at a time like now, when he felt most removed from humanity, she should linger in his thoughts. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation of the wind lifting his hair from his shoulders, away from his heated skin. Elena was a golden glimmer of sunlight to a creature who had spent his immortal life in darkness—and an alluring temptation for one who had grown dissatisfied of late, restless and searching for something above and beyond the boundaries of his existence.

  And so with marked irony he stared with high expectations into the decay of the vast wasteland. For the first time in a very long while he felt the hunger to stalk and to Reclaim, because Jack the Ripper—as the killer had so aptly named himself in his most recent letter to the authorities—was different. Archer had sensed the same on the docks the moment he had arrived in London, and confirmed his suspicion in the evidence room at Scotland Yard. Might he actually be in for a challenge?

  Could Jack be moving toward Transcension?

  It had been so very long. He smiled faintly and, in shadow, stepped off the ledge. Clinging to the bricks, he descended to the street and proceeded upon a northerly path along Houndsditch.

  Like a phantom fisherman, he cast out his enormous mental net, capturing only the most wicked of thoughts. Words, emotions and other nebulous remnants clung like spiderwebs to his psyche. Despair. Envy. Greed. He shrugged them off, for they did not belong to the one he sought. His prey would distinguish itself by a void of conscience, and a disposition to evil that defied the darkest of insanities.

  “Looking for some company tonight?” a woman called from a narrow alleyway.

  She appeared nothing more than a narrow shadow in a dingy apron. Raindrops fell around her, plunking into the puddles that had accumulated on the pitted street.

  “I’m the girl for you, yes I am.”

  The solicitation wasn’t intended for Archer, but rather for the three young men who clipped along the sidewalk in front of him, backs straight as soldiers, doing their best to look as if they belonged on these rough streets—just boys really, from respectable homes, here in the district on a dare to one another. They walked a bit faster now.

  As he drew closer, his nostrils flared. An inordinate amount of malice tainted the air. He assumed shape and crossed the cobblestones toward her, pulling a pair of dark-lensed spectacles out from his pocket. He quickly lowered them onto his nose to cover the residual gleam of his eyes.

  Seeing him, the woman stiffened, obviously perplexed by the manner in which he’d appeared so suddenly out of the darkness. She apparently soothed her confusion away, for a smile returned to her lips. Somewhere in the distance a badly out-of-tune dulcimer struck up a melody. They were just off Commercial Street, a populated venue even at this hour.

  “What about you, gov’na’?” She chuckled thickly, a drunken attempt at seductiveness. “What’s a handsome gent like you doing alone tonight?”

  “Good evening, madam.” He tipped his top hat, drawing to a stop before her.

  “I’m Kate, luv, and youuu must be the most handsome bloke I’ve seen all night.” She swayed toward him and pressed a flirtatious hand against his shoulder, smelling as if she’d bathed in gin. The movement revealed something on the brick wall behind her, something pale, like chalk. Given the shadows, the mark would have gone unseen by any mortal eye; however his radiant conscience revealed it in stark relief: N.

  A bit of graffiti or a scratch left behind by a barrow in the crush of the daily throng? Archer reached over her shoulder. She flinched.

  “My apologies,” he said.

  He brought his whitened fingertips to his nose and inhaled the faint, yet distinctive stench—the same one he’d experienced in the evidence room while examining the letters. Sulfur mixed with putrid decay. His blood vacillated distinctively, an indication the soul he hunted might be near.

  “That’s all right, gohhv-na. We’re all a bit edgy these nights.” She smiled broadly; yet her hand, pressed in a defensive gesture against her throat, gave her nervousness away. “Can’t forget there’s a madman about.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “Do you think they’ll catch him before he kills again?” Her gaze wandered toward the darker shadows across the street.

  “I have no doubt. Perchance do you know who left this mark on the wall, behind you?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Hmf! I thought he scribbled something.”

  “Who?”

  “Another gentleman, dressed smart like you. Pulled something from his pocket, he did, and scratched at the wall, but yooou’ve far better eyes than me, even with those dark glasses, if you can make out what he wrote.”

  “It appears to be an N.”

  She shrugged. “Makes sense, I suppose.”

  “How so?”

  “N for Mr. Nemo.” She waved a limp hand. “That’s what he told me his name was. As you can guess, I meet scooores of Mr. No Ones out here on the street.”

  “Had you ever seen this gentleman before?”

  “If I have, I don’t remember. Odd fellow, but good-looking enough. Told me to wait here for him, that he had to go tend to some business, and he’d be back.” She snorted sardonically, swaying again toward Archer. “Empty promises, I’ve heard them all before. His loss, eh, luhhv? What do you say you and I spend some time together? Anywhere you like. This alley behind me is nice and private, and cleaner than most.”

  Archer steadied her by the arms. Enabled by the contact, he scoured her recent memories. There were shadows . . . a drunken view of the inside of a jail cell . . . several alleyways and passersby . . . and finally, the faintest image of cold eyes.

  Should he stay here with Kate, in shadow, and lie in wait on the slim chance Mr. Nemo might reappear?

  Not a chance. If he lingered here, he might lose the trace altogether. His target was close—close enough to catch. Besides, as Kate surmised, Mr. Nemo’s promise to return was likely an empty one, the sort a harried passerby would offer to an aggressive shopkeeper hawking cheap wares from an open doorway.

  He propped her against the wall. “I must be getting on.”

  “Ah, hell, that’s the story of my life.” She scowled. “Come back if you get lonely. I’ll be here awhile longer.”

  Wisping into shadow, Archer left her. He’d traveled only a block when he saw the T scrawled across an advertisement placard. He coursed over the cobblestones, mentally scouring every crevice and shadow.

  He saw the S traced against a warehouse wall mural.

  A T against the side of a wooden water trough.

  And an O on the chest of a drunk, slumped in a doorway, so fresh the miniscule bits of powdered chalk still slid free of their original mark.

  NTSTO.

  Obviously the letters had been left as a message to someone—the police, Archer suspected, if they were observant enough to find them. Such daring confirmed the arrogance of the Ripper, an arrogance that would lead Archer on a direct path to his target.

  He continued on. The air grew heavy, and he tasted the tang of metal on his tongue. Hunger slid through his veins, quickly consuming him—as well as the faint disappointment of knowing the hunt would conclude all too quickly, when he had expected something more.

  A blur spiraled out of the darkness, slamming him sideways into a wall of brick. His concentration shattered, Archer took shape and whirled round to confront his attacker.

  A thin-boned female swaggered
along the far sidewalk. Under her arm she carried a large placard reading REPENT OR BE DAMNED. By her look, she was one of the Salvation Army lasses who spent their days and nights on East End street corners, boldly preaching their message of salvation to the lost.

  Archer leapt the distance, landing square in front of her.

  “Lor’!” she gasped, sinking against the wall. “Be this a demon before me?”

  “You tell me.” Archer seized the placard and sent it spinning into the darkness. She darted off in an attempt to flee, but he grasped her by the shoulders of her woolen coat and lifted her off the ground. With a hiss, he slammed her against the wall.

  “Please no!” she sobbed, her face crumpling with fear. “I’ve done nothing to deserve such violence!”

  Archer slammed her against the wall again. And again. With each blow the façade of femininity cracked and disintegrated, until her thin shape filled out, grew heavier—and a familiar face glared back at him above broad shoulders.

  Archer growled, “Your disguises need more work, boy.”

  He released the younger Shadow Guard.

  Mark’s boots stamped heavily against the pavers. He cursed, blue-eyed and furious, and pushed away from the wall. He’d discarded his evening coat and necktie, and wore only a white linen shirt, braces and trousers.

  “This is my hunt, old man. Go back to whence you came.”

  “You’ve been called off.”

  “Likely at your behest.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. I don’t betray my peers.”

  “Neither do I, teacher, regardless of what you’ve chosen to believe.”

  Archer saw something over Mark’s shoulder—a jagged P scratched into the dark dado of the far warehouse wall.

  NTSTOP.

  A reminder he had no time for this.

  “I didn’t come to trade pleasantries. I came to complete a failed Reclamation.”

  “I haven’t failed,” Mark growled. “Though I know you wish it.”

  “The Ripper’s continued defiance is an affront against us all. Not only you, Mark, but every Shadow Guard. And now your refusal to answer the summons of the Primordials has cast you into disfavor.”

  “They want me to leave in the midst of a hunt. I won’t do it.” Mark leaned in, eye to eye and nose to nose with the immortal who had once been his mentor and greatest champion. “I just need a bit more time.”

  Hidden deep in his gruff assertion, Archer heard an earnest plea. He wavered in his anger. Once, he and Mark had been something like friends.

  “You say you need more time?” He shook his head. “Time for him to dishonor the Shadow Guard even further? Time for him to kill again?”

  The muscles in Mark’s neck corded visibly, in response to his clenched jaw. “It’s been weeks since his last victim. He’s gone into hiding.”

  “You’re a Shadow Guard, Mark. You hunt him down, drag him kicking and screaming out of whatever hole he’s hiding in and you send him to hell. Quickly and efficiently. That’s your job.”

  “This one’s different, Black. Different than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

  Archer remembered how he, too, had at first believed the same thing.

  “Yet he is here. Now. Close by.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Impossible. If you sensed him, so would I.”

  The shrill keen of a whistle broke the silence of the night.

  “Murder!” interrupted a distant shout. “Murder!”

  Chapter Five

  Archer’s head whipped around. A wave of fear slammed into him, the magnitude of which could only be generated by a crowd. Forgetting Mark, he evanesced to shadow and raced toward the source. Countless mortals, men and women, clambered toward a narrow alley wedged between two tall buildings. High wooden gates rattled against the walls as the throng pushed through. Shouts of “Police!” and “Murder!” filled the night in the myriad languages of the district. Archer did not miss the flamboyantly scrawled M on the outer wall. He, too, delved inside.

  In the small courtyard, candles and lanterns bobbed about. Their meager light did not reveal Archer in his shadow form, or the tall Amaranthine who followed. A pony, harnessed to a costermonger’s wooden barrow, shied nervously as Archer passed. He sidled through the crowd, forcing his way into the epicenter of fear. Then he saw her. A woman lay on her left side, her face turned away from the crowd.

  “Stay back,” Archer growled to Mark, casting a warning glance over his shoulder, only to see Selene slip through the crowd to stand beside her twin.

  Archer crouched beside the victim. She lay in a puddle of rainwater, a corsage of red rose and maidenhair fern pinned primly to the breast of her jacket. A number of sweet cachous lay spilled about her, their narrow envelope still clutched in her hand. Heat exuded faintly from her body, but her mortal life had ended, and savagely so.

  He had known there would be one more letter, and he spied the mark through the bloodied rainwater: A tiny E, scratched against the cobblestone at the peak of her bonnet, as coy as a wink.

  NTSTOPME.

  Archer’s hands tightened into fists. The message was clear. You can’t or won’t stop me. A taunt to the police, as he’d earlier believed, or might there be another possibility? Unease rippled through his veins. Could the Ripper be taunting the Shadow Guards who hunted him?

  “Move aside. Move aside,” a voice commanded, imperious but underscored by dread. The concentrated beam of the constable’s bull’s-eye lantern pierced Archer through.

  He stood, every muscle attuned to the hunt. Was the Ripper here, even now, watching? His trace was everywhere—everywhere—so thick it crowded Archer’s nostrils and throat. He examined the crowd, soul by soul, opening his mind to any evidence of abnormal deterioration. He sensed only fear.

  Sometimes he hated himself for how jaded he had become. Murder was common amongst the mortal population. Because of his recurrent exposure to such crimes, he felt more regret about failing the Guard than failing the dead woman at his feet.

  He had been so damn close. A hackney scuttled through the gate and officers spilled out, immediately working to disperse the crowd. Archer broke free and strode toward the street.

  Mark’s voice challenged from behind. “I won’t be held accountable for this death. If not for your interference—”

  Archer halted and pivoted, grinding the heel of his boot into the ground. Rain began to patter down around them in heavy, snapping drops.

  “My interference?” he seethed. “How many times must it be said before you accept the truth? You’ve botched this Reclamation and will remove yourself from it.”

  “He approaches a state of Transcension. You can’t deny that.”

  “Because of you. You let things go too far while you attended your balls and your routs. While you gambled and whored.”

  Mark hissed, his eyes wavering from blue to black. “As if you didn’t suffer your own bit of distraction tonight.”

  Archer struggled to tamp down the dangerous fury searing his veins. He’d taken such care to be certain his immortal peers did not learn of Elena’s existence. But something that infuriated him more was that he agreed with Mark’ accusation. He should never have gone to that ball tonight. He had made a mistake in deepening his involvement with Elena.

  That did not change the issue at hand.

  “I told you that you weren’t ready for a Reclamation of this complexity. Not yet.”

  “I am more than ready,” Mark countered fiercely. “And I’ll prove my abilities to everyone, given the chance.”

  More onlookers, attracted by continuing clamor and the shrill alarm of police whistles, rushed past, oblivious to the towering immortals who sparred in the center of the street.

  Selene circled them, a shadowy admirer. Moving close, she clenched a possessive hand on one shoulder of each Reclaimer.

  She laughed, low in her throat. “So nice to have us all together again.”

  Archer shrugged her hand off. “Don’t pretend we were
some sort of team.”

  Shadow Guards were notoriously mercenary, renowned for their ruthlessness and solitary natures. They rarely cooperated on anything. Indeed, they usually went out of their way to avoid crossing paths with one another. Yet, when the world’s deteriorated mortal fringe grew out of hand, the Primordials recruited additional immortals into the ranks of the Shadow Guard. Archer had found himself tasked with an unwanted mentorship—at least at first. He’d come to believe Mark and Selene held unparalleled promise. He had trusted them, as he had trusted no one before.

  Until Paris.

  Mark growled, “It was only an experiment—a forced experiment at that.”

  “One that failed.”

  “Miserably.”

  Archer tipped his head to his adversary, smiling coldly. “At least we agree on one thing.”

  Selene shook her head, her hair shining like agate. “We were good together. Better than good.”

  Archer leveled a cold gaze upon her. “I gave you explicit instructions to remain at Black House.”

  Mark shouldered in. “She doesn’t take orders from you. Not anymore.”

  “I can defend myself, brother,” Selene snapped.

  “Ah . . . it’s all coming back to me now,” mused Archer, a twisted smile on his lips. “How we were so very good together. Alas, I have had enough reminiscing for one night. Selene, you will concentrate your efforts on your own assignment. Proximity does not make us partners. Keep to the Thames. Mark, consider yourself relieved of duty. If the order displeases you, petition the Primordials, for the decision to remove you came from the Inner Realm. In other words: Stay out of my way. There’s no reason I should come across either of you in the East End again.”

  He turned on his heel and moved to rejoin the shadows.

  “Don’t walk away.” Mark pursued him. “We’re not finished here.”

  Lacking patience, Archer waved the palm of his hand and slammed a focused wall of air and ultimately Mark to the ground.