by Anthology
She fought a temptation to try to peek through the window. It was too early; she couldn’t risk scaring the Ripper away or, worse, putting herself in danger. What if she didn’t recognize his face? It was possible the Ripper was someone completely unknown to history whose face would mean nothing to her. Better to trail him home after he was done with Mary and get an actual name and address before heading back to her own century. Hell, maybe she could even snag a sample of his DNA later on . . .
Mary’s song was cut off abruptly. A strangled cry briefly disturbed the night.
Celeste flinched. She tried not to think about what was happening inside number 13 right now. This is all ancient history, she reminded herself. Mary Jane Kelly was murdered over a century before I was born. Celeste was here to observe history, not change it. Who knew what kind of butterfly effect she might set off if she tried to intervene on Mary’s behalf? I could return to a future in which Charles Manson was the first man on the moon, or maybe I was never born . . .
Mary’s murder, and subsequent mutilation, had to happen. It was part of history.
“Rest in peace,” Celeste whispered. “It will be over soon.”
Long hours passed as she huddled in the doorway, waiting for the Ripper to complete his savage work. Because the final murder had taken place indoors, and not out in the open, Jack had been free to indulge his blood-thirsty predilections as never before, and he had taken full advantage of that opportunity. By now, Mary Jane Kelly was in pieces.
Don’t think about it, Celeste thought. Instead, like countless Ripperologists before her, she wondered why the murders had apparently stopped after tonight. What had become of the Ripper afterward? Had he died of natural causes, committed suicide, been imprisoned on other charges, confined to a lunatic asylum, moved away from London, or simply retired? Was Scotland Yard truly clueless, or had there been some sort of official cover-up?
She couldn’t wait to find out.
Her vigil was briefly interrupted around three in the morning when an older woman entered Miller’s Court, calling on one of Mary’s neighbors. The woman glanced uneasily at the darkened doorway where Celeste was lurking before hurrying inside.
Ohmigod, Celeste realized. That was Sarah Lewis. At the inquest, Lewis would later testify that she glimpsed a suspicious figure loitering outside Mary Kelly’s flat in the wee hours of the morning. All at once, Celeste understood whom that mysterious figure was. Me. I’m the one Sarah Lewis saw. I’ve been part of history all along—and I never knew it!
This proved it. She was doing the right thing. The revelation strengthened her resolve to stick it out, despite the wet, miserable conditions.
I was always meant to be here. It’s my destiny to expose Jack the Ripper—over a hundred years from now.
Finally, about five in the morning, her patience was rewarded. Jack the Ripper slipped out of number 13, closing the door behind him. Celeste glimpsed a furtive figure wearing a heavy Inverness coat and carrying a leather bag. The brim of a felt hat obscured his face, much to her frustration. She held her breath, retreating as far as she could into the murky doorway. This was the tricky part: she needed to shadow the Ripper back to his lair to find out who he really was. Maybe even steal a piece of his mail.
Wonder if he keeps a diary—or trophies of his kills?
She would love to get her hands on those!
The Ripper exited Miller’s Court, turning left onto Dorset Street. Celeste hurried to follow him, but she had only gone a few steps before she was grabbed roughly from behind. A gloved hand was clasped over her mouth. The cold edge of a knife pressed against her throat.
“Drop the umbrella!” a harsh voice whispered into her ear. “Or I’ll rip you to bits.”
Celeste froze in fear. Who?
“The umbrella!” the voice urged her again. The knife pricked her jugular.
The rigged bumbershoot clattered to the ground, leaving her unarmed. Celeste remembered the emergency locator button she had left behind at the Carlton and kicked herself for her recklessness. Was she about to become the victim of a random nineteenth century street crime?
It’s not fair, she thought. I’m not even born yet!
Her assailant shoved her toward number 13. Was it just her imagination, or did his voice sound vaguely familiar? “Inside!”
The door was unlocked. The mugger hustled Celeste into the apartment. She braced herself for the horror she knew was waiting.
Mary Jane Kelly’s cheaply furnished room now resembled a slaughterhouse. Most of the murdered woman rested on her unmade bed, but choice bits were displayed on a rickety wooden table a few inches away. Her clothes were neatly folded atop a chair. A crimson flood soaked the sheets and floorboards. A blazing fireplace consumed various articles of clothing. Celeste had seen grainy black-and-white crime photos of the butchery, but that barely prepared her for the nauseating sight and stench of the bloody spectacle. Her gorge rose.
What kind of person could . . . dissect . . . another human being like this?
A strong hand shoved her into the corner. “Don’t even think about screaming,” the man warned, “unless you wanted to end up like her.”
Gasping, Celeste spun around to confront her attacker. In the flickering light of the fire, it took her a second to recognize him.
“Ramsey?”
The tour guide stood only a few feet away from her, brandishing an eight-inch hunting knife. Like her, he had discarded his formal attire for less ostentatious period attire: an Inverness coat and felt hat. Perspiration dotted his face.
An overwhelming sense of relief washed over her. “Thank God!” she exclaimed, clutching her chest. “You really had me going there. For a second, I almost thought you were Jack the Ripper himself!”
“I am Jack the Ripper, you stupid cow!” Spittle sprayed from his lips. He viciously slashed the air between them, driving her back into the corner. “Or should I call you ‘Jordan Pinkerton’ ?” He sneered at her startled expression. “Yes, I know who you are. I recognized you right away from the author photo on your books. I’ve read them all, you know. And I knew exactly what you were up to the minute you showed up for the tour.” He snorted derisively. “Like you were really interested in Richard Mansfield or Gilbert and Sullivan!”
She blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand. I just saw Jack the Ripper leave, right before you grabbed me.”
“That was me all right,” Ramsey said. “From the last time I was here. One of the singular advantages of time travel. You can visit the same time twice. Be in two places at once. Take an actual trip down memory lane.”
Celeste tried to keep up. “Jack the Ripper is a time traveler, too?”
“Astounding, isn’t it?” He grinned devilishly. “I was always obsessed with the case, ever since I was a kid. I read every book and Web site, saw every movie. You obviously don’t remember me, but I actually saw you speak at that Ripperology conference in Glasgow a few years back. You even gave me your autograph!”
She remembered the conference, but not the man. “You’re a fan?”
“Of Jack the Ripper,” he insisted. “Not you. Would you believe I used to dream about being the Ripper? Almost every night. I would wake up panting in excitement. Then, when I got this gig with Timeshares, the proverbial lightbulb went off over my head. I didn’t have to be just a spectator to history. I could make my dreams come true!”
Was he serious? Celeste struggled to make sense of what he was saying. “But who was Jack before you? Sickert? Druitt?”
“No one! You’re still not getting it. You can’t hold onto that old-fashioned linear thinking where time travel is concerned.” He gestured grandly at the dingy brick walls surrounding them. “This is November 9, 1888. I was always here. It always happened this way.” Bloodshot eyes gleamed with madness. “That’s the sublime paradox of it all. I inspired myself!”
He’s insane, Celeste realized. Her momentary relief gave way to renewed terror. Had too many trips through time warped Ra
msey’s brain chemistry? The waiver she had signed had mentioned minor unpredictable side effects . . .
“How do you think the Ripper avoided getting caught?” he gloated. “I always knew where the bobbies and undercover cops weren’t going to be, where history said it would be safe to strike.” He fished his locator button from his vest pocket. “Plus, of course, I always had my ace in the hole. If ever I found myself cornered, I just zapped myself back to the future before I could get nabbed!”
She eyed the locator button avidly. If only she could get hold of it, just for a second!
“I think I understand,” she humored him. “So what now? What happens next?”
“You’re the murder expert. What do you think?” He leered at her. “You’re doing me a favor, actually. I had run out of Ripper victims. To be honest, I’m seriously considering putting in for a transfer to the 1960s and starting over as the Zodiac Killer. You can be my swan song as the Ripper.”
Celeste gulped. “But I’m not a prostitute.”
“No, you’re a money-grubbing writer who cashes in on murder and bloodshed.” He stepped forward, backing her up against the blood-soaked bed. “Close enough.”
“Wait!” Celeste appealed frantically to his vanity. “You don’t want to kill me. I can make you famous, reveal your identity to the world.” She nodded at the door. “You can just disappear into the nineteenth century, knowing that someday the entire world will remember your name.”
He laughed in her face. “Nice try, but no dice. You reveal my identity and I’m just another boring slasher to be psychoanalyzed and dissected by hack writers like you. Don’t you see? It’s the mystery of Jack the Ripper that will keep people fascinated for generations to come. That what’s make him a legend. What makes me a legend.”
She tried another tack. “But you can’t kill me. You’d be changing history. Mary Jane Kelly died alone!”
“Not anymore.” He shrugged. “So there’s one more body found at Miller’s Court, a mystery woman for people to puzzle over for the next hundred years or so. It just adds a new wrinkle to the story.” His knife gleamed in the firelight. “By the time I’m done with you, not even the future will recognize you . . .”
He raised the knife.
A loud sneeze, coming from under the bed, startled them both.
“What the hell?” Ramsey faltered, looking away from Celeste just for a moment.
She saw her opportunity and took it. A spinning kick knocked the blade from his grip. The knife skidded across the floor several feet away.
“Hey!” His befuddled expression was a joy to behold. “You can’t do that!”
Celeste followed up the kick with a roundhouse punch to his jaw. “Here’s the thing, dummy. You’re not facing a tipsy nineteenth-century whore this time. I’ve studied kickboxing, Krav Maga, and taken way too many self-defense courses!”
“Nosy bitch!” Ramsey dived for the knife, but Celeste was faster. She leaped past him and snatched up the fireplace poker. He lunged for her only to get smacked in the arm by the swinging poker. Bone shattered audibly and he dropped to his knees, whimpering in pain. A second blow across the back of his head left him sprawled face down on the floor. Not taking any chances, she prodded him with the poker to make sure he wasn’t going to be getting up again anytime soon.
“That’s for Mary Jane Kelly,” she gasped. “And Polly Nichols, Liz Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Annie Chapman!”
Ramsey seemed to be out cold, but she held onto the poker just in case. She had seen too many horror movies to turn her back on the downed monster. Crouching beside the prone Ripper, she claimed his locator button. A second sneeze reminded her that they were not alone. She peered curiously at the bed. “Hello?”
“I-is it safe?” a feeble voice stammered.
Celeste stood up. “I think so. Who is that?”
To her surprise, Bernard Moskowitz crawled out from beneath the flimsy wooden bedstead. His Sherlock Holmes outfit was a study in scarlet. His scrawny face was white as a sheet.
“You?” she blurted in surprise. The other tourist was supposed to be safely tucked away at the Carlton. Just like me.
“I . . . I couldn’t resist,” he confessed. “I just had to find out who Jack the Ripper was.” His shell-shocked gaze fell upon the morsels of flesh laid out atop the table. He looked away from the carved-up carcass upon the bed. “Oh God . . .”
Celeste realized that the poor kid had been under the bed the whole time. Guess we both had the same idea.
Thank heaven.
A pocket watch informed her that it was nearly five-thirty. In approximately five hours, one Thomas Bowyer would be dropping by to hit Mary up for thirty-five shillings of overdue rent money. He was in for the shock of his life, but Celeste wasn’t inclined to stick around to see.
“You ready to get out of here?” she asked Moskowitz.
He nodded weakly. “Please.”
She pressed the locator button.
“My sincere apologies for this unfortunate business.” Rolf Jacobsen, founder and president of Timeshares, sat across from her. “But I’m sure you understand how we would like to keep this embarrassing incident our little secret.” He slid a notarized document across the top of his antique mahogany desk, which had once belonged to Thomas Alva Edison. “Mr. Moskowitz has already signed this confidentiality agreement in exchange for a free pass to the time and location of his choosing.” He flashed Celeste an oily smile. “I believe he’s requested a tryst with Mata Hari . . .”
“Uh-uh.” Celeste didn’t even look at the proffered document. “You’re not going to buy me off so easily. That maniac could have killed me!”
“Again, my apologies.” He handed her a fountain pen. “Clearly, we need to do a more thorough psychological screening of our employees, both before and after their trips to the past.” He shrugged. “It’s possible we underestimated the long-term cognitive effects of regular temporal dislocation, but I assure you that we are already putting new procedures in place to ensure that such an aberration never happens again.”
“An ‘aberration,’ is that what you call it?” Celeste was offended by the blandly corporate euphemism. “At least five women were killed and mutilated.”
“Those tragedies are a matter of historical record,” he pointed out. “We couldn’t have prevented them if we wanted to.”
“Even though one of your tour guides was responsible?” A horrible suspicion gripped her. “You knew, didn’t you? You suspected that Ramsey was the Ripper, but you kept on sending him back to 1888!”
Jacobsen was unruffled by her accusation. “History is history, Ms. Jordan. What happened happens.” He pressed the confidentiality agreement on her again. “Now then, how can we convince you to leave this unpleasantness where it belongs—in the past?”
“Don’t even try.” She got up to go. “I already have everything I need. I know the true identity of Jack the Ripper. That’s a gold mine.”
“More like a single nugget.” Jacobsen gestured for her to sit down again. “Don’t be too hasty, Ms. Jordan. You’re obviously a shrewd woman . . . and a fine author.” He called up one of her books on the monitor of his computer. “Perhaps we can come to a different sort of arrangement.”
She eyed him warily. “Like what?”
He tore up the confidentiality agreement. “Suppose you forgo the Ripper in exchange for unlimited access to a host of equally famous mysteries: D. B. Cooper, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Black Dahlia, the Princes in the Tower . . .”
“Lizzie Borden?”
“Of course. That’s a perfect example.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “As a matter of fact, we’ve been thinking of licensing a line of publishing spin-offs under the Timeshares umbrella. You seem like exactly the kind of ambitious, enterprising author we’ve been looking for, one who can take full advantage of everything we can offer. Think about it. You would have all of history at your disposal. The possibilities are endless.”
“Except Ja
ck the Ripper.”
He nodded. “That particular mystery is probably best left unsolved. Do we understand each other?”
Celeste’s mind boggled at the prospect. Jacobsen was offering her not just a single bestseller, but a franchise. Countless millennia of unsolved histories, from the extinction of the dinosaurs to the heat death of the universe.
“Mr. Jacobsen,” she replied, “I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful partnership.”
VINTAGE SEASON
Lawrence O’Donnell
Everybody seemed to want the old house during May—and seemed willing to pay fantastic prices for the privilege. Strange tourists they were, too. The Cafe Society of another time.
Three people came up the walk to the old mansion just at dawn on a perfect May morning. Oliver Wilson in his pajamas watched them from an upper window through a haze of conflicting emotions, resentment predominant. He didn’t want them there.
They were foreigners. He knew only that much about them. They had the curious name of Sancisco, and their first names, scrawled in loops on the lease, appeared to be Omerie, Kleph and Klia, though it was impossible as he looked down upon them to sort them out by signature. He hadn’t even been sure whether they would be men or women, and he had expected something a little less cosmopolitan.
Oliver’s heart sank a little as he watched them follow the taxi driver up the walk. He had hoped for less self-assurance in his unwelcome tenants, because he meant to force them out of the house if he could. It didn’t look very promising from here.
The man went first. He was tall and dark, and he wore his clothes and carried his body with that peculiar arrogant assurance that comes from perfect confidence in every phase of one’s being. The two women were laughing as they followed him. Their voices were light and sweet, and their faces were beautiful, each in its own exotic way, but the first thing Oliver thought of when he looked at them was, Expensive!