The Whitechapel Demon

by Josh Reynolds

  In a way, that was even worse. It also explained why Andraste had collapsed so suddenly. Without such supplementary meals, the Ripper had likely begun drawing more of her essence from her. St. Cyprian scratched his chin. “He might have glutted himself in Limehouse. If that’s even possible,” he said. It was a believable theory, and one he hoped Morris would take at face-value.

  “There’ve been sightings, but nothing conclusive,” Morris said.

  “He’s gone to ground then,” St. Cyprian said. He clapped Morris on the shoulder, causing the other man to flinch. “Don’t worry, Morris old top, we’ll soon have our ogre rousted from whatever dank lair he’s currently occupying. Just toddle along, and I’ll give you a bell when it’s time to spring the trap on our tiger, what?”

  “Charles, I insist on seeing that woman,” Morris said.

  “I’d rather you didn’t disturb her,” St. Cyprian said firmly. Morris wasn’t much, but he was a quick study. He knew enough to know the signs of extended aetheric vampirism as well as St. Cyprian did, and the latter knew exactly what Morris’ response would be—he’d kill Andraste to draw out his quarry, forcing the Ripper to devour his last victim and banish himself back to wherever he’d come from. It was a simple, efficient solution, and one St. Cyprian wanted no part of. He’d done such things himself, when it was necessary, but ‘expedient’ and ‘necessary’ weren’t the same, no matter what men like Morris believed.

  “And if I insist,” Morris said.

  “Don’t,” St. Cyprian said. “I’ll find the Ripper, Morris, never fear. And when I do, I’ll let you know. And after the particular cat has been safely stuffed back in its box, I’ll happily turn the woman over to you.”

  “Will you?” Morris said.

  “Upon my honour as holder of the offices of the Royal Occultist, I shall turn her over to you, be she living or be she dead,” St. Cyprian said solemnly. Morris looked at him for a moment longer and then nodded.

  “Fine,” he grunted. He stuck a plump finger in St. Cyprian’s face. “You’ll call me, then, once you’ve located the brute?”

  “Most assuredly,” St. Cyprian said. He stepped inside and closed the door with a sigh of relief. Gallowglass sat on the bottom step, her Webley in her hand. “I’ve bought us some time.”

  “Are you really going to give her to them?” Gallowglass asked. There was no accusation in her voice. She didn’t particularly care, she was simply curious.

  “Of course I’m bloody well not. Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. He stormed past her, up the stairs. She made to follow him, but he stopped, turned and said, “Bring me a bowl of water. Get it from the cistern downstairs.”

  “What, that old stone thing?” she said.

  “Yes, the old stone thing,” he said, “and bring it up to the guest-room.” Without waiting for a reply, he continued up the stairs. When he reached the landing, he heard a soft groan. He followed it, and the ones that followed, to the guest bedroom.

  The guest-room was at the top of the stairs, across from his office. He’d had it prepared especially, after several impromptu sleepovers had gone terribly, terribly wrong. He’d stripped and repainted the room himself, making sure to mark the walls with the proper sigils and formulae to create a sort of spirit-trap. Malignant manifestations entered, but none left. A good night’s sleep in the guest-room at No. 427 could cure a person of many of their demons. Sometimes, however, it only made the demons easier to see.

  Andraste tossed and turned on the room’s lone bed, caught in the throes of what the uneducated might have called a nightmare. St. Cyprian, however, knew that it was rather more unpleasant than that. It was probably more akin to a guided tour of Hell than any dream, good, bad or otherwise. The air in the guest bedroom stank of hot blood and char. The slaughterhouse stink was a by-product of the connection between the medium and the thing she’d been used to summon. He was forced to open a window, despite the January chill.

  If he cracked his third eye ever so slightly, he could see, rather than just feel, the thing that had Andraste in its grip. It had no shape, as such, but it clung to her nonetheless, extending up and out and away. It sweated malevolence and greed and he fancied that it could see him, after some fashion. If it could, it didn’t seem interested in him. Not yet. Andraste was meal enough, and one that it was savouring. “That’s right,” he murmured, “Eat up, you bastard. Pay no attention to the hunter in the blind.” Then, to Andraste, he said, “Hold on for just a bit longer, old girl. We’ll have you out of this before you know it.”

  Gallowglass came into the room, carrying a bowl of water. “I got the water and straight from the cistern downstairs, like you said, rather than the tap. Not much difference though, if you ask me.” She set the bowl down on the bedsit table and he dipped his handkerchief in it and wrung it out.

  “There is, or I wouldn’t have asked you,” he said, mopping at Andraste’s fevered brow. “Go to the cabinet in my office and get some oil of Hyssop, and a vial of the Ghazi powder. We’ll also need the pentacle, I’m afraid. Bring the red and purple tubes, I think. We’re going to be jostling the wasp’s nest, rather than smoking it out.”

  Consisting of a portable generator and five vacuum tubes of varying colours, connected to the former by thickly insulated wires, the electric pentacle was one of Thomas Carnacki’s more useful additions to the armory of the Royal Occultist. While Dee’s shewstone and John Subtle’s ghost-knife were undeniably useful artefacts, the pentacle required no incantation or blood-sacrifice to operate. Granted, it ran on a hodgepodge of theories gleaned from Sigsand and Harzan, and was prone to burning out at pivotal moments, but it put the wind up the spectral crowd something fierce.

  “I’m not lugging that thing up the stairs,” Gallowglass protested.

  “Would you rather lug her corpse down it?” he snapped. Andraste twitched at the sound of his voice, and he glanced at her in concern. Her face had taken on the sunken-in look of a starvation victim’s and her skin looked pearly and fragile.

  “Down is easier than up,” Gallowglass muttered. She hurried out of the room. St. Cyprian shook his head. He curled his fingers into the Sign of Raaaee and swept them over Andraste’s twitching shape. The presence that coiled about her tightened its grip, like a startled alley cat holding fast to the pigeon it had just brought down. Andraste groaned weakly.

  “Pay me no mind,” he murmured, “Nothing to see here, nothing to get nervous about. It’s just a normal shifting of the aetheric humours.” He brushed a tangled strand of sweat-soaked hair out of Andraste’s face and said, “What are you seeing?”

  He could hazard a guess. The Ripper was feeding on her still, using her to stay anchored. The ectoplasm that he had been crafted from was Andraste’s, and to some extent, it was her will that was keeping him existent. If Andraste died, the Ripper would, in all likelihood, dissolve like a bad dream, unless, of course, it had grown strong enough to survive on its own, akin to a tulpa—a thing of ectoplasm and will, given life separate from that of its creator.

  “And wouldn’t that be unfortunate,” he murmured. Carnacki’s predecessor, Edwin Drood, had supposedly faced a tulpa once, created from an unfortunate ectenicist’s nightly excretions. The poor man, unaware of his own gifts, had created his own doppelganger to satisfy his repressed urges in what he thought were merely dreams. It hadn’t ended well. And then Robert Louis Stevenson had gotten hold of the story, twisted it into a morality play and thrown a gloss of science over the proceedings in order to make it fit for public consumption.

  But the Ripper wasn’t—quite—a tulpa. The Ripper was merely a familiar costume, worn by an actor from another troupe, so to speak, which meant that all bets were off. If Andraste died the Ripper might simply dissipate like a summer storm, or he might grow into a satanic hurricane, capable of levelling London. “In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings,” he murmured.

  A thump, and muted cursing, heralded Gallowglass’ return with the pentacle. She glared at
him from the doorway. “No, no, I’ve got it. No help necessary, cheers,” she said, lugging the generator and the tubes into the room.

  “I have every confidence in your ability to carry heavy things into rooms,” he said. “Besides, effort builds endurance. Carnacki made me lug that thing around through a continent’s worth of trenches, when I was his apprentice.”

  “I’m your assistant,” Gallowglass said. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out several vials. “Hyssop, powder of Ibn Ghazi and some flakes of onyx and opal, just in case.” She tossed the vials to him one at a time.

  “Opal, I understand, but onyx?” he inquired.

  “Removes noxious elements from the aether,” she said. He blinked. Her glare returned. “I listen!”

  “I never said you didn’t,” he said, smiling.

  She growled wordlessly and began to set up the pentacle. First, she drew a neat circle with a nub of chalk, taking care not to step over the circle. She stopped the circle just short of completion, leaving a smallish gap. Then, taking the bowl of hyssop-infused water, she dipped a small shaving brush into it and drew a smaller circle, within the chalk circle. Again, she didn’t complete it, but left a gap. Chalk in hand she made the lines of the second sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual within the water circle, stretching her arm through the ‘opening’. Lastly, she took the electric pentacle and set it in the centre of the three, concentric rings. The vacuum tubes were moved to the cardinal directions, aligning with the points and vales of Solomon’s pentacle, and Gallowglass deftly checked the tubes for cracks or other deficiencies. Then, “How are you planning to get out of giving her to Morris?” she said, after a moment.

  “I’ll figure it out when the time comes,” St. Cyprian said.

  “Think his plods will find the Ripper?”

  “No,” St. Cyprian said. In fact, he’d asked Morris to do so only to keep him busy. A busy Morris was a Morris who wasn’t looking over his shoulder and jostling his elbow in an attempt to put the Ministry stamp on things. That said, they might require the manpower the Ministry could bring to bear, before this was over.

  “Think the Ripper will find us?” Gallowglass asked.

  “Almost certainly,” he said.

  “Good,” Gallowglass said. St. Cyprian looked at her. “What? It’s easier when they come to us, innit?”

  “That depends entirely on your definition of ‘easy’,” he said.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Gallowglass said and pulled St. Cyprian’s Webley Bulldog from her pocket. She proffered it to him. “I took the liberty of loading it with proper cartridges. The ones inscribed with lines from the Saaamaaa Ritual. Just in case,” she said.

  St. Cyprian took the weapon and frowned. “I doubt it’ll be necessary,” he said.

  “Thank you, Gallowglass. Oh, you’re quite welcome,” she said.

  “I take your point,” St. Cyprian said, “Cheers.” He stuffed the pistol in his coat and poured the vial of Hyssop oil into the bowl of water. Giving the bowl a quick shake to stir it in, he dipped his handkerchief in it and renewed his ministrations of Andraste. She twisted as the oil-infused water touched her skin, and the blood-stink emanating from her pores faded somewhat. Hyssop was purifying oil. A hyssop broom was used to clean spaces for protective circles, and hyssop sprigs worn in the clothes could prevent harmful spells from taking effect. In this case, it would serve much the same as a lit match pressed to a leech, loosening the entity’s hold on Andraste’s spirit.

  Gallowglass stood. “Should I turn it on?”

  “Not yet. Let the oil do its work,” he said softly. Gallowglass cocked an elbow onto his shoulder and leaned over him to examine Andraste.

  “So what, exactly, is wrong with her,” she asked.

  St. Cyprian opened the vial of powder she’d brought him and dumped a pinch onto his palm. With a flick of his fingers, he scattered it across Andraste. Gallowglass sprang back with a curse, and her hand dipped towards her pistol. The powder of Ibn Ghazi, when properly prepared, could make the unseen seen, even if you’d really rather not. In this case, what it had revealed was the polymorphous mass that had its hooks in Andraste. It clung to her throat and chest like a scarf made of flayed meat. It was red and covered in thin purple veins, and resembled nothing so much as a large and particularly unpleasant fluke worm, save that its squirming ‘tail’ gradually faded into nothingness.

  “Calm down,” he said, “It’s not as dangerous as all that, at least, not to us.” The thing pulsed, as if it had heard him, its veins swelling and the red of its substance darkening slightly. Andraste moaned.

  “What is it?” Gallowglass hissed. Her fingers tapped nervously on the grip of her revolver and she stroked the Seal of Solomon engraved there, seeking comfort.

  “It’s a proboscis, essentially. Not really, but that’s as close a description as we’ve got. A bit of something hungry, hooked into a source of nourishment.” He waved a hand over it and clashed his rings together. The tinny sound caused the mass to ripple obscenely. “It’s simultaneously an anchor and a feeding tube. The Ripper is feeding off of her life-force, even while he’s out carving up unfortunates in opium dens. Her ectoplasmic energy, of which there’s a goodly amount, is the only thing keeping our athame-wielding chum from coming apart rather messily.”

  “I thought he’d possessed someone,” Gallowglass said, edging closer.

  “Yes, but possession requires massive amounts of ectoplasmic consumption. That’s why most such incidents don’t last very long—just until the poor fool in question is utterly drained of every last morsel of psychical energy, leaving them looking like those shrunken, chopped bits in the garret, or the late Mr. Jadwiga. But with Andraste here providing extra nourishment, the Ripper is able to ride his host for far longer.”

  Gallowglass’ eyes lit up and she clapped her hands in glee. “So we’re going to cut off his supply lines,” she said.

  “Why—yes, yes I suppose we are, in a sense,” St. Cyprian said. “We’re also saving Miss Andraste’s life.”

  “I’m not bothered,” Gallowglass said, making a dismissive gesture. “I like this plan. You think he’ll come to check, then?” She scratched her cheek and stared hard at the pulsating mass. “I bet we could set a trap for him.”

  “Possibly, though I doubt any trap we could concoct would hold him, at the moment. He’s far too strong. But this will, as you pointed out, weaken him considerably. And then, possibly, we might just have a chance at sending him packing. For now, however, let’s concentrate on what little bit of him we have in front of us, what?”

  Without waiting for a reply, St. Cyprian stooped and scooped up Andraste. He tried to keep his eyes averted from the mass, which flexed and squirmed like a disturbed worm. It wasn’t aware, as such, but he couldn’t ignore the feeling that it was watching him. He carefully placed Andraste in the centre of the pentacle, taking care to step through the gap Gallowglass had left. Then, he sank to his haunches beside the generator and motioned to the bowl of water. “I’ll complete the water-circle. You finish the chalk.”

  She did, and he did, and then he said, “Stand back. And try not to shoot me, if you can avoid it. In fact, don’t touch your pistol at all.” He flicked the switch on the pentacle’s generator, and it gave a mulish chug. At his side, Andraste gave a moan. There was a strange quality to the sound, now. It was as if she was at the bottom of a hole, and the noise was echoing upwards.

  “When have I ever shot you?” Gallowglass protested. At his look, she added, “Unintentionally, I mean.”

  “Just stand back,” he said. The vacuum tubes were filled with a soft glow. The glass hummed gently as the tubes quivered in their sockets, and the generator shuddered on its stand. Then, there was a flash, and he gagged as his nostrils were flooded with the stink of rotting meat and sour blood. The Ripper’s proboscis became more vibrantly, horribly visible. It thrashed and wriggled, as if in pain. As he’d hoped, the pentacle was acting to sever the aetheric organ from its owner. The power
of Solomon’s circles was like a splash of acid, steadily eating its way through the strange matter of the thing.

  Andraste began to tremble, as if caught in an epileptic fit. Her heels and palms drummed on the floor and her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and foam gathered at the corners of her gaping mouth. St. Cyprian extended the bowl over Andraste’s head and tipped its contents out. The last of the water splashed across her head and shoulders, and the mass ripped free of her with a sound like tearing paper. Only partially visible, it reared up over St. Cyprian like a cobra readying itself to strike.

  He thrust out his hands, and made several sharp, cutting gestures, tracing the sacred shapes from the Third and Fourth Rituals of Hloh into the charged air. The mass unfolded like a blossom of tainted meat, and St. Cyprian clashed his rings together as he spat one of the Dolorous Words. The mass stiffened. A strange, expansive ripple tore through it and then it came apart in fluttering shreds of crimson which spun about the circumference of a circle like loose pages caught in an updraft before fading from sight. The stifling atmosphere within the circle faded with it. Andraste lay still and silent. “Is she alive?”

  Andraste blinked and coughed. St. Cyprian switched off the pentacle and helped her sit up. “What—what happened?” she asked. “Why am I wet?”

  St. Cyprian looked at Gallowglass and said, “I think she’s alive.”

  13.

  “It all feels like a dream. A nightmare, rather, I should say,” Andraste said. She went to the window and looked out. They stood in St. Cyprian’s office. Gallowglass was downstairs, making tea. After Andraste had awakened, St. Cyprian had retreated to his office to consult what texts he owned that might make reference to similar situations. Andraste, somewhat out of sorts, had followed him. She turned away from the window and studied his bookshelves.

  “Your library makes Jadwiga’s look positively scrawny,” she said. She reached out to touch the spine of one, but quickly jerked her fingers back. “This one’s wet,” she said, in a puzzled tone.