by Thomas Emson
“I don’t look alive.”
“You look beautiful. I made you; you must be.”
“Am I damned?”
“You’re damned, Charlie.”
“And will I suffer?”
“Always.”
Faultless cried out, a long, anguished scream that unleashed all the suffering he’d experienced.
“Why does it have to be like this?” he said.
“The laws of the universe were set when I lit the first spark. I can’t change them. What I made is . . . is greater than what I am.”
The old man looked broken for a moment.
“I am flawed, you see. Just like my creation. I’m jealous, wrathful, and impatient. I am prone to cruelty. I hate being ignored. I can be petty. We are what we are. We have to accept our conditions—even we gods and angels.”
“I don’t accept,” said Faultless, his voice quivering with terror at what was happening to him.
“You have no choice. Go fulfill your destiny. Challenge your brother.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Creation can’t cope with much more of him.”
Faultless slumped. His mind reeled. He tried to wake up, thinking this was a nightmare. But he wasn’t sleeping. Maybe he’d never sleep again.
Lew said, “One more thing,” and he shot forward so quickly he was nothing but a flash of light. His hand made a claw, and it had talons lancing from the fingers. He rammed it up into Faultless’s solar plexus. Charlie screamed. But the hand drove on, tearing into his body, up under his ribcage. And then closed around his heart. Faultless shuddered. He could feel the cold grip of God on him, every part of his body recognizing and fearing that grip.
The hand tore out of him and brought with it his heart.
Faultless gasped for air. He waited to die. But he didn’t. He stared at the organ, clutched in Lew’s hand.
The old man said, “You have no need of this anymore. Hearts are for humans. And they are the hiding place of sin. Now you are sin.”
He ordered the guards to unchain Faultless. For a few moments he was unsteady on his feet. His arms and shoulders ached. He looked down at his torso. It was covered in symbols and words—inked and burned into his flesh. His jeans were rags under the knees, and he could see that his legs had also been written on. He was a book. A book of curses. A book of judgment.
Finally he found his feet.
“What happens now?” he asked, his blood hot. “More torture? Bring it on, you shit.”
Lew clapped his hands. “No more now. Now you get ready to fly, my boy.”
For a second, Faultless felt nothing. Then a terrible pain ripped through his shoulders. He arched his back. His flesh was tearing. He screamed. “What’s happening to me?”
And then bones cracked in his back, and he fell to his knees, in so much agony he thought he would die.
He felt his back burst open. Two things, one each side, erupted just under his shoulders.
He knew what they were.
He fell on all fours, exhausted.
“Beautiful,” said Lew. “You are beautiful.”
And as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Faultless spread his wings.
Chapter 109
THE SOULS OF HIS ENEMIES
The New Ripper, Don Wilks, pulled on his mask, and the thrill rippled through him. He strapped the mouthpiece in place and clipped the restraints over his scalp. The hood tickled his skin. It made him blink, and the coarse material scraped his lips. But it was beautiful. His heart swelled. He was home again.
Through the eyeholes, he looked at Jack the Ripper. Or the one who’d been called by that name.
“You’ve been waiting for me,” said Wilks.
“For you, Donald. For you,” Jack said.
“How . . . how did you know?”
“I know everything. From my caged world I’ve sought out a disciple—a true disciple—all these years. I found you as a child. Your interest in the savagery of what was done all those years ago drew me. It drew me like a siren lures a sailor. It was heavenly.”
“Who was Jack? I have to know.”
“I was Jack.”
“Who did the killings for you? Who was me?”
Jack told him.
“Frederick Abberline,” repeated Wilks.
“They sent him to America. They wouldn’t hang him or jail him. He knew too much. He was part of the Establishment, see. So they exiled him. Far away from me. I just couldn’t reach him there. Couldn’t reach him to finish the job. To kill a fifth and free me.”
Wilks looked over at Tash Hanbury. She was tied to the old, rusty bed frame. She cried and struggled. Probably panicking, he thought. No idea how she got here.
But then neither did Wilks. He just followed the voice in his head. Followed it until it became loud. Followed it no matter what stood in his way. Followed it beyond the real world, the rational, followed it and found it somewhere dark and lost.
He scanned the room. It was grim. Everything was decayed, so old and broken. Everything twisted, like his soul. There was a chair and a table and the bed and not much else. But the smell of death hung in the air. And blood stained the walls. Dark, dried blood.
He asked, “Is . . . is she the fifth?”
Jack nodded. “A woman of Moab and Midian. They are not to be spared, Donald. God orders it. Moses told his soldiers to kill them all. You should do God’s work, just like Moses did.”
Wilks looked over at Hallam Buck and said, “Who’s that? Couldn’t he have done it for you?”
“He’s my eunuch. My gelded angel. You’re my king, Donald. You’re my Ripper. My Abberline. First, you have something for me? The satchel?”
Wilks laid the bag on the table and removed from it a large, plastic container. “I didn’t know what they were, but I knew they would be important. I thought I’d want to kill more after I started, but . . . but it didn’t seem to be the right time.”
Jack salivated. He shoved Wilks out of the way and flipped open the container. Four golden orbs shimmered in the gloom of Mary Kelly’s slaughterhouse.
Like a hungry animal, Jack scooped the four orbs into his mouth. He chewed. Golden liquid oozed down his face and chest. He swallowed and smacked his lips. Gold filled his mouth. The gold of four souls. The souls of his enemies.
“This is the right time, isn’t it,” said Wilks.
“Rip her open and take it out of her,” Jack said, still salivating. “Rip her so I can be free. So you can be king. Rip her, Donald.”
From his pocket, Don Wilks took a butcher’s knife. He’d used it to kill his four victims fifteen years before. Now he would use it to kill Tash Hanbury. He crossed to the bed, and she screamed.
Chapter 110
A CHILD OF ANGELS
Jasmine kept running.
She was headed for that darkness in the corner of her mind. She felt tuned in to the streets, able to see beyond the concrete and the bricks, the wood and the glass, the steel and the asphalt.
She was seeing dark rooms unseen for centuries. Long corridors that lay undiscovered. Tunnels and caves. Nooks and crannies.
She saw life in the underworld—snakes and rats, angels and demons.
It was like being on a ghost train at the fair. Things flashing past your eyes. Skeletons popping up. Screams filling the air. The difference here was that the danger was real.
She kept running, unaware of where she was going. Just following the signals in her mind. Following the darkness.
I am a seer, she thought, and she wondered what that word even meant.
Seer.
Where did that word come from?
Seer.
Why did she think of herself like that?
I am a child of angels.
Her visions now started to comfort
her. They suddenly stopped being scary. She was starting to use them, to use the power she had.
She saw bodies buried under the pavements. Corpses in various states of decay, some fresh, others decomposed.
She saw inside people’s homes. Husbands beating wives. Wives sleeping with strangers. Kids smoking fags while their mothers boozed. A family praying together for peace. A young girl practicing violin while her dad needled heroin into his veins.
She saw anguish and joy. She saw rage and harmony. She heard it all and it seeped into her and she understood now how to tap into it.
She was learning to see by seeing.
After a while, she stopped running. She stood in an empty street, and for a second, she felt scared again. She was eleven and on her own. It was dark and quiet. There was a barrier across the road to stop traffic. It said NO ENTRY on the Tarmac. On one side, an office building towered above her. On the other stood a red-brick building.
Now she was lost. She looked around, confused. Her panic grew. She started to pant, her chest tightening.
A voice in her head shocked her. It was a man’s voice. It was the ghosts voice. It said, “Old Dorset Street, little seer. This is where it stood. And there, there stands the entrance into Miller’s Court. Where he killed poor Mary. Where your mother waits. Go save her, little seer.”
The voice faded. Jasmine stared at a row of green roller doors. They looked like garage doors. She hurried over to one and stared at it desperately. Whimpering, she wondered how she was supposed to find Miller’s Court.
Where he killed poor Mary. Where your mother waits.
She lost hope now. She fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. She cried, calling out to her mother. She just couldn’t concentrate anymore. It was too difficult.
How could her mother be behind these doors? How could she be in a place where some woman called Mary had died?
And how was Jasmine supposed to open the doors to find out?
She was about to give up when a shadow moved across the pavement where she cowered. And then she heard flapping, as if a huge bird were beating its wings just above her.
She slowly turned and gawped as the creature descended to the street. Its black-feathered wings fluttered as it landed. Its muscular body was covered in blood and strange pictures and words.
She looked into the creatures eyes. One was brown, the other blue.
Chapter 111
BACK TO THE FIFTH
WHITECHAPEL, LONDON–12:07 AM, MARCH 1, 2011
Wilks, wearing the lunatic mask of the New Ripper, stood over the woman, the knife in his hand. His breathing hissed. It made him sound like a snake, and he liked that. And he liked it that the man he’d always thought of as Jack the Ripper was standing only a few feet away, watching him. He felt like a pupil being supervised by a teacher. He wanted to do well. He wanted to complete his task and kill the fifth victim.
“You scared of me?” he said in a whisper.
The woman said nothing. She was shaking but trying to fight the fear. Don Wilks had seen that fear before. He’d also seen the effort to ward it off. He’d seen it in Rachel Hanbury fifteen years ago.
“You scared of me like your sister was?” he said.
Tash Hanbury struggled, but she couldn’t get loose. She was tied on the bed. Christ, the room smelled bad. The air was stale. A hint of decay laced the atmosphere. But it was an old room. It was a dead place, buried by history. Wilks failed to grasp how he’d got here and how the place could exist—it was Miller’s Court, the boarding house where Mary Kelly died on November 10, 1888. Because of his obsession with the Ripper murders, he knew it had been demolished in 1920 by the Corporation of London as part of a rebuilding project. Over the years, more reconstruction was carried out, and places like Miller’s Court had faded from memory.
But only faded. They never disappeared completely. They were still here, lodged under London, hidden in its new walls and its modern buildings. Those places and their secrets.
“Do it, you bastard,” said Tash Hasbury. “If you’re going to do it, do it now.”
Just like her sister, he thought. Trying to show she’s tough. Like all of them. Like Susan Murray and Nancy Sherwood and Patricia Faultless.
Faultless.
Where was the bastard?
He recalled the old man in the cell. Power had emanated from his frail body. Danger glittered in his black eyes. Never before had Wilks felt such awe. He was convinced the old man had destroyed the police station and had come there specifically to reveal something to him.
You’re one of his, aren’t you.
Those words felt comforting. He felt he finally belonged.
With that thought, he was able to shrug away any fears he had about Faultless. Wherever he was, it didn’t matter anymore.
He kneeled next to Tash Hanbury and pressed the blade to her throat.
“You’ll show me you’re scared,” he said.
She yelled out.
Wilks laughed. “See? See? I was right.”
He was still laughing when she spat in his face, and that made him stop. It made him flinch and stand up.
She was screaming again, struggling to get free.
“Cow,” he said, his blood boiling, “you cow—you show me some respect. You show me awe.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“Bitch.”
He lifted the knife. He’d stab her in the neck. Make it hurt. Not make it quick, like Jack said.
She screamed. The knife came down.
“Stop it there,” a voice boomed, shaking the whole room.
Wilks froze. The knife stopped inches from Tash Hanbury’s jugular.
“Stop it there,” said the voice again, quieter.
Wilks turned. “I was . . . was going to open her up for you.”
Jack stepped out of the shadows. His black eyes were wide, and his tongue flicked over his lips. “We’ve got trespassers.”
“What?”
Jack focused. “A seer and . . . something else. The seer—it’s this one’s child again.”
The Hanbury woman screamed. She was shouting to her daughter, telling the girl to run. Wilks thought, Run where? How had she got here in the first place? It wasn’t real. It was on the edges of the world. You had to know where to look to find the cracks that would lead to these lost locations.
He looked at Jack and saw fear in his waxy face.
Jack told him, “Go get them.”
Wilks obeyed. He went to the door and opened it, and a long corridor stretched out before him. He took one look again into the room before stepping out into the passageway. Behind him Jack said, “You go too, eunuch.”
Wilks walked down the corridor, which was as wide as a road and reached too high for him to see in the dark. The walls were oil-slick and coal-black. Thousands of tiny bones carpeted the ground.
He ran along the passage, brandishing the knife. Someone followed him. He glanced over his shoulder. It was Hallam Buck. Jack’s neutered human-pet.
As he turned back to face the way he was headed, he stumbled, flinging his arms over his head to protect himself from the winged creature hurtling down the corridor towards him.
Chapter 112
THE SERVANT OF THE LORD WHO GAPES
Hallam Buck threw himself on the ground when the winged man swept down and attacked the New Ripper. He covered his head as if he were expecting a bomb. His face was buried in the bones on the ground, and they pricked his skin. But pain was nothing to him now. Not after Jack had made him a eunuch and promised him a place at his court. A place of honor.
He peeked through his fingers. He could hear the New Ripper shriek and wings flapping violently.
He was wondering what to do. Stay still or get up and run?
He was no closer to making a decision when he saw her.
His heart pounded. His excitement grew. Jack had known she was here. He could tell. He’d sensed her. And if Hallam could catch her and bring her to Jack, there would be more praise.
The girl obviously hadn’t seen him lying in the bones. It was gloomy, and he could have been just a shape or a shadow to her. She kept coming. And when she was five yards away, Hallam sprang to his feet.
She skidded to a halt, gawping with horror at the sight of him.
Hallam was uglier than ever. He was deathly pale, with big, dark rings around his eyes. It was a wonder he wasn’t dead. But he knew Jack was keeping him alive—keeping him alive to serve in the court of the lord who gapes.
He pounced on Jasmine. She screamed. Above him, the winged man was throwing the New Ripper around as if he were a rag doll.
Jasmine screamed, “Charlie, help me!”
Charlie? thought Hallam and looked up. “Oh God,” he said as Charlie Faultless surged through the air on a pair of huge, black wings. Hallam had the girl by the hair and raced down the passageway with her towards the safety of Mary Kelly’s lodging house.
As he went he shouted, “I’ve got her.”
The child cried out, screaming for Faultless.
Faultless the winged demon.
Faultless the angel of death.
How had that happened?
The girl called out again.
Hallam bashed her across the face and knocked her out.
As he ran, getting closer to the door with every step, the flapping of wings grew louder, and a dark shape moved above him.
Chapter 113
LOOK HARD
Spencer stared at the wall between the roller-doors. He shivered and sweated, aching all over. Drivers had beaten him up after he’d caused the pile-up on Commercial Street. But at least Jasmine got away. He’d watched her go, and when he got the chance to escape the clutches of a bunch of very pissed-off motorists, he ran in the direction he’d seen her go.
And for some reason, he’d reached this private road.