1888

by Andrew Hastie

  There were tiny flashbacks of what had happened in Knox’s laboratory, but she pushed them to the back of her mind and tried to focus on getting out of this time.

  * * *

  Behind her, never letting her out of his sight, a dark figure followed Maddox, keeping a safe distance so as not to be seen.

  Knox bided his time. He had realised, after many failures, that it was better to induce amnesia with a healthy dose of laudanum and send his surrogates back to their old lives. The stress of captivity seemed to affect the development of the cryptid, causing terrible mutations.

  But not this time, this one would be perfect.

  36

  Dorset Street

  Ignoring the warnings of the Xenos, Sabien ran out into the street. There was no time for safety protocols and risk assessments. He’d already seen what was going to happen to her if it was allowed to go to full term.

  The warehouse was situated in one of the worst slums of the East End, the Spitalfields rookery. The poor and destitute squatted outside their derelict hovels, staring out at him with dark, hollow eyes as he passed. There was no point in asking them if they had seen her. No one cared for anything other than food, or more importantly, gin.

  He felt their eyes on him, and as if there was some kind of silent warning system, men moved a little further into the shadows. Things were covered with shawls or skirts before he could see what was being traded. This was the home of the criminal, the petty thief and the mugger, even the local police travelled in pairs when they ventured down Dorset Street.

  She was here somewhere, but he had nothing to use for a trace. They had found her tachyon and her almanac in her grandmother’s cabinet of curiosities. He had no idea why she would leave them behind, unless she was trying to send him some kind of message.

  Sabien reached the junction with Commercial Street, where the Britannia pub stood on the corner. Rough looking men stood drinking and smoking pipes while prostitutes weaved between them touting for business. A fight broke out between two drunks, and the crowds formed a loose circle around them, goading the men into a bareknuckle boxing match. One stripped off his shirt and raised his fists in the usual Queensbury pose, while the other smashed a bottle and came at him with the jagged weapon.

  Without waiting to see how it ended, Sabien turned into Dorset Street, the road that she would be murdered on and made his way towards Miller’s Court.

  Sabien passed the lodging house where Annie Chapman had been staying the night before she died. It felt like he was treading in the footsteps of the killer as he walked among the damned searching for any sign of Maddox’s blonde hair or a flash of her blue eyes.

  37

  Succubus

  [13 Miller's Court, Dorset Street. Date: 1888]

  Knox stood over her body, watching as the creature’s claws punctured her perfect skin. Razor sharp crescents sliced her abdomen open like a knife through an overripe fruit. She moaned a little, the chloroform dulling the pain, he stroked her hair back away from those beautiful cheekbones. It wouldn’t be long now, all of his research had led to this moment, every attempt to create a new form of life had ended badly, aborted or deformed by the diseases they carried.

  But this one was pure, she would be his succubus, his harpy.

  * * *

  The containment jar sat beside him as did the obstetric forceps he would use to restrain it.

  The head emerged through the open wound in an explosion of blood and viscera. Its bony carapace of a skull covered in the remnants of the amniotic sac. Still blind, the creature sensed the air with a flick of its tongue and pushed itself out of her ruined body.

  Its skin shimmered in the lamp light, as it stretched its tiny sinuous limbs. They were always bipedal, some with the vestigial tail still in place, and some even had wings.

  This one was obviously male. Knox readied the forceps as it disentangled itself from the last of her organs, scattering parts of her over the bed.

  It was a terrible sight, but a glorious success for his experiment. The creature began to clean itself as it sat on her chest, its tail wrapped around her neck, slicing it open and feeding off the last of her blood supply.

  As Knox leaned forward to capture the creature, something caught his eye. A man rushed from behind him and knocked him to the floor. The creature hissed at the stranger, raising its neck frill as a warning.

  ‘Don’t move,’ the man whispered into Knox’s ear, pinning him down.

  The man was strong, and his hold was unbreakable, his breath was heavy as if he’d been running. Knox knew it wouldn’t take long for the creature to realise the threat. He was already imprinted on the creature’s psyche and the nearest thing it had to a parent.

  The weight of the man on his back lessened. He was obviously preparing to attack the creature.

  With his head pressed against the floor, Knox couldn’t see what it was doing, but the sounds it was making were ominous. Like a mistreated cat, the noises were primeval and were meant as a final warning.

  * * *

  Sabien knelt on the man’s back, his hand slowly reaching inside his coat for the gun.

  38

  Recovery

  [Bethlam Hospital. Date: 1660]

  Pain woke him.

  It felt as if long slivers of glass were being threaded through the muscles in his chest and across his back. Every breath was as though someone was slicing into his skin.

  Some part of Sabien remembered being attacked by something terrible, something he couldn’t kill.

  Flashes of a room faded in and out of his consciousness, there was another man, the American who’d come to help him.

  Not to help, but to capture the creature. No one seemed to care what happened to him.

  * * *

  ‘Can you hear me?’ whispered a woman.

  He groaned, making the minimum amount of effort to communicate.

  ‘Something is inhibiting the pain relief,’ said another voice.

  ‘There’s some kind of neurotoxin in the creature’s venom,’ replied the woman. ‘Inspector we need you to open your eyes.’

  Not a chance, thought Sabien, as he gritted his teeth.

  He felt someone take hold of his hand.

  ‘Squeeze my hand if you understand.’

  He managed a weak grip.

  ‘Good. We’ve tried everything short of opiates. Doctor Crooke wants to give you morphine, but the possibility of addiction is very high.’

  I don’t care, thought Sabien. Just make me well enough to save her. He squeezed the hand harder.

  ‘Knock him out,’ she said to her colleague. ‘This guy has suffered enough.’

  39

  Xenobiology

  [Xenobiology Laboratory, Regent’s Park, London. Date: Present day]

  Bigelow was staring at the frozen body of Knox in the containment cell. ‘How old is it exactly?’

  Doctor Kaori Shika completed her checks on the equipment and turned towards him. ‘The host is as old as he looks, mid-forties. The Aeon parasite on the other hand is over five-thousand years at least. We can’t extract it until we’re sure we won’t harm the host.’

  ‘And the creatures he was creating?’

  ‘The xargi? We’re still studying those. Dangerfield believes that they could be drones, like a queen creating workers — just like bees.’

  Bigelow rubbed the newly healed scar along one side of his face. ‘More like soldier ants!’

  Kaori walked to another containment chamber. The frozen creatures were locked in a mass of limbs and vicious looking claws. ‘This species is ancient. We’ve already identified DNA that hasn’t existed since before the last ice age.’

  ‘Antediluvians?’

  ‘Potentially. They’re the nearest thing I’ve seen to a human-dinosaur hybrid,’ she said, tapping on the animated display on the frosted glass. ‘Natural born killers.’

  ‘Well they’ve made a lasting impression on the nineteenth-century.’

  ‘And the cit
y of Xanthus. I think the engravings on the Harpy Tomb were supposed to be a warning. Fellows brought something back that was supposed to stay forgotten.’

  She switched off the display. ‘I heard that we lost one of our own?’

  The big American nodded. ‘Yeah, she got too close to Knox. The xargi tore her apart. Put another in the hospital. I think Sabien blames himself for her death.’

  ‘Are they going to repair the timeline?’

  Bigelow shook his head. ‘No. Eddington believes that the impact it had on social change has had a positive effect on the timeline — you know what these Copernicans are like. Always putting the good of mankind above all else.’

  40

  Epilogue

  [Star Chamber. Date: 1930]

  Chief Inquisitor Ravana Eckhart stood in front of the judge’s bench, her eyes were dead, like a shark, as they read out the charges.

  ‘Inspector Michael Sabien, based on the testimony of the Xenobiology department you have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the deaths of Mary Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride. However, you are still charged with the unsanctioned alteration of time leading to the unforeseen death of a linear — one Mary Jane Kelly.’

  Avery shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Sabien’s boss had reluctantly volunteered to stand as his character witness, which was fortunate as there weren’t many other candidates.

  ‘Furthermore, you are also charged on one count of reaving and wilful dereliction of duty.’

  Sabien glanced up to Maddox who was sitting in the gallery. She had a look that managed to combine angry and concerned in one expression.

  He could still feel the cold vacuum that had consumed him when he had entered her death. He’d ventured into the dark void of her life where time had ceased to exist. He had broken the prime directive, gone back and stopped her from meeting Knox. It was a simple adjustment, but one that had ultimately led to another dying in her place. She had been horrified when he told her what would happen and that her grandmother had foreseen it.

  She hadn’t forgiven him.

  ‘Inspector,’ snapped the Inquisitor.

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘How do you plead?’

  ‘Guilty.’

  Everyone looked stunned, they were all assuming he was going to plead his innocence. Sabien stared at the judges impassively. Now he had saved Maddox, there was nothing left but the long walk or redaction — a punishment he was willing to accept, yet something told him he was too valuable an asset for them to eradicate.

  He knew what the consequences of his actions would be: there was no room in the Protectorate for rogues and oath-breakers. To change the past was forbidden without the explicit consent of the Council, and only then after the Copernicans had modelled every possible consequence of the change.

  But Maddox was never supposed to die, all he’d done was put everything back the way it was supposed to be. He felt bad about Mary Kelly, but the Ripper murders had become one of the most notorious mysteries of the nineteenth century. Thanks to the media everyone had a theory on who Jack was — Eddington had already admitted that its influence on society was virtually incalculable and would probably never be resolved.

  Ravana Eckhart folded her arms. ‘Inspector Sabien, is there anything you would like to add in your defence?’

  He shrugged. ‘No ma’am.’

  Her lips twisted into a half-smile. ‘In that case I think we can proceed to sentencing.’

  Avery shifted again, as if he already knew what was coming.

  Ravana walked out into the centre of the courtroom. ‘We have a special mission for you, Sabien. One that will require you to travel further back than any other member in the Order’s history.’

  The long walk it is, thought Sabien.

  1

  Archangel

  Michael had been named after an angel.

  His mother was a staunch Catholic who loved the stories of the saints and had read them to him every night in bed. Until when, at the age of eight, Michael discovered comics like 2000AD, and so ended his religious education.

  It was a popular name in Ireland; there were two other boys in his class named after the leader of Heaven’s army. But Michael had always preferred his other role — the angel of death.

  * * *

  His father worked nights as a taxi driver. Leaving them every evening with his flask of coffee and Tupperware box of sandwiches to trawl the streets of Ulster in his black cab.

  Every morning, just before his father came home, Michael would wake and wonder if this was the day he would kill him.

  * * *

  When he was thirteen, his father had started to bring home presents for his mother — pieces of jewellery that he’d ‘taken as payment’, he told them once at the breakfast table as he opened the whisky.

  It was a strange existence, getting ready for school while your father was winding down from a night shift. He would sit and chat with them over cornflakes, getting mildly drunk. Then when his eyes began to glaze over he would go and watch the football he’d recorded on a VHS from the night before — no one was allowed to tell him the result. He considered that a mortal sin.

  At first Michael hadn’t paid much attention to the gifts because they seemed to make his mother so happy, but over the next two years he began to notice a pattern — he couldn’t help it; there was something in the way his dad acted just before another gift appeared. He got snappy, agitated and aggressive for no reason, and then after the gift appeared, he would turn into a different person altogether. Michael would never forget the day his mother asked him to help her put one of the necklaces on — it was as if God was showing him the way.

  The moment he touched the golden chain something exploded inside his head. It was like a firework of images fizzing around in his mind, their trails spinning around in front of his eyes.

  They were the random memories of a stranger, one moment in a pub, the next outside the kebab shop on Dock Street waiting for a bus. Everything was jumbled and out of sequence. Michael thought he was having some kind of religious vision until his purple-faced father appeared, his eyes wild with rage as he tried to strangle him.

  Michael dropped the necklace and ran out through the garden and up into the back field. When he reached the stream he threw up.

  Sitting on the bank, watching his breakfast float slowly away between the watercress and the plastic bottles, Michael wondered if it could have been some kind of revelation. That after all that praying, his mother had finally got her miracle; her only son had been blessed with visions.

  Except it told him that his father was the Ulster Ripper.

  It was late 70s in Northern Ireland, a time when the police were focused on dealing with the internal conflicts between the IRA and the Ulster Defence Force. No one seemed to have paid any particular attention to the disappearance of a string of young women, mostly prostitutes, from the streets of Belfast.

  With patrols on permanent watch throughout the city, it seemed impossible to believe that someone would go on a killing spree, but Michael had been following the story for the last eighteen months. The papers would quickly lose interest in the gaps between the murders, but every time a new body was found on waste ground, his mother would receive another gift.

  Michael had prayed to all the saints for guidance, but none had been forthcoming.

  Until now.

  2

  Memories

  Caitlin had always thought of her life as divided into two halves: the innocent time while death was a mystery and life was full of wonder, followed by the painful reality of knowing.

  Most other ten-year-olds were still puzzling over the existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy when she had to deal with the loss of her parents. ‘Loss’ was probably too weak a word; she hadn’t misplaced them, they were taken from her on one seemingly normal Saturday in July.

  The details of their last goodbye were burned into Caitlin’s memory: the way they snapped at ea
ch other at the breakfast table, the sunlight that caught her mother’s hair when she hugged her for the last time — holding her so tight she couldn’t breathe.

  Caitlin cherished every moment, again and again.

  She stood in the garden of their old house and watched her younger self through the kitchen window as she waved goodbye to her parents. Tears rolled down her cheeks as Caitlin felt the heartache once more.

  No one should put themselves through this, she told herself. Grief and loss were supposed to dull with time, as the brain slowly filtered out the pain. But Caitlin had the benefit of time, or rather the ability to travel back through it. She could come back and open the wound in her heart whenever she felt like it, and did so far too often.

  It had started as a way to remember them. Coming back here after the Dreadnoughts had officially called off the search — there were no bodies, no victims — other than herself. She could still feel the wet whiskers of her guardian, Rufius, sobbing as he held her, struggling to find the right words to tell her they were gone.

  For a long time she refused to accept it. Viewing the same scene a thousand times from a hundred different angles, looking for any kind of clue, but it was always the same: her parents went off on their mission with a look of grim determination — the argument of the night before still hanging over them.

  * * *

  It was a terrible fight. One that she couldn’t bring herself to revisit — she didn't have to, the memory of it was etched into her soul. Sitting halfway up the stairs, she shivered in her nightdress and stifled her cries into her teddy bear.