by Sam Gafford
The wind was carrying the sound of Mary’s chanting around the room at such a speed that it made me dizzy even hearing it. The creatures rallied and pulled me down again as I was reloading, but I could feel the weight of something pressing down on the very air around us.
Amy had been concentrating on the tug of war she was waging with Mary over Ann when she let go and picked up her letter opener, intent upon breaking Mary’s concentration. But then Amy looked up, directly into the hole that had been torn in the air above Mary.
Her eyes opened wide, nearly bulging. They shone with an awful light, looking far away. For a brief moment, a great wonder fell upon her face and an attitude of complete peace. Her arms reached out as if to touch something invisible that was floating right before her. Then the moment was gone and an awful terror took its place. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, and a terrible tremor ran through her body from head to foot. Her soul seemed to be struggling and shuddering within the house of her flesh.
She screamed. With every bit of sanity left in her body, Amy screamed at what she saw through that tear. Shrieking, she fell to the floor and was silent.
I looked over and could see Arthur bleeding from his head and his left arm hanging nearly useless by his side. With the last strength in his limbs he shoved his revolver into the dhole’s mouth and pulled the trigger.
That sound hung in the air like a curse. Mary, now aware of what was happening, howled, and I could feel the tornado around me swirling even faster. The creatures around me were trying to rip or bite or claw my flesh wherever they could. My heavy clothing had stymied them so far but was beginning to tear. There was only time for one more shot, so I took aim and fired at Mary.
The shot went wild but struck her through her shoulder. Blood leapt from her wound and for a second froze in the air as if something had halted it there and was examining it, confused as to what it was doing there.
Mary looked straight at me with the hate of an entire universe, and suddenly the room exploded in a force of light and wind that threw everyone away from the platform the way a broom sweeps away a horde of ants on a floor.
I landed roughly against the back wall, and when I came to a moment later the room was virtually empty. Arthur was kneeling over Amy, crying and trying to get her to respond, but her head rolled unnaturally on her neck and her eyes, although wide, saw nothing of this world. She was still alive—but not by much.
The creatures were gone, having slunk back into whatever dark abyss they had climbed out of, leaving only their dead behind. I stumbled back up to the altar. There was no one there. Mary had escaped and taken Ann with her. There was no way to tell where they had gone. There was no blood trail, no footprints, nothing. It was as if they had disappeared into the very air itself. I slumped to the ground with my back against the marble.
I do not think anyone had ever failed as miserably as we had that night.
The only sound in the room was Arthur crying. I went over to check on Amy. At first, Arthur would not let me near her, but presently he relented. She still breathed but was unresponsive. Together, we picked her up and retraced our steps as best we could. Still, it was more than an hour until we found our way back aboveground and got Amy to Charing Cross Hospital.
While the doctors worked on her, I collapsed into a chair, barely holding on to consciousness. Arthur never left her side, even when the doctors insisted on treating his own wounds. It was then that they discovered that he had suffered a serious stab wound on his left side that had punctured his lung. He had lasted just long enough to get Amy back aboveground and to the hospital before succumbing to his own loss of blood. He collapsed at the doctor’s feet, at the end of the very bed his wife laid in.
Chapter 79
A man who can dominate a London dinner table can dominate the world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.
—Oscar Wilde
November 5–6, 1888
Of the three of us, I sustained the fewest injuries. I had some bruising and cuts and bite marks but nothing terribly serious. On top of the knife stab, Arthur also had a large gash on his head which required stitches and a shoulder that had become separated. Amy, of course, suffered the worst of it.
I had spent the night sleeping in the lobby of the hospital while they were being treated, but it could barely be defined as sleep. It was more like a coma caused by my own body shutting down. I grabbed a quick bite of food in their cafeteria and washed up in the men’s toilet as much as possible; only then could I summon the strength to go upstairs and check on the Machen’s. I didn’t know what I would find. I feared the worst—which would be that one, or both, had died during the night or that they were awake enough to curse the very sight of me. After all, my stubbornness had brought them both down into that hell. I climbed the stairs with the weight of responsibility bearing down on me.
Although I could not get into the room to see Amy, and the doctors would not give me any details, the nurse told me that she was “resting comfortably.”
I looked around the corner and could see Amy thrashing back in forth in her bed. It was an odd definition of “resting comfortably.”
“The doctors have given her some morphine,” the nurse said. “She’ll be asleep soon. Poor thing.”
Not at all believing her, I set off to find Arthur. He was in the general ward and, when I finally located him, I saw that the curtain had been drawn around his bed. There were several other men inside, speaking to him. I waited until they left.
“Arthur,” I said, slipping around the curtain, “how are you feeling?”
I expected him to look at me with scorn, with a righteous hatred. Instead, his face brightened into a big smile of relief. “Albert! Thank heavens! No one knew where you were. I was worried that you were dead in the street somewhere or worse.”
I came forward and clasped his right hand. Under his gown, I could see surgical dressing wrapped around his abdomen, and his left hand was still weak and limited in movement.
“Don’t worry about me, old friend,” I said. “I’m fine. Just some bumps and scratches. Are you all right?”
He waved his hand in a dismissive manner. “Bah! I’m fine. Just a little stab in my side and a dislocated shoulder, aside from this handsome scar on my forehead.”
“Arthur, I was there when you collapsed. The doctors said you had lost a lot of blood and that the cut you received collapsed your lung. I sincerely doubt that you’re fine.”
He shrugged. “Ah, it’s true that I can’t breathe so well right now. Nor will they allow me to smoke until I recover; but it’s nothing a son of Wales can’t beat. Have you seen Amy?”
I sat down in the chair next to his bed. “I tried, but they wouldn’t let me in. The nurse said they’re going to have to sedate her. She was thrashing about in her bed.”
His head drooped and the smile ran away from his face.
“Those men who just left are her doctors. They’ve spent the night examining her.”
“And what did they find?”
Arthur hesitated. “They—they’re suspecting that she has some sort of brain injury. Physically she is fine. No broken bones, no stab marks or anything. Her vitals are all good and her heart is strong. It’s just that she’s not there anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
He sunk down within himself.
“It’s as if she is empty up here.” He tapped his head.
“Is she aware?”
“Oh, yes. And she speaks a few words and can feed herself and make her toilet, but these are all very basic functions.”
“Does she recognise her surroundings?”
He nodded. “Yes, but in the same way one recognises a shoe. Her—her mind is broken, Albert. Whatever she saw through that veil, she couldn’t handle it. In a way I suppose she was lucky, as I’m sure that, if she had looked through any longer than she did, she’d be a hopeless idiot.”
I stood up and walked back and forth
a bit as much as the curtains would allow.
“What do the doctors say? Is there any hope? What about the seizures?”
He sighed. “Ah, they—they’re recommending a sanitarium. They say that, with time, she may recover from the shock.”
I stopped. “You mean a madhouse?”
“That might be their insinuation, but I have no intention of sending her to such a place. No, I’ve arranged for here to stay here for a few weeks in their quiet ward. After that, she will come home and I will look after her and bring in any specialists I can.”
It was woefully inadequate, but I had to say it anyway. “I’m so sorry, Arthur. I’d no idea anything like this would happen.”
He looked at me. I could tell that he wanted to blame me but couldn’t.
“It’s not your fault, old man. I bear much of the burden here. This is but the latest result in a path I forged so many years ago. It may have reverberations yet.”
I nodded. “Ann.”
“Indeed so. We may have stopped Mary from completing the Scarlet Ceremony, but she still has Ann. I fear what Mary might do to her now that she no longer needs her. And,” he said after a pause, “now that she knows you are to blame for her failure. She will seek to revenge herself upon you, Albert, and Ann is the most effective way to do that.”
My head began to pound with the pent-up anger and frustration I was feeling.
“You think she’ll kill Ann then?”
The question hung in the air between us. It was a statement of lethal intent that neither of us wished to accept, but eventually Arthur responded with a weak “Yes.”
“But why? If—if Mary cultivated her simply to use as a sacrifice in the Scarlet Ceremony, what use would killing her have now that the full moon has passed? What purpose?”
He looked up at me. His eyes were red and raw from crying over Amy. He wore his pain upon every inch of his being.
“To hurt you. Oh, she might use Ann for something else; God knows what she’s learnt in all this time. But my heart tells me that Mary will kill Ann in a way to cause you the most pain she possibly can.”
I shook my head.
“What can I do? I have no more leads. This ‘assault’ on that underground chamber was all I had. I risked everything on stopping her there. I’ve no idea where to look now.”
Arthur thought for a moment.
“I do not believe she has left London yet. You shot her through the shoulder, so moving will not be easy right now. So, if she were forced to remain here, she would return to the place she knows best.”
“Whitechapel.”
“Indeed so. I would suggest you speak to Freddy. Perhaps he can help you somehow—perhaps alert his constables to be on the lookout for Mary during their patrols in the East End. He may have some new information about the Ripper that might help. At this point, we need to try anything we can, and quickly. I would not expect Mary to wait too long.”
He moved to get out of his bed, but I firmly pushed him back down. It frightened me how little strength he had to fight me.
“You’re not going anywhere, my friend. You need to rest.”
He shook his head. “No, just give me a minute. I’ll be fine. This is probably the safest place for Amy to be right now, and you need my help.”
I stayed firm. “No, dear fellow, Amy needs your help. If you won’t stay here to recover, then stay here to watch over her. It’s where you belong.”
He reluctantly nodded his head in agreement.
Ashamed at my silence, I finally told Arthur about the moonknife that the Beast had sent me.
“Do you still have it?” Arthur asked incredulously.
“Yes, it’s in my pocket.” I took it out to show him, but he motioned for me to put it away. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep others from seeing it or keeping himself from it.
“Good,” he said, easing back in the bed and wincing from a sudden pain caused by his attempt to draw a full breath. “Keep it with you and keep it safe. There’s a reason that he sent it to you, and it may be the only thing to stop Mary. I’m afraid that even if you had shot her right in the head, it wouldn’t have killed her. There’s not much left of her in there anymore.”
“What was the point of it all, Arthur? What was beyond that veil?”
He hesitated, trying to find the words.
“We’ve talked before about how there are different worlds beyond this one—what we know here, the mountains, hill following after hill, as wave on wave. It is nothing but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a belief that there is a ‘real world’ out there, beyond our senses, beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these ‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career’ that lies beyond the veil. The ancients knew what lifting the veil meant. They called it ‘seeing the god Pan.’
“Mary was attempting to breach that veil and bring that real world here. Doing so would have destroyed this reality. Or she was seeking to merge the two. I know not which. Her motivations are beyond me now, but I am pleased that we have thwarted her. Now I worry what she, or that thing she has become, may attempt next.
“You have to kill her. You understand that, don’t you?”
I nodded. I had secretly planned to do just that no matter what happened.
“Even if you rescue Ann and get her away safely, you still have to kill Mary. She cannot be allowed to live any longer. I shudder at what she may attempt if she is not killed. You understand me, Albert? No mercy.”
“I understand.”
On my way out, I looked in on Amy again. She was asleep but restless. I noticed that her hands and feet had been tied to the bed rails. Ashamed, I slunk out of the hospital and back to the East End.
*
Freddy was not pleased to see me. He appeared even more harassed than usual, and I wondered what had been happening with him. I knew that there had been no arrests in the Ripper case, in spite of constant pressure from his superiors. He looked exhausted, and there were circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and too much time reading reports in dim lights.
“What the bloody hell do you want?”
Not an auspicious start to our conversation.
“Haven’t seen you or Machen in weeks,” he went on brusquely. “Not even at the coroner’s inquests. Have you given up amateur sleuthing?”
“Arthur and his wife are currently in Charing Cross Hospital,” I replied, a bit tersely.
“Bloody hell! What’s happened?”
Thinking quickly, I came up with a lie. “Amy has had a mental breakdown. Arthur was attacked by a group of thugs in Whitechapel. He was stabbed in the chest, which collapsed his lung. Very nearly died.”
Abberline sunk down into his chair. “’Strewth. I’d no idea. Will he recover?”
“The doctors think so,” I replied. “But we don’t know about Amy yet. They hope that her mind will heal itself.”
“Well, now I feel like a right jackass, don’t I? I’ll stop in and see him if I can get away from this damn desk. And why are you here, Albert?”
“I—I am trying to locate someone. You see, I have a . . . fiancée and she went missing some weeks ago. I’ve been trying to find her.”
Freddy moved some papers around on his desk and took out a pencil. “I see. And you want us to find her?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. My fiancée—her name’s Ann Simmons—she’s come under the influence of an ‘undesirable’ person. My fear is that this person has led her astray.”
He looked at me puzzled. “In what way?”
“Ah, I hate to say this out loud but . . . prostitution. In the East End.”
Now Freddy looked at me warily like a cat waiting for the mouse to sprint out from behind the chair.
“I’ve been looking for her all this time,” I went on quickly, “and haven’t found her. I thought that maybe you could find Ann or this person.”
The sympathy that Freddy had a moment ago had vanished.
&nbs
p; “Right. Listen, Albert, that’s not what we do here. We can’t go off looking for every woman who’s scampered off in the night. She’s an adult and she has the right to up and leave if she wants to. Not to mention that we’re trying to catch a murderer here. We’re a bit busy at the moment, but give me a description of your fiancée and I’ll have the desk sergeant alert the men.”
I gave Freddy the description of Mary Kelly instead of Ann, thinking that Mary would be easier to locate. When I finished, I asked about the status of the case.
“I’d have an easier time nailing water to a tree. But at least we haven’t had any more victims recently, thank God!”
“No new suspects?”
He looked at me warily again.
“You haven’t started working for the papers, have you?”
I vowed that I hadn’t.
“Little difference. They just make up something if they don’t get a good statement. No, Albert, no new suspects, no new arrests, nothing. Just hundreds of frightened people pointing their fingers at everyone. Anything else?”
“Yes. What happened to the case against Edwards?”
This time, he broke eye contact and went back to looking at his papers.
“Ah, yes. Well, that case was dismissed.”
“What? What are you talking about? The man tortured me for days!”
“The, ah, the prosecutors didn’t feel there was enough evidence against him to ensure a conviction, so they dropped the case.”
I stood there in astonishment. “I don’t believe this! Why wasn’t I called to give evidence?”
Abberline slammed his hand on the desk. “We tried to call you, but you couldn’t be found! Not that it made any difference anyway. Whoever arranged this had enough power and influence to make sure it happened the way they wanted. Probably that mystery man who got tossed into the extra carriage on the night we rescued you. But of course, you don’t know anything about that.”
“So where’s Edwards now?”