Jack of Ravens

2

The winding, pitch-black cesspit streets of the East End were almost lost beneath the ramshackle buildings that towered over them, seeping degradation and despair. Occasionally there were pools of light, the pubs where the locals attempted to make the best of their lot amidst the vinegary stink of sour beer and the thick smoke of cheap tobacco. But mostly there was darkness.

Veitch strode purposefully through the dire lanes. His sword was strapped to his back beneath his cloak. He could feel the blade calling out to the shadows, sense its subtle black energies permeating his own flesh and bone, hungrily seeking out his desire for vengeance, and his hatred and his bitterness.

He had grown up across the river in South London, an area of similar hardness and struggle. South Londoners and East Enders were rivals, but there was an affinity beneath the surface that forged an unspoken bond. They knew life wasn’t easy, that it was about compromise, and attempting to mine whatever nuggets of happiness you could find in the thick seam of day-to-day hardship. That was life; no point moaning about it.

Though the East End had changed a great deal by his own time, thanks to German bombs and out-of-town developers, he could still find his way around. The old familiar markers were still there: Mile End and Whitechapel, Shoreditch and Ratcliff Highway. The names were comforting. They brought back memories of running with his brothers when he was in his teens, of hot nights and beer and girls, before his mother’s death and his father’s descent into booze, when their only option had become petty crime. That’s when the shutters had started to come down.

‘Mister, mister! A fuck for a farthing.’ The reedy voice floated out of a nearby alley. Veitch paused as a woman slowly emerged like a ghost from the shadows. She was hunched over, her hair wild, her arms like sticks. Veitch at first took her to be in her sixties, but only when she neared did he see she was a young girl of around thirteen. Her face and body bore the weight of life on the street; it didn’t look as though she had many years ahead of her.

‘What are you doing out here at this time of night, love?’ Veitch already knew the answer.

‘I’ll suck for less. Or a quick handshake. Just a farthing, mister. You can put it anywhere.’

Veitch went over and the girl’s smile was filled with a pathetic gratitude. Behind the hardness of her face he saw something that spoke to him.

What’s your name?’

‘Annie, mister.’

She looked as if she might faint, and when Veitch put an arm around her for support she felt like a bundle of sticks. ‘You shouldn’t be out here, Annie. It’s dangerous at this time of night.’

Her look told him that the danger was ever-present. ‘I haven’t earned enough for my lodgings yet, mister, and I don’t want to spend another night under the arches in West Street.’ She looked hunted. ‘My friend was stabbed to death there the other night.’

‘Where’s your mum and dad? You should be home with them.’

‘My mum died of the pox, not two years gone. I’ve never known my dad. Mum always said he was good for nothing, and spent her pennies on gin.’ She hacked a cough. ‘Will you come down the alley with me, mister?’

Veitch was horrified by her plain, workaday tone. He dug into his pocket and found the guinea that would have bought his own food and lodgings until the business was finished. He pressed it into her hand.

‘You take this and get out of this shit-hole, all right? Get yourself some food. Get up West or … or … down to Bromley or somewhere. Get yourself a maid’s job.’

Even as the words left his lips he realised the hopelessness in them, but the girl didn’t care. Gasping for breath and words that wouldn’t come, she stared at the guinea on her palm as if it were a sign from God.

A shadow fell over them both. Veitch glanced around, saw nothing, then looked up as he caught a glimpse of movement dropping from on high. A figure landed before him. Veitch was not easily unsettled, but what he saw shocked him with its sheer strangeness. The figure was white and slippery, though he couldn’t tell if it was clothes or skin for a black cloak billowed all around it. The hands were clawed where they clutched the material. As it raised its head, Veitch saw goat horns and blazing red eyes, a face that was part-human and part-bestial, but before he could fix on it, the thing opened its mouth to release a blaze of Blue Fire.

Grabbing Annie to protect her, Veitch threw them both backwards. Then the creature gave a remarkable bound and cleared a good twenty feet, where it turned and waited for Veitch to follow.

‘God help us!’ Annie shrieked. ‘It’s Spring-heeled Jack!’

At her cry windows were flung open and men and women stumbled out of the rank tenements in various states of drunkenness.

‘Oi, you bleeder!’ one broken-nosed man yelled. ‘Be off wiv ya!’ He ran for the creature, three other men quickly joining him. The thing waited until they were almost upon it before giving a massive leap that sent it sailing up to the rooftops, its cloak folding around it like bat-wings. It landed on the roof in a clattering of tiles, and turned to look back. Veitch thought he glimpsed a demonic grin and then it was away across the rooftops.

The broken-nosed man hurried up. ‘Are you all right, mate? Did he hurt ya?’

A prostitute in her forties came over wearing dirty white muslin and greasy blue silk. She reeked of cheap gin, and her face was seamed with smallpox scars and the scabs of some sexually transmitted disease.

‘That was Spring-heeled Jack, that was. Lor’, you were lucky,’ she slurred.

What is it?’ Veitch asked.

‘The Devil hisself,’ the broken-nosed man said.

‘He’s been coming round these parts for thirteen year,’ the prostitute said. ‘Lost souls aplenty in the East End.’

‘Surely you’ve heard of ’im?’ the broken-nosed man said. Even the Lord Mayor of London talks about Spring-heeled Jack.’

‘He blinded poor Lucy Squires down in Limehouse with that fiery breath of his.’ The prostitute staggered around, talking to no one in particular. ‘Down in Green Dragon Alley. Only eighteen, she was, the little darlin’.’

Veitch looked around for Annie, but she’d run off in the confusion.

Irritated by the distraction, he pushed his way past the prostitute and marched into the maze of stinking alleys.

Ten minutes later he found his way to the courtyard. He could smell the horses and hear the rattle of their hooves and the hiss of their breath long before he saw them. In the shadows the Brothers and Sisters of Spiders stood like statues, dead eyes staring damnation.

Veitch kissed Etain on her dry, cold cheek. She turned the icy lamps of her eyes on him, and Tannis, Branwen and Owein followed suit immediately, like the gears of a machine turning.

‘I’m glad you lot are here,’ Veitch said. ‘You need friends in a city like this. It’s a sewer. All the poor left to fend for themselves in the shit, dying from diseases, killing each other slowly. And all the rich up West, sipping their claret and not giving a toss.’ He couldn’t get the image of Annie out of his mind and he was surprised how much it troubled him.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘No point moaning about shit you can’t do anything about. I’ve found where the first one is. Let’s get to business.’