Jack of Ravens

6

Veitch wiped the blood from his blade on the bedclothes. Etain stood nearby, staring out of the window into the smog-created gloom in a manner that Veitch pretended was yearning for the green, rolling landscape of her former life.

‘Three down,’ he hummed. ‘Two to go. Wish I’d been keeping a running total. I stopped at a hundred and forty-five.’

He sheathed the blade and turned back to the room. The man’s head, which had been sitting in the centre of the room, was somehow back on his neck. The lips had been pulled into a mocking grin.

Veitch kept his hand on the sword. ‘Who did that?’ he said incredulously to Etain. He’d only been wiping his blade for a second; no time at all for someone to steal in behind him and adjust the body. Then he noticed that the woman’s head was missing.

Cursing, he rushed to the door. It was locked. He shattered it with his boot and stormed into a dark corridor that smelled of coal and damp and cabbage water. At the end, by the stairs, the woman’s head hung by the hair like a Hallowe’en lantern, but he could not see who was holding it.

Veitch raced along the corridor. By the time he reached the end he could hear footsteps rapidly descending the stairs, and then the banging of the front door. Sprinting into the street, he coughed and choked in the smog, looking up and down. The head bobbed along, just disappearing in the haze.

Veitch hadn’t got far when hands grabbed him roughly and hauled him into an alley. It was the Libertarian.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Veitch raged. He threw himself back into the street, but he had lost sight of the head.

The Libertarian pulled him back. ‘What are you doing?’ His red eyes blazed in the gloom. ‘You may well hold a position of some authority because of your peculiar abilities, though why you were given them remains beyond me. But you are still weak and pathetic, easily distracted and, I might add, none too bright. We cannot risk upsetting the delicate balance at this crucial stage.’ The Libertarian’s sneer became a snarl.

Veitch threw him off and drew his sword. ‘Who cares what you think, you parasite?’

The Libertarian stared at the sword, then drew himself up and smiled menacingly.

Veitch was distracted by a shapeless mass in the alley, which he realised were two bodies, butchered so brutally they were almost unrecognisable. Scattered nearby were pieces of clothing — a shawl, worn but cared for lovingly, and a man’s flat cap.

‘What did you do that for?’ Veitch said, disgusted. ‘They couldn’t have hurt you.’

‘I did it because I could.’

Veitch stared deeply into the Libertarian’s eyes but couldn’t fathom what he saw there. ‘You and me are going to have it out one day,’ he said.

‘I relish the moment.’

Sickened, Veitch sheathed his blade and ran back into the street. Candles and lamps were alight in the windows he passed. They revealed families, sometimes eight to a room, old men hunched over tiny fires, women old before their time, sobbing at a table or getting drunk on cheap spirits, children worn out from work, men in the act of robbery or violence. It was dark and it smelled sour.

Just when he was about to give up and return to Etain, the head dropped from above him and splattered at his feet before rolling into the gutter. On the edge of the roof, Spring-heeled Jack rocked on his haunches, his staring eyes seething. With a flourish, his cloak rose up around him and he was away across the rooftops once more.

‘Right, you bastard,’ Veitch hissed. ‘I’m in a bad bleedin’ mood and it’s all coming down on your head.’

Sometimes it was difficult to see the figure skittering across the rooftops, for the streets were narrow and the buildings high. But once they moved out of the East End it became easier. Past the Tower and St Paul’s Veitch raced, determined Spring-heeled Jack would not outpace him. Finally, the West End rose up around him. There were carriages and people in fine clothes on their way to the theatre or stretching their legs after dinner. Veitch hitched a ride on the back of a carriage, keeping one eye on the roofs.

It was only when the buildings ran out that Spring-heeled Jack came down to ground level, and by then they were in Hyde Park. Ahead, the gleaming majesty of the Crystal Palace stood like a beacon in the night.