The Ripper Affair

Chapter Twenty-Eight Tonight, Strike To Kill

“Oh, blast it all.” Emma’s temper frayed still further, and Finch’s head drew back between his thin, hunching shoulders, rather in the manner of a tortoise.

A telegram from Aberline, and Clare was out of the door like a shot. At least Philip had gone with him, and she could safely consign the mentath’s welfare to the list of problems not to be solved at the moment.

She took a deep breath. “Never mind. They shall distract my quarry admirably for the time being. Thank you, Finch.”

“Mum.” He paused, ready if she wished to add anything more.

Fortunately, she did. “I am closing the house. Pray let the other servants know, and take care none of the deliveries are allowed to step inside. I do not have time for the bother that would ensue.” Not to mention it might drive the prices of some goods up, and while she had a good head for business–a Collegia education rather instilled such a thing–there was no reason to be flagrant with what she had accumulated. A second thought occurred to her. “I do rather hope Clare does not bring his new acquaintance to my door. The result would be singularly unappealing.”

Finch’s posture did not change one whit. “Mr Clare said he did not quite trust the inspector’s motives regarding yourself, mum.”

“Did he now.” A thin thread of amusement bloomed, very much against her will. “Well, Mr Clare is wise to do so.” She halted, one foot on the first stair. “Finch… Geoffrey.”

He blinked, and the mild surprise on his thin face might have been amusing as well, except for the sudden flare of fear underneath it. Lime-green to Sight, bitter and acrid, it stung her far more sharply than she dared admit.

“I have not forgotten my promise,” she continued. “The inspector may go elsewhere to satisfy the grudges he bears both of us. Should you leave my service or retire, you shall be safely ensconced in a lovely warm foreign country with a comfortable independence before he receives a whisper of such an event.”

“I would not leave your service, mum.” Finch had drawn himself up. “Not willingly, God strike me down if I don’t mean it.”

Her smile was unguarded, and for once Emma was content to have it so. “Thank you, Finch.” She found her gloved hand had rested on his forearm, and her own shock at her familiarity was matched by Finch’s sudden thunderstruck expression. “I would be saddened to see you go.”

“Erm. Shall you be needing the carriage, mum?”

“No, thank you. I shall most likely return very late, possibly not before dawn. You may all go to bed early, I should think.”

“Yesmum.” And he glided away, suddenly very small and slight against the foyer’s restrained elegance. How Severine had clucked and fussed when Emma brought him home, how the housekeeper had expressed her disdain in every possible way until Emma had informed her tartly that she was the resident sorceress and Severine Noyon, treasured and valued as she was, did not have the final say in what or whom Emma pleased to employ.

If I bring home a dozen cutthroat syphilitic Dutch mercenaries, Madame Noyon, you will be gracious and greet them kindly, and have some little faith in your mistress.

Her smile faded, remembering how poor Severine had quailed, going cheese-pale, her plump hands waving helplessly. Emma had gentled her, of course–You must trust me as you did before, Madame. Have I ever led you astray?

Still, it was… unworthy. Frightening the soft and broken held no joy. Given the habits of Severine’s previous employer, it was no wonder the woman still cowered.

“Prima?” Mikal appeared, striding from the drawing room.

“I am closing the house.” She shook herself into full alertness, and set aside memory. “Finch shall warn the servants; I hope Clare will not bring his new friend home like a street-found cur.”

“If he does, the result will no doubt be satisfying.”

“Very. And yet, messy, and no end of inconvenience.” She breathed out, softly, and drew her mantle closer.

The scrap of cloth in her skirt pocket was an unwelcome weight, no matter that it was merely a small strip soaked with vitae and sealed in a ball of virgin wax cooled with a sketched charter symbol. Vitae, no matter how unwholesome for one of Emma’s Discipline, was still a most useful fluid, which could be imprinted with the sympathetic qualities of other fluids.

As in a sorcerer’s blood, shed in a Blightallen doss.

The Sympathy would be weak, but that weakness would insulate her from another overwhelming vision of murder. Or at least, so she hoped. She further hoped it would not sensitise her further to whatever damnable Work was occurring. Her careful, delicate probing of the æther over the last two days had crushed whatever lingering hope she had held of it being simply a mistake, or of the effects upon Victrix and herself being simply coincidental.

“You could merely stay here.” The Shield’s irises were lambent in the foyer’s dimness, and he was a solidly comforting shadow, at least. “Let her taste the fruits of her sowing.”

If those fruits did not echo so loudly inside my own body, I might consider it. “I could. However, Clare expects me to take a hand in this affair.”

He nodded. And, thankfully, did not take issue with the statement.

“Come.” I should do this quickly, before I find another reason to avoid doing it at all. “And Mikal?”

“Yes?”

“Tonight, strike to kill.”

A gleam of white teeth, shown in a smile. “Yes, Prima.”

The edge of Whitchapel was already showing thin traceries of virulent green, and the fog had thickened to a soup best strained through a kerchief. Emma found she could push her veil aside without her eyes stinging, but chose not to. She was merely a darker shadow hurrying along, Mikal in his black a blot beside her.

The fog lipped every surface, turning passers-by into shades risen from some underworld described in one of the Greater Texts, strangling the gaslamps’ tiny circles of illumination.

The alleys were muffled by Scab already, and there were choked sounds from some of them. A soft cry ahead resolved into a confused flurry of shadows, but when they reached the corner there was only a splash of bright smoking blood on the cobbles, Scab threading busily through its warm nutrition in delicate filigreed whorls.

Emma continued, stepping briskly along, the digging of her stays as well as the stricture of her point-toe boots both welcome reminders that she was not a child.

Mikal’s presence was noted, of course. There were gleams in the darkness: altered limbs, cautious eyes with no more humanity than a Nile crocodile’s, a jet of shivering gaslamp glow reflecting from a knife blade. She was not approached, though once Mikal touched her elbow, drifting a few steps away towards an alley-mouth as she stood, bolt upright and breathing calmly, her training sinking its claws deep in her rebellious vitals as her body recognised the heatless scent of danger.

The gleams retreated, but Mikal still stood, the set of his shoulders somehow expressing reluctance to move further, but equal unwillingness to back away. A silent language, one the knives of Whitchapel understood.

Finally he relaxed a trifle, and paced back to her side. She continued without a word.

Blightallen, where the vanished Kendall had met with such misfortune, was of a different character after nightfall. Her ankles ached with the step-glide that was necessary to keep her footing, for the Scab had thickened. The darkness was a living thing, almost impenetrable, and Emma could not decide whether to be grateful she could discern the shapes around her or nauseous at the filth underfoot. For one whom even candlelight could glare-blind during the deeper use of her ætheric talents, it was an unexpected… well, not a gift, but it certainly made visiting this hole easier.

For a certain value of “easy”, she supposed.

Her gloved hand dug for the wax ball; she drew it out securely caged in her fist. Mikal, his fingers quick and deft, knotted a hank of silk about her closed hand, and glanced at her face. Could he see in this reproduction of Stygia?

“Are you…”

Was he about to ask her if she was certain? Or ready? Emma shook her head, acutely aware of curls brushing her mantle’s shoulder, the fog making its own whisper-sound as it crept uneasily above the Scab. Occasionally it dipped its fingers down to almost touch the thick coating, then recoiled as the surface of Whitchapel’s greediest resident twitched.

She opened her mouth to speak the minor Word that would unleash the Sympathy.

It died unuttered, ætheric force tangling and snarling under the surface of the world as Mikal clapped his free hand over her mouth, his head coming up with a quick, fluid, somehow wrong movement.

Footsteps, light and quick. What is that? She braced herself, and when Mikal took his hand away they shared a look of silent accord–visible because the cameo at her throat had lit with leprous green brightening as the sound grew closer. There was no splorch of the ooze releasing a running foot, nor was there the sliding of an accomplished flashboy who had learned the trick of not breaking the Scab’s surface in order to move quickly along.

What on earth—

It burst from the gloom at the end of Blightallen, and Mikal was there to meet it, his knives out and flashing dully.

Flickers of motion, a whip-crack of sound–and her Shield was driven back, sliding on the uncertain footing.

It did have a whip. Emma’s eyes narrowed as she flashed through and discarded invisible threads. The æther resonated oddly, curdling; she had time to take a deep breath before Mikal was flung aside and hit a dosshouse door with a sickening crack.

Scab curled and smoked, oily steam rising as it cringed away from the tall, square-headed figure–it had a coachman’s hat, and the whip was a heavy one meant to sound over several heaving clockhorse backs at once.

She had fractions of a moment to decide what manner of creature it was as it leapt skimble-legged for her. A glamour could kill if she believed in its truth; a bound spirit or a Construct could injure her grievously if its binder or creator had entrusted it with enough ætheric force; a dollsome or Horst’s Mannequin could only strike physically; a Seeming could not injure her unduly; and there were so many other categories to consider she was almost, almost too late.

Mikal let out a choked cry, but Emma had set herself squarely, the cameo sparking and two rings on her left hand–one a bloody garnet set in heavy gold, the other cheap brass with a glass stone that nevertheless held a fascinating twinkle and a heavy charge–flaming with ætheric force.

A violet flower bloomed between her and the thing in a coachman’s form: sorcerous force widening like a painted Chinois fan. The Word she spoke, sliding harsh and whole from her throat with a harsh pang, was not of Mending or Breaking or even of Binding. No, she chose a different Language entirely, and one not of her Discipline.

Strictly speaking, Naming belonged to neither the White nor the Black, nor the Grey besides. Its only function was to describe, but such was a law of sorcery: the Will makes the Name.

Had she not been Prime, she perhaps could not have forced the creature’s dubious reality to temporarily take the form most suited to her purposes. The Word warped as the thing fought her humming definition of its corporeality, and that very twisting and bulging gave her indications of its nature.

But only indications.

A tricksome beast you are, indeed.

It hit the shield of violet shimmering and Emma was driven back, her heels scraping long furrows through crisping, peeling Scab. Her gloved hands flew, describing a complex pattern, and the violet light snapped sideways and forward, again fanlike. The edge slashed up, sharply, and the thing’s howl blew her hair back, cracked the folds of her mantle, stung her watering eyes.

She ignored the irritation. It was a coachman, its yellow and red striped muffler wrapped high to conceal a void where the face should be and its high collar doing its best to shade the face as well, its coat flapping open, worn and patched in places with tiny needle-charmer’s stitches; its boots caked with manure and street-scum. The hat was of fine quality, a jaunty black feather affixed, the waistcoat of embroidered purple and gold a proud bit of flash. It was not liveried, but the boots and the hat said servant instead of hire, and who would send a creature like this in a livery which could be identified? The clothes were no doubt pawnshop acquisitions, probably corpsepicker gains.

It fell, splatting dully onto the Scab-covered cobbles. More vile steam rose. Its fingers had torn through the ragged woollen gloves, being far too long and corpse-pallid, each sporting an extra joint that no doubt helped the thing wield a knife.

Or its whip, which clattered on the cobbles beside it.

Emma set her chin, bringing the fan-shield back smoothly. The creature’s advantage of surprise was lost, and she had successfully driven it down. But where was Mikal, and what precisely was this unholy thing?

It hissed, scrabbling at age-blackened cobbles with malformed hands to find its weapon, and she had a moment to be grateful Clare was not further involved in this matter before it twisted upright with inhuman speed and flung itself at her again.