The Ripper Affair

Chapter Thirty-Two Error Of Provocation

Even if one could find a hansom when one required conveyance, there was always the chance of said hansom being as slow as a newlywed’s knitting.

Since Mikal was loath to leave her alone, even though with her safely inside a hansom he could watch over from the rooftop road, she did not even have the luxury of a few moments of solitude to collect her scattered thoughts.

It was ridiculous; a Shield was not the same as company, the ancient brotherhood had been trained to discretion and a certain abnegation. And yet… it was Mikal.

His hand was on her wrist, perhaps to anchor her. Yet she was attempting no sorcery at all. Perhaps it was the odd, trembling feeling in her legs, the clawed healing sorcery working its way into deep layers of muscle, that made his gaze so worried and disconcerting at the same moment.

She freed her wrist and took the opportunity, in the small, jolting carriage, to push aside sliced black velvet and examine the bright red marks upon his torso. Not claw-marks, which was interesting, and yet the creature had to have been inordinately quick to strike so many times with a single blade. Those long, spidery fingers could wield such a blade, she thought, with amazing delicacy. Very sharp, curved just enough, possibly a physical focus for the creature? Knife and whip.

For a moment, an idea teased at the back of her consciousness. She waited, but it was not yet fully formed, and it retreated into shadow. “How very intriguing,” she murmured, and settled back into the dingy seat-cushion. I suspect I shall never look upon coachmen in the same fashion again.

The hansom jolted, and the hunched, well-wrapped man holding the reins chirruped to the worn-down clockhorse. Emma’s vision blurred for a moment, and she breathed out, sharply, dispelling the weakness.

She had lost quite a bit of blood, but so had Mikal. A Shield was exceedingly hard to kill, and yet if the Coachman had stopped to actually fully eviscerate him instead of simply slashing to bleed him out she might be adding his name to the list of her failures.

Obviously she had been judged the larger threat. Or the creature–though she had forced it into exactly the proper proportion of physicality, she still was not entirely certain what it was–had not judged her enough of a threat to warrant more than incapacitating Mikal for a few crucial moments.

Either way, it had been set upon her by the Prime she faced.

She knew the Primes resident in Londinium, of course; this bore none of their particular stamps.

At least, as far as she could tell.

Not every Prime on the Isle was known to her, she allowed. Yet this was indubitably native work. A sorcerer would not risk the possibly calamitous side effects of performing so major a Work in a country not his own.

Even if a foreign sorcerer wished to attempt such a thing, he would have to find a space enclosed by charter stones, and any Major Work, if it did not shatter said stones and make a very public noise, would be bounded by the charter boundary. No, a foreigner would not do such a thing.

Unless, of course, he was insane. She could not rule out that possibility. Still, even the most lunatic of Primes would baulk at performing such a Work in a foreign land and accepting the double risk of side effects and failure. True, one could spin the irrationality of such a Major Work away and evade the confines of charter stones, but there was always the chance of the flow returning, filling the one who cast it to the brim with warping irrationality, with all that would entail. A Shield could handle some overflow, certainly, but still, the risk was enough to send a shudder down any Prime’s spine.

She was so sunk in her own reflections she almost missed Mikal’s fingers closing about her wrist again. Irritation rasped under her skin, she reined it, sharply. “I am well enough.”

“No doubt.” His reply was maddeningly equable. “I am merely reassuring myself.”

Of what? “I am not likely to expire at any moment. Unless it is with sheer pique.”

“Comforting.” He tilted his dark head, the gleam of his irises a peculiar comfort in the enclosed space. “There is unrest.”

On many fronts. “Where, precisely?”

“Behind us, and before.” He tipped his chin towards the hansom’s front, but a glance out the night-fogged window told her very little. The d—d thing was slower than cold pudding.

Just as she was about to knock for exit–she could, she thought, at least have the benefit of moving her limbs freely if she were to be baulked at every turn tonight–the hansom slowed, and she gathered they had reached their destination.

Mikal’s tension warned her, and as she alighted, she sensed the disturbance. A glaring note against the low brassy thunder of approaching Tideturn, and several of her nonphysical senses quivered under the lash of fresh tugging on already sensitised ætheric strings.

Whitehell Street was alive with much more activity than it should have been, and Emma sighed, squaring her shoulders. It would be too much to hope for that Aberline and Clare were about, ideally in Aberline’s office–perhaps Clare had even returned to Mayefair, though no doubt if he thought she would be relieved at the notion he might well stay away. Of course Aberline should have been at his own home at this hour, or, more likely, trawling Whitchapel in search of trouble.

Perhaps Aberline had even been caught in the riot she had left behind. While that was acceptable, she sighed at the thought of just whom Commissioner Waring might inflict upon her as a replacement. Furthermore, if Aberline was in Whitchapel, it was likely Clare was caught in the riot as well.

He is as safe as I can make him. Do pay attention, Emma.

The hansom-driver’s whipcrack as he guided his sorry nag away jolted her into stinging awareness. Tideturn was approaching; it would give her fresh strength to follow her course. For the moment, though—

“Priiiiima.” A long, slow exhalation, backed by a draining hiss.

Mikal, a knife laid along his forearm, was between her and the alley-mouth. Emma shook her fingers, a cascade of sparks dying as she realised there was little threat.

Her dark-adapted eyes discerned a skeletal shape, wrapped in tattered oddments. The head seemed too big for its scrawny neck, and the hair was scanty. It leaned against the alley wall, and its pupils were full of green phosphorescence.

Scab-eyes, full of an alien intelligence. Bare feet, horribly battered. The starveling had been driven far from Chapelease, and it coughed weakly and croaked again. “Priiima.”

“I listen,” Emma said, cautiously setting a gloved hand on Mikal’s shoulder, easing him aside. He did not resist, though the stiffness in him told her it was a very near thing.

His nerves were on edge as well, it seemed.

“It feasstsss on flessssssh.” The starveling’s reedy little piping strengthened slightly. Impossible to tell if it had been female or male, or what its station in life had been. “A new thing, under the ssssssun.”

Questioning the starveling would only confuse it. So she waited, and it did indeed have more to say.

“Where the beggar burned, where the dial ssspun, there you will find the road to your quarry.” For an instant, the thing’s skeletal face stretched, becoming broader, the mouth becoming a V. Sharp white teeth flashed, as Thin Meg spoke through one of her hapless, consumed slaves. “If you find him, he will kill you.”

Interesting indeed. Mikal was almost quivering, leashed violence ready to explode. She kept her hand on his shoulder, fingers biting in. Emma nodded slightly. “I hear.” Brief and noncommittal.

“You hear, but do not hear. You sssssee but do not sssssee. Find the dial again, sssssparrow-witch.” A trill of burbling laughter, and the starveling’s body crumpled, twitching. Its eyes collapsed, thin green tendrils racing outwards from the corpseglow sheen they had been filled with, and the body settled into a twisting, jerking dance as Scab consumed it. It would not last long, here outside Whitchapel.

Or perhaps some vestige of it would, and Thin Meg’s reach would eventually extend even this far.

That is a problem for another day. She unclenched her fingers, and patted Mikal’s black-clad shoulder soothingly as the starveling’s bones crackled, foul steam rising. Flesh liquefied, the ragged material clinging to it unravelling under caustic sludge, and soon very little was left.

Emma, however, forced herself to watch. She did not look away until there was merely a verdant patch of Scab, gently sending up thin curls of black steam. There were lumps in it–whatever fragments of rotted teeth the starveling had possessed would be last to dissolve.

“Very interesting,” she said, finally. “What do you make of that, Shield?”

“A riddle?” A single shrug, lifting and dropping her hand. “Couched in a threat?”

“And wrapped in Scab.” A cool finger of dread touched her nape, she shook it away with an unphysical flinch. “Come, let us see what has the Yard roiling like an anthi—”

Wait. The cool fingertip against her nape returned, and Emma spun, ætheric force gathered into a tight hurtful fist. She did not strike, though, for that end of Whitehell Road was deserted. Yellow Londinium fog was a blank canvas, and the streetlamps had begun to sputter, their carefully applied wick-charms fading as dawn approached.

Mikal stepped away, to give himself room in the event of attack–and a chill throatless chuckle bounced up from the cobbles and the side-paving.

“Emma, Emma.” The voice was faintly familiar, for all the simple, elegant sorcery used to disguise its location and waft it to her ears. “You are a wonder.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but the brass thunder of Tideturn rose from the Themis, filling Londinium’s crooked streets and teeming warrens. It descended upon her, stinging as she fought the sudden helplessness, and she could only hope the other Prime would not recover from the flood before she did.

And that the other Prime’s Shields had not been given orders to strike at Mikal.

She surfaced in a rush, ætheric force filling her and staving off physical weariness for a short while longer. The world wheeled underneath her, and she found Mikal’s fingers bruising-hard about her arm again as he held her on her feet. She exhaled sharply, setting her feet on solid ground, and spoke a Word.

“D’sk—zt!”

Ripples spread, ætheric force disturbed in concentric rings about her. They broke and refracted, her attention sweeping vigorously through, rather as her gaze would slide down a page of text searching for a wrong penstroke or figure. Or a dress, searching for inadequate stitching, a badly pinned fold, a—

There you are. Her heart leapt, sought to hammer behind her ribs, was ruthlessly repressed. Sorcerous force became a clamp, a vice, but he slid aside. A knight’s move on a chessboard, but she batted the distracting thought aside. It was a clever feint, but her instincts were still sharp from years of hunting treachery at Victrix’s behest. A clatter and a ringing sound–his Shields would be Mikal’s to deal with now that she had full control of her senses again.

“Not so fast,” came the directionless whisper again. “I am merely visiting, dear one.”

She found her voice. “Do not be so familiar, sir.”

“Most harsh.”

There were more clatters, breaking sounds, and Mikal’s tone was passionless, crisp authority ringing in every syllable. “Come closer and die.”

“No need.” The voice shifted direction again. “I simply wish to speak to your mistress. Hear me, Prima. There is a new spirit rising.”

She marked the words in memory, set them aside. Hot water leaked from under her lashes, dawn’s strengthening scoring her tender eyes. The more force she expended now, the worse they would smart. It mattered little. “I take it you are the one unseaming frails in Whitchapel, sir.”

“Necessary.”

“Are you mad?” She allowed her voice to rise, as if she had become distracted by his gruesome calmness. She was close, so close, a few more moments and she would find him. He had to be physically nearby, possibly within sight of her.

Once she located the source of the sorcery distorting his voice, she could strike.

“Not mad. Merely ambitious. Help me, Emma.”

He is most familiar with me, this masked Prime. “I find you rather presumptuous, sir.”

“Do you like bowing and scraping to that magical whore? Does it please you to be held in contempt for your power and pride? I know what moves you, Prima, and I offer you alliance. And more.”

She remembered the nosegay left on another sorcerer’s narrow bed, a bloodstain upon the floor, and the same trick used to distort a voice in a filthy Whitchapel yard.

This was most likely the same Prime who had mysteriously moved to aid her during the Red affair, and she had thought it quite likely he was another in Victrix’s service.

Now, she wondered.

Did he know his sorceries weakened Britannia? What was his aim?

A new spirit rising.

“Do you think,” she began, choosing her words with care, “that a new spirit will be more amenable than the old?”

“Amenable?” The laugh was chilling, and another sound of breakage intruded. What was he doing? “Perhaps not. But certainly weak, for a long while. And grateful.”

It was one thing to privately compass such a thing, but quite another to hear her adversary speak of it so blithely. She relaxed, abruptly, all her considerable attention brought to bear. “You know little of royalty and rule, sir, if you expect gratitude from either to be of any duration.”

“And you know far too much to be allowed to become my enemy.”

Another shattering sound, Mikal’s exhale of effort. What on earth was occurring? She did not open her eyes, every inward sense twisting through a labyrinth, following shifting ripples as they doubled back upon each other, circling ever closer to the artfully camouflaged well of disturbance that would be her opponent.

“Think upon it, Emma. Would you rather serve, or be served?”

I would rather be left to my own devices, thank you very much. But she did not reply, for her attention snagged on a single flaw in the pattern, a break in the ripples, and she pounced without moving, plunging through the matrices of ringing æther. Snake-quick, but he was quicker, and sorcerous threads snapped as he cast his coat of camouflage aside. More shattering sounds, and she was driven to her knees by the expended force of her own blow, reflected back at her.

Oh, how very droll. A great ringing in her head, she shook to clear it, her skirts ground against something sharp and powdery.

“Prima?” Mikal, longing to give chase.

“No.” She could not find the breath for more. If he has laid his plans so thoroughly, he will have an ambush waiting, and I shall not lose you to such idiocy. She fumbled for her veil with fingers that felt swollen-clumsy. Blinking furiously, she found herself kneeling before a heap of… shattered tiles?

Yes, they were roof tiles, of the old red clay in use on the sloped top of the stable opposite, which was ringing with the sounds of clockhorse distress.

The equines did not like this Prime, or his works.

Mikal crouched easily at her side, his hands covered in vicious, shallow slices, bright beads of blood against thick pink dust coating his skin. “Good practice,” he said, tilting his head as he deciphered her expression behind the veil. “Simple locometry, I should think. And triggered from afar.” He pointed to another rooftop, with a half-shrug that told her it was his best guess. “Crude. But effective.”

Had she possessed another Shield, she might have also possessed a chance of catching the mad Prime while one stayed to protect her from the assault of flung tiles. But now was not the time for guilt or remonstrance. Her stays cut, her dress was covered with dust; her skirts were torn and stiff with blood. Mikal was a sight too, rolled in Scab and covered with various substances. His coat was shredded, and the glimpse of his muscled belly crisscrossed with angry red scarring–perhaps irritated by his exertions in the last few minutes–caused her a pang she did not care to examine more closely.

“Your hands,” she managed. Her throat was very dry. She coughed, delicately, and reacquired her customary tone. “And… oh, h—lfire blast it all. This rather changes things.”

“They are already healing.” He held up his palms, and the sight of his flesh closing, sealing itself under the not-quite-ætheric glow of a Shield’s peculiar healing sorcery, sent another bolt through her. “See?” Very gently, as if she were a still a student at the Schola, unfamiliar with a Shield.

“Yes. Help me up.” She was glad of the veil, and doubly glad of his strength as he steadied her. Her legs were not quite as strong as she would like, and her left thigh trembled, on the verge of turning in its resignation due to savage overwork. She swore, vilely, in an exceedingly low voice, and was further grateful Mikal was accustomed to her somewhat unladylike language upon certain occasions. She finished with a few scathing terms directed at whoever had thought to tile-roof a stable, though she knew such a thing was perfectly admissible, and when she ran out of breath, she inhaled sharply and fully, shaking her head, feeling the quivering all through her. She had expended a great deal of the force Tideturn had flushed her with.

It was small comfort that her opponent had, as well.

Mikal paused, making certain the storm was past, then turned to glance down Whitehell Road. There was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing: clockhorse hooves and excited voices through the rapidly greying fog. “What next?”

She took stock. She simply hated to be so dishevelled, but there was no help for it, and a few cleansing-charms would waste what limited strength of hers remained.

“Next,” she said grimly, “we find Clare. And Aberline.” She took advantage of the moment to tuck a few more curls away under her veil, and blinked away fresh, welling hot salt water.

“That sounds too easy.”

Indeed it does. “It is only a first step, Mikal.”

“And then?”

“Then,” she continued, setting her chin and taking an experimental step, her heeled boot catching and grinding on broken tiles, “we return home to repair ourselves. Afterwards, I avail myself of every means necessary to track down this mad Prime and halt his insanity. I must confess, Shield, that I am more than peeved.” She took another step, leaning on his arm, and found she could walk. “I am downright vexed.”

“Heaven save us all,” he muttered, and she let it pass, leashing her temper tightly.

This mad Prime, whoever he was, had finally managed to anger her. She would teach him the error of such provocation soon enough.