The Ripper Affair

The detective inspector was an interesting case. A proud nose and side-whiskers that did not disguise the childish attractiveness he must have once possessed, but purple shadows bloomed under his sharp dark eyes. His distinctive sliding step would have told Clare he was accustomed to the Scab’s fascinating resilience underfoot, even if the fraying along his trouser-cuffs hadn’t. Aberline moved with precision and economy, though he took care to appear more a clerk than one of Commissioner Waring’s bootleather bulldogs.

Added to his familiarity in addressing Miss Bannon, and the evident caution he held her in, as well as the fact that he was rather young to have achieved such an exalted rank as detective inspector… well. It bespoke some manner of history, and would have served to keep Clare’s faculties most admirably occupied, if they had not been so already.

Now Aberline looked rather mournful, planting his feet and staring at the flayed, opened body. “Throat cut from behind, right-handed, and then he gutted her.”

Clare’s collar was uncomfortably tight. He made no move to loosen it. “Could sorcery account for the vanished blood?”

“Oh, aye, it could. She said as much. And she’s never about but there’s nasty work going.” He sighed heavily, from the very soles of his sturdy, Scab-scarred shoes. “Whitchapel’s in a fine stew. We’ll be lucky to avoid more unpleasantness.”

“So I overheard.” Clare’s brow knitted itself rather fiercely. Something teased at the edge of his deductions, a nagging thought that would not quite coalesce. “We shall do our best. Those are her effects? I wonder… why take the rings and leave the coin?”

Aberline nodded. His nose was reddened from the chill. “I’ve seen men murdered for less, and women too.”

The examiner let out a gusty breath of disgust. “He needn’t have hurried her along. Lungs, heart, all raddled like the rest of her. Prime example of drink and dissolution.”

“The question becomes, why her?”

“There are thousands of unfortunates prowling the End, sir.” Aberline’s mouth was a grim line, only opening barely enough to spit the words free. “Perhaps she was merely unlucky.”

I am not so certain. What in this unfortunate–or in the other members of Londinium’s almost-lowest dregs–would have concerned Queen Victrix so? And the organs of generation removed with a very sharp knife. It was unthinkably crude. “Perhaps. Poor thing.”

Aberline’s eyebrows rather nested under his bowler-brim at that, for Clare had uttered the words softly. A mentath generally did not speak so.

“Well. Gentlemen, should I stitch the bag up?” The physicker’s good humour was almost shocking, but Clare took a renewed grasp upon himself. “Or is there more to be seen?”

Aberline’s expression grew even more troubled, if such a thing were possible. “Can you tell if she had, ah, relations? Before, ahem, the event?”

“Well, that’s rather a curious thing.” The doctor scratched his cheek, leaving a trace of gore in his whiskers. “What little remains of her organs of generation seems… scorched.”

Clare blinked, and leaned closer. “Yes, indeed. How very curious. It seems to follow the blood channels and nerves.”

The barrowmancer coughed, nervously. Clare’s attention fastened on him. “Well?”

“Nothing, sir.” But the man was much paler than he had been when Clare had arrived. “Just… well, sorcery follows blood and nerve, mostly. But to sear it… nasty stuff, that is. Especially there.”

“Miss Bannon shall be informed.” Clare nodded. “Very well, then. Detective Inspector, I believe we are to endure each other’s company for some little while longer.”

Chapter Twenty-Two Such Guile To Make Headway

The hansom rattled along, and Emma’s chin dipped as her attention turned inward.

Outside the carriage’s shell, Londinium seethed, and she felt the drag of the Scab along the wheels lessen. Passing out of Whitchapel might improve her mood, but she rather doubted it.

In any case, the hansom was merely a gesture to misdirect a pursuer, albeit an exceedingly lazy one. Still, it was a matter of habit not to approach some things too directly.

Also, it gave her a small increment of badly needed time to think.

The bodies bore the marks of the blackest of sorcery–not of Emma’s Discipline, thank the heavens, but the marks of ætheric force harnessed to an intent so foul even those of the Endor would fain avoid it. The only major Discipline deeper of the Black than Emma’s own was the Diabolic itself, but this held no smoky, addicting incense-ghost of that art.