The Ripper Affair

A Prime normally kept a half-dozen of the brotherhood in service, for physical defence and as a guard against an overflow of ætheric force. There were also other… uses… for them, quite obviously. She had not seen the need for more than Mikal in a very long while. And Eli—

Do not think upon that. The dead shall wait; we are concerned with the living at the moment.

Mikal waited. Of course he would betray no sign of impatience.

The fog was choking-close this morning. For all the sound of traffic, they might have been alone, just outside the north-eastron edge of the Scab’s furthest creep. Pedestrians hurried by, almost faceless, for Mikal had drawn her aside, the brick wall next to her scarred and pitted with age.

For a moment, his face was a stranger’s, too. Emma gave herself a severe mental shake. “Mikal.”

“Prima.”

“We are bound for Bucksrow.” I might as well tell you.

“Just inside Whitchapel again.” He nodded. “The site of the second murder?”

“Yes. I wished no witnesses.”

He nodded, but still paused, in case she wished to add anything further.

What did you do, Mikal, when I lay dying? Clare said you performed a wonder. I survived, and you have not mentioned a price for any feat you performed.

The question bubbled up inside her, was forced back, and she was suddenly aware of the weight of her mourning-cloth; the heaviness of her jewellery; her hair braided, piled and pinned by Isobel’s quick fingers; the constriction of her shoes; and her stays–she had never followed the fashion of extraordinarily tight corseting, but they were tight enough–compressing her.

Other pressures crowding upon her flesh, as well. Ludovico. Clare. Victrix. This faceless man with his shining knife. Mikal himself, and all those of her household. Her collection of drifting souls, each one an anchor.

Without those weights, would she rise from the surface of the earth?

And where would she float to? There was no escape. The only solution was to arrange her immediate surroundings as comfortably as possible, which meant dealing with this affair quickly, directly and ruthlessly.

She swallowed, her throat obeying with a dry click. “Come along then.” She reclaimed her hand, and his expression did not change.

It was not as comforting as she might have wished, but at least it freed her for other worries. Chief among them was what, precisely, she might endure on Bucksrow, at the site of the second murder.

“A cart driver found her.” Soft, thoughtfully. Strengthening cloud-filtered sunlight had scorched Bucksrow clean of its thin coating of Scab, but the cobbles and pavers held thin whorls and traceries of its green, burrowing into the cracks between to wait for darkness. “The Hospital is there.” She pointed at its distant, looming bulk, more sensed than seen through the fog. Her forehead furrowed in a most unladylike manner. “But there is little trace of disturbance. How very curious.”

Cracked and missing cobbles, crumbling paving, timbers blackened with age and paint peeling–where the Scab had not eaten it–from whatever it coated.

Mikal took in the surroundings. “She was certain this…” It was eminently clear who he meant, both by the stress on the she and the suggestion of a lip-curl.

“Was an act by our quarry, yes.” Emma drew her fur-lined mantle closer. Its surface glimmered with moisture, and it did nothing to stave off the cold that descended upon her. Autumn had arrived. Soon after, winter. A further chill coursed down her back. “I am quite certain this is the place.”

“Bloodstain.” He pointed, a swiftly elegant gesture, tendons standing out on the back of his hand. “Right before the stable doors.”

He did not mention that the Scab had been scorched away there too, and no thin traces of green remained even in the crevices.

Emma glanced at the street again. Something about the angle of the stain was not quite right. “Locked after dark, one presumes.” A steady, warm exhalation enfolded them both–the dryness of hide and mane, the sharp mechanical tang of oil for clockhorse gears. She extended a tendril of awareness, probed ever so gently. “I wonder…”

She stepped forward, directly onto the darkened paving stones. Her corpus had braced itself for an uncomfortable experience, and the complete lack of one demanded a response. Her training dug its clawed fingers in her vitals, and she shook the sensation away. “Hm. Mikal?”

“I am here, Prima.”

Of course you are. But it was the response she had wanted. She closed her eyes, tugging on invisible threads in the tangled snarl of the fleshly world.