The Ripper Affair

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.