The Ripper Affair

Crunch. Slurp. A humming, married to a crackling Clare had heard many times before, during his acquaintance with Emma Bannon.

Live sorcery.

The fog drew back, for he was approaching, impelled by curiosity and a nasty, dark suspicion. There was another edge to the fog-vapour now, brass-copper and hot, that Clare recognised as well.

Blood.

He realised he was moving as silently as Valentinelli had taught him to, a flood of bright bitterness threatened to overwhelm him. The poppy, lingering false friend, opened a gallery of Memory and Recollection he could not afford to pay attention to, for a shape crouched before him, in a darkened corner of a square.

The gaslamp overhead was dark, burnt out or simply cloaked by the shame of witnessing what Clare now viewed.

A small, dirty, blood-freckled woman’s hand, cupped but empty, fallen at her side. The rest of her was an empty sack, her head tipped away and a black bonnet tangled in its greying mass. Dead-white thighs, spattered with dark feculence, flung wide. A section of greyish intestine, poked by long thin spidery fingers. Those fingers returned to the abdominal cavity, plunged and wrenched, and brought a dripping handful up.

Wet slurping sounds underscored by a hum of contentment, like a child or a dog face-deep in melon on a scorching summer day. The figure–a coachman’s cap tilted back at a jaunty angle on its blurred head, a red and yellow muffler wound around its throat more than once–bent over again, the mending on its coat small, skilled needle-charmer’s stitches. Its arm came up again, there was the bright flash of a knife, and the blade cut deep into soft flesh. It wrenched the resultant mass free as well and gobbled it.

A rushing filled Clare’s ears.

The fingers were gloved, but no trace of blood or matter seemed to adhere to the material. They unravelled at each fingertip, for the thing had extra joints on each phalange. It rooted in the mass of the woman’s belly again, and found what it sought. Still smacking its unseen lips, it lifted a clot-like handful–rubbery, pear-shaped, Clare knew there was no way he should be able to discern such a thing, but he knew what it was.

It is eating her womb. Dear God.

The crackling of sorcery intensified. The thing hunched, and its figure blurred more. Cloth rippled as the shape underneath it swelled in impossible ways.

Observe, Clare. Observe. Miss Bannon must know of this. You must give her every particular.

Blackness rippled at the edges of his vision. He was holding his breath, he realised, for the figure’s head had come up, a quick enquiring movement. He was just barely in the range of its peripheral vision–assuming it had human eyes, which, he realised, was not at all a supportable assumption.

It was dark, and he was utterly still, hoping such immobility would hide his presence. Yellow fog swirled uneasily, a tendril sliding between Clare and the… creature–for nothing human could crouch like that, its knees obscenely high and its head drooping so low, its spidery extra-jointed fingers spasming as it twirled the knife in a brief flashing circle.

The Scab had arrived behind Clare, its wet greenness creeping forward. Tiny tendrils, their sliding almost inaudible under the wet smacking sounds of enjoyment. The quite illogical idea that perhaps some feral, inhuman intelligence was guiding the nasty green sludge occurred to Clare, the poppy still blurring the edges of rationality.

Now, when he needed sharp clarity most, it had deserted him.

Fascinating that the drug would linger, even in the face of whatever miracle Miss Bannon had performed upon him.

A rasping, as of a scabrous tongue over chapped, scraped lips. The creature’s head made another quick, enquiring movement. The woman–the corpse–had worn, sprung-sided boots, and her stockings were soaked with foul matter. Her petticoats were mismatched, and torn to bits. Those white, white thighs, spattered, and the smell, dear God.

Had she suffered?

Does it matter at this particular moment? Stay still, Clare.

Valentinelli’s sneer, echoing through dim memory. Stay where Ludo put you, mentale, and watch.

His lungs cried for air, even though the soup around the creature became foul enough to see. Or perhaps it was the blackness crowding his vision as his flesh, even if functionally immortal, reminded him that it did still require respiration and all its attendant processes.

A wet sliding. The Scab darted forward, and the creature tumbled aside, fluidly. Steam rose, and Clare caught a glimpse of the thing under its clothes. Cracked hide runnelled with scars, terribly burnt as if acid had been flung upon it, and two glowing coals for eyes.