The Ripper Affair

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.