The Ripper Affair

Beside him, Pico made a strangled noise. The lad turned, fumbled past the bobby, and heaved just where a similar viewer of the scene had, right onto the wet reeking splash that should have been covered by Scab.

The lad’s eyes had been better than his. He took two uncertain steps, lifting the lanthorn one of the Yard men outside had surrendered to Aberline.

There was a low punky glow from the fireplace. The kettle on the hob had melted, warped by unimaginable heat.

Beside him, Aberline cursed softly. There was a rancid burp rising in Clare’s throat, he denied it.

Behind them, Mikal’s step was soundless, but his presence pushed against Clare’s back, along with prickles of gooseflesh.

The glimmers described…

Long dark curling hair, knocked free of its womanly confinement. Nakedness, indecent enough, but the gaping hole and shredded flesh… flayed thighs, the white gleaming of bone, the marks where a dexterous knife had dug in and the thing had feasted… feasted upon…

Control yourself, Clare. He realised, quite calmly, that he had handed the lanthorn to Aberline. Crazy shadows danced over the rotting walls. There was a hole in one corner of the room, the floorboard wrenched up.

He found his busy fingers working his left glove off.

There was very little that could shock or disgust a mentath. He realised, foggily, that he had perhaps found one way to do so. His faculties shivered under the assault, and he was very, very close to becoming a useless, porridge-brained idiot.

He brought his left hand to his mouth and bit in, savagely.

The pain of teeth in flesh was a bright arrow, striking the centre of his brain. It shocked him into some manner of rationality, and he found himself with a mouthful of bloody saliva, staring at the battered body on the bed.

Aberline had said something. Mikal’s reply was a short, grating curse. The Shield had approached the bed, his shoulders rigid, and bent closer. How he could stand to have his face so near the…

Clare bit down again. It worked, but only just. He blinked, furiously, shutterclicks of dim, roseate light striking him as fists. The face had been stabbed, cheeks laid open, the teeth…

Wait.

Mikal’s gaze met his. The Shield had turned from the bed, and the colourless sizzle around him was rage.

The teeth. They were not pearly little perfect white soldiers standing on their curved, rosebud-pink hills. They were discoloured, one or two under the opened flaps of cheekflesh decayed. The shape of the ear he could see was wrong as well, and it bore no hurtful little mark of piercing for bright earrings to dangle from.

The relief threatened to do what the sight of the body had not, and drive him to his knees. He swayed, the lanthorn swinging crazily again as Aberline caught his arm.

The hand that lay curiously unmarked to one side was small and delicate, but it was not soft, nor did it bear the indentation of rings. Chapped and reddened, it was a hand that had seen much weather and some measure of hard work.

His faculties, shocked, began functioning again. “Ah.” He cleared his throat, again, and the smell struck him. The bowels had been opened… had the creature eaten them, too, and whatever offal they contained?

How very interesting.

Mikal read his expression, and the Shield actually staggered as well. When he regained his equilibrium, he strode across the room. He brushed past Clare like a burning wind, sparing Aberline only the briefest of glances, and halted in the doorway.

“Mentath?”

Clare found his voice. “It is… it is not. Her. It is not her.”

Mikal nodded, once. “Work quickly.” He stepped outside, and Clare wondered if he would lose whatever dinner he had partaken of as well. There was a murmur–Pico, and Mikal’s toneless reply.

What work is to be done here? But he knew. There had to be some clew, some small detail that would lead them in the proper direction. Miss Bannon evidently had faith in his abilities, and was trusting her life to him.

Unfortunately, a mentath suffering irrational waves of Feeling would have even more difficulty untangling a sorcerous crime than one who was not so burdened by… relief? Hope? What was the dashed word for it?

It did not matter.

“Are you certain?” Aberline, curiously hushed. “Or did you tell him so because…”

“I am quite certain.” Clare drew in a deep breath, wished he had not. He examined the kettle on the hob, melted and scarred. Scraps of charred cloth–had he burned her dress to give himself light? Or was it sorcerous in nature? “What do you make of this?”

Aberline drew the lanthorn closer. He cast an uneasy glance at the bed, with its hideous cargo. “Perhaps to delay her identification? Or some sorcerous reason… or perhaps he needed light to work by.”

“The creature preferred darkness before. What sorcerous reason?”