The Ripper Affair

“Dark holes. Worst sinks in Whitchapel. Some of them host ginhouses; if the drink does not blind you, a knife may.” A fey light was slowly dawning on the inspector’s features. “Why did I not think on it before? A mad sorcerer, hiding there… sending his creature forth… using the tunnels as a means to move undetected… hm. Yes, Crithen’s Church is where I would start. The deeper holes are all about that location, the ones even the flashboys and Thin Meg’s starvelings don’t venture into.”

Clare jammed his hat more firmly upon his head. “Then there we shall go. Mr Mikal, once we are underground, will you be able to sense Miss Bannon?”

“Perhaps.” His hand flicked, and the button disappeared. “This may be useful, if we draw close enough.”

Clare struggled with himself, and lost. “Can Inspector Aberline’s powers, such as they are, be magnified in some manner?”

Mikal stilled, and so did Aberline. “There are ways,” the Shield admitted, and viewed the inspector afresh. “Blood, for one.”

“None of that.” Aberline backed up two steps, his steps loud on the Scabless ground.

“We have other methods,” Clare said, hastily. “You have a small amount of poppy, Aberline.”

The man’s reply was unrepeatable, but it satisfied Clare that he did, in fact, possess a small lump of said substance. Not that it mattered–any apothecary could be induced to part with enough laudanum to replicate the effect, should it come to such a thing.

Finding Miss Bannon outweighs any injury to his pride, Clare told himself. He did not care to think further upon the chain of logic–what else did it outweigh? His life? Clare’s? Or, it could not, for Clare was made proof against such things.

Sacrificing another was so easy, was it not? Once the temptation was large enough. Once the Feeling outweighed pure logic. How did Emma bear such storms of emotion, without a mentath’s skills to shield her? How had she borne his accusations? And Valentinelli’s death–how could he have thought her unmoved?

Concentrate, Clare. “Very well. To the carriage. Pico, climb up with Harthell and direct him to this church. Mikal, do bring Inspector Aberline, and make certain no harm comes to him.”

He set off for the mouth of the court, and his face crumpled for a moment before resmoothing itself. For he had realised something.

First, that he had sounded exactly like Miss Bannon. And second, he had no particular qualm about shedding the good inspector’s blood.

Should it become necessary.

Chapter Forty The Cap To His Ambition

The painful, twisted wreck of a Prime shuffled away, and Emma was left to her own devices, her gaze roving over what little she could see without moving her head. Her pulse struggled to rise, again, the fact of confinement looming, a Prime’s will finding such a thing unbearable.

It is no different than a corset, she told herself. It is no different than being a woman in a world that seeks to chain every woman it can find. It is no different than your entire life, Emma. Be still. Be logical. Plan.

Did Clare feel this distress, when irrationality loomed? Perhaps they were the same–he was logic trapped in an illogical world, and she was a Prime’s will trapped in a woman’s flesh.

Enough to base a Sympathy on, I should think. Will they guess where I have been taken? I am underground. Mikal… he may not…

It was immaterial. Whether they accepted her invitation to find her or not, she had a duty here. Not to Victrix, not even to Britannia. She had chosen to be confined in this manner, offering herself as a sacrifice.

He had taken the bait. It was now her aim to become poisonous.

And you shall give me the world. What did he mean? How many times had she thought him dead? The simulacrum in Bedlam, the tower at Dinas Emrys… it reminded her of certain novels, wherein a villain was a mad reflection of the hero, and escaped death through the most fantastic of means.

The Promethean, in its egg of smoke over the lightless obsidian block, moved sluggishly. Rather like a swelling spawn in an ungodly womb. Of course it had eaten and charred the organs of generation. They were incredible sources of ætheric force, both because of their biological purpose and the importance accorded them by custom and human instinct.

If Llewellyn sought to marry the Promethean to his own regrowing flesh, why would he need her? And why, oh why, would it have such an effect on Britannia?

For the ruling spirit had been afraid. And Thin Meg, in her pit, had neatly placed Emma in a trap–or had she?