Edward Oxford landed in Green Park on Sunday September 8, 1861. It was eleven thirty and the night was bitterly cold and misty.
He was near the trees at the top of the slope. Next to the path below, he could see a tall monument on the spot where Queen Victoria had been assassinated.
Ducking into the gloom of the trees, he stood and considered. Where would he find Sir Richard Francis Burton?
He couldn't recall where the man lived nor the location of the Royal Geographical Society. There was, however, the Cannibal Club above Bartoloni's Italian restaurant in Leicester Square. He remembered reading about that place and the eccentrics it attracted. He knew that Burton went there regularly.
Not long ago, the prospect of visiting Leicester Square without the protection of augmented reality would have filled him with dread. Now, though, he was so numbed by the preposterous environment in which he was trapped that he felt almost immune to it. An illusion. A dream. It was nothing more than that. He wasn't even sure why he had come here, and hardly cared. He clung to the only things that made sense to him, despite their patent absurdity: he had to get to the Pipkiss girl; there was only one night on which to do it; and the famous explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton had arranged an ambush to stop him.
Oxford didn't realise that opposing forces were battling over him. His broken mind latched on to just one thing: in order to have supper with his wife on February 15 in the year 2202, he had to stop Burton from interfering on September 30 in the year 1861.
Surely that wouldn't be too difficult?
He closed his eyes and swayed for a moment.
No! he thought. Don't let go! Get it done! Get it done now!
He jumped and landed five hours later in Panton Street behind Leicester Square. At that time of night it was empty but, afraid of being spotted, he immediately sprang up onto the roof of one of the buildings facing the street, and from there to a higher one. He leaped from building to building until he eventually found a chimney stack overlooking Bartoloni's, against which he could sit. Before settling, though, he jumped high and landed next to the stack the following night, just as Big Ben chimed midnight.
It was a long, cold wait and he didn't see Burton.
At three in the morning he gave up and moved ahead to the next night, September 10.
Again, nothing.
The next night the club members gathered, had a good time, and departed at two in the morning.
Burton wasn't among them.
Spring Heeled Jack tried the next evening, and the next, and kept going, waiting hour upon hour until exhaustion overwhelmed him and he slept, slumped against the chimney. He awoke at dawn, swore at himself, and moved through time again.
In the early hours of Tuesday the seventeenth, he finally caught sight of his man.
Sir Richard Francis Burton stumbled out of Bartoloni's at one o'clock in the morning.
He was quite plainly drunk.
As he staggered along, Spring Heeled Jack followed, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, his eyes fixed on the man below.
He trailed his quarry through the streets and alleys, and wondered whether the explorer had any destination in mind, for he appeared to be wandering aimlessly.
Oxford took a great leap over the canyon of Charing Cross Road, landed on a sloping roof, slid down it, got a grip, and sprang to the next building.
He kept moving across the city like a bizarre grasshopper.
Something big and white flapped overhead. It was an enormous swan, dragging a box kite behind it. A man looked down at him from the canvas carriage and yelled: 'What the dickens is that?'
Spring Heeled Jack ignored him, dismissing the swan and its passenger as an illusion, for such things didn't exist in the Victorian Age, and followed his prey into a seedy section of the city until, eventually, Burton entered a long, lonely alley.
'This will do!' whispered the stilt-walker to himself.
He raced ahead, soared over warehouses, and, after waiting for another of those crazily designed penny- farthings to pass by, he dropped into the thoroughfare below.
A huge metal lobsterlike thing rounded a corner and clanked toward him. Multiple arms beneath it flashed this way and that, picking litter off the street. He watched it as it lurched by, amazed by the sight, and suddenly wondered if somehow he was on another planet. As it passed the mouth of the alleyway down which Burton was approaching, the contraption sounded a siren. The eerie ululation echoed into the distance and was then drowned by a terrific hiss as steam poured from the back of the mechanism and billowed across the cobbles.
Spring Heeled Jack lurched through the cloud and entered the alley.
He emerged from the steam and faced his enemy.
Sir Richard Francis Burton stopped and looked up at him, then stumbled backward and pressed himself against the side of the passage.
'Burton!' said the time traveller, stalking toward the famous Victorian. 'Richard Francis bloody Burton!'
He jumped at the man and hit him, sending him spinning across to the opposite wall.
'I told you once to stay out of it!' he spat. 'You didn't listen!'
He grabbed the explorer by the hair and glared into his face.
'I'll not tell you again! Leave me alone!'
'W-what?' gasped Burton.
'Just stay out of it! The affair is none of your damned business!'
'What affair?'
Oxford snarled, 'Don't play the innocent! I don't want to kill you. But I swear to you, if you don't keep your nose out of it, I'll break your fucking neck!'
'I have no idea what you're talking about!' cried Burton.
'I'm talking about you organising forces against me! It's not what you're meant to be doing! Your destiny lies elsewhere. Do you understand?'
He slammed his forearm into Burton's face.
'I said, do you understand?'
'No!' the man gasped.
'Then I'll spell it out for you,' growled Oxford. He yanked the explorer around, shoved him against the wall, and punched him three times in the mouth.
'Do what-you're supposed-to do!'
Burton raised a hand in weak protest.
'How can I possibly know what I'm supposed to do?' he mumbled. Blood oozed from his mouth.
Spring Heeled Jack jerked the explorer's head up and looked directly into his eyes.
'You are supposed to marry Isabel and be sent from one fucking miserable consulship to another. Your career is supposed to peak in three years when you debate the Nile question with Speke and the silly sod shoots himself dead. You are supposed to write books and die.'
'What the hell are you babbling about?' Burton shouted. 'The debate was cancelled. Speke shot himself yesterday-he's not dead!'
Edward John Oxford, the scientist and historian, froze. How could this be? He knew the facts. They couldn't be wrong. They were well documented. Speke's death was one of the great mysteries of the period. Biographers had endlessly debated it, wondering whether it was suicide or an accident! Slowly, he absorbed the things he'd seen, the strange machines and the weird animals.
'No!' he said softly. 'No! I'm a historian! I know what happened. It was 1864 not 1861. I know-'
He stopped. What had he done? How could so much have changed?
'God damn it!' he groaned. 'Why does it have to be so complicated? Maybe if I kill you? But if the death of just one person has already done all this-?'
Burton suddenly slipped out of his hands and shoved him hard. Oxford lost his balance, staggered away, and fell against the opposite wall.
They stood facing each other.
