not enough.
Had I more, I would have devoured it anyway.
I flung the knife I held. As if that dream enfolded me, I watched the winking blade soar through the air, cut through fog and leave vapors in its wake. It found its mark with unerring precision, sinking to the hilt in the back of the Ripper’s thigh. He cursed long and loud, but he did not stop. He did not slow. What madness must have infected him to keep him moving, I could not know for sure.
Given my own resin-saturated focus, I entertained an inkling.
He looked behind him, eyes wild in a face I could pick out as strong-featured yet not wholly monstrous, and bared his teeth in vicious rage.
The shadows combined around him, wrapped him in a cloak of animal savagery.
Yet he did not turn on me. He darted behind a rail car, hobbled fast as he dared, and I lost him briefly in the swirling fog.
Despite the brief flutter of fear that dreamlike sequence had given me, I would not give up this win.
A sharp cry from my right lanced through the railyard, echoed by the faint whistle as the evening train approached from Wapping. I’d taken the reverse the last I’d been through here, chasing this same collector.
This time, it would all end. My success would begin with the Ripper’s capitulation.
I sprinted across three rail lines, tripped on the last and stumbled. Yet I caught myself without concern for the pain it created in my toes, or the barking my palms earned from the catching. As if the candle of it flared briefly and was snuffed, the opium took away all pain, eased all strain. I passed the corner of building, ducked under an overhang, and called, “Come out!” As if it might help.
It didn’t. I didn’t wholly expect it to. Still, I found a clue easy enough as my clarity of lens picked a black smear from the side of the building I followed.
Blood. Higher than a leg wound should allow. I touched it, found it cool but fresh.
Had the Ripper hurt himself again?
Bloody bells, had the collector seized him already?
I found another stain, this one smeared as if he’d leaned. Not a terrible lot of blood, but enough to hurt, I’d wager.
Setting my jaw, I spun in place, searching the shifting miasma for any clue. Where would I hide? Where would I run, if it were me?
I’d go among people, wouldn’t I? But the nearest were too far out.
The Ripper was thought to be innocent enough in appearance as to wander among the inhabitants of Whitechapel. He was thought to be a normal bloke, even rumored to be a toff. While I didn’t recognize the glimpses of his face that I’d seen, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of acting the part.
There’d be people waiting for the Wapping train, headed home after a long day’s work.
That was it. That’s where I’d go. If I were him, I’d fit right in.
And that was where I’d wager he’d go.
I oriented myself quickly, found a sign and hurried across yard. The train’s whistle blew, echoing across the drift and making it seem much closer than it was.
All so fundamentally familiar.
As I hurried for the station, I stumbled to a jarring, addled halt. For a moment, too long of one, I could not recall where it was I stood. Was I searching for the Ripper, or for my abducted maid?
Was the whistle I heard coming from a train or the bloody gramophone the sweet tooth had left to mimic the sound, making me look the fool?
I dragged one hand over my eyes, plunging twisted fingers through my hair as if I might shove aside the confusion I fumbled through.
I had not expected the Ripper to think of something other than his own skin.
Forcing myself to stagger on. I passed a shallow alcove, where two buildings had begun to lean together. Conductor shacks, perhaps, or a place where the workman stored items of import. Whatever it was, I had thought them empty.
Rough hands darted from within, wrapped about my face and jerked me near off my feet.
On instinct, I folded, earning his surprise, and jabbed my elbow into his gut. He grunted, but he did not let go. If anything, his grasp tightened over my face, crushing my goggles and respirator painfully tight, and fisted in the back of my coat. My hat tumbled.
“Move and I gut you,” growled a voice that could have been pleasant, were it not for the murderous rage behind it.
The dream collapsed. I knew without a doubt where I was—and who I hunted.
I felt a pressure at my belly, and perhaps were I a simple dove, I might have been afraid. I was neither. He’d plucked my own blade from his leg, used it now against me. Sharp as it was, it would take more effort to slice through the thin slatting in my armor. A full thrust might do it.
A flick would only embarrass him.
I slammed my head back, yelping as my skull connected with his face. Jaw, I think. It felt like iron.
The Ripper cursed, and I know he attempted a gutting, for I heard leather part—tearing to reveal the metal underneath. The sound the blade made as it caught against it shrieked through my senses, rippled all the way to my fingernails, even made my teeth ache.
Yet I could not nurse it. I stumbled away, ears ringing.
“Come ‘ere, you filthy bitch,” snarled the Ripper.
My estimation of the man did not climb.
Yet the fury in his spittle-flecked demand told me I would not get a second chance.
I turned.
Another hand grasped me by the coat, pulling hard enough that I stumbled back. “Now, now,” whispered the collector in my ear. “It’s no fun unless they run.”
I again shot out an elbow, but he was gone, melding with shadow and fog. I turned, torn in focus, my concentration shattered, but he was wrong. The Ripper did not run.
He came for me.
Unarmed, I broke away from both, my goal a small bit of light painted nearly white under my lens. The bridge spanned the bulk of Whitechapel’s railyard, providing a way across for pedestrians coming to and from the station. There would be only two ways to come after me: front or behind. Much better than open ground.
I saw no sign of the collector as I ran, but I heard the Ripper lumbering after me, his breath rattling with lunacy and rage. He called invectives, said such terrible things that I could understand easily how such a mind as his might carve a woman as if she were nothing but meat.
Yet, still I underestimated the power of whatever insanity fueled him. Blood ran from his leg, I’m sure it must have pained him greatly, but all the Ripper did was come—closer and closer. It was as if I’d trapped myself in my own dreams, for I swore I felt his breath on my nape and the threat of death hanging like a pall around me.
I heard a woman’s laughter. Her pleading voice. I wrenched one hand forward as if I expected skeins of red to drag me back into the dark.
Madness for all, it seemed.
I scrambled up the incline, reaching behind me to slip free my last knife—too late. With a mighty leap, the Ripper launched himself at me. I avoided the bulk of his attack, yet his arms folded about my knees and I slammed to the ground. Rock and dirt ground into my face, snapped off my respirator and sent my fog-protectives flying.
Dimly, I heard the merry tinkle of breaking glass, and the shattering screech of the Wapping train.
It was nothing to the agony tearing through my back. My side. Like liquid fire burst through my flesh and scorching every nerve to a crisp.
I screamed. The Ripper’s panting, loathsome breath washed over my face. He held his bulk upon me, one bloody hand flattened upon my head, grinding my cheek into the dirt. With the other, he wrenched my own blade from my side. “Bitch,” he gasped. “
If he considered me to be the same as the doxies he’d gutted, or if he simply assumed all women were the same, I didn’t know. I could hardly ask, what with the weight of him atop me and the opium I’d swallowed
