The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare) Read online

  A Chansel Sister was a formidable creature, if only for the chainmail she was suspected of wearing under her habit. Not to mention their particular set of charter symbols. Of all Papist orders, only they and the Templis openly and regularly admitted sorcery’s children. Oh, some of them made it clear they would not turn away a sorcerer or above possessed of the requisite wealth and connections. The Domenici and the Jesuiri were remarkably accepting where filthy lucre or influence was involved, and the Franciscis and Clairias made it a practice to accept the sorriest wretches they could. For most of them, though, the workers of wonders and their defenders were quite beyond the pale.

  Feared, respected, allowed to survive in most countries… but beyond.

  Chanselmorgue was a four-spired hulk now, with sheds sprouting from its backside in the manner of the huge bustle fashionable some few years ago, like a ridiculous growth. One could still remark the tau, with a writhing corpse nailed to it, worked in the stone over the front doors, and also see the chisel marks where blasphemers had taken advantage of the Wifekiller’s feud with the Papacy to wrench bits of coloured glass and other shiny objects from the facing.

  Apparently Emma was expected–perhaps Victrix had been certain of tempting her into action, or had she thought Emma would crumble in the face of a personal visit? Did Victrix have that high an opinion of her own persuasiveness, or of her erstwhile sorceress’s pride?

  Do I care? Whatever she thought, I did not agree to more than “If possible”. I wonder if she noted as much.

  In any case, it took very little time for a narrow-eyed barrowmancer and a hunched, scuttling morguelrat to guide them to the shed containing the body in question, as well as five others.

  As soon as she stepped inside the enclosure–waiting for Mikal’s nod, and followed by a pale Clare holding a handkerchief under his long, sensitive nose–she had no difficulty discerning which one was Nickol.

  The barrowmancer–a milk-cheeked young man with greasy dark hair and long fingers, the traditional red stripe on his trousers and his slouched hat pulled low–nodded as she halted, her eyes no doubt widening.

  “Aye,” he said, a broad nasal Cocklea accent reverberating around the shed’s flimsy walls. “Enough to put a sour in ye belly, ennit? Doctor co’nae feel it, but he the skullblind. Wasn’t til I saw ’er that anyone realised muckie’d been æther’d aboot.”

  “Indeed.” Emma stepped past Mikal, who examined the body of what appeared to be a costermonger laid on a chipped, traditional marble slab, hands and feet pierced with true iron and the gashes scorched with charter symbols to ensure the corpse’s peace. The heavyset man’s mouth was pried open, the funnel for pouring salt or wine into the cavity laid aside. No flatscraper for pitch to seal the spirit away, so the barrowmancer judged him unlikely to have died by violence. “The report?”

  “Ah, yes, will fetchit. Ye’re nae gon swoon?”

  “I think I may be able to avoid swooning, thank you. In any case, I have plenty of assistance.”

  “Aye.” He paused, studying Clare, then shot a dark glance at Mikal. “Ye’re nae gon turn a fillian?”

  “I most likely will not be calling her spirit forth to answer questions, never fear.” She tried not to sound amused. “And in any case, I would not do such a thing here. I am not so irresponsible.”

  “Well, tha’s mun fair.” He nodded, and touched his hat. “Will fetch tha report, then. Mind you, she’s not decent.”

  “Corpses rarely are, sir. Thank you.”

  He hurried out, followed by the morguelrat, whose filmed gaze betrayed precious little excitement. Of course, morguels were taken from the workhouse’s lowest strata, since a self-respecting beggar would hesitate to spend his days with the dead. For all that, they had room and board, if they did not mind sharing it with said corpses, and the peculiar blindness that struck after a few years of such work did not seem to bother most of them. Perhaps by then they had seen enough that sightlessness was a blessing.

  Odd, how barrowmancers were not feared, though their Discipline was only slightly less Black than Emma’s own. To shake hands with morguelrats was considered just slightly less lucky than with chimneysweeps.

  “I do not think I shall ever become accustomed to that,” Clare muttered darkly.

  “To what, sir?” There was much in the current situation she herself did not wish to become accustomed to.

  “To how casually you speak of bringing a shade forth to answer questions.”

  “I have never done it in your presence for a reason, Clare.”

  “And I appreciate your restraint.” He all but shuddered, smoothing his jacket sleeves. The black armband, secured with a pin-charm, was a mute reproach.

  As if she needed more than the weight of her own mourning-cloth. She did not fully indulge in a widow’s bleakness; perhaps she should the next time she was forced to see the Queen. Although perhaps Victrix would likely take little notice of whatever Emma chose to wear.

  “Are you quite well, Clare?” It was not like him to show such discomfort.

  “Quite. I…” He shook his head, arranged his hat more firmly upon his head. Mikal, giving the costermonger’s body a thorough appraisal, appeared to ignore them both. “It has been rather a trying… yes, rather a trying week.”

  She was about to reply, but her attention fastened afresh on the body she had come to view. How very curious.

  The æther trembled around it, not the quiver of a living being producing disturbance and energy or the low foxfire of soul-residue. She stood, head cocked to the side, and took in what she could with every sense, physical or otherwise, she possessed.

  Mikal appeared at her shoulder, his hand closing about her upper arm. He had noted her sudden stillness, and was ready to act as anchor or defence.

  The corpse in question was a middle-aged woman, heavy and inert on a discoloured marble slab. Her mouth was open, and one could see the stubs of rotten teeth, as well as the searing from the preparatory mixture of hot caustic salts that preceded sour pitch.

  Clare stepped to the side, his head cocked at a familiar angle. When he had gained all he could from observing the corpse’s face, he reached for the ragged sheet covering her and glanced at Emma.

  She nodded, a fractional movement, but one his eyes were sharp enough to discern. They had examined other bodies; it was, still, not quite routine. Ritual, certainly, though neither of them stood overmuch on ceremony when bodies were involved in an affair such as this.

  She closed away that distracting line of thought. Attention was called for.

  What is that? There, and there, it moves very peculiarly. And there. Most interesting. I wonder… She extended a tendril of non-physical awareness, delicately, and recoiled swiftly when the æther over the body trembled.

  Mikal said nothing, but his awareness sharpened.

  Clare twitched the sheet down to the woman’s hips. The marks of a brutal life were clearly visible and the sewn-up gashes from autopsy–and the attack that had killed her–were livid. He folded the sheet with prissy carefulness, then took its edge and uncovered the rest of her, tucking the neat package of cloth at her feet. Her knees turned outward, and the ragged aperture between her legs oozed dark, brackish corpsefluid.

  “Most peculiar,” he murmured. “And she was Respectable once, or at least well-fed. Hrm.”

  Though the skin hung loosely, and one could see the marks of violence and hard living upon her, there were none of the deformities associated with childhood want or neglect.

  She had afterwards fallen far, as Emma could clearly see from the wooden box containing the deceased’s effects. Workhouse cloth, though mended neatly, her boots sprung-sided, and even through the varied reeks of a charnel-house Emma could discern a faint thread of gin. The woman’s round face had begun to blur with drink during life, and a shiver worked its way down Emma’s spine.

  A horrid gash in the throat. The marks of frenzied stabbing over the entire torso were vicious too, but the cluster of open, ga
ping wounds about her parts of privacy were the most worrisome.

  That is where the attack was centred, and that is where the disturbance issues from. Her womb.

  Emma’s entire body went cold.

  This was gruesome news indeed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wholly Unguarded Sentiments

  “Marian Nickol, called Polly, though the inquest will legally ascertain her identity.” Clare blinked owlishly at the scrawls upon the thin paper as the carriage jolted. “Found by a carter on Bucksrow, near the Hospital. Slashed throat. Abdominal injuries… Omentum, uterus… sharp object… peculiar, most peculiar.”

  “Indeed,” Miss Bannon murmured. She had a queer look upon her soft little face: distant, as if listening to faraway music.

  A copy of the particulars of this and another murder had been prepared in advance of their arrival, and Clare had noticed Miss Bannon’s tiny moue of distaste when that was discovered. Perhaps she resented the Queen’s easy assumption of her pet sorceress’s service? How could Her Majesty be certain, though, given how Miss Bannon had scrupulously avoided such service for… how long now?

  When the Consort had died of a fever perhaps typhoid in origin–his health never having been very strong after the Red Plague had wracked Londinium–Miss Bannon had not worn mourning, as many of Britannia’s subjects affected. Indeed, she had merely drunk a little more rum than was her wont at supper, and retreated to her study instead of to the smoking room, where Clare was habituated to sit and discuss various and sundry with her afterwards, as if she were a man at a dinner party.

  The particulars were an easily solved conundrum. Britannia had more than one sorcerer or mentath in Her service, and the pages could easily have served another. He brought his attention back to the report, which held the details of the body’s discovery as well. “The first–Marta Tebrem–was found in Whitchapel, too. Georgeyard Building. Stairs–first-floor landing. Dashed odd, that.”

  “Not if she was an unfortunate.” Her gloved hands were clasped together a trifle too tightly. “I would be surprised if she did not bring a customer to that place more than once. Or if she sheltered there, to sleep.”

  “Ah.” He coughed slightly. “Yes. I see.”

  She sat bolt upright, as usual, and had tucked the veil aside for the nonce. Two spots of hectic colour burned high up on her soft cheeks, and he was struck by how impossibly vital she appeared. Primes had long lives, certainly… he had taken it for granted that she would outlast him.

  What an unpleasant thought. And followed by others equally unprepossessing, much like a steam-locomotive dragging carriage after carriage.

  Even steam-locomotives possessed charmed whistles, and sorcerous reinforcement upon their boilers. A triumph of Science, yes, but larded with irrational sorcery.

  One would have to go far, Clare had found, to escape such things.

  “Out of the rain, and dark,” Miss Bannon continued, “though I would chance a guess that the first victim was also much under the influence of gin the night of her misfortune. We cannot rule the choice of venue as hers until we examine it. The murderer may have taken her to the building while she was not quite of right mind, impersonating a client for her bodily services.”

  Of course, they would start with the first murder, and take the chain of deduction from there. It was how they began an affair such as this if time permitted, seeking the site of the first event they could distinguish. There was a certain comfort in the habit, Clare supposed. “She was last seen with a Guardsman, it says.”

  “Of course that may have been…” When she did not continue, he looked up from the papers. She stared out the window, and her fierce gaze was not ameliorated by matted eyelashes and reddened, brimming eyes. Her left hand had clenched, and she had sunk her pearly teeth into her lower lip, cruelly.

  For the first time since he had met her, Clare was witnessing her wholly unguarded sentiments. The moment was so novel he almost crushed the papers as the carriage rocked itself, and his mouth had gone dry.

  It took another cough before he could speak, and the sound served to alert her to his scrutiny. She smoothed her expression with amazing rapidity, and reached up to free the veil from its fastening. Her rings flashed, a heatless fire.

  “Miss Bannon—”

  “The morning has disarranged me.” Her face was swallowed by darkness again. “Please, continue. I shall be better shortly.”

  “Miss Bannon, I—”

  “The report, Clare. Please do continue.”

  He swallowed dryly, and forced himself to concentrate. “The medical examiner, in both cases, was quite thorough. There seems nothing missing from the notes. The most recent gentleman performing that duty–Killeen? Yes, that is his name–shall no doubt be at the Nickol inquest.”

  “Which you shall attend.”

  “Should time permit. Will you?”

  “No.” A slight shake of her veiled head. “I think I shall be hunting for clews in other quarters. There was a great deal of… disturbance about the body. I am uncertain what to make of it, and I think I shall be quite occupied in ferreting out the source.”

  “Hm.” He digested this, and halted before he could make the quick glance aside that would ascertain whether or not Valentinelli had anything to add. The rattling of pebbles against a coffin’s lid rolled inside his skull, deafening like the roar of traffic and crowd noise outside. “You are expecting further unpleasantness, sooner rather than later.”

  “Oh, yes. The first murder appears, if I may make a ghastly observation, merely a rehearsal. First we shall view the scene of Tebrem’s discovery.”

  Did he imagine the slight unsteadiness of her tone? It could be blamed upon the carriage ride–Clare steadied himself as the conveyance rattled again. “And then?”

  “Then we shall view the second, and return home for dinner–I am quite sorry, but we shall likely miss tea. Tomorrow, you shall visit quite another Yard.” She returned her now-loosened hands to her black-clad lap, and Clare found himself wondering if her face was contorting again behind the veil. “If I may presume to suggest as much.”

  “Of course.” He looked back at the paper. “I was dashed brutal to you, Emma. I apologise.”

  “Unnecessary, sir.” Yet the words remained thoughtful, rather than dismissive. “I understand a temperament such as yours would find such a revelation quite a shock. Pray set yourself at ease.”

  He was not quite ready, he decided, to be treated with such cool politeness. He had seen her employ such a tone before, to set an overly familiar interlocutor back on his heels, so to speak. Were he not a mentath, Clare acknowledged, such a realisation might sting. Nevertheless, he soldiered on. “No reason to act so ungentlemanly, indeed. I am… I was fond of Ludovico, but—”

  “As was I,” she said, colourlessly. “Do continue with the recitation of facts from these papers, sir. There is a mystery at hand, and I wish it unravelled as soon as possible, so I may return to my accustomed habits.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  For Want Of A Pause

  The Georgeyard Building had been new a decade ago, and clung to shabby respectability by teeth and toenails. Of course, it was off Whitchapel High Street, so the question of its respectability was an exceeding open one.

  The day had brightened enough that the Scab’s vile green, velvety organic ooze had retreated under muffled sunlight’s lash, leaving an evil oily steam instead of its usual thick rancid coating over the cobbles.

  Not to worry, though. It will return with darkness. So would Emma, if she gained nothing with this visit. For now, though, she followed Clare, their treads echoing in the dark.

  She was glad of the stairwell’s dimness; her eyes were burning from even the cloudy sunshine outside.

  Or from something else.

  Nothing you need take account of, Emma. Do what duty demands here, and retreat as soon as you may.

  Why had she agreed to this? Merely because Clare had immediately assumed she would, or be
cause she had felt some twinge of fading… what, for Victrix? Because she feared eccentricity was pressing in upon her too soon, her mental faculties becoming brittle? Perhaps because if she had not, she would have had to solve the questions gathering about her Shield?

  Mikal followed her, taking care not to crowd too closely. The first floor came quickly, and she all but staggered when the disturbance in the æther pulsed sharply. All other considerations fled. “There,” she managed, through numb lips, and pointed with a rigid arm. “Right there.”

  Mikal leapt up the last two stairs, caught her other arm. “Prima?”

  “I am well enough. It is simply… I have never…” I have not ever seen this before. I have never even heard of such a disturbance. A Prime’s memory was excellent, her education the best the Collegia could provide, and there was precious little sorcery she had not witnessed or read of. “What is this? It is still echoing. And she was discovered last month!”

  “Miss Bannon?” Clare sounded nervous, for once. “There is a rather definite drop in physical temperature here. Remarkable. And…” He bent rapidly, and plucked something from the floor. “How very odd. Look.”

  It was a small pebble, no doubt carried in from outside, on a shoe or in a cuff. He turned it in his long capable fingers, then flicked it into the corner where the disturbance was greatest.

  She stepped forward as well, Mikal moving with her. The Shield’s grasp was a welcome anchor as she felt the chill difference in temperature, sharp as a falling knifeblade.

  The stone hung, turning, in midair. A simple piece of cracked gravel, rough and clotted with dirt that unravelled in fine twisting threads. Now she could see the canvas-covered floor quivering through a curtain of disturbed, snarling æther. A stained piece of wooden wall, heavily scarred with use, was bleached as its physical matrices warped.