Ripping Time

Chapter Fourteen

Skeeter Jackson was just climbing into the clothes Kit had loaned him, in the Neo Edo bathrooms, when a slim, wraith-like little girl named Cocheta, a mixed-blood Amer-Indian who'd stumbled through the Conquistadores Gate and joined the Lost and Found Gang of down-timer children, skidded into the Neo Edo men's room, out of breath and ashen. Her dark eyes had gone wide, glinting with terror. "Skeeter! Hashim sent me for you! There is bad trouble! Please hurry!"

"What's wrong?"

"It is Bergitta! They have taken her away—the men from the construction site!"

The roar of insanity outside the Neo Edo, where the riot was still spreading, faded to a whisper. Skeeter narrowed his eyes over a surge of murderous rage. "Show me!"

Cocheta snatched his hand, led him through the craziness running amok in Edo Castletown. "The Lost and Found Gang is following them! Hurry, Skeeter! They took her from the bathroom they just finished building in the new part of the station, when she went to clean the floor."

"How many?" Dammit, he didn't have any weapons with him, not even a pocket knife, and those construction workers would all be carrying heavy tools. Any one of which could cut a man's throat or spill his intestines with a single swiping blow.

"Twenty! They knocked unconscious the foreman and several of the other men who did not agree with them, locked them into a supply room. We sent word to the Council for help. I was told to find you, Skeeter, and Hashim said where you were."

As soon as they cleared the mob in Edo Castletown, Skeeter and the girl tugging at his hand broke into a dead run. Cocheta led him through Victoria Station and Urbs Romae, through Valhalla, down toward the construction site, which was ominously silent. There should've been an ear-splitting roar of saws, drills, and pneumatic hammers echoing off the distant ceiling, but they found only silence and a deserted construction zone, tasks left abandoned on every side. The timing of the attack on Bergitta left Skeeter scowling. With the antics at Primary to preoccupy station security and most of the tourists, nobody was likely to notice the work stoppage. Or the disappearance of one down-timer from her job scrubbing bathroom floor tiles.

"Hurry, Skeeter!"

Cocheta didn't need to urge him again. He'd seen enough to leave his whole throat dry with fear. "Which way did they take her?"

"Through there!" Cocheta pointed to a corridor that led into a portion of the station where new Residential apartments were being assembled, back in another of the caverns in which the station had been built. Clearly, they were taking her where nobody could hear the screams. He was just about to ask Cocheta to get word to someone in Security, preferably Wally Klontz, when someone shouted his name.

"Skeeter! Wait!"

A whole group of down-timers pounded his way, with Kynan Rhys Gower in the lead. The Welsh soldier carried his war mallet. Molly was hot on his heels. Where she'd obtained that lethal little top-break revolver, Skeeter wasn't sure. Maybe she'd brought it with her from London. Or liberated it from Ann Vinh Mulhaney's firing range—or some tourist's pocket. Eigil Bjarneson towered over the whole onrushing contingent of angry Found Ones. He'd managed to reclaim his sword from Security after getting out of jail. Or quite possibly he'd just broken out and reconfiscated it? Skeeter wouldn't have wanted to argue with Eigil in this mood, if he'd been working the Security desk, which was probably in chaos anyway, after Bull's arrest...

"Cocheta says they took her through there," Skeeter pointed the way.

"Let's go," Kynan nodded, voice tight, eyes crackling with murderous fury.

Skeeter turned to the girl who'd brought him here. He said tersely, "Cocheta, stay here and wait for other Found Ones who might be coming. Send them in after us. Give us twenty minutes to get in there and get into position, then start yelling for station security. By then, the mess at Primary should've settled down enough, Security might actually listen and send someone."

"Yes, Skeeter. The Lost and Found Gang has followed the men who took her. They will tell you which way to go. Hurry!"

He signaled for silence, gratified when his impromptu posse obeyed instantly, and led the way back into the incomplete section of Commons at a flat-out run. They entered the tunnel which led to the new area of Residential and Skeeter slowed to a more cautious pace, silent as shadows chased by a hunter's moon. The concrete floors had already been poured and drywall had gone up in many places. Work lights rigged high overhead cast unnatural pools of light and shadow through the incomplete Residential section, where bare two-by-fours marked out rooms and corridors not yet closed in with wallboard. Skeeter listened intently, but heard nothing. This section of station snaked back into the heart of the mountain, twisting and turning unpredictably.

They found a teenager at a major junction where two Residential corridors would intersect when completed. The boy was dancing with impatience, but remained silent when Skeeter raised a finger to his lips in warning. That way, the boy pointed. Skeeter nodded, jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate that more hunters were on the way, and motioned for the boy to wait for reinforcements. The boy nodded and settled in to wait. Skeeter stole forward, leading his war party down the indicated corridor. Dust from the construction lay thick on every surface, wood dust and debris from particle board. The chalky scent of gypsum drywall clogged his nostrils as they pushed forward.

Skeeter paused to retrieve an abandoned claw hammer. It wasn't his weapon of choice, but offered lethal potentialities he could certainly make use of, and was better than bare fingernails. When they came to a door marking a stairwell, they found another member of the Lost and Found Gang, a girl of thirteen who stood watch with tears streaming down her face.

"They went down," she whispered, pointing to the stairs. "They had hit her, Skeeter, were laughing about raping her and killing her when they were done..."

"We'll stop them," Skeeter promised. "Stay here. More are coming." He glanced at the grim men and women of his posse. "I'd prefer live witnesses to testify against their up-time cronies in the Ansar Majlis. Maybe we can crack their terrorist gang wide open. But if we have to spill blood to get Bergitta out of there alive, we'll hit ‘em hard and worry about the body count and station management's reaction later. The main thing is, we get her out of there."

Kynan Rhys Gower and the others nodded silently, understanding exactly what he meant and accepting whatever happened. Pride in Ianira's achievement, building this community, flared hot in Skeeter's awareness, pride and a determination not to let anything happen to a single one of his new-found friends.

The girl guarding the stairwell held the door open for them.

Skeeter's pulse thundered as he eased silently down the dim concrete steps. Naked light bulbs glared where ceiling panels had not yet been installed. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, another member of the Lost and Found Gang waited silently. The boy stationed here was only eleven, but had the quick presence of mind to signal for silence. He pointed to the left, mimed following the tunnel around to the right. Skeeter nodded and made sure his entire posse was out of the stairwell before continuing. The rear guard had swelled by three new arrivals, easing so silently down the stairs after them, Skeeter hadn't even heard them join up.

Chenzira Umi, the ancient Egyptian who sat on the Council of Seven, must have been in his apartment when the call went out, because he carried the hunting-dart thrower he'd made for himself. Shaped something like an atl-atl, it could throw a lethal projectile with enough penetrating force to bring down a hippo or a Nile croc. The Egyptian had brought with him the Spaniard Alfonzo Menendez, who'd liberated a steel-tipped pike from the decorative wall of the restaurant where he worked. Young Corydon, a Greek hoplite of twenty-three who excelled at the sling as a weapon of war, had joined them as well. Corydon clutched an entire handful of rounded stones, still dripping from the goldfish pond he'd stolen them from, and was busy unwinding his sling from under his shirt, where he'd doubtless worn it in honor of the Festival of Mars.

Skeeter acknowledged the newcomers with a brisk nod, then motioned the way and set out in pursuit. And this time, he heard the quarry. Rough male voices drifted through the subterranean corridors, punctuated by distant, feminine cries of pain. He tightened his grip around the lethal claw hammer and eased forward, stealing softly across the concrete floor toward the inhuman sport underway somewhere ahead. Before this business was done, Skeeter vowed, these construction workers would bitterly rue their decision to indulge an appetite for revenge on a member of his adopted family.

As a boy, he'd never been allowed to join a Yakka war party bent on vengeance.

Now he led the raid.

Guide me, Yesukai...

The corridor they followed twisted and turned through a maze of partially completed Residential apartments, storage warehouses for equipment, pumping stations to bring water into the new section of station, stacks of dusty lumber, drywall, and cement bags, and tangles of electrical wiring and cables. Skeeter's little band of rescuers, seven strong, now, crept closer to the distorted sounds of merriment from twenty burly construction workers somewhere ahead. God, seven against twenty...

They rounded a final corner and found two more Lost and Found members crouched in the corridor, peering anxiously their way. One of the boys, eight-year-old Tevel Gottlieb, had been born on station. Hashim Ibn Fahd, a cunning little wolf of thirteen, still wearing Neo Edo livery, beckoned Skeeter forward, then placed his lips directly against Skeeter's ear and breathed out, "They are in the warehouse just beyond this corner. They have posted no guards."

Skeeter risked a quick look, ducking low to the floor to minimize the chances of being seen by anyone who cast a casual glance their way. The warehouse where they'd dragged their victim was an open bay some fifty feet across, piled high with lumber and construction supplies, coils of copper wire and crates of plumbing and electrical fixtures, preformed plastic sink basins, miniature mountains of PVC pipe. Two walls were solid concrete, marking the boundary with the cavern walls just beyond. The other two were gypsum board tacked to wooden two-by-fours. One of these gypsum walls, which Skeeter crouched behind, had been completed already, awaiting only the installation of electrical outlet covers. The other was only partially complete, with drywall up along half its length. Bare wooden uprights comprised the balance of its span.

Bergitta lay on the concrete floor along this stretch of wall, wrists wired to thick two-by-fours. Another cruel twist of wire, tightened down around her throat, prevented her from lifting her head. They'd ripped her shirt open, had cut away her bra. They hadn't bothered to tie a gag. Her skirt lay in twists around her waist. One of them was busy raping her while others waited their turn, speaking tensely amongst themselves in what looked almost like an argument. Hashim Ibn Fahd, who'd stumbled through the Arabian Nights gate in the middle of a howling sandstorm, having become separated from the caravan he'd been traveling with, pressed his lips against Skeeter's ear once again.

"They argue about bringing the woman here. Some say their brothers in the Ansar Majlis will reward them when they have killed this one. Others say raping a prostitute has nothing to do with the cause and the leaders of the Ansar Majlis will be angry, for that and for attacking the foreman and others of the faith. They say the leaders came through Primary today and will punish those who take such chances at being caught. The others say it does not matter, because now that their brothers have come to the station, Mike Benson and all who run the jail will die. Soon their brothers will be free again to hunt the Templars who flock to the whore's shrine in Little Agora. Their leader says to hurry with the woman, his balls ache and he wants his turn on her before she is dead from too many men inside her."

The freezing hatred in young Hashim's eyes sent a chill down Skeeter's back. He beckoned the two boys away from the corner, then led his band several yards back further still, well out of earshot. Speaking in the barest whisper, Skeeter outlined his plan, such as it was. "There's too many of them to rush in there the way we are. We'll just get Bergitta killed and maybe us, too. We've got to lure some of them out here, away from the others, split them up. We've got reinforcements coming, but we don't know how many or when. All we can count on is ourselves."

Seven adults and two kids...

Not the best odds he'd ever faced.

But it would have to do. God help them all, it would have to do, because they were out of time—and so was poor Bergitta.

They met in a dingy, drab little pub called the Horn of Plenty on the corner of Dorset Street and Chrispin. As he had been the night of Polly Nichols' murder, John Lachley was once again in deep disguise. James Maybrick was proving most useful in procuring theatrical disguises for him, at the same shops patronized by one of Lachley's new clients, a popular actor at the Lyceum Theater where the infamous American play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was packing in sellout crowds bent on vicarious thrills.

The thrills Lachley and James Maybrick sought tonight were anything but vicarious. Lachley made eye contact with Maybrick across the smoke-filled pub, making certain his disciple recognized him through the false beard, sideburns, and scar, then nodded toward the door. Maybrick, eyes glittering with intense excitement, paid for his pint of bitters and exited. Lachley finished his stout leisurely, then sauntered out into the night. Maybrick waited silently across the street, leaning one shoulder against the brick wall of a doss house opposite the pub.

Lachley's pulse quickened when Maybrick glanced into his eyes. Maybrick's excitement was contagious. The cotton merchant's color was high, even though he didn't know, yet, the identity of the woman they were to kill tonight. The knowledge that Lachley meant to guide him to his next victim was clearly sufficient to excite the man beyond the bounds of reason. The telegram which had summoned Maybrick back to London from Liverpool had read: "Friday appointment. Arrange as before."

That telegram, which had triggered this meeting, would—at long last—culminate in the final episode of Lachley's quest for Prince Albert Victor's eight indiscreet letters. Four obtained from Morgan... one from Polly Nichols... and the final three would be in his hands by night's end, obtained from Annie Chapman. Three murders—Morgan, Polly Nichols, and Annie Chapman—were already two more than he'd anticipated needing to wind up this sordid little affair. He very carefully did not think about the prophetic words his lovely prisoner had choked out: and six shall die for his letters and his pride...

He could not afford to indulge doubt on a job of this magnitude, whatever its source. James Maybrick, at least, was a good deal more than satisfactory as a tool to accomplish Lachley's goals. In fact, Maybrick was proving to be a most delightful tool in John Lachley's capable hands. Completely mad, of course, behind those merry eyes and mild smile, but quite an effective madman when it came to dispatching witnesses and blackmailers. What he'd done to Polly Nichols after choking her death with his bare hands inspired awe. The newspapers were still bleating about "The Whitechapel Murderer" and speculation was running wild through the East End's sordid streets. The terror visible in the eyes of every dirty whore walking these streets was music in Lachley's soul. He had more than good reason to wish a calamitous end on such women. Tormenting, small-minded trollops that they were, pointing at him and laughing through their rotting teeth, calling out filthy names when he passed them on the kerb...

Lachley wished he'd taken the satisfaction of punishing that blackmailing little bitch, Polly Nichols, himself. He'd enjoyed Morgan's final hours, had enjoyed them immensely, and regretted having allowed Maybrick all the fun in killing the loathsome Polly Nichols. He wondered what it had felt like, ripping her open with that shining, wicked knife, and found that his pulse was pounding raggedly. This time, he promised himself, I'll do the killing myself this time, I'm damned if Maybrick shall have all the fun, curse him for the maniac he is.

Lachley's lethal little merchant with the unfaithful wife might be dull as a butter knife when it came to social matters, but give him a belly full of hatred, an eight-inch steel gutting blade, and a hapless target upon which to vent that explosive rage, and James Maybrick was a man transformed. A true artiste... It was almost a pity Lachley had to ensure the man's execution by hanging. Controlling a mind like James Maybrick's was intoxicating, far more satisfying than controlling a dullard like Eddy—even if Albert Victor Christian Edward did have prospects far beyond anything the Liverpudlian social climber could ever hope to achieve.

Men in the baggy clothes of the common factory laborer and women in the shabby dresses of cheap kerb crawlers prowled up and down Dorset Street, intent on enacting mutually attractive financial transactions. Maybrick, Lachley noted, followed the prostitutes with a hungry, predatory gaze that boded ill for Annie Chapman once Lachley turned his killer loose on the owner of Eddy's final letters.

But to do that, they first must find Dark Annie.

And that, Lachley had discovered over the course of the previous week, was no easy task. Annie Chapman did not normally travel from doss house to doss house, as many another destitute street walker did, but she had not been seen in Crossingham's—the house she had made her more-or-less permanent home—in well over a week. Lachley had seen her during that week, but only twice. And both times she had looked alarmingly ill. During the past two days, he had not seen her at all. Rumor held that she had been injured in a fight with another whore over the attentions of the man who paid a fair number of Annie's bills. He suspected she had spent the two days in the casual ward of Spitalfields workhouse infirmary, since the last time he'd spotted her, near Spitalfields Church, she had been telling a friend that she was seriously ill and wanted to spend a couple of days in the casual ward, resting and getting the medical help she needed.

Her friend had given her a little money and warned her not to spend it on rum.

John Lachley had not seen Dark Annie since.

So he set out down Dorset Street, casting about like a hound seeking the fox, and led James Maybrick into the opening steps of the hunt. And on this night, after many dark and frustrating hours, luck finally returned to John Lachley. He and Maybrick, on edge and all but screaming their tense frustration, returned to Dorset Street shortly after one-thirty in the morning and caught sight of her at long, bloody last.

Annie Chapman was just entering Crossingham's lodging house by the kitchen entrance, badly the worse for drink. John Lachley halted, breathing hard as excitement shot through his belly and groin. He glanced across the street at Maybrick, then nodded toward the short, stout woman descending the area steps to the kitchen entrance of her favorite doss house.

Maybrick slipped his hand into his coat pocket, where he kept his knife, and smiled slowly. Mr. James Maybrick had seen the face of his new victim. Maybrick's face flushed with sexual excitement in the light from the gas lamp on the street corner. Lachley restrained a slow smile. Soon... They waited patiently across from Crossingham's and within minutes, their quarry came out again, evidently not not in possession of enough money to pay for the room. They heard her say, "I won't be long, Brummy. See that Tim keeps the bed for me." Whereupon she left Crossingham's and turned down Little Paternoster Row, toward Brushfield Street, where she headed out towards Spitalfields Market.

They followed her quietly on the same rubberized servants' shoes they'd worn the night they'd stalked Polly Nichols to her death. It was clear to Dr. John Lachley that Annie Chapman was seriously ill and in a great deal of pain. She moved slowly, but was still successful in collaring a customer outside the darkened hulk of Spitalfields Market, frustrating them in their intention to waylay her, themselves. The man disappeared with her into some refuse-riddled yard full of shadows. Lachley stood in his hiding place, breathing rapidly. Tension tightened down through him until he needed to shout out his impatience. Soon—very soon, now—poor little Dark Annie Chapman would earn a greater notoriety in death than she had ever earned in life. She was about to become the third mutilated victim of John Lachley's ambition. And the second dead London whore in a week. The anticipation of the terror that would explode through the East End was nearly as potent a delight as controlling the fates of his chosen victims.

Playing God was a sweetly addictive game.

John Lachley was well on his way to becoming a sweetly addicted player.

From where he stood in a grimy doorway, John Lachley couldn't hear anything of Annie's encounter with her customer, but twenty minutes later, they emerged, the man breathing heavily and Annie Chapman flushed, her skirts disarranged. They went together to the nearest pub. Lachley and Maybrick entered the pub, as well, finding separate places at the bar, where they drank a pint and watched the woman they had come to kill.

Annie's customer bought her a hearty meal and several glasses of rum, which she downed quickly, like medicine. John Lachley suspected she was using the rum in precisely that fashion, to kill the pain he could see in her eyes and her every slow, awkward movement. From the cough she tried to suppress while in her customer's company, he suspected consumption, which meant she would be suffering considerable pain in her lungs, as well as difficulty breathing. Clearly she hadn't the means to buy proper medications. Doubtless why she had resorted to blackmail, buying Eddy's letters from Polly Nichols. Lachley hid a smile behind his carefully disguised face and wondered how much terror Dark Annie had felt upon learning of poor Polly's violent end?

She remained with her customer from Spitalfields Market for the whole frustrating night, drinking and eating at his expense, disappearing with him once for nearly half an hour, presumably to renew their intimate acquaintance. Then she and her customer sat down to another round of rum, listening to the piano and the pub songs sung by drunken patrons, watching other prostitutes enter the place and find customers of their own and disappear outside again to conduct their sordid business, until the pub closed its doors. When Annie Chapman and her customer left the public house, he took her through the dark streets to what was presumably his own house, a miserable little factory cottage on Hanbury Street, which she entered and did not leave again until very nearly five-thirty in the morning, at which time her customer emerged dressed for work.

He gave her a rough caress and said, "You ought to see a doctor about that cough, luv. I'd give you sixpence if I ‘ad it, but I spent all me ready cash on your supper."

"Oh, that's all right, and thank you for the food and the rum."

"Well, I've got to be off or they'll lock the factory yard gates and dock me wages."

They separated, the man hurrying away down Hanbury Street while Annie Chapman lingered at his doorstep, visibly exhausted.

"Well," she muttered to herself, "you've had a good supper and the rum's been a great help with the pain, but you've still got no money for your bed, Annie Chapman."

She sighed and set out very slowly, moving in the general direction of Dorset Street once more. John Lachley glanced quickly along the street and saw no sign of anyone, so he stepped out of the doorway he'd been leaning against and crossed the street toward her. Since he didn't want to startle her into crying out and waking anyone, he began whistling very softly. She turned at the sound and sent a hopeful smile his way.

"Good morning," John said quietly.

"Good morning, sir."

"You seem to be in something of a bind, madam."

She glanced quizzically into his eyes.

"I couldn't help but overhear you, just now. You need money for your lodging house, then?"

She nodded slowly. "I do, indeed, sir. You realize, I wouldn't ask, if I weren't desperate, but... well, sir, I can be very agreeable to a gentleman in need of companionship."

John Lachley smiled, darting a quick glance at Maybrick's place of concealment.

"I'm certain you can, madam. But surely you have in your possession something of value which you might sell, instead of yourself?"

Her cheeks flushed, the right one bruised from the fist fight she'd been in with the other whore earlier in the week. "I've already sold everything of value I own," she said softly.

"Everything?" He stepped closer. Dropped his voice to a mere whisper. "Even the letters?"

Annie's blue eyes widened. "The letters?" she breathed. "How—how did you know about the letters?"

"Never mind that, just tell me one thing. Will you sell them to me?"

Her mouth opened, closed again. From the distant tower of the Black Eagle Brewery, the clock struck five-thirty A.M. "I can't," she finally said. "I haven't got them any longer."

"Haven't got them?" he asked sharply. "Where are they?"

Misery pinched her face, turned her complexion sallow. "I've been ill, you see, with a cough. I needed money for medicine. So I sold them, but I could get them back or tell you who bought them, only... could you give me a few pence for a bed, if I do? I need to sleep, I'm so unwell."

"You could maybe get them for me?" he repeated. "Will you?"

"Yes," she answered at once. "Yes," she whispered, leaning against the brick wall in visible weariness, "I will."

He dropped his voice to a whisper and asked, "Who's got them?"

"I sold them to Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes..."

Footsteps behind him told Lachley they were not alone. He swore under his breath, careful not to turn his head, and listened with a trip-hammering pulse until whoever it was continued on their way, rather than interrupt what must look to any observer like a whore and her customer in serious negotiations. When the footsteps had died away again in the distance, Lachley took Annie Chapman by the arm, pressed her back against the shutters of the house they stood in front of, bent down to whisper, "All right, Annie, I'll give you the money you need for your bed... and enough to re-acquire the letters."

He dug into his pocket and pulled out two shining shillings, which he handed over.

She smiled tremulously. "Thank you, sir. I'll get the letters back with this, I promise you."

The passing of the money between them was the signal James Maybrick had been waiting for all through the long night. He appeared from the darkness and walked toward them as Lachley caressed Annie's breast through her worn, faded bodice and murmured, "Shall we go someplace quiet, then? You do seem a most agreeable lady on a cold night like this." He smiled down into her eyes. "A mutually delightful few moments of pleasure now, then I'll meet you this evening at Crossingham's," Lachley lied. "And I'll buy the letters from you, then."

"I'll have them," she said earnestly. "There's a nice, quiet yard at number twenty-nine," she added softly, nodding down the street toward a dilapidated tenement. "One of the girls I know oiled the hinges," she added with a wink, "so there's no chance of waking anybody. The second door, there, leads through the house to the yard."

"Lovely," Lachley smiled down at her. "Perfect. Shall we?"

Lachley eased open the door, aware that Maybrick trailed behind, silent as a shadow. Lachley escorted Annie through the black and stinking passage, then down the steps to the reeking yard behind. Very gently, he pressed her up against the high fence. Very gently, he bent, caressed her throat... nuzzled her ear. "Annie," he murmured. "You really shouldn't have sold those letters, pet. Give my love to Polly, won't you?"

She had just enough time to gasp out one faint protest. "No..."

Then his hands were around her throat and she fell against the fence with a thud, all sound cut off as he crushed her trachea. Her terrified struggles spiraled through his entire being, a giddy elixir, more potent than raw, sweating sex. When it was over, the shock of disappointment was so keen he almost protested the end of the pleasure. Morgan had lasted much longer, struggled much harder, giving him hours of intense pleasure. But they couldn't afford the risk out here in the open, where all of London might hear at any moment. So Lachley drew several deep, rasping breaths to calm himself, then lowered her lifeless corpse to the filthy ground beside the fence. He stepped back, giving her to the impatient Maybrick, who gripped his knife in eager anticipation. The sound of that knife ripping her open was the sweetest sound John Lachley had heard all day.

He bent low and breathed into Maybrick's ear, "Return to Lower Tibor when you've finished. Use the sewers, as I showed you. I'll be waiting in the secret room."

Then he slipped from the yard, leaving the maniacal Maybrick to vent his rage on the lifeless corpse of Annie Chapman. He was not pleased that he must track down and kill two more dirty whores, two more potential blackmailers in a position to destroy his future. In fact, as the trembling delight of stalk and strike and murder gradually waned in his blood, he cursed the foul luck that had prompted Annie to sell her precious letters to raise money for medicine, cursed it with every stride he took, cursed Prince Albert Victor for writing Morgan's goddamned letters in the first place, and cursed brainless whores who acquired them only to sell them off for ready cash. Two more women to locate and silence! Dear God, would this nightmare never end? Two!

His beautiful Greek prisoner had known, somehow; had seen clairvoyantly into his future and known he would not succeed tonight. Curse it! He would have to question Ianira more closely about what she had seen in that vision of hers. Clearly, he could do nothing further today. It would be getting light soon and Maybrick had to return to Liverpool today, to meet social and family obligations.

Lachley was tempted to find these women himself, to end their miserable lives with his own hands, without waiting for Maybrick's return. But that was far too risky. Maybrick must be involved; that was critical to his plans. He must have a scapegoat on which to pin blame for these murders. All of them, including the next two. He narrowed his eyes. Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes... He'd never heard of either woman, but he was willing to bet they were common prostitutes, same as the recently departed Polly Nichols and the even more recently departed Annie Chapman. Which meant they ought to be quite easy to trace and just as easy to silence. Provided the bitches didn't tumble to the truth of what they possessed and run, bleating, with it to the constables or—worse—the press.

It was even possible that someone would connect "Eddy" and Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward. Lachley shuddered at such a monstrous vision of the future. These filthy whores must be silenced, whatever the cost. He made for his own little hovel in Wapping, beneath which was the entrance to the sewers which led to his underground sanctuary. James Maybrick knew the way there, already. Lachley had shown him the route shortly before Polly Nichols' murder, introducing him to Garm, to help him escape detection. Since Maybrick couldn't very well walk around with blood on his sleeves, he'd needed an escape route that was certain. The sewers were the most sure escape route possible.

So he'd showed Maybrick how to find his hideaway where Morgan had passed his last hours screaming out his miserable little life, and had arranged to meet Maybrick there again, after Annie Chapman's murder. Maybrick ought to be arriving there shortly to change his clothes and rid himself of any physical evidence connecting him with the murders, including the knife. He'd left the long-bladed weapon at Lower Tibor after Polly's death and collected again this evening, before setting out in pursuit of Annie. Lachley had planned to drug Maybrick after this latest murder, to use his mesmeric skills to erase the merchant's memory of Lachley's involvement, then send the knife and an anonymous tip to the Metropolitan Police's H Division with the instructions that a search of Battlecrease House in Liverpool would yield written evidence of the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer.

Putting that plan into action was clearly out of the question, now, at least until he had obtained the letters from Stride and Eddowes, curse them. It was now September the 8^th, nearly two weeks since he'd first determined to kill Morgan and finish up this sordid business. Yet he was no closer to ending this miserable affair than he'd been the day Eddy had arrived at his house with the unpalatable news in the first place. He wanted this over with! Finished once and for all!

When James Maybrick finally arrived in his underground sanctuary, only to break the news that he couldn't possibly return to London until the end of the month, due to business and social commitments, it was all John Lachley could do not to shoot the maniac on the spot. He stood there breathing hard, with the gnarled oak limbs of his sacrificial tree spreading toward the brick vault of the underground chamber's ceiling and the smell of gas flames and fresh blood thick in the air, and clenched his fists while James Maybrick changed his clothes, burned the coat and shirt and trousers he'd been wearing, and secreted some hideous package that reeked of blood in an oilcloth sack.

"Took away her womb," Maybrick explained with a drunken giggle. "Threw her intestines over her shoulder, cut out her womb and her vagina." He giggled again, hoisting the grotesque oilcloth sack. "Thought I'd fry them up for my supper, eh? Took her wedding rings, too," he added, eyes gleaming in total madness. He displayed his trophies proudly, two cheap brass rings, a wedding band and a keeper. "Had to wrench them off, didn't want to leave holy rings on a dirty whore's hand, eh? Went back for a second helping of her, took part of the bladder, when I realized I'd forgotten my chalk. Wanted to chalk a message on the wall," he added mournfully. "To taunt the police. That fool, Abberline, thinks he's so very clever... not nearly so clever as Sir Jim, ha ha ha!"

Lachley thinned his lips into a narrow line, wishing to hell the maniac would simply shut up. God, the man was sick...

"Can't be here next week," Maybrick added, pulling on clean clothes Lachley had laid out for him. "But we will kill the other dirty whores, won't we? You'll let me rip them?"

"Yes, yes!" Lachley snapped. "When can you be back, dammit? I'm tired of waiting for you! This business is urgent, Maybrick, dammed urgent! You'd bloody well better be here the first day you can get away!"

Maybrick drew on his overcoat, left behind earlier. "Saturday the 29^th," Maybrick replied easily. "You have my medicine ready?"

Lachley thrust the stoppered bottle into Maybrick's hand and watched narrowly as he drank it down. The potent mixture which allowed Lachley to place his patients into such a deep trance was even more critical with this patient, giving Lachley the means by which to accomplish his murderous ends without being mentioned in Maybrick's written record of his deeds. "Lie down on that bench," Lachley said impatiently when Maybrick had finished it all.

The cotton merchant slid up onto Lachley's long work bench and lay back with a smile, clearly pleased with the night's work and equally clearly looking forward to another two repeat performances of the evening's fun. Lachley stared down at the insane insect and loathed him so intensely, he had to clench his fists to keep from closing his hands around the man's throat and crushing the life from him, as he'd crushed it from Annie Chapman. Maybrick's eyelids gradually grew heavy and sank closed.

Lachley took Maybrick through the standard routine to bring about trance, went through the litany designed to abate his physical complaints, then repeated his injunction against ever mentioning or even hinting that Lachley existed when he wrote out his diary entries. "You will wake naturally in several hours, feeling refreshed and strong," Lachley told the drugged murderer. "You will leave this place and go to Liverpool Street Station and take the train for home. You will remember nothing of your visits to Dr. John Lachley, nothing except that he is helping you with your illness. You will not mention Dr. Lachley to anyone you know, not even members of your family. You will remember nothing about this room until the twenty-ninth of September, when you will receive a telegram from your physician informing you of an appointment. You will then come here and meet me in this room and we will kill more whores and you will enjoy it immensely. You will write of your enjoyment in your diary, but you will mention nothing about your London physician or the help I give you. In your diary, you will write of how pleasurable it was to rip your whores, how much you look forward to ripping more of them..."

Maybrick, lying there in a drugged stupor, smiled.

Maniacal bastard.

Lachley flexed his hands, clenching them into fists and glared down at the pathetic creature on his work table. I'll personally certify your death after they've hung you on the gallows. It can't be too soon, either, damn your eyes.

Two bloody weeks... and two more dirty whores to be killed. Preferably, in one night. If he didn't destroy them both on the same night, God alone knew how long it would be before Maybrick could tear himself away from business and family in Liverpool and return to finish this up. Yes, they would have to die on the same night, next time. Bloody hell... and they would have constables crawling like roaches through these streets, by then.

But it had got to be done, regardless, too much depended on it. All told, it was enough to drive a sane man into an asylum.

The message arrived on Gideon Guthrie's computer via e-mail.

Trouble brewing, TT-86. Targets have escaped via two separate gates, Denver and London. Senator Caddrick has departed for terminal with entourage, vowing to close station. Please advise your intentions.

It had been relayed through so many servers, rerouted across so many continents, tracing it back to the original sender would have stymied the efforts even of the CIA and Interpol. When Gideon read Cyril Barris' message, he swore explosively. That goddamned, grandstanding idiot! He'd told Caddrick, dammit, to stay out of this! Did the jackass really want to end up in prison?

He sent a reply: Will handle personally. Do nothing. Timetable still on schedule.

Then he deleted the original message from his hard drive and blistered the air with another savage curse. Goddammit! With Caddrick on the warpath, Gideon would have to go there, himself, clean up this whole God-cursed mess the hard way. Time Terminal Eighty-Six...

Gideon Guthrie swore viciously and tapped keys on his computer, opening the program which allowed him to make airline reservations. Just as with the e-mail message and its multitude of rerouting server connections, his request for airline tickets hopped the globe before reaching the airlines reservations computer. He typed in the requisite identification information, then calmly assumed the identity of Mr. Sid Kaederman, the name he'd given Caddrick to use as the "detective" hired to trace his missing kid.

Damn that girl! She was a twenty-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears rich man's brat, with her head stuck in a bunch of history books. Even her boyfriend had played dress-up cowboy, for God's sake, when he hadn't been cozying up to Jenna's film-making friends. But the little bitch had slipped right through their fingers, thanks to Noah Armstrong, and now Caddrick had gone ballistic. The suicidal idiot! Trying to play to the press and gain voter sympathy, when the very last thing they needed was Caddrick on any warpath.

Once again, Caddrick had failed to use the few brains God had given him, leaving Gideon no choice but to wade in and try to salvage the mess. Therefore, Mr. Sid Kaederman, detective with the world-famous, globe-spanning Wardmann Wolfe agency, would be taking an unplanned time tour. Gideon's lips twisted in a sardonic smile at the notion of posing as a detective from Noah Armstrong's own agency. But he did not find the idea of taking a time tour amusing. He was a fastidious man by nature, fond of his creature comforts, of up-time luxuries. He hadn't done real fieldwork in fifteen years and had vowed never to set foot down a time touring gate, where filth and disease and accident could rob him of everything he'd built over his career.

God, time touring!

The only question was, which of Shangri-La Station's gates would Mr. Sid Kaederman be touring? Which one, exactly, had Jenna Caddrick disappeared down, and which had Ianira Cassondra and her family gone through? Denver? Or London?

He intended to find out.

With that promise to himself foremost in his mind, Gideon Guthrie started reviewing methods by which he would slowly dismember Ms. Jenna Nicole Caddrick, and began packing his luggage. He was still reviewing delightfully bloodthirsty methods, up to the ninety-ninth and counting, when he snatched up a pre-prepared portfolio with Sid Kaederman's identification, medical records, and credit cards, and headed grimly out the door.