The Killing Hand (23 page)

   Lucius
’ hand slipped down beside the chair, and he tapped a case that stood beside the seat. “This is the only language in which He would listen to.”

   “
You think He is coming for you? Now?”

   “
I have no doubt that once you leave me, I will be alone and He will seize it as His time to strike.”

   “
Why you, though? You made the arrangement, you headed the meetings. You are the least likely to oppose Him.”

   Lucius laughed. “
Why me? I guess I just have that kind of a personality. I suppose there had been times where you wish it was my name mentioned in those meetings - I would not blame you. The arrangement I had was made with Arthur Shaw, who I doubt would have kept his promise. This Jack fellow turned out to be far more of a liability than any of us could have imagined. You can sit and dwell on it as much as you like. You can trace it back to the start, but it will not stop anything. You must think of your next actions now. He will come for the rest of you immediately after. Be prepared when he does, Eric.”

   Lucius' unwillingness to acknowledge
hope, simply drinking himself into a state, made it obvious he was resigned to his fate, possibly showing remorse for his actions. I could not quite tell. Somehow, to me, it all made sense, although I did not like it.

   I
stared once again at the case beside his chair, swallowing hard and realising that the man I was looking at was already dead. “Do you think that He will reason with you?”

  
“No,” he growled, stubbing his cigar into the fine coffee table. “But I will be damned if I do not at least try. I have no power in me to fight Him any other way. I thought that He might come for me tonight, but everything seems so quiet, so perhaps not. Still, tonight will be another night without sleep. I know he will come sometime.” Lucius patted the case again. “I just want to be prepared when he does.”

   There was nothing further to be said to Lucius. He had resigned, and the man before me was mere form of my old acquaintance. I wanted to wish him luck, to tell him to be safe, but
no part of me was willing to disrespect his intelligence. Instead, I left in silence. I gave my thanks to Lucius’ maid on the way out and made my way straight to Lilly’s, trying to distance myself from that infernal place as much as I could, fleeing before Jack was near enough to catch sight of me. My mind would be on it all night, wondering if Lucius was still breathing or not. I felt that, by midnight, he would not.

   I did not return to Lilly's home in a rush. I idled through streets and alleys, occasi
onally stopping to rest. My chest was tight and my head pounding; it felt as if I had aged considerably in the weeks previous. Every so often the pain in my chest grew so bad that I would have to stop, to lean against a wall and wait until I felt as if my insides unknotted again. Partway down the road, they would tighten once more. The stress of everything was getting to me. Slowly, it was shutting me down.

   I made it back to Lilly's some hour later, wandering wearily inside. I felt as if I had endured a
year without sleep.

   As I pushed the door open, Lilly came running from within to see me in. I must have been a sight, for Lilly's expression dropped when she saw me. 'Eric, you are so pale!'

   'Tired,' I mumbled without excuse.

   'Then get some rest.
You need it after the past few days.'

   But rest was of no interest to me. I could not sleep knowing that I would wake up in a world in which Lucius was dead. What part of me would happily sleep knowing that he were to be murdered as I slumbered? “
I will do so far in a bit,” I said, and made my way to the living home, attempting to grasp to something that I could call my own safe home. Even then, at that moment, I was staring at it with eyes that knew my time with that place was coming to an end. I had to leave before Jack found me here and endangered everyone under this roof.

   “
How was the funeral?” Lilly asked, misreading my expression.

   “
Big; lots of people.”

   She went through to the kitchen and brought me some tea, insisting I needed to warm mysel
f up. She smiled, but it was a brief one. “I cannot imagine how it must feel.”

   “
I need to leave,” I cut in. There was no right time to say it, so I did not wait for one. “I cannot remain here, for it is not safe for either of us.”

   There was a moments
silence as Lilly perched on the edge of the sofa and cocked her head slightly as she watched me, as if waiting for a punch line. When one did not come, she eventually spoke. “You are being serious?”

   I nodded. I expected some sort of outburst, sad or an
gry, but neither came.

   “
I know James' death must have affected you deeply, but leaving is not the answer.”

   “
There are reasons which I cannot stay here Lilly, reasons which I cannot tell you. I have no choice but to leave lest I endanger you too.”

   Lilly paused, as if momentarily stunned. “
The circumstances in which James died, they affect you too?”

   I nodded.

   “And why can you not tell me? What is so bad that you must keep from your own sister?” She seemed genuinely disappointed by what I had to say, although sympathetic.

   “
Things that I would not like you to become entwined in.”

   “
Eric, if you are in trouble, you should tell me, I can help you. Running away is not always the answer. Wherever you go, you may only find further trouble.”

  
“I am sorry that I must leave you so suddenly,” I simply apologised. What more could I say to her? That her brother had been reduced to a killer? This was something I needed to deal with alone.

   “
I will not allow you,” she said resolutely. “To abandon everything will not help, Eric. Tell me what you need and I will help you.”

   “
If I stay here, I endanger you too.”

   “
And if you leave, you condemn yourself. I will not have it. Where will you go? Who will you turn to? You will have nothing, I know this, Eric. It is noble of you to try, but also foolish. It is a sacrifice you make, do not dress it up as if it were something else. You will stay, and you will promise me, right now.”

   Hesitantly, I nodded. I did not want to, knowing it could endanger her, b
ut I also knew that it could be the last time that I would ever see her again and ultimately it was that greed which what made me stay.

   “
Say it,” she said. “Promise me.”

   “
I promise,” I said, knowing full well that I would have to break it. “I will stay.”

   Lilly nodded, and that was that. “
When you feel that you can, tell me everything; not now, not with so much on your mind, and not least after the events of today. Let us turn our minds to better things.”

   We spent the rest of the afternoon remini
scing about our childhoods and our parents. There were many things she brought back to me that I had forgotten, distant memories one could say had been clouded by the passage of time and age. But I thought differently; neither time nor age played a part in this destruction. It was Him. He was clouding my mind and distorting my world, removing me piece by piece in order to replace them with Himself. Even as I sat there in that room, laughing and crying as she told me anecdotes, I could feel the pieces inside me moving. I was being rebuilt from the inside out. I had been rebuilt to fear Him, as a pawn in His game.

   Lilly did not pry further into the matter, and for that I was glad. Although she knew that it deeply affected me, I think she could detect the od
d aura of a man who knew that talking about it would not fix it. I had lost many of my friends to murder in such a small period of time; it was beyond words now.

   I went to bed early, with the intention of rising early morning and escaping in the silence
of the night. Although I had promised her, I also knew that every moment I stalled endangered her. As with the many nights before, I could not sleep. My thoughts were clouded with the horrific events which I had watched unfold before me, and the constant worry that I had been a part of them. James' death hurt the most. The moment replayed in my memory over and over, each time I thought about how I could have prevented his demise. Each time I still failed.

   In the early hours of the morning I packed some clothes and made my way down the stairs. I had no choice, I had to leave. If I stayed, then the only pers
on who meant anything to me would be in the greatest of danger. I made it to the bottom of the stairs, standing in the blackness of her home, getting my bearings and appreciating the house for one last time.

   I barely noticed Gilbert, sat on the settee n
ear the hallway, waiting for me in the dark. His cold, hard voice resonated throughout the shadows. “So, you are leaving then.”

   I stalled for a moment, unsure whether the remark was a question or
a demand. I answered for both. “Yes, I am. It is best for you both if I do not stay here any longer.”

 
  “You are right about that. Poor girl can barely sleep when you are about. It is better for us all if you leave now.”

   The conversation ended there.
There was nothing further to be said that was pleasant, so we both stopped before that time. I opened the front door and, with a feeling of dread, finally left that home and shut the door behind me.

  
I stood alone in the cold street staring at the suitcase, half packed with memories, and facing the full brunt of my decision. I was leaving and there was a chance I may never return, or if I did that it may not be as myself. I had been here once before of course, but now I was experiencing it first-hand. I began to walk away, refusing to look back – refusing to give Gilbert the pleasure. I did not feel any better leaving that house. I was exposed to the street and, if Jack had already found me, he could very well strike me down now. But that was a chance I had to take. Breaking Lilly by leaving her in when her back was turned or leaving her to the mercy of Him both felt like the same sentence. I had to get away, there was not much time left. I had to distance myself as far as I possibly could.

   The sound of a door slamming cut through the dark and tore me from my t
houghts. I knew straight away that Lilly had followed me “Do not walk away from me! You said we would be in this together!” she screamed at my retreat before succumbing to the tears. I turned to apologise and she collapsed to the floor. “If it is about the situation you are in, please stay. We can fix it – together.”

   I le
ant down, placing my hand on her shoulder. “No, Lilly. We cannot. This is something I have to do by myself now.”

   She looked
up at me, fighting the tears. “You are not coming back, are you? It is exactly the same as before. You promised me that you would stay.” I realised the expression she wore on her face was not one of sorrow, but one of anger too. “Trust was the one thing I had left to give, Eric.”

   I stood, pitying her. In realit
y, I wanted to hold her, to say something to make it better, but there was nothing. I was abandoning her again and there was no defence I could offer. I was running away, possibly forever this time.

   “
Will you return?” she asked. “I will not ask you to promise me, for I know that you are capable of breaking such things, but will you give me the truth?”

   I looked at her. Could I lie? Could I keep on lying forever? “
I hope so,” I said. And that, at least, was not a lie.

   Disappointment overcame her. “
If you feel so strongly about it, then leave. I have suffered long without you. What is a little more?”

  
I stood up and walked away, feeling as if I were forever bound to a life of leaving. She cursed behind me, accusing me of abandoning her again. She was right, but this time it was not out of selfishness. The further she was distanced from me, the further she was from Him. That was the best thing I could offer her now. As I left her, Gilbert came up beside her a led her back to the house, telling her that it would be alright. That perhaps it would be for the better. She looked over her shoulder once, just once, and then turned back to the rest of her life.

What does a person do when they become too scared? Too scared to live, too scared to die, too scared to love, too scared to even care? Where does that person go? Who do they confide in? Those were the questions I found that I asked myself as I wandered aimlessly through the alleys and streets of London. I found myself meaningless. A vessel of hate. Although I wished to end this nightmare, I wished not to end myself in the process. I firmly believed there was some way to escape this situation with my life intact.

   I rented a room in the lower portion of town and kept to myself. In fact, I barely left my room. I paid for many nights in advance and requested not to be disturbed. I locked the door and refused service. I closed the curtains and curled up in the
bed. I knew that to keep an open door would only stand as an invitation for Jack. I left only once, in the midst of a busy morning where I could lose myself in a crowd. I made my way to the nearest newspaper stand, bought a copy and immediately returned and locked myself in my room. The newspaper reported exactly what I expected, although it brought me no joy to see it.

THE TIMES, MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1838

SPRING-HEELED JACK MURDERS LUCIUS SPENCER

Local businessman LUCIUS SPENCER is the latest victim of SPRING-HEELED JACK. He was attacked in the evening last night when Jack entered his home. Jack was able to kill Lucius and one of his maids before fleeing. Nobody witnessed the crime.

The funeral of Lucius Spencer will be held at Newgate Cemetery this Friday, followed by a public display where many of his great deeds that he and his family that helped shape London will be remembered by his close friends and associates.

   Who was Jacks next victim? Any of us he could find, I supposed. Lucius stayed at his home, so was easy to find. Palmer would not doubt be at his, he was too stubborn to leave. With any hope, Harry would have already left. The killings would be hard to predict. Money no longer drove His actions. Maybe it never did (although I believe it was always at the very least a bonus). For Jack, killing appeared to be a way for Him to feel alive. He would kill us all and he made no secret of it. He enjoyed the game, enjoyed the hunt; enjoyed knowing that we had no way to stop Him. Or maybe we did, but did not know how. We could only wait and respond to Him. Respond to His actions.

   Response was not enough to win. That would always give Him the first go. I locked myself in that room and
thought, “I need to stop Him from killing. I need to stop Him.” I believed it.

   I did not leave unless I had to. I paced frequently, dwelling on many thoughts of how to get the upper hand. None seemed possible. I arranged for food to be delivered to me frequently
– food that would keep. Food that would not require me to leave the room to prepare. I lived on a basic diet, but it kept me in that room away from His gaze. I trapped myself in calm thoughts, away from the anger and fear as much as I could. I would not leave until I had a plan. Until I was sure.

   The nightma
res had begun by then. They had been with me a while, often in pained visions and horrific scenes played back to me, but now they got worse. Jack preyed on my mind as if he were a leech sucking at my very mentality. Being in that room did nothing for my mental state, and I feared that I would suffer from mania long before I suffered from His claw.

   As the darkness of night crept in and I found myself weary, I found myself with no option but to collapse into my bed. It was as if every fibre
of my body gave up right then, my body crumpling down as if it were released of life, and I let it. I was exhausted, and it swept over me the moment I came to lay there, finding myself incapable of further movement. I needed to rest. I wanted to fix everything, to make it all better, but inevitably I was only human.

   That night, as I tossed and turned in the safety of my bed,
and another nightmare came to me. In it, I walked through a cemetery so crowded that the graves were built upon graves, uneven in their manner, protruding from the ground like a mass of roots from an upturned tree. Many of them were weathered; the names upon them illegible, their occupants now long forgotten. As I walked, the mounds of graves rose up beside me and I found myself in a valley of them. It was dark, little light making it down into the gorge and my vision clouded by a mist of old dirt and dust settling in the air. I walked the long path between the two ever growing cliffs until they reached up beyond the mist, first becoming silhouettes, then the dark shadows simply fading into distant view.

   Eventually, after stumbling around in the pit of the valley for too long, it began to open up again. An open landscape of great mist was before me, the plains littered with the headstones of the d
ead. On the sloped peak of the hill there stood a silhouette, facing me. Waiting for me. I knew it was Him. I knew I was in a dream, but this did not make me feel any better. I was under his control now, under his domain. He did not have to physically meet me to have a grasp upon my mind.

   “
Looks at the graves, Eric,' He said - but the voice did not come from the silhouette. Instead it came from above, somewhere high beyond the mist and dirt. “Read the names upon them. They are a monument to all your sins.”

   I walked, glancing at the headstones.
Although I recognised them all, they were all alien to me. I had not met these men, nor had I any involvement in their demise. They may have died as a result of those infernal meetings, but not of my desires. I muttered to myself, perhaps more as a comfort than actual truth. “I did not kill these people. I did not kill these people.”

   His voice
echoed from the clouds again. “Perhaps... You may have not killed them, but it was still by your hand that they fell. Continue, continue...”

   The names continued. Charles Ashdown. Harvey Brewer. Richard Lawrence... the list went on. I had expected these names. I knew what He was trying t
o do. He was trying to make me feel guilt for his murders. Was it He doing this? No, it was me.
I
was feeling guilt for these murders. This had nothing to do with Him, this was entirely me. I went further - Richard Lawrence, Gareth Jenkins, Rufus Nichols... Rufus. Rufus had died by my hand. No... Not by my hand. By His.

   I went further, but now I knew what was coming. I knew the moment
I gazed upon Rufus' grave what I was being led to, but I still could not prepare myself. When I got there and saw the name printed so clearly and accusingly it brought it all home. I had killed James. Even if I had not physically brought the knife upon him, I had sat by as the weight stacked against him. It was purely by existing that I had allowed this happen, fuelled on by my inactivity in the patter. By allowing myself to be the vessel of the villain I had allowed my friend to die.

   I cried into the black n
ight to the disembodied voice. “I now know what I did, even though I did not condone it.”

   A maniacal laugh roared
through the sky like thunder before the voice focused. “Not by speech, perhaps, but it is done and you make no effort to fix it. You still try to grasp at what little remains of your pitiful life, but there is nothing. You can regret all you want, but regret does not fix the past.”

   “
This is my body and brain, and not yours for the taking. You cannot control me – this mind is my own.”

   “
At yet, Eric, by simply being here it seems that I already have a hold on you. I have one more thing to show you…”

 
Just beyond where I stood, where the graves began to thin, stood a grave silhouetted by the moon. I approached it, thinking that I knew what He was going to show me. I thought that it would be Francis’ name, for deep inside the silence surrounding his disappearance only filled me with dread. I did not think he escape from Jack would come that easy. But it was not Francis’ name. The grave, already weathered and crumbling, belonged to my Father.

   “
You killed him by abandoning him,” the voice snarled from the dark skies like thunder striking a distant land. “Perhaps if you had never left, none of this would have happened. You condemned him, Eric. You put him on this path and, in turn, you followed suit. You abandoned him because he suppressed you, but now you find yourself more constrained than you have ever been. Perhaps he had been right all along? That his efforts to protect you and your lifestyle were not ill-conceived? But you were too idle to realise and, as such, damned yourself.”

   The rage in me bui
lt into an animalistic roar, uncontrollable and dominant, ringing out through the night sky in a demand for vengeance and redemption. He laughed again, drowning out my unchained screams. “How much do you hate, Eric? Not nearly enough, not nearly enough at all...”

   The roar slowly turned human as my throat became dry, and I could feel the weakness of my own form. My body burned with rage, exhaustion, weakness... everything. I had never felt so alive, yet on the brink of death. So this was mo
rtality.

   “
Look up,” He whispered, and I did. There on the hill stood the silhouette, still gazing down on me, judging. It was like a black void, nothingness within, a portal to the black, and I found myself drawn to it. My legs stumbled drunkenly between graves as I made my way towards it. I thought I knew what it was. I thought it was going to be Him. I thought it was all going to end there. Perhaps it was, but it was not Him.

   Instead, as I reached the peak of that hill, filled with the rotting corps
es of those I had cut short of life, I met the silhouette and found it to be myself, yet incomplete. I was expressionless, stood still and straight like some form of doll, yet chunks were missing from it, from the chest and the arms and legs. It was horrible, as if staring at my own form as a decaying body.

   From behind me He appeared, striding between the graves, His metallic claw
scraping along the graphite of the headstones. “This is what you are, Eric. You are broken.”

   “
You have damaged me, perhaps, but I am not broken. When I awake I will regain my body, and once you are dead I will regain my mind. You exist merely as fear within my consciousness, but once your form is destroyed then you too will vanish. I will take back what is rightfully mine. I have as much right to life as you do… and you have taken so much of it from me that it would not feel wrong to return the favour. To some, mortality is a weakness, but to me, to be able to feel anything at all, that is a gift I do not intend to give up.”

  Jack chuckled and strode away, and beckoned for me to follow. I did, although he disappeared along the way and I found myself lost in that jungle of graves. Eventually I came to a mound where three headstones stood, with three freshly dug holes beneath them. The headstones read the names of Harry, Palmer, and myself.

   “
Which one comes next?” the voice from the sky bellowed.

   “
You ask me? That is what you do, not I.”

   “
It is what we both do. You condoned it – you even chose a name yourself, lest you forget. Such an important one it was, too. Do not refuse me to taste blood, for you cannot. Do you not wish to feel as I feel? The feeling of complete ecstasy? The rush of your blood and the pounding of your heart, the complete feel of emotion? It can be experienced with fear. But enough, who is the next one you wish to see gone?” He tapped one of His steel claws against my headstone in anticipation.

   “
I will not choose. I wish to see none dead, and will make all attempts to do so. You shall not condemn any more to death.”

   A smile spread across His face. It was sickening because He was obviously enjoying it so much.
I wondered which part of my mind could imagine such a thing, but when He spoke it became obvious. “That is where you are wrong, for you are condemning someone right now.” It was guilt and fear and realism, the part of me that knew that shutting myself in that room would not save anyone, and would simply bide myself time until he found me. He continued. “In not too long one of these graves will be filled. So which one will it be?”

   Beyond the confines of this dream He was moving, shifting through the London darkness, preparing to pounce on His next victim. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps, as my body shifted restlessly in bed, taunted by these thou
ghts, He had already found me and my time was up. I felt like a puppet, my strings controlled by some disembodied hands beyond the skies, laughing as I pranced at its command.

   I needed to wake up.

   I began screaming and thrashing, running between graves looking for anything - God knows what I expected to find. I knew the land was entirely fabricated for my consumption, yet I fruitlessly searched anyway. I would not allow another death to happen so easily.

   All the while, He sat atop his hill, chuckli
ng to himself.

   Eventually, I gave up. It was a nightmare: and I was in for
the ride. When it stopped, only then could I get off. I returned to the hill, defeated and ashamed, and feeling guilty. I did not feel in control of myself. I was stuck inside my own bastarding dream.

   As I stood before him, he spoke to me neutrally.
“Now that you see reason, let us see the outcome, shall we?”