‘Oh no,’ said Quill, shaking his head, ‘definitely not.’
Vincent seemed puzzled by Quill’s matter-of-fact tone of voice, his finger hovering over the button. ‘So you really did come here just to hear the truth?’
‘No,’ said Quill, shaking his head again.
‘Then, what…?’
Quill looked to where a strange and familiar light was appearing through the wall. He grinned. ‘I came here, mush,’ he said, ‘to keep you talking.’
TWENTY-NINE
A FEW MINUTES EARLIER
Ross listened to what the familiar, tender voice on the other end of the phone line was telling her. He was saying what he’d done. He was calling, he said finally, from a room where he was being held by security guards, and Quill — Quill, who was back to life, who was back in this world instead of her dad — was about to do something which was informed by where they were, and so now she should listen, because …
She held the phone out towards Sefton while Costain was still talking. ‘You should listen to him,’ she said. ‘It’s important and I can’t.’
Sefton was astonished; his eyes interrogated her. He hesitantly spoke into the phone, and listened to what Costain told him, and put a hand to his face in amazement.
Ross looked back to the hole in the ground. She listened, unable to stop the analytical part of herself from becoming involved as Sefton got all the information Quill had told Costain and his plan for what they should do next, relayed it to her, finished the call.
She looked down at the hole. Now she knew what Quill had encountered in there. What she was looking at was what, in the end, always seemed to be under everything: the thread of abuse that had wound its way through Whitechapel. She’d been right about something she’d said. It seemed a long time ago now: the Ripper really was just blokes and desperation for money. The meaning of this story truly was the killing of women.
She had no meanings left and no hope.
She picked up the pickaxe, stepped forward and dropped into the dark.
* * *
She landed inside the long barrow. She could hear Sefton scrambling after her. She felt the mighty presence at the end of the chamber, shut in, desperate to be awakened. She shouldered the pickaxe and ran at the rock wall.
* * *
Sefton got inside the barrow just in time to see Ross land the pickaxe against the stone, the scene barely illuminated by the lights through the small opening they’d made in the roof. She struck once, then she cried out, and started striking the rock time after time after time, screaming at it. Sefton watched. He wanted to say something. But anything he might say would be too like her scream. This was what Quill had just ordered them to do, but he was pretty sure that Ross would have done it anyway.
Light sprang from a sudden crack in the rock.
The interior of the barrow was revealed in every detail. Sefton had a moment to see those fingerprints.
Something burst from the rock at the end of the chamber. It still looked like the Ripper. Silver was hissing from its eyes and mouth.
Sefton wondered, in the instant he got a good look at her — for it was very clearly a her — if she would be able to make it out of the barrow and across London. But, as well as the coldness of the evaporating silver, there was in the atmosphere all around them a sense of enormous willpower, of something awoken. The barrowwight opened her mouth and made a sound Sefton would never forget: a single note that banished the tattered remnants of what had been put here to keep her imprisoned.
Ross was looking up at her, empty, clearly wanting to be pleased that she’d freed her, but finding no meaning.
With a splatter of silver against the rock ceiling of the chamber, the being sped upwards and in a blur of motion she was gone.
NOW
Quill was relieved and awed and once again scared to see the figure of the Ripper walk purposefully through the wall of Vincent’s office. He found himself flinching at the possibility that she would once more rush to attack him. She looked at him, considered him. Then she turned to look at Vincent.
He was backing away, looking to the scrying glass, but the figure in front of him felt different now, silver hissing from her, her Ripper guise only a garment that she could throw away if she could be bothered. This woman was awake. She made a noise that went beyond sound, and the scrying glass shattered, the pieces of the mirror embedding themselves into walls and furniture, the valuable ancient bloodline from the frame splattering across the desk. Quill lowered an arm and found himself miraculously unharmed.
Vincent managed to stagger forward, bleeding from a gash across his brow. ‘Go back,’ he said, and he still sounded commanding. ‘I didn’t call for you.’
She took a deliberate step towards him.
Vincent considered for a long moment. Then he bolted for the door.
The Ripper waited, and Quill got the feeling she was considering the other presence in the room, the phantom Quill was sure was the Smiling Man. Quill could feel that being’s pleasure, his sense of completion. The Ripper despaired at that feeling.
The Ripper met Quill’s gaze again. He felt himself noted, distantly approved of.
Then there was a blur of silver, and the Ripper was gone through the wall. Quill looked around for that other presence and was thankful to find that he was alone.
* * *
Down the night-time side streets of Wapping ran Russell Vincent. His suit was sweaty from him having spent all night in it. It clung to him like a second skin, outlining the contours of his buttocks and thighs, his ragged breaths pushing his muscular chest tight against the silk of his shirt. As he ran, he saw people who were boarding up their doors or looking down from their windows or just doing what they always did and taking shopping from their cars, stopping to point at him as they recognized him. He could imagine the huge web of commentary, of tweets, people saying that a famous media tycoon was running down their street, that he looked afraid. That he would soon be in Whitechapel. In moments, all London would know where he was, that he was being pursued by something. He hoped someone with secret knowledge might see that, might help him, in the hope of a reward.
He saw the light behind him change as his shadow lengthened in front of him. At the same moment he heard the sound of drums coming closer, of shouts and now sirens from the crossroads he was running towards, and he saw people dashing away from him into their houses, slamming down windows, closing their doors rather than helping. The message they were sending out was that the chaos was arriving here.
From the crossroads ahead they came, just a handful of them, provoked from their nearby houses by the tides under London: skinheads and Toffs and a bunch of hopeful local kids, ready to go whichever way the wind blew.
They were all staring at him as he ran desperately towards them.
No, he realized, they were staring at what was behind him.
He turned to look at her. She was in the sky, walking down towards him. She was surrounded by a cloud of evaporating silver. He imagined the razor slashing him, penetrating him, making him helpless.
He turned back and looked around. He wasn’t helpless. He’d made his empire, damn it! He still had a few tricks! He feinted left and then suddenly sprinted right, down an alley between houses. She couldn’t keep going forever, not losing that much silver. It occurred to him that she must be showing that to him deliberately, that seeing her like this was the first time he’d seen the silver. But still, it didn’t change the fact that was just her putting on a front. She was fast, but he knew that she needed to see him to find him. Assuming he could find a place where bystanders weren’t reporting on his every move, he could actually hide!