Heretical Edge

So, our little Batty Fang friend had a name now, Bezique. I still wasn't sure exactly how I should feel about the whole idea that she had been patched together from many different people who had been murdered, aside from bad. And angry at the man who had done this. Angry at the monster who was using my power to create one of, if not the single, most notorious murder sprees in history. Even if he didn’t exactly have the highest kill count--except clearly that kill count was a lot higher than Bystanders knew-- he was still known as being one of the most infamous murders ever. Seriously, was there any set of killings more known to humanity than Jack the Ripper? How the hell was I supposed to come to terms with the idea that the person behind that was apparently doing it all in my name? Well, not literally my name, but for Jacob, a person I had made up. He was me. I was Jacob, and this piece of shit was doing all this evil garbage for him. Or at least, he claimed he was. As far as I was concerned, it was an excuse to commit any sort of monstrous things he wanted to and claim it was for some higher purpose. He was just a bastard, no matter what he tried to dress it up as.

And part of that evil shit he happened to be doing was dismembering innocent people so he could stitch them together into beings like the one right in front of us. It wasn't her fault. She certainly hadn't asked to be created, or for living, breathing girls to be killed to provide the parts for her. She hadn’t asked to have these other people cut open and ripped apart. She definitely didn't ask to be given parts from the girl whose apartment we were in right now. A girl whose memories were still in there somewhere, since she remembered this home. She had those memories, and probably others. Memories from all those minds that had been cut up and sewn together and just--just… fuck. Fuck!

No, she didn't ask for any of that. She was just as much a victim as the people whose bodies had been cut up to create her. I knew that, and I was going to do my absolute best to remember it. When I looked at her, I had to tell myself that she was a victim too. Even if she didn't understand that the person she saw as practically a god was actually a monster. He had basically brainwashed her, and the rest of his creations, into worshiping him. Maybe we could get her to understand that, and even turn against him, if that was possible. She'd already taken the first step by coming to talk to us instead of attacking. All because she was trying to think things through logically, and the logic of attacking someone who was supposed to be as important as her creator had completely fallen apart.

I didn't know what would happen when she was in front of that evil bastard again. I didn't know if he would try to physically control her somehow. Sure, I couldn't control them with my Necromancy, but maybe he could since he had created them? Maybe that was just the sort of Necromancy he had focused on for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure how that worked. Either way, if he did, I was going to put a stop to it. That was for damn sure. I didn't know how to feel about this living creature being stitched together out of the bodies from innocent victims, but I did know that I wasn't going to let her be used by him again. Her or any of the other beings that this creep created. Which, of course, sent a pang of regret through me for the fighting we had already done before finding out these details. Yes, if it came down to it, we would have to fight them again. But we were going to do our best to go straight to the source and cut off the head. Literally, if I had anything to say about it. This guy absolutely needed to die, before he did any more horrific things, in Jacob’s name or anyone else’s.

Putting all that to the back of my mind for the moment, aside from hoping that her creator wasn't going to wonder where she was and track her down (not that I thought that was very likely from the fact that he apparently didn't even bother to name them), I focused on Bezique. Right now, we just needed as much information as we could possibly get about what and who we were going to be facing. As much as I really wanted to go running right off to find this guy and rip his heart out immediately, we needed to be more careful. There was no telling what traps he might have set up, or any other defenses he could have. Somehow he was using Necromancy to do things I couldn’t, or didn’t know about. We needed to find out more about what we were dealing with.

To that end, I asked, “I'd kind of like to know more about my fellow Jacob-Blood, if you don't mind. Do you think you could tell us anything about him?” There was a part of me that thought I should just tell her that I was Jacob, but I wasn't sure how that would play out at this point. I would tell her eventually, but it was probably better to play it safe right now and see how this all went. For all I knew, if I told her I was Jacob she might insist on immediately dragging me off to find her creator. “I've never met another one like me before.”

In my head, Hot Type snorted and muttered something about it not being all that hard to find people exactly like me if you knew exactly when and where to look.

Bezique was already giving a quick nod, her eyes bright with delight. It seemed it wasn't going to be that hard to get her to talk about her favorite subject: her creator. “Oh yes, like yourself, he was chosen and ordained by Jacob himself, but from a life of ordinary mundanity and called to a higher purpose, given his grand mission. The blood of Jacob came upon him and lifted him up out of what he had been. It made him like unto a god. While, of course, giving him responsibilities beyond any a lesser being could have hoped to achieve. Even with his great power, the duties that had fallen upon his shoulders would have broken any of lesser stature. It was only through his perseverance and great genius that the one who would don the moniker of Jack the Ripper was able to rise to the challenge his own maker had set before him.”

Miranda made a noise in the back of her throat that made it clear how unamused she was by all this. “Yeah, maybe we could start with his real name and a description? A physical description, not a list of how incredible and mysterious he looks when he poses in his cloak. Less flowery prose and more hard details we can work with.”

Wincing a bit, I raised a hand. “I think what my friend means to say is that we need to know who he is so we know what to say to him later. What is he like? How tall is he? What name does he use when he's not going by Jack? Do you know anything about where he likes to go or what he likes to do when he's not working on you guys? Does he have a regular job he has to do when he's pretending to be normal?”

Bezique looked back and forth between us, then stared down at the magic cards Tabbris had given her. After getting what seemed to be a bit of solace from staring at the pretty pictures on those cards, she gave another nod while looking at me. “There are many things we are not supposed to know. Things we were never to be told. Secret things. But I know. I know because I wishes to serve the creator better. I wishes to see everything he is and everything he likes so I's can always serve him and give him everything he needs. I's only want him to trust all the Batty Fangs and gives us more responsibility. I’s want to show him how good we can be.”

She continued then, her speech pattern having clearly shifted again through that, by explaining that the man the rest of the world knew as being responsible for those five famous murderers was also the person behind the so-called Thames Torso Murders. I had heard of those before, unsurprisingly. My dad, like probably every other investigative reporter, had done research on all of the stuff around the Ripper killings. I knew there were some who made a connection between the two before, even though it was generally dismissed because the Thames killings were sufficiently different from the Rippers’ kills in Whitechapel. I didn't know a lot about it, but I had heard the connection made before. They had all happened around the same couple of years.

The difference, apparently, had to do both with the fact that Jack had been experimenting, and with what body parts he needed at any given time. The women he left behind as Jack had been essentially tossed aside and deemed useless for his work. He wanted them to be found to spread his legend. He wanted to be feared. That was the only thing he saw those women as being useful for, making people afraid of him.

The Thames torso murders, meanwhile, were about four women who had pieces of their dismembered bodies found. Because of course he had simply killed people, cut off what he wanted, and cast the rest aside. This guy really was pissing me off. It wasn't quite the same as the very personal anger I'd felt toward, say, Fossor. This was a different sort of anger. I'd never met this man before. I knew nothing about him personally. I had never exchanged even so much as a single word with him in my life. And yet, despite all that, everything I heard about him made me want to put him down with extreme prejudice. I wanted him stopped before he could hurt anyone else. This was personal in a different way. He was using what might as well have been my name when he stitched these creatures together and made them worship him. He was using my name to do this. He thought he could get away with that? He thought I would let that stand? This wasn't about the fact that he had attacked us. I didn't care about that, not really. Not when we had so many other things going on. If he had just been a random guy who sensed our appearance and tried to take us out, then whatever, I wouldn’t bother going after him. But this? hell no. This guy needed to be put down like a rabid dog.

According to Bezique, she was pretty sure the man called Jack was responsible for killing almost one hundred livings, as she put it. It was hard to get very specific numbers, but that was the rough estimate she had come up with when looking at all her companions. Some of the pieces came from already dead bodies, making it even more difficult to be precise. She was doing her best. And, to be quite honest, it didn't actually matter that much if he was responsible for only seventy murders, or as many as two hundred. The overall point remained the same. He needed to fucking die.

That was when our new friend actually got into the true identity of the man I wanted to kill. Or rather, she told us his day job. That was it, she simply said that he worked a job delivering meat across the city. The second she said that, Miranda and I both immediately straightened up and blurted, “Charles Lechmere!” It came so suddenly that Tabbris jumped in surprise.

Bezique, meanwhile, offered us a smile full of teeth that had to have come from at least half a dozen different bodies. “You do know the creator's name! More evidence of your divinity, Anointed One.” She paused briefly before looking toward Miranda while adding, “And how well it can influence your servants.”

And I could tell that Miranda had a lot she wanted to say to that, but I pushed on by explaining to Tabbris. “Charles Lechmere was one of the first witnesses of the first canonical Ripper killing. Supposedly he found the body just before another guy came along, and they told the cops. Or the other guy did, or Charles himself did. It's all a big confusing mess of contradictions. His story and the other guy’s and the cop’s are all a bit different, and the timing doesn't work out no matter whose story you listen to. It definitely doesn't work out if you put them all together. He even gave his name as Charles Cross at first. It was like a family name or something that he maybe possibly used sometimes, but either way it was definitely not his given name. With him being the first witness and her body being much less damaged than the others, people always thought he must have interrupted the killer before he could finish his work properly.”

Miranda was nodding. “Yeah, and again, he was a meat delivery guy. He had blood on him all the time. No one was going to blink twice at the guy who handles raw meat walking around with blood on his shirt.”

Honestly, I was pretty sure that the two of us could have gone back and forth on that entire subject for the next couple hours. And I was equally certain that Tabbris would have sat there and enjoyed all of it. Even though I was confident she must've known at least as much as I did on the subject. She knew the story from being in my head. She just liked hearing us talk about it.

But we weren't here for that. Instead, I looked back to Bezique. “Are you sure that was his job and that that's his name?” Yes, it was probably pointless to ask, but I didn't want to go off on a wild goose chase. And I didn't want her simply agreeing with us because she thought that's what we wanted to hear. I could just imagine her pretending that that was his name and occupation because she didn't want to tell us we were wrong about anything. I didn't want her to tell us what she thought we wanted to hear. I wanted her to tell us the actual truth.

Her head bobbed up and down as she gave a loud and determined squawk of confirmation. “That is he! That is the guise the anointed Jacob-Blood, who blessed us with our creation, lives under when not performing his sacred duties! In time, the world shall know him as one of its Masters, and all shall tremble under his majesty. His power shall stretch from one continent to the next, across the world! Nothing shall stand in his way as he spreads the word of Jacob and creates a new order under their cause.” She paused, regarding me briefly before amending, “Under your cause as well, of course. For you are as he, and you both hold the power of Jacob. You shall both make your enemies shudder and tremble under the weight of their transgressions against all. You shall conquer death and prove its inferiority. You shall create true immortality and make such loss a thing of the past.”

That made Miranda give a confused double-take. “Hold on, you're saying this man thinks he can conquer death? Where have I heard that before?” She caught herself when saying ‘man,’ very clearly having intended to call him something worse before thinking better of it.

She also had a point. The whole thing that had gotten Fossor started on his entire path was his belief that he could completely prevent death. He had tried to make his sister immortal by killing her and shoving her ghost into her body. Yeah, it was idiotic, but also sounded a bit like what this guy was trying to do. That could have been a coincidence, of course. After all, it wasn't exactly hard to come up with an idea like that when you were a crazy person with that kind of power. But still, I didn't like even the suggestion that Fossor might have in any way influenced this guy. It was uncomfortably possible. He was alive in this time, and I knew he paid attention to Necromancers. Well, to be fair and accurate, he didn't just pay attention to them, he killed them. From what I understood, he was very fond of killing any sufficiently powerful Necromancer who might possibly even think about challenging his dominance.

But that didn't mean he couldn't have seen this guy over here and decided to let him do a little research for him for a little while first. Especially if the guy had kept going on about Jacob, which could have made Fossor see that man as a more important target.

Bezique, meanwhile, was enthusiastically confirming that ending death really was her creator's plan. Supposedly, he was doing all of this, causing so much misery and terror and pain because he was going to end death entirely. Apparently you had to break a whole chicken coop-worth of eggs when you were making an omelet.

Or maybe he was just an evil piece of shit who was using that as an excuse. I knew which one I was putting my money on.

We talked to our new friend some more, and learned about several hideouts this particular piece of shit kept around the city. She was eager to explain exactly how to get through his defenses and identify all his traps. Which I might have been suspicious about, but she reiterated that she saw ‘Jack’/Charles Lechmere and me as having completely equal authority. We were both at the same level in her mind, and thus what he owned I also owned. Everything he had access to, and everything he knew, was also mine. He knew how to access his hideouts and laboratories, therefore I deserved to know too. I still wasn't sure exactly how that worked, or how the logic had formed itself in her mind, but that's what it was. It worked for her, and that was all that really mattered in the end.

After some time with that, we found out that he was working right then. Yeah, after he sent his creations after us, he had gone to work, needing to keep up the pretense of being a normal person. He was busy at his job. But when he was done, there was a specific lab he would be going to. If we could get there first, get through his traps, and set up, we could ambush him there. It was the best plan we had.

So, once we were convinced that we'd gotten everything we could out of Bezique for the moment, we moved back to the door. But before I could open it, Miranda shook her head. “Wait, someone's coming.”

A moment later, there was a knock at the door. All of us looked at one another, before Miranda explained that there was an unfamiliar dark-haired young woman, clearly alive, standing on the other side. I checked with a ghost as well, and got the same thing. Just some lady we didn't recognize. She knocked again.

Not knowing what else to do, I unlocked the door and opened it, figuring she was probably a friend of the poor girl who had lived here. Instead, she looked right at me, then at the others, then announced, “Good evening, you have all been cordially invited to visit Dr. Joseph Bell. He believes that a conversation would be a great benefit to all of you.”

Wait, Joseph Bell? Not only was he the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes (a fact I knew thanks to Columbus), but he was also a Boscher in our time. Hell, he wasn't just any Boscher. He was the guy in charge of the Bow Street Runners, the official detectives of Crossroads.

Instinctively, I murmured, “Sorry, I really don't know if seeing that guy is a very good idea.”

To my surprise, the unfamiliar woman in front of us gave a soft chuckle before waving a hand in front of her face. As she did so, her appearance distorted and shifted to one I knew quite well. Though one that had been aged by several years.

“Trust me, Flick, you're going to want to talk to him,” Aylen informed me.