He needed to focus all his attention on the upcoming scheduled whereabouts of Annie Chapman. Her next recorded activities would be in about an hour, returning to Crossingham’s lodging house where she would ask permission to enter the public kitchen area. There she’d linger for another hour, seen by a few people drinking the brew she concocted, taking the pills she’d picked up at the casual ward apothecary. Stating it was for her ailments, she then told a tenant she was going to her room to lay down. When she arrived, Annie informed the manager she did not have enough money for her room yet but asked that it not be given away, as she’d soon be going out to get the needed pence for the rent. She was reported heading in the direction of Spitalfield’s Market between 1:35 and 2:00 a.m. on 8 September 1888.

Ethan’s fateful encounter with Annie Chapman wasn’t to be much later, around five in the morning over on Hanbury Street. Reclined onto his bed, he recalled some fictional suspense classics he’d read when he was a boy in school at St. Leonards, stories such as H.G. Well’s “The Invisible Man” and Robert Louis Stephenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. His power of knowing the future before anyone else did along with the cloaking effect of night gave him the fascia of invisibility, allowing him to move stealth-like through the streets of the East End of London. His likeness to Jekyll and Hyde was evolving, growing more complex with each passing day. It was a fascinating tale of two men in one. As Ethan always deciphered the story akin to a tale of an alcoholic run amuck, the potion which transformed the physician into a raving lunatic killer was simply too good a vintage. For Ethan, his knowledge was intoxicating, not in the sense of being drunk with power but the voracious thirst for it, drinking in the thoughts and ideas of those before him. He found irony in the fact his identity for the jump was as a physician, but he didn’t fancy himself comparative to Mr. Hyde. He knew the physical disguise as well as the guise he had to mentally portray during the gruesome process, should he be forced to undertake it with Annie Chapman. Though he’d much prefer to watch from a distance as a voyeur in the night, he still found solace in the dizzying inebriation of knowing everything occurring and what was still to come. Without this omnipotent power, Ethan would be another mere mortal murderer in a nomadic existence. There was only one missing piece to the puzzle, not knowing for certain the role he would be asked to play tonight.

Finishing up his now cold coffee and ritualistic in the zone meditation practice of pacing, it was time for him to get ready. He once again dressed in his upper social class attire with the knowledge, hope and acceptance that he’d stand out enough to be a tempting approach for Annie Chapman who needed to make time to make rent. Placing his earlier purchases from the street vendors inside his medical bag, he had bought a thick leather satchel along with a bunch of rags which would, if need be, do the job of soaking up the blood when he removed the uterus from her inert body.

It was about 4:30 a.m. when he departed for his destination, Hanbury Street. He would take Osborn Street straight up to Hanbury, arriving near the historic location, number 29 just before five in the morning. He need only wait for Annie to arrive in the next half hour or so. Ethan knew that John Anderson, a tenant at 29 Hanbury, had been reported sitting on the backyard steps around 4:45 a.m. adjusting his shoe, seeing and hearing nothing odd in the yard. There was always some speculation as to Elizabeth Long’s testimony to the authorities as to when she saw Annie Chapman speaking to a man on the street. During her interview she reported hearing the Black Eagle Brewery clock on Brick Lane chiming on the half hour, marking the time as 5:30 a.m. when she saw the man and woman speaking, but some researchers believe she could have been mistaken, having heard the quarter past chime of the clock. It mattered not. He was already there. This was why he needed to be prompt, on time, if not early to cover opposing opinions contradicting Long’s statement to police.

The air was chilly again, reminiscent of eight days prior, as if the elements were conspiring to set the scene. There were a few people passing along the way, coming and going from work or a late Friday night or early Saturday morning rendezvous, only a few stragglers around. As if on cue, she appeared. He recognized Annie right away from her attire, still half a road from him. Ethan had to play the odds now. If everything was by design in the Universe any plan he had was already decided long before he made the jump through Flicker. He’d chosen to play the part coyly, some unsuspecting gentleman, allowing Annie Chapman to approach him. Removing his pocket watch, he stared at the time, 5:09 a.m. As he did in the alley shadows before and after Polly Nichols’ passing, Ethan waited and prayed that he was wrong about himself and his destiny, begging to be released from this awful obligation, hoping that before Annie could spot him she would be approached by his salvation, the true mad murderer. He’d hoped to be spared the continuing role. He prayed to be saved. It is always darkest before the dawn and it had not yet dawned on Ethan that he was a player in this drama for a reason. No more doubt. No more excuses. No time.

From the corner of his eye he could see Annie sizing him up, deciding whether or not to solicit him. This was going to happen...it was inevitable. As it was written, so it would be done. Surrender was in his heart. It was his destiny. To prompt her, he peered up for a moment then offered a friendly smile. She walked up to him now considering the gesture an invitation.

“Evenin’ gov’ner.” Annie began cheerfully. “Bit of a nip in the air tonight.”

Ethan realized one certain thing. He was not an actor. However, neither was he concerned that his lack of thespian training would alter a supreme plan, one cosmic in nature. He just did not want to hear his own bad performance stink up the air any more than it already was, but his momentary pause was a sign to Annie of rejecting her advance. She began to step behind him and continue on her way. Ethan had to act fast to correct the issue. He turned around, facing her directly. For a moment he just looked at her with his mouth agape, shocked by his own lack of social skills.

“Yes.” He muttered. “It is, quite cold, out here, in the air, tonight, I mean.”

Annie laughed at the man, not to be insulting but rather charmed by an awkward response she wasn’t used to and didn’t expect, not one typical of her usual clientele. She actually had quite a nice smile, much better teeth than Polly. Ethan rolled his eyes and shook his head at his performance, judging himself harshly.

“Well, aren’t you the gigglemug?” He tried to make light of the darkness.

“Well, perhaps I can warm ya up a bit if ya fancy the business?” Annie was not shy, though her flirtatious manner was far more subtle than Maggie’s approach.

Ethan’s expression changed for a moment as he reflected back to Maggie saying almost exactly the same phrase in his room the night his whole world turned upside down. It unfortunately humanized Annie that much more. He would have to expect that phrase from each of the Ripper’s victims, discarding the connection as his link to a fictitious character Mary Ann Nichols had concocted. Annie began to step away again, thinking she struck out based on Ethan’s demeanor.

“Wait. Please.” Ethan implored her. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to...this.”

“Ah, yer first time then, love?” Annie asked with genuine interest.

“Second, actually.” His prophetically ominous statement had another meaning, a more insidious content than she could ever imagine.

Ethan did not hear her response, as another woman walked past them. He made every effort to obscure his visual identity from her while interrupting Annie.

“So, will you then?”

“Yes.” She replied, caught off guard by his abruptness.

Just as the woman turned the corner at the end of the street Ethan heard a clock chime. It was a quarter past five. The woman must have been Elizabeth Long, right on cue. She’d been mistaken about the time, as some of the historical records stated. It was not 5:30 a.m. when she saw Chapman, but instead, the alternate assumption, that it was 5:15. From his vantage point Ethan could see clearly in every direction. There was nobody else in sight, no hardhearted criminal lurking in the shadows of a dark alley, just softhearted Professor LaPierre thrust down the gullet of the beast, as the beast. As an integral part played, as history in the making, the time had come for him to abandon the role of understudy and take the lead, time to commit history.

Because of the varying schedules of local workers, most of the lodging’s main access halls to each room were always unlocked, most of the time merely left wide open. Number 29 Hanbury was no exception to the rule. They walked the few doors down from where they met, stopping to chat then continuing on as Annie Chapman held onto the arm of her momentary suitor.

“I see the bag you’re carryin’. Yer a doctor?” she inquired.

“Yes, I’m here for a speaking engagement at the hospital.”

“Oh! An out-of-towner! A rich doctor then, are ya?” Hoping to make her rent.

“Far from rich. I’m comfortable enough.”

“Comfortable sounds nice.” She snuggled up closer wrapping both arms around his left elbow. Without missing a step in her pace or looking up at him, Annie asked one last question. “Yer not the Whitechapel killer, are ya now?”

More surprising to Ethan than the question was his instant response.

“Heaven’s no! Why do you think I give speeches? I hate the sight of blood!”

A trigger was pulled in his psyche. A defensive trigger cocked and ready to fire away for survival purposes. A clever corner of his mind accessed to protect himself from becoming detected for his true intention. Annie Chapman laughed with relief, deciding a killer would not possess wealth and wit accompanied by purely irrational violence. A girl had to be careful nowadays. She took him at his word then laughed again, squeezing his arm a bit more tightly. It was the last time she would laugh.

In gentlemanly style he allowed her the lead into the hall access to 29 Hanbury.

“Are you staying here?” Another question, she wished he would say yes.

“God, no. I’ve a flat let to me on Bakers Row nearer the hospital.”

“Then why the stroll so far? There are ladies workin’ those streets.” Seemingly suspicious all of a sudden, her companion had a quick retort to ease her mind.

“Well, too close to the hospital, someone coming on or off shift might recognize me out at this hour in the company of a lady.” Ethan came prepared with an answer for every question. He was fucking brilliant, he thought, clever as hell.

Stepping out the rear door of the hallway into a fenced back yard, Ethan closed the door behind them. The two of them moved to the left, nearer the fence dividing them from 27 Hanbury Street. Ethan surveyed the yard. As expected, no bystanders within view. As he walked and scanned the perimeter he wound up standing in front of Annie, her back to the lodging through which they’d just passed. They stood for a moment not speaking. Annie placed her hands on his chest and moved in closer as Ethan froze, as nervous as if he were on a first date. This was the unknown factor he was trying to shake, the uncertainty of whether or not he was able to do what he must do. He had to quickly choose which of the different emotions he experienced over the past week he needed to do the job.

“The job.”

“Beg ya pardon?” Annie said, appearing confused.

Ethan zoned. He dropped the bag where he stood and lunged at the throat of his much shorter victim with both hands. She managed to get out a weak audible “no” before he cut off her air. With his leverage, he pushed her backwards to the ground as he continued to squeeze with all his strength, restricting the access of blood and oxygen to her brain. He needed her to pass out. Either Annie Chapman was stronger than she appeared or Ethan LaPierre was a weakling or doing it all wrong, but Annie was fighting back, kicking, trying hard to beat him off but his arms were too long, her legs flailing, her hands trying to pry his loose. Losing this battle, he had no other option but to win the war. Freeing his left hand, Ethan reached into his medical bag. The knife, deliberately placed atop the rags and the satchel bag was easily removed. Metamorphosis occurred as he came into his own painstaking self-awareness.

Remembering every detail of this slaughter, Ethan made no mistake in the cuts. The first was reportedly to be along her throat. He repositioned his right hand, using the butt of it to drive her lower jaw upward, forcing her to expose her neck fully to his blade. He went for the deep cut first, slicing across her throat from left to right. The sharpness of this eight-inch-long surgical steel blade was mesmerizing. It slid easily and deeply through the skin, muscle and tendons of the left side of her neck, causing an explosive rush of adrenaline drenched blood to spray, painting the fence to her left, nearly fourteen inches from the cold ground Annie laid upon.

His first cut continued, sawing as he went, the butcher taking an order for a slice of filet from a fresh side of beef. Ethan tried not to, he truly tried, but he could not stop looking into Annie’s eyes as he completed the almost full severing of her head with one cut. Any fight she had remaining left with her life. She may not have died right away. Shock may have set in prior to the last few beats of her heart, the sound of one life marching off into the past. To repeat the patterns, he’d duplicate details in the reports from Dr. George Bagster Phillips who documented every wound to precise measurements. Arriving around 6:30 a.m., he conducted a thorough examination on site before Annie was taken to the mortuary. Based on his knowledge of its facts, he’d have to make two additional incisions, both entries on the left side of her neck. With precision he plunged the blade in facing her spine then pushed it in a carving motion, pulling white tendons and red muscle up with every swipe of the blade as it hit bone, the vertebra protecting her spinal cord. Blood sprayed then oozed from the wounds. Ethan had to replicate the last incision a half inch lower just as deep, up to the spine again, according to the job description.

Annie was finished but Ethan had more to do and now he was racing the clock. He removed his blood-splattered hand from her blood-drenched chin, as well as the ornate white, red lined handkerchief that she had tied securely around her neck. Her tongue had been pinched between her teeth and appeared swollen. Ethan hopped to the left side of her body next to the fence and pulled the leather satchel and rags out quickly, stuffing half of the rags inside the bottom of it then placing it next to the bag past her feet. Lifting up her two petticoats to expose the lower half of her body, he had a much better angle for opening up her stomach, puncturing and slicing fatty tissue, gaining access to other internal organs simultaneously.

There was a specific incident in Ethan’s childhood where, in one primary school science class, he was expected to dissect a living frog, which he promptly refused to do to the poor, defenseless creature. His actions or lack thereof found him going to the Principal’s office for some discipline, disobeying an order, in so many words. He stood his ground and elected to receive punishment in a conscientious objection to killing the frog. Ethan couldn’t reject this dissection. Principals of the time would not allow it but for Ethan, it was a matter of principle. The Immutable laws of the Universe would have none of it. He was bound by history, by duty to follow through with this far greater desecration. Maybe his science teacher would pass him now.

Again, he plunged the blade into the far right side of her abdomen then began slicing a half circle down and past her vaginal region then fully around to his side of her hips, following every detail learned in an anatomy class he had been privy to attend at Oxford Medical College. Based upon Ethan’s autopsy practice on cadavers, he began peeling back the skin, fatty tissue and muscle from her midsection like a page in a large book, slicing through any superficial connections that he missed on the first cut and then resting it on her thorax region. From the case research, photos, reports and cadaver training, he carefully severed the intestines from the mesenteric attachments. Laying the knife at the opening edge of the incision, with his two free hands, he lifted the intestines from her body, placing the mass up on the right hand side of her chest. In doing so he lost his balance, slipping in the blood then falling back toward the fence. Quickly reaching out with his right hand to support himself against it, his hand landed where the blood from Annie’s neck had sprayed and slid off the spot, causing Ethan’s full weight and measure of a man to strike fully against the fence. Repositioning himself to the left side of his victim, determined to finish what he started, with a surgical precision and acute memory of the actions recorded, he cut out her uterus, cleanly removing it along with all the connecting appendages, slicing away the upper portion of her vagina and posterior two-thirds of her bladder. He took these parts of Annie and placed them in the leather satchel.

Then he grabbed the second pile of rags with the exception of two of them and stuffed them on top of the uterus and other internal organs before shoving it all into his medical bag along with the weapon. Ethan took the other two rags, using them to wipe off his hands, sleeves and shoes as completely as possible then threw those into the bag before closing it. He repositioned Annie’s legs exactly as she was found by resident John Davis, scheduled to occur in less than fifteen minutes. He wanted to wipe his brow of sweat but did not dare, not knowing if he had wiped his hands clean enough in this dark foreboding yard that he wouldn’t stain his face. If he were apprehended, he’d have to talk up a blue streak to explain away the red streak across his forehead. The cold air should evaporate the perspiration within minutes anyway, he thought. Ethan gently kissed Annie on the forehead, turning her head to the right, as reported, speaking to her one last time.

“It’s a far, far better place you go to, Miss Annie Chapman.” Ethan whispered a few kind words into her dead ears. Arising from her corpse, he calmly crossed to the back door then stepped through the hall, exiting out the front door onto Hanbury Street. The slightest hint of daylight rising with its gray hue bathing the horizon, as Ethan checked his pocket watch, he discovered he was right on time. 5:43 a.m.