Chapter 8

THE WELL

From hell, it said, and it was signed, Jack. It was a letter published in a local newspaper. The letter that gave him his name. Like he told Mary before having her killed, he thought it was a good name.

But hell. What did they know? Their squalor. Their suffering. Their poverty. It was nothing—nothing to the real hell.

He knew the real hell.

And he wasn’t going back there.

So he ran, pelting along the dirty streets.

They followed him.

Bastards.

Never let him be. Always on his tail. Curbing his freedoms.

They reined him in, just like they’d been made to do.

He fumed as he ran through the fog. It swirled around him. It was damp on his skin. It was cold. It reeked of the river.

Shitty old river, she is. Just like the Euphrates.

He thought about the man he’d drowned. The man whose case he now carried. A brown briefcase brimming with blades—blood-covered blades. Knives to cut and knives to gut. Knives to hack and knives to scalp. Knives to saw and knives to slash.

He wouldn’t get to use them all. He cursed. He raged. His pursuers were gaining on him. He could hear their feet tramping through the streets. He could hear them call his name, his real name. An unspeakable name. A name so powerful it would burn off a man’s skin. A name known only to them.

To them and to Him.

He who made them.

He who made Jack.

Shapes moved around him in the fog. Men grunted and women cried. Curses flew. Police whistles pierced the night.

He kept running. They kept coming.

He looked over his shoulder.

Their torches flickered in the fog. The buildings cast shadows.

He quickened his pace. His chest ached. Someone had put a knife in there, driven it deep to where his heart was—or where it should’ve been.

He had no heart.

Heartless. Soulless. Shameless. No guilt. No conscience. No regret.

Only desire.

They’d smashed their way in just after he’d devoured what had been ripped out of Mary Kelly. The one who had done the ripping stood covered in blood while Jack ate. And it was then that they stormed the lodging house. There were twelve of them, led by Jonas Troy.

Troy, the seer of seers.

The bastard of bastards.

God’s own cunt.

One of Troy’s horde had stabbed Jack. They’d manhandled him, trying to fight him to the floor, Troy ready with his iron. But Jack kicked off. He got loose. He raised hell. He slashed and hacked and flailed, red mist falling, white rage burning.

He barged his way out of the door, out into the street—and started running.

He had no idea what had happened to the one whose mind he poisoned. The one who’d done the ripping. It didn’t matter now.

Get away, that was all that mattered.

Find shelter. Get your strength back. Find a mind to warp. A mind willing to rip for him. A mind willing to murder. Then find a fifth—Jonas Troy or that detective inspector.

He was also one of them.

Rip them open. Cut it out. Devour it.

Jack turned down an alley. Pitch black and stinking of piss. Shit-colored water running in the gutters. Brick buildings covered in mould and damp. The brick gone black with smoke and age. Along the other side of the road ran slum properties. Doss houses for human debris. Inside the buildings, babies cried and women screamed.

He ran down a side street and came into a yard.

Trapped.

He froze.

A well stood in the middle of the yard.

He turned to leave the way he’d come, but shadows flickered in the narrow passageway, and raised voices told him they were here.

The fires of their torches flared as they spilled into the yard.

He backed up.

Twelve of them. They circled him.

“Go quietly,” said Troy.

“I’ve never gone quietly,” he said.

They mobbed him. He struggled. He hated this. He feared it. The dread was mounting. They had him. “Nooooooooooo . . . ” he screamed.

Why can’t I be free?

They forced him to the ground and spread-eagled him.

Troy loomed over him, brandishing the iron. He held it up to heaven and shouted a prayer. Lightning sliced the night. It struck the iron. Troy lit up. The iron became red hot. The fire of God. The flames of hell. Jack writhed with dread.

“Hold him still,” said Troy.

He fought against them.

Troy brought the iron down and pressed it to Jacks left palm.

Blinding white pain seared through him. He arched his back and screamed. He cursed his maker and cursed him again when Troy burned his right palm.

When he was done, Troy ordered Jack bound.

His skin was melting from his hands and his feet, and from the gash in his side, beneath his ribs, seeped a black, tarry fluid.

They tied him with chains and hoisted him to his feet.

Troy said, “You are bound by the five wounds of Christ. Only blood can unbind you. And five deaths will free you.”

“Fucker,” said Jack, drooling and sick with pain.

Again. A-fucking-gain.

How many times had he suffered this?

How many times?

The wounds of Christ. The casting down.

“Throw him in the well,” said Troy.

They lifted him and took him to the well.

“I will butcher your children’s children,” he shrieked as they dropped him into the pit.