Chapter 9

NEVER ENDING

Jonas Troy looked down into the well. Darkness looked back up at him.

A hand on his shoulder made him start.

“It’s all right, Troy,” said the detective inspector. “It’s done. That’s him gone.”

Troy said, “He’s not gone.”

“As good as gone.”

“The poison he spreads has infected the world. Because of that, he can always call out to it. He can summon it and make it work for him. Just like he did with the fellow who killed Mary.”

The detective inspector tutted. “I don’t know what to do about that.”

“You should lock him away.”

“He’s a man of high regard.”

“He is a murderer,” said Jonas.

The detective furrowed his brow.

Troy said, “Many men of high regard have been used by that monster to kill us, inspector. To rip us and . . . and gouge out. . .”

He trailed off. He stared down into the abyss. He heard voices. The voices of the dead. The voices of the victims. The voices of the seers.

Those who went before. Those murdered at his command.

They hailed him. Hymns wafted from the deep. Hymns to Jonas. They called him “saint” and “angel”.

But the praise was empty. It meant nothing. Words and songs. He knew, ultimately, he would fail. All mortals fail.

We die, he thought. But evil never does. It goes on and on, never ending.

“He’ll be back one day,” he said.

“Get it out of your mind for now,” said the detective inspector. “You’re hurt, and you need to see a doctor.”

“What about the knife-man?”

“Well deal with him.”

“Who, the police?”

The detective inspector nodded.

“What will you do?” asked Jonas.

The water sucked him down and he funneled through the arteries of London, plunging deeper, deeper into the city’s guts.

The chains bit into his flesh. The wounds on his hands and feet and side pulsed. His rage bubbled.

Bastards . . . bastards . . .

The voice of a child said, “Locked again in the womb of the earth, locked again until blood gives you birth . . . ” and the child’s voice laughed.

“Fucking bastard,” said the one they’d called Jack. “Let me loose.”

“You are bound, my Evening Star,” said the child’s voice.

He was hauled through the dark water. It plugged his throat. It filled his lungs. It swelled his stomach.

“I am the lord who gapes,” he screamed, “let me go.”

“You can’t make me, you can’t make me . . . ” sang the child’s voice.

“I am the lantern of the tomb . . . ”

“You can’t make me, you can’t make me . . . ”

“I am the moth eating at the law . . . ”

“You can’t make me, you can’t make me . . . ”

“I am your—”

The water whirled. He wheeled, his voice stolen from him. The swirling pool drilled him downwards into the earth, driving him into the chalk and the lime, burying him. He tried to scream, but his voice was gone. Instead, the rage blossomed inside his head, his mind screaming, I AM YOUR OFFSPRING . . .