Chapter 1

THE FIFTH

WHITECHAPEL, LONDON–12:07 AM, MARCH 1, 2011

IT WAS GOING to be bloody, she knew that. The knife-man would cut her throat and disembowel her—he’d have to, if he wanted what was inside.

He loomed over her. His green eyes glittered through the holes in the terrifying, asylum-style hood he wore, and his breathing hissed.

In a whisper he said, “You scared of me?”

She said nothing, just stared at the blade gripped tightly in the killer’s hand.

Again he said, “You scared of me like your sister was?”

She struggled but couldn’t get loose. They’d tied her on rusty bed frame. The room was tiny. It was filled with shadows. It smelled old, very old—because it was. She knew that. More than a hundred years old and lost in time.

This room had also seen murder. It had tasted blood in the past. For decades it lay hidden, buried in time. But now it was about to become a slaughterhouse again.

Death would come full circle.

The woman ached all over. She felt doomed. Steeling herself, she prepared to die. It was difficult. Death wasn’t so terrifying, but dying was.

“Do it, you bastard,” she told him. “If you’re going to do it, do it now.”

She tried to stop her voice from quivering. Her guts churned with dread.

But she wouldn’t show it. Not to him. Not to the other two figures in the room, both lurking in the shadows, waiting for her to die.

The knife-man came closer and kneeled next to her and pressed the knife to her throat.

He said, “You’ll show me you’re scared.”

She cried out, and he laughed.

“See?” he said. “See? I was right.”

She spat in his face. He recoiled. The blade went from her throat. She struggled again, and the rope around her wrists and ankles cut into her skin.

She screamed, more in frustration than fear.

The knife-man wheeled to face her again, and fury burned in his eyes.

“Cow,” he said. “You cow—you show me some respect. You show me awe.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Bitch.”

He raised the knife, ready to plunge it into her.

She screamed for help. But help wouldn’t come. Anyone who could save her was either dead or disappeared. She’d been abandoned to the fate of her ancestors.

The blade arced down. It sliced through the darkness heading straight for her throat.

She braced herself.

A voice boomed:

“Stop it there!”

The knife-man froze. The blade stopped two inches from her jugular vein.

“Stop it there,” said the voice again, quieter this time. It sent a chill through her. The atmosphere grew colder. The shadows thickened.

The knife-man stumbled away. “I was . . . was going to open her up for you,” he said.

The shadows in the room moved, and out of them stepped the knife-man’s master. The one who’d controlled him. The one who’d been in his head all these years. The one who had called the knife-man to prepare the way for his return.

The master said, “We’ve got trespassers.”

“What?” said the knife-man.

“A seer and . . . something else. The seer—it’s this one’s child again.” He gestured at the woman, and she screamed. Her daughter was here. She yelled out the child’s name and urged her to run.

The master told the knife-man, “Go get them,” and the knife-man went to the door and opened it. Lying on the bed, her mind reeling, the woman thought she heard the sound of wind beating against sails. Or perhaps wings flapping, although they sounded too large for any bird. Maybe it was just her sanity dissolving, and all the noises of the earth were filling her head.

The master said, “You go too, eunuch.”

The eunuch shambled out of the shadows.

“You bastard,” the woman shouted at the neutered man.

He looked at her and whispered, “I’ll look after your girl when you’re gone, don’t you worry,” and he gave her a sneer, spit dribbling down his chin.

The woman stiffened with fear, and a scream locked in her throat.

The eunuch followed the knife-man out into the darkness.

The master loomed over the woman.

His chalk-white face was framed with long, black, greasy hair. His blue lips spread out in a smile, revealing rotting teeth, and his black eyes sparkled. A tuft of hair grew from his chin.

He looked dead.

He was dead.

But he’d never really been alive.

“Now, you be quiet,” he said, right in her face. “Or I’ll have them cut up your kid in front of you, just for show. You saved her the last time, but not again. This time she’ll die. But if you behave, I’ll have you killed first, so you won’t have to watch. You understand?”

She whimpered.

The master laughed. It was a chilling sound.

She thought of the hope she’d found in this horror—the man who’d already saved her and her daughter once. Where was he now? Had he died too? Had everyone she loved now died? Everyone apart from her child, who was also facing death.

She screamed in desperation.

The chalk-faced monster laughed at her, and his breath stank of sewers. She retched.

He said, “You be sick, whore. Puke all over yourself. Choke on it. Make it easier to cut you open and pull it out of you. You’re the fifth. Once you’re done, I’ll be free. Free of this place. Free of these streets. Then London’ll be mine. I’ll make it a slaughterhouse. Blood will color her gray concrete towers. Gore will garland her thoroughfares.”

A noise erupted outside the room.

The master’s eyes suddenly showed concern. He straightened. There was shrieking and that sound of wind on sails again.

The woman felt drowsy, but she tried to focus.

She said, “Death’s coming for you.”

The master scowled at her.

Then from outside, a voice shouted, “I’ve got her.”

Now the master smiled again, bearing his yellow teeth. “Now we have two seers to kill. Mother and child.”

The woman thrashed about, trying to get loose. But there was no hope. No hope for her or her daughter. Her body slackened, and she slumped into the bed frame. She started to cry. The master laughed at her. But through her tears and his hysterics, she could hear that sound again.

And she knew it wasn’t wind on sails.

It was wings. Vast wings that were powerful enough to carry something much larger than a bird. Something like a man. Or maybe an angel.