London- Sunday,Twentieth of September 1888 late evening. An electric haze pushes ahead of a storm and oppresses the grit and smog of industry. The residue of the day’s labours lingers in a thin grey slurry amid the humidity and calf of pedestrian Londoners out on their evening stroll. The cooler night air helped to disperse the phantom mist as one steps through the evening streets. Lithe misty fingers caress the bare feet and ankle of a black beauty as she loiters outside the front door of a shabby wood and brick apartment building. Across the way, a dark silhouette protrudes from a wooden door frame and ushers in a small group of huddled women; the poorhouse was collecting the last of the damned for the evening, before locking their doors and barring their windows against the new evils of the night.
Louve pull herself from her leaning post against an alleyway brick wall and pushed her thick curly hair from her shoulder. She let the rough brick scrape against her bare shoulder and drew the most cowardly amount of blood. Smarting falsely overy her abrasion she pull her burgundy shawl over her shoulder and play with one of the tassel on her way across the slick cobblestone and through the spiked wrought iron fence that surrounded the Red Dragon Pub. The garden was overgrown and the path becoming muddy as the heavens, brought in on a north Atlantic wind began to spill forth from the coal fueled clouds. Louve pulled her shawl over her hair.The dirty drops of rain shone red with the light of the gaslight torches posted along the walk.
She had been in London for two nights and had accommodation with her cousins and a troupe of acrobatic performers. Romani were beginning to take blame for the political and horrors that has begun to plague Whitechapel and the greater London. Ripping sexual murders and leaping demons that spit Bleu flame had begun to plague Britons outside of their Sunday morning declarations of impiety. She couldn’t deny a certain fascination with the idea of a human hunting other humans’ and wondered at the artistic exploits of the serial murder. Louve’s decision to come to England was made by her own will before her father asked after reading correspondence from his brother asking for an undisclosed family heirloom. She delivered the parcel and dare not peek, for risk of ruining a perfect mystery. Her father’s brother; Claudio, her aunts’ and cousins, would escape the unrest in the Kingdom and take refuge across the Atlantic with famille ancestral, Maicoh.
Louve had been to London ages ago. She held no love for the English, but their cities that seemed to churn and sprawl out from within their municipal navels always interested her. In childhood visits to London she had imagined that she might have been able to slip and turn her way through those streets until at last she came upon the center of the city, a Mobius twist of brick and iron that might have served as the back of Alice’s mirror to Wonderland in her favorite book. She’d untie that knot and unite civilization.
Earlier the day had been cool and as her family loaded their belongings onto their wagon and cart Louve could smell the change in atmosphere that accompanies the end of Summer. Autumn would be here in the morning and the less time she spent this far north in the autumn the better. Parisian fall held its own chill but, also its own charm. A few weeks from now Louve would be enjoying the warmth of the country as the chill of the season was much more tolerable tucked away in estate at L’Eau Morte.
Louve had thought to entertain herself at the Red Dragon and might catch a bite to eat if she felt a hunger. As she had an evening to kill before her voyage home and her Uncle and family left for their ship to America leaving her a furnished den if she so wanted an apartment for the night. The remaining acrobats left for east Wales the night Louve arrived. The thought of indulging herself with a hotel never crossed her mind. She was off any familial leash and would indulge herself until her dawn treadding departure.
Instinct and infrasound guided Louve as she pranced through the dark, slick streets. Large black umbrellas coupled lovers as they walked briskly towards their destinations and away from the looming storm. Thunder chuffed and quietly thrashed as dark clouds lit internally with violet and white hearts. The last heat of summer rolled through the city square. Louve felt some internal indecisiveness she hadn’t noticed earlier, patter itself away with the light touch of her feet to the wet concrete and cobblestone. Ozone filled her nostrils and prickled her arms and neck. She inhaled deeply and forgave herself any illusion of shame about her appetites.
Her prance broke into a dance as she allowed her senses to be overcome by the smell of London in the rain. She smirked at her quick thinking and tied her red shawl as a sash around her waist before losing it as she lost herself. A peal of thunder shook windows as lighting spread from somewhere and everywhere at once. The streets emptied of inhabitants. Beneath the smell of coal and summer came the sweet scent of grapes and mint wafting for a moment from behind a wooden fence. Louve allowed herself to slowly linger on the scent. She could imagine a woman's lips, wet with rain and sweat, biting into a full grape and rolling the seeds between her teeth. Not a woman, a man. The slight scent of moustache wax and the sickly sweet scent of aftershave and antiseptic infused the sweet aroma of the grape and caused a slight roll in her stomach.
A woman’s laugh slightly muffled by the rain although Louve could hear it just fine. On her laugh the fresh scent of mint. Louve felt a flush of warmth in her pelvis. She had a change of clothes with her luggage at her cousin’s apartment, she wasn’t concerned with soiling or otherwise ruining her cloths. A swell of heat rose up her neck and into her jaw, cramping there for a moment before reddining her cheeks and forehead. Her dark eyes became pools of blackwater in the wet orange gaslight. She had her father’s eyes and they burned with a dark fire as his did. Louve inhaled deeply and allowed her jaw to relax into her chest and her chest into her stomach and her stomach into her pelvis and legs. She drew herself up and quickly turned, gripping the gate pulling the wet rope handle the rotting wood squeaked and creaked just as a mint flavored cry was muffled by leather gloves. The wind picked up and lifted the scent of wet iron to Louve’s tongue. Blood. She had guessed correctly, the Ripper, it must be. She pulled back the gate violently and allowed her eyes to focus past the heavy rain. The filthy rain blurred her vision and she could only barely make out the grey silhouette that slunk from the shadows and through an adjacent wooden gate and into an alley.
Louve moved quickly to the mint and iron lying face down in a puddle of rain and bright red blood. The scent of blood and sweat and metallic taste of adrenaline filled her sinus. For a moment Louve felt the intoxication of murder and still found irony in her not being responsible for. Another creaking gate and an inquiring shadow leans towards the courtyard from the safety of the shadows. Must have heard the struggle and the woman’s yipe. Louve vaults towards her entrance and doubled back around the courtyard in the direction of her mystery hunter. Louve headed south-west from Berner Street towards the City of London.
The disgusting rain was making the scent of the grapes and adrenaline hard to follow. Louve had begin to feel the soot and sediment on her skin and in her hair. She began to silently curse her indifference towards renting a hotel. Forgetting herself in her tortured imaginings about a hot bath, Louve took a moment to press herself into a stone archway to collect her bearings. Three miles south and across the river, Big Ben chimed the half hour. Louve closed her eyes and let the tinny resonance reverberate in her. She inhaled deeply and let go of all impulse to run, catch and … there! Grapes. Louve thought of a hilarious joke about Dionysus and threw herself into a sprint towards he faint scent.
The rain fell in great sheets. Louve ran and barely suppressed a laugh as running in the rain had always been a joy for her, but she cared more for the filthy rainwater that she might swallow. Still her eyes flashed with the wild joy that knows both hatred and loves as one emotion. The streets flew by her as she closed in on the source of the scent. George Street. Jewry Street. Bank, Church and King. Louve slowly made her way past St James and into Mitre Square. There to the south west. Her hunter had corralled another of his prey. Lovue could not hide herself any longer. The scent of grapes and blood overwhelmed her. Her ears beat with the rhythm of a heavy drum and her vision began to blur and sting as her eyes adjusted to the low light of infra red. She could see much more clearly into the depth of the rain. Her mystery gentleman was no longer a shade but a robust gentleman with a fine jaw, thick curly black hair and a well groomed moustache. He was smiling at what appeared, to Louve, to be a whore. She felt a sting of anger to think of such a worthy human lowering himself to smile at such a woman, But, she realized he was not smiling, but rather snarling. Her love. Her Adamant.
She opened her stride and allowed her limbs to shake off their human weakness. Her chest heaved and flushed bright red. The Ripper lunged at his prey and grabbed her mouth with a gloved hand before punching her in the stomach. Louve jutted her chin forward and sighed loudly. The woman doubled over and dropped to the ground. Louve could smell her urine. The Ripper caught the shape of Louve moving towards him in the pouring rain. He could hear her whimper as he turned he could see her more clearly. Steam rose off her thigh as her wet legs slipped from her clothing. Her delicate hands stretched out towards him with hungry arms. With a wet sigh the furrow of concentration fell from her brow as her jaw unhinged and thick black hair sprouted from her chest and neck.
The Ripper shrieked and fell backwards over his intended prey. He scrambled like a bug across the courtyard his lips moving of their own accord and the sound he made was so foreign he wondered if he was even hearing it. His blade scraped the concrete. Louve stopped and watched him with a mixture of confusion and amusement. She wouldn’t think him a coward for this. She knew that they would laugh about this later. Of course she would apologise. Maybe. She felt inspired and knew that she must make a display of affection. Louve turned her shoulder forward and felt her hip pop, snap, crunch into place. A searing flush of blood and spinal fluid filled her brain with sensation. She could smell fear and urine and blood and grapes. Louve reached down and delicately lifted the woman by the neck.
The woman squirmed and thrashed with a strength that she might not have possessed against a human assailant. Louve quickly slashed her throat from left to right and gave her a moment to struggle and bleed before flicking off a cheek here and a nose there in an attempt to influence her lover. The wildfire eyes of the werewolf searched the Ripper for any impression. To her disappointment she found only the gaping fear of a terrorized child. Louve felt a burning shame and thought of the phantom jib and mockery she would endure if any of her sisters were to ever hear of this.
Louve burned with rage and humiliation. She snarled at the Ripper. Her mouth washed with adrenaline and saliva. Six inch claws drew deeply across the abdomen of the woman. Her intestines began to fall as Louve advanced quickly on the Ripper and thrust the woman towards him as an older sibling might builly a younger one with a rag doll. Louve snarled into the face that she had once wanted to kiss between all night conversations. She began to draw out the woman’s intestines and drape them over her shoulder. The Ripper shuddered in horror and began to whine loudly in a maddening way that made Louve feel both pity and disgust for him. He was crying now. Sniveling and moments from begging for his life. As if looking past the clouds of hate that stormed in her mind, the Ripper blubbered for a moment before losing himself and wailing aloud; “Mother!”
She had had enough. She reached inside the woman and with deft precision clipped away with her claws and seized thick layers of flesh and pulled. A wet snap and a geyser of thick blood filled the Ripper’s senses a moment before the beast was pushing something into his mouth. He gagged and cried and screamed a long muffled cry against the night and the storm and the horrors he wrought for himself. Collapsed into a slobbering heap. Gagging on flesh and apologizing to phantoms. Louve plucked a kidney from the rag doll and tossed the corpse onto the Ripper. The kidney grunched in her terrible teeth as she allowed herself one last disappointed look before turning towards the night.
Suddenly from behind her the Ripper made a gasping sound that built into a scream. Loud gasping screams turned into flat panels of sonic resistance. It was as if he meant to repel her with only his voice. She could hear the shaky courage of a fool too late to his own salvation. As she turned to lift his head, a shrill whistle split the night and the clang and clamor of police brambled their way. The Ripper scrambled north. Louve thought to follow and end him but knew she had already done herself too much trouble for the night. She slipped away into the night allowing the storm to envelope her as she deftly darted through streets and alleys until she was safely back in the dry den her family had left her.
Louve slept beside the fire and after a few hours rose, dressed and was on her way to the docks via the carriage she had arranged the afternoon before. Before the pink light of dawn has reddened and began its’ shift to orange, the boat was already steaming its way past the Strait of Dover and towards St. Nazarene. From there the carriage home and dinner with her father. After formalities she would excuse herself to the country and maybe even write her cousin in Rome about visiting later in the season. Maybe next season. It mattered not. Through the voyage Louve stayed below deck, in her room, in bed and sulked at the sting lust had left when masquerading as love.
Fin. 2019
