A Beast Well Tamed (The House of Jack the Ripper Book 5) Read online

  I wait, but she does not reply. She merely continues to stare at me. Of course she does. Did I not remind myself, a moment ago, that there is no part of Catherine in this creature? I must fix that certainty in my thoughts.

  “I shall fix you,” I say after a moment. “Whatever you are, you are not welcome in my Catherine's body. Do you hear me? I shall cast you out, and she shall return.”

  She lets out a slow, rattling groan. A moment later she drops the skull against the floor and starts crawling this way. She moves a little faster than before, but still not so fast that I cannot make my way around the side of the slab and over to the door in the basement's far corner. Pulling the door open, I step into the storage room that I use for preserving specimens. My heart is pounding as I step back into the darkness, and as I keep my eyes fixed on the door I can already hear Catherine shuffling this way across the stone floor. So far, the plan is working perfectly.

  As soon as she appears, she lets out an angry groan and starts making her way toward me. No doubt she anticipates another juicy meal. I wait for a moment, before tossing the forearm toward her and then stepping around to her other side. As I had hoped, she is distracted by the arm, so I do not even need to use the pokers as I hurry back out of the storage room and slam the door shut. With trembling hands, I slide the bolt across, and then I flinch as I hear Catherine bumping against the other side of the door. She's still hissing and moaning, but at least for now she will be unable to get to me.

  I must move quickly, however. Soon Delilah will wake, and by then she must be down here and in place.

  “I am sorry, my darling,” I whisper, as I hear the creature scratching furiously on the other side of the door. “Soon you will be back with me. This time I know what I must do. This time I shall succeed.”

  But it is not her. Not yet. If I am ever to get Catherine back, I must do one of the things that I always swore I would never do. I must kill a child.

  ***

  Carefully placing Delilah's unconscious body on the slab, I take a moment to adjust her limbs before taking a pair of scissors and starting to cut through her dress. As a gentleman, I feel very sorry that I must do such a thing, but I cannot exactly operate on her while she is fully-clothed. Once I have stripped her down, I shall have to bind her arms and legs so that she has no chance of escape, and I must gag her as well so that she does not scream. First, though, I need to -

  “Do not do this, Charles.”

  I freeze as soon as I hear those words.

  That was Catherine's voice, coming from the cold air behind me.

  No.

  No, it cannot have been Catherine.

  I must keep my mind together and refrain from indulging in this weakness. Reaching down, I start tearing her clothes aside.

  “I know what you're planning,” she says suddenly, her voice filled with anguish. My hands freeze. “Charles, if you do this, I shall no longer know you as my husband. You are not a brute, nor are you a monster. Charles, please, let the woman go and do not harm her unborn child.”

  “I have no choice,” I whisper, as tears start running down my cheeks.

  “It is not me behind that door,” she continues, even as the scratching sound continues. “Do not commit this atrocity. Not in my name.”

  “I must have you back.”

  “Not at any cost. Not at this cost. Charles -”

  Suddenly I turn and look over my shoulder, and her voice stops. All I see is the dark basement, but the air is getting colder by the second and I am quite certain that I sensed Catherine nearby. At the same time, there is a taste of fruit in my mouth. I try to tell myself that I was imagining the voice, but somehow I cannot let go of the hope that she is here with me.

  “Please,” I whisper, as I feel a sharp, pulsing pain in one side of my head, “just leave me alone.”

  I turn back to Delilah and prepare to proceed, but then the pain bursts and I let out a cry as I clutch my temple. Stepping back, I feel for a moment as if this agony is going to take over my entire body, and I start groaning as I stumble against one of the stone pillars. I instinctively try to squeeze my eyes shut, but of course this is impossible now that I no longer possess eyelids. Instead I have no option but to reach up and press my palms against the exposed eyeballs, although I stop this when I realize that I might inadvertently damage my ability to see.

  “I just need to work!” I gasp. “Let me work!”

  Still the pain persists, building and building until I'm doubled over in agony. Only now does the sensation at last begin to fade, but it takes several more seconds before I am able to stand up straight. My body is trembling, and I'm terrified that the pain might return at any moment. This is no time to rest, however, so I turn and start shuffling back toward the slab, only to see to my absolute horror that Delilah Culpepper has disappeared.

  “No,” I whisper, stumbling closer and reaching out, running my hands across the bare surface to check that this is not some illusion caused by my damaged eyes. How can this be happening? “What -”

  Suddenly I hear something behind me, and I turn just in time to see Delilah swinging a chair at my face. She lets out a furious scream. The chair hits me hard, and I feel my left cheekbone shatter as I fall back and slump to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Maddie

  Today

  “I knew you did this before,” I mutter, as I finish wrapping some cloth around Alex's wrists, “but I didn't know you still did it.”

  “It's nothing bad,” she replies, sounding a little uncertain. “I just do it now and again, to relieve a little pressure. It's not like I'm trying to slit my wrists or anything. I'm not totally crazy.”

  Not really knowing what to say, I tuck a section of cloth into a fold, and then I double-check that the make-do bandage is secure. This isn't the first time that I've had to help her out like this, and she almost always does it just when I've started to think it won't happen again. If I hadn't been so distracted lately, maybe I wouldn't seen it coming.

  “Cutting just makes me feel better,” she says. “A little release, a little pain, and then it's over. Sometimes Nick and I do it together.”

  “He encourages you?” I ask, shocked by the idea.

  “He understands. I like having someone around who understands.” She pauses for a moment. “I could even show you how to do it,” she adds. “We could do it together and I could show you the safe way. You might find that it helps.”

  I shake my head.

  “How do you know if you don't try?” She pauses, before reaching over and picking up the piece of broken glass that she was using to lacerate her skin. “It's safe and it's therapeutic. Think of all the blood that's in each of us. Doesn't it make sense that sometimes it'd be good to, like, get some of it out? Just some of it? I mean, once you do that, your body makes more, doesn't it? So you're just letting out some old blood and prompting your body to make some fresh new blood in return. How is that not healthy?”

  “I don't think you should be doing this,” I tell her, “and I definitely don't think Nick or anyone else should be encouraging you. We should get out of this house. Don't you know somewhere else where we could keep our heads down for a while?”

  “The streets are still crawling with cops,” she replies. “While they're looking for that killer, there's nowhere safe to be. Except here.”

  “In the house of Jack the Ripper?” I ask. “That's your idea of a safe place right now?”

  “It's not like he's still here,” she points out with a faint smile. “Not unless you believe in ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. Which, if I know you right, you don't believe in. Not my smart, rational little Maddie. You're always more focused on practical things.”

  She reaches out and taps the side of my head, like I'm some kind of kid, and I pull away.

  “You've changed,” she adds, with a touch of sadness in her voice. “You grew up a little while we were apart.”

  I pause for a moment,
trying to figure out why I'm feeling so restless.

  “You don't think it's connected, do you?” I ask finally.

  “What's connected?”

  “Doesn't it seem a little crazy to you?” I continue. “We've maybe stumbled into the house of the real Jack the Ripper, at the exact same time that suddenly there's a copycat out there on the streets. I know coincidences happen, but that's a huge one. That's one in a billion.”

  “So what are you saying?” she replies. “Do you think that we somehow disturbed the ghost of Jack, and now he's come back from the grave so he can terrify London?”

  “Of course not, but it still doesn't quite all add up. And this house...”

  For a moment, I consider telling her about all the strange things that have happened here. About everything, even the things that I think I've managed to explain to myself. Like the way I got stitched up on my first night here, and the sound of the bell, and the sensation of being watched by something on the bed, and the brief sight of Charles Grazier reflected in a glass frame. I know those things have rational explanations – they have to have rational explanations – but at the same time I've begun to feel just a little freaked out by the atmosphere here. Maybe Jerry was right when he said he saw doubt in my eyes.

  And then there was the guy I saw down by the river, the guy who seemed like he was following me even when I was sitting in Matt Wallace's police car.

  “What are you thinking?” Alex asks after a moment.

  I turn to her, and I quickly realize that there's no way she'll ever understand. Or, if by some miracle she did understand, she'd turn it into some huge drama.

  “We have to keep this all to ourselves for now,” she continues. “You realize that, right? Maddie, the rest of the world is out to get us. They want to trample us down and leave us in the mud, but we've managed to find something that's gonna set the goddamn world on fire. Do you think some asshole journalist wouldn't love to steal all the credit and get a big exclusive? Or some cop would leak the news and we'd be shuffled to the sidelines? This story is ours, and it's gonna stay ours.”

  “Of course.”

  “You understand?”

  I nod.

  “This is our chance to get off the streets,” she adds, “and it might be our last chance. I've been feeling that for a while now, Maddie. I know I always say we'll find a way to get back on our feet, but lately I've been seriously doubting that. And now, just when I thought things might end really badly, we've got this amazing opportunity. Nick reckons that if we uploaded a video to YouTube, we could make zillions of dollars from the ads alone. And we could do a whole series!”

  She pauses, before reaching out with her bandaged wrists and clasping my hands tight.

  “Let's stay in control of this situation, Maddie,” she says with a faint, sad smile, “so it doesn't become a runaway train that leaves us behind. Jack the Ripper's dead, but that doesn't mean he can't be our best friend right now. He's gonna make us rich.”

  ***

  Glancing over my shoulder for the twentieth time since I left the house, I look back along the gloomy street and check once again that I'm not being followed. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but there's a part of me that worries Alex and Nick might be keeping an eye on me, that they might think I'm going to ruin everything. There's no sign of them, however, so I quickly turn and hurry on, making my way around the corner and toward the phone booth ahead.

  This might be a huge mistake, but as I get into the phone booth and take some coins from my pocket, I feel as if I really need to get another opinion about the house. The whole situation feels completely insane, and I'm not convinced that Alex and Nick are making the right choices. They're treating this like a bonanza, like some kind of goldmine that can set our lives straight forever, whereas I'm starting to wonder whether what we've discovered could help the police catch the modern day killer. Deep down, I know I could never forgive myself if we kept our discovery hidden and another victim ended up dead. I have to at least try to do the right thing, even if Alex and Nick end up hating me. And maybe there's a tiny part of me that thinks this is a way to make up for stealing from the house.

  After taking the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket, I slip some coins into the phone and dial the number. A moment later, the call goes straight through to a recording.

  “You've reached the voicemail for this number,” an automated voice says calmly. “Please leave a message after the beep. If you want to re-record your message at any time, press hash.”

  Then there's a beep. I glance over my shoulder one more time, to make sure that I haven't been followed.

  “Hey Matt,” I say finally, feeling a tightening sensation of fear in my chest. “It's Maddie, from the other night. Something's happened that I really think you need to see. It's about Jack the Ripper.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Doctor Charles Grazier

  Tuesday October 2nd, 1888

  The chair clatters down against the stone floor as I try to sit up. A sharp, splitting pain fills one side of my face, and my eyes are burning with dust and scratches. Letting out a faint groan, I touch my left cheek and feel blood running from the wound, and then I look up and just about manage to make out the sight of Delilah Culpepper standing above me.

  “Kill me,” I whisper.

  I wait, but she says nothing. She merely stares at me in shock, as if she cannot believe what she is seeing. She's clearly out of breath, and there's a cut on her lip. After a moment, however, I see that she is holding one of my surgical knives in her right hand.

  “Kill me!” I hiss, desperately hoping that she'll put me out of my misery. “If you have any human compassion in your heart whatsoever, you will kill me right now! Please! Kill me so that I can go to her!”

  “What is this place?” she asks. “What have you been doing down here? What is scratching so furiously behind that door?”

  “Do not look behind that door,” I reply, trying to sit up, only for Delilah to flash the knife toward me. I instinctively pull back, but then I realize that perhaps I should rush at her and force her to drive the blade into my chest. “I have tried,” I continue. “I have done everything, but it was not enough. I cannot stop, I cannot bring myself to give up, so I need someone to do it for me. Please, end my life. I thought I could save her, but I cannot. Now I must go to her instead. Please save me from trying again and again to bring her back into that body. I won't stop, I know I won't, not unless somebody takes action. Use that knife! Kill me!”

  “What are you talking about?” she stammers. “What have you done to your eyes? What madness have you created in this place? Does Jack know?”

  “That wretched brute knows everything!” I hiss. “He is a beast, and a beast well tamed is still a beast. Now kill me while you still have a chance!”

  She stares at me, as if she is considering doing what I have ordered, but then slowly she shakes her head.

  “I must call for the police,” she says finally. “They will know what to do here. They will understand what -”

  “I can not let you do that!” I shout. “I am about to lunge at you. When I do, I shall attempt to wrestle that blade from your hand. I cannot stop myself, I cannot surrender, so you must kill me. Do you understand? When I try to fight you, you must end my life.”

  Again, she shakes her head.

  “If you do not,” I continue, looking at her belly, “I shall commit the most awful crime against you. I shall do something that will change me forever, that will make me not myself. For the sake of your unborn child, do not let me do that. You must stop me, and you must stop me in the most brutal manner possible.” Reaching up, I touch my chest just above the heart. “Here,” I add, and now my voice is trembling with fear. “Right here. Drive the blade of that knife between my ribs and into my heart.”

  “I cannot...”

  “You must, for now I am coming at you. Please, I beg you... Stop me.”

  “Doctor Grazier,” she replies, “why are you saying
these things?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “No, please...”

  “I am coming for you now!” I say firmly. “I cannot help myself! You must stop me!”

  “Doctor Grazier -”

  Letting out a sudden cry of anger, I stumble to my feet and lunge at her. She raises the knife and I wait to fall upon its blade, yet her hand gives way and I instead fall heavily against the woman's chest. Still I expect her to find some way to force the knife into me, but she simply crumples like a weakling and whimpers with pain as she, and I, and the dropped knife all fall to the ground together. There is a moment of sheer, blind panic, during which I lose all sense of exactly where the blade might be, and I wait to feel its tip slice into my heart. And then, with a sense of utter horror, I realize that she is sobbing and shaking, and that the fight has entirely left her body. In that moment, a heavy sense of doom fills my chest as I realize that she has lost her chance to hold me back, and that now I shall not be able to stop myself.

  “I told you to kill me!” I gasp, as I kick the knife away and grab Delilah by the neck. “It was easy. You stupid fool, you should have done it by now.”

  She kicks and screams, but in truth she is far too weak to fight back properly. I am able to drag her hysterical, shrieking body back across the basement, and then I manhandle her onto the slab. In truth, a woman of average strength would still be able to slip away, but evidently Delilah is no such woman. She is an uncommonly pitiful specimen of her gender. For all her desperate flailing, she does not actually slip from my grasp, and I am even able to arrange her on her back. Then, filled with a sense of despair, I take the ropes that I set here earlier and I start wrapping them around her neck, so as to hold her in place.

  “Help me!” she screams desperately. “Somebody! Jack! Anybody! Help -”