INSPECTOR FREDERICK ABBERLINE's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Abberline waded deeper into the drain. The green stream soaked his boots. Then the tunnel split in two. One branch bent left, one bent right. Both ran black. He stopped. The killer's fresh trail could die here if he picked wrong. He pressed a hand to the slimy wall and tried to think. Big Tom padded up behind him, orange eyes bright in the dark. The grey cat had watched Mary Kelly die and had warned Abberline the killer passed through with a wet knife. No one else heard him speak. "Two holes, two holes, and you dither like a pigeon!" Tom spat. "He went where the water runs fast, didn't he? Always the fast water. I watched him splash through once before. Smell it, man! Blood on the left. Can't you smell the blood?" Abberline bent low over the left branch. He saw nothing in the dark. He needed proof, not a cat's nose. He pulled his small pocket mirror and tilted it toward the trickle of light from above. In the glass, a pale face rose through swirling mist. Not his own. Maryann Nichols. His dead neighbor, drowned forever in her last terrified minute. Her red hair hung in wet strings. Her lips moved before her eyes found focus. "Frederick, I— I can't, I can't see his face, I never can," she stammered. "But the smell, oh, I know the smell. Moss. Old wet stone, like— like a house with green all over it. He smelled of that house. He goes up. Up, not down. The left one goes up." "Up to what, Maryann?" Abberline whispered. "Tell me what waits above." "A lodge," she said. Her voice shook. "Grey stone, all moss. Red curtains. I passed it once alive. I— I think that's where he sleeps." Tom's tail lashed. "There, there, the dead girl says it too! Left and up! Will you move now, or will we lose him like everyone always loses everything?" Abberline took the left branch. The stream climbed under his feet. His lamp caught a smear on the stone wall, dark and still wet. Blood. The ghost and the cat agreed, and the wall proved them right. He followed the slope up until his hands touched a rusted iron ladder. Above him sat an underside of a heavy round cover, carved with worn patterns. He climbed and shoved. The cover scraped aside. Cold night air rushed in. He pulled himself out onto wet cobbles and looked up. A large stone lodge loomed before him. Moss greened its grey face. Red curtains glowed behind the windows, lit from within by candles. The killer had come here. But the great doors stood shut, and lamplight moved behind the glass. Someone inside was awake. Abberline had found the house. Now he had to get in without a badge, without backup, before the man finished what he started.