The Ripper Affair

“Are you certain you wish to know?” It was the first time he had ever heard her sound… well, sad. Not merely downcast, but weary and heart-wrung. She was altogether too brisk and practical at any other moment to sound so… female?

No, Archibald. The word you are seeking is human. Instead of sorceress.

“I think I have some small right. I should have died, and I have not so much as a scratch upon me.”

She did not demur. “And you have no doubt noticed you are far more vigorous than your age should permit. Even your hair is thicker than it was, though no less grey.” A slight sound–her curls moving, she had nodded. “I thought you would remark upon that. I am amazed you did not press for an explanation sooner.”

He held his tongue with difficulty. Long acquaintance with her had accustomed him to the fact that such was the best policy, and that she was on the verge of solving the mystery for him. She very much disliked being compelled, or harried. The best way of inducing her to speak was simply to be attentive and patient, no matter how time or need pressed.

“Do you remember when we met?” Her little fingers had crept upon his hand now, and the intimacy of the touch surprised him. They rested, those gentle fingertips, upon his palm, just below the wrist. “The affair with the mecha, and the dragon.”

How on earth could I forget? He permitted himself a slight nod. His scorched hair moved against the pillow, crisp white linen charm-washed and smelling of freshness. His throat moved as he swallowed, dryly.

Her words came slowly and with some difficulty. “There was… during that rather trying episode, a certain artefact came into my possession. I bore it for a while afterward, but when the plague… Archibald.” Her tone dropped to a whisper. “I could not bear to lose you. And the weight of the artefact… the method of its acquisition… it wore upon me. I sought to expiate a measure of my sins, such as they are, by ensuring your survival. You are proof against Time’s wearing now, and your faculties will suffer no diminishing. You are immune to disease, and to all but the most extraordinary violence.”

He waited, but apparently she had finished.

His most immediate objection was at once the most pressing and the most illogical. “You should have told me.”

“I said I would.”

“In twenty years’ time. Had I known, Miss Bannon, I would have taken better care with Ludovico’s slightly more tender person.”

“No doubt.” Her hand retreated from his, stealing away. A thief in the night. “It is my doing, Clare. Perhaps I all but murdered him.”

What must it cost her, to admit as much? The tide of Feeling still threatened to crack him in two. “You should have told me.” Querulous, a whining child.

“I feared your reception of such news.”

Rightly so, madam. “Can it be reversed?”

“Perhaps.”

“Would you reverse it?”

“No.” Quickly, definitively. “I am loath to lose you, Archibald.”

“But Ludovico is expendable?” For a moment he could not believe he had said such a thing. It was brutish, ill mannered, illogical.

“We are all expendable, sir. Have I not often remarked as much?” She stood, and it was the brisk Miss Bannon again. “No doubt you are quite angry.”

I am a mentath. I do not anger. He closed his lips over the words. His body informed him that it had been held passive long enough, and it had a rather large desire to attend to some of its eliminatory needs. Anger is Feeling, it is illogical. It is beneath me. “Your Shield performed a miracle upon you as well, Miss Bannon. You lost nothing in that transaction.”

She became so still even his sharp ears could not find the sound of her breathing.

There was no crackle of live sorcery, no shuddering in the walls of her house as he had sometimes witnessed, her domicile responding to her mood as a dog responds to its master’s tension.

Finally, she let the pent breath out. “Nothing but Ludovico.” Each word polished, precise. “And, I suspect, your regard. I shall leave you to your rest, sir.”

Hot salt fluid dripped down Clare’s temples, soaked into the pillow and his scorched hair. He lay until she closed the door with a small deadly click; he slowly pushed back the covers and shuffled to the incongruously modern privy. There was a mirror above the sink-stand, but he did not glance into its watery clarity.

He did not wish to see the wetness upon his cheeks.

Chapter Six

Too Winsome And Winning A Place