I don't have it yet! (Penn's been tying up my mail for hours recently. I think their servers are overloaded or something.)

t dances with anticipation

Buggers, RL. I copuld post it here....

I WANT!

um, in case anyone cared to hear my opinion re posting or not.

I ain't posting nothin' without the two stars' approval.

Edit: GAH. Just looked at my "sent" box and the damned thing didn't attach. Rebecca, resending.

Post it here! (There should be more slasher slash here. And it's got fanfic. And... I'm a sick puppy here already. Why not?)

Rebecca? Am says OK.

I'll post the beginning and if Rebecca has no objections, I'll do the rest.

---

IN RE THE EVENTS OF AUTUMN, 1888

Darkness comes early in London, when the November fogs roll in.

It was already black, a sooty ominous sky with an overtint the colour of dried blood, when Am-Chau and I turned the corner of Hanbury Street, London, E.C. Most people would have thought we were mad: Whitechapel, in November of 1888, was neither the safest nor sanest place for two young women. Someone had been killing the drabs of the East End, eviscerating them, leaving them out in the open for all to see. Fear had seeped into the doss houses with their plague hospital castoff beds, into the uproar and violence of the public houses, into the very shadows cast by the spire of Nicholas Hawksmoor's Christ Church, in Spitalfields. And if the police knew anything at all, they were saying nothing.

We had come, Am-Chau and I, in search of a story. It was Mr. Stoker who'd suggested this course of action to us, although, looking back, I imagine he would likely have been horrified to know that we had taken him so literally. Mister Stoker - somehow, we were never easy with calling him Abraham, or Bram, although he was clear that we might do so - had been most kind to us, inviting us to partake of an afternoon tea with him, and discussing his work with us. There were few gentlemen so busy, or respected, who showed willingness to take two aspiring young women writers under a wing.

Far from writing novels or stories of the type him himself so greatly excelled in, however, we both wished above all else to report the truth of the world around us. The world of reporting was, we felt, where we both belonged. Mr. Stoker was a busy man, indeed. It might have been thought that, between his own work as a writer and his management of the affairs of the great Henry Irving, he would have not a moment to spare for us. But such was not the case. When Am disclosed our joint aspirations towards the world of journalism him, he at once invited us to his office at the Lyceum. He himself had once worked as journalist, a critic of drama, in fact. He brought the discussion around to the trials of women wanting to make their marks in a world so outside the accepted norm, something in fact quite dear to his wife Florence's heart.

As was natural, the conversation came around to the Whitechapel killings. Mr. Stoker brought out a stack of papers: they were back issues of the Times, each containing a printed letter from the Mr. George Bernard Shaw, revealing the dramatist's views on the subject of the madman who had already cut down at least four prostitutes in Whitechapel, and perhaps more.

(continued)

"D'ye know," Mr. Stoker remarked, as he offered us the tray of sweetmeats, "there are places in that part of London where the truth of it could be told. I know of a few of those places, and a name or two. It would make a reporter's future, woman or no, would it not? To put the true name to Saucy Jack?"

I saw something kindle in Am-Chau's eyes. "Indeed it would, sir. You - you say you know a place? And a name?"

So here we were, dressed in our plainest working clothes, drab warm gowns of lisle and linsey, battling cold winds and fog off the Thames and a sense that were walking into the lion's den. I put my head up close to Am-Chau's.

"What's the name Mr. Stoker gave us?"

"The Seven Sins. It's a public house, in St. Katharines Close, halfway down Hanbury Street. He said it was all the way at the back of the street, hard to find. We're to ask for someone called Liam, and we're not to be shocked or surprised at the kind of company we're likely to find there." She stopped, so abruptly that I nearly overran her. "And I nearly forgot; we're supposed to carry these, close to hand."

She reached into one capacious pocket of her cloak, and pulled out two strings of rosary beads, with a cross dangling from each. My eyebrows rose; I was brought up in the Anglican faith, after all, and to one not nursed in the bosom of Rome, such a thing verged on idolatrous. But I took it from Am's hand, and put it in my own pocket, where I might easily reach it.

It was a very good thing Mister Stoker had seen fit to warn us that the clientele was peculiar. Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like it.

The Sins, as we were later to discover it was called by its regular patrons, was half-empty. This was unexpected; the strain under which the East End was reeling since the first Ripper killing meant that the locals were usually drowning their sorrows in a pint, and doing it among the safety of numbers. But the patrons of the Sins - about evenly split among men and women - seemed oddly alone, and separate from one another. Yet there was, concurrent to this, a feeling that they were, in some fashion, attuned to each other. A warning bell began to chime in my mind.

Secondly, the public was quiet. There was almost no conversation, no crossing from one table to another, no calling across the room for a round or a fresh pint. And every glass I saw seemed to be full of dark red wine.

Lastly, there was an air about these people, a slow, frightening elegance that I can best describe as a kind of menacing decadence. As we walked through the cut-glass doors, twenty or so pairs of eyes turned slowly to regard us. I felt my stomach twist.

"Am," I whispered, "I think there's something off about these people. Maybe we ought to leave?"

"Not yet." Am is a courageous soul, with an inquisitive spirit, but she seemed surprisingly unperturbed by what I sensed.

(continued)

She walked forward to the partition between the public and private, where a burly man in a leather apron stood watching us. "Good evening, sir. Are you the landlord?"

"I am." He stared at us, his eyes showing no spark of warmth or welcome. I am taller than Am, and stood at her shoulder. She looked up into the landlord's face, seemingly at her ease.

"May I ask, sir, if there is a gentleman here, Liam by name? I have a message for him."

Something had moved across that impassive face, at the name: a flicker of surprise? Anticipation? Hunger? I hadn't thought it possible that my nervousness might increase, and yet....

"Over there. Corner booth, with the two women."

They watched us approach. A blonde woman, very pretty. A dark woman, with the face one might expect to see in a medieval portrait. And the man, Liam himself, tall and dark and handsome indeed.

"Well, now." Liam stood as we came to the corner booth. "What's the night blown in for us, then? A pair of pretties. Darla? Dru? Friends of yours, maybe?"

"No. Not yet, anyway. They will be, though." The blonde woman, her fine hair piled high, smiled. I felt my fingers close around the rosary beads, suddenly glad of them. The blonde continued, a high lilting voice with the accents of America. "Dru? Do you know these ladies? What do they want?"

"They want us to sing to them." The brunet had got to her feet and moved up behind us. Her voice, cockney-edged, crooned a dark singsong. One long-fingered hand dropped on my shoulder; through the cloak and layers of clothing, I could feel a sudden chill, a warmth, a lassitude. "Pretty songs, about Spring-Heeled Jack." She opened her mouth, showing a row of even teeth. "Sweet sweet songs, about pretty ladies, dead in the gutters."

She let go of my shoulder, dancing away from me, her thin shoulders moving to some music only she could hear. My knees sagged a bit, and I willed them to hold me. My heartbeat fluttered into agitation. Who were these people? Who was this woman Dru, who had known what we wanted before a word was spoken? Why did she have such an effect on me, that I wanted to turn and stare, and fall into her eyes....

(OK, I think I need Rebecca's OK to finish posting this.)

Oooh, like it lots so far. Love the first person narration, language perfectly suited to the times.

I think I killed the thread....