(continued)
We followed these compelling creatures through the twisty maze of Whitechapel. Angelus led the way; it seemed he knew precisely where he was going. Once or twice, along the way, he stopped and sniffed the air, then started off again. We went past barred shopfronts, tenements, courtyards where lime trees once grew in the days before the Heugenot locals came to understand that the climate would always defeat them. London, the Smoke, is not a place for the faint-hearted of any species. Mister Darwin would have known that.
"What's he sniffing for, do you suppose?" Am's voice was the barest whisper, but it seemed these creatures had accelerated hearing, among their other attributes, for Darla turned around and gave us a beautiful, happy smile.
"Blood, of course," she told us casually, and I knew she was amused. My own senses seemed to have become more acute, just from the brief contact with Dru. "Saucy Jack's hard at work, tonight. Another whore for Inspector Abberline's files, another carved-up drab for the mortuary slab at the Women's Institute."
"Another whore, another whore, but this time Jackie's gone indoors." Dru was dancing, her heels tapping on the filthy pavement, and her voice was a sinuous melody. She slid her hand up the back of Am's neck, and I caught the barest glimpse of something that might have been a smile. Am arched her neck, and something moved inside me, a taste of envy.
As if she had sensed it, Dru came back to my side. "Don't be worried, my pretty rebec," she breathed at me. "I'll not let the big bad loneliness take you away to the dark place."
I reached out suddenly, and took her hand. She swung mine lightly; she had a grip like iron. "Dru..." I faltered, not knowing what, exactly, I wished to tell her.
"Here."
We'd come to a tiny street, lined on both sides with tenements. In the distance, I heard the big clock at Westminster toll the hour: it was half one in the morning, the dead time of day.
"Where are we?" Am had come up beside me; she was alert, watchful. Her voice was very low, but Angelus turned and moved back to us.
"Millers Court," he told us. "And up there, at Number 13 - he's there, and he's busy." In the deadness of the night air, I saw his ridged face gleam as he lifted those terrifying canines in a smile. "It's all right. Soon as he's done? We'll be busier."
We settled down to wait. It seems mad to me now, that I sat in that Whitechapel slum, knowing that the monster who had invaded all our dreams at night, the monster whose sure identity would give Am-Chau and me our heart's desire, was committing an act of gore and atrocity the like of which London had never seen, not ten yards from where we sat. Behind the dark rough curtains of a cracked ground floor window at Number 13, Miller's Court, Jack the Ripper went to work on a pretty blonde girl who had once been called Mary Kelly, leaving behind him a saturnalia of blood and legend.
He came out a half hour later, slipping into the street. I don't know what we had been expecting, perhaps the Mister Hyde of the Stevenson play currently drawing crowds in the West End, perhaps a twisted devil. Instead, a thin young man in a worn overcoat, his hands in black gloves, slipped into the street. He saw us at once, and turned to flee. With speed beyond what our eyes could record, Angelus had him. He lifted the killer by the throat, twisting the man around, to show us.
"And here's my half of the bargain, ladies. Saucy Jack. He'll answer your questions, I think."
Am stepped up. Her voice was shaking. "What's your name?"
The man said nothing. His eyes, wild and unfocussed, moved across the inhuman whorls and depths of the vampires, and then settled on us. His mouth stayed closed.
"Darla. Dru. Search him."
They went through his pockets. When Darla got down to his breeches, he kicked out at her. Sidestepping him with speed and ease, she lifted one hand to his face, and slashed his cheek to the bone with one fingernail.
"Silly man," she told him sweetly. "Did you think you were the only one with a taste for sharps?"
"He's called Montague." Dru had his card case, and was giggling. "What a crumpet-ish name for a mad killer. Montague! And he's a solicitor, as well. I wonder, silly little man, do they call you Monty?"
He looked at her with hate. Angelus, holding him tightly, looked at us.
"Dru. Give that case to Am-Chau. What's his full name, then?"
"Montague John Druitt." Am was shuddering with reaction. "He must be a total maniac. And he's killed a woman in that room?"
"I expect he's left blood on the ceiling. I can smell it from here." Darla licked her lips. "I doubt he left much in her body, anyway. Nothing there to eat."
I was aware of a pang of disappointment. Something in me suddenly wanted to go inside, to see the carnage, to feed.....I shook myself. What was I thinking?
"Well?" Angelus watched Am-Chau. "Have I kept my part of the bargain?"