From Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

deserted. The alley where Eddowes’ apron
had been found had been scoured by the police and the Londoners
living nearby had left it as such. There was none of the trash or
debris that littered the rest of the streets nearby. There were
also no tributes or monuments set about to honor the murdered
woman. It was as if people were simply too afraid to even enter the
alleyway, perhaps in fear of becoming the Ripper’s next victim. I
let my senses loose but there was no resonant magic affixed to the
area. It was a ghost town of mystical energy.
    “ It was here,” George told
me, pointing a dancing finger at the wall just a short distance
inside the alley. He too hovered near the street, taking no more
than a step or two inside.
    I looked to where he motioned and saw
the vague outline of the words that had been written on the wall.
Though the police had washed them away, they hadn’t done a thorough
job of it. My eyesight degrees better than most humans, I was still
able to make out much of what had been there, the paint having
soaked into the porous bricks, leaving behind a kind of outline
where the words had been.
    “ The graffito was said to
blame a Jew for what was committed here but there was no record
taken of the exact words.”
    As George talked, I picked out the
word Jew from the faded mess, the general statement, from what I
could tell, confirming the rumor he’d heard. “Can I see the photo
of the letter again?”
    George dug in his pocket and passed
the photo to me. His hand was cold where our fingers grazed. It was
more than just the morning’s chill. I gave him a casual smile
though I knew there was nothing I could do to ease his mood except
for kill the Ripper. And while that was exactly what I intended,
the graffito didn’t appear to bring me any closer to my
goal.
    Several quick glances between the wall
and the photo made it clear the graffiti and the letter had been
penned by different people. While differences were expected between
the two given the mediums, there was no mistaking the writing of
the letter for the style scribbled on the wall. The graffiti
appeared to written carefully, each letter formed consistently with
the others, but the curves were smooth, flowing from what I could
tell. The “From Hell” letter had also been written with a calm hand
but the edges were sharp, the penmanship heavy handed and almost
guttural in its approach. The killer had carved his words onto the
page the same as he had carved his message into the women he’d
killed.
    I shook my head and passed the photo
back to George. “It seems the police were right about—” before the
last of my sentence slipped free of my mouth, a sharp pressure
speared my back, ominous tingles spreading down my spine. I snapped
my head about and spied a man glaring at me from the other end of
the alley. He stood several feet inside the crime scene with no
apparent fear. His features were hidden within the looming shadows.
Before we’d even locked gazes, I was after him.
    Two dots of white exploded on his
face, and he bolted. He was a blur of elbows and ass, a vague shape
as he scrambled around the corner. His footsteps sang out against
the cobblestones. I followed after, kicking up wet gravel as I
rounded the corner in pursuit. George shouted something at my back
but I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t even bother to slow
down.
    The man was about a block ahead of me,
the shadows no longer concealing him. Though his coat fluttered
behind him as he ran, distorting his shape, it was clear the man
was built thickly. His legs were stumpy tree trunks that slammed
into the street with insistence. Hair cut short, shorn close to the
scalp, there was nothing to hide the roundness of his head or the
waves of neck fat that looked to form a grimace on the back of his
skull. His breath billowed into the morning air like a freight
train climbing a hill. Nothing between us but space, no pedestrians
on our side of the walk, I closed fast.
    He wheezed