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“Pay up and I’ll tell you.”
I sigh. “It doesn’t work like that. To make the resurrection magic work, we have to complete your unfinished business. Your unfinished business is identifying Jack the Ripper, one of the greatest unsolved murder mysteries of human history—”
“Oh, I know who the Ripper is,” Abberline says. “I’ve seen him around, with his top hat and his airs and graces, the last time he was raised. He admitted his crimes to me over a pint once. It’s Lord Fitzwilliam.”
“So if you know who he is, then how come you haven’t crossed over?”
“Because I haven’tstoppedhim, have I?” Abberline pounds the table with his fist. Because he’s sitting across from me and I’ve got moldavite in my pocket, his fist actually connects, sending his pint glass flying over my shoulder to hit the guy behind me in the head. The unsuspecting punter whirls around to give me a piece of his mind, but then sees Pax glaring at him and thinks better of it.
Abberline stares at his fist in wonder, then peers at me with wide eyes. “Youarelike him?”
Who’s ‘him’?
But I don’t ask. Instead, I glare back at the inspector. “We’re not talking about me. What about your unfinished business?”
“That was my job, to bring the Ripper to justice. But I never got to him and he disappeared before I could catch him, and then Lord Fitzy went and died of syphilis, which should have been the end of it, only he keeps being dragged out of hell to murder more innocent women, and I’m next to useless to stop him in this body, aren’t I?”
“Okay, okay!” I hold up my hands in surrender before he can toss our bowl of chips over the poor guy’s head. “I promise, you help us, and once we’re rid of the Ripper forever, I will use my powers to bring you back to life. But, only if you acknowledge that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and I could accidentally trap you in some other dimension or reincarnate you as a penguin, okay?”
“I don’t know what any of those words mean.”
“Right, quantum physics wasn’t discovered when you were alive, I forgot.” I hold out my hand. “Just tell me if we have a deal or not?”
Inspector Abberline places his ghostly hand in mine, and we do as good a job of shaking as is possible when my fingers slip through his. He settles back in his chair, twirling his moustache around his finger.
“So…” he says. “You want to know about Jack the Ripper.”
“Yes. I want to know how and why a long-dead murderer attacked me and my…” The wordboyfriendsdances over my tongue, but I swallow it back, “…friends.”
“Let me guess, he had red vapours curling out of his eyes, and was controlled by some kind of deranged clergyman?”
I make finger guns at him. “Got it in one. We know he’s a revenant.”
Abberline’s face clouds over. “The Order of the Noble Death have seen occasion to bring my nemesis back to the Living realm no less than three times since he was first banished to hell.”
“Wait.” I take a long sip of my G&T. I can tell I’m going to need it. “You know about the Order? You’re saying that Jack the Ripper has come back before?”
“Aye. The Order does not like to do their own grunt work. What use is the power to raise the dead if you can’t make yourself masters over them? They raise philosophers to analyse their scriptures, Pythagoras to balance their books, some fellow named Steve Jobs is doing their IT helpdesk, and murderers to act as their personal army. But the Ripper is their prized weapon. You must have really got under their skin for them to send him after you.”
Or Vera did.
I could certainly imagine that. Vera got up everyone’s goat.
As quickly as I can, I explain exactly what happened to Vera, and what we experienced in the graveyard. Edward even describes in excessively poetic detail how he went inside the Ripper and used his memories to help us track down Abberline. The ghost detective actually looks impressed, and Edward preens.
“The first thing you should know is that you didn’t kill him,” Abberline says. “Not for good, anyway. You merely slowed him down.”
I groan. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Abberline nods. “The Order will call the Ripper back to them as soon as they realise he and the priest are gone. Or he might come back on his own, if he’s angry enough. He will not stop until he has recreated each of his five grisly murders at the whims of the Order. He will take his victims, and then disappear until he is needed again.”
“What do we do?”
“You don’t understand. There is nothing you can do. The Ripper is impossible to catch, even more impossible to kill.”
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“From what you’re saying, the Ripper has been employed to kill people with your gift. So I suggest you find three more women who can do this resurrection magic, and make certain he gets to them first.”
