Dead eyes looked on from the corner of the room. The figure, broad and tall, was obscured by shadow. Night had befallen London, shadowing the room in an inky blackness that was only partially relieved by the distant gas lamps that hissed on the street and the moon that burned in the clear sky above. The yellowy-white light cascaded through the window, breathing life on a macabre scene. The room itself was sparse. The walls reeked of poverty, wet spots pulling wallpaper from plaster, from where the roof leaked and allowed water to drip down joists. The window, where a pane had been broken, had an old cloth jammed into the broken glass to block the chilled wind. There was naught but a bed and a small table within the tiny room. It was cold - early November - and a baker from across the street had commented to the tenant only a day prior that he imagined an early winter would soon be upon them. The tenant would not live to see if his predictions came true. The room smelled of mold and mildew. And blood.

The smell of blood made the voyeur's stomach churn. His mind rebelled at the scent of iron and the tang of life that dripped slowly from the walls and the dirty sheets, dripping and congealing on scuffed floorboards. The work had been messy. The knife sharp. Old. The blade had been patinaed by rust and by grease, the edge sharpened by devilish hands and demonic desires. A pale hand had stifled screams. A grinning face. A knife that plunged into Mary Jane Kelly's stomach. She'd tried to fight; her hands unable to find purchase on her assailant. Her feet kicking away the dirty sheets. Her eyes welling with tears born of fear and pain. She'd seen her murderer through her tears. If this was the thing that was to kill her, what would the afterlife be? What fresh Hell, stripped from the walking purgatory that was Whitechapel, awaited her? She felt it all, body going limp, as the knife sawed against brow and cheek.

The figure in the corner of the room glanced down at the knife that had bore Mary Jane Kelly to the afterlife. Even now it could feel the pain. Hear the sounds of sinew and flesh being torn. Smell the fat exposed to the chilled air. Long, pale fingers grasped the hickory handle. The blood on it was tacky. It stuck to his fingers, staining pale skin red. Eyes - hungry eyes - flashed towards the body. Desirous eyes. Eyes that wanted to do nothing more than to feast upon the gore. A monstrosity flicked and probed against the creature's brain. It wanted it. Needed it.

The hand grasped the knife.

"I'm sorry."

The words were clumsy. Foreign. An ill-suited apology for an ill-suited time. The creature stepped into the light from the window. The yellowy-white light framed a pale face that was in turn framed by inky-black hair. A well-manicured mustache and beard. Blue eyes, once hungry, now mournful. The creature, not a man, was impeccably dressed in black. A black waistcoat and shirt sleeves ensconced under a black cloak, whose collar had been turned up to hide the handsome face from mortal eyes. A face that ran the gauntlet of hunger, sadness, and...

Rage.

Blue eyes flecked with red. Turning upwards towards the ceiling. Staring at the wraith that clawed and writhed upon the mildew spots. Whose ghastly frame reached, bony fingers clawing for the rusted knife. Translucent and horrid, it was no natural phenomenon. It howled noiselessly in the small room. Begged. Pleaded. A rotted head, bare of eyes, turned towards the charnel house creation it had made. It desired more. Needed more. It reached once more for the knife, wraith-like fingers reaching out towards an angry face.

Release me.

The haunted voice whispered menacingly in the room. It was dark. The sort of darkness that had sent man to invent fire to drive it away. Spiders in the back of the mind, skittering across hideous webs. Primordial and ancient. The sort of darkness that drove children to hide under their blankets and men to turn their own pistols into their own mouths.

No.

Came the reply. Foreign and sharp. The wraith recoiled. A new emotion flew through a creature that had only known lust and depravity.

Fear.

The blinds were drawn shut.

"Miss Kelly! Miss Kelly!" Thomas Bowyer cried, wrapping bruised knuckles against an oak door, "Mister McCarthy sent me, love! Gotta collect that rent! Six weeks! Miss Kelly? Open up!"

Thomas Bowyer was an ex-soldier. A broad shouldered and mustachioed man, he had been the perfect rent collector for John McCarthy. He was not only respected, but feared. Indian Harry the residents of Whitechapel called him, from his service in the British Indian Army. He told tales of fisticuffs with muscle-bound Indian jettis and stories of killing tigers with his Martini-Henry rifle. Much of it was fictitious hogswallop, told only to impress the orphans, intimidate the tenants, and woo the wiles of loose-legged women in the pubs. What sort of down-on-her-luck-lady didn't want a toss in the alley with a bona fide war hero?

"Fuckin' 'ell," he grumbled, hobnailed boots leading him round to the broken window pane. The woman, a known prostitute and drunkard, was likely still asleep. She'd be out on the streets by the afternoon, John McCarthy had sworn to Thomas Bowyer that morning, if she did not pay her rent. Thomas grasped the cloth in the dirtied window pane, pulling it free, so he could get a good glimpse inside.

"Fuckin' Christ!"