PRELUDE
The cool night air blew through the streets.
It was the 31th of august 1888. Whitechapel, London.
An middle-aged woman stood shivering in the cold at the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road, she was mad at herself, thinking; "Why did I have to drink all my money away? Lousy fourpence... It cost me a bed, did it. Well soon enough I've made me some more and then I can afford that bed, just one more client..."
Just as she was thinking that a man stepped up behind her. "Excuse me madame, might one ask what a poor little woman is doing outside this time o' night?"
She shook her head at him. "Good sir, I am awaiting company."
"Oh?" He asked.
"Yes I am, sir. Tell me sir, will you be the one to keep me company?" She winked at him and took a step closer.
"Perhaps madame, perhaps." He reached out his hand and she took it and they slowly walked down the street.
"Sir, I don't mean to be rude but it's still the matter of payment I..."
"No worries my dear, you will get what you're worth." He smiled a cold smile and she was a little frightened but shook it off.
"I've had worse." She thought to herself as they made their way down towards Buck's Row.
AN HOUR LATER
At about 3:40 am, cart-driver Charles Cross was on his way to work. He passed the stables at Buck's Row, he was used to the smell that infested the area, the horse dung had been apart of his trip to and from work ever since he started it. But this morning something was different. A foul smell came crawling from the stables, it was a smell he wasn't used to. He stopped his cart and jumped down, he had a bad suspicion for some reason and then he saw her, laying there in front of the gated stable door. He looked up as another passing cart driver on his way to work, Robert Paul, approached and Cross waved him in and pointed out the body.
Cross asked Paul; "You think she's... dead...?"
"No, no, probably just out of it, you know what the girls around here are like." said Paul, though uncertain, and continued; "Anyway we'd better get a policeman to sort this out"
They got a hold of PC Jonas Mizen, explained what they had found and Mizen assured them he would look in to it. The two men pulled a sigh of relief as they continued on their way to work.
What the two simple cart-drivers, Charles Cross and Robert Paul, didn't know was that they were the first to see the beginning of a horror-story that would haunt London for a long time.
The woman's name was Mary Ann Nichols, it was the 31th of august 1888, and the story of 'Jack The Ripper' had just begun.
THE MORNING AFTER
He stood still, watching his reflection in the window. When did he get so old? Already 45 years of age and it seemed he had missed out on so much, and he had a chilling suspicion he wouldn't have time to make amends for all that he had lost. He always knew these types of things, that was one of the things he didn't like about himself.
The wrinkles in his face whispered about a man who wasn't pron to smiling, the silver in his hair was already showing and his eyes were steamy gray. He stood about 6 feet tall, he was skinny but still quite fit, he wore glasses, despite the fact that he didn't need them, and he smoked a small cigar that his brother in America sent him for his birthday, not his REAL birthday of course (not even his real brother), but the day he was sworn into the brotherhood.
His name was Johnathan Adler, he was part of an brotherhood with it's roots in the holy land, even before the crusades. But surely his order had come a long way since 'the old man on the mountain', hell even since the founding of the modern brotherhood in Italy in the 15th century. He was an assassin in the age of steam power and gun powder, located in the capitol of the mightiest empire in the world, he felt invincible and yet so... vulnerable.
"Good morning Sir!" said Wilkins, the man servant, as he opened the door to Adlers' chamber. It was not unusual for Wilkins to find his master like this, starring out the window, pondering, as if he had the weight of the world upon his shoulders.
"Good morning Wilkins." said Adler, "a fine weather we're having."
Wilkins stopped and looked at his master as if he had lost his mind, "a fine weather? Since when is rain and 53 degrees in august a 'fine weather'?" Wilkins thought to himself.
"Yes Sir, mighty fine indeed, Sir." he said at last to break the silence.
"The newspaper? Have it arrived yet?" Adler asked.
"Well yes Sir, should I send for it?"
"Would you please?"
Wilkins rang a bell, soon the newspaper was brought up by the maid. She came, handed it to Wilkins and then left without a word, "all most as she had the same training as me", Adler thought to himself, smiling.
Wilkins made the bed and asked if there was anything more for him to do this morning. His master shook his head and Wilkins left.
Johnathan Adler stood in the middle of the room on the Persian carpet he had acquired during one of his many travels around the world. He looked around the room with a feeling of accomplishment and, well, maybe it was fear.
"I may leave this world soon enough but it is not without leaving a mark after me." he said to himself.
He gazed upon the artifacts on his walls, on the mantle, in the bookshelfs, his eyes paused at the torn flag of Richard the Lionhearted, which hung framed on his wall, a memory of a time long ago in a distant land. He took it down and ran his fingers down the frame.
"What would He do? Would he coward like me if put up against the same ordeals I have faced?" he shook his head at his own thoughts, "my problems are nothing compared to the ones he once stood against... I have read the books in the archives, I have read his own words in the codex, I know what he stood against."
Johnathan Adler slowly put the flag back onto the wall and went over to the mantlepiece. There was one more of his prized possessions, an old sword, nothing more than an ornament now but more then once in it's lifetime it had tasted blood of the wicked. It had an eagle-headed pommel and the crossguard were shaped like it's wings. He knew very little about this blade except that it once belonged to Him, Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, the greatest assassin of all time. Normally such an item would only have been passed down to a blood-relative but circumstances did not allow for this to have happened now. Adler was only an mere guardian or safekeeper of it until his brothers return, when this would happen he couldn't say, but his brother had assured him that it wouldn't be too long. This was over two years ago.
He took the sword down and held it in his hand, it was perfectly balanced, he unsheathed it and watched his own reflection in the cold steel, "Richard Miles, will we ever meet again? This blade was made for one thing and that was not sitting on the mantlepiece of an weary old assassin... It's destiny is to taste the blood of templars!"