London Calling.
"(…) London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls (…)"– The Clash "London Calling".
Warnings: Crime and everything that comes with it.
Timing: 2016, a year after "The Cabbala"
Rating: M.
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen original comic books © Allan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Neverwhere © Neil Gaiman. Atomic Robo © Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegner. Stargate Atlantis © MGM Studios. Hellboy (in character of Karl Ruprecht Kroenen) © Michael Mignola. Slenderman © Eric Knudsen (as Victor Surge). The story © Archer Black.
Dracula (in character of Wilhelmina Murray) by Bram Stoker. Allan Quatermain by sir Henry Rider Haggard. Orlando (or his/hers alike) by Virgina Woolf.
Meet the Enemy (part 1).
?
House of Arch. Two hours later.
The trip out of the Ratspeakers' base was silent. None of them were in a mood for talking, they couldn't be sure about Slenderman, but it seemed that he didn't attempt to communicate. They all appeared to be tired and it was hard to say what was taking greater toll on them – the journey to the London Below or the interview with the family of the dead Ratspeaker girl.
Finally they have reached what passed for an open space in Below and Door approached a bas-relief of a portal, there was an entire row of these engraved in a stone wall, a decorative façade of some long forgotten wall. She rested her hand flat on the old stone and a puddle of blue light started to spread around her fingers, engulfing the portal, dissolving it and making the stone transparent. Behind the blue, liquid light was a large hall.
"I'm sorry that I have not given you a chance to rest after your journey. You must be tired." Door said turning back to her companions.
"We understand that it was urgent." Spike eyed the passage.
"Yes, but now it is time for you to rest." Door nodded. "Exhaustion will only hamper our performance, we need our strength but physical and mental, and that comes from being well rested. This is House of Arch, the residence of my family. Come."
"Must we go through that?" Robo asked and did his own robotic version of wince. "I think we could just walk there, what a few more paces will do?"
"You cannot reach House of Arch by foot." Door smiled, in London Below it was a common knowledge, but her teammates were from Above. "This is the only way to reach my domain."
"Ah, a precaution to make sure only family members or their guests can enter." Kroenen nodded with appreciation. "A very well though."
"Not as well as we used to think." Door's face suddenly turned grim. "The house was breached once, and only once, and it cost all my family their lives. Still this is one of the safest places Below, come."
They did not argue. It took only one step to move to the bright hall of House of Arch. They were surrounded by columns and walls of white marble; it was austere but pleasant neo-classical style. When they looked around they saw stairs that led to nowhere, and could not be reached, at least not from the floor they were on. And there were no doors there either. And no windows. There were countless pictures though, each of some different place.
"Why there are no doors here?" Spike asked. The place was as large as a throne room on a Hiveship, but made of stone and too well lit.
"We do not need doors. We are Openers, all we need is pictures." Door explained. "Come, I will take you to the guest wing, this is the only place in the house with doors, so that our guests can move freely there."
She walked to the large painting depicting long corridor with many doors. It was dim lit and looked very Victorian, the doors were made of dark wood while the walls were covered in elegant, green wallpapers. The carpet was matching the walls and there were lamps between the doors.
Door touched the painting and the same fluid light 'opened' the picture allowing passage.
"You can choose any room you so please, there is a dining room at the end of the corridor and after you are ready we will meet there for the supper." Door stepped away and allowed everyone in. "We will return to our investigation tomorrow morning, when we will be well rested."
"How come the 'guest wing' is so different from the hall?" Robo asked. He resigned from questioning Door ability to 'open'; there was no point in doing so.
"Most rooms are part of the house; others are woven into the fabric of the house." She explained. "But also because I have destroyed the House after my family was killed, murdered here. And I have rebuilt it, so that it was free of the pain that their deaths left behind." No one said anything after that. "The hall and some of the rooms remained, but other parts are new. Prepare yourself now; the supper will be ready shortly."
With that she left them and after they have entered the corridor, the door closed. When they looked back at where they came from, they only found a large painting of a hall filled with white marble columns.
?
The next morning.
The guest wing of the House of Arch was more than comfortable and enabled everyone to rest properly through the night. None of the four men realised just as tired they were until they lay to rest in the evening. Even Atomic Robo welcomed the prospect of just powering down. Technically he didn't sleep but letting his internal working to cool down felt nice, and he spent the night reading a book about history of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that Door provided him with. He also pondered what his companions were doing.
He knew that Spike being a Wraith had to sleep though he also knew that Wraith sleep differed from human sleep, for example the phases of sleep were different for telepathic creatures. One thing was sure though – Wraith were capable of snoring, he could hear it through the wall. Kroenen despite everything was a human, even though he probably should be disqualified due to faul-play1), and as such he needed his forty winks... but then again it was hard to tell through the mask and Robo wasn't sure how it worked for a man with face damaged as seriously as Kroenen's. And he didn't feel like finding out anyway. As for the Slenderman, he wasn't really sure but he guessed that the pale creature was capable of falling asleep even if he didn't require it in the first place. Again, he wasn't about to go and ask about it.
The morning came quickly, and when they left their rooms to gather in the clubroom which had comfy chairs and nice chimney, all matching the rest of the guest wing of the house. Clearly all this used to be a part of something larger, perhaps some mansion or hotel, but now it was part of the House of Arch. The view from the windows showed country landscape filled with trees, but it was hard to tell where it was or when it was for that matter.
They were served a breakfast which they have ate with appetite. Or rather Kroenen took his to his room so he could eat it in solitude, saving his companions the sight of his damaged face. Spike only took some tea and passed on the food while Slenderman sniffed his food and simply devoured it without much thought. Robo didn't required food at all so he simply ignored it.
Not long after Kroenen reunited the rest of the group Door appeared. She looked as she didn't rest much even though she had fresh clothes on – her style consistent as ever.
"Oh, good you have eaten the breakfast." She smiled weakly. "Splendid."
"We kind of hoped you would join us. We could have talked about everything." Robo stood up from his chair.
"Oh, I've been running some errands and had an early breakfast." She waved her hand. "Sorry that I couldn't join you. I thought that judging by yesterday's supper you would rather avoid the subject of our mission during a meal."
That much was true. The dead Ratspeaker girl didn't improve their appetites in the slightest. Only Slenderman didn't seem to be fazed, but then again no one really knew how he coped with stress or if he even got stressed in the first place.
"Right." Robo nodded and looked at the floor.
"Not to mention that Kroenen wouldn't be able to participate in conversation and eat at the same time." Spike mentioned. "I believe it is better this way."
"Either way, we have a long day before us. Follow me." Door beckoned.
"Where to, Herrin Door?" Kroenen asked curiously.
"To my study, there's plenty of room there to set our base of operations there." Door explained.
"Yes, but only you can get us there. What if something should happen and we would be split?" Robo asked. "We couldn't meet there without you. Shouldn't we have our base somewhere with an easy access?"
"No, an easy access would mean that anyone could get there uninvited. Whereas my home is much harder to breach. The last individuals to trespass are dead." Door explained. "Though I believe that while Below, Slenderman should be able to reach that room without problem."
The Slenderman nodded slowly in confirmation.
"He says that he'd have to visit that room first, but after that he should have no problems." Spike passed the pale man's message.
"Well then, come gentlemen, follow me." Door turned on her heel and marched out with the four men following her.
?
The study was a spacious but seemed a bit too clattered up – aside from numerous book shelves and cabinets, there was a writing desk and a large table in the middle of the room. The room itself was furnished in Victorian style. The walls were covered in stripped green wallpaper and the furniture's upholstery was deep burgundy plush – exact representation of Door's personal colour scheme that she always wore. The woodwork was dark, seemed to be mahogany but it could have been any other kind of dark wood given that the light was soft and dimmed.
The only door seemed to lead to small room or perhaps a walk-in closet with shelves full of various items such as rolled up maps, globes and various supplies. While there was just one door, there were absolutely no windows there; the place where the window could have been was occupied by a single painting, impressive in both size and artistry. It was a family portrait and it seemed so life-like that it could have been photography just as well.
The portrait showed five individuals. Clearly parents and their three children. The mother sat on a chair, her hair was light brown and slightly curly. The father stood next to her, one hand resting on a high backrest of the chair, his posture firm with confidence, his dark eyes holding intelligence and his hair jet black. They were surrounded by their children. Behind the mother was a son and next to him a daughter – both resembling their father. The son seemed to wear an old fashioned militaristic style. The daughter was Door; there was no doubt about it. The youngest of children stood in front of the mother, it was a girl that resembled the mother in every aspect. Each and every one of them had the keyhole tattoo around their right eye.
"I like it in here." Spike commented on the study. "It reminds me of a Hive in a way."
"Your Hives are furnished in Victorian style?" Asked an amused voice and only then they have noticed Marquis de Carabas standing in front of one of the book shelves.
"Marquis will join us today to help you to understand certain aspects of Below." Door explained. "I believe he will be more efficient with certain subjects."
At that moment Slenderman pointed at the painting. His meaning pretty clear.
"Yes. Lady Door's family." De Carabas confirmed.
"My father Portico, my mother Portia, my older brother Arch and my younger sister Ingres." Door presented her late family. "All murdered, by the very same trespassers I just mentioned."
"My deepest condolences, Herrin Door, I assume that the death of the trespassers was the effect of your revenge." Kroenen bowed his head lightly when he addressed the young woman.
"Yes. All have been avenged." Door sighed. "And now, to the matter at hand, if you will allow." She walked to the writing desk and took a pretty fat stock of papers from inside. "I have here reports about the previous victims, the places and state they have been found, complete with written down testimonies and sketches." She placed the papers on the large table. "Perhaps we can establish some facts that would help us to catch the individual responsible for this."
"Have you tried to compare these reports before?" Robo asked.
"I barely had time to collect them." Door shook her head. "It was hectic at first. People get missing here all the time. And people get killed one way or another, but nothing like this happened before, at least not in the collective memory of general population."
"I can confirm that." Marquis nodded once. "At first the barons and lords accused each other, they have demanded steps to be taken but there was no one who could truly extend authority over them due to our political system. It took a while before everyone recalled that Lady Door had such a unique experience and even more before everyone agreed that she was the one to deal with it."
"And in the meantime the common folk were panicking." Door added. "Crisis management is not the forte of London Below, so you can understand that this is the first time that anyone can truly compare these incidents. Before I was merely informed and had only enough time to familiarise myself with these reports in most superficial way."
"Okay, let's get to work then." Robo glared at the stock of papers. "So… how about we will make a time line for the victims and comparison chart for how they have died? Do you have a chalkboard?"
"Yes. It is in the supply room." Door nodded. "But it is pretty large."
"That's for the better. Let's go, you'll show me where it is and I will bring it here." Robo offered.
"Good. And in the meantime, the rest of you can sort the reports. Don't worry, they're bind." Door gestured to the stock of the paperwork.
?
The chalkboard was of the large, two sided kinds, one that rotated horizontally. The weight made it a bit hard to flip it, but it was even better than what Robo counted on – it certainly gave them more space to break the case to basic factors. The board itself was set just far enough from the wall to allow it to rotate freely, but well away from anyone's way so everyone could move freely around the table. Also, along with the chalkboard came the chalk, and aside from the regular white one, there was also colourful one that was certainly useful.
Right now Door was placing the folders in order of when each victim was found, which didn't mean that it was the exact same order they were murdered, but that was how they were sorting the folders while Robo drew a timeline and marked both the time of finding the body and the supposed time of death with the former being above and the latter being below of the axis. They had nine victims altogether, or at least nine of which they knew of. Some of early victims might have not been attributed to this particular killer and simply considered to be random deaths due some feuds or robbery (which was not a rare occurrence either).
"This is not going to be easy case." Atomic Robo stated while scribbling the last victim's name. "All they have in common is simply going missing and being found dead and in bad shape for a corpse."
"Their injuries don't match." Spike nodded. "Are we sure it was done by one and the same person?"
"Read the reports." De Carabas gestured to the files. "They had no enemies capable of committing murders, let alone so violent."
"Some of them didn't seem to have any enemies at all." Door added.
"Everyone have at least one enemy." Marquis gently shook his head. "It's just that mostly these enemies are not vicious enough to do more than give something a stink eye."
"All this assuming that it is done by one murderer and not some killing-team." Robo pointed out something that he was thinking about for a time now. "Spike is right, the injuries don't match. In three cases the only injuries are the ones that we assume being the cause of death, while two look like Mary Jane Kelly2) wannabes. And there's one that looks like 'The Black Dahlia'3) to me. There's simply no match here."
"Yes, but only injuries-wise." Kroenen studied diagram of one of the victim's injuries. "The visual inspection of the corpses performed by feldsher4) employed by Herrin Door, indicate that despite the differences in the nature of the mutilations, the wounds themselves seems to be caused by the same type of weapon, or rather the same set of weapons." He leafed through the written report of the state of the corpse. "And that in turn suggests the same modus operandi5) in each case, which in turn points to the conclusion that it is the handiwork of the same perpetrator."
"And how can you tell that?" De Carabas spared the ex-Nazi an inquisitive glare.
"Kroenen here is a doctor, surgeon6) to be exact." Robo revealed. "A bit on the evil and crazy side, but I'm guessing he knows his stuff well enough."
"You're guessing?" Marquis' eyed grew round.
"Well, I never saw him in an OR, but he did patch up Slender." Robo shrugged. "Still crazy and evil, but just how much depends on your definition of crazy and evil though."
"That is most convenient." Marquis nodded. "And how can you tell that these mutilations were caused by the same kind of weapon?" He focused on the German.
"The feldsher described the wounds precisely." Kroenen pointed to the report. "These are clean, straight cuts made by simple, straight blade. Most probably a knife, a two to three centimetres wide, proximately fifteen centimetres7) long."
"You can tell that from the report?" Spike glared at the masked man.
"No, I cannot. But the feldsher could and that is his estimation. He also deduced that all the cuts were delivered peri-mortem and that the cause of deaths is either blunt force trauma caused by a club or cosh or haemorrhaging." Kroenen put the report back on the table. "Each time the victim is killed or stunned by strong hit to the head, then they're left dead or mutilated. Whether the victim is cut or just killed seems to be random, there seem to be no order. At least I can't see how he decides who to mutilate."
"Maybe it depends how much time the killer has?" Spike asked.
"That is possible explanation. But it may just as well depend on their mood." Robo shrugged. "Or weather. Or phase of the moon. Or level of the water in Thames. Or what they have ate for breakfast. Or, as I proposed, this can be, say, two killers, one only kills and the other kills and mutilates. Or it can be a team, one kills and the other mutilates. And if the one that mutilates cannot join the one that kills on their hunt, the victims don't get mutilated."
"Could it be that Croup and Vandemar returned?" Door paled. The idea of a team of killers reminded her of the two that murdered her family.
"No. They didn't kill for pleasure alone." De Carabas shook his head. "They only murdered for money and took pleasure from their work. It was all pleasurable business for them, but business none than less."
"Still, we can't be sure how their banishment that I have inflicted upon them could change them." Door started to shake. "They could have become just like some hungry beasts!"
"You have sent them to a heart of a black hole, or a place so close to a heart of a black hole that it doesn't make a difference. Or even hell itself" Marquis de Carabas spoke with strong and authoritative voice that he rarely used. "Even if they could escape from that place, returning here would take them forever and I doubt they could count on help from Islington, from what I understand of his situation from before the stunt he has pulled, he has now problems of his own to deal with."
"Slenderman says that we should write down every similarity and every difference that all the victims had. Not only how they have died or how they were mutilated, but their clothes, possessions, age, sex, where they were from." Spike spoke on the pale entity's behalf.
"Good call." Robo agreed. "Maybe the killer or killers have some sort of a pattern in choosing the victims?"
"I think they certainly have a pattern." Spike hissed. "I am more curious about any deviations from the pattern."
"That would also tell us much." Kroenen focused on the table with the reports. "I would like to talk to that feldsher, if it is possible, Herrin Door. I would like to hear his personal opinion about everything."
"I will arrange that." Door nodded, still pale and slightly trembling.
"Yes, but first the chart." Robo flipped the chalkboard and divided it in two – one side for the similarities and one for differences.
TBC.
In case anybody has any doubts, research for this story bears little pleasure. Of course I have been familiar with Jack the Ripper and the murders of 1888 in Whitechapel even before – who isn't to a degree – but my previous research did not require getting familiar with the exact mutilations any of the victims suffered (and that includes some photographs, especially Mary Jane Kelly scene of the murder photo). My previous research on the subject was connected to socio-political background of the XIX/XX century breakthrough and the road to 1914. This time I aimed directly at Jack the Ripper. Oh, and "The Black Dahlia" wasn't any more pleasant.
1) Being a Nazi and all.
2) The last victim of Jack the Ripper. There are some doubts if Mary Jane Kelly was a canon victim of Jack the Ripper as due to her mutilations being far more extensive than others, but with each murder Jack the Ripper was getting more and more vicious, with sole exception of Elizabeth Stride (it is believes that Ripper was interrupted and thus attacked Catherine Eddowes the same night/early morning). The more extensive damage to Mary Kelly could also be attributed to the fact that unlike his other victims, Marry Kelly was murdered and mutilated in a single room she rented thus the killer had simply more time and freedom to perform in privacy of indoor as opposite to when he was murdering on the streets where anyone could disturb him. Kelly was almost entirely eviscerated, her throat was cut deep enough to nick the spine – which is assumed to be cause of death; her face was almost completely hacked off and her internal organs, with exception of lungs, were removed. The only missing organ was her heart though. Her other mutilations included removal of skin from her abdomen and thighs, removal of her breasts among others.
The five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper are (in order of death):
Mary Ann Nichols, found at 3:40 am, Friday, August 31st 1888;
Annie Chapman, found at 6:00 am, Saturday, September 8th 1888;
Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes – marked as "Double Event" – found on early morning of Sunday, September 30th 1888;
Mary Jane Kelly, found at 10:45 am, Friday, November 9th 1888.
4) "The Black Dahlia" was Elizabeth Short, who was murdered on January 15th 1947, her case was never solved but some connect her to the "The Cleveland Torso Murderer". Elizabeth Short was found in the morning of January 15th, she was cut in half, drained completely of blood, she was given the "Glasgow Smile" (the corners of her mouth were cut in the direction of her ears). Her body was washed by the killer. No organs were missing, and the cause of death was blood loss and hits to her face and head.
4) A Feldsher is a health care staff member who provides emergency and/or simple medical services such as first aid, simple surgical procedures (such as patching up small injuries), preliminary diagnosis. A feldhser is akin to paramedic. In US they're can be knows as physician assistants. In the past feldshers were serving as field surgeons performing emergency surgical procedures during various wars in situations where true surgeon or medical doctor (which in the past were not the same) was not available. They also served as primary medical care in rural areas. They were a later version to medieval barber surgeons.
5) Modus Operandi – a way of proceeding.
6) In the Hellboy comics he is introduced as: Professor Doctor Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. He is a surgeon by professional training, occultist by hobby and an ex-Nazi by convenience (he was part of the Thule Society when Nazis came to be). He's also nihilist by creed, and Rasputin's personal fan-boy (though not nearly as fanatic as Leopold Kurtz).
7) Metric system everybody – a 1 centimetre is 10 millimetres. A 1 inch is 25 millimetres.