Kidney Pie – Chapter 11

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"Urgh…" Jack shifted half-out of sleep, his head pounding. What the hell…? Groaning, he buried his face in his pillow, only to realize that it – whatever it was – was too scratchy to be his pillow at all. Neither was the large thing he realized he was hugging to his chest soft enough to be a pillow. I'm not in my bed.

He swore silently, trying to remember the night before. He had been going to mail his letter. He had stopped at the Ten Bells. He could remember nothing else. Just bloody perfect. Even if he had pulled off another job, he would have expected to find himself back in his own room. Unwilling to open his eyes yet, he felt for the object he had been clinging to senselessly in his sleep. It lay across his arm, curved and covered in a stiff cloth. A body? His hands crept higher. A woman's body. And yet strangely intact. He opened his eyes to a mass of reddish curls. Eleanor!

Quickly pulling his arms away, Jack scrambled back, sitting up so suddenly that his spinning head almost made him drop back onto the mattress. Beneath the tacky quilt that had covered them both, Mrs. Lovett wore her dress from the day before, only her corset missing. He looked down at himself, discovering that the nearest he had come to getting undressed was losing his right shoe. Damn.

Very carefully, the Ripper leaned closer to Nellie. She lay still, not stirring when he had dragged his arm out from underneath her. A note a fear touched his heart as he looked at her. Around her throat, she wore his red handkerchief. Had he strangled her? Or cut her throat and let her bleed to death without so much as another cut? His horror grew as it occurred to him that he could have murdered the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen and not even remembered it. What a waste that would be! He reached out to touch her arm, shaking it her lightly. "Eleanor?"

"Mmph?" He relaxed as the baker shifted in her sleep, stretching in place like a cat. "Don't go nowhere, Mr. Todd. That seagull wants to eat your buttons…" Jack scowled at his rival's name. Maybe I should've ripped her after all. With his headache, though, he settled for pulling the quilt slowly up to her chin and crawling carefully off her bed.

A heavy fog had spread itself over Fleet Street during the night, prowling in white wisps beneath a miserable drizzle. It made Jack feel quite at home in the pre-dawn silence of the pie shop when he quietly made his way to the kitchen. Smiling groggily, he laid his lean face against the cold glass of the window frame. This weather, the thick, strangling mist of London, was like an old friend to him. He waited, watching wings and ghosts shift through the cloudy street, until he felt better. Stepping back, he rubbed the last sandy sleep from his eyes. The cold window had helped his head, but it could do little for the sense of tragically lost opportunities. What a bloody waste.

Cursing gin under his breath, he drifted, stretching, into the little parlor. The chill of the morning was just starting to cut through the heat of the dying fire, making the little boy asleep on the worn couch muffle his snores under the heavy blanket pulled over his head. Last time, Jack had slept here in the arm chair. How'd I get into her bed? He tried to think of what he'd done as he tiptoed across the room to find his coat and top hat where he'd been forced to abandon them on his last disastrous visit. His knife was missing from its pocket. He stared for a moment at the black cloth, thinking. I had it with me. He stared as the broken memories tried to piece themselves together again. Yes. I must have.

He turned back for the kitchen, his one shoe giving him a frustrating shuffling gait. Standing in the center of the dark room, he scanned the shadows, his mad eyes darting. A dark lump lay on the counter, giving up the familiar, coppery scent of blood. Stepping towards it, he ran an expert hand over the object. A heart. Did I bring that? He licked the sticky gore absently from his fingertips, remembering vaguely fog and bells and cheap perfume. It's fresh, anyway. He wondered if that was why Eleanor had let him share her bed. Maybe she only loves men who bring her meat.

Wandering farther, he spotted a gleam at the end of the counter and found his knife, its edge coated with a clinging film of blood. He reached for his handkerchief to wipe it clean before he remembered seeing it around Mrs. Lovett's neck. That puzzle, suddenly, he wasn't sure he wanted to understand.

He found his missing shoe wedged in the heavy bakehouse door. He supposed he had closed it on his foot. Hesitating only a moment, he pulled it open wide and sat on the top step to put it back on. The stench from the cellar below was almost overpowering. Perhaps he and Todd had helped the stink by spreading the piles of bits and pieces. Or maybe last night… He stepped carefully down the stairs, ready for the most horrific scene but totally unprepared for what he saw.

The bakehouse was clean.

The heaps of rotting flesh had vanished. Any corpses that had been waiting were already reduced to unidentifiable meat. The smell, upon further investigation, came only from the oven, whose door hung open to reveal a thick bed of oily black soot and bits of charred bone. Bloody hell… He had found a heaven, and then helped the baker destroy it.

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What is that stink? Mrs. Lovett was used to the smell of death that always rose from the bakehouse, but usually it wasn't so strong upstairs. The heavy bakehouse door blocked the worst of it, as long as all her doors and windows were shut against the reeking smoke her chimney poured into Fleet Street. Even when they had burned the mangled and rotting meat left in the cellar, the shop and the baker's little rooms behind it had been livable, if far from sweet-smelling. But now, a thin smoke crept through the air, stinging her sleepy senses with the smell of burning flesh. What the hell…? She opened her eyes. The little clock on her nightstand read 6:13. Hadn't she put out the oven downstairs properly? Or had Toby or Jack-

She groaned. Or Jack's done something foolish. She sat up, swinging her bare feet out of the bed, and eased her weight slowly onto her aching limbs. If he's caught my bloody house on fire… As she stumbled sleepily down the hall, she could see the smoke coming in white wisps from the kitchen and hear the sizzle of cooking meat and the clack of dishes. Behind the walls, Jack sang under his breath,

"Only a violet I plucked when but a boy

And oft times when I'm sad at heart this flower has given me joy.

So, while life does remain in memorial I'll retain

This small violet I plucked from mother's grave…"

She hesitated as she rounded the corner to the kitchen, her slow steps silent without her boots. When she caught his eye, Jack jumped and in his surprise dropped a cup of what appeared to be tea. "Eleanor!"

"What the hell are you up to?"

Behind the counter, Jack picked up and refilled the tea cup, setting it down with a sharp click on her counter. "I'm making you breakfast."

"What?" Nellie stared, dumbfounded.

The light in the blue eyes that met hers was less feverish than usual, perhaps due to the aftereffects of all that gin. Or maybe he was just saner in the morning. Although, from the smell of breakfast… "Breakfast. For you." He turned to the stove, and Nellie saw the rim of her skillet as he shook something out onto a plate. Her nose crinkling, she stepped closer to the counter, craning her neck to see over the counter. The Ripper stopped her with a glance. "Sit."

She watched him warily as she backed toward one of her own booths and sat, her curiosity overpowering for the moment her instinct that allowing Jack the Ripper to cook for her was a bad idea. Jack smiled, watching her drop into the seat. "You know, I thought for a second I killed you this morning. And I couldn't even remember."

"Well, I'm awful glad you didn't, love."

"Me, too. I don't suppose I'll get to kill many women as lovely as you." His grin spread as he picked up one of her trays. "I'd want to do it so as to remember it the rest of my life."

Nellie edged further into the booth. "How sweet." As soon as he set it in front of her, the source of the smell was obvious; along with a cup of dark tea and blackened toast, her breakfast consisted of what appeared to be the burned, greasy pieces of the heart he had brought her the night before. "Oh, that's nice, love. Shame I'm not hungry just yet. Too bad. Looks delicious, though."

Jack blinked owlishly at her, sitting down across the little table. "You're not hungry?"

"Not yet, love. Had a big supper last night."

"You did not!"

"Do you even remember last night?" Jack scowled at the tabletop, and she knew he didn't. He had been in such a state… She giggled at the memory of the Ripper sitting half-conscious in her bed, his attention captivated by the movement of his sock as he wiggled his toes. She had smiled at him as she undid her corset; he grinned back, not quite understanding, before his eyes closed and he slumped over, already asleep. He gave her a sullen look as her giggle burst into an honest laugh. "Why don't you have it, love." She pushed the tray closer to him. "And I'll fix up something for Toby and Mr. T."

Sighing, Jack started to nibble on a chunk of scorched flesh, his mad eyes catching her as she stood. "We cleaned the bakehouse." He spoke as somberly as if he was informing her of a death.

She stifled another fit of laughter as she slid out of the booth. "Don't worry, Jack. We'll make a whole new mess down there before long."

-"A Pious Vulture of the Law"-

Judge Turpin was looking out the window of the Old Bailey when the beadle's carriage arrived. He had never seen the pudgy little sycophant move so fast in his life. Turpin watched as his assistant darted from the coach's opening door and scurried toward the grim stone building. It was a display completely without dignity. Almost rodent-like. He grunted in dismissal, shifting his gaze to a passing woman and trying to peer down her disappointingly high neckline.

He drew the shades, withdrawing into his dark office to brood. On his desk still sat the framed photograph of Johanna, looking stiff and sad in her fine brocade dress like a young corpse. He sighed, wondering how she was faring in Fogg's Asylum. His poor Johanna. Maybe as she tried to steal snatches of uneasy sleep in some damp corner, as she listened to the screams of the other unfortunate girls, she was thinking of him.

A sense of grief flooded his tired old heart. It saddened him to have to put his poor, young, beautiful Johanna through such an ordeal, but nobody refused the great Judge Turpin. He did have a reputation to uphold.

He stared morosely at the papers on his desk, sighing when he heard the beadle's unmistakably heavy footsteps outside his door. He sneered, knowing that next would come the playful knock, then the attempt at a witty greeting, the bawdy wink, the sleazy swagger as his underling made his inevitable entrance. Today, though, he burst unceremoniously into the room, turning to glance up and down the hallway before he shut and bolted the door behind him. Turpin stared, scowling. The beadle forced a smile as he caught his breath. "Good... morning… my lord…"

"Any particular cause for this hurry?" Picking one the day's newspaper, he didn't wait for Bamford's reply. He really didn't care, unless that same fright could drive him away just as quickly.

"Oh, no…" Turpin scowled again as the other man crossed the room uninvited to stand far too close as he peered through the window nervously. The judge cleared his throat loudly, settling back to his reading as the beadle moved away, and raised the rustling pages like a newsprint barricade between them.

He smiled at the effect, ignoring his visitor's conversation to focus on the headline before him. "MORE THAN THE RIPPER AT WORK IN FLEET STREET," the bold words announced. "Police seeking connection between recent Ripper murder and string of disappearances in area of St. Dunstan's ." He scanned the rest of the report lazily until his eye came to rest on a single sentence, "Police say 173 persons have been reported missing after being last seen in Fleet Street, and some sources speculate that the number dead may be significantly higher."

He slowly lowered the paper, staring as if watching his own memories. "Isn't it strange how so much happens on that particular street?" He glanced again at the portrait of Johanna. Even then… It was as if the place was cursed. Or haunted…

"What?" Bamford looked up, useless. The judge continued to ignore him, thinking aloud. There had to be a more practical explanation.

"A sailor." Satisfied with the idea, Turpin stood to round the desk with an almost predatory pace. "Sailors are known as Jacks, are they not?"

"What, do you mean the Ripper?" A note of fear crept into the beadle's voice. "I – I think he's probably best left alone, on second thought. I mean, a few whores-"

"A sailor, my friend." Turpin was leaning close now, triumph giving his eyes a strange light. "We know a sailor with connections in Fleet Street. Don't we?"

"The sailor boy?" Beadle Bamford looked as though he might be sick. "Johanna's sailor boy?" His eyes went wide and scared at the thought that the thin, almost girlish youth that had writhed beneath his cane was the psychopath that now stalked London.

Turpin grabbed his arm, squeezing so hard that the beadle squealed beneath his grip. "Not Johanna's! She's mine." The judge let go, turning away to pace the dreary office. "The sailor gives us Jack. As for the killer's medical experience, perhaps a barber surgeon. There's your Ripper." He looked back at his quivering lackey. "What do you think?"

Bamford stared at him, wide eyed and slack jawed, trembling. Sweeney Todd's words echoed in his mind - "And I'll be sure to give you, without a penny's charge, the closest shave you will ever know…"

The judge turned back to the window, drawing aside the dirty blinds to look out into the street below. "You and I will have to arrange another visit to our dear Mr. Todd."

Behind him, he heard his henchman's heavy steps lumbering out of the room and the unmistakable sound of gagging as the door swung open and crashed shut.

-"That's the Throat to Slit"-

Sweeney Todd barely noticed the blood that dripped from his walls, his window, even his own shirtsleeves as he all but beat the floor with his mop. Each sweep of the red-stained, sodden strands lashed at the boards as if the barber wanted to scour his way through the wood and into the pie shop below. His jaws clenched as he worked. His arms almost shook with rage. His head hurt.

He simply could not rid himself of the image of Mrs. Lovett kissing Jack the Ripper.

Snarling, he slammed the mop back into the bucket, water sloshing across the floor as the pail almost tipped over. Damn the both of them! The floor was only half clean, but he shoved the mop and bucket aside to pace, raging, through the rusty-colored puddles.

His precious razor, the only thing so far that he had managed to keep clean properly, flashed angrily as he held it up, swinging at nothing. Let him have her, it whispered, fierce. Let him have as much of her as he won't send back through the mail. He cursed, nearly flinging the blade away but unable to release it.

The anger that drove him faltered, and the barber let himself collapse into his deadly chair, his empty hand snatching at his hair. What the hell have I done? The razor closed, seeming to sink as his raised hand slowly lowered. She had been right there, with love in her eyes. She came to him. All he had to do was to say those three words, to say nothing, even, and taken her hand to show her in silence. I drove her straight into his arms.

Leaping out of the chair, Sweeney let out an animal yell of hatred and grief as he turned to his window. He leaned against the sill, the fingers of his right hand pressed between the bloody wood and the razor's engraved handle. He'd find a way. He'd think of something. It wasn't too late. His mind churned, trying to plan. "Sing her a love song…Just look at her all the time… Just try and show her how much you care…" He saw his reflection in the window twist into some hellish, furious mask. Anthony better not come charging in before I find a way to --

His thoughts were interrupted by familiar frantic footsteps racing up the stairs to his shop and a crash at his bolted door. "Mr. Todd!" The door shook on its hinges as the sailor struggled desperately to open it. "Mr. Todd, are you there!?" Flicking his razor open, Sweeney darted to the door and flung back the bolt. "Mr. Todd, I've found--" Anthony's words were cut off as the barber ripped the door open and grabbed the boy by the collar, dragging him into the shop.

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"Shouldn't he wake up soon?" The man's voice floated somewhere in the dark above Anthony's stinging, throbbing head.

"You didn't exactly help him any, love," a woman answered. "You didn't have to hit him that hard."

"He was squealing like a half-cut whore! I hate bloody screamers."

"Be quiet, Jack." The woman's voice was harsh and flat, but oddly musical. I know that voice… "See, he is waking up."

Stirring, Anthony lifted a clumsy hand to his burning face, feeling cool wet cloths pressed over what felt like one deep gash running from his right temple to his jaw line. He opened his eyes. Mrs. Lovett was indeed standing over him, along with a mad-looking creature in a top hat. "What…"

"Dropped through the chair, eh, lad?" The man winked at him, leaning closer with a horrific grin, but the baker drove her elbow into his ribs.

She laughed awkwardly. "These Whitechapel folk and their rhyming slang… He means you fell down the stairs." The two exchanged a look. "The stairs to Mr. Todd's shop. Fell halfway down, you did. Have to be more careful when you go running about."

"Oh…" Anthony looked up, trying to focus in their white faces instead of the dizzying blur of the Mrs. Lovett's bright wallpaper. "How did…" He gingerly prodded at the damp rags, feeling the split in his skin beneath them.

"You got caught on a bit of nail sticking out. Nasty thing, wasn't it, Jack?" Blinking as if caught off guard, the man hesitated before nodding vigorously. "Not so bad as those dreams you were having, though. You kept screaming about Mr. Todd trying to kill you. Isn't that silly?"

Jack tried and failed to stifle a snickering laugh. Mrs. Lovett stomped on his foot. "That's a very silly thing to dream of."

Anthony remembered hazily seeing the barber standing over him, razor in hand. "Yes, that's quite foolish." He closed his eyes, head pounding. "I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble."

"No trouble at all, dearie." He heard footsteps drifting away to his other side as the baker stooped to collect the rags he had bloodied. "Now, what was it you wanted Mr. T for anyway?"

"Oh!" Remembering, the sailor sat up too fast, losing the room around him in sudden blooms of light. He murmured his thanks, wincing, as the Ripper pushed him back down onto Mrs. Lovett's couch. "I found Johanna! She's locked in a madhouse – Fogg's Asylum – but there's no way in. I have to get Mr. Todd to help me!"

"I think you better stay here, love. I'll let him know." He watched her head of frizzy red curls draw out of his sight, suddenly feeling dizzy again.

"Ma'am!?"

"What?" She didn't come back, but he could hear that she had stopped.

"Did he tell you?"

"Tell me what, love?" Anthony would have answered, but couldn't quite find his voice. She turned, skirts rustling. "Jack, you keep an eye on him." He heard her steps grow farther and farther away, the sounds seeming strangely thin and tinny. He looked up into the stranger's leering smile, and then promptly passed out.

-"…All resolved with a single stroke…"-

Sweeney was just finishing with the floor, again, when he heard her enter the shop behind him. Even without her chatter, he could sense it was her. His heart gave a painful twist, but he refused to turn and face her. "Did the fall kill him?"

"Are you out of your bloody mind?" She took a step closer. He dropped the mop head noisily in the bucket, ignoring her. She took another step. "Mr. T, he was coming to tell you about Johanna."

Johanna…The mop fell. Slowly, moving as stiffly as a toy soldier, he turned to face her, his eyes wide. "Glad you missed his throat now? She's in a madhouse. He was coming to tell you." Her eyes searched his, so much softer, even now, than he had expected. "Mr. Todd, what's happening to you?"

You. He stared at her without seeing her, his thoughts running in too many directions at once. My little Johanna… If he had Johanna he could get to the Judge.

"Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett stepped nearer, watching him, almost overcome by his hopelessness in spite of everything.

Johanna was in a madhouse…

"Can you hear me?" Closer still, Nellie could have reached out to touch him.

And Mrs. Lovett was with…

She scarcely even gave breath to the whisper, "Sweeney…?" Drawn in that last step, the baker lifted her hands, longing to touch him but afraid to.

A madman.

Sweeney broke into a grin, snatching up his startled landlady so suddenly that she squealed in surprise, and swept her through an unexpected dance. They reached the door, and Sweeney let go of her hand. With one arm around her waist, he half led and half dragged the baker down and into her own shop, ignoring her protests.

Jack had heard the noise. As Sweeney barged into the kitchen, he found the Ripper waiting, wary, in the doorway to the parlor. "What's going on!?"

Releasing Mrs. Lovett, Mr. Todd stepped up to his rival, grinning as he clapped his hands on the Ripper's shoulders. "Nothing to worry about, Jack. We're going to have you committed."

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The song Jack sings in the kitchen is the one that one of his victims, Mary Kelly, was heard singing shortly before her death. Must've gotten stuck in his head.

Also -- If you're enjoying this story and would like a little more fun involving serial murder and Jack the Ripper's love life, I strongly recommend you visit star-the-ripper dot deviantart dot com and check out her story, "The Mystery of Jack the Ripper." It is a bloody good piece of work, and just gets better with every chapter. I think you'll be able to spot a good deal of Sweeney's influence, although he never makes an appearance.

Thank you to everybody who reviewed. :D