Kidney Pie – Chapter 14

NOTE: A character called Aaron Kosminski shows up in this chapter, and I just wanted to let you know where he comes from. He was a Ripper suspect who died in an insane asylum. He did eat bread out of the gutters in Whitechapel. He was not quite as retarded as I have portrayed him here.

XXXXXXX

"Eleanor! Mrs. Lovett! Todd!" More screaming than calling, Jack the Ripper tore at the heavy iron door of the asylum, rattling it on its hinges as he struggled with the unyielding handle. His knife hand left scarlet smears as he beat senselessly at the door. It would never budge. He knew it wouldn't. But behind him, pinning him in the hopeless effort, was a mass of filthy bodies, their arms reaching over his shoulders, around his side, beating at the door with them. "Sweeney Todd, you bloody bastard! Open this door!" They were screaming behind him, clawing at his jacket, at his collar, at his hair. The arms wrapped around him, pulling. They fell, howling at the weight that crushed them into the floor, and clutched at his legs. With a wild yell, he slashed blindly behind him as they forced his blood-soaked left arm away from the door. He felt the knife sink into flesh again and again, but there were too many hands. They caught his arm. They dragged and twisted like animals, wrenching at his shoulder. His right hand, slick with blood, started to slip on the doorknob. "PLEASE, SOMEBODY LET ME OUT!"

With a strangled roar, the Ripper fell, toppling backwards over the creatures behind him and into the thrashing sea of limbs. The hospital became a forest of feet as he hit the floor. The inmates flooded to fill his space at the door, crowding around him, stepping on him. The scrabbled over bodies like rats. But Jack understood. Getting through that door meant life. The asylum was death. Jack understood very well.

A skeleton of a man planted its filthy foot hard on the Ripper's chest. Jack slashed at the calf, cutting tendons and tearing flesh. The man fell and Jack started to struggle, flailing at anything that came within range of his knife as he tried to regain his feet. In the shrieking human tide, he carved a little eddy around him, and, slowly, he stood and started to advance, trying to escape the crush for that hopeless door. But his clawing, cutting progress brought the attention of the madmen to him. They beat at his back as he fought past them. They tore at him, trying to reach his face, trying to pull him back by the hair.

And they screamed. The sound made him choke on a howl of his own. I hate screamers!

He finally neared the edge of the crowd, his breath ragged and his vision starting to turn a blurry red, whether from rage or from the blood that dripped into his eyes he wasn't sure. But he did know that he was almost free. Just a few feet away was air and room to move, was the hallway that might lead – had to lead – to another way out of the asylum. He cut blindly across a woman's torso. She fell, but he felt her teeth close on his ankle as he staggered on. He kicked her away. He was almost through.

A surge of animal thankfulness hit the Ripper as he reached the edge of the crowd. He panted through a mad smile, joy and the stinging blood making tears well up in his eyes. He would have laughed, had one of Fogg's children not leapt onto his back, snatched his necktie, and pulled hard. The knot slipped against his throat.

It was a woman. Her knees were pressed into his sides, her screams exploding in his ears. He tried to yell, but couldn't. He tried to stab her, but couldn't reach her, her body pressed too close against his back. He hacked at her knee with his blade, reeling under her weight as he stumbled into the empty space he had fought to reach. The stones and shadows of the asylum were lost behind a field of black spots that bloomed and withered in seconds. His knife caught his own side as he still slashed dizzily, clumsily away. He opened his mouth, but couldn't cry out. With his free hand, he tried to pry the straining cloth away from his throat. He couldn't. Very slowly, fighting every inch, Jack sank to his knees. No…

Over the roaring of his own blood in his ears, he couldn't hear the bellow that came tearing out of the throng behind him. But he felt the impact as something bore down again and again on the woman, felt her twist with pain and claw more fiercely at him. He felt her finally release his tie as her bleeding carcass was pulled off his back.

Gasping, Jack crawled blindly away, drowning in the thunder of his own pulse. He barely resisted when he felt his coat snatched from behind and strong hands hauling him to his feet, allowing himself to be half-dragged away. The only thing that seemed to register was the air flowing in and out of his lungs, sweet relief and the burning in his throat forming the two poles that the shattered pieces of his mind began to reform around. Slowly, the deafening rush of his blood faded and his vision cleared, as his new captor slung him around and shook him like a straw doll.

He could barely make out the words that began to cut through the more distant screaming. As the asylum came back into focus, Jack found himself looking up at a grinning face, unkempt and filthy and very familiar. It was one of the very few that could be found leering through the rain and fog of Whitechapel's worst nights. The face was speaking, gibbering, as its arms continued to shake the recovering Ripper. "TopHat! Get upsy, TopHat. It's morning! Jacky, get upsy!"

Jack put his hands on the other man's wrists, making him stop shaking him for long enough to get unsteadily to his feet. He stared at his rescuer as if he wasn't sure if he was really there. "Kos… Kosminski…?"

XXXXXXX

"Where's Abberline?" The picture frame lay open on the table, Lucy's pale figure staring like a ghost in the moonlight that streamed in through the window. The blood staining her form screamed of more guilt than Sweeney Todd's, and Turpin couldn't take his eyes off it.

"Outside, my lord." Bamford stood close enough that the judge could have hit him with his elbow , but his voice was so weak he was barely heard.

"Get him now." He didn't look up as he heard the beadle's steps cross to the door. His henchman, he knew, was far too frightened to be discreet. Turpin cursed silently, restraining his growing anger. It doesn't matter. There was nobody in the shop below. During their entire wait in the carriage – two agonizing hours – the shop had been as still as death. But every one of the beadle's crashing footfalls stirred up whatever sense it was that made his blood run colder. "Be quiet!"

It made no difference; Bamford was already at the door. His fingers shook so badly that the judge could hear the doorknob rattling in his grip. Turpin scowled but didn't lift his eyes. Like scarlet eyes, the flecks of blood that hung on the barber's possessions stared at him, reminding him that if he was wrong, if the house wasn't empty, if somebody returned, he would be facing, with only a coward and a man lost in his drug-inspired dreams, a murderer and more. A murderer who wasn't satisfied with murder, and who had a particular grudge against the judge himself. "My lord… Abberline's gone!"

"What?"

"He fell down at the foot of the stairs. That's right where I left him! He…"

Judge Turpin felt his heart begin to beat faster as he stepped toward the open door, but he forced the fear away. "Then he's gotten up and wandered off. He can't have gone far. Just -"

"My lord, they're coming!"

The judge froze, only a few steps from the door. "No."

"Yes, they are! That's Todd right there!" Hysteria added a wavering , pathetic edge to the beadle's voice as he stood rooted in the doorway, staring into the moonlight. "There's Mrs. Lovett, too. And…" The judge ran the rest of the way, peering past his terrified stooge. "And they're bringing back another girl!"

They were. Turning into the courtyard, the barber, his white face almost glowing in the night, walked in front of two women. One tall and pale – the baker, the thought – half led and half dragged another skirted creature towards the shop. The second girl was small and fair, staying close beside her guide. The moon's beams struck her light hair and, for one chilling moment, thought the unfortunate thing was his own Johanna. The thought passed. He sneered down at the little party, his pride swelling with the knowledge that his Johanna was safely beyond the reach of this breathing ghost of her father.

"M-m-my lord…"

"Get in here, quickly." Turpin retreated back into the dark of the Tonsorial Parlor, taking the beadle's shoulder to pull him out of sight. The door swung shut, bells ringing. The two froze behind it, listening, but no footsteps climbed the stairs outside to investigate the sound. Turpin let out a relieved sigh and released the beadle's shoulder.

"We… Maybe… We could sneak down the stairs and get back to the coach before-"

"No." The judge felt anger welling up again, black and burning. It suddenly seemed deeply wrong for the barber to be back, to have returned not only to London but to have returned to this very shop, to the space beneath their feet. It seemed wrong that Barker, having been defeated and destroyed as Lucy's protector, should be allowed to return to ruin his efforts for Johanna. "You say he has a woman. He seems to commit his crimes here. So we hide."

XXXXXXX

The wild notes of the bells above her doorway became the opening of a whole chorus of questions as Mrs. Lovett stormed into her pie shop, pushing Johanna in front of her and clutching the hand of her tenant, who walked behind her. All the way to Fleet Street, she had gripped that hand so hard that her knuckles turned white beneath her fingerless black gloves, in part out of anger at the way he had betrayed Jack at the asylum but also as if she felt that Sweeney would disappear before she could have more kisses like the one on Fogg's doorstep.

They had fled in near silence, their few hurried whispers serving only to explain to Johanna that her rescuer was the Mr. Todd who had agreed to shelter her and Anthony until they could escape from London. Unfortunately, Nellie's promise that the sailor was waiting for her didn't seem to reassure the poor girl very much. No wonder, the silly little nit. That boy was hopeless.

"Johanna!" Shouting, that boy was the first to meet them. He rushed into the kitchen, freezing at the sight of his love, red-eyed and trembling, with her dress painted with blood. "Are you hurt!? Mrs. Lovett, ma'am, will she be alright?"

Toby was only just behind the sailor. She saw him stuff something into his coat pocket as he came out of the parlor. "Mum, you didn't have any trouble, did you? You're safe with them?"

"No, everybody's alright, the blood just -" She paused, thinking. Don't worry, dearies. I'm sure the chap it came from had it coming. "Ah… Mr. T?" Mrs. Lovett regretted calling the barber to their attention as soon as Anthony turned to look. Sweeney's hands were still covered with clotted blood. The sleeves of his dark leather coat were thick with it.

"Mr. Todd – are…" Anthony's eyes went wide, and he put his arms instinctively around Johanna, who had begun to sob. "Mr. Todd, was somebody…" He choked on the next word. "…killed?"

Toby, his dark eyes keen, never looked away from the baker. "Mum, what happened to Jack?" Nellie's thoughts gave a little lurch, as if her mind had stumbled over that question. Mr. Todd's hand slipped out of hers.

"He's…" She could almost kick herself for running before the Ripper was finished with Fogg, seeing in her mind Jack's frightened face as he sat on the counter. Poor thing. She supposed she was safer without him. And Mr. Todd… "He's with his own kind."

"With the other doctors, you mean?" Anthony asked.

"Not exactly." Mrs. Lovett felt the whole roomful of eyes fixed on her, and suddenly didn't like it. She turned back to Mr. Todd. "Well, don't suppose there's anything you'd like to say, is there, love?" The barber was silent, and for just an instant she could have slapped him for putting them through that, for locking up her Jack, and leaving her to make their explanations alone. But in his eyes, she saw a trace of the same sly intelligence he had used that evening. He looked at each one of them, judging. He intended something for their whole group, but she could almost swear that his eyes had rested just a little longer on her. Her anger vanished.

"Yes." He was looking at Johanna, but let his eyes meet hers as he stepped back toward the door. "There is." He stepped out, making the bells sway again, and she heard his steps climbing the stairs to the his shop.

XXXXXXX

Aaron Kosminski… Memories followed the two prisoners down the hall, clinging to Jack's blood-soaked coattails as he and Aaron made for Fogg's office. Nights full of fog and wind and blood crowded the deserted hallway. Kosminski, who even Jack had to admit was in fact mad, babbled to himself cheerfully in his native Polish, as he did often while free in Whitechapel, following at the Ripper's heels like a dog and carrying the bloody pair of scissors he had used on his friend's assailant. Jack grinned.

An immigrant, Kosminski had stumbled upon Jack in the course of a very productive night. His double event – two whores in one hour. Aaron had roared about "the alley girlies" and kicked the carcass of the first, and created a bond with the killer something akin to professional courtesy.

Aaron, Jack had later discovered, also ate out the gutters, which had amused the Ripper on many less successful nights.

He hadn't known that the law or the saner Kosminskis had dragged the poor devil to Fogg's. We'll both show them we're not that easy to nail down. The door to the doctor's office swung open with a crash as Jack charged into it, halting inside to survey the damage he had done. He hadn't carved up Fogg like he did with his ladies, but it had felt so bloody good just to drive the knife home over and over again, as if he could have killed his fears and the madhouse itself if he'd stabbed the old bugger enough. Certainly, the doctor looked as though Jack had made the effort. He smiled, stepping towards the corpse.

"Keys, boss." Fogg's grubby white coat was now a sticky scarlet, but Jack's hands, his fingerless white gloves and sleeves, were already thick with blood. He fumbled at the dead man's pockets. "And when we find them, you can find another way out. We're as good as free!" Clawing fistfuls of rustling, wrapped candy from Fogg's pockets, Jack hesitated, shoving them into his own as an afterthought before he continued his search. Brushing aside the flaps of the stained white jacket, he found the keys hanging on a crowded ring from the doctor's belt. Ha! He quickly undid the clip that held them, but a thought made him stop, as cold as the metal his fingers closed around. "You can, can't you?" He looked up, meeting Kosminski's vacant, staring eyes. "Aaron?"

"Crying at the window and tirling at the lock…" Half singing under his breath, Kosmiski rolled his eyes, as if looking for an exit in Fogg's office. Still kneeling in the pool of blood, Jack stared dumbstruck as his ally raised his hand to point uncertainly at the door that let back into the hallway. "Good, Jacky?"

Jack blinked, stunned. "No… To the outside, boss…" Aaron looked back, hopelessly, his pointing hand slowly sinking. "A back door, a service entrance… A way out…"

"Out.. outy out…" Kosminski spun, muttering in Polish as he searched the room again. This time he stopped looking at the counter. "Top hat!" Jack only watched, his mind racing, knowing that every moment they delayed moved Eleanor that much further away, as the madman crossed to pick up the worn hat and hold it out towards its owner. "Jack TopHat! Jack!"

We'll get out. We have to… There must have been another way out. There had to be, somewhere. Even a window. If we can find it… Kosminski stepped nearer, smiling madly, with the hat held out in front of him. "Ja-acky!" His eyes fell on the battered old hat, and slowly, Jack began to laugh.

Of course they would escape. How could they not? I'm Jack the Ripper! Unstoppable, invisible, as pointless to try to capture as a wisp of Whitechapel fog. And Saucy Jack's got a dear lady to see! His howling laughter filled the office and made the walls cackle back at him. Tears washed the thickening blood from his cheeks. He reached for his hat, and, still laughing, the Ripper bounded out the door.

Kosminski scrambled after him, chuckling, as he dashed down the hallway. Jack skidded to a stop at the first door he came to, but the smell that rose behind the bars was enough to tell him that the room was sealed. The next doors all held only the same reek. He ran on, finding another doorway not far away. It was solid wood, reinforced with steel bands and bars, and held with a massive padlock. Jack stepped nearer, holding his fingers up to the cracks around the door's edges. Behind him, he heard Aaron give a strangled squeal. His friend's hands seized the back of his coat, squeezing a stream of sticky blood out of the drenched cloth. "No, Jack. No! That's the bad room!" Jack ignored him, smiling. From the other side of the door, a draft cooled the congealing gore on his fingertips.

Stepping back, he pulled the stolen keys from his pocket and fumbled for one, ramming it into the lock. Kosminski wailed as he rattled it, cursing under his breath, but Jack only pulled it out to find another key. It, too, refused to turn. He tried a third, and the lock sprang open. He stopped, letting the ring full of keys drop along with the open padlock. Slowly, he pushed the door open.

On the other side, he found a sort of medical torture chamber. Gurneys stood to either side, flocked like stained, silent sheep around the wooden slab of an operating table, restraints dangling from its corners. A grim piece of machinery stood by the nearest wall, heaped with clips and wires. The sight of it made Jack hesitate in the doorway. Behind him, Aaron pulled uselessly back on his coat, whimpering. "Bad, TopHat, it's bad…" Jack stepped inside, dragging his friend behind him. He didn't have time to care. Across the room, the night blew in through the iron bars of a window. A way out.

He looked around, spotting a sleek black bag standing on a stained counter. Perfect! Jack charged across the room for it, ignoring the sobbing weight that was Kosminski. It opened with a clean, welcoming click, and Jack smiled at the gleaming array of tools inside even as Aaron cried out and wrapped his bloody arms around Jack's middle, making his cut sting again. He reached in, his spirits bounding, and chose a heavy surgical saw. He had to fight of a giggle when he held it up in the dark, gleaming. Scrambling to the window, he nearly tripped over Aaron's dragging feet, but he grinned madly as he stumbled into the moonlight and attacked the window's heavy bars, drowning the broken Polish pleading in the sound of grinding metal.

"Brave, TopHat. Brave, good, Mister Jack…"

The first bar wrenched away with a screech and fell into the yard below. Jack started on a second, sawing feverishly, knowing that the dark iron bars was taking the edge off of his new toy. But I'll do it to get to you, Mrs. Lovett! The bar followed the first, spinning. I'll do it to get you!

He spun around, breaking Kosminski's hold, and let his beaming blue eyes rove over the room again. Across one of the waiting gurneys hung a stained sheet. Jack darted for it, snatching it triumphantly and using the saw to cut long slashes lengthwise, then, clawing at the ragged edges of the cuts, tore the sheet into four long strips that flapped behind him as he raced back to the window. Quickly, he tied one end of the first strip to one of the remaining bars, adding two more to the end of that before flinging his makeshift rope out the window and looking out. It wasn't more than twenty feet down, and the three segments he already had swung only a short drop above the ground. He let the final strip flutter to the floor of the operating room as he went back to the medical kit, replacing the saw and latching the set, which he then tossed out the window after the rope.

Aaron watched with wide eyes as Jack squeezed through the mangled bars, gripping at the sheet as he braced his feet against the dark walls. "Now you wait, boss, and when I get to the bottom, then you came down, too. Right?"

"In the bad room. Wait for TopHat." Kosminski stooped and picked up the last shred of sheet, stabbing the center with his bloodied scissors and tearing it apart, just as Jack had done. "Be just like brave, brave Jack TopHat…"

Ignoring him, Jack started to climb down, watching the red prints of his fingers rise higher and higher above his head. He hadn't gone far when his eye caught a drifting white streamer float past him, looking too much like the sheet he clung to. He looked up.

Leaning out the window, Kosminski stared adoringly down at the Ripper. The shreds he had already made of the extra sheet hung pointlessly from the rest of the bars, but Kosminski had not finished his imitation. "Aaron be just like good TopHat." Jack watched in horror as his friend reached out with the scissors and cut a strip out of the rope, letting it flutter away into the night with a laugh.

"Kosminski! Don't you -" Another little ribbon fell past him. He felt the rope give a jolt. "Aaron!" He started climbing faster, trying to leave as little distance as possible between himself and the ground below. "You'd better stop tha – Oh!" Suddenly, the sheet went slack and Jack felt himself falling "Jack!" Crying out, Kosminski flung himself half out the window, catching the shredded end of the sheet only to be pulled out after his friend.

Landing hard on his back, the Ripper lay stunned as Aaron dove head first into the weeds beside him, the useless end of their rope still clutched in his fingers. What… Above him, the moon was still shining in an open sky. He was free. He sat up, fixing his top hat and reaching for the medical kit. He wasn't sure if Kosminski was dead, but he hastily pulled a handful of stolen candies from his coat pocket and left them in the grass beside the madman. Then, grinning, the fiend of Whitechapel ran towards Fleet Street.

XXXXXXX

Killing people was so much easier than speaking to them. Sweeney's plans for the night had sprung so flawlessly into life exactly that it almost seemed that fate was working from his blueprints. Now all of his family – all those he would make his family – were downstairs, waiting to be claimed as his, and that one step stopped him dead.

But he didn't need to say it all. He had the picture. It still sat on his little table, his Lucy's face showing peaceful through the blood that constantly stained the glass above her. And she would do the speaking for him.

He wondered as he reached his door how much Johanna knew already. Perhaps she would know her mother when she saw her. Or perhaps he could get Mrs. Lovett to give that painful explanation. Taking the key from his pocket, he leaned toward the door to unlock it, but stopped. It was already unlatched, letting the darkness inside the shop peer out through a narrow crack. I must have forgotten to lock it when we left…

He hesitated as he stepped inside, but the shop was empty. With a dismissing grunt, Sweeney shrugged off his bloody jacket and tossed it on the floor beside the little stove, long since gone cold. He stripped off his drenched black gloves, too, dropping them on the table and picking up a rag to wipe the drying gore from his skin. His picture frame lay open on the tabletop, not where he had left it. He picked it up, looking sadly for a moment at his lost wife, her portrait half-hidden by blood. He found a clean spot on his rag and made to dip it into the mug of soap, but found that it, too, was not where he left it. It was on the floor at his feet, shattered. He put down the pictures. Someone has been here.

Backing toward the window, Mr. Todd scanned the room again, and felt all the rage of fifteen years ignite at once. Rising in the shadows behind his stove was Judge Turpin, sneering.

"Benjamin Barker." The judge stepped forward, his eyes locked on Sweeney's. There was a hatred in the old man's voice, as if the crime of being that man was worse than any he had judged. "Benjamin Barker…"

The razor was in Sweeney's hand before he realized he had reached for it, open and held high. Years and years of his darkest visions came to mind, and he grinned. He'd finally have to choose one. He leapt forward but froze again as Turpin only shouted out, "Bamford!" The lid to Sweeney's trunk flew open and struck the wall behind it, and the beadle stood, trembling. In his unsteady right hand, was a pistol trained on the barber.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sweeney saw a shadow race down Fleet Street and turn into Mrs. Lovett's courtyard. It was making for the shop, but he saw it stop beneath his window and look up. He saw that it saw him, and then it dropped the black bag it was carrying and veered away toward the stairs. Its steps came thundering up to his landing, just as Anthony had the last time the judge had come. Unlike that time, Sweeney was now at Turpin's mercy. And unlike that time, the shadow that burst through the door was not Anthony.

"Mr. Todd! You snake in the -" It was Jack the Ripper, drenched in blood. His pale face and white collar were soaked in it, and gore matted the hair beneath his old top hat. "Oh..." The beadle let out a shriek and swung the pistol to bear on Jack. As the shot went off, harmlessly shattering one of the door's glass panes, Sweeney leapt at Turpin, his silver razor flashing.

XXXXXXX

I am not really happy with this chapter. Not only is it an unholy cliffhanger of death, it also feels like I could have done better. Oh well. I blame Kosminski.

Thank you to everybody who reviewed. : ]