Page 16 of Across Space and Time

“Why did you drop a rose for me?”

“It was a gift,” Jack replied.

“That doesn’t explain why,” Hugh said with a frown.

“Aren’t flowers part of the courting ritual?” Jack asked.

Hugh felt his jaw drop. “The what?”

“The courting ritual,” Jack repeated, a little slower, as if that was why Hugh had not understood him the first time.

“Are… are you trying to court me?” Hugh asked.

“Oh yes. Well, in a manner,” Jack said, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin with his hand. “Is that a no to discussing it over tea then?”

Hugh held up his hands. “Wait, wait. You need to explain this right now.”

“Ah, well. The short answer without tea is that I am your soulmate here to help you,” Jack replied. “There is much more to tell you, but I don’t think this is an ideal place to go into it.”

“You’re my what?” Hugh asked with a frown.

“Your soulmate,” Jack repeated.

Hugh tried to process the words, but they might as well have been Chinese for all the sense he was able to make of them at the moment. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mmm, shall I show you instead?” Jack suddenly moved in close, and Hugh could feel warmth envelope him, like he had stepped up to a fireplace in winter. Jack was much taller than him, even without the extra height from his horns. Jack reached up his hand. Hugh sucked in a sharp breath as the iron claws came close to his face, tensing for them to rake across his flesh. But Jack turned his palm away and gently ran the back of his hand down Hugh’s cheek in a sweet caress. Hugh stared up into Jack’s eyes. It was his dream all over again, Jack’s hips pressed to his, the rough brick at his back, their mingled warmth.

Jack leaned in, and Hugh inhaled softly. Was Spring-Heeled Jack trying to kiss him? He knew that should make him feel panicked, even frightened, but instead he only watched the man’s face come closer to his. His chin tipped upwards without him realizing he had done it, giving Jack better access to his mouth. Jack’s lips were only inches away…

“What’s going on?” came a shout from nearby. Hugh turned his head to see a man standing a little way away, squinting at him and Jack in the dim light.

“Drat. Some other time then,” Jack said, pulling back and giving Hugh a quick smile before he suddenly gave a great leap. In a flash of horns and black cape, he had leaped up to the roof of the building and vanished over the top of it.

Hugh stared at where he had gone, his heart hammering in his chest. Had Spring-Heeled Jack really just tried to kiss him? He quickly brought himself back to the reality that was this stinking alley. The man had come a few steps closer, staring at him expectantly. “Wh… what?” he asked, his mouth suddenly gone very dry.

“Are you all right, sir?” the man repeated. “That looked like Spring-Heeled Jack!”

“Oh, yes, it… it was,” Hugh replied.

“He ain’t hurt you, did he?” the man asked, giving him a long once-over look.

Hugh shook his head. “No. No, I am just fine.” He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. “Thank you for your assistance.”

The man nodded. Hugh hurried out of the alley before he could think too much longer about the fact that Spring-Heeled Jack, the terror of London, had tried to kiss him, or that he had been perfectly willing to let him do it.

Chapter seven

The first part of the next evening was strangely quiet. The air felt heavy and oppressive, like just before a storm. It licked at his skin beneath Hugh’s heavy uniform, making sweat break out on his face and breathing a bit more difficult. The few people out on the street hurried past him with their heads down, and darkness fell over the city like a wool blanket. Hugh traced back the route from The Bull and Parasol to the area where Christopher had been killed, again finding nothing. He felt the eyes of Spring-Heeled Jack on him again, and he tried not to sigh in frustration. He almost wished that if Jack was going to do something to him, he would just do it so that they could stop playing this odd game of Follow the Leader.

He wasn’t sure what it was that finally caught his attention. Some sort of sound that his body sensed, even if his brain did not. It was a few blocks from the site of Christopher’s death, and he passed the mouth of a dark alley, the kind that would make him nervous whenever he walked by it on patrol, as it was long and shrouded in darkness so thick that he could not see the end of it. Something felt off. He could feel it crawling on his skin like a plague of flies. He lit his police lantern, lifting it to cast at least a little light into the void before he stepped into the alley.

He could hear something toward the other end of it. He couldn’t place the sound exactly, a muffled sort of ripping, dragging noise, and a sort of snuffling sound. Perhaps a dog foraging for scraps in a waste bin? Hugh’s footsteps echoed softly against the walls of the buildings that loomed to either side, preventing most of the light from the street from penetrating that far. He was more than halfway down the alley before his feeble lantern finally illuminated something close to the ground a short distance away.

Something dark was hunched over a prostrate form. Hugh could see a limp hand lying on the ground, pale in the sickly light. The scene was much too reminiscent of when he had found Toby, and now it seemed that someone else was dead. He was determined that this time Spring-Heeled Jack would not get away from him. He pulled his truncheon from his belt. “Jack!” he said loudly, his voice echoing off the brick and stone around him.

The creature lifted its head from where it had been stooped over. Long legs unfolded, bent almost like a dog’s. An elegant, black cape was thrown over its shoulders, and atop its head was a gentleman’s top hat. It rose up, its bulk becoming more apparent as it unfurled from its crouched position. The moonlight struck the face of the creature as it turned toward Hugh, and, for a moment, he was confused about what he was seeing. Whoever- whatever- it was was not Spring-Heeled Jack. What looked back at him might have been a man, but it was no manner of man that Hugh had ever seen before. Stringy, dark hair, covered in a variety of viscera, hung over its craggy face, a face sharp with angles that cast much of it into shadow. There seemed to be no lips, the mouth stretched unnaturally wide and long to reveal thin, pointed teeth. He could not see eyes beneath the shadow of the top hat and the hair falling over it, but he could feel what he could not see. The creature held him frozen, paralyzed in place as the mouth stretched wider still. It let out a sound, somewhere between a hiss and a growl, a sound he had never heard before but one that he knew he would never forget.

The vile creature took a step toward him. Run! Hugh tried to command himself. But his body felt as though it were locked in place, unable to do anything but stare. His truncheon fell from his hand and hit the ground, the wooden sound echoing in the alleyway as loud as a tree being felled by a woodsman. The creature took another step, then crouched, coiled like a cat about to pounce upon a mouse. Hugh’s breath froze in his lungs.

---