Page 7 of Across Space and Time

“Come now, ladies and gentlemen. This is 1890. Witches certainly don’t leap around fire escapes in London.” He gave the people a reassuring smile. “I’m sure that whomever you saw was probably a burglar, ma’am, and your scream scared him off.”

The woman looked uncertain, but a man in a bowler hat stepped up and offered her his elbow. “Come along, Minnie, let me escort you home.” She nodded and took the man’s arm. Her departure seemed to break the hold on the group, and they set about their business. Hugh watched them all go. He lifted his eyes to the rooftop once more and thought that he might have seen a shadow move there in the darkness that the streetlights did not reach, but then it was gone again, and he was alone once more. Hugh circled the block several more times on patrol, keeping an eye out in case someone was trying to break in somewhere, but the rest of the night held no spooks or spectres amidst the quiet streets.

Hugh woke up and prepared for work the next afternoon with a feeling inside of him that something important was going to happen. He didn’t know what, or if it would be good or bad. But he had learned to trust his gut in his time as a constable. He was on extra high alert as he walked his patrol in the early night gloom. The fog was particularly thick tonight, a real peasouper.

He heard a soft sound off to his left. Nothing unusual, just a slight rustle. Probably just an alley cat, but something itched inside of his brain and told him that he should go look. He stepped off the sidewalk and into the alley, made all the darker by the air that felt like he could cut it with a knife.

Something was crouched in the dimness. Something larger than an alley cat. A dark silhouette with hunched shoulders. It took Hugh a moment to realize why the shape looked so odd before it hit him. There were horns protruding up and out from the form’s head. His heart skipped a beat.

The figure turned to him, and even through the darkness, Hugh could see the bright red of the creature’s eyes, as if two bonfires blazed inside of them. The glow cut through the fog as the figure stood up from where it had been kneeling. Hugh realized with more than a little panic that the creature, even without the horns, was almost a foot taller than he was. He couldn’t see distinctly in the dim light, but he could see too that the shoulders were very broad.

The shape took a step closer to him, and then another, and Hugh felt as if his feet had grown roots, tethering him in place. He could see more clearly now; the figure was indeed very muscular. He wore black trousers and boots on his bottom half, but his top half was covered only with a scandalously tight white oilcloth that seemed to cling to him in all the right places. He had a black cape around his shoulders that flowed like water in the soft breeze as he moved.

Now that he could see, Hugh realized that what he had thought to be a mask with horns attached was indeed mask-shaped on the man’s upper face, but he had never seen one that blended so seamlessly. It folded into the creature’s sharp cheeks and up over his forehead into slick, black hair. The mask was bone white, as if the man’s face were covered by his own skull, though his dark eyebrows stood out in stark contrast on it. And his eyes held that strange, firelight blaze in them. He was tall and lean, and Hugh couldn’t stop a soft inhale. The creature… man… whatever he was, was beautiful. Ethereal and haunting and more than a little frightening. And there was only one person he could be. “Y… You’re Spring-Heeled Jack,” Hugh said, his voice oddly high and nervous.

The horned man laughed, spreading his arms wide and bowing low, like an actor at the end of a Shakespearean drama. “At your service.” He said the words with much bravado and pomp, upon a stage only he could see. His voice was low and lyrical, and Hugh could feel it in the marrow of his bones, like a plucked string on a cello.

Hugh stared at the horned man for a moment before remembering that Spring-Heeled Jack had been crouched over something when he arrived. He shifted to look behind Jack. In the dimness, it was hard to see, but something was sprawled on the ground in a dark pool.

“Most unfortunate,” Jack said, turning his head to follow Hugh’s gaze to what he assumed must be a human. It was too large to be a cat or dog. He stepped aside for Hugh to see better. Despite his better judgement of approaching Spring-Heeled Jack, Hugh slipped past him, pressing himself against the brick wall as he did to keep as far away from Jack, until he could see clearly.

It was another young man, similar in age to Christopher O’Malley. Close in age to Hugh. His hair was red, made darker by the clumps of blood and other things that clung to it. His eyes were brown and stared at nothing, jaw slack. His skin was fair and his cheeks slim. He had long lashes, with a large freckle under his right eye. His trousers were around his ankles, and his shirt and vest had been ripped open to expose his chest underneath. His head was barely attached to his body by his spine, the young man’s throat nothing but a gaping mass of blood and meat. He didn’t have to check for a pulse to know that this boy was no longer amongst the living.

“You killed him.” The words left his throat before he thought about them, turning to Spring-Heeled Jack, who stood watching him.

“I did not!” Jack sounded indignant.

“You were leaning over him just now,” Hugh said pointedly.

“Just because that is where you found me does not mean that I am responsible for his death,” Jack said. He held up one of his hands in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. Hugh realized that at the tip of each finger was a sharp, iron claw; and Jack’s hand was covered in blood.

Bears don’t have thumbs. The words rang in Hugh’s ears. But Spring-Heeled Jack does. He took an involuntary step back from those claws, wondering if he was about to join this anonymous young man in a pool of blood in a stinking alley.

Jack watched him step back, then glanced at his hand. “Oh, fife and fiddlesticks, I forgot about these things.” He put the hand behind his back and gave Hugh a smile that in any other situation might have been charming. “Please do forgive me.”

Jack was turning out to be the politest murderer Hugh had ever met. “Why did you kill him?”

“I already told you, Hugh Danbury, I did not kill him,” Jack replied, his tone light and patient.

Hugh stared at him. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot about you,” Jack said with another dashing smile.

Well, that wasn’t unsettling or anything… Hugh was torn between finding out why this strange apparition knew his name and doing his duty. Duty won out. “Spring-Heeled Jack, or whatever your real name is, you are under arrest under suspicion of murder.”

Jack let out a heavy sigh. “Oh dear, we are really not off to a good start, are we?”

Hugh wondered if he would be able to arrest Jack on his own. Somehow, he doubted it. He grabbed his police whistle and blew a long, sharp blast with it that echoed off the building walls. Jack flinched, his hands flying up to his ears. “Purgatory’s penguins, that is incredibly annoying,” he said.

Hugh glared. “Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

“Why, Hugh, darling, we’ve only just met!” Jack said, giving him a wink. “Isn’t it customary to at least offer to take you for a drink first?”

Hugh felt his cheeks go red. Sometimes it was hard to determine if a salacious remark was made in seriousness when one met a new potential partner and was trying to decide if making a move would result in a punch in the face or worse. But there was no mistaking that one. The musical rumble of words went down his spine like a cold raindrop and settled low in his belly. He reached for his truncheon at his side to distract himself from focusing on the tease. He did not want to get into a scuffle with a horned man who was so much taller and broader than him, but he might not have a choice. “I said, put your hands behi-” A whistle blast answering his own sounded from what sounded like less than two blocks away, cutting off his words. At least reinforcements were coming.

Jack sighed. “I do apologize, this is not how I intended for us to meet, and I’m afraid this situation is too fraught. But don’t worry. I’ll be watching you.”

And then Jack had leaped up, planting his heels against the wall of the brick building to push off of it, and he soared up five stories over Hugh’s head to the rooftop and vanished over it. Hugh was left gaping at where he had been only seconds earlier, the man suddenly gone in a snap of black cape.

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