Page 8 of Across Space and Time

He was still staring when Constable Michaels came running to the mouth of the alley. “Who’s there? Identify yourself!” he barked.

“It’s Constable Danbury,” Hugh said, shaking himself from his stupor. “I’ve found another body.”

“Bloody hell,” Constable Michaels said, his lantern lifting to cut through the fog a little, and Hugh held up a hand to shield his eyes. Michaels approached him, looking at the bedraggled corpse on the ground. “Well, that ain’t from no footpad.”

Hugh shook his head. “Definitely not a robbery,” he agreed. He debated if he should tell Michaels about Spring-Heeled Jack, but he realized that the words sounded mad even in his own head. He wasn’t even sure he believed them himself. He cast another glance up at the rooftop, but there was no sign of movement anywhere, other than a few windows open and heads sticking out to observe the carnage in the alley.

Michaels sighed. “Well, another one for the backyard butchers. I’ll go get the mariah.”

Hugh wrote up his report for Sergeant Reardon without including anything about Spring-Heeled Jack, just mentioning that he had heard a suspicious noise, went to investigate, and found the dead body with no one else around. He had a feeling that Reardon would not take kindly to him blaming a strange, spectral figure that only a handful of people had seen. The man already disliked him enough.

As he walked home in the wee morning hours before the sun had even started to show itself on the horizon, he wondered about Jack’s parting words. “Don’t worry. I’ll be watching you.” The words sent a shiver down his back. Who was this peculiar man who knew his name and could leap five-story buildings like hopping over a mud puddle? Was that the mysterious presence he had felt watching him the last few days and nights? And, if so, why? Why was Spring-Heeled Jack, or whoever he actually was, watching him? And not only watching, but following him? Did Jack know where he lived too? That thought nearly sent him running, but he kept his head high and tried to look calm as he walked, his fingers grasping his truncheon lightly in the event he needed to defend himself. But he reached his rooms without any interruption or feeling of unease. He pulled the curtains of his bedroom window closed to block out the daylight that would soon be creeping in before he slid into his bed.

He slept, and he dreamed of the handsome, dark-haired man with horns following him into an alley and pushing him against the wall, their bodies pressed together in all the right places. The spectre’s body was hot and firm, holding him with ease. The bulge in his trousers pressed between Hugh’s legs, rubbing against his own. Spring-Heeled Jack leaned in, and his lips met Hugh’s mouth in a searing kiss. His hand, now suddenly devoid of blood and claws, slid down between them to squeeze at his prick inside his trousers, and Hugh couldn’t hold back a gasp. Jack’s mouth trailed across his jaw to his neck, planting a row of kisses down it as his hand stroked over his police uniform, squeezing and rubbing at his need with a desperate urgency. His hips bucked into the touch as Jack’s tongue slid over his neck, up to his ear, giving the lobe a nip before soothing it with his tongue. He moaned, holding onto Jack’s broad shoulders as the hand continued to move up and down his length, still trapped inside of his blue constable uniform. His pleasure was building quickly, each stroke bringing him closer and closer to sweet bliss. Jack pulled back and gave him a saucy wink just as Hugh spilled himself inside of his pants, Jack’s large, warm hand continuing to massage and caress him through the fabric…

He woke up in a sticky mess. Get ahold of yourself, Hugh chided as he cleaned up himself and his sheets. You have a job to do. But that didn’t make the image of Jack winking at him any less prominent in his mind.

Chapter four

That afternoon, Hugh went out to the morgue behind Scotland Yard. “Just got finished with that boy you found,” Dr. Ledbetter said as he walked in.

“Do we have an identification?” Hugh asked.

Ledbetter shook his head. “Not yet, I’ll let you know if we do.”

“What can you tell me about him then?” Hugh said.

Ledbetter frowned and tapped the end of his pen against his lips. “Late teens or early twenties. Fluid around the rectum, but none on his penis.”

“So, he was probably in a tryst with someone,” Hugh said.

Ledbetter nodded. “Very likely.”

“Similar to Christopher O’Malley.”

Ledbetter hummed a bit. “Similar, yes. Though this young man wasn’t slashed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the marks on his throat, or what’s left of it, anyway, are not from claws or a knife. They’re teeth marks.”

“Teeth marks?” Hugh repeated.

Ledbetter nodded again. “Yes. Pretty sharp ones too.”

“So, not human teeth?” Hugh asked with a frown. He couldn’t remember if Spring-Heeled Jack had regular-looking teeth or not, despite his charming smile. It irked him that he couldn’t remember a detail like that.

Ledbetter frowned. “Well, let me show you.” He led Hugh over to one of the far tables, folding the sheet down from the red-haired boy’s face to below his armpits. His brown eyes were still slightly open, staring vacantly at nothing, like sunken glass marbles. “I couldn’t honestly say what made these teeth marks.” He used his pen to point to several holes and indentations in the skin. “The sharpness of them would suggest a carnivorous animal. But you see the shape here?” He swirled his pen in the air above a half-moon of markings. “Animals tend to have more elongated snouts and jaws. Humans are much more snub-nosed than most animals, so our bites are circular. Bites from, say, a large dog, would be more conical.”

Hugh stared at the tattered skin. “So, a human with very sharp teeth made these marks?”

Dr. Ledbetter shrugged. “If I had to guess, that’s what I’d think.”

“Can humans have teeth that sharp and do that much damage?” Hugh asked.

Dr. Ledbetter tapped his pen against his lips again. “That’s what troubles me about it. I’ve seen human bite marks before. I’ve even seen a man take a bite out of another’s neck before. Our necks are surprisingly vulnerable, considering they balance our brains, but there are still a lot of bones, tendons, and tissue to get through. It’s not impossible to do this kind of damage, but it would be difficult. And messy.”

“How messy?” Hugh asked curiously.

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