Ripper Street

Warwick's awakening was agonising. His consciousness, shattered into a million pieces, suddenly felt itself whole again. For the first time in long months he felt that he was alone in his own body. Silas had vanished — not died, but rather… dissolved, like morning mist. In his head lapped a bewildering emptiness, already beginning to fill with memories of the monstrous events of recent months. Frederick Warwick suddenly grasped the horror of all that had been happening. Blood on his hands. Blood everywhere. The memory of the knife's swift movements, of his victims' screams, of the rapture that the other one had felt as life left each body. “My God…” he whispered, staring at his bloodstained palms. “What have I done… what have we done…” Raven stood over him, and the red flame about his figure was slowly dying. His features were becoming human once more, but in his eyes the embers of that unknown fire still glowed. “Frederick Warwick,” he said quietly. “At last we can speak in private.” “You… you got rid of him?” Warwick struggled to his knees, unable to rise fully. Every movement hurt, not in the body but somewhere deeper, as if something inside him had snapped for good. “Of Silas?” “I merely fulfilled his desire.” Raven crouched down to be on a level with the wretched man. “And he very much wanted to break free. I wonder why?” “It was all because of me…” Warwick covered his face with his hands. Tears burned his eyes, but he could not stop them. “I tried to stop him! Back then, in the hospital… God, how I tried!” Memories flooded back with renewed force. Endless nights when he had fought for control of his own body. Moments when he had managed to break through Silas's iron grip… “The scattered instruments?” Raven prompted gently. “Yes…” Tears rolled down the doctor's face, his whole body trembling. “I wanted to cut my wrists, but he would not let me! Made me drop the scalpel. I hoped that Dr. Phillips would notice, would understand that something was wrong with me…” “But he did not understand.” “He could not…” Warwick laughed bitterly. “Who in his place would believe such a thing? Silas was always careful, never lost control even in sleep. God, I do not think he slept at all!” “And what of the clinic in the city?” Raven asked. “That was my idea,” Warwick admitted with anguish. “I thought I might help at least someone. Atone for my guilt, if only in part. But it turned out to be merely another of his tricks…” He fell silent, gathering his courage. “Silas allowed me to work, said I would be more useful to him that way — I would not lose my medical skills. And all the while he was watching… choosing girls from among my patients. Studying them, memorising their addresses…” “And then killing them?” “Worse,” Warwick's voice broke. “He always told me beforehand how it would be. In the minutest detail. Said that if I did not obey, if I tried to resist, there would be more deaths. Far more.” Warwick shuddered at the memories. “He made me… participate. Demanded that I cut out the organs myself, just to torment me. And then he would complete the next part of his accursed ritual. And I could do nothing! Nothing!” “Tell me everything from the very beginning,” Raven demanded quietly. “How did it start? How did Silas Morrow come to be a part of yourself?” Warwick closed his eyes, steeling himself. Memories poured forth in a torrent, carrying him back into the past. “It all began with my arrival at Colney Hatch…”

***

For as long as he could remember, he had never wanted to be a doctor. That had been his father's wish, and all his father's whims became inviolable law in their household. Charles Warwick was a cold, authoritarian man for whom his son was merely a continuation of the family dynasty. “The Warwicks have served the people for three hundred years, Frederick. As soldiers, clergymen, physicians. You shall continue the tradition!” — these words echoed in his head whenever he thought of rebelling or expressing dissatisfaction with his lot. He had always felt himself different from others, which was, admittedly, quite typical for a boy of his age. The suspicion that his “otherness” was of a somewhat different kind did not arise at once, but grew stronger with time. Even as a child he noticed things that others could not see. Shadows in the corners of rooms moved not as shadows ought to move. In empty corridors there sounded a barely audible whisper. His mother put it all down to a vivid imagination; his father demanded that he immediately “stop inventing such nonsense.” At thirteen, having escaped his tiresome governess and hidden from her in the attic, he stumbled upon a bundle carefully concealed between the old beams beneath the very roof. Within it lay a silver fibula in the shape of an eye, and a note yellowed with age that nearly crumbled in his hands: “To Frederick of the Warwicks, in whom my power shall manifest. From your great-great-grandmother Mary Blackwood, who fled Salem in 1692. This gift belongs to you alone. Guard it and use it wisely. — M.B.” When he first touched the fibula, the world around him came alive. For the first time he felt a connection — with the house, with the earth beneath his feet, with the people in the neighbouring rooms. Their thoughts, their emotions flowed into his consciousness in thin streams, bringing with them others' joy, sorrow, fears and hopes. It was an entire new world, which he tried to explore night after night, forgetting study, food and sleep. Years passed, his father still insisted on university, and he, as was customary, submitted. At St. Bartholomew's he studied without passion, discharging a debt to his family. The fibula that had come to him in such a strange fashion he wore always — hidden beneath his shirt, it sometimes proved useful even in medicine, helping him understand patients better than any textbook or the most thoroughly collected anamnesis. Their pain became his pain. Their fear — his fear. This made him an excellent diagnostician, but slowly and inexorably drained his soul. By the end of his studies his nerves had given way entirely. His teachers recommended “a change of scene” and “work with less demanding patients.” Thus he came to Colney Hatch. The asylum greeted him with a howl. Hundreds of broken souls, imprisoned in cages of brick and iron, called out to his heightened senses. The ability to feel others' pain had become a veritable curse — he experienced the suffering of each patient as his own. Dr. Charlton, the chief physician, gave the newcomer “simple cases” — depression, melancholy, mild forms of derangement. But among them was one patient who drew the young doctor's attention far more than the rest. Silas Morrow of ward number 13 in the isolation wing. Officially he was listed as a case of “religious mania, attended by delusions of persecution.” In practice he was the most dangerous inmate in the entire asylum. When Frederick first entered his cell, Silas was sitting on the iron cot in a straitjacket, quietly humming something to himself. Emaciated to the extreme, worn by long months of confinement, yet with the burning eyes of a fanatic. And then he raised his head and looked directly at the fibula pinned to Frederick's lapel — there, where an ordinary man would have seen merely a somewhat extravagant ornament. “That eye…” Morrow whispered, stretching a shackled hand toward the doctor, but immediately withdrawing it as though he had touched red-hot iron. “Such power! It allows one to peer into another's consciousness, does it not?” Frederick recoiled, struck that this madman somehow knew his secret. “How… how do you know that?” Morrow grinned impudently, and in that smile something predatory flickered: “A blanket! And personal cutlery! I'll be damned if I ever eat the slop here with my hands again. Get them for me — and I shall tell you!” Thus began their strange friendship. Whenever the opportunity arose, Frederick brought Silas ever more things to ease life in his solitary cell, which was called a “ward” only by someone's caprice — an extra pillow, books, proper food instead of hospital gruel. Fortunately, the contents of rooms in the isolation wing were not closely watched — the guards were satisfied so long as the inmates did not try to escape and behaved more tamely than usual. Warwick even managed, through his regular reports, to create in Charlton's mind the impression that Morrow was improving. In return, Morrow told him what Frederick so passionately craved: stories of the true world hidden behind the veil of the mundane. Of ancient powers that the Church had declared heresy. Of knowledge that could grant mastery over the very nature of the human mind. It emerged that Silas's gift worked differently: he subconsciously sensed the nature of magical objects and intuitively knew how they should be used. They quickly discovered that his great-grandmother's heirloom would obey only Warwick himself — in another's hands the brooch was nothing more than an expensive trinket. “Your fibula is the key,” he said one day. “But the lock must be opened by me.” By the summer of 1883, Silas had convinced him of the necessity of escape. He promised to unlock power over the human mind. “We shall become more than men,” he said. “We shall become gods.” One August evening Frederick helped Silas escape from the asylum. They broke the bars from within using a metal rod that Warwick had smuggled into the ward under the guise of a medical instrument. Morrow proved remarkably strong for his sickly frame — the anticipation of freedom and power lent him inhuman strength. Preparing everything necessary for the ritual took several months. The local inhabitants looked askance at the two strange strangers who had rented an estate in their town, but did not trouble them with questions. Silas, meanwhile, threw himself into feverish activity, drawing octograms and incomprehensible symbols on the floor of the manor's ballroom from morning till night — symbols whose meaning even he did not understand, for everything came through his “sense.” At last, at some point, he announced that all was ready. “We shall open a door into the mind of every inhabitant of Rochester,” Morrow explained. “A thousand minds shall become one. We shall see through their eyes, speak with their voices, control their bodies as our own…” At first everything proceeded exactly according to plan. Frederick felt power building wave upon wave, felt his consciousness expanding far beyond the confines of his own skull, cautiously touching other minds in the darkness of the sleeping city. Hundreds of slumbering souls, defenceless and open… At some point he sensed the presence of Morrow's consciousness beside his own — distorted, unlike all the rest. Following an instinct, he tried to press against it and suddenly plunged into an abyss that proved to be Silas's mind. Alien thoughts pressed upon and poisoned his own. Morrow had never intended to share power. He had no need of a partner or assistant — what he required was Frederick's complete subjugation, and through him, all those he might reach with the help of the accursed artefact. And the consciousness of its owner was to obey Silas's will, as were the consciousnesses of all the rest. Frederick tried to break off the ritual, to rupture the protective circle, but as it turned out, Morrow had foreseen this too. The final piece of his plan fell into place, and Silas, without hesitation, drove a knife into his own chest, falling to the floor and flooding the ritual pattern with his blood. Stunned by the flash of pain in his head, Frederick did not even notice as a torrent of dark alien consciousness poured into him, crushing his will and depriving him of all power to resist. “Welcome to our new body, Frederick!” sounded in his head. Warwick tried to scream — and could not. He tried to move his hand — his own body refused to obey him. From that accursed day Frederick Warwick was no longer master of himself. For five endless years he remained a prisoner in his own head, a powerless observer forced to watch as an alien will directed his hands to murder innocent people…

***

Warwick opened his eyes, trembling with his whole body. “But those are not my only victims, are they? Back then, in Rochester — I destroyed them, did I not?” “More than two hundred souls,” Raven confirmed mercilessly; he had listened in silence throughout the account. “The power of the interrupted ritual devoured all those it could reach. Some left the city, but I doubt that long delayed their end.” “My parents' death — that too was my fault. Shortly after Rochester, Morrow appeared at my family home. He… did not kill them himself, merely took possession of my body and assumed his true form. Mother and Father had weak hearts — they did not survive the horror they beheld. Damnation! But it is all useless now. I am ready!…” “For what, pray?” Raven asked with interest. “For death! Silas could not use the artefact even whilst in my body. That was his greatest disappointment and his chief spur to action. He contrived a new ritual. One which, he said, would allow him to be rid of me once and for all. I held on only to stop him! But now… now I remember everything. Every murder. Every scream.” Warwick's voice trembled. “I tried to stop him, I swear! Tried to warn the police… But all in vain.” “I believe you have misread my intentions.” All this while the consultant had been idly tossing a tiny glass sphere from hand to hand, within which a bright red spark darted about and bounced furiously against the walls, glinting with malice. Opening his palm, Raven showed the object to Warwick. “It is not my custom to kill people with a gift, much less those with two. Morrow's wish has been fulfilled — he is no longer imprisoned in your body, unlike his power, which was not part of the bargain. Besides, I have need not of a sacrifice, but of an apprentice.” Warwick was silent for a long while, digesting what he had heard. In his eyes despair, hope and fear battled one another. Once or twice his gaze fell upon the spark imprisoned in the glass sphere in Raven's hands, but each time he looked away, shuddering. “An apprentice?” he finally managed. “After all that I have done? After five innocents were killed by my hands? You offer me… to continue?” He clenched his fists convulsively, staring at his bloodstained palms. “I cannot! Every time I close my eyes I see their faces. Hear their last words. Feel the knife entering their flesh…” his voice broke. “How can one live with such memories? How can one use a power that has led to so many deaths?” Warwick raised his eyes to Raven; in them could be read both supplication and hopelessness at once. “And what if Morrow has not vanished forever? What if he returns? What if I lose control again and…” he could not finish the sentence. “I fear you have no choice,” Raven answered gently but implacably. “Your gift will not go away. Silas's power is now yours as well. You can either learn to control it, or go mad from guilt. There is no third option.” Warwick nodded slowly, though tears still streamed down his cheeks. He glanced at the remains of Mary Kelly lying on the bed. “Do not look,” the consultant said sharply. “The dead cannot be helped, nor can their dignity be restored. And mistakes once made cannot be undone — but new ones can be avoided in the future.” “I… I shall try.” Warwick replied at last. “But promise me — if I begin to lose control, if I feel myself becoming like him… stop me. At any cost.” “That does not sound like the worst of wishes!” Having said this, the consultant suddenly began to change rapidly: his face seemed to melt, as though painted in watercolour; the hat upon his head transformed into a knot of hair; and the cloak, still wet with rain and blood, became a dirty grey greasy dress of the simplest cut. In mere seconds there stood before Warwick a girl of dubious beauty in a cook's apron. Moving toward the passage, she carelessly hoisted Abberline's body over her shoulder, slipping something into the pocket of his coat as she went, and turned. “Come along, child,” the “girl” hoarsely urged Warwick, and in her voice Raven's intonations could clearly be heard. Not allowing Frederick the chance to fall into panic at the sight of the body of Kelly, killed by his own hands, she made for the exit. “You and I have a great deal of work ahead of us…” Half an hour later, the nocturnal darkness of sleeping Whitechapel was rent by a woman's scream: “Murder!“