Work Text:
Dear Jack,
You killed again tonight. I could feel the blood splash my cobblestones, spit-warm and wine-sharp, smearing my face like paint. My stones swallowed up her muffled screams, her final prayers, the death-song of her cells. Her blood burnt bright enough to cut through the smog and soot and rot, a memory of the days I was a battleground.
Through cold, dark eyes I watch you walk away from the scene of the crime as you always do, disguised as you always are in your pale skin, your masculine power, your noble bearing. You could be a priest in that black coat of yours, my sweet, sly nightbird, my raven.
I hear you, Jack. Can you hear me? I whisper in the tongues of sleeping urchins, in the rustle of papers printing breathlessly about your latest exploits, in the splash of drunks drowning in the Thames, in the rustling skirts of all the girls you didn’t get tonight, in the smack of fists on flesh and feet on cobbles, of rattling wheels and pouring drinks, of your feathery brothers singing in the Tower. You can hear me if you hold your breath
(if you stop breathing)
and listen.
Truth be told, I’m a bit of a glutton for blood. An addict, if you will, but instead of the sleepy haze of laudanum or opium it’s something pure and bright humming through my veins, addictive, destructive. Unlike all those pretty fires, it burns without destroying—destroying me, that is. The headless queens, the doomed heretics, the ravaged bodies of conquered and conquering, Bedlam’s poor beaten souls...not so lucky. Never so lucky.
Before you, if memory serves, my favorite supplier was Henry. Have you heard of him? Henry the Eighth; now, that was a sly one. While you wore your shadows, he cloaked himself in velvety words of love and kingdom, tossed women into the gilt-edged gears of the royalty machine, and wreaked some happy Protestant hell with the English Reformation to boot. Oh, what those kingly rascals got away with…
But that’s a long time gone, I’m afraid. The royals these days are all staid, fussy old things. No, I’ve been finding my magic somewhere else—just like you, Jack. Isn’t that right, my sweet, vicious little darling?
I’ve watched you for a while, ever since you first crept up on a woman with that knife of yours dancing in your hands. So scared, both of you, even if the fear tasted a little different. Your fear lived in your curled-up guts as you slunk away, dripping and fearful, lived until you realized no one had come, no one knew it was you, and then it died. You expelled it in the next crimson burst, your declaration of war.
A war of the roses, even, fine red n’ white guts blossoming out of ravaged bodies. You’ve strewn them about like those pretty Tudors moldering in my crypts, offering them up to me for a lover’s bouquet. Ah, Jackie, how sweet of you!
I won’t romanticize what we have, of course. Whatever made you—Daddy’s belt, Mummy’s underthings, Sister in the tub or Brother in the bedroom, a malfunctioning cock or a hunger for attention—it’ll probably be depressingly mundane. Even your darling little hang-ups with women’s sexuality can be found in churches and at stakes across the globe. Your hate isn’t special, Jack, and neither is your cruelty; when we get down to base facts, the lives of the women you murdered were undoubtedly more interesting than yours.
But the legend…ah, Jack. You are the ghoul in the dark that the Romans who first lived here feared as they huddled around the campfire. And you are the glitter and dash of modern spectacle, a hunger for the most imaginative sprays of carnage. You are the perfect storm, a witch’s brew, and I am mad with the need to drink you down.
I don’t think you understand how you will change in the years to come. The monster in the night, the shadow, the gibbering demon–it grabs the mind, snarls the heart. You in particular; I can feel the held breaths of everyone in this city, the sheer sensationalism of it all, and I can’t avoid a contact high.
Long after everyone who fears you today will be long gone, your name will still inspire a bit of a chill down the spine, a tensed shoulder, a caught breath. There will be songs, books, films–a bloody musical, even. Everyone will hear their name and know it on instinct.
I can feel it all, the same way I feel the distant impact of bombers on my skin or the hum of electric signals in the air around mer. Your legend will grow beyond me, will weave itself into the very fabric of global memory. You will rise on your dark stained wings and carve your name–your true name, not the paper one–into the world’s skin.
How can I not love that, Jack? You know me, you know how I collect legends and stories, how my every nook and cranny holds a secret leading into the past. You know how I crave it, bury it deep, even when the fire threatens to sweep it away.
I love legends more than blood–I love the blood because it brings with it legends, because it summons the impossible and the strange. I have an appetite for monsters, darling.
How can I not love a monster like you? How can I not watch you, grotesque as you are, vicious and ugly and hateful as you are, and not want? There will be, and have been, killers and beasts of all kinds, but only a story like you.
So, you understand what comes next, don’t you, Jack? You understand why I have to keep you safe.
You can’t last forever, you know. Or you might, but your chances are slim. You’ve made your mark, you’ve planted the seeds of the magnificent flower, and now they’re all looking for you. They have to; this cruel city may call your victims “fallen” or “foolish,” may spit with a hypocrite’s relish, but they need a hero to match your villain, too.
The people don’t understand what’s good for them, not like I do. They don’t know how much we all need this legend.
But you do, don’t you? You understand that, or you wouldn’t be writing your clever little letters. You know why they musn't find you, can’t put a name to the monsters, or they’ll push you into a neat little box. You’ll be scary, yes, they might even tell stories about you, but it won’t have the bite of raw legend. Naming the monster is how you defang it, in the end.
You understand why I can’t take the risk, my love. I know you do. You and I, we’ve had long talks in the pounding of your feet on my cobblestones, the scrapings of your knife in my shadows. You get how it works. I feel certain of it as I watch you stride away from the scene of your crime, vanishing into my welcoming alleyways.
You understand, then, why I have to make the cobblestones turn soft beneath your feet as you walk. You understand why I have to pull the walls away as you lurch, off balance, leaving nothing for you to grab on to as you fall. You understand why I have to swallow up so quickly you don’t even have time to scream, while I have to harden the stone over your head and seal you in my very heart.
You understand how much I love you, how much I need to keep you close, keep you safe. Even if you kick and scream and gasp for air, I know you will understand, same way I understand why you had had to kill these girls.
I won’t let you go, dearest Jack. Not ever.
Much love,
London