Do you know Jack? The Ripper? Saucy Jack? Leather Apron?
The most infamous serial killer in history has long been fodder for the imagination of authors and artists alike, but his true identity remains an enigma to this day. Take a fresh look at the...
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London was a city of ash. The fires had tossed entire buildings, entire streets of buildings into the air as floating flakes and glowing bits of scorched lives. The rain, however, forbade the stuff from ascending all the way to heaven, saying that it was more akin to that which spewed from the furnaces of Hell. And so, the ash returned to whence it had come, painting street, tower, home, church, man, and beast with a coat of oily, black vengeance.
Perhaps I am painting it with too artful a brush, but the inky stuff has become an ever-present specter in this part of the city. And no amount of rain has yet possessed the impetus exorcise it. In truth, I should be grateful for the accursed soot. But for those late August fires, I would not have been blessed with my current state of employment as overseer on the South Quay reconstruction. I would likely be laying bricks on the Bridge, or perhaps even suffering for want of employment.
I pulled the curtain back to see why the carriage had stopped. The driver had deposited my trunk on the curb beneath the blackened street sign that read Lark Run.
"This is not the place!" I informed him. "The address is Lark Lane, not Lark Run."
Yet he left my trunk in the rain and returned to the rack for my tool case.
"Driver, do you hear me? This is not the place."
He gave no sign that I had been understood or even heard. He struggled with tool case, dropping it on the cobbles and dragging it through the mud to the curb. The carriage door opened, and he offered his hand to help me down.
"Why are we stopped here, sir?" I asked.
He pointed in the direction of the horse, and I immediately understood.
"Lark Run turns to Lark Lane at the bottom. Follow it down-river two blocks to the square and look to the north side. The house you seek is there."
I looked again down Lark Run. The road descended through a steep incline with a sharp turn at the bottom and a muddy riverbank beyond. It was, indeed, far too treacherous a slope for the driver to risk his horse and livelihood.
A filthy child, maybe eight or nine years old, moved in the shadows of a street lamp below. He, maybe she, had been rendered nearly invisible by the cooperation dirty skin and darkness. It stepped into the street and waited, as if hoping to be seen, and then limped back into the shadows.
"What of my things?" I asked my driver. "I am no pack-mule."
"That is unfortunate, my lord," the driver said, extending an open hand expectantly.
"You have abandoned your obligations, Driver. You may do likewise with your hopes of compensation until I and my belongings are delivered safely to our address."
