London England, 1889
The January wind was bitter and unforgiving, biting through the coats and scarves of the humans who quickly made their way from one building to the next, careful not to slip on the sheen of ice left in spots on the surface of the sidewalks and streets. The stars were out, and the sky was clear, but few of them lingered long enough to marvel at the wonder as they rushed to get out of the cold.
Aaron and Vicky had no such reason to take cover. Cold no longer affected them the same way once they had gone through the Transformation process. Aaron could easily stand outside in subzero temperatures without a coat for hours before he became even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Likewise, the summer sun was no longer a bother.
Tonight, he did wear a long coat, hat, and scarf\u2014as did Vicky\u2014not because they needed them for warmth but because otherwise, they might not quite fit in with their surrounding should any humans pay them any mind. Since they stuck mostly to the shadows and most of the people were in too big of a hurry to even survey their surroundings, it wasn\u2019t much of a concern.
\u201cI have a feeling we\u2019re not going to have any luck tonight,\u201d Vicky whispered, peering around her into the dark alleyway behind them. \u201cNo one wants to be out. Not even the undead.\u201d
Aaron nodded in agreement, though it wasn\u2019t the weather that had him convinced they were on yet another futile mission\u2014it was the lack of any sort of trail to begin with. The Ripper\u2014Jack, as the newspapers had taken to calling him after a letter bearing the entire pseudonym had allegedly shown up\u2014was taunting them, as he had been since they first heard of him last September. Now, four months later, they had at least four new bodies to attribute to him, possibly more. Without more evidence or someone willing to talk, they had little to go on. Even manning the stations Ward had assigned to them did little to produce the results they desperately needed to stop the killer from striking again.
\u201cThe police may be doing us more harm than good,\u201d Aaron mentioned as he reflected on the case. Scotland Yard and other involved agencies had done their best to attempt to establish who was responsible for each of the bodies that were discovered in Whitechapel, as they did elsewhere, but they had interviewed hundreds of witnesses and suspects, and the case had grown to a disproportionate degree, taking on a life of its own as the citizens shouted their fears of the Whitechapel slayer, and the press called for more action in the arrest of a suspect\u2014any suspect\u2014linked to Jack the Ripper.
\u201cHe is an enigma like none we\u2019ve ever faced before,\u201d Vicky agreed. The entire team agreed in a meeting earlier that week that they had never seen anything like this. Brutal slayings made to look like a human perpetrator, with only the keen eyes of their kind to distinguish the marks of the undead. The last victim the newspaper was attributing to the Ripper, Mary Kelly, who had died in December, was left a bloody, hacked up mess, not the typical MO of a Vampire, yet upon close inspection of the body, Ward had been assured this was the doing of the Ripper, who they had confirmed was, in fact, a bloodsucker of the most unusual variety.
\u201cLet\u2019s walk down here and see if we can\u2019t find our friend,\u201d Aaron finally suggested, and Vicky followed him down the dark alleyway without discussion. The street lamps didn\u2019t reach the corners back here, and he absently wondered why anyone would traverse such a place unaccompanied late at night.
The Vampire who had given them their first tip several months ago had shown up two more times, each time insisting on speaking to Aaron and no one else, regardless of who he was partnered with. They could never tell when he might show up, but they\u2019d had little luck finding him on their own. All they could do now was make themselves available.
The entire situation was quite frustrating for all of the team members. Jack left an almost untraceable scene time and again, and others seemed to be imitating him, though it was always hard to say which murders were his and which were not, and eventually Ward had brought in a doctor from the United States to carefully examine each victim and determine whether or not the bodies belonged to the Ripper or something else. While Aaron liked the kid, he was just that\u2014barely twenty years old, inexperienced, and potentially capable of leading them in the wrong direction. Despite the doctor\u2019s recommendations, Aaron always tried to draw his own conclusions.
They turned the corner and headed east up a broader alleyway that ran between one large building and the backs of several more. A few steps into their journey, Aaron began to get a familiar feeling in his gut, and he looked at Vicky, who was nodding. Letting her lead, and following her nose, he proceeded with caution.
At the next intersection, she stopped and turned, entering a very narrow path lined with garbage and other debris where a familiar outline stood several yards down the cobblestone corridor. Vicky stepped back, allowing Aaron to approach while she lingered several feet behind; she knew by now that the informant only trusted \u201cblue eyes\u201d as he called him.
\u201cHow are you, friend?\u201d Aaron called halting a good three feet away from the shadow lurker. \u201cFinding the cold weather a challenge?\u201d
The Vampire laughed. \u201cPeople do walk faster when they are freezing,\u201d he agreed. \u201cI make my way.\u201d Then, as if a second thought, he added, \u201cNot with no innocents, though.\u201d
\u201cOf course not,\u201d Aaron offered, highly doubting that was always the case. \u201cGot any word for us?\u201d
\u201cNot much,\u201d he shrugged, removing his hat and running his hand through what appeared to be thinning light hair. \u201cEven the Ripper ain\u2019t out on a night like this.\u201d
If that statement were true, Aaron and Vicky may as well go home. It seemed like this Vampire had more he wanted to say, though, so Aaron settled in with a line of questioning, hoping he\u2019d finally get some clues so they could find the Ripper and put him away once and for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London England, 1889The January wind was bitter and unforgiving, biting through the coats and scarves of the humans who quickly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shadows-bargain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demonslayerrmanga.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}