Capitolo 1.5: Lacci Crudeli (1/3)

Winter 1882.

The wind was chilling despite the scene happening well away from the dark setting of London Proper, with the dim light of the few candles being left lit at the corners of the room keeping the entire place to be devoured by the shadows of darkness.

Just mere moments ago, I was trying to read a fine book. A book about romance and about the art of understanding emotions to a finer level. It wasn’t generally my cup of tea since I would’ve preferred something about gardening, but since Dio was now away for an important business trip together with his adoptive father, I just thought it being the prime opportunity to learn some more about this curious feeling.

While I might have grown to accept the fact that I could access his heart only through slow but steady steps through our friendship, I decided to delude myself that perhaps something deeper and more meaningful could be found within the pages of that book.

Erina had gifted it to me as means to help me in my endeavor, and albeit perplexed at first when I read its title, I started to slowly creep at each word and sentence of that modest text. It wasn’t too thin, but neither too thick in the number of pages. It was still a good read, but still far from quenching the need of proving once again that I was ready for the next step.

It was right as I turned its twentieth page that the news of something unusual unfolding in the innermost section of London’s poorest districts arrived at the headquarters. Three deaths, a woman and two men.

Even though this wasn’t truly surprising considering how cheeky some independent gangs would be against our organization in an effort to debunk our reputation, this time the report had mentioned something that was worth checking on a personal level.

Bhediya decided to accompany me, leaving Sarah to play with Speedwagon while her brother and I went to see what really happened in Whitechapel and why the police were buzzing around in such a hurry.

Sure, there were plenty of officers that were supportive of Made in Heaven, but to score any favor in gaining insight over a new case was something that took its time. It needed for the first day to come to an end before a full report could be asked, and right now the crime has been uncovered mere hours earlier.

A sliver of worry coated my mind, but it wasn’t one born from certainty. It was born by the remembrance of something familiarly sinister as I listened to the names of those that had been found deceased.

The woman was a prostitute, one that I had heard about back when I was still dealing with that bleak moment of my life. It was only by reputation, and yet the fact that it was a prostitute having been killed together with two clients just sounded… fairly unnerving.

The pattern was also the same as his. Daggers or… something akin to short and sharp blades had been used to slaughter the trio. And while it was easy to try and dismiss this as a clear case of emulation, there was also a strong case that dismissed this effort of my mind to calm me down. Dio had fought a brutal campaign to try and make sure any violent criminals, murderers and rapists, were put behind solid bars until the end of their lives.

It took a full year and plenty of favors to get through with this attempt, but London had been breathing a cleaner air ever since the threat of these monsters had been dealt with through the blond’s work. But now Dio wasn’t there, and the burden of this strange case was now mine to handle.

Maybe I should’ve contacted him when I still could.

This thought wasn’t dignified by hopelessness, but by the sense of annoyance created by that frustrating crime scene.

Once we arrived at the location of the murder, Inspector Poole was more than happy to let us see the sight on a closer setting. The man had been one of the many that was indebted with Made in Heaven, having been one of the many students that had been given money to pursue their education through universities and join the higher section of the work-force. An excellent detective, the man was also having some trouble making sense of the jigsaw left behind by this unknown killer.

“Poole, it’s been a while,” I greeted with a kind tone, smiling as the young man returned this with a tired sigh.

“Miss Hannah, I would like to say it’s good to see you, but I’m sure you know what happened here is… quite tragic,” The officer commented with a nervous tone.

“I have, yes,” I quietly replied, nodding as the detective led us to the crime scene proper. Buck’s Row was now bustling with various police officers trying to block any citizens trying to see the corpses of the victims. Sheets were used to cover the sight of the butchering from the civilians, but soon those were pulled off to give us a good look at the disgusting massacre.

It was a feast of gore, one that had her grimace and sigh in irritation at the familiar style used against these poor souls. Crouching down, I gave a proper look on the horrible scene while Bhediya studied closely some piece of cloth coming from the jacket of one of the victims. He brought it close enough to his nostrils to catch the scent and… he gritted his teeth.

“I don’t believe I can find the culprit,” The young man lamented, bringing the cloth down to the ground.

Nodding at that comment, I decided to look some more for any interesting clues. This wasn’t Jack’s work for certain.

While the bastard would’ve tried to keep away from poking at Dio by resuming with his old antics regarding bodies, he wouldn’t have done so since it was widely-known that the adopted Joestar was now dealing with a royal feast in Manchester and couldn’t do much if he decided to come out and play. Still, my eyes found something rather confusing.

An element, perhaps a clue, that made me pause in my thoughts and breathing. At first I failed to notice the small strands of white fur protruding from the largest of the blood pools near the victims’ bodies, but the moment I got a glimpse of those, I aimed my finger so that the inspector could’ve recovered those.

Poole blinked just once, trailing my finger to where it was pointing at, quickly crouching down himself to recover the unfamiliar fur-like strands.

“Could it be hair?” I mused out loud, turning to the perplexed detective.

“It’s… too thin to be hair,” He responded, his free hand reaching for a small handkerchief he had in his pockets. Soon the bloodied strands were enclosed in the cloth, meant to be studied by Scotland Yard once they received this kind of hint. “I would dare to say those are from an animal, but nothing in my mind strikes at the discovery of the white fur. A cat is too small to be responsible for this.”

Indeed, a kitty wouldn’t have been able to manage this much of a blunder. Not without human help at least. Could it be that the killer made use of animals? Maybe it was someone that had managed to avoid suspects until now because they appeared to be normal by owning a simple pet. A pet that was being used as a unique sign for the monster behind this heinous crime.

In the end there wasn’t much else to notice beyond the fact many were already considering it the infamous return of Jack the Ripper. People were too easy to attach a familiar name to a horrible deed so similar to the ones caused by the renown murderer.

But that kind of chance was already ignored by every bit of my mind. Dio had been quite adamant on the fact that Jack had perished, and that anyone that would’ve gone and done this kind of murders was none other than a copycat. Someone that, albeit dangerous, was still a far cry from the vicious vampire that he had fought a year ago.

A long time had passed since his demise, and it wouldn’t have been a surprise that someone somehow managed to get through the simple screening that was established to avoid any revival. The large acquisition of knives from any stores was considered a prime topic to be worried about, and that had prompted Made in Heaven to issue the innocent request to the shops to not sell too many knives to a single individual.

Without much to work on, the logical solution was to return back to the headquarters and contact Dio on the matter. As much as I wanted to offer a greater contribution to this odd development, there wasn’t much to do with the little amount of clues available for us to study. We couldn’t just do anything without any legitimate hint of what was going on.

Yet, as we proceeded to make our way to the main building, our attention was quickly taken away by a sharp shriek followed by masculine yells coming from one of the more abandoned sections of Whitechapel. Maybe it was a brawl, maybe it wasn’t what I was hoping for it to be-

“I smell blood. Lots of it,” Bhediya commented curtly, taking the lead as he bolted through the empty streets of the quarter, rushing towards where the scene of the newest possible crime was unfolding. The wind suddenly got chillier, and I felt a shiver go down my spine as I got a glimpse of quite the absurd sight unraveling before our eyes.

A woman, she was being kept lifted up with her legs kicking around to be freed from that strong choke hold. She wanted to scream, tears flowing without restraints as she knew that the monster behind that attack was going to take her life. In a mere second, a crack echoed all around the street, the girl’s windpipe was snapped with ease by the tall being now standing over her remains.

Silence reigned as a king for the following quiet moments, with the creature slowly turning to reveal more of its crooked appearance. Its face looked like a porcelain doll, with numerous cracks all over its blank body and face. It twitched, seemingly interested by our arrival… but looking forward to something a little more murderous compared to a warm greeting.

Soon it was convulsing, preparing to attack us as Bhediya and I braced for the unavoidable fight. This was the thing behind the attacks and… what was that?!

My mind couldn’t come up with a proper answer to that simple question. It looked like something unnatural. A demon, or maybe something akin to one of those homunculi mentioned when I asked Dio about alchemy. Its skin resembled like porcelain, yet I could tell that the texture was smoother… and tougher.

Dashing for the flanks, we both dodged the first assault of the creature. It was tremendously fast, but still easy to handle considering how quick the werewolf was and how much swift my body was ever since what happened last year. Multiple Steel balls were already in my palms, allowing me to counter that first move with a volley of Spinning spheres.

While those were not coated with the Golden Spin energy, with my efforts still limited by my capacity to produce it through a single ball despite a full year of training onto it, the damage was less than I would’ve wanted..Especially when the massive explosions caused by the volley only ended up leaving the ‘porcelain’ charred and some little cracks over the damaged tissue.

This wasn’t going to be an easy fight for the two of them… but Bhediya was already moving in to land another hint on the surprised monster. His right leg blurred in a golden light as he struck the being with a powerful Hamon-imbued kick. The result was the fiend being pushed forward some more, but minimal cracks appearing on its back.

It snapped around, roaring the most terrifying noise we could’ve heard. It was loud, distorted, and inhuman by all accounts. While it had sustained a considerable amount of power onto itself, the creature seemed to shrug off any hints of pain that could’ve been coursing in its body. Either because it couldn’t feel pain, or because it was too enraged by us to stop with its assault.

Once again it rushed to attack, this time aiming at me as I was left alone to handle its swift blitz. Much to my relief, I soon found out that its clawing around was unfocused and driven by pain and rage, giving me the chance to predict and dodge all its attacks.

With this close up offering me the chance to try something stronger, I decided to try and see how it liked to be stunned by a cold touch. Preparing the attack on both my palms, feeling my sensibility dropping because of the usually unpleasant effects of the technique. Once I was ready to strike, I allowed for the monster to be open for me to attack and… I slammed both my hands onto its chest.

At first nothing happened, but soon the fiend stopped in surprise, with its stare turning down to see that a layer of ice was expanding from where my palms were pressing onto. It was also in that moment that I noticed some curves within its torso. Could it be that I was fighting a female? It had a rather slim figure, and the curves could only tell me this much.

Backing away to deal the killing blow, I felt tears forming all around my eyes, with the liquid channeling and preparing to be ejected. Dio had told me that vampires had this ability that was deadly useful. The capacity of focusing bodily fluids within their eyes and… shooting a powerful dual beam out of those to kill their enemies. I had tried to use it before, with it resulting in my eyes being almost destroyed in the process. Luckily enough, Hamon and my natural regeneration prevented a permanent state of blindness… but it made me wary of using this ability to its full power.

Instead I resolved in using a weaker version of it. I closed my eyelids just a moment, remembering what I had to do once I was ready to strike at this mysterious opponent. The moment my eyes were burning, I opened up to look at her and blasted her without any mercy!

The light-violet attack zeroed the distance to its target, slamming into the monster’s iced chest and… piercing through it. The fiend stopped, tensing up in shock as a large amount of dark green liquid started to pour out of the wounds. It trembled, surprise embedded in its form before Bhediya rushed from behind and slammed another kick on the back of its head, sending the monster to crash down on the ground and leaving an indentation of its frame onto the floor.

There was silence, with both the werewolf and I staring at the seemingly defeated monster. The creature was convulsing just a little, but all in all wasn’t making any effort to either get up or try to get closer to us to attack again. It was there, seemingly trying to recover from its injuries… and actually coming closer to do that.

My eyes widened as I saw the two holes I had left on her chest slowly closing, with a few of the cracks that we had left on its skin slowly mending and closing up like her wounds did. Was she regenerating? How was it possible to beat someone that was handling a blow that was meant to instantly kill? While it was true that they had faced monsters far worse, Bhediya had confirmed with the usage of the Ripple that the monster wasn’t undead or driven by anything Hamon could’ve killed.

Backing away and considering a retreat to plan a better way to destroy this dangerous threat, my attention was taken away as I was a dark blur descending from the rooftops of the nearby building and onto the downed monster.

A sharp blade replacing the intruder’s right arm as he pierced onto the murderous creature. It roared in pain, trying to get off from that hold, but was unable to shrug off the attacker. It trashed around to no avail, with the being failing miserably to get her attacker off from her back.

Soon, the struggling simmered down to simple convulsions, prompting for the masculine creature to step off the submitted fiend and lift it up from the floor with his blade-arm still stuck onto the monster’s chest.

He was tall, taller, than the monster we had just fought and… his attention was now onto me. Golden eyes shone from its dark scleras, and I felt like this was an important being… and an intelligent one at that.

“Apologies for having acted on this… problem, a little too late,” The being spoke, his voice booming and particularly genuine about the apology. “And… Lucy, please get off from Miss Hannah’s shoulder.”

A frown replaced my surprised expression, and I indeed felt a small weight onto my right shoulder. As I turned to greet this ‘Lucy’ and try to get a clearer understanding of this situation… I was blessed with an even greater fright as I was given a full-toothed smile from the small but scary-looking critter now perched on my shoulder.

White fur with several bloody red spots, a hat made of flesh, and a set of numerous sharp-looking teeth making up for quite the horrifying smile to look at.

“Hello, love~!”

I didn’t jump at the sudden surprise, but the critter that resembled a nightmarish cat did offer me a good reason to punch her off my back. I didn’t know that something big was soon to happen and… the taller being was somehow tied to this.

“W-Who are you?”

He gave me a grim look and… he sighed. “My name is… Ludwig. And we need to talk, Miss Hannah and Mr. Bhediya.”

And what a curious discussion was going to ensue. One about creatures from another time, and age- monsters from a society based on brutality and viciousness. A world where someone like Lucy Lacemaker was considered the prime example of a model citizen.