Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 25: June 1888.

Twenty-Five: June 1888.

‘We should be nice and private in here, heartface,’ Brackley cooed in a nauseating imitation of coy femininity as he closed the door gently behind him, cutting out the noise of chatter and salacity from the room beyond.

Varney allowed himself a small grunt of satisfaction, which Brackley completely misread.

‘I say, you are keen, aren’t you? I’ve always had a thing for the older man, you know. A lot of the chaps here say that the young, fit body is the best. I’m not that sure if I agree with them. The older man has experience, wisdom…’ Brackley sidled up to where Varney stood, by the double bed that took up most of the room, and with a slight shove tried to push the seemingly old man onto the counterpane.

It was like trying to push a solid brick wall. A frown briefly furrowed the young man’s brow, but he buried it quickly, preferring to keep up his coy persona.

‘Playing hard to get, eh?’

‘I suppose,’ Varney began, ‘that your idolisation of the old has little to do with the incrementally larger size of their wallets?’

‘Is that a euphemism, ducks?’ Brackley lisped in his best East-End-whore voice.

He could not know of the images that spun through the mind of the creature before him. The voice was a fair imitation: the burly young man in the ill-fitting dress before him became the pretty young woman with the ripped throat, became every whore he had fed on since this life had begun.

‘I knew you grandfather, you know,’ Varney said softly. ‘He would have disembowelled you with a Pathan sword if he could have seen you like this.’

Brackley’s expression hardened. His stance went from coquette to aggressive in a trice.

‘Really, sir?’ he questioned with a harder, deeper edge to his voice. ‘I have little doubt you are correct. But would he not have also done this to you? What are you doing here, if not partaking of the same pleasures?’

Varney shook his head, snorted softly. ‘My dear, stupid boy, you would not believe me, even if I explained for hours. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor inclination.’

He gave the slightest of shrugs. There was something in the fluid ease ill-befitting one who seemed so old and frail that alerted a sense of danger within young Brackley. His body tensed, and he made to turn for the door.

Too late.

A fluttering of the cape that appeared to be almost in slow motion; a rush of air as the sudden movement disturbed the equilibrium of the room; a shadow passing over and around. By the time that Tristram Brackley had turned the one hundred and eighty degrees it took for him to face the door, the old man was in front of him.

But old man no longer: now there was something feral and terrifying about him. The small eyes glittered and gleamed. The body was tense, tighter than a coiled spring, and poised on the balls of his feet with a balance that more animal than man. The nostrils flared, and the teeth… oh God, the teeth…

‘Mummy,’ Brackley squealed at a pitch that was almost too high to be comprehensible. He felt his leg go wet where fright lost him control.

There was no more time for words. Before he had a chance to draw a further breath, the old man was on him. Immense strength sent him crashing back, legs hitting the bed and buckling beneath him. His landing cushioned by the mattress, it was too late for him to notice. A red-hot pain roared through his head, beginning at his throat and spreading upwards, paralysing his brain. He was unable to move, to offer any further resistance. His mind whirled, trying to assimilate what was happening to him. But he could not: there was only the tunnel, with the light at the far distance.

And then the dark.