The Devil's Workshop

Jack swayed in the wind. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, bringing in the fresh moist air and blowing out the dust and blood that had filled his nostrils for so long. He felt the wind brush against his bare testicles and he opened his eyes. He gave Cinderhouse a quick glance, just to make sure he was still there, then walked away through the stones, letting the grass poke up between his toes and the first few drops of rain spatter against his face. His legs gave way and he fell and tumbled until he fetched up against the side of a stone. He looked up at the name engraved in the front of the stone, but he didn’t recognize it. It was not the name of anyone he had touched, and so he felt a mild disappointment. He knew that the odds were against the body under him being one of his own, but the entire day had felt so much like it belonged to him that he had half expected it to be a familiar corpse. It was his birthday all over again and everything ought to be his.

From that prone position, he looked around at the sea of stones and wondered at the number of graveyards in London, so many of them filled with people he had not managed to transform before they met their ends in other ways, at other hands. He silently apologized to them all for being so slow in his work. He wondered what would happen as the city continued to grow and lap over its current boundaries. Would the bodies beneath him be plowed into the soil and homes built atop their bones? Or would they sink farther under and join the forgotten dead in the catacombs beneath?

When he had caught his breath, he pulled himself up and staggered over to where Cinderhouse still stood in the shadow of the obelisk. He took the bald man by the arm and leaned against him and allowed himself to be led across the graveyard to Cambridge Street. They were somewhere in Agar Town, he knew. Not the best area to be caught out after dark. Jack had come up far from his old stomping grounds and even farther from his home. He imagined his landlady would have given up on him by now. She wouldn’t wait more than a few weeks to decide he wasn’t coming back. Perhaps she thought he was dead. No matter. Whatever she thought, she would have cleaned the place out and found someone new to pay the rent. His things would have been donated or put out in the street. There were no relatives to claim them. His old life was gone and there was no going back.

But he was content to be alive and aboveground and free.