Who: Una Nicnevin & Zipporah Bakst What: Investigating the site of the last Ripper murder When: The night of 10 November 1888 BACKDATED Where: London Warnings: Mentions of violence and death
For her meeting this evening with Una, Zipporah had looked at her closet, and reached past her new, handsome coat -- the new coat she’d bought when she’d met the Sidhe for the very first time. This was a matter that required discretion, and her old, worn, plain coat would draw less attention.
Tonight was not a night where she wanted to be seen.
Last time around, at this self-same place, she’d been stopped by Detective Walker, a man who’d (thankfully) been understanding -- this time, she very much hoped she and Una would be uninterrupted.
The night was cold, and she could see her breath fogging in the air as she stood, wrapping her arms around herself, Ach standing dutifully beside her, blocking the worst of the wind. (No fog issued from his mouth.) She’d forgotten how much easier the cold seeped through her old coat, and she shivered and huddled closer to Ach as she waited for the Lady to arrive.
When the lady arrived, she did not appear as herself, but as a young lad dressed in cheap clothing, not unlike what Zipporah and Ach wore except tailored to fit the frame of a youth and not a woman or a golem. As she approached, she greeted Zipporah and Ach warmly, in her own voice. "Hello, Miss Bakst, Ach. It is I. How do you fare this night?"
“Lady Una!” Zipporah cried out, her voice low, clapping glad hands around Una’s. “It is a very good disguise,” she said, a note of admiration in her voice. “Are you quite warm enough?” She tutted, chafing Una’s hands a little between her gloved ones. “Your coat, it is far too thin. I am well, as is Ach,” she added. “The ghosts seem to have settled some, and there was not the same outcry after this latest murder, God rest her soul,” Zipporah added, with a brief frown for the dead woman.
There was no well-wish a Sidhe could offer in the face of mortal death so Una merely nodded her agreement with Zipporah's. "I am fine, and warm enough here," Una said, though her hands seemed cool, "but I wish you were warmer. Here, take this, and it will help disguise you should we be seen. I am sorry to say that I do not know that I can glamour Ach, so I have not made one for him." She brought out a bundle of a knit scarf, which she passed to Zipporah.
"I cannot help your mortal frame against the cold very much, but I have done what I can," she added. Una had also enchanted the scarf to draw the winter chill into it, and out of Zipporah. It was the least she could do for dragging Zipporah out into the night in this chilly weather, which for all that it suited a winter Sidhe, was hostile to mortals.
Zipporah put on the scarf and nodded to the Sidhe. “Peoples do not notice him much at all,” she said, shrugging. “It should not be of trouble.”
The warmth of the scarf served to ease the tension between her shoulders, the tight clench of her arms, but she knew it was bad manners to thank Una’s sort, so she bit her tongue, and figured her help would be thanks enough.
“Is it customary for to offer well wishes after weddings in your culture?” Zipporah asked curiously, as they made their way down the alleyway, their breath misting in clouds as they walked.
"It is, and it is kind of you to think of me so," Una said. For all that she did not use words of gratitude, the fond light in her eyes and and her smile conveyed her feelings without them. "But let us save such talk until we are finished, and need sweet things as balm for our spirits. I suspect we will want them by the time we are done." She gestured to Zipporah to let her show where the murders had taken place. It was not a neighbourhood with which Una was familiar, and she felt, if not lost, aware that she was in another realm, with aches of iron above, around, and below her.
Zipporah nodded as they made their way down the narrow alleyway in a grim sort of silence, and when they approached a small unassuming gate, she paused with a shiver, wrapping her scarf more closely around her, the buildings rising up on either side of them, the slightly sour smells of piss and rotted food lingering faintly in the air despite the chill.
“Here,” she said, quietly, pointing to a place on the rough cobbles. “Here was where it was done. Last time I came here, there was a lady ghost who came to this spot, right here, and called for mercy. Not the lady who was killed here, another lady -- but she was drawn here, to the place.” She frowned. “There is an energy here I do not care for. A dark energy that tastes of death, only it is faded from when I came here last.”
"I do not know how well this will work, in the city, but I must try something. Please watch, you and Ach, while I touch on the veils here." And trusting to them, Una began to comb through the veils, starting with the veils between the mortal realm and Death, which should be thickening again after Samhain.
Zipporah could see that Una was doing something with her fingers, which were cased in woolen gloves that covered only her palms, almost as if she was handling fine yarn, as if she meant to spin it. After several minutes, she spoke to Zipporah. "This is not good, not good at all, Miss Bakst. The veil between life and death is far too thin here. Whatever was done here was terrible, and it was done with intent, I believe."
Zipporah couldn’t help the shiver that went down her spine despite the warm muffler.
“Is it a signature of your peoples?” Zipporah asked, quietly. “I do not know any of mine who would have the ability for to leave such a trace, cause such an insult.” She hesitated, and then bit her lip. “I know of a powerful necromancer,” she said, quietly, “one I know did not do this, but perhaps she would be able for to provide insights into who did?”
She frowned. “And what purpose could the thinning of this veil serve?” She asked, thoughtfully. “I am not certain I understood fully from your letters, pardon,” she added, “it is my ignorance, and the language, nothing you have done, but if this is thin, is that…” she frowned. “Is that why yours is thick?”
"They're not meant to be related in that way, but magic is strange and follows its own rules. A death would be enough to thin the veil, but--not like this. This speaks of something deliberate and ritual. I can think of reasons a necromancer might want that--with no disrespect to your friend--but the thickening of the veil between here and the Courts, I cannot say. Except that the release of a mortal life contains great power and it can be bent to many things." Una's expression matched Zipporah's; even the glamour could not hide her displeasure, and to anyone passing by, she would have seemed forbidding and dangerous, such was her anger and concern. "I do not know why anyone would want to do something that would so damage the magic of my people."
“If it was done by a witch,” Zipporah replied, darkly, “it would have been done at a terrible price.” She shivered again, wrapping her arms around her body. “A return threefolds would be… I cannot imagine.” She worried her lip once more. “So there are two possibilities, then?” She asked. “A thinning for one possible purpose, a thickening for another? What would the thinning accomplish as…” her face twisted looking for the right words. “...If the goal were to thin alone?” She frowned in thought. “Would it lead to some… some conduit for greater energies, should those energies be drawn from the dead? For to make a necromancer more powerful?” She shook her head. “There must be extraordinary motivations in place for to do something so… so injurious.”
"Those who have power and desire more rarely consider the cost to those around them. And if they can shift their own price to another, well--" Una trailed off and left the rest of that thought for Zipporah to complete. She could not see what desire a Sidhe would have to break the veil of Death and block the ways to the Courts, but there was still the matter of the Stahls, and she could see much advantage to them. "I do not think there is harm here to either of us, or to Ach, but let us not linger here, unless there is something you would do to test this place. It is uncanny with death, and I mislike it."
Zipporah nodded. “Yes,” she said, gratefully, as the three made their way down the alley. “Should you want some tea, Lady? For to warm you before you go back to your home? My flat, it is just down the way, and is secure.” She paused, and then looked at Una. “Freely offered without… without obligation,” she added, a little uncertain if the words were correct.
The gesture brought a smile to Una's face. "I gladly accept your offer and your hospitality." She slipped her cool fingers into Zipporah's. "My friend," she added.
The sentiment and the muffler proved to be quite sufficiently warming for the remainder of their time out of doors. It took a few minutes of brisk walking, but they soon found themselves back at the flat, which was blessedly warm and felt safe, and Zipporah bustled to prepare a tea tray, bringing it out to Una, deciding to abandon the podstakannik usually reserved for guests in favor of the less refined blue-patterned china due to her guest’s aversion to metal. “I brought the jam, should you wish for to try it,” she added, a little shyly, “and there is some milk, and also some hot water should it be too strong for your tastes.”
She raised her own cup. “Mazel tov on the advent of your wedding,” she said, nodding her head.
While the magics on Zipporah's home were not all familiar to Una, she sensed them as warm and welcoming, and an invitation to enter even beyond that polite and correct version that Zipporah had offered. Not the magics of Summer, but not entirely unrelated, in their own way.
"You are gracious and kind to say so," Una answered, and acknowledged the toast with a raised cup of her own to her hostess. Though the words were unknown to her, the intent was clear. "Your protections here are solid; I am pleased to see them. Even if the intent of the magics we saw is not against you and yours, I fear for young women who travel at night. And am glad you have Ach for a companion."
Zipporah beamed. “My grandmother had a hand in it,” she said. “She taught me what I know, and was a great lady. She was a friend of one of the forest folk who was in the woods next to our village,” she added. “When we had to leave, she was very sad about it, and we left an offering. You would have liked her, I think. And Ach...” she turned to look at him, her smile infinitely fond. “He is my Angel,” she said, warmly.
The return to recent events made her frown. “But yes, I fear for the women who are not as well protected as me,” she said, her voice firm in resolve. “I should like for to get to the bottom of it. It is in my home, my neighbourhood, and it cannot be tolerated.”
Una frowned and shook her head. "I wish I could say that I had an easy answer about how to stop it. But I don't know who it is, or what their motives are, other than trying to do something terrible. And I have--" she paused and considered how to say the next bit "--too many candidates under suspicion, and no way to lay a hand on any of them. They are all in hiding, for if they could be found--" she bared her teeth a little "--they would most certainly be destroyed."
Zipporah shifted in her chair thoughtfully. “I may be able for to talk to my colleague -- the necromancer -- and see whether she may have a method to track based on the signature, or following the dead. It is no sure thing, but it may help to… to narrow the focus.” She shrugged. “And I have a friend who sees the ghosts. Perhaps their wanderings can be tracked somehow -- perhaps they are drawn as a magnet draws iron, or can serve as eyes and ears.”
She nodded. “Regardless, I shall continue to do my part, and shall tell you if I should learn more.”
"I will do the same," Una said. "Eventually I will find the others--the Stahls and the thieves--and then I will find out which of them is causing this trouble, and end it."
Zipporah lowered her tea. “The Stahls are not a name I am familiar with,” she said, curious. “What did they steal? Or… or was it someone else who is a thief?” She asked, her forehead wrinkling as she tried to parse Una’s statement in both an unfamiliar language and an unfamiliar context. “Ought I keep my eyes open for them?” She asked.
"The Stahls are a coven of--I don't know all your words, but the drinkers of blood?" Una explained. "It is believed they are here in Britain to make some sort of trouble. I don't know what, but I believe they could be responsible for what we are seeing. The ones I call thieves--they are thieves, but what they have stolen, I am bound not to speak of. Either of them would be a danger to you. If you find them, call on me, but first protect yourself. Flee." Zipporah could not hope to stand before either angry vampires of the Stahl coven, nor against a Winter Sidhe so bold and foolish as to take Mab's weapons. And neither the Stahls nor the Sidhe would hesitate to kill Zipporah to prevent her from reporting what she had seen.
“Ah, Aluka,” Zipporah replied. “I do work for one,” she added, “and we are on good terms. I shall ask her if she knows of these Stahl peoples. And if I do encounter them…” she paused, and sighed. “I shall tell you, and I shall not fight them.”
Una reached to take Zipporah's warm hand in her cool fingers. "I know you have magics of your own, and Ach as well, but such as these are old, and the reports make them very dangerous. And my own kin are uncanny, and have broken many laws of my own kind. They would not hesitate to kill you to protect their secrets."
So the thieves were Una’s own people.
That leant an interesting flavor to their earlier analysis, and while she would’ve been a touch more cocky about her chances in taking on a few vampires (even though she’d seen their capabilities first-hand), she would not face someone like Mac or Una willingly -- that sort of wild, raw magic they wielded as effortlessly as breathing was not easily crossed.
She nodded her head. “I shall take your advice with… with care,” she said, unsure if gratitude or thankfulness would offend, lightly pressing the fingers that were laced between hers. “After all, we are stronger together than any one of us would be in isolation, and I am glad I have your wisdom for to guide me. And your friendship,” she added, with a quick, warm smile.
"And I am glad to have your friendship and counsel as well," Una agreed, because she was. "We are stronger together, and we will find out who is behind all this trouble, and we will put a stop to it."