Ripper & Rayne - Episode 1: The Devil's Gramophone
Two old allies investigate a cursed record, and stir something darker.
London, 1979
Rain was hammering the streets, the city on edge, petrol shortages, too much cheap lager. Somewhere off the Charing Cross Road, a shop bell jangled in the night, even though nobody had touched it.
“The place was locked up two days ago,” Giles muttered, hunched in his trench coat. “Owner found face-down behind the counter. Eyes boiled out.”
Ethan smirked as he slipped through the splintered door. “And yet, here we are. Breaking and entering before breakfast.”
“Don’t start,” Giles shot back. “You said you’d behave.”
“You always say you’ll stop lecturing,” Ethan said, brushing dust from an empty record sleeve. “So we’re both lying.”
The place was a wreck. Gramophone records were lined up like trophies, most of them smashed into bits. One of them was still turning, the needle scratching a single note into the air. A sigil burned faintly into the wood behind it, still glowing dully red.
Giles crouched to get a better look. “It’s a containment ward. Whoever was here didn’t finish the job.”
“Or they didn’t live long enough to,” Ethan said, already reaching to remove the needle.
“Don’t...” Giles snapped, but too late. The record hissed its last, and the temperature dropped.
The shadows began to thicken, crawling up the walls and pooling on the ceiling. Slowly coalescing into...something. Something with too many teeth and no face at all. Giles’ pulse spiked - not just fear, but the same thrill he’d sworn he was done chasing.
“Bloody brilliant,” he hissed at Ethan, pulling a thin, silver-edged blade from his coat. “You always have to touch it.”
“Well, wouldn’t be me if I didn’t, would it?” Ethan grinned, though his eyes darted nervously. “Latin? Enochian?”
“Latin. You always cock up the Enochian.”
Giles fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a vial of sanctified salt.
“Oritur creatura caecorum et tenebrarum. Te relego...”
The thing howled as if scalded. Books exploded from the shelves. Giles threw the vial and it shattered, and the record screamed.
The gramophone burst apart, and the shadowy entity folded in on itself like smoke sucked down the drain. Silence, broken only by the rain still hammering on the pavements outside.
Giles exhaled. “One day you’ll get us both killed.”
“One day, Ripper,” Ethan said with a smile. “Not today.”
Giles eyed the remnants of the charred sigil. “Looks like someone’s trying to open a door. Bigger than anything we’ve seen before.”
“Then we’ll kick it shut,” Ethan said, putting a hand on Giles’ shoulder. “You and me. The clever boy and the beautiful disaster.”
Giles gave him a long, hard look. Like he trusted Ethan just enough to hate. “We’re not heroes, Ethan.”
“I never said we were.”
They stepped back out into the rain. Two silhouettes swallowed up by the sodium-orange glowing London fog. Overeducated misfits with blood on their hands, and a talent for trouble.
Tomorrow they’d be back in their smoky basement office, trying to explain another “incident” to Special Branch.
Tonight, London slept a little safer. But something in the dark was taking notice.