London, 1979
They called it “C”. As if it stood for something respectable. A letter to try and make it all sound like part of a filing system, instead of a confession.
Giles had been up since just after five, smoking and drinking tea, reading the week’s incident reports until they blurred into something meaningless. Two more hauntings. Different mechanisms…manifestations, but the same result: the dead sticking around.
“Looks like something doesn’t want them leaving,” Ethan had said, voice soft in a way that he only used when he didn’t want to be heard.
Now they were back at Whitehall. Polished doors and men in grey suits. A clerk with a Ministry badge met them at the end of the corridor. He glanced at Ethan’s leather coat as if it were a crime, gestured for them to follow him down a stairwell that smelled like wet newsprint.
“Rupert Giles,” the clerk said. It wasn’t a question. “And Mr. Rayne.”
“Mr Rayne,” Ethan murmured, amused. “How formal. Makes me feel almost employable.”
The clerk didn’t smile. “This way.”
Down and down - they went past boiler rooms and rusted pipes. Eventually the building forgot it was the seat of government and turned into what it really was, a cellar full of secrets.
The door at the bottom, at the end of the last corridor, was labeled with a stenciled C. Faded, like it’d been there since rationing.
Inside, there were buzzing fluorescent lights, and a room that looked like it was assembled from detritus. Desks made with old doors. Filing cabinets that didn’t match. Maps of London pinned to slightly sagging corkboards. A well-used kettle sat on a hotplate next to a stack of folders labeled in red ink: UNCONFIRMED.
A woman stood up as they entered. Late thirties, early forties maybe. Hair pinned back, a thin cardigan that probably didn’t keep out the underground chill. Cigarette half-burned down in the ashtray beside her.
“Ah, Rupert Giles,” she said. “Finally.”
Giles blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“Not personally. Professionally.” She held out a hand. “Judith Hall. Department C.”
Ethan whistled. “Department C. Sounds like an NHS vaccination wing.”
Judith’s mouth twitched in annoyance. “We’re not supposed to be glamorous. Just necessary.”
Giles took in the room. “What is all this?”
“A ledger, I suppose you could call it,” Judith said. “Everything that the government needs to pretend doesn’t happen.”
She nodded toward the far wall. Dozens of photographs pinned up. Scorch marks on concrete. Bodies laid out on tarpaulins. Close-ups of sigils, charms, strange bruising that looked like handwriting.
Two prints were pinned next to each other at the center.
A tunnel wall. Charing Cross. Names carved into concrete.
A bowl of honey and ash on a dirty floor, its surface rippling.
“Two separate incidents,” Giles said carefully.
Judith raised an eyebrow. “But not unrelated, as I’m sure you accept by now.”
She crossed to the largest map, tapped it with the end of her cigarette, flecks of ash falling unnoticed as she did so. Pins dotted London like a rash - Soho, Camden, Islington, Walthamstow, Lambeth. Pins connected by twin, criss-crossing to such an extent that the city looked like a spiderweb.
“Not ghost stories,” she said. “Spikes. Patterns. They come in clusters, usually every few years.”
“How long have you been tracking them?” Giles asked quietly.
Judith exhaled smoke through her nose. “Department C officially? They moved me here when they formed it in ‘68. Unofficially? Since the Blitz uncovered some things that weren’t supposed to see daylight.” She paused. “London’s always been porous…too much history for it not to be. But the last six months have changed.”
Ethan wandered closer to the board, hands in his pockets. “Changed how? Another…cluster, I think you called it.”
Judith reached into a folder and slid a photocopy onto the table near Giles.
A symbol. A serpent biting its own tail. Tiny thorns crowning its head.
Giles felt his stomach tighten. Sensed, rather than saw, Ethan next to him, fumbling in his coat pocket for his pack of cigarettes. The paper looked harmless, but the ink had a weight to it. A page that wanted to sink through the table it was on, absorb into the earth.
“The Serpent’s Crown,” Giles murmured.
Judith watched his face closely. “You’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen it,” Giles nodded. “In Camden.”
Ethan, leaning against a filing cabinet, didn’t meet Giles’ eyes.
“We pulled that from a case file from ‘75,” Judith continued. “Squatters found it in a derelict house. One dead, three institutionalised. Their statements were…fragmented at best. But they all described one thing the same. A presence. A voice.”
She flipped the page.
…called itself Eyghon…
…fed on fear…
…required invitation…
Giles swallowed.
“That name doesn’t appear in any records,” he said tightly. “It was buried. Deliberately.”
Judith nodded once. “Yes, we’ve noticed.”
Ethan gave a soft, humourless laugh. “London loves its secrets.”
Judith leaned forward. “Whatever tried to come through then, we think it failed. But it didn’t disappear. And we’re seeing echoes of the same methods, the same pressures. Something’s learning, or trying to teach. Or both.”
Ethan leaned over Giles’ shoulder, close enough that his smoke wafted into Giles’ face. “And what do you think it means, Judith? Is there a demon somewhere in the filing system?”
Giles swallowed. “The names. The honey. They’re attempts to anchor spirits. Keep them closer.”
“Yes,” Judith said. “You saw it as much mistakes as anything. Grief, in one case. A small error from a small person.”
“It was,” Giles said.
“But not only that.” Judith took a step closer. “It was a test. Someone’s seeing how easily London can be made to hold onto its dead.”
Ethan gave a thin smile. “Someone with an unpleasant hobby.”
Judith’s gaze flicked to him. “Someone with an unpleasant purpose.”
“Why call us down here?” Giles asked.
Judith’s answer was quick. “You’re standing in the middle of it. These cases found you.”
“We were assigned,” Giles said, weakly. Not believing it.
Judith slid another file across the desk. A photograph. A letter on a worktable. Unstamped, neat black ink.
Do not go to Camden.
She tapped the photo. “We intercepted two of these before they hit the field. Addressed to men dead ten years. The other one slipped through. We think it was addressed to you.”
Ethan’s head tilted, a flicker of interest. “You might have led with that.”
“Fine,” Giles said tightly. “We assume there’s a pattern. What does Department C do about it?”
There was no warmth in Judith’s smile. “Document. Advise. Contain, when we can.”
“And when you can’t?”
“We find people who can,” her gaze sliding over Giles and Ethan. “People who’ve been in the dark before.”
Ethan gave a half-nod. “Very flattering.”
Judith stubbed out a cigarette. “You’re not here because you’re special. You’re here because you’re the best connection we have. Whatever’s out there seems to know your names.”
There was a beat of silence. Lights buzzing. Far above them, Parliament went on with the mundane.
Giles pulled together the papers on the table carefully, keeping his hands steady. “You must have some sort of theory.”
Judith looked suddenly tired. “I think something or someone is trying to build a map,” she said. “Not streets. Not even just people. But weak points of grief. Where London leaks.”
Ethan’s voice was softer. “And where it hurts.”
Judith looked at him, as if giving him real regard for the first time. “Yes. Where it hurts.”
Giles slid the Serpent’s Crown photocopy back across the table. “You want us to close the leaks.”
Judith nodded. “That’s the idea.”
As they left, the clerk reappeared as if summoned. The passage outside was still narrow, air stale, as they made their way up to the more traditional corridors of power. Ethan walked a fraction behind Giles, his shoulder brushing Giles’ coat.
“You didn’t mention there were other letters,” Ethan said.
Giles kept his eyes forward. “I didn’t know.”
Ethan laughed quietly. “Trouble with paperwork, Rupert. It always turns up eventually.”
Giles stopped so suddenly that Ethan nearly walked into him. They were too close - the narrow corridor, Whitehall’s damp walls, their breath, the press of history.
“This isn’t a game, Ethan.”
Ethan leaned in, just enough. “It never is with you.”
For a heartbeat, Giles didn’t move. Their lips just inches apart. The pull between them was the same pressure as the hum in the walls - down to the bones, unignorable, and tuned to the pain of old mistakes.
Then a door opened down the corridor, and a civil servant stepped out, startled to find two men standing close like a scandal waiting to happen.
Giles stepped back first. “We have to work,” he said flatly.
Ethan’s smile returned, as casual as if it had never been gone. “So we do.”
They walked out. Raining again. London pretending it was only politics and petrol shortages and public transport.
Somewhere in the city, something listened - patient like bureaucracy, hungry for grief - taking notes.
Stories from Ripper & Rayne are available in my Alternate Frequencies section.