Ripper & Rayne - Episode 9: The Angel's Tongue
Is it easier to survive a lie, or the truth said aloud?
London, 1979
The first incident was the highest profile. Splashed over the national papers.
A junior minister had been having drinks with a couple of political journalists and decided to tell them all the lies he’d told to reach his present post. In detail. The friends he’d betrayed. And which promises he had no intention of keeping. Most of them, it turned out.
He wasn’t the only one.
A solicitor in Holborn confessed in open chambers about how he hated every client he’d defended, and which ones he believed were guilty. A priest in Lambeth told his congregation that he didn’t believe in heaven, but he needed the job.
A woman at a bus stop in Walthamstow told a stranger that she hadn’t loved her dead husband for the last three years of his life. That she’d hoped he’d die quietly so she didn’t have to leave him.
It made sense that Department C called them.
Judith Hall was drinking instant coffee from a paper cup. She slid a folder across her desk to Giles. Ethan stood by the door with his hands in his pockets.
“It’s all London-based, even though that government story went national,” she said. “No common profession. But they’ve all had some kind of incidental contact with previous sites we’ve investigated.”
Giles scanned the reports.
Ethan turned from the door. “And everyone gets a badly timed conscience?”
Judith raised her eyebrows. “They can all speak normally. Some of them seem to be able to lie by omission. But even they crack the moment someone presses them. The truth comes out. Compulsively.”
Giles looked up. “Some kind of revealing charm?”
“Not necessarily,” said Judith. “Not all of these things are entirely hidden. But this drags them into daylight.”
Ethan smiled. “How very Church of England.”
They looked in Walthamstow first. The woman at the bus stop had seemed the most incongruous. A completely spontaneous confession to a total stranger. According to Judith, she’d collapsed there sobbing afterwards.
The shelter stood on a grey stretch of pavement on Markhouse Road. It was damp. There was a chipped teacup on the bench, full of cigarette ends.
Giles crouched to inspect the rusting frame, his fingers tracing over the rivets and peeling green paint.
“Look. There,” he said.
Etched into the underside of the bench, clear and new among the old gum and grime, was a tiny scratched sigil. It looked like a mouth, surrounded by a spiky halo.
Ethan crouched next to him and leaned over his shoulder. His face close enough for Giles to feel the warmth in the chill morning air.
“Not a serpent.”
“No,” said Giles. “But maybe a similar hand.”
Ethan stood up and lit a cigarette. “So, who wants these truths said aloud? And why?”
“Simple mischief, maybe. Public shame, or grief made visible.” Giles rubbed his thumb gently across the mark, and felt a sting. “Or perhaps they’re testing what people do when they can’t keep things back.”
A frown flickered on Ethan’s face.
“Sounds like a dangerous hobby,” he said.
By the evening, they thought they’d found a source.
Not an architect, but a mechanism at least.
There was a speech therapy clinic in Bloomsbury. A fairly pricey place. Discreet. The caretaker had been opening up an attic room and found a ring of mirrors. All of them clouded, with some kind of brass instrument in the center of the circle, mounted on a small plinth.
“Looks like a metronome,” said Giles, when he first saw it.
There were fine copper wires running from the instrument to the mirrors. And each mirror had a word scratched into its glass.
Confess.
Admit.
Name.
Reveal.
Giles took a step into the circle and stopped.
The air felt taut.
“There’s something harmonic,” he said. “Like a tuning fork.”
Ethan stayed at the perimeter. Moving around and studying the mirrors. “Tuning what?”
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“That would be a first.”
Ethan gave him a look. “You’re in a mood.”
“I’m happy.”
The words were like dropping a glass on the floor.
Both of them stopped.
Giles’ expression changed at once. Confusion, then alarm. He clamped his jaw shut hard. A faint hum rose from the mirrors.
Ethan lowered his cigarette.
“Rupert-”
“I’m happy,” Giles said again. “And I’m afraid it’s one-sided.”
There was silence.
The brass instrument kept a patient rhythm.
Ethan didn’t make a joke.
He dropped his cigarette to the floor and twisted his heel on it. Then he looked at Giles.
“That’s not fair, Rupert,” Ethan said, with a grimace.
Giles laughed once. “I know.”
The mirrors shivered.
Ethan took a step into the circle. “You matter to me.”
Giles closed his eyes briefly.
“What happened was real,” Ethan said. He paused for a long time. “You didn’t make it up. And I didn’t do it for sport.”
Giles opened his eyes again.
Ethan’s voice dropped. His drawl faded.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
The instrument’s ticking seemed suddenly very loud.
They both knew it was true.
Giles smashed a mirror.
Not elegantly. He kicked one, hard, and the pane shattered with a crash of silver rain.
The hex broke, and Ethan moved. He wrenched the brass instrument loose and slammed it hard against the floor. Something gave a cracked and tiny shriek.
Then the humming stopped, and the pressure in the air dissipated.
Neither man moved. They were breathing too hard from what they’d just done.
Giles bent down, bracing his hands on his knees. Ethan stood over the mechanism, his chest rising and falling. His hair had fallen into his face.
“Well, that was bracing.”
Giles straightened slowly. “Yes.”
“Do you think that’s all?”
“For now.”
Ethan waited, as if he expected more.
Giles crouched low to examine the instrument. “I think this is keyed to the other sites. Tuned, somehow, to those emotions. Someone has a map.”
Ethan lit another cigarette. His hands trembled.
It was misty when they left Bloomsbury. It made the street lamps soft around the edges.
They walked side by side.
Giles had stopped on the way out, scribbled some names from the clinic’s appointment ledger into his notebook.
“Find anything useful?” Ethan asked.
“We should check the names. And all the mirrors came from the same place - the stamp on the back.” Giles said. “Might be a connection.”
“Good.”
They took another few steps.
“Rupert,” Ethan tried.
Giles looked down to the pavement. “I’d rather you don’t.”
He wasn’t angry.
Ethan nodded. “Alright.”
The street spat them out onto the Euston Road. Traffic was hissing past. A woman stood under an umbrella arguing with a cabbie about her fare. A more ordinary London.
“The victims should recover,” Giles said. “Their compulsion won’t hold without that instrument.”
“And the things they said?”
Giles looked ahead. “Those have already escaped, whether they wanted them to or not.”
Ethan stayed quiet.
Giles turned to him.
Ethan’s expression was more open than he’d ever seen. Affection. Regret. And want. And a restless motion already gathering itself.
Giles saw it.
Ethan knew it.
Neither of them said anything.
A bus rolled past. When Ethan looked up, Giles had already started walking.
Ethan followed.
Somewhere deeper in the city, something was still learning about hurt.
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Episode 10: Through a Glass Darkly (coming soon) →
Stories from Ripper & Rayne are available in my Alternate Frequencies section.