The Devil of Whitechapel (Under Editing)

ii-i. Haytham

ACT II: INTO HELL

"Man is the cruelest animal."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

All he could do was stand there and stare.

Haytham had expected to feel many things: angry, frustrated, maybe even a little scared. He didn't feel any of that, though. He felt empty, hollow as he watched the other inspectors examine the crime scene for evidence. They hadn't found a body, which, he supposed, was a good sign: it might mean that Selina was still alive. There was, however, a good-sized puddle of blood on the street, one that was covered with a dusting of snow. They might not have seen it if not for the fact that Haytham had noticed it. He noticed everything, every little detail at crime scenes. It was why he was such a high-ranking inspector. It meant that he noticed the bruises around Abberline's neck, the disarray of garbage in a nearby alleyway that told him that some sort of struggle had happened, the miniscule drops of blood on the street from someone that was bleeding but still able to walk; he saw every damned thing, whether or not he wanted to see it.

Sometimes, that acute sight was a gift. Other times, it was a curse. That day, Haytham decided that it was a curse.

He also decided that whoever said that ignorance was bliss knew what he was talking about.

"I should've done something more," Abberline said quietly. He was standing next to Haytham as he watched everybody go about their work, a bag of ice on his head where the negro that had attacked him had hit him on the head. "I should've stopped them."

"Don't do that to yourself," Haytham said quietly. "You did what you could."

"But I-"

"Don't do that to yourself," Haytham repeated, a little louder that time. "You can't think about what could've happened and what you would've done. What happened happened."

Abberline gave him a look. Really? He seemed to ask. You really think that?

Frankly, he didn't quite know what to believe, anymore.

He heard panting from behind them. When he turned around to see what was going on, he saw that Ezra was running full-speed towards them, huffing and puffing the whole way, his face red. Had he run all the way there?

When was the last time that old man had run?

"What's happened?" Ezra panted as he ran over to where they were standing. "What's going on?"

Haytham could feel anger swelling up inside him. "Selina's gone. Cohen's men nabbed her last night and knocked Abberline out. There's a whole lot of blood on the street, and... something else."

"Something else?" Ezra asked.

Abberline looked over at him. "What are you talking about?"

For the first time in a little while, Haytham fell silent. He didn't want to think about that... other thing any more than he wanted to. Every time he did, he felt that white hot anger surging up inside him. He knew that he would just end up doing something rash if he let that anger control him, like it did back in his time with the army in Burma.

But, he allowed them to come. Just long enough to walk them towards one of the nearby alleyways. One that the other inspectors hadn't checked.

Mostly because Haytham had told them that there wasn't anything there.

There was another message there, just like there'd been on the wall after Alva's murder. Same faked handwriting, even.

Only this time, it was a little more sinister. A direct attack on Haytham and the other people that were working the case: