Sofia and London

[x-viento.livejournal.com]

Sofia wanders a foreign city and meets up with an old friend.

Freedom from his grasp had cost her a tumble and the crack of temple against stone.  The dense fog thickened, encouraged, and licked at her outline as she slid down the pillar, scraping her forearm against the cobblestones as she hit the bottom.  Sofia looked up, BREWERS SINCE 1666 blurry, the reflection off the brass strange, before it was covered by the looming silhouette of a man, unmistakeable in his layered overcoat and top hat.  As he raised the long, thin blade she watched it come in and out of focus, double before her eyes, and smiled.

“I always found you to be a huge disappointment,” she managed hoarsely and coughed, licking her lips.  “All this about royal conspiracies, affairs, conmen.  I’d bet you only killed two of them yourself, at the most.”

 The gentleman dropped the knife to his side; the shadow of a tree covered him and when he returned he was wearing an apron, the front stained dark brown, his blade a butcher’s.  Sofia pushed herself from the ground, wavering unsteadily with a palm on the glass window.  He moved to lunge and she raised her head, looking down at him.  “There’s nothing special about a group of sick men taking advantage of a too thin, too jaded police department, exploited by this new invention, publicity.”

 She moved towards him, cruel as he shrank into a mousey man carrying a black doctor’s bag.  “You owe everything to them.  They printed the letters, gave everyone the idea.  I mean, you’re not really even a serial killer, are you?  Just a name that was never only yours.”

 The movement was quick, a flash of impossible light as Sofia threw her arm out across her chest.  Blood spattered across her charcoal blazer, poured out the throat slash to pool at her feet.  The brown eyes of the man went wide before he crumpled, back, into a heap of dark velvet coat and top hat.

Sofia tossed the knife onto the pile carelessly and turned away.  “Goodnight, Jack.”