11. Chapter 11

Chapter eleven

H ugh brought the newspaper article home after work. Jack was stretched out in the armchair, as though he had not left it all night, though of course he had only just arrived home as well. He had followed Hugh on the rooftops during his patrol, because he had to make sure Hugh was safe. He knew Hugh had noticed him but had not said anything, just casting a small smile up toward the rooftop.

“Hmm, suspicious indeed,” Jack said, reading the article after Hugh told him about John Henries. “If they are not connected in some way, it is certainly a very odd coincidence.”

“I agree,” Hugh replied. “At least the inspectors will investigate a fire like that, since the victims weren’t prostitutes.” Jack could hear bitterness in Hugh’s voice, and he didn’t like it.

“ You are the best investigator on the police force,” he said firmly. “If anyone will solve these fiendish felonies, it will be you.”

Hugh chuckled softly. “I appreciate your faith in me.”

“Shall we investigate the bakery?” Jack asked, giving an eager little jump. Hugh had not gone to the bakery during his patrol, and Jack was itching to see it for himself. “Or do you need to rest?”

Hugh chuckled softly. “You wanted to go now?”

“Why not?” Jack asked, throwing his arms up. “I have excellent night vision, and we will probably encounter fewer people in the dark of night than in the daylight.”

“Fair enough,” Hugh relented. “I would like to see it for myself anyway, to see if the detectives missed anything. We can walk there now. It is a bit of a distance though.”

Jack sprang over to the coat rack to grab his cape, whipping it around his shoulders. “Never fear, I shall have us there in minutes!”

“What?” Hugh asked, staring at him in surprise.

“Come!” Jack held out his hand to Hugh.

“Where are we going?”

“To the rooftop!” Jack declared.

Hugh’s eyes widened. “Jack! We can’t go leaping across the rooftops!”

“Why not?” Jack asked, tipping his head curiously.

“Because people might see us,” Hugh replied.

“People have already seen me,” Jack said with a shrug. “I am not an unusual sight in the city.”

“But they will see me ,” Hugh replied.

Jack raised a brow. “From the rooftops, no one will know who you are. And I shall wrap my cloak around you so your identity shall not be known. Come, we have a mystery afoot!”

Hugh opened his mouth to protest, and then he closed it again. What did he have to lose? If he didn’t solve this case, he was likely going to end up losing his job. If it absolutely came down to it, he could claim to have been grabbed by Spring-Heeled Jack. It was not an unbelievable occurrence. And he certainly did not feel like walking miles again after his nightly patrol. “All right,” he said. “You are able to carry me without dropping me?”

“I swear upon Copernicus’s elephant, I shall not drop you,” Jack declared, placing his hand over his heart.

Hugh blinked. “Did Copernicus have an elephant?”

“I have no idea,” Jack said with a grin before he opened the door and disappeared into the hallway. Hugh quickly followed after him. He was still in his police uniform, which would at least help if they encountered any trouble at the bakery site, and the dark blue would be hard to see against the night sky and with Jack’s cloak around him. He closed and locked his apartment door before following Jack several turns up the stairs until they reached the door that led to the roof.

Jack pushed it open and stepped out into the night, drawing in a deep lungful of air. “Ah, London,” he said rhapsodically. “One of the most beautiful cities in the world, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much to compare it to,” Hugh said, closing the rooftop door behind them. It gave a rusty-sounding protest, and he winced, hoping he had not just woken up the entire building.

Jack frowned. “We shall have to travel once this mystery is solved.”

“We?” Hugh asked, but Jack suddenly grabbed him, his black cape whipping around Hugh as he scooped him into his arms like a baby.

“Hold on!” he said, and Hugh barely had time to think before Jack had taken a running start and leaped across their tenement rooftop to the one across the road. The wind whistled past him, stinging his eyes, and his stomach clenched as he felt Jack rise into the air and then fall again before landing on the stone building with the grace and silence of a cat.

“Jack!” he gasped, burying his face in the man’s chest.

Jack glanced down at him. “Are you all right?”

“Y… Yes,” Hugh replied. “I was just not expecting that.”

Jack chuckled softly. “My apologies. I am not used to traveling with a partner. Put your face into my chest, and I shall make it as smooth of a ride as I can.”

Hugh felt his face turn absolutely scarlet. Put his face in Jack’s chest? He could hear the patter of Jack’s heartbeat, like the ticking of a clock. And, he had to admit, it was nice. Very nice. He had not been held like this since he was a child, and his body craved the warm touch of another human being. Or, rather, the touch of someone who cared about him. He swallowed hard. “All right,” he agreed softly. He turned his face in to press his forehead against Jack’s chest, so firm and muscular under him.

Jack took another running leap, and Hugh curled close to him so the cold air would not make his eyes teary or his skin prickle. He thought about everything he had learned so far as Jack ran. It was certainly a puzzling mystery, though one where people were ending up dead the longer he was unable to solve the case. His father had been a great fan of mysteries and had been the one to get Hugh interested in them. He had read many of them to Hugh when he was a child, including The Murders in the Rue Morgue with the brilliant inspector C. Auguste Dupin, Charles Dickens’ unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood , and the tale of The String of Pearls with the disturbing barber Sweeney Todd as its villain. Hugh did not doubt that his desire to become a police officer had stemmed from these tales of intrigue and investigation. He wondered what his parents would think of Jack if they had lived to meet him. He had not had a good opportunity to tell them that he was attracted to men before they passed away, but they had always been very supportive of him, and he thought that they would be understanding of his proclivities. And Jack was hard not to like, with his charming smile, dramatic way of talking, and his eagerness to help.

He pondered this as Jack ran and jumped from rooftop to rooftop, never moving his hands from holding Hugh securely against him. Sometimes there was a drop or a rise at uneven levels, and once Jack’s foot hit a loose tile and started to slide. But within moments he had his feet under him once more and was continuing on his way. Hugh had to admire the confidence Jack had to leap across roofs like that, the ground dozens of feet away. He knew he would never be able to make most of those jumps himself, even with being in relatively good shape. Once in a while he thought he heard a noise or a shout from the street below, but he couldn’t pull his face from Jack’s chest to look. And really, he didn’t want to.

He didn’t know how long it had been, but it hadn’t been all that long before Jack gave him a warning squeeze. “Going down.” And then he had jumped off the rooftop they were on. Hugh’s stomach rose in his throat, until Jack suddenly alighted on the pavement with only the softest click of his boot heels. Jack unwound his arms and his cape from Hugh and set him carefully on his feet. “All right?”

Hugh brushed himself off and laughed, running his hand through his windswept hair. “Yes. What a way to travel. Don’t you get tired?”

Jack smirked. “Eventually, but not from so little exertion as that.”

Hugh looked around. The acrid scent of smoke still hung in the air. They were at the back of the burned-out bakery, where the fire had been the strongest. In the darkness of the late night-early morning, the whole thing looked like the ancient ruins of some long-lost Grecian temple or Egyptian tomb.

If he had not been in the bakery recently, it would be nearly impossible to determine the exact layout of the structure; everything had collapsed upon itself, and the water from the fire hose had sent scraps and debris tumbling everywhere. Walls stood half-erect. He could see into the front of the shop where he had talked to Prudence, because the dividing wall between the front and the back had nearly completely toppled. This back area had to be the bakery, with its many instruments and surfaces.

What he saw looked more akin to a tornado going through than a fire. The heat had destroyed much of it. But while Hugh did not know much about metal and bakeries, he knew that the ovens were built to withstand tremendous amounts of heat for long periods and should have been relatively intact. What he found instead was a mangled mess of metal, twisted and bent into a grotesque monument to pastry. It looked as though a child had taken an aluminum toy and stomped repeatedly on it until the metal had broken and warped into an unusable pile of junk. Someone did not want this oven to be used again and was trying to send a message as such. This was definitely no accident.

Jack hopped amongst the remnants, lifting a few pieces of debris up as if they weighed no more than paper. Hugh watched him in surprise but decided not to interfere with whatever Jack was looking at. Jack did several circuits of the backroom area before moving into the area where the front had been. A few broken trinkets glittered amongst the ashes. “I thought this was a bakery,” Jack commented, nudging at a few things with the toe of his boot.

“It was,” Hugh replied. “A bakery and emporium. They had other things for sale too.”

“Like what?” Jack asked.

Hugh shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I saw a few tarot cards, some colored bottles. I don’t know what they were, but Miss Wilcox said her parents were fans of the mystic.”

“Hmm.” Jack picked up something and blew on it to dislodge the ashes from it. It was a piece of crystal quartz on a silver chain. He pawed through the ashes again and found a second one of dark green adventurine, and a third in tiger’s eye. He picked them up, studying them all curiously, rolling the crystals around in his palm. “I’ve seen these before.”

Hugh blinked. “You have?”

“Yes,” Jack replied. “Have you heard of The Magic Shop?”

“What magic shop?”

“ The Magic Shop,” Jack said again.

Hugh frowned. “No. Should I have?”

“Mm, I suppose not,” Jack said thoughtfully. “But the strangeness of this case makes me think now that it might behoove us to go there.”

“We can go in the morning,” Hugh replied.

“Oh, no need to wait,” Jack said, waving his hand airily.

“But it’s the middle of the night,” Hugh protested.

“Are you tired?” Jack asked, tipping his head slightly to look at him.

“What? No,” Hugh said with a frown. “But would the shop even be open?”

“Oh, yes,” Jack replied. “No fear of that.”

What sort of magic shop would be open at four in the morning? Hugh wondered. He also suspected too that when Jack said ‘magic shop,’ he was not referring to simply card tricks and making doves appear from a hat. He had seen too much in the last few days to discount the reality of actual magic in the world. Jack himself was proof of that. Hugh nodded. “All right. Where is it?”

“Not far,” Jack said, inclining his head down the street.

Hugh followed after him, making sure Jack’s top hat stayed on in case they ran into anyone. In his police uniform, he could easily look like he was escorting a gentleman home through the rough London streets. “What about this shop is so important that we have to visit it in the middle of the night?”

“I would like to introduce you to someone,” Jack said. “If these crystals are any indicator, I think we may not be looking for a simple explanation. The viscount’s transformation would also lead me to assume a sort of mystical connection, wouldn’t you agree?”

The viscount’s appearance, as well as his cannibalization of his victim, had certainly been disturbing, as was his transformation back into his human form after death. Hugh had no explanation for it himself, and he was also one of the only people who had seen the viscount as his mutated aberration. If Jack, who himself was not of this world, believed that there was a supernatural element to this mystery, he was inclined to believe it.

Jack motioned for Hugh to follow him down a narrow alleyway. If he had been walking down this alley alone, he might have been afraid. But with Jack there, he realized he wasn’t. Not even that Jack was strong and could defend him, but the man was a reassuring presence by his side, confident and level-headed. For as much as he was a fan of the dramatic, he was also nice to talk to and bounce ideas off of. And, Hugh had to admit, he was certainly not unpleasant to look at. Despite the billow of Jack’s cape hiding the exact lines of his broad shoulders that tapered down his narrow waist, he still was graceful and strong. He found his eyes sliding further down to catch glimpses of Jack’s backside and legs when his cape swished. With the great effort that must come from being able to leap across rooftops, Jack’s legs and rump were taut and shapely. Hugh cleared his throat, his eyes quickly darting away as Jack glanced back at him. “Everything all right back there?” he asked in a tone as sweet as honey.

“Just fine,” Hugh replied, suddenly finding the fire escapes of the buildings they passed incredibly interesting.

They turned down another alley that spat them out onto a quiet street, lit by the glow of a single gas streetlamp. Jack stopped in front of one of the shops there. A red sign with fanciful writing read ‘The Magic Shop.’ No lights appeared to be on. Hugh frowned. “It looks like they’re closed.”

“Oh, never fear,” Jack said, stepping up to the door and opening it. Hugh immediately could see a warm light that spilled out of the open door that for some reason did not penetrate the windows. “Come.” He bowed his head and waved Hugh in like a servant waving in a grand prince. Hugh smiled at that and stepped inside the inviting glow.

The interior of the shop was larger than it had appeared from the outside, though the dim lighting made it a more intimate space. Hugh slowly turned a few paces inside of the entryway to get a look around. The shelves were stacked full of books. Dusty, heavy things, with worn covers, others slim and printed with cheap paper for quick consumption.

“May I help you?” came a pleasant voice from the back area. Hugh looked up but could not see to whom the voice belonged. He took a few steps further into the shop, squinting, until he found a counter at the back and the figure the voice had presumably come from. He was a tall man, several inches taller than Hugh even without the black top hat on his head. Dressed head to toe in black except for the crisp, white shirt under his waistcoat and jacket, he might not have been any different from other book sellers in London. But the way his eyes caught Hugh immediately made him feel like this man was unlike any he had met before. “Constable,” the man greeted, and then, without changing his expression, he said, “Jack.”

“Good day, sir, or rather, good nightly morning,” Jack said, sweeping his top hat from his head to execute a deep bow. Hugh glanced around worriedly, but there did not seem to be any other customers in the shop to see this sudden display of horns. “I trust you are well?”

“Never better, never better,” the man said, waving his hand lightly.

“This is Constable Hugh Danbury,” Jack said, gesturing magnificently to Hugh. “Hugh, this is The Owner.”

“The owner of the shop?” Hugh asked.

“The Owner,” Jack repeated.

Hugh decided he was not going to try to play the game he had first had with trying to learn Spring-Heeled Jack’s name. ‘The Owner’ would have to work. “Pleased to meet you, sir,” he said, nodding his head at the tall, handsome man.

“A pleasure to meet you, Constable,” The Owner said. “What brings you fine gentlemen into my shop at this hour?”

Jack held up the crystals on chains that he had salvaged from the fire. “I believe I have seen these in your shop before.”

“Oh, yes,” The Owner said, barely giving them a glance. “Very basic crystals, nothing too in depth. Where did you find those?”

“At the Elysium Bakery that burned down last night,” Hugh said, wondering if he should berate Jack for taking evidence from the scene of a crime but deciding not to worry about that at this particular moment.

“Ah, yes, I heard about that. Such a shame,” The Owner said.

“So, you did business with the Wilcoxes?” Hugh asked.

The Owner nodded. “The mother or the daughter were in here every few weeks. Nothing too fancy. A few healing tonics, a love potion or two.”

Hugh had a strange feeling that The Owner meant that literally. But instead, he said, “Jack said that you often have knowledge of the mystical.”

“That is very vague, but I suppose I do,” The Owner said thoughtfully. “What is it you are looking for?”

“I… don’t know,” Hugh admitted, with a glance over at Jack. “I am just hoping to find some answers.”

“Then I shall provide some questions to start,” The Owner replied. “Tell me, Constable, do you believe in magic?”

Hugh could not stop turning to Spring-Heeled Jack next to him, who gazed back at him without his expression changing. Jack had asked him the exact same question. “I have never put much stock in that sort of thing,” he said slowly. “Until I met Jack.”

The Owner smiled and waved his hand lightly. “One doesn’t have to believe in something for it to be true.”

“What should I believe?” Hugh asked.

“What do you believe?” The Owner asked.

“I believe someone is killing young men on the street and burned down the bakery when I found out about it. Someone of flesh and blood, like you or I.”

“Ah, yes. The killer is flesh and blood,” The Owner agreed with a knowing smile. “But, like you or I, well, that is another matter entirely.” He suddenly clapped his hands together, and the sound echoed like a pistol shot in the stillness of the shop. “Now, what questions do you have for me?”

Hugh frowned thoughtfully. “When the viscount attacked me in the alley and Jack came to my rescue, he was not a man, but a beast of some kind. Jagged teeth, a distended jaw, bowed legs. Jack set him on fire when he lunged at me. And while the flames were hot, when I examined the man’s corpse, he looked entirely human again. Well, as human as a burned corpse can. Do you know if it is possible for a man to transform himself from a creature back into a man after death?”

“I would imagine that some magic would be dependent on the host being alive,” The Owner said. “So, I would think it quite possible.”

“Elysium came to you for magic supplies. What kind of magic were they doing?”

“As I said, very basic,” The Owner said.

“Anything that could cause someone to transform like that?”

“Not with what they purchased from me,” The Owner said.

Hugh frowned at the odd turn of phrase. The Owner obviously did not freely give information unless asked, so he had to figure out what he was supposed to ask about.

“The viscount had in his pocket a piece of gold paper from the Elysium Emporium where he purchased an apple turnover.”

“Was that a question?” The Owner asked, tipping his head slightly and giving Hugh a smile.

It hadn’t been, but Hugh wasn’t really sure what sort of question to ask.

“Did they purchase anything related to apples?” Jack suddenly piped in, making Hugh jump.

“Apples,” The Owner said thoughtfully. “My, that is quite unusual, isn’t it? But, then, I do specialize in the unusual.”

“That you do,” Jack said with a flick of his hand to encompass the entire shop.

“Have you? Sold anything related to apples recently? To Elysium, or anyone else?” Hugh asked.

The Owner cocked his head and rubbed at his chin, as if trying to remember, though Hugh had a strong suspicion that the man knew exactly what he was doing. “Not recently,” he said. “But how much do you know about growing apples?”

“Not very much,” Hugh admitted.

“You know where apples come from.”

“Trees,” Hugh said, with a slight frown.

“Indeed.”

The Owner went silent, and Hugh tried not to sigh. The Owner wasn’t going to tell him directly, just keep spoon-feeding him clues. “Do you sell apple trees?”

“No,” The Owner said with a small smile. “Not trees.”

Where did trees come from? Hugh had not had much reason to think about such a thing before, but he realized what The Owner was hinting at. Something much smaller than a tree. “Did you ever sell apple seeds? Perhaps not recently, but in the past?”

“Ah, you are a bright one,” The Owner said. “I did indeed. Nine years ago.”

Hugh wasn’t sure if the man was being genuine with him or not, but at this point, he just wanted answers. He didn’t know how long apple trees took to grow; Prudence had told them that the Elysium Emporium had only been open for a year, so he doubted they would have been the ones to purchase the seeds and grow a full tree nine years ago. And growing one’s own apple tree didn’t seem like the most practical option for a bakery in the middle of London anyway. “I am not familiar with your business, sir, but I assume that they were not ordinary apple seeds.”

“My dear boy, look around. Do you think I would sell anything so benign in this shop?” The Owner said with a chuckle, spreading his hands wide. “No, they were very special seeds. From one of the most famous trees. Perhaps the most famous tree of all. The one that changed the world.”

Hugh tried to think of famous trees, but he couldn’t even think of one. It was not like trees were uncommon or difficult to come by. But it was an apple tree. What famous tree produced apples? He glanced over at Jack, who looked blankly back at him. He probably wouldn’t know any famous trees either. Jack cocked his head, and Hugh’s eyes caught on the devilish horns protruding from his forehead. A strange thought occurred to him. No, it couldn’t possibly be the right answer. But yet, he had learned in the last few days that a good number of things he had thought impossible were indeed possible. “You don’t mean… the forbidden tree from the garden that Adam and Eve ate? The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?”

The Owner smiled. “Ah, you did get there on your own. Splendid.”

Hugh frowned deeper. “You’re saying that nine years ago, you sold seeds to someone from the biblical Tree of Knowledge?”

“Excellent deduction,” The Owner said. “Conan Doyle would be proud.”

Hugh had no idea who that was, but he was less concerned about that right now. “Whom did you sell them to?”

“Mm, a very distinguished gentleman,” The Owner said. “The Duke of Westchester.”

Hugh jerked at the words. “The Duke of Westchester?” he repeated. He had heard that name only a few hours ago. Mr. Rhodes had said that he and Mr. Henries both worked for the Duke of Westchester. Mr. Henries had been the Duke’s gardener. And now Mr. Henries was dead in the bakery fire. “Why did he want the seeds?”

“Presumably he was going to plant them.” The Owner held up his hands. “Once they leave my shop, what happens to them is not my concern.”

“Would the seeds grow into another Tree of Knowledge?” Hugh asked. He tried to remember his Bible study.

“Some hybrid of it, yes. What its powers might be compared to the original, well, who’s to say.”

That was not reassuring. “A bite from the original Tree opened Adam and Eve’s eyes to good and evil, and they realized they were naked. And they became mortal instead of living forever.”

“Indeed,” The Owner said. “One could assume a fledgling tree born from its seeds would not have the exact same abilities, but perhaps something similar.”

What could possibly be similar to knowing good from evil? But then again, no part of this made a whole lot of sense. The viscount turning into a monster, the murders of the young men by what looked like a vicious beast, the apple pastry paper, the strange little bakery in Fleet Street, the missing gardener, the fire. What did any of it have to do with magical seeds from a biblical tree? This entire story was so far-fetched that Hugh was pretty sure he would not have believed it himself only a few days ago.

Hugh turned to Jack. “The fifth man that we identified as John Henries worked for the Duke of Westchester as his gardener. His sister, Elizabeth, was one of the shop owners of Elysium.”

“Ah hah!” Jack glanced over at The Owner, who was silently watching both of them, a bemused smile on his face. “So, he might have been the one to plant the seeds, or at least know of the tree.”

Hugh nodded. “It’s certainly possible, at least. The fact that he’s connected in multiple ways to Elysium too makes me think he might have something to do with what’s been going on.”

Jack glanced at The Owner. “Thank you. We appreciate your help.”

The Owner waved his hand airily in a gesture oddly similar to the one Jack liked to use. “Of course, of course. Have a good morning, gentlemen.”

“How do you know of this shop?” Hugh asked after they stepped out onto the cool, dimly lit London streets, Jack putting his top hat back on to hide his horns. There was the faintest hint of dawn making the sky a dark charcoal instead of black.

“You recall I said that my species travels through space and time to the area we are summoned by our soulmate?” Jack asked, and Hugh nodded. “Well, The Magic Shop has a portal in the back room. When we arrive at our destination, we come through the portal, where we are transformed into our new appearances. The shop has the ability to be anywhere at any time, you see.”

Hugh did not see, but he understood enough. Without Jack, he would never have known about The Magic Shop or The Owner. Just based on what he already knew too, he wondered if The Magic Shop would even be there if he had tried to look for it himself. Magic made its own logic, and it was sometimes nonsensical.

“Is The Owner a will-o-the-whisp type creature like you?”

“He is… something,” Jack said thoughtfully.

That was not a no, but neither was it a yes. Hugh was finding magic to be very frustrating with its rather precise nonsense. “Thank you for taking me there,” he said to Jack, giving him a bright smile. “It was very helpful.”

“Was it? I’m glad,” Jack said. “Now, I believe you need to get some sleep.” Hugh wanted to protest, but the day was catching up to him quickly, and he couldn’t stop an enormous yawn that almost split his jaw. Jack scooped him up in his arms. “We shall head back via rooftop before anyone sees us.”

Hugh nestled close to Jack’s chest. “All right,” he relented. And he just stayed there, curled in Jack’s arms, until they returned to his apartment, and Jack sent him off to bed.