The Ripper

William Jack Holloway

On his last count, Will had been in two-hundred and forty-two different cities in the past one hundred or so years.

It seemed paranoid to move around so much, and perhaps the Hunter was paranoid. It was true that he hated the idea of moving around so much. He hated that he never truly felt settled. But the alternative was undeniably worse.

It had been one hundred and twenty-eight years since he'd first become aware of the Council, since they'd grabbed ahold of him after the incidents. That's what they called them. Not killings, not murders, not slaughters. Incidents. The eleven people that lost their lives because of him. They said that it was a good thing. That they didn't deserve to live anyway because of the supernatural blood that coursed through their veins. They hadn't been upset about the murders of those people at all. No, they had been upset - furious even - that he had murdered Him. His maker, his creator, his Master.

That was the one murder that Will still didn't feel guilty about.

The eleven. They had been accidents. His maker hadn't been. He had known exactly what he was doing as he'd wielded that power that the sick bastard had been so proud of and used it to slaughter the man who had made him what he was instead of letting him die peacefully with his best friends.

Ever since then, they'd been looking for him. Watching him. Thrusting mentor after mentor on him to train him. Or so they said. Will knew what it really was, he wasn't an idiot. They wanted to force the same amount of control over him that his Master had had. They wanted to keep that power carefully locked away, or at least locked away until they wanted to use it for more murders. The joke was on them, he supposed. He didn't use the power anyway. Not after the murders. Not after the months went by that he would begin the evening in a fit of rage and wake up the next morning with blood on his clothes and the newspapers reporting another attack. So he'd fled. Every time he felt that the Council had an idea of where he was - there were eyes everywhere - he'd pack up his belongings and start again in a new city. Sacrosanct, he was sure, would be like all the others. He'd have a few months of peace like he always did, and then the urge to move on lest he call attention to himself.

But for now, wandering the streets seemed like the best idea.

The Northern parts of the city were full of the victorian buildings that had Will practically aching for the comforts of England. For London in particular. But he hadn't been back to that city since 1892, and he sincerely doubted that he would ever go back. Even though it called to him like an old friend. He would never go back to the place that he himself had been murdered, where his friends had been murdered. Where he, in turn, had taken the lives of eleven people. Even still, Sacrosanct reminded him ever-so-slightly of home. Truly, the only thing he didn't like about the city was the presence of the supernaturals. He could feel them as easily as he could breathe. It never went away, and this city in particular was crawling with them.

He was alone on the streets tonight. There were still hours until dawn, and yet the streets were eerily quiet. Faeries and Weres alike had gone to bed hours before. The vampires - God, the very mention of them made his skin crawl - should have been out. In fact, that had been his intention when he'd left the hotel for the evening. He hated vampires. They were the only species in which he would slit their throat without a moment's hesitation. The only species in which he hadn't murdered during those years in Whitechapel. He had been young then, still learning the difference. He wasn't young anymore. He knew the difference now, and he wasn't afraid to kill the species that had cost him his life, his title, his friends. He couldn't find the girl that had done this, but he would take it out on any of her kind. He would slit their throats with his silver blades to hear them scream, and then put that stake in their heart to end them.

He had been alone on the streets for hours when his skin prickled with the sensation that one of Them was near. Ah, finally. Finally his night would be worth something. He could see the blasphemous thing, too, just down the road. Without a sound, he followed him, his hand reaching into his leather jacket to reassure himself that the dagger was still where he'd placed it hours before. The young male he followed looked certainly like any other young man, but Will knew the difference. He knew he wasn't truly breathing, was stealing life from others in order to survive.

Well, Will would make sure that this was the last night for that.

Within minutes, Will had closed the distance between himself and the vampire. But he kept his head down, his eyes downcast until they were close enough to an alley that the hunter was able to turn them both, shoving the vampire against the brick wall with that silver dagger hovering only centimeters from the man's throat. And Will would have pressed his dagger into his throat had his eyes not locked on the face of the man he had pinned against that wall.

He would have known those eyes anywhere. And so, with his dagger not moving even slightly - though his grip on the blade was certainly loosened - he spoke the name he hadn't said in almost two hundred years.

"Sebastian?"

But darling -- it's only human nature.