Tears stung, the only reason I knew I was crying was because I couldn’t see anymore, only blurry black.

Minutes went by that felt like hours, and then the car stopped. I tried to scream but only small moans and whimpers escaped. Sunlight burned my eyes as the trunk was opened again. Jac put her hands on her hips and stared at me. “Now, to get you out, that’s always the trick! Be right back!”

She walked away, I couldn’t see where, only blue sky telling me we weren’t completely outside of the City yet if the seagulls and noise were any indication.

Jac pushed a gurney that was level with the trunk right up to the car and then pulled my body toward it. I fought her, or at least I tried to but she was stronger than she looked, easily heaving me onto the gurney and strapping me down.

Terror shot through me in that moment.

She was batshit crazy.

And she was going to kill me. I had no doubt, that this wasn’t some sort of funny prank or idea she’d had because I’d somehow touched her grandson and it pissed her off.

Humming, Jac pushed the gurney toward the back of a large red house, why were we passing the house? I heard the sound of a waterfall and clenched my eyes shut hoping and praying that didn’t mean she lived on water and was about to push me into it—drowning terrified me, not breathing or moving was right up there. I continued to struggle against the restraints but again my body didn’t move.

“Succinylcholine.” Jac leaned down and patted my cheek then laughed out loud. “Only about one hundred milligrams or so do the trick well, though you never want to administer too much lest you kill the patient before the cleansing begins.”

Cleansing?

“You should be able to talk though.” She tilted her head. “I think I may have given you a bit too much, which just means we’ll have to wait until you can participate.”

Participate?

“It’s always better to confess your sins aloud before you die.” She opened a large door and pushed the gurney into the dimly lit room.

Lights flickered on around me, bright lights, like the ones you’d see in an operating room.

Everything was white.

I felt sick to my stomach, but held the coffee down. If I puked, I’d just suffocate, right?

I squeezed my eyes shut again, and thought of Nik, of the way he kissed me, touched me. Was this really how my life was going to end? At the hands of some crazy lady? I’d do anything—anything to be back in that apartment, even if it meant I was on the other end of the trigger, awaiting my fate. Better to die in love, than in fear.

Jac continued to hum while I heard the clatter of metal against metal. Finally, after a few minutes, she started talking again. “I warned him. I truly did. I warned all of the men in my family. Don’t get too close, but they did, all of them, too close.”

What the hell?

“We must keep the memory of our ancestors alive and cleanse the world of evil… of promiscuity. It is the only way for us to make it, to redeem the earth. It is up to us. Pity.” She sighed. “Because I truly liked you. I liked all of them.”

All of them?

“Oh I didn’t kill them all, I simply… scared them into running off, it was easy. Though the bad ones, the ones with disease, I always end them, it is our legacy, after all.” She peered over me, her pupils mere pinpoints. “Do you know who I am, dear?”

Satan. She was Satan.

“It was August, 1888, the date of the first kill. Funny, how so many historians and scholars assume that only a man could do such work.” She scowled. “Mary Ann Nichols, that bitch had it coming.” Light flickered off a silver knife that Jac waved in the air. “But he was weak, so weak, he cheated on my great-great-great-grandmother. Cheated on her several times actually, though it took years to find all the women, and oh she had to be careful, so very careful. That first kill was her first taste of revenge, of blood, and when she returned home Andrew asked what she’d done, why was she covered in so much blood.”

Jac pulled up a rolling stool and laid the knife on the table. “And you know what she told him? She told him that she was going to cleanse the city of its darkness, one by one, and she would start with every woman he’d ever been with. Of course, his immediate response was to beg forgiveness, but do you know what that bastard did that next night? He went to warn another woman, leading good old Grandmother to her next victim. She didn’t attack that night, merely watched and waited, she was patient like that, so very patient. It’s been an issue in our family, infidelity. It matters not, now…”

What was she talking about?

“Oh…” She patted my head. “You look confused…didn’t you ever pay attention in school, dear? Listen very carefully…my grandmother wasn’t just any killer, she was a serial killer.” Jac chuckled, a sinister sound that shot terror into my heart. “All the women in our family have carried on the tradition… Do you know who I am?”

No. And I didn’t want to. I just wanted to escape, go back in time to where I was lying in Nikolai’s bed.

I closed my eyes.

“Open your eyes,” she commanded.

I tried to shake my head.

Sudden pressure against my neck had me opening my eyes. “Oh good, you’re starting to feel again, but the sad part is, you still won’t be able to move, you’ll simply feel everything but be unable to run away. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

“No.” I finally got the word out.

She smiled warmly. “Honey at least your death will be honorable, a penance of the sins of our family. If I do not kill, then our family is not successful, the one woman who tried to go against the tradition ended up getting killed in a freak train accident along with everyone in her family but her two children, me and my sister, rest her soul. We are history in the making. Think hard… prostitutes being killed… London.”

I let out a gasp.

“I’m Jack the Ripper…” she whispered in my right ear. “And I will listen to your confession—before I cut you apart.”

The end is the crown of any work.—Russian Proverb

WE MADE IT DOWN TO THE lobby just in time to see Jac’s car speed away. I couldn’t exactly run down the street, I’d end up doing more damage to my body, and I suspected I’d need my strength for the upcoming battle.

Phoenix grabbed his cell and started barking orders into it while I reached for my own phone and stared down at it. If Jac really had snapped, there were only two places she would take Maya, two places where she could do her work.

The clinic.

Or her house.

The one I had bought and paid for.

Along with her operating room, where all the murders of the sick girls had taken place and now, I imagined, many more. I’d turned a blind eye because of the guilt, because of the love I still had for the woman who had helped raise me.

But she had just stolen my reason for living.

So I was going to rip her lungs out through her throat while she watched.

“Phoenix.” I snapped my fingers. “I’m texting you the directions to the clinic. If Maya’s there, make sure you call an ambulance after you bring down Jac, I don’t know what drugs she gave her. Typically, she gives the type that paralyzes your body, but if given too much Maya could die.”

“Where are you going?” Phoenix’s eyes were crazed.

“Her house. There’s only two safe locations where she has the right instruments to…” Torture. Kill. Maim. Destroy.  “Do what she does.”

“Be safe.” Phoenix slapped me on the shoulder then went running out the door while I went in the opposite direction, half stumbling toward the parking garage so I could grab my car.