7

The story behind Jack the Ripper.

 It was night time and I found myself  the side of a cobbled street somewhere in London. It was raining this particular night as I followed a woman, being careful to stick to the shadows. I could tell just from her dress, the amount of makeup she wore, and the way she walked that she was a w***e. One of the many harlots that wandered the streets of London, seducing men to the devil. I had cast myself out of heaven, taken my own wings, in order to fix the mistakes that they were choosing to ignore. I was making sure the humans knew the price of sinning.

 I continued to follow this prostitute until she turned down an alley. I then made my move. I sped up and caught the girl by the arm.

 She pulls her arm away tired. "I'm off duty, and not interested. Go away pig."

 "Nor am I interested in you." I sneered, "You're Lucifer's succubus and I've come to stop you from delivering the souls of these men to your master."

 "And you're a f*****g luny." She said, walking away from me

 I pulled a knife that a had hidden in my sleeve and chase her. I leap and tackle the prostitute, pinning her to the ground. I covered her mouth before she could scream for help. I tightened the grip on my knife and bring the blade down again and again. I lose control of what I'm doing and get lost in the bloodshed. I don't realize how much of a mess I've made until the woman has been strewn throughout the alley.

 A man steps from a shaded corner. "My my, you seem to have enjoyed yourself. Not quite the same lust I think she was selling though." He cooed

 "What!?" I asked alarmed. I'd been caught already? "Who are you stranger? What is your business?"

 "Me? Why my name and my business are one in the same, Death. And you do a marvelous job with that. I've not been this amused with murder in a long while. To think, an Angel such as yourself, Deveroh, killing one of your humans. You've gone from loving Shepherd to hungry butcher." He grinned. His white teeth are all I could make of him from under his hood. He sounded to be relatively youthful, then again time and age had no will over death.

 "You are Death? I apologize for my unsightly behavior. It just that I-"

 Death cut me off, "Apologize? Whatever for? I love what you're doing, and I wish to help spread awareness."

 "You want to help me kill? I thought you were impartial." I remarked

 "That's what we say, but I just do what I feel like. Being death shouldn't come with such limitations. I kill whom I please, when I please, and how I please. Just look at the masterpiece I concocted with the bubonic plague. So many deaths." He marveled, "It kept me rather busy."

 "What's the catch? Are you going the turn me over to the Archangels? Kill me perhaps?" I proposed paranoid

 "Catch, there's no catch. I simply admire your ability. What do you say?" Death asked

 "I say you've got a deal."

For the next couple years he and I wondered the slums of the Whitechapel area committing horrid, gristly murders. The humans as Scotland Yard were baffled and ended up naming their unknown killer Jack the Ripper. I ended up calling Death by this new given name, rather than his title as one of the four Judges. Though Jack and I killed for our separate reasons, I to rid London of sin and him simply for pleasure.  I've begun to lose focus on my goal, however, and have begun to kill more for the thrill. My victims have been found more strategically butchered, parts removed from their bodies with surgical exactness. Many humans have written to the papers, claiming to be the Ripper, but that's obviously desperate pleas for attention. The killing suddenly stopped one night, the night they came for me.

 It was another dreary night, rainy and desolate, and I was stalking another victim. This woman was renowned in this area and her death would get people's attention for sure. As she was a favorite amongst the locals I hoped that meant she knew how to put up a fight.

 She looked nothing like the prostitutes I usually killed, but had an air of elegance surrounding her. She kept her hair in tight blonde curls and wore a short red dress, frilled with black lace. Her face was heavily covered in makeup. She held an umbrella of a similar fashion that of her dress.

 "Have plans tonight miss?" I asked as I walked up behind her

 "Nothing other than work. Would you happen to be work?" She asked looking me over

 "Afraid not madam, I've got work as well. You know it's dangerous for those in your line of work these days? Jack the Ripper is still on the streets."

 "Yes." She sighed, "But regardless I've got to make money somehow. There's no rest for the wicked, right?"

 "I suppose. If you don't mind me asking, why do you do this? Why not leave this sinner's life and find a normal job?" I wondered

 "Leave this? I'm sorry hun but I make far too good of money with this to just stop. Besides, I'm the best at what I do around here." She gloated

 "I see." I pondered for a moment to myself. I looked up and saw Jack watching me from a rooftop. I chucked, drawing the prostitute's attention, "It's a lovely night, though a bit wet. On second thought, I think I will be work." I smiled

 "Oh? A sudden change of heart?" She joked

 "Something like that."

 We walked down an alleyway, towards a building facing an empty street. We got halfway through when I stopped abruptly. I fell to my knees.

 The prostitute turned to face me, "Everything alright, love?"

 I nodded, "Yes, just fine. Could you help me up please?"

 "Umm, sure. You sure you're okay?" She extended her hand out to me

 "Yes. I'll be just fine." I pull a knife out of my coat and plunge it into her neck, "Unfortunately, you won't be."

 Her eyes widened in shock. She tried to let out a scream but all that came out was a raspy gurgle. She clasped her neck, trying desperately to cover the hole made by the knife.

 I held the knife up for her to see, "The name's Deveroh, Madam, but you can call me Jack."

 The prostitute tried to back away from me, into the light of the street, but backed into someone. She whipped around to plead for this new person to help her.

 "Aww, you started without me Deveroh." Jack pouted

 "Sorry Jack. She's still alive though. If you hurry you can kill her." I offered

 He grinned, "Lucky me." He revealed a blade of his own, a scalpel. "How should we dismember this one? Such a pretty face, lets leave it alone."

 The prostitute takes advantage of the moment of distraction and tries to run past Jack. He didn't miss a beat and swiped low, severing the tendons behind her knees.

 She collapsed on the ground, unable to move, blood still pumped from her neck. She looked frantically for some way to escape, and started to cry when she realized there was nothing.

 "She's going to die Jack."

 "I'm Death, she'll die when I say she can. Just so you'll stop pestering me though," Jack stepped on the woman's back and very precisely thrust his scalpel between a set of ribs. The blade pierced her heart and ended her life.

 A large shadow engulfed me as a rending pain seared across my shoulders. I'm thrust down and blood trickled down my arms. My head bounced off the cobblestones ground. I glimpsed my assailant before I lost consciousness, his silhouette was was large with a set of wing behind him. An angel. Had this woman had a guardian? Had the archangels finally tracked me down? Regardless, this angel had just taken my wings. I was doomed to die or become the thing we angels fraught against.

A chasm opened up underneath me as I plummeted into the jaws of a hellverse.

 When I had landed I was in a unforgiving rocky landscape. There was a cliffside to my right littered with large holes. A large palace, or maybe a mirage, was in the distance to my right. Regardless it looked promising and i had no ideas where I was or where to go. I felt different, as if my entire being had evolved into something different. Even my shadow didn't seem the same. I realize that I had no more wings on my back, yet my shadow did. My skin seemed darker, ashen in color. My head ached horribly. I reached up to rub my ailing head, and felt them. The signature mark of a demon, the horns. I wheeled back in horror. It had happened already, I had become the very thing I had hated the most.