The rain in Whitechapel fell like whispers of the damned—soft, steady, and unrelenting. It soaked into the cobblestone alleys and washed blood into the gutters where rats fed on forgotten sins. Carmen Vale stood beneath the canopy of a crumbling awning, her new Victorian dress already damp and heavy, like a coffin made of fabric. She watched the people pass with dull, obedient eyes.
Women were shadows here—faint, fluttering things, expected to curtsy and keep their mouths shut. They weren't supposed to ask questions. They weren't supposed to walk alone at night.
And they certainly weren't supposed to carry scalpels stitched into the lining of their corsets.
Carmen smiled as she felt the hidden blade press against her ribs. The edge of the future nestled in the bones of the past.
Everything was wrong here. Too slow. Too soft.
Except the killings.
Those were right on time.
The latest corpse had been found behind a butcher's stall—stripped naked, throat opened, ribs cracked like a feast. Her eyes had been sewn shut with black thread. Carmen had read the account in The Illustrated Police News. They called it satanic.
She called it artistry.
The spiral was there again, carved above the navel.
Julian's mark.
It couldn't be coincidence. He had created that symbol with her during one of their later rituals—one of their shared killings, when the line between torment and tenderness vanished beneath candlelight and screaming.
But here it was, 138 years before they had invented it.
What the hell did that mean?
Time wasn't linear. Not anymore. It was a spiral too—tightening, pulling, turning in on itself like a black hole of destiny. If Julian had found a way to time-slip… then either someone sent him, or something far more ancient was playing a game with their souls.
Carmen wasn't sure which scared her more.
Her feet carried her into the belly of the city. Past the gin-soaked cries of dying men. Past smoke and sewage and lust.
She found it by accident—or perhaps by fate.
A flickering lantern above an iron door. A narrow staircase that wound like a throat into the underground.
A club.
No name. Just a sound. Music—low, slow, and full of rot. A cello being tortured. A violin losing its sanity.
Inside, the air tasted of opium, sweat, and something raw. Erotic. Dangerous.
Women wore corsets tighter than coffins. Men watched from velvet booths, eyes like hungry animals, some behind masks, some baring their boredom openly.
And in the center of it all—Him.
Julian Cross.
Younger. Or older. It didn't matter. Time meant nothing.
He leaned against the piano, a glass of red wine—or was it blood?—in his pale fingers. He was dressed in black, tailored so perfectly it looked sewn into his flesh. His dark eyes swept the room like razors dipped in charm.
Carmen's breath caught.
It was him.
But he didn't see her.
Or he pretended not to.
She moved toward him, slow as death.
He turned.
Their eyes met.
And in that exact moment, something inside her screamed. Not in fear—but recognition. A knowing that cracked the inside of her skull like lightning.
Julian smiled. Not the smile of a stranger. Not polite.
But the smile of a man who had already buried himself inside your soul.
"Tell me," he said, lifting his glass. "Have we met?"
Carmen stepped into the circle of his scent—smoke, spice, something more ancient.
"You tell me," she said.
He stared at her. Really stared.
And for a moment—just a moment—his jaw twitched.
Like he remembered.
Like he couldn't say it.
"Would you care to dance?" he asked, offering his hand.
She didn't take it.
Not yet.
Because if this was the past…
And he didn't know her yet…
Then somewhere in time—
She had already failed to kill him.
And it was about to begin all over again.