Shockingly, it turned out that the man who had made a whole serial killer career around horrifically mutilating and murdering women didn’t react well to being surrounded by a bunch of them who could (and very much wanted to) stomp his head in. The fact that a large chunk of those happened to look almost identical probably wasn’t helping his state of mind either, to be fa--

No, you know what? Fuck being fair to this guy. I was going to go out on a limb and say that I absolutely refused to be fair to the man known as Jack the Ripper. He was a piece of shit.

The first thing I had done was check on what was going on out in the regular world, with Aylen and the other Mirandas, through the Miranda we had in here. They had managed to contain the fighting, stopping those other patchwork creations from barging out to get Boscher or Seosten attention. I had to wonder just how pissed off Invidia-Bell was, considering she was probably relying on those things drawing everyone to that spot so she wouldn’t have to risk exposing that she knew too much. She might be able to play that off for the other Boschers, but the Seosten would start paying more attention to Bell if he stood out more than usual. Especially if it seemed like he knew too much.

Either way, the fighting had been pretty bad, but they stopped those creatures from making a public spectacle of themselves. And ever since the rest of… well, me had shown up inside this Archive to surround Lechmere, his creations had stopped fighting. They went still and silent, as though waiting for him to tell them what to do again. But those orders probably weren’t coming anytime soon. He was too busy ranting about how unfair this all was, or something.

“No, no, no, wrong, this is wrong, it’s not like this, it’s not the way it goes. He told me, he told me this is not the way it goes. He is the way, he is our future, he is our savior. He told me they would fall. The whores and their kind would screech their filth, cry to their gods for naught, and then fall. You would all fall, all be put to fertilizer for the crops of man. Not stand. You cannot stand. You cannot remain here, standing in my place of power! This is an abomination! Your kind can only--”

Yeah, that was the moment Fathom lashed out with a foot to kick the bastard in the face. It shut him up, snapping his head back while a couple teeth were knocked out as he was knocked onto his side with a noise that was part-yelp and part-keening cry, like a small child having a tantrum.

Extra, standing a couple feet away, looked at me. “Okay, we better find a way to convince this guy to shut up and hand over that key we need pretty damn quick. Because if he calls us whores again, I think I might just rip a couple of his finger bones out, crush them into dust, and make him snort it.”

Her words were met with varying levels of agreement from not just other members of the Flique, but Miranda too. And Tabbris, who was kneeling by Bezique while holding one of her hands. The patchwork Harpy, for her part, still looked a bit dazed and confused about what was going on.

Story, from her spot a bit behind me, murmured, “I mean, if we're actually looking for ways to convince him to do anything, the finger bone thing could be a useful place to start.” When I glanced over my shoulder, she shrugged. “What? If he has our power, he should be able to heal from it anyway.”

“Does he have our power?” That was a different member of the Flique, who chose to appear in a dark suit and tie with sunglasses and was masculine-presenting. He went by the name Spook, which was supposed to be a play off both the whole ghost/necromancy thing and also his preference for acting a bit like one of those secret agent/bodyguard/Secret Service types. “Because it seems to me that, beyond having this Archive and some obvious Necromantic powers, he never demonstrated any of our other gifts, really. We have a good number of varied tricks, and he didn’t do anything with them. Not even when it would have been fairly useful.” He cast a thoughtful glance that way. “Maybe he only took on those parts when he Bonded to us.”

“You speak blasphemy!” Lechmere, who had apparently recovered enough from that kick to retort, snapped with a literal spray of blood thanks to those missing teeth. “They are not your gifts! None of yours, none of these--these wretched abominations are the Source, the one who chose us. You are all mistakes, failures, Lucifers to my Jesus, sinners to my saint. You are those who have turned your backs to the one Jacob and in doing so you have been marked as the same.” His words were coming faster now, as though he had talked himself into this. “Yes, yes, that’s what he has done. Jacob, in his wisdom, has marked all of his enemies with the same face. In his genius, he has exposed all his betrayers by twisting their features so that his faithful may look upon one face and see them all. To see one of you is to see all of you, and you can never hide your true self, your true shame. This face shall always be known as his fallen!”

“I’m really starting to see the draw of that finger thing,” I muttered darkly before clearing my throat while giving the man in question a hard look. “Okay, I’ve got some really bad news. Well, honestly it’s just bad news for you. From our point of view, it’s pretty goddamn hilarious. Or at least as hilarious anything can be when dealing with someone like you. See, thing is, Jacob didn't give me my power.”

My words made not just Lechmere himself look surprised, but Bezique as well. They both made noises of confusion, before he shot a nasty look that way. I could feel him trying to rip her apart again for the crime of existing within his vicinity. But this time, I understood enough about that ability to effectively shield her from it. I was able to stop him that way.

And then Fathom stopped him by kicking the man hard enough in the stomach that he had to focus on getting enough air into his lungs to avoid passing out. He was doubled over there on the ground, arms wrapped around himself while he wheezed.

I really shouldn't have taken such satisfaction in that, but again, fuck him. Still, I shook my head at Fathom when she looked at me questioningly as to whether she should kick him again. As bad as he might have been, we didn't need to go overboard.

Instead, I turned my attention to Bezique. She was staring at me with confusion and obvious anxiety while touching those cards tightly. I could see Tabbris rubbing her back reassuringly, even as Bezique herself tentatively asked, “Wh-why are there many Miss Flicks? Did you make them like the Jack Ripper made us? And why did you say you didn't get power from the Creator Jacob? We knows you must have. We's can smells it. We knows it so much. We knows the smell.” She paused, then offered a wide, though still nervous smile with mismatched teeth. “We nose the smell.”

Chuckling despite myself, I reached out to touch the side of her face while kneeling down in front of her. “Nose indeed.” My finger flicked that lightly before I continued. “As for why I said that, well…” Then I focused for just a moment and shifted my appearance. Not only that of my body, but I also summoned the clothes with that object position shifting power, completely changing my look right in front of her. Right in front of Lechmere too. Then I straightened up to my new height and let the coat billow slightly behind me with its passive gentle wind spells. Yeah, sometimes you just needed to make an impression. Apparently I channeled my entire sense of drama through this Jacob persona.

“I may be a time traveler,” I announced ruefully, “but I'm pretty sure literally giving my own power to myself would break all sorts of timeline rules.”

Of course, Lechmere started to spit something about blasphemy or whatever, but I gave him a sharp, withering glare. The look itself was enough to make those words catch in his throat, literally making the man flinch backwards with a noise of dismay. His head was shaking violently, but I had, at least, made him shut up without more kicking.

“Here's the truth, the actual truth,” I informed both him and Bezique. “There is no Jacob. He never existed. Not this one anyway.” My hand waved over myself. “The Jacob you think you know, he was never real. I invented him. He's me. I was the original Jacob. He's just a name and disguise I made up so people wouldn't recognize me.”

From Lechmere’s reaction, I might as well have told him that his personal god didn't exist. A god who had personally named him as his favorite disciple. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wild as he spat, “No! You are not he! He came to me! He found me! He taught me! He chose me to be his hands in this city! You are not the one who came to me. You wear his face, but you are not the one who came!”

That time, I intentionally gave a loud, bellowing laugh, one that echoed eerily across Archive space. My hand surreptitiously activated a spell on my wrist that made the sound seem to travel all the way around the group in a wide circle. The laugh rose and fell in pitch and volume, sounding briefly like it was coming from directly behind the man before moving away. My mouth spread into a wide smile. “You speak of wearing false faces, pretender? In my eyes, two have presented themselves falsely. One presents my face and name. She will be dealt with accordingly. The other carries my power, and taints it by his very existence. You take my gift, my blood, the piece of me, and allow it to be twisted into this?” The spell I had activated made those last few words, ‘twisted into this’ repeat themselves as a whisper in the man’s left ear, close enough to make him jump and look that way.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

My hand snapped out, catching him by the collar before he could even think about resisting. I was easily able to hoist him off the ground entirely, holding him up above me with one arm. “Two of the most powerful Necromancers in this universe strode it freely until I took what they had, and left them as husks. You are to them as a child to its god. To me, you are nothing. You are less than a coward. You are filth. I climbed the Tower of Lashra Vaeil and mastered its secrets. I communed with the Ankou, and allowed pieces of myself to be drawn to them throughout the millennia of their existence. I hold command over the last Reaper structure in this world. You believe I should prove myself to you? I stand atop the ashes of far better than you who believed there was nothing I could prove. I have seen terrors that would leave you cowering in your waste, pleading for a return to your mother’s womb. I am not here to prove my existence to the likes of you. I am here to remove you as a smudge upon my name. I live, I exist, to stand against the Fomorian plague. You live, you exist, because I have not yet chosen to prevent you from doing so.”

With all that said, and my point made, I dropped the man back to the ground before adopting a far more casual tone. “But as far as who you spoke to before, you're right about that. It definitely wasn’t me. That was Invidia. That's the only option that makes sense.” I looked over at Bezique. “The bad ghost who possessed Mr. Bell. She has all my powers, because she stole them. She posed as Jacob, as me, and lied to make Lechmere here do her bidding. She probably realized he was a sexist piece of shit, so she needed a male identity to manipulate him. She just chose the one I already set up. She probably thought it was hilarious.”

The man himself was silent and shaking through that, even as the rest of the Flique and I proceeded to explain exactly what we were and what had happened. While some of the others were talking, I took a moment to crouch by Bezique once more and lowered my voice. “I'm sorry for deceiving you, even if it was just by omission. I didn't want you to side with me just because you thought I was Jacob. I wanted you to make your own choices. Whatever you do, whoever you become now, you deserve to choose for yourself. Don't do anything just because he wants you to, or because I do. Do it because you want to. Be your own person from now on. That monster killed innocent women, from all kinds of different species, just to create you. Which means you don't owe him a damn thing. You are your own person. You think and you feel. I don't know how that's possible. I don't know how much of you is new and how much is all those different minds inside you somehow melding together. I don't know. But what I do know is that you are not a slave. You already proved that when you stood against him. Don't bow to him, and don't bow to me. You are Bezique. You are worth more than that. You are worth more than him, because you aren't a soulless monster. You're Bezique. You like cards and pretty pictures. You spoke up to protect me from a being you knew could rip you apart with a thought. You chose to do that all by yourself. You’re a hero to me, and you always will be. I’m not some sort of God, but I would like to be your friend.”

“We all would,” Story put in while waving at the girl. She introduced herself, as did several of the others. I realized very quickly what they were doing. They had closed in to deliberately block Lechmere from seeing her. She didn't need to feel his eyes on her. And he certainly didn't deserve to even look at her.

Leaving the others and Tabbris to talk to the girl and help her understand a bit better, I moved back over to Lechmere. “As for you, Invidia obviously used you for her own ends. I would ask what else she wants you to do, but quite frankly, I wouldn't trust anything that comes out of your mouth. And I'm pretty tired of hearing your voice anyway.”

The man, who had been sitting there in dull shock, staring at nothing as he tried to comprehend all of that, opened his mouth as though to say something. But I hadn't been kidding when I said I didn't want to hear his voice. Before he could speak, I grabbed his wrist and possessed him. I didn't need to simply ask questions of this monster when I could take the answers directly instead.

Unfortunately, he couldn't actually provide that many answers when it came to Invidia’s plans. She had always appeared to him as Jacob, an impersonation that still left me bristling. She acted like Jacob, aside from being very obviously evil. The things she told him she needed him to do were just horrible. She was clearly getting him to test how the Fomorian knowledge had affected his basic Necromancy, but beyond that, I couldn't be certain what her end goal could have even been. I could, at least, say for certain that she was keeping him parked on top of the rift in hopes of possibly spreading that Fomorian connection out to the others. Which would be just utterly fantastic.

In any case, he didn't know anything special about her plans. Nor did he know any secret weaknesses or anything like that. He was nothing more than a useful patsy. Well, useful to her anyway. One who, it turned out, had been a real piece of shit even before having anything to do with Necromancy or the fake Jacob. He had killed before that, as far back as his teenage years. Which didn't exactly erase the feelings I had about my power being used that way, but it did help a little bit.

Stepping out of the man, I left him gasping and protesting on the ground before turning to explain what I had learned, little as it was, to the others. In the end, I shook my head. “So, he doesn’t exactly know her kryptonite. Which I guess isn't that surprising. He's just a tool, not her partner in this.”

Oh boy, did the man in question not like hearing that. But we ignored him, while I glanced over and saw several of the other Flique members still playing with (and distracting) Bezique and Tabbris.

“Oh yeah,” I announced then, “I did figure something else out while I was poking around in there.” With that, I raised a hand and focused the same way Invidia had taught Lechmere to. After a moment of that, a hole appeared, revealing an image of the throne room that we had left behind.

Aylen and another Miranda joined us, the latter whistling as she glanced around. “Boy, seeing them in a dupe’s memories is one thing, but in person it’s… holy shit.” Yeah, she was talking about the Flique, staring at all of them with an expression of amazement. Which made some of them preen, others blush, and a few start to rush over to talk.

Of course they wanted to talk. They were me, or they had started out as me. Which meant they all remembered having Miranda as a best friend.

We all talked together for several minutes, as we caught Aylen up with what was happening and what we knew. Finally, I offered a weak shrug. “I have the key now.” I held it up, having taken it from the man. “So I guess I can go through the rift. But we still don't know what to do about Bell. Or about this particular piece of shit.” My hand gestured that way. “Considering, as far as history is concerned, he's not supposed to actually die until uhhh…”

“1920,” Story supplied. “Father of 11 children. Though assuming it's past 1891, they all would have been born by now.” She looked over at Aylen, who nodded in confirmation. So at least all his historical kids had already been born. Even if that did make me wonder slightly if any of them had inherited that power, since we really had no idea how that worked with my Fae thing. We might need to check.

Extra piped up. “We can't just let him go. Even if this is past the time of any more Ripper killings, he could still murder more people. He could still keep his experiments going. Invidia could still use him. We can't just walk away and let all that go on.”

That started a whole discussion about changing history, of course. Yes, his children had been born, but how much would we change within the timeline if a man died when he was supposed to keep living for something like another quarter century?

Aylen was looking up at the hole in the sky that had reappeared, revealing more glimpses of Fomorians. “We need to do something about that too. Are we sure that information bleed is only going one way and they aren't learning about us?”

Yeah, that was both a good question, and one that I really didn't want to think about. We had to consider it, however. And we had to decide what to do now.

Eventually, Story and Tabbris took the time to explain that they did have a possible way to separate Invidia from Bell. Which was the good news. The bad news, because of course we had to have that as well, was that we needed a few rare things, including blood taken from Charmeine before she was killed. Which just sounded so easy to get. Positively simple, really.

There was no way we could get that right now. We had to let it go. Which meant walking away from Invidia controlling one of the most important people within the Crossroads hierarchy. Fuck. Had that changed history, or had Bell always been possessed by her through this time period? We had no idea. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do about it anyway. We just had to hope it would work out.

We did, however, come up with a plan about what to do when it came to Lechmere and all that. We didn't let him hear what we were talking about, stepping away for a minute while working out the details. It was a bit bold, not to mention dangerous. But it was also probably the best chance we had.

I walked back over to the man, who was glaring at me. Taking a knee in front of his sitting form, I announced, “Right, after a bit of discussion we've come to a decision about how to handle you.”

He gave me a shaken look, clearly still reeling from that entire display. When he spoke, it was still with disgusting words, but his voice cracked miserably. I’d essentially torn out his heart already, even if he was still putting up a front. “Have you now? A pack of sluts have managed to come up with an idea between all of you? I am honestly surprised--”

That was as far as he got in that insult before my hand moved, summoning my staff as I drove the blade through his throat and out the back of his neck. A quick twist tore his head from his body.

“Yeah,” I managed even as the rush of power filled me, “I thought you might be.”

I wasn't getting the Boscher pleasure rush from killing, of course. I wasn't a Boscher anymore. But it still felt good. It made me feel like when I ate something delicious. And I felt a rush of his memories come into me. Memories I really didn’t want to pay more attention to right then.

As his body fell limp, I stood and turned to where Bezique was. Tabbris and Hot Type had turned her around so she wouldn't watch that, but now she was peeking at me. I walked that way and put a hand on her face. “Don't worry, you'll be safe now.”

She gulped a bit, clearly going through a lot of emotions. “But what will become of me? What will become of all of us?” She was looking toward the hole leading to the throne room, where we could see the other creatures like her (and some very different) peering through. They looked just as lost.

I took a breath and let it out. “Well, step one of the plan worked. This place still exists even after I killed him. I absorbed his control of it. His Archive is part of mine now. Which means I have that thing.” My eyes shifted toward those Fomorian images in the sky.

“Let's just hope the next part of the plan works as well as this one did.”