I killed my first Alexander at seventeen. That was also the age I fell in love, an emotion supposedly beyond my kind.
We rippers make our homes in the love of others. We kill the people who’ve so forsaken love they’ve burned away their souls. But actually experiencing the warmth of that strange emotion was something none of us dared achieve.
Until I was born. I guess Momma was right when she said I’m the strangest of monsters.
But before the love came the kill, which happened a few hours after we arrived in the city of Medea. Momma and I stumbled down the dark cobblestone streets during a howling blizzard, only occasional gaslights slashing open the night.
I hoped if anyone saw me and Momma they’d mistake us for a human woman and her teenage daughter. I also prayed — a word that would have angered Momma if she’d heard me utter it — that we wouldn’t run into any of the church zealots who’d chased us from our last home.
As we passed the large tenements along the train tracks I saw the white cross of the Vita Dei painted above many of the doorways. I’d tasted the overwhelming anger of Alexanders here and there as we’d fled our old home, their fury always burning into me as if I’d held my hand over a tea kettle’s steam. But the city’s brownstones, mansions and tenements – especially those marked with white crosses – contained far more Alexanders than I’d ever dreamed existed.
“Be careful,” Momma whispered. “There are some powerful Alexanders in this city.”
I understood. You had to be careful around Alexanders. They could easily kill rippers when they outnumbered us.
“Let’s go back to the countryside,” I said, already hating this dirty, cold city. I shivered, nearly frozen despite the stolen coat I wore.
“Too dangerous,” Momma said. “Easier for the church to track our kills in the countryside.”
We turned down an alley and sheltered in an alcove between two buildings, directly across from a seedy pub. Next door to the pub was a horsecar stable, metal rails running from the building down the cobblestone street. The horses inside nickered. I smelled manure, stale hay, sour alcohol and human sweat along with other sickly scents I didn’t recognize.
“This is a good spot,” Momma said. “Nasty, dark places late at night are good hunting. Remember that.”
I nodded as I huddled closer to Momma, trying to stay warm. I was careful not to embrace her. I didn’t need another lecture about how rippers shouldn’t hug one another.
The door to the pub opened and a drunk man stepped out. I prayed he was an Alexander. But I didn’t scent violence on him and our magic prevented us from harming anyone who wasn’t an Alexander. The man looked right through our bodies without seeing us before staggering toward home.
This was my first time joining Momma on a hunt and despite being so cold I watched with curiosity the men leaving the bar. Not all Alexanders were men, but the vast majority were. Momma blamed society for that. She said too many men these days were given more opportunities to be violent, something the church zealots encouraged.
I’d always wondered at what point a violent, angry person lost their humanity and became an Alexander. Momma had never given me a clear answer, not even telling me why we called them Alexanders. But she did mention once that just as there were rules that governed the magic powering our lives, so too were there rules for Alexanders. Once a person bent the world too far through hate and anger and violence, all that remained for them was us.
I tasted each man leaving the bar. The men walked by themselves or in groups, some laughing and singing, some cursing or even silent. But none were Alexanders. My stomach growled and I leaned closer to Momma’s warm body.
That’s when an Alexander slammed open the pub door. He was angry and left a bitter, metallic tang of pending violence on my tongue. He walked purposely down the alley toward the shophouses facing the harbor. The evil buzzing where his soul once lived called to me, sending an excited, instinctual shiver through my body.
“Stay quiet,” Momma whispered as we snuck after the man. While most people couldn’t see us at night, Alexanders could. Especially when they aimed to hurt someone.
We followed him down the hill and along the street. The man staggered past rows of stone piers and wooden docks. Hundreds of sailing ships and fishing trawlers were tied up alongside the docks and bobbed in the waves. The man glanced back once, as if sensing us, but we hid in the blowing snow. He cursed and continued walking.
Momma’s claws emerged from her fingers and she spun them around, trying to conjure a blood-maw – a portal into the inner world all rippers drew our power from. But Momma was too weak to create a blood-maw and I’d never been able to. She glanced at me and I knew we’d have to do this the hard, messy way.
The man stopped before the ground floor of a brick shophouse, the words DRY GOODS painted in gold letters on a green-stained wooden sign above the front door. But the sign’s paint was faded and flaking and the store’s picture window cracked, as if the building had given up caring what the world thought of it.
The man tried to open the front door but it didn’t budge. He shook the doorknob in anger. “Unlatch the door, Joanie,” the man yelled. “Abner, don’t make me do this!”
He rattled the door again. Through the dirty window I saw a woman in a faded robe holding a candle and a kitchen knife in the rear of the store. A young man my age stood beside her holding a wooden mallet. Fear and determination etched their eyes and neither approached the door.
“Open it!” the man yelled again. When the people inside didn’t move, the man pulled a billy club from under his coat.
