One hundred and twenty-eight years ago today, Mary Jane Kelly was murdered in her room at Number 13 Miller's Court in London. She is believed to have been the final victim of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
FROM VIONNA AND THE VAMPIRES:
CHAPTER SIX: THE FINAL PROBLEM
We ran all the way from the cafe back to Baker Street, leaving Moriarty behind. When we got there, Mary was gone. She had left us a note, though:
"Joseph Barnett sent word that he wants to meet me back at my room. I feel a certain obligation toward him. I have no wish to marry, but he must be told that he is to be a father. I shall be back to Baker Street as soon as possible."
My heart sank. How long ago had Mary written this note? Had she already stuck it to our door when I went out to investigate the empty house? I had forgotten to take any kind of precautions at 221-B before I rushed off with Moriarty. Had Mary still been there then? Could I have prevented her from going to Miller's Court? Oh, gosh, how stupid could I be, anyhow? The Ripper was Joseph Barnett, or vice versa. That had to be it.
"Dear God, Valis!" Holmes cried. "We haven't a moment to lose. We must get to Miss Kelly immediately!"
We got a hansom cab, and Holmes made a total nuisance of himself, pestering the driver to go faster. I didn't blame him. I'd have done it myself if Holmes hadn't had it so totally covered. Anyhow, I was busy trying to convince myself that Mary Kelly was okay and I wasn't to blame for anything.
"Vionna is the girl that won't be blamed for nothing."
The sun had climbed well above the rooftops by the time we got to Miller's Court. Holmes literally threw a handful of money at the cab driver.
We made our way Number 13. Holmes tried the door and found it locked. He banged on it for a few seconds, but that didn't accomplish anything. He went over to the little window and discovered that one of the panes was broken out. He put his hand in, pulled back the curtain, and peeked inside. He stayed that way, slightly crouched down with his eye to the opening, for a very long time. I began to notice a terrible smell coming from someplace. Holmes kept on not moving or speaking, and I could not make myself move from where I was standing, or make myself say anything, either.
I knew what Holmes was looking at. I had a picture in my mind that came from somewhere else-- I couldn't explain it, but I knew it was for real. Poor Mary Kelly, lying dead in that room. And not just dead-- the Ripper had outdone himself this time. The mutilations he had inflicted went way beyond the stuff he had done before. I couldn't think of any words to describe it. I just stood there, crying, without making a sound.
Finally, after about a million years, Holmes turned around to face me.
It was too, too late. I could tell by the look in Holmes' eyes. I had never seen anything like it. He was trembling, and all the blood had drained out of his face. The terrible smell got worse and worse and I imagined all sorts of things, and I knew that none of them could be as bad as what Sherlock Holmes had seen.
I felt like my head had been hollowed out completely. I couldn't move. As Holmes stood there, looking at me, I thought I saw a very bright light shine through the thin fabric of the curtain for just a second. Then, a few moments later, it seemed to me that I could hear my own voice coming from inside the room. I shook my head. I was losing my grip.
"We... We should go, Valis," he said.
"The police..?" I said.
Holmes closed his eyes. "To hell with the police," he said in someone else's voice. "And Her Majesty's government, too. To hell with sorcerers and vampires and all their bloody games. And, most of all, to hell with the brilliant Mister Sherlock Holmes."
I didn't like the sound of that. I knew I had just heard someone die, and I don't mean Mary Kelly.
Just then, a man came around a corner and started walking up the alleyway in our direction. I have no idea what he looked like. I couldn't really see anything just then. The man was tall or short or young or old or well-dressed or shabby. I hated him immediately, just because he was there.
"I don't imagine you know a Miss Mary Kelly that lives in that room there?" he said. I wanted to hit him.
"No, not really," Holmes replied dully.
The man gave us a curious look. I prayed that he would make a smart remark so I'd have an excuse to crack his head open. The nerve of him, standing there like that, running his mouth, while Mary Kelly...
"I've had the devil of a time pinning her down," the man was saying. "My name's Thomas Bowyer. I work for Mister M'Carthy, the landlord. Miss Kelly is seriously in arrears on her rent. In fact, it has reached the crisis point. If she comes up with one more tale about being skint..."
"I shouldn't worry about that," Holmes said in a hollow voice. "I shouldn't worry about that at all." He grabbed me by the wrist and led me away. Mister Thomas Bowyer stood scratching his stupid head.
We were almost three blocks away when we heard Thomas Bowyer scream. I hoped he would never, never, ever forget what he was seeing. I hoped his hair would turn white.
Neither Holmes nor I said a single word. We just kept walking until we reached 221-B Baker Street. Everything we passed looked and smelled funny. The sky itself seemed to be smeared with blood-- it had soaked into the ragged little clouds, and the smell of it filled the whole world.
When we finally reached 221-B, we found an envelope stuck to the door, addressed to Mister Sherlock Holmes. The handwriting on the front of it was familiar. We both knew who it was from, and neither of us wanted to open it up. We plodded up the stairs, and Holmes tossed the envelope onto the floor. He slumped into his chair and refused to answer any questions, or to speak at all. I sat down in the basket chair.
We sat there like that, totally silent, for a very long time. Hours, probably. I really can't be sure. I might even have nodded off for a while. At some point, I became aware that Holmes had gotten to his feet. He did not speak or even look at me as he moved over to the fireplace.
Sherlock Holmes took a bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and a hypodermic syringe from a neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction, and ...
I stood up, too. I picked up the envelope that Jack the Ripper had affixed to our front door from the floor where Holmes had tossed it, and stuck it in my pocket. Then I just sort of wandered out into the street. I wanted to go someplace, but I didn't know where.
***
https://www.amazon.com/Vionna-Vampires-Moriarty-Lord-Book/dp/1495948617/
Known
for taking Genre Fiction in strange, twisted directions, award winning
author Chuck Miller, creator of 'The Black Centipede', leads readers on a
brand new 'Psychedelic Pulp' experience with his latest novel from Pro
Se Productions- VIONNA AND THE VAMPIRES: Book One of the Moriarty, Lord of The Vampires Trilogy!
“When
you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth.” So said Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street,
more than a century ago.
Vionna Valis and Mary Jane Kelly are a
pair of hard working psychic detectives experiencing a run of bad luck. A
new detective agency, the Femmes Fatales, is taking most of their
business. Things seem to change for the better in the form of a new
client named Scudder Moran, a wealthy young man with a unique problem;
He has been targeted by the very, very late Professor James Moriarty—the
Napoleon of Crime in another century, now Lord of the Vampires! Unexpected help arrives in the ghostly person of the Great
Detective himself, and they set about unraveling a tangled web of lies
and secrecy that reaches deep into each of their lives. Can they find
the light before Moriarty unleashes his final, most horrific scheme?
"Chuck
Miller," says Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor-in-Chief of Pro Se
Productions, "is by far one of the most unique talents in Genre Fiction
today. He takes the staples and standards of several different types of
stories and doesn't just mix them together. Somehow he intricately
weaves usually disparate parts into the wildest trip on fiction I think
any reader has ever taken. The Black Centipede stands out as a vastly
distinct character from the rest of his masked cohorts and You'll most
definitely discover that Vionna and her cast of cohorts shine in their
own deliciously dark way as well."
VIONNA AND THE VAMPIRES by
Chuck Miller (Creator of The Black Centipede) is the first volume in the
“Moriarty, Lord of the Vampires” trilogy. With a demonically evocative
cover by Jeff Hayes and format and design by Percival Constantine, this
is definitely an opening chapter to a trilogy like no other in New Pulp.
VIONNA AND THE VAMPIRES is available in print and Kindle from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Vionna-Vampires-Moriarty-Lord-Book-ebook/dp/B00IXX9OB2/ref=la_B005WX2CKQ_1_6_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409659532&sr=1-6
SAMPLE CHAPTER from
VIONNA and the VAMPIRES:
PART THREE
THE GHOST AND THE MACHINE
CHAPTER ONE: SHERLOCK HOLMES DISCOURSES
“Vionna,” Mary said gently. “Whatever is the matter?”
I had just stumbled down the stairs, after pulling on some sweatpants and a t-shirt. I was thinking about the very vivid dream I had just had, and it was making me cry. On top of that, my head was pounding. I don't mean I had a bad headache. I wasn't in any pain at all. It just felt like there was some kind of pounding going on in there-- muffled, but strong and steady.
I must have looked kind of crazy, because Mary seemed shocked when she laid eyes on me. As for me, I was so happy to see her alive, I ran and hugged her as hard as I could.
"Vionna!" she said. "What is it?"
"I had a dream," I said. "A very, very, very strange and bad dream."
"What happened in it?"
I shook my head. "I can't say right now." I let go of her and stood back, sniffling loudly.
"Have you had another of those strange lapses? We need to discuss those, Vionna. I think I may know..."
She didn't finish her sentence because poor little Vionna chose that moment to roll her eyes back in her head and fall to the floor. The pounding had become stronger and faster, and now something else was going on, too. It seemed I was hearing voices, more than one of them, coming from down in the bottom part of my mind. They got louder and louder, but I couldn't tell what they were saying.
“Oh gosh,” I said. “Oh, wow. Mary, I see what’s going on. There’s someone ELSE in here now!” I started pounding on my right temple with the heel of my hand.
Mary grabbed me by my wrists to make me stop hitting myself.
“Vionna,” she said, in the kind of voice you use on hysterical children or people who just aren’t right in the head. “Calm down, sweetheart. Everything is okay.”
By this time, I was bawling.
“No it isn’t!” I shook my head rapidly back and forth, flinging tears and snot all over the place, including onto Mary, who either didn’t notice it or decided to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“It isn’t okay,” I wailed. “I can’t have anyone else living in here. Next, it will be a whole family, and their dogs and cats too. I’m not big enough! I’ll collapse, and we’ll all die! I don’t wanna be Ground Zero!”
“Shhhh,” Mary shushed, pulling me by the wrists over to the couch and making me sit down.
“Darling,” she said soothingly, “you must gain control of yourself. Whatever is happening, you can deal with it. I shall help you.”
We went back and forth like this for quite a while. I won’t write all of it down because I’m sure you aren’t interested in four or five solid pages of me wigging out. I’ll just cut to the chase, which consists of me sitting quietly, wiping my face with my shirtsleeve.
“Here,” Mary said, handing me a hanky. “You don’t want that all over your clean shirt.” For a second, she reminded me of my mother, but then I remembered that I don’t remember my mother at all.
“Let me try something,” she said. “As you know, I haven’t been able to sense or communicate with your ‘Roommate.’ But if some new entity is trying to take up residence, I may be able to do something for you. I know where the odd things you've been saying come from. I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to make of it. But something must be done. My psychic powers aren’t all that reliable, but, as they say, it couldn’t hurt.”
Sniffling, I said to her, “You have no way of knowing that, but I don’t care, go ahead. Quickly please.”
Mary got all quiet. A while back, she watched an episode of “Star Trek” where Mister Spock did that Vulcan mind thing with somebody, and it really impressed her. She closed her eyes, twisted her hands into funny shapes, and put the tips of her fingers on my forehead and temples.
I closed my eyes, too.
Mary said, “My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts… Ah, here I am. This is one of those representational telepathic virtual environments I have read about. You’re unconsciously creating it yourself. Goodness, but it’s realistic. Like a big, old castle. You really should consider going into architecture, Vionna."
I couldn't see any of what Mary was seeing. I had my eyes shut tight, in both the actual world and my telepathic virtual environment.
“Ah, there’s the door behind which your ‘Roommate’ lives. My goodness, it’s solid steel. It appears to have no hinges and no handle. Just a tiny opening, like a mail slot. Perhaps your lost memories are in there, too. But that isn’t… Hello, what's this? It looks like a sound stage or a.. a movie lot! Why, it's London, in what appears to be the late Nineteenth Century. What on earth?
"Oh! There IS someone else in here.
“Yes, I can see you there," Mary said, evidently to somebody inside my head; I couldn't hear whoever it was, but apparently Mary could.
"Whatever are you up to? Do you know you are causing this young woman a great deal of agitation? What did you say? You must speak up. Come closer, please, or would you rather I come to you? Very well. Let me just get a look at you, then. Are you… Oh my! Oh my effing God! It’s YOU! This is… I wasn’t effing expecting anything like this! Gee effing dee!
“What’s that? Oh, I know. But this is the twenty-first century. Everyone talks that way now. Even women and children. But never mind. What are you doing here? How did you get here? I see. Yes, I shall help you out of here. It must be frustrating for you. I can lend you sufficient energy for a very clear and stable manifestation. Hold my hand, now. Are you ready? On the count of three, then. One… two…”
THREE! The inside of my head suddenly felt the way it was supposed to. It was a great relief. I opened my eyes, then blinked them several times because they were kind of sore, like they get when you’re really sleepy. When I could see again, I found Mary at my right side.
And on my left was a man I had not expected to see again so soon.
The look he was giving me is what I think they call pensive. He was sort of smiling, but he also looked like he was afraid he was about to get into huge trouble over something.
I turned back and looked at Mary again. I opened my eyes up really wide and raised my eyebrows, which is how you ask “What?” without actually saying it.
“Vionna,” she said. “I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.” She made her voice sound all formal, in a joking way, if you know what I mean.
“Miss Vionna Valis, may I present Mister Sherlock Holmes.”
“Sherlock Holmes,” I said.
“Yes,” said Mary. "His ghost, at any rate. Mister Holmes, this is my dear friend, Vionna Valis."
“Indeed,” said the ghost, nodding at me." I feel I know you already after what passed between us last night," he told me. If somebody had walked into the room at that moment, and that was all they heard, they might get some funny ideas.
Mary looked surprised. "You two... know one another?"
"Did you put that dream into my head?" I asked, ignoring Mary for the moment.
"I did," said Holmes. "Your mind is a great deal less chaotic when you are asleep. I was able to gather my wits and communicate with you in that fashion. Honestly, Miss, I was afraid I would never be able to get out of your head. You have a power about you... Well, thanks to Miss Kelly, I finally did. What I showed you last night was a series of events from 1888, more or less as they happened. I merely deleted my friend Watson and put you in his place."
"What dream?" Mary asked. "The one you were upset about earlier, Vionna?"
"Uh-huh. But I don't think it was really a dream at all."
"It wasn't," Holmes said. "There really isn't a word for what it was. It is simply something that I found myself able to do. I induced it, but I did not have full control over it. Miss Valis, you seemed to pick up on things of which I was unaware at the time. In some fashion, we may have actually gone back there, to that time and place."
"Yeah," I said. "Or one just like it. When I was there, I didn't know anything about my actual real life here in the present. I met you there, Mary, but I didn't know who you were."
Holmes smiled. "You perceived facts and made deductions that I was unable to, the first time I experienced those events. I believe you may have learned things I still do not know."
Sherlock Holmes turned his attention to Mary. “Miss Kelly,” he said, “I am so terribly sorry I was unable to prevent your murder, or lay my hands upon the fiend that slaughtered you. Of course, I knew you had returned, and I'm pleased to see that things have turned out so nicely for you. It’s good to see you."
“And you, sir,” Mary said. “As for the Ripper, trouble yourself no further. That is long in the past.”
“Indeed,” said the ghost. “But I cannot help feeling responsible for drawing you into my deeply-flawed plan, and for what happened to you as a result.”
“Mister Holmes,” Mary said, “I willingly entered into your plan. But there were factors of which both you and I were unaware. The Ripper was not at all what we thought he was. You could not have known, any more than I could have. We were unlucky, that is all. I would do it again without hesitation.”
The ghost made himself look super-humble and said something about how touched he was by her saying that.
“Mary,” I said into the silence that fell after he was done, “you never told me you knew Sherlock Holmes.”
“You never asked,” Mary replied. “I’ve done a great many things and known a great many people I’ve never had cause to bring up. You never told me you knew him!”
"I didn't until a couple of hours ago."
Mary turned to Holmes and said, "I am eager to hear the story of how you came here, and what your purpose is. I don’t believe you’re the sort to flit back from the afterlife for a lark.”
“No. In death, as in life, I am ruthlessly pragmatic. I think. I find that I can remember almost nothing about the other side right now. Undoubtedly this is a product of my descending from a higher sphere into a lower one.”
“I am familiar with the phenomenon,” said Mary.
”Yes, you would be, of course,” replied the ghost.
He turned to look at me. “Again, Miss Valis, I apologize for insinuating myself into your mind the way I did. It isn’t quite what I had intended.
"I wanted to communicate my information to you without actually coming here myself. That is incredibly tricky, in the absence of a medium. But I applied myself to it, and I found you, Miss Kelly. And when I did, I discovered that your friend, Miss Valis, is a great deal more attuned to the 'wavelength' I was on, so I tried to communicate with her instead When I touched her mind, it drew me like iron filings to a magnet. I was pulled completely from the afterlife into her head! I managed to hang on to most of what I wanted to tell you, but it took a great deal of effort, and it cost me much of my ability to actually communicate the information.
"And now, most of the knowledge I had while I was still on the other side is now unavailable to me. What I know is this: There are vampires at work in this world right now, and their leader is Professor James Moriarty. He is, in fact, the reigning Lord of all vampires. I know that he plans some course of action that will have the direst consequences for mankind if it is successful, and I know that this game is even now afoot.
"How," Mary asked, after a minute or so, "did you know to come to us with this information? It seems you were in Vionna's head before Scudder told us his story."
"That, I fear, is difficult to explain. You lack the necessary frame of reference, as I myself do now that I am fully here. The best I can do is to say that time is not the rigid, linear construct most people believe it to be.
“And now here I am, and now I have told you all that I retain of my earlier knowledge. I’m grateful indeed that I don’t make a habit of crossing over this way. Robbed of one of my greatest assets—memory—I fear that I am worse than useless.”
“Nonsense,” said Mary. “That’s rubbish and you know it. Memory and intellect are not the same thing. As far as I can see, your fine mind—or its ectoplasmic analog—is in perfect working order. And I hope Vionna and I can count on you to employ it to the full on our behalf as we investigate these bizarre events.”
The ghost smiled. “I was rather hoping you’d say that, my dear Miss Kelly. I should like nothing better than to be of assistance to you and the charming Miss Valis. And let us hope that we may, once and for all, put an end to the seemingly endless machinations of Professor James Moriarty.”
ON AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/Vionna-Vampires-Moriarty-Lord-Book-ebook/dp/B00IXX9OB2/ref=la_B005WX2CKQ_1_6_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409659532&sr=1-6
More and more cast members are being added almost
daily to the Black Centipede saga. Here is a handy guide to some of the
major players in the world of the Black Centipede. I have divided them
into three categories: Centipede Originals, Public Domain Characters and
Historical Personages. This guide will very likely be updated periodically,
now and then, once in a while, now and then, from time to time.
Some information has been lifted whole from Wikipedia, some from the private papers of the Black Centipede. Some of it I just made up. Artwork by Peter Cooper, Sean E. Ali, someone called Public Domain, and me.)
VISIT MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE FOR ALL THE BLACK CENTIPEDE PUBLICATIONS SO FAR: http://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Miller/e/B005WX2CKQ/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
CENTIPEDE ORIGINALS
THE BLACK CENTIPEDE-- Surname unknown; first name is William. Crime fighter, enigma, snarky narrator, etc.
"Bloody" Mary Jane Gallows ("born" 1892) is the Black Centipede's dearest friend and arch-nemesis. Mary Jane is a tulpa (a thought construct given independent life) created by Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper. She is more amoral than outright evil, and has a great fondness for the Centipede, though her criminal antics sometimes pit her against him.
Detective Lieutenant Stanley Bartowski is the head of the City of Zenith police department's Unusual Crimes Division. He and the Centipede are almost friends, though Bartowski often looks askance at the masked man's use of violence against criminals. The two met during the strange affair of Doctor Almanac, an episode chronicled in Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede.
Percival J. Doiley-- A reporter for the Zenith Orator, a newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst; also writes stories for the TALES OF THE BLACK CENTIPEDE monthly pulp magazine.
Woodrow Wilson Tannenbaum aka Baron Samedi (born April 1, 1903) is a notable African-American Voodoo practitioner and gangster. He was named in honor of Princeton University President (later U.S. President) Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Born into a show business family, Tannenbaum spent his early years on the vaudeville circuit. He became a major gang boss in the City of Zenith in the year 1933, in partnership with the bizarre criminal known as the Stiff.
JACOB RUSSELL MELCHOIR aka THE STIFF-- Once an Assistant District Attorney in Zenith, an attempt on his life by gangster Frenchy Donovan turned him into THE STIFF, bizarre new organized crime boss. Partner of BARON SAMEDI. (Creeping Dawn, Funeral for a Fiend)
Patience and Prudence (birth dates unknown) are an enigmatic pair of young women who worked for the Zenith crime lord known as the Stiff for several years in the 1930s and 40s. They appear to be identical twins, though one is black and the other white. Nothing is known of their origins. They were rescued by the Stiff and Baron Samedi from the despicable Doctor Almanac, who had subjected them to torture and mutilation in an effort (unsuccessful) to bend them to his will. ("Funeral For a Fiend") Patience and Prudence are the ultimate "fixers." They can do anything that is necessary to resolve any situation. It is unknown whether or not they possess any occult or psychic powers. Both girls are mute, having had their tongues cut out by Doctor Almanac.
JUDITH DeCORTEZ-- Former enforcer with the Frenchy Donovan mob; now a freelance thorn in the side of law enforcement; has lost three body parts (so far) in battles with the BLACK CENTIPEDE.
THE REVEREND DOCTOR THEOBALD SCHADELHAUS-- Criminal madman, extortionist; head of the Church of the Immaculate Contagion, a group that venerates or worships disease-causing organisms, germs and viruses. ("The Plague's the Thing")
DOCTOR MAURICE T. ALMANAC-- Former psychiatrist transformed into criminal mastermind by BLOODY MARY JANE; was briefly the ruthless czar of organized crime in Zenith. (Creeping Dawn)
ANONYMOUSHKA-- A faceless Russian assassin with a mysterious past. Possibly schizophrenic. Though she regards the Black Centipede with some distaste, she is convinced that she will one day marry him. ("The Return of Doctor Reverso," Black Centipede Confidential)
THE BLUE CANDIRU-- A mysterious and not very adept crime fighter; identity unknown; first met the BLACK CENTIPEDE in Hollywood in 1933. (Blood of the Centipede)
SERGEANT RAYMOND DAVIES-- Member of the Zenith PD; the BLACK CENTIPEDE'S personal nemesis. He really doesn't know who he's fucking with.
RAOUL DEVEREAUX UNKNOWN aka DOCTOR UNKNOWN-- Failed stage magician, incredibly powerful genuine sorcerer, successful Certified Public Accountant. Lends the CENTIPEDE a hand now and again. Father of Doctor Dana Marie Laveau Unknown aka DOCTOR UNKNOWN JUNIOR.
ADRIAN COUNTENANCE-- A particularly vile super-criminal who will be making his first appearance in the Centipede chronicles next year.
THE BLACK CENTIPEDE EATER-- Freakish minion of Jack the Ripper and the White Centipede. She spent much of the novel Blood of the Centipede attempting to make a meal out of the Black Centipede.
THE WHITE CENTIPEDE is perhaps the Black Centipede's most enigmatic foe. Doctor Unknown Senior recently gave a private lecture on the White Centipede to representatives of several law-enforcement agencies. Here are some excerpts:
"The White Centipede has a connection to the near-mythical Order of the Centipede. Very little is known about the original organization. They were notoriously secretive and left nothing in the way of records. What is known-- or assumed-- is that the Order was subverted by Jack the Ripper in the 19th Century, and subsequently split into two different factions. The leader of the original Order was the White Centipede, a title and position that was passed down from one White Centipede to another by some unknown process. The Ripper enslaved the reigning White Centipede, and kept her alive until he could create and groom his own successor, who would be under his complete domination.
"This White Centipede was a composite being. That is, the Ripper somehow fused two living organisms into one. One of these was the infamous Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, the so-called "Mad Monk," who wielded such disastrous influence over Tsar Nicholas II, through the Tsarina Alexandra. Early in 1917, Rasputin-- who was believed to have been assassinated in St. Petersburg in December of 1916-- arrived in the United States. Nothing is known of his activities for the next several years. Certain rumors suggest that he hired himself out as an enforcer and tactician to a number of organized criminal organizations in New York and Zenith. This was part of the training the Ripper required of him.
"But Rasputin comprised only half of this creature that would become the new White Centipede. The other half was... a colossal enigma. Here, rumor veers off into the wildest speculation-- if not outright delirium. This being, so the stories go, arrived in earth in 1897, having traveled here in an extraordinary vehicle-- from another planet. The Ripper had made contact with this being-- whether by scientific or sorcerous means, no one is prepared to say-- and had made what must have been an extraordinarily attractive proposition.
"This creature-- I'll assign it the male pronoun for the sake of convenience, though nothing is known of its gender-- crashed his vehicle into a windmill in a small Texas town, and was presumed dead by the dumbfounded earthlings who found him. In fact, he had only become dormant from the shock of the collision, and the Ripper was on the scene later that day. Posing as a doctor working for the office of the Governor of Texas, the Ripper declared the creature dead and allowed him to be buried in the local cemetery.
"There the comatose being lay until 1903, until he was exhumed by Rasputin. Presumably, whatever abominable process fused the two together took place shortly after that. In appearance, the new organism was indistinguishable from the 'old' Rasputin. When it was stable, it returned to Russia, and Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin strutted and fretted his catastrophic hour upon the stage of world history. By late 1916, the work the Ripper had assigned him was done. His apparent murder and clandestine emigration followed, and Rasputin and 'friend' were free to assume the mantle of the new White Centipede when the time came."
CARLTON "SPUDS" DIETRICH served two terms as mayor of the city of Zenith during the 1930s. He was every bit as corrupt as he was inept, making him the preferred candidate among the movers and shakers in the city's criminal underworld. Dietrich was first elected in 1931, shortly after his release from Winnemac State Prison, where he had served a three-year term for fraud and price fixing while he was a member of the city council. Most observers attributed Dietrich's victory to the unique touch of his campaign manager, Frenchy Donovan. One of Zenith's most prominent racketeers, Donovan took time off from his duties in order to work full-time for the candidate. During a press conference held to kick off Dietrich's campaign, Donovan announced that he had "found the Lord," and was "turning over a new leaf."
Interestingly, Dietrich received 104 percent of the popular vote. When confronted by the press after it was learned that many of the voters listed in the rolls had in fact passed away weeks or months prior to the election, Donovan made reference to the Biblical miracle of Lazarus and thanked the Lord for His good work.
Dietrich's opponent, Morton Beltrane, demanded a recount and vowed to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. He was on his way to the federal courthouse to file the paperwork when he was accidentally run over by an unidentified man driving a car with no license plates. Four times. One of Dietrich's first acts upon taking office was to officially designate February 9 - 15, 1931, as "Beltrane Memorial Automobile Safety Awareness Week."
PUBLIC DOMAIN CHARACTERS
SHERLOCK HOLMES-- Needs no introduction; has had dealings before and after death with the BLACK CENTIPEDE and VIONNA VALIS & MARY JANE KELLY. (Black Centipede Confidential, Vionna and the Vampires)
PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY-- The Napoleon of Crime. In 1908 he became Lord of the Undead after killing DRACULA. In 1933, Moriarty launched a rather puzzling attack against the city of Zenith, with the help of a super-criminal task force known as THE ORDER OF THE SUNLESS CIRCLE.
Members of the Circle included Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, John Dillinger, Kate "Ma" Barker, Max Schreck, Dr. Herbert West, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dr. Hawley Crippen, Mary Jane Gallows, Judith DeCortez, Stagger Lee, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Bell Witch. (Black Centipede Confidential)
GREGOR SAMSA-- Protagonist of "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. A man who woke up one morning to find he had turned into a giant bug. Part of the BLACK CENTIPEDE'S support staff at the Benway Building.
J. ALFRED PRUFROCK-- Subject of the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. A man uncertain about everything. Part of the BLACK CENTIPEDE'S support staff at the Benway Building.
"As an office manager," the Centipede said, "Prufrock was politic, cautious, and meticulous. On a personal level, he was deferential and glad to be of use, though I was endeavoring to beat that out of him. He was trying hard to have what we would now call a midlife crisis, but he was having some trouble getting it off the ground. I badgered and baited him, trying to find or make a crack through which the inner man could emerge. Of course, there was the horrible possibility that he already had, and this was it." (Black Centipede Confidential)
HISTORICAL PERSONAGES
William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) -- Business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father. Hearst is credited with the creation of yellow journalism — sensationalized stories of dubious veracity. He created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst was responsible for the BLACK CENTIPEDE'S public apotheosis from wanted lunatic to beloved national hero; personally despises the CENTIPEDE, a feeling that is mutual.
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – disappeared 1937) was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross,awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1933, Earhart formed a friendship and informal partnership with the Black Centipede (Blood of the Centipede). She was one of the very few people that the Centipede trusted and respected without any reservations.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) — known as H. P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. In the 1920s, Lovecraft became friends with the teenage boy would later become the Black Centipede.
Frank Nitti (January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), also known as "The Enforcer," was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations. Nitti was later the front-man for the Chicago Outfit, the organized crime syndicate headed by Capone. Nitti owes the Centipede big, and he pays off in various ways.
Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927)-- Accused ax murderess; his 1927 encounter with Lizzie transformed young William --------- into the BLACK CENTIPEDE. (Creeping Dawn)
was tried and acquitted in the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. The case was a cause célèbre throughout the United States. Following her release from the prison in which she had been held during the trial, Borden chose to remain a resident of Fall River, Massachusetts, for the rest of her life, despite facing significant ostracism. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts elected to charge no one else with the murder of Andrew and Abby Borden.
The following passages are excerpted from the private journals of the Black Centipede. Since his meeting Lizzie was one of the watershed incidents in his life, we present his recollections in their entirety:
By the time [my family and I] moved to Fall River, the crime of and for which Lizzie Andrew Borden had been accused, tried, and acquitted, was already decades in the past. As for having been forgotten, though, it was as far from it then as it is now. Lizzie’s awful fame had spread around the world, beginning with its sanguinary genesis on August 4, 1892, and had continued to grow with each passing year. It was not something that would ever be forgotten, even amidst the glut of bloody sensations—including a brutal world war—that rose with increasing regularity as the Twentieth Century gathered speed.
What the world would not forget, Fall River could not. Lizzie was the town’s most famous daughter by far, and on her rested its chief claim to fame. Had she been as well-known for achievements in any field other than murder, her name would have graced every bit of promotional literature put out by the chamber of commerce. In fact, though, Fall River made a cottage industry out of trying to ignore the blood-drenched ax-murderess sitting in the middle of the metaphorical living room. After her acquittal, Lizzie remained in Fall River. She and her sister moved into a newer and much grander house than the one in which her father and stepmother had been done to death.
This was in a day when people gave names to their houses. Lizzie’s was called Maplecroft, a name that was elegantly meaningless. It was right smack in one of the more upscale neighborhoods. Lizzie, it seems, chose to very ostentatiously NOT drift into quiet exile and obscurity, as the town of Fall River so devoutly wished she would.
My family lived a couple of blocks from Maplecroft, and I passed the place almost every day. I caught the occasional glimpse of Lizzie.
I was out much too late one evening, as was my wont, having snuck out of the house to pursue adventures of which my parents would take the dimmest view imaginable. On my way back home, I cut through a series of backyards. I didn’t want to be spotted going down the street by some do-gooder who might inform my parents. When I got to Maplecroft, Lizzie was sitting there alone on her back steps, eating a pear. I didn't see her until I passed no more than two feet in front of her. When I did, I yelped a little because it gave me a turn. I had imagined the yard would be deserted at this hour of the morning. But not only wasn't it deserted, it was populated by Lizzie Borden herself.
She looked up at me with an expression on her face that might have reflected a remarkable serenity or a deeply-rooted mental illness or nothing at all. She didn't yelp, didn't jump, didn't seem all that concerned. I stopped dead and began trying to muster a hasty excuse/apology. Before anything could assemble itself, she spoke.
“Hello,” she said calmly. It was plain that I was the only one who had been startled.
“Ah,” I said. “Good evening, uh, Miss… I didn’t… I was just…”
Lizzie Borden cut right through the tangle. “You know who I am?” she said.
“Of course.”
“You aren’t afraid?”
“Do I have any reason to be?”
There was a silence following that, one which I very strangely did not find the least bit uncomfortable. I had seldom been taken quite as off guard as I was that night. And when I had been, I had never recovered from it as quickly as I did then. Curious.
“I told the truth,” she said, ignoring my question, or oblivious to it. “At the trial. Everything I said was true.”
“Apparently someone believed you,” I said, as though this were the continuation of a conversation we’d been having earlier. I had the oddest feeling that it was. “You were acquitted.”
“I was,” she agreed, nodding. “The right people believed me.”
“And those who didn’t were wrong?”
She sighed. “Not entirely,” she said. “Not altogether. There was no way they could have known.”
“Known what?”
“The truth.”
“Which is what?”
“What really happened.”
In retrospect, this exchange takes on the flavor of an Abbot and Costello routine. Memory allows for these amusing anachronisms. At the time, I didn’t see much humor in it.
Even though I knew better, I went ahead and asked, “And what really happened?”
“What I said happened.” We had circled around the thing, and arrived back at square one. Not caring for the idea of further circumnavigation, I decided to get off the train.
“Miss Borden, I’m sorry I disturbed you. I won’t do it again.”
“Hm? Oh, no. I’m not sorry you disturbed me. I have too few disturbances these days. I feel their absence very deeply. You seem an unusual young man. Might I ask your name?”
“Bill,” I said, feeling no inclination to lie. “William. They call me Bill.”
“That’s very good, Bill. I like that. And you must call me Lizzie.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. I found that I wanted very much to call her Lizzie. The bizarre fact was, I found her powerfully attractive. This was odd for several reasons, some of which dare not speak their names. As for the ones that do, chief among them was the fact that she was a bit long in the tooth to inspire lust in a boy my age, even if he were inclined that way. Another one was, of course, that she was Lizzie Borden. A monster. A creature of bloody legend, her name synonymous with murder of the very foulest sort.
Curiously, though, I realized that this didn’t bother me at all.
Were I a different sort of person, and were this a different sort of story, I might say something to the effect that what I saw before me was not the larger-than-life vampire of legend, but a very real human woman, much like any other. But that was not the case. I saw the monster, if that's what it was. I saw something rare and frightening and compelling, something people aren't supposed to have. I didn't flinch. Had she appeared ordinary, I would have been gone almost as soon as I had arrived.
She stood up and looked into my eyes. Her own eyes were of an incredibly pale blue, luminous and fey, and seemed to me to contain things that had no names and could not be imagined.
“Well, Bill, I must go back inside now. I am pleased that you dropped by, and I want you to call on me again, at any hour you care to. Will you do that, Bill?”
“Yes, Lizzie. I will do that.”
She smiled, turned, and started up the steps. On the third one she stopped, turned back around, and came back down. She reached up, placed the palms of her hands on my cheeks, stood on tiptoe and kissed me. It was a very brief kiss, cool and dry. Even so, I felt as though my insides would dissolve and run out of my body through my nether parts. She smiled at me again, said “Good morning, then,” turned back around, and went inside.
“Good morning, Lizzie,” I whispered, after she had disappeared into the house.
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Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933)-- Disgraced silent film comedian; between November 1921 and April 1922, Arbuckle endured three widely publicized trials for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in September 1921; she died four days later. Arbuckle was accused by Rappe's acquaintance of raping and accidentally killing Rappe. After the first two trials, which resulted in hung juries, Arbuckle was acquitted in the third trial and received a formal written apology from the jury. Shortly before his death, Arbuckle directed the 1933 feature film "Blood of the Centipede." The CENTIPEDE once lent him a hand, for all the good it did. (Blood of the Centipede)
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. THE BLACK CENTIPEDE once helped Fitzgerald solve a domestic dispute. (Black Centipede Confidential)
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