Nosy Verlag, who had been a wild celandine, said sharply, “They do, all of them do. Probe him, you’ll see.”

Cashio’s eyes rolled up in his head an instant, then rolled down and refocused—Jack felt a quicksilver shudder in his mind and it was gone—and he said lackadaisically, “Mm-hmm.”

Jack fumbled with the latch of the Gladstone. He opened the bag and pulled out the foetus in the bottle. Mary Jane Kelly’s unborn child, from November 9th, 1888. He held it in front of his face a moment, then dashed it to the metal pavement. It never struck. It vanished a fraction of an inch from the clean, sterile surface of the City’s street.

“What marvelous loathing!” exulted Rose, who had been a rose.

“Hernon,” said van Cleef, “he’s centering on you. He begins to blame you for all of this.”

Hernon was laughing (without moving his lips) as Jack pulled Juliette’s electrical scalpel from the Gladstone, and lunged. Jack’s words were incoherent, but what he was saying, as he struck, was: “I’ll show you what filth you are! I’ll show you you can’t do this kind of thing! I’ll teach you! You’ll die, all of you!” This is what he was saying, but it came out as one long sustained bray of revenge, frustration, hatred and directed frenzy.

Hernon was still laughing as Jack drove the whisper-thin blade with its shimmering current into his chest. Almost without manipulation on Jack’s part, the blade circumscribed a perfect 360° hole that charred and shriveled, exposing Hernon’s pulsing heart and wet organs. He had time to shriek with confusion before he received Jack’s second thrust, a direct lunge that severed the heart from its attachments. Vena cava superior. Aorta. Arteria pullmonalis. Bronchus principalis.

The heart flopped forward and a spreading wedge of blood under tremendous pressure ejaculated, spraying Jack with such force that it knocked his hat from his head and blinded him. His face was now a dripping black-red collage of features and blood.