He saw the light behind him change as his shadow lengthened in front of him. At the same moment he heard the sound of drums coming closer, of shouts and now sirens from the crossroads he was running towards, and he saw people dashing away from him into their houses, slamming down windows, closing their doors rather than helping. The message they were sending out was that the chaos was arriving here.

From the crossroads ahead they came, just a handful of them, provoked from their nearby houses by the tides under London: skinheads and Toffs and a bunch of hopeful local kids, ready to go whichever way the wind blew.

They were all staring at him as he ran desperately towards them.

No, he realized, they were staring at what was behind him.

He turned to look at her. She was in the sky, walking down towards him. She was surrounded by a cloud of evaporating silver. He imagined the razor slashing him, penetrating him, making him helpless.

He turned back and looked around. He wasn’t helpless. He’d made his empire, damn it! He still had a few tricks! He feinted left and then suddenly sprinted right, down an alley between houses. She couldn’t keep going forever, not losing that much silver. It occurred to him that she must be showing that to him deliberately, that seeing her like this was the first time he’d seen the silver. But still, it didn’t change the fact that was just her putting on a front. She was fast, but he knew that she needed to see him to find him. Assuming he could find a place where bystanders weren’t reporting on his every move, he could actually hide!

He kept running, turning left and right at random, using the narrowness of the streets, always shying away from a light in the sky behind him. He was in Whitechapel proper now, and wasn’t that ironic! A great story was building here. He wondered how he’d tell it. He’d be the potential victim, obviously. ‘I Faced the Ripper … and Lived!’ The story would help him if anyone started wondering about his connection to the deaths tonight.

He ran out into a municipal open space, a playground with nobody in it, with narrow walkways between houses in all directions. Perfect! He chose one at random and ran for it.

A second before he reached the corner, the illumination washed over him like a searchlight and he felt his breath and adrenalin pump again. He flattened himself around the corner. Had she seen him? The light had stopped. He dared a glance around the wet brickwork.