Sherlock Holmes was in a foul mood as he ascended the steps of 221B Baker Street, followed by Dr. John H. Watson, his longtime friend and chronicler. The famous detective was normally difficult to anger, but the wintry months of 1888 proved to be an exception, particularly given the high profile of the case he had investigated. Sitting down in his favorite armchair and loading his pipe full of tobacco from a large Persian slipper on the table next to him, Holmes noted Dr. Watson sitting down in his own chair and lighting a cigar. They smoked in silence for some minutes, the air full of tension, before Holmes finally spoke.

“I rarely express much sympathy for the men of Scotland Yard, Watson,” Holmes said slowly, “but on this occasion I cannot but feel for them. Even accounting for their signature ineptitude, they have been unfairly reduced to a laughingstock by this criminal or criminals, whoever they may be.”

“You have no clues, then?” Dr. Watson asked in surprise. “I was inclined to believe that you were well on the villain’s trail,” he frowned, remembering how Inspector Reid, the policeman in charge of the investigation, had personally come to seek Holmes’s assistance in the case of the murderer dubbed ‘Jack the Ripper’ by the London media.

“I have found many clues,” Holmes scowled, irritation and frustration in his voice, “but they are contradictory and inconsistent. How can the slayings share so many common characteristics, and yet clearly have not been committed by the same man in each case?”

“Would it trouble you to repeat your findings?” Dr. Watson asked in some embarrassment. “With all that has gone on in the last few months, my mind has been occupied by other things.”

Holmes only smiled, remembering well the strange case of the Sign of the Four, that had begun with a strange letter brought in by a female client and ended with a flight down the Thames River and Dr. Watson’s marriage to Miss Mary Morstan.

“I investigated the third through fifth murders, and examined the findings of the police in the first two slayings myself,” Holmes said as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “It became clear that the killers in each case possessed diverse physical characteristics. The murderer of Elizabeth Stride was a tall, left-handed man with decidedly short fingers who walked with a limp, while the killer of Catherine Eddowes wielded a pocket knife with a notched blade, wore narrow pointed boots of the kind commonly found in the United States, and likely took snuff on a regular basis.”

“And yet,” the detective continued, “all these men committed their murders in much the same way, all possessing a certain amount of surgical skill in the way they have applied their blades. How is it that all these men could possess the same skill with a knife, wielding the weapons in the same way, when they are so clearly of different backgrounds? Did they join in a conspiracy to slay these women? If so, for what possible reason could they have decided to murder a group of prostitutes in the Whitechapel area?”

“You can conceive of no satisfactory explanation?” Dr. Watson asked in surprise.

“As you know, Watson, I have often stated that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth,” Holmes replied. “In this respect, I can only conclude that there is no Jack the Ripper. Whoever these villains may have been, and why they have decided to murder so many of the unfortunates of Whitechapel, I cannot say. With the assistance of the official police force, I shall attempt to run them down, although I regret to say that without further indications, finding them among the many millions of the Metropolis will be extremely difficult. It is a bitter drink to take, Watson, but I fear I must admit that I do not think these women shall be avenged in our lifetimes.”

I'm a grim and lonesome wanderer.
I walk you through the night.
Lurking in the shadows, waiting for a bite.
You don't know who I am,
But I'm nasty and obscene.
I'll take your life cut your throat,
Fulfilling all my dreams.

-Falconer

Annual 3 - Jack The Knife

By Jared Milne

It was a bitterly cold evening in February. The wind blew harshly, seeming to creep into the bones of the few passersby unlucky enough to be out on the streets that evening, piercing their jackets and gloves like a piercing knife. Only the most hopeless-or the most desperate- people would be out on such a night.

Sally Floyd was one of those people. Seeming to ignore the cold despite her tattered and revealing clothing, Floyd stared alertly into the night, her dead eyes on the alert for someone, anyone, who could give her the precious china-white. She twitched and snorted as she thought of it, the idea of her white gold, her lifeline, her precious little dragon…

Unfortunately, the streets seemed deserted, even as Floyd continued peering into the darkness. Everything was silent, and not even the pigs from 5-0 were out tonight. As much as Floyd hated to admit it, it seemed she wouldn’t be chasing the white dragon tonight.

It hurt her real bad. After all, crystal meth was a hell of a drug, and it was worth all the tricks she could turn for it…

It was then that she heard the footsteps crunching in the snow behind her. She turned around, an eager look on her face, and smiled as she saw the figure approaching. Pretty big, not too hung up on hygiene…but what could you do?

“Looking for a good time?” Sally asked the man with a winning smile. The man only smiled back and nodded.

“I’ve got everything you want and more,” the man said softly, although Sally heard every word.

“You got the china-white?” she asked him with a grin.

“You bet,” the man said softly. “More than you could ever dream of.”

Sally Floyd began quivering involuntarily with eager anticipation.

“Chasing the white dragon?” she asked, her dead eyes suddenly shining with life.

“Oh yes,” the man whispered. “You and I will be together forever. You’ll not only chase the dragon, you’ll catch him. You’ll never lose him again.”

Thrilled with the idea, Sally Floyd followed the man down the twisting, turning labyrinth that made up the alleyways of New York’s back streets, before they finally came to one particularly garbage-ridden pathway that led behind a large, abandoned warehouse.

The man unlocked the door at the end of the path, and opened it before turning around to gesture at Sally.

“After you,” the man smiled.

Eager for her china-white, Sally Floyd made for the door, passing by the man.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the long butcher’s knife quickly being drawn from its sheath. Freezing in terror, her first instinct was to run, but she knew right away that she’d never escape.

Paralyzed by fear, all she could do was focus on the brightly gleaming knife blade.

I fool you first with candy,
I trick you to bone.
Make you feel safe and sound,
Not grasp you're on your own.
My work is swift you feel no pain,
You won't understand.
My blade is sharp your thorax's mine,
Your heart is in my hand…

“Are you sure about this?” Rick Sheridan asked Ben Urich as the latter handed over his files at the Daily Bugle one afternoon more than a week later

“I wish I wasn’t,” Ben muttered, rubbing his eyes. “When we don’t have the Green Goblin trying to blow up City Hall, we have a serial killer on the loose. There are times when I really wish Jameson would reassign me to the sports beat,” he sighed. “But yeah, just look at Eddie’s photos. Takes a real sick freak to do that, believe me.”

It was all Rick could do to keep from losing his lunch all over his desk as he looked at the photos. At every murder, twisted messages had been written in the victims’ blood on the walls near the women’s corpses. The first had said I’M BACK-CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, before moving on to such words as DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?, and finally WRITING TO YOU FROM HELL-I’M JACK THE RIPPER, AND I’M BACK FOR MORE.

As he glanced at the photos, Rick was suddenly seized with a piercing headache that caused him to shudder violently, before he managed to regain control and steady himself.

“Is something wrong?” Ben asked in surprise.

“No, it’s just a nervous twitch,” Rick replied. “So we’ve got some nut running around that thinks he’s Jack the Ripper?”

“More like a cult, it’s looking like,” Ben sighed, looking as if he wanted a very stiff drink. “The cops have been saying that the clues indicate different perps are responsible for each murder. They’re trying to find a common connection, since all the victims were hookers.”

“That’s sick,” Rick muttered in disbelief.

“Just count yourself lucky you’ve only been in New York for the last couple of years,” Ben mumbled, his eyes seeming to become red and bloodshot.

“Are you okay?” Rick asked.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” muttered Ben as he walked away.

Looking at Ben’s curious departure, Rick suddenly became more concerned about the piercing headache he had just developed.

You're never safe when you're alone
And you won't feel a thing
When I loot your body.
Digging in the grime.

Dr. Ashley Kafka, chief psychiatrist at Ravenscroft, leaned back in her chair, shaking her head as she tried to deal with her piercing headache. In her mind’s eye, she saw it spinning, spinning…spinning…

What was it?

She felt something heavy on her head and shoulders, an almost overwhelming urge to…what? To what? To what?

She suddenly snapped back to attention as she heard a knock at the door.

“What do you want?” Dr. Kafka demanded as the other person sat down. “What are you-“

Her eyes immediately focused on the spinning.

The spinning…the spinning…

Almost as if by reflex, she sipped at her coffee, frowning at the strangely sour and bitter taste that filled her mouth, that she couldn’t stop drinking even as the person sitting across from her poured her another cup.

Everything passed into a haze, as even the spinning faded into a soft, almost dreamlike sensation in front of her.

It only lasted several seconds, before Dr. Kafka refocused her sight on the spinning in front of her.

That night, as Rick fell asleep, he manifested himself in his mind, having indicated to Sleepwalker that he wanted to speak to him. He found Sleepwalker hovering by the portal leading to the human world, the alien’s glance switching back and forth between Rick’s manifestation and the portal, agitation and nervousness writ clearly on his face.

“What’s the matter, Sleepy?” Rick asked, rising up to meet Sleepwalker.

“I cannot speak for the moment, Rick,” Sleepwalker said, an edge in his voice. “It is of the most critical and utmost importance that I depart immediately!”

“Hold on a minute,” Rick said, grabbing Sleepwalker by the arm. “First you’re going to tell me about what happened this afternoon. Why did I suddenly get a headache then? Did something happen to me?”

“I can only offer my most profound apologies for the disruption of your mental functions,” Sleepwalker said apologetically. “I could not restrain myself when I saw the news in the Daily Bugle through your eyes.”

“Wait…what?” Rick scowled. “You mean you caused that? What the hell are you thinking, man? You know what that could have done to me!”

“Your anger is entirely justified,” Sleepwalker said in shame. “It was a momentary lapse in judgment caused by my reaction to these alleged Jack the Ripper slayings.”

“You mean the copycat killer pulling that Jack the Ripper crap?” Rick asked in surprise.

“The monster responsible for these deplorable slayings is no copycat,” Sleepwalker said grimly. “Jack the Ripper, the true Jack the Ripper, has returned and unless I am able to thwart his murderous intentions, still more innocents shall suffer. That is why it is imperative that I depart immediately.”

“Wait, what-“ Rick began, but Sleepwalker tore himself free of Rick’s grip and departed through the portal to manifest in the human world.

Flying into the night over New York, Sleepwalker immediately noted the slightly warmer temperatures. The month of February was coming to an end, and spring was on the way. A pity that he could not stop to enjoy it, before he narrowed his eyes and began scanning for the supernatural energy patterns that he hoped would lead him to the killer.

It was a long, tedious exercise, as Sleepwalker lacked the proficiency in following energy trails that many of his brethren possessed. Back and forth over the skies of New York he flew, his tension and agitation building as he looked for something, anything, that would lead him to the Ripper.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the Ripper’s perverted, disgusting energies, a malign feeling that clung to the killer like a foul stench. Old memories of the horrific battle he had fought (was it more than a century ago already?) came out of the darkness unbidden, forcing the alien warrior to recall the terrors he had faced on the previous occasion. Without entirely realizing it, Sleepwalker had caught the monster’s trail, as he came down in a particularly bad part of town. He didn’t even need to hear the screams to know he had found the killer, as he took off like a being possessed towards the sounds.

The scene in the alley was exactly what he’d expected-the woman leaning against the wall in terror, the killer grinning a smile that revealed his yellowing teeth and long, greasy hair. Dressed in a filthy T-shirt, jeans and leather jacket that looked as if they would rot on him before they were washed, Jack the Ripper turned around and leered at Sleepwalker. He had the appearance Sleepwalker expected, all chains, wild and unkempt greasy hair and beard, dirty clothing that could have been retrieved from a dumpster.

“It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it?” Jack rasped at Sleepwalker, who only stared back at him with a mix of agitation and hatred. “What’s the matter? No greetings for your old friend?”

“How did you effect your escape?” Sleepwalker demanded coldly.

“Every prison has its way out,” Jack grinned. “I just got tired of being cooped up, is all. Just thought I’d stop by and say hello, pick up the old game again.”

“Your twisted game shall be all the shorter lived,” Sleepwalker narrowed his eyes as he stepped into a fighting stance. “You failed to escape my wrath during our previous encounter, and I shall once again return you to your infernal prison.”

“Such empty words,” Jack laughed. “Your time in this world has made you soft, Terren’sk! Do you honestly believe you have the means to stop me?”

Sleepwalker stopped short, the tension on his face becoming all the more apparent.

“You know, I could have gone back to London to do this,” Jack said, pulling a large knife from his pocket and toying with it as he leaned back against the wall, “but when I heard about your being banished here, I couldn’t resist paying you a visit. You’re the reason I came to New York, you know. I suppose I could have gone to London, but then I would have had to battle Doctor Strange. Why, he might have stopped me before I had any fun at all!” Jack said in mock horror as he came back from the wall and raised his knife.

So saying, Jack the Ripper charged at Sleepwalker, slashing away viciously with his knife, as the alien tried to defend himself. Jack’s presence resonated like a beacon to Sleepwalker, and yet there was little the alien could do to oppose him. His eyes flared briefly with his warp beams, but then he recalled his race’s strict oath against using his warp vision against living beings except for the demons and monsters of the Mindscape and the infernal realms. Ducking and dodging, Sleepwalker felt Jack’s laugh ringing in his ears as he tried to strike back.

For all his power, the alien was helpless to fight back without violating the most sacred oaths of his race.

“I haven’t had so much fun in such a long time!” Jack cackled triumphantly as he repeatedly stabbed and hacked at Sleepwalker, tearing into the alien’s arms as he tried to defend himself. “And to think, if you hadn’t gotten yourself trapped on Earth, you might have been able to stop me before I was able to get even one! Oh yes, you truly are a good friend, Terren’sk!”

Finally shoving Jack away, Sleepwalker did the only thing he could think of and used his warp vision to bind the murderer with some of the junk in the alley, restraining him and knocking him down with a punch. The blow would have been enough to knock any ordinary person out, but Jack simply scowled up at Sleepwalker.

“Okay, now I’m not impressed,” he spat contemptuously at the alien. “This is the best you can do? Temporarily restrain me? You know I’ll just escape…”

So saying, Jack’s body fell limp.

Cursing in frustration, Sleepwalker set out to follow Jack’s trail, before he found himself fading away as Rick woke up and pulled Sleepwalker back into his mind.

The alien’s enraged cries were lost on the wind as he vanished.

So young and sweet but not innocent,
Consuming every man.
You can't be missed, I'll take my chance.
Yes, I'll be damned.
No one knows my identity
But I'm a legend of my time
And I'm feared for what I've done
This little game of mine.

Rick had only awakened to go to the bathroom, but it had been enough as Sleepwalker had re-emerged after his human host had fallen asleep again and found that Jack’s trail had gone completely cold. Searching the length of the city, the alien found the very last thing he had wanted, and yet what he most expected.

Another message was written on the wall next to the bloody corpse.

YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED ME, YOU KNOW!

Sleepwalker no longer knew where he was going after that, flying through the air at random before he came down in a frozen junkyard on the edge of the Bronx.

He lashed out in a frenzy at the wreckage around him, as his hatred and guilt seized control of him like a demonic possession. He saw the faces of Jack, of Cobweb, of Psyko everywhere he looked, driving his fists in a blind and ultimately futile attempt to fight them.

The murders of William and Florence Sheridan.

The birth of Psyko.

The death sentence of the Silent Ones.

The nightmare and the hell suffered by Kevin MacTaggart.

The dead bodies of Jack’s victims, both in London and in New York.

The near ruin of Rick Sheridan’s life.

He fought and raged until his anger played itself out.

The faces and the memories were still there, but the Sleepwalker could no longer resist them.

Sinking to his knees, his head in his hands, he could fight no more and simply let the images consume him.

Dr. Ashley Kafka stared straight ahead as she marched down the hallways of Ravenscroft’s maximum security wing, barely glancing as she passed the cell doors of the freaks, monsters and sadists that lurked in the shadows on either side. She took a tour of all the cells, staring into some cells longer than others before writing something down on her clipboard.

The Guardsmen escorting her couldn’t help but shudder, as they considered the horrors that surrounded them. Dr. Kafka herself seemed not to mind, however, her head filled with a strange tingling sensation as she glanced into first one cell, and then another. She became contemplative and somber, mumbling under her breath before she finally completed her rounds and returned to the service elevator.

Before she knew it, she was back in her office sipping on that strangely bitter and sour coffee and seeing the spinning sensation in her mind’s eye once again.

Sleepwalker sat silently in Rick’s mind the next day, thinking about everything that had happened, from his entrapment in Rick’s mind to his failure to stop Jack the Ripper from claiming another victim. His thoughts then shifted to his training as a warrior of the Mindscape, and the ways in which minds could be liberated from the dark forces that enslaved them. He thought also of the means by which those dark forces were banished and imprisoned in the Mindscape by his people. Such training obviously had to be applied in the context of the human world as opposed to the Mindscape, but after reflecting on it Sleepwalker realized he knew how it could be applied.

He also knew full well the potential consequences of what he was planning, but considering everything that had happened over the past six months, he didn’t have much further to go.

He finally sensed Rick preparing to fall asleep, and watched the portal to the human world open. As he prepared to leave, he was suddenly caught by Rick, who had manifested within his mind to speak to him once again.

“Got a moment, Sleepy?” Rick asked.

“What is the subject of your discourse?” Sleepwalker asked slowly.

“It’s about this Ripper thing,” Rick stopped. “I was looking through Ben’s notes at work today, and it seems like this Ripper murder was committed by a different person. Is there some sort of cult on the loose or something?”

“The truth is infinitely worse than the authorities suspect,” Sleepwalker said grimly. “I have confronted the Ripper first-hand, and I am well aware of his cunning and his malice. More than a century before, I myself engaged the murderer in battle, and succeeded in imprisoning him, thus putting an end to the original Whitechapel slayings.”

“You fought Jack the Ripper?” Rick asked in disbelief. “You were actually on Earth in the nineteenth century?”

“Your comprehension of the situation is erroneously reversed,” Sleepwalker shook his head. “I was not on the Earthly plane at the time, but Jack the Ripper, the true Jack the Ripper, was present in the Mindscape.”

“Okay, now I’m freaked,” Rick said, turning pale. “How could you-“

“The entity colloquially referred to as ‘Jack the Ripper’ has a decidedly complicated origin,” Sleepwalker informed him.

“How do you mean?” Rick asked.

1848 was a watershed year in Europe. Bloody revolutions wracked the continent, as people tried to overthrow the aristocracies that ruled over them with the power of life and death. Many of these same nobles, fearing death at the hands of their citizens, fled for their lives, taking their wealth and power with them.

One of those nobles was an Italian count by the name of Geno Cicala, who took his family and his fortune and moved to Great Britain, which was spared the upheavals that plagued the mainland. It didn’t take him long to settle into a comfortable existence there, in a country that respected the virtues of nobility. Count Cicala really liked that, being deferred to, recognized as superior, recognized as the master in his relationship.

Of course, if that was all he really liked, there wouldn’t be much else to the story, would there?

There was, after all, something Count Cicala liked even more than that.

Namely, he liked the whores.

There wasn’t a brothel in all of London that didn’t have Count Cicala visit it at one point or another. He paid good coin for a good time, never mind that he was cuckolding his wife or risking a hideous social scandal if he was ever caught. Everything might have gone off without a hitch…

…at least until he got one of the prostitutes pregnant.

Count Cicala’s wife and children found out everything, of course. The scandal, if it had come to light, would have destroyed the Cicala family’s reputation. As a result, the prostitute was paid a very generous sum for her silence, and the little bundle of joy she had been given was taken and raised in the Cicalas’ household, passed off as the darling little son of the Count’s wife, born in wedlock. The boy was even given the name John Edward, as an attempt to ingratiate the family with British society, as a means of showing how “English” they had become.

Everyone kept a stiff upper lip, never daring to mention the truth, always anxious to preserve their reputations, but they knew.

Oh, they knew.

They never let you forget it as you grow up.

That you’re daddy’s little disgrace.

That you’re mixed with common stock.

That every time she looks at you, the woman who raised you is reminded of her husband’s violation of his marriage vows.

That your brothers and sister hate you, knowing full well that you’re not one of them, but that they have to keep you around because your father is deathly afraid of any public scandal.

That every time you pass through the streets of the East End, you see the women of the night, realizing that it was your father’s lust for them that gave rise to you, that any one of them could be your mother.

That you’re the cancer within the family household, the embodiment of your father’s shame, the secret everyone tries to ignore, the direct result of an infected, filthy wound that may never heal.

Everyone hates you, but they can’t do anything about it. They hide their loathing and anger behind a façade of respectability. Your father hid his dark urges behind that same façade, presenting himself as the very model of decency and goodness.

But you know the truth.

That’s the realization you face every waking moment of your life when you’re John Edward Cicala.

To be fair, I suppose that’s why dragging the Cicala name through the mud was so much fun. It started with getting expelled from the prestigious schools I was sent to, before getting involved with a dangerous crowd and becoming a rakehell to make Lord Byron proud. The drinking, the fights, the dalliances with young noblewomen, all this and more led to one scandal after another to the point where I was persona non grata among my family.

But really, what was I doing wrong? All I was doing was bringing their feelings out into the open, showing the world what my family was really like.

Perhaps the worst of it, in that upright and moralistic Victorian era, was my beginning to study the occult and the black arts. Aside from being the ultimate humiliation of my family, I came across a very interesting scroll, one that changed everything.

Have you ever heard of the Darkhold? A wonderful thing, really-a book of magic, whose pages were scattered by the thousands across the globe. Each page had its own little touch of magic, that allowed the skilled and initiated to tap into the vast powers of “the Other”, perhaps better known as Chthon. Provided the right arrangements are made, Chthon can give you the most wonderful gifts…

Mine was born out of hate. The hate my family felt for me, the hate I felt for them, the hate I felt for my birth mother. The scroll I discovered during my researches put me in contact with Chthon-oh benevolent, wondrous Chthon!-and he fed off my hate. In exchange for that hate, and the worthless soul I pledged to him-after all, I had little use for the wretched thing to begin with-he imbued me with tremendous spiritual power.

I became a thing of the Mindscape, that dimension that borders on the sentient minds of all human beings, and gained the power to enter the minds of certain humans and seize control of their bodies. If that mind was already inclined to sadism, perversion or evil, it was entirely at my mercy. I used those men to release my glorious hatred, the anger I had felt since the day I was born, both at the Cicala family and my birth mother.

I took to murdering the prostitutes of the East End, possessing many of the wicked men of London and using them as my puppets in carrying out my deeds. Hence why the London authorities could never track down the killer-while my methods of murder were quite similar, the physical traits of each man I used were entirely different, and so the police were left with the maddening suspicion that the killings were related, even as the physical evidence contradicted such a notion.

None of the men I enslaved would have felt much remorse at what they did while under my control. They were perverts and sadists, vile men who had committed their own crimes entirely independent of my influence.

It was a lovely way to spite my father, cloaking my vile urges in a way that could not be traced back to me much as he had done in giving me life. I could also indulge my hatred of my mother, that nameless whore who gave rise to me after letting my father carry on with her. It was also fun to mock the police, taunting them as Jack the Ripper, as I came to be known, in their fruitless attempts to stop me.

Oh yes, it was fun.

Do you know me now?
I'm Jack the Ripper
Do you know me now?
I am Jack the knife.

“Oh my God,” Rick said in horror as Sleepwalker finished his story. “So how did he begin killing people?”

“One of the abilities granted to Jack by his demonic patron was the ability to enslave the minds of mortal men and use them to commit his horrific atrocities,” Sleepwalker replied. “Men whose minds were already twisted by malice and hate were easily controlled by the Ripper, their debased natures making it easy for him to control them. Those such as yourself or Alyssa would not be controlled, as such actions as Jack would attempt to spur you to commit would go too strongly against your natures.”

“In this respect, Jack the Ripper was no different than any other malevolent predator of the Mindscape, invading the sleeping minds of humans and violating them for his own perverted ends. It was after a terrible battle that I managed to incapacitate the Ripper and imprison him in the Mindscape with my Imaginator. Thus the Whitechapel murders ended for no apparent reason. The humans could not have known that the real murderer was imprisoned in the Mindscape.”

“And the reason they never caught the murderer was because it was never just one guy, right?” Rick asked. “He kept possessing different people to commit the murders, didn’t he?”

“Precisely so,” Sleepwalker replied.

“So how did he finally escape from his prison?” Rick asked.

“The otherworldly prisons of the Mindscape are, regrettably, much akin to the prisons of the human world in that those confined within them have the capacity to escape. Indeed, Cobweb escaped on more than one occasion after I had captured him, thus necessitating my pursuing and capturing him once again, not unlike the manner in which human supervillains can escape places such as Riker’s Island or Attica Prison,” Sleepwalker noted. “And now, I must be off, for I have a most difficult task to attend to, and one whose success is tentative under the most optimistic circumstances,” he noted, vanishing through the portal leading to the human world before Rick could say anything else.

Benjamin Grimm, alias the Thing, woke to the sound of hard tapping at his window. At first he grumbled and turned over to try and go back to sleep, but the tapping became more and more persistent until he finally became annoyed enough to get up and answer it. Thinking that it might be Spider-Man, he resolved to tear a strip off the web-head for waking him up in the dead of night. To his great surprise, the Sleepwalker stood hovering outside his window.

“What the heck’s goin’ on, Sleepy?” the Thing yawned. “Got a supervillain that just can’t wait?” he asked sleepily.

“There is no time to explain,” the alien said, “but I regret to inform you that I must repossess my Imaginator. I have the most urgent need of it.”

“What?” the Thing asked in surprise. “But Sleepy, Stretcho ain’t done his work with-“

“I must retake it!” Sleepwalker shouted at him. “Innocent lives are hanging in the balance!”

It was all Ben Grimm could do to keep up with Sleepwalker as he disabled the security systems to allow the alien access to Reed Richards’ lab, even as the scientist himself, Mr. Fantastic, came into the room followed by the rest of the Four. Sleepwalker didn’t seem to hear their protests as he took his Imaginator out of the machine Reed had stored it in for analysis, before he warped a hole in the wall and flew right outside before sealing it up behind him and flying off into the night.

“What was that all about?” the Human Torch asked Reed.

“I wish I knew,” the Thing answered for him. “Whatever it is, though, I gotta feelin’ it’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.”

It didn’t take Sleepwalker long to pick up Jack the Ripper’s trail, particularly since it was clear the demon was now openly tormenting him. With fire in his eyes, Sleepwalker set out in pursuit, quickly bearing down on Jack in a particularly bad part of town, half in rage and half in shame at what he was about to do.

This time Jack had possessed a middle-sized, hugely fat blonde man who was surprisingly well-dressed in a well-pressed shirt and pants, whose victim was a diminutive young woman barely out of her teens, but already haggard and worn from the perils of living on the street. The large hunting knife in Jack’s hand gleamed brightly, and was surprisingly well crafted. At first Sleepwalker was caught off guard, but then he recalled how even high-class men could just as easily get a prostitute as did their poorer counterparts.

“Such a pleasure to see you again,” Jack the Ripper rasped as Sleepwalker came down in front of him. “Still eager to watch a master at work?”

“Let the woman go,” Sleepwalker said, his eyes gleaming dangerously.

“Or what?” Jack said mockingly, as the prostitute struggled uselessly in his grip. “You’ll restrain my body again? That’s not going to work, remember?”

“In truth, I have another consequence in mind,” Sleepwalker said venomously as he released his warp beams.

“Wait, what are you-“ Jack began before the beams caught the fat man in their focus, wickedly contorting the man’s body as he cried out in agony. A second scream joined the man’s own, as the entity that had become Jack the Ripper felt the searing agony that came with his connection to the man’s mind being broken. Reeling from the blow, he lost control of his powers and found himself shifting back into the physical plane. As the prostitute ran away in terror, he saw the twisted body of the man he had possessed, contorted and bent almost beyond recognition.

“How…how did you…” he rasped, now appearing as a desiccated outline of John Edward Cicala, the man he had once been in life.

“A Sleepwalker’s warp vision is highly effective against demonic entities,” Sleepwalker reminded him coldly. “When used upon a victim of demonic possession, the grip their oppressor holds over them is broken, and they are cast out like the filth they are.”

“But…you’ve broken your oath!” Jack said incredulously. “You Sleepwalkers are bound never to use your powers on living entities that aren’t demons!”

“I have already brought shame, dishonor and disgrace to my heritage through my past actions,” Sleepwalker reminded him. “I do not have much further to fall.”

“But, that man…” Jack said, shuddering as a wave of pain wracked his being.

“He shall recover,” Sleepwalker reminded him. “The physical effects of my warp vision are temporary, while the mental effects are much longer-lasting. And you have suffered the worst of those effects,” the alien noted. “Would you like to feel them again?”

Jack the Ripper screamed in pain as Sleepwalker blasted him with his warp beams once again, his form shimmering in pain as he tried to fight back. His face twisted in rage before he flew at Sleepwalker, flashing brightly.

Sleepwalker flew into the air, Jack’s form surrounding him in a supernatural haze. The night sky glowed with flashes of color as they struggled, Jack attempting to destroy Sleepwalker’s mind and Sleepwalker attempting to weaken Jack with his warp beams. They were too evenly matched for one to overcome the other, and it seemed like they would battle until they were both too exhausted to continue.

Sleepwalker knew better.

Having sufficiently weakened Jack the Ripper, Sleepwalker suddenly broke free and backed away from his demonic foe, his eyes narrowing as he revealed his Imaginator. The device began to glow brightly as Sleepwalker focused its power, sending out a beam of golden light that struck Jack and caused him to begin screaming in agony.

“No…NO!” Jack screamed, as he fought back against the Imaginator’s power. “I won’t…let…you…imprison…me…AGAIN!”

“In some respects, we are not so different,” Sleepwalker hissed to Jack as the monster began to fade away. “Neither one of us is truly worthy of our freedom. We know the pain of imprisonment, of isolation, of loneliness, of being punished for our sins. I act to ensure that you receive a sufficient reward for your past deeds. I will not be alone in my suffering.”

It was then that Sleepwalker’s Imaginator began to crack under the strain of trying to imprison Jack the Ripper. The Imaginators needed a continuous supply of mental energy to function properly, and without it this one was beginning to break down. Gritting his teeth, Sleepwalker forced some of his own personal reserves of mental energy into it, reinforcing the Imaginator’s power even as Jack’s resistance steadily weakened.

“You fool…” Jack rasped, as he began to fade away. “You’re…destroying…the only…tool…that can…return you…to the Mindscape…”

A final scream of denial was all that Jack the Ripper could give before he was gone, banished back to the Mindscape by the power of Sleepwalker’s Imaginator.

Immediately afterwards, the Imaginator shattered and crumbled into dust in Sleepwalker’s hand, destroyed by the strain Sleepwalker had put on it.

The alien hero let the dust be blown away on the night wind, as he flew out over the city and towards the ocean.

Sleepwalker knew that Jack had been right in everything he said.

For some reason, it did not bother him in the slightest.

Dr. Ashley Kafka’s mind was entirely clear and open as she unlocked the triply-reinforced door that contained the controls for Ravenscroft’s security system, including the controls for the special restraints that prevented the asylum’s permanent residents from using their superhuman powers to escape.

Her eyes gleaming with a sense of purpose, she slipped on a pair of silk gloves-the better to avoid leaving fingerprints, since she was not the only one with access to these systems-and set about deactivating the locks on the cell doors, the special restraints that nullified the inmates’ powers, and the security system that allowed the asylum’s operators to call for assistance in case of a jailbreak.

Serene and secure in her actions, she returned to her office, locked the door and sipped some more of her coffee as all hell began to break loose around her.

It’s at this point that I would like to thank my buddy Chris Munn for his help in co-writing this issue and helping to develop the plot, particularly the supernatural aspects. Chris is a master of the macabre, most particularly in his Ghost Rider series at Avengers 2000:

http://www.ironrodstudio.com/av2000/ignition/IGNGRgatefold.htm

No one does supernatural horror better than Chris, and you can be assured that his name on a story guarantees quality.

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