I froze as I heard another person approaching. Grell grabbed my arm and pulled me away and back into the shadows. He tried to sweep me up onto his back but I stopped him. I had just caught sight of the woman who had rounded the corner and I recognised her face. It was her: Catherine Eddowes. She was another one of those sluts. She had given up her child and condemned herself to hell.

"It's her," I whispered to Grell as he turned back to look at me. "Stay where you are?" Eddowes stopped, seeing Stride's body against the wall, blood still pouring from her open wounds. The silence of that moment seemed to last a lifetime followed by a tiny gasp followed by a tiny voice.

"Are you all right?" There was no answer. I gripped the razor blade that was still in my hand harder. It was only a matter of time before she realised we were here. I advanced slowly and Catherine Eddowes looked up. She saw my coat and face covered in Stride's fresh blood and her eyes darted to the knife. She surmised quickly what must have happened and she screamed.

I had no choice. I had to do it now. Eddowes took to her heels still screaming. I followed her, breaking into as fast a run as I could manage in my high heels. She was still faster than me though. She needed silencing if not for revenge but to keep her mouth shut.

Dead women don't talk.

With a swish, barely louder than a breeze, I saw out of the corner of my eye Grell leap into the rooftops and follow me. I risked taking my eyes off Eddowes for a second to watch him. His glasses and teeth glinted malevolently in the moonlight as he drew slowly ahead of me. Eddowes looked back at me and screamed louder. This noise was becoming too much of a giveaway. She had to die now! Almost as if he had read my thought, Grell sprang noiselessly from the roof, landing in the alley before Eddowes. She gasped and turned frightened eyes from Grell to myself and then back again. Grell drew his Death Scythe from beneath his coat, the roar of its mechanics splitting the night. He smiled, his pointed teeth emphasised in the grin splitting his face.

"Oh no, darling," he grinned. "I'm afraid this is the end for you." Eddowes whirled, staring at me as I advanced on her, raising the knife.

"Why?" she screamed. "Why are you doing this?" I stopped for a moment, my blade still raised.

"If you're trying to buy my pity, it won't work," I hissed at her. "You threw away your chance to do the right thing. You came to me and you made me destroy the one thing you should have loved."

"I had no choice..."

"There is always a choice!" I screamed. Tears slid down Eddowes face.

"Please," she whispered. "Please no."

"A life for a life," I said aloud, tightening my grip on the razor blade. "That's how it works. You killed for you. You have to die." My voice trembled. I remembered my own child: the one I had loved so dearly before it was born. Eddowes' poor little child. I had held its limp little body in the palm of one hand: so frail and small, barely human, and covered in blood.

Dead.

She'd never known that. She'd never known the feeling of holding that tiny child, two inches long, in her hand. My own child had once been like that, removed to save my life. I'd never wanted that. Anger boiled up inside me and I advanced on Eddowes. She turned and ran.

"NO!" I screamed and slashed at her. Eddowes screamed, her hands flying to her now mangled left ear. Blood poured between her fingers as I raised the knife again. Eddowes scurried on hands and knees away from me, closer to Grell. Grell raised his Death Scythe and gave me a look of pleading. I nodded at him and he brought the scythe down.

The Death Scythe did even more damage than I expected. It sliced through flesh and bone like it was nothing, blood pouring from the open wound, spattering far in all directions, landing in a fine rain on my coat and face. Eddowes scream once again split the night air. Grell jumped back as blood gushed from Eddowes' open wounds in a red fountain. The body fell back on herself, crumbling like a ragdoll onto the cobblestone. Grell's laugh echoed in the darkened street.

"It's been so long since I've done that!" he laughed. "I feel like I've been too nice recently."

I ran across towards Eddowes but Grell held up a hand.

"Be careful of that dress, my Lady. We wouldn't want it ruined now would we? Such a pretty colour too." I looked at the razor in my hand, the blood of the two women I'd killed tonight still clinging to it. I sighed.

"You're right," I said. "I look a mess." I glanced at my blood stained coat and gloves. Grell looked scandalised.

"Now that's not true," he said. "You look so beautiful like that." I looked up at him feeling confused.

"How...?"

"Red," he purred, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "So beautiful. Pretty, pretty red blood." He looked at the gore across the blade of his Death Scythe and smiled. "You were lovely before, Madam." He looked at me. "How beautiful you look now: dyed red in their blood." My lips twitched in a smile and I looked back at Eddowes' mangled corpse.

"It's lovely of you, Grell," I said. "But we need to leave. Don't worry." I drew the razor and crouched down by the body. "I won't ruin my dress."

The blade wormed into the open wounds of the corpse, pulling a neat cut through the flesh. Grell watched over me, fascinated, as I cut her womb from her flesh and withdrew it. Grell held out both of his hands.

"I will deal with it, my Lady. We need to take you back before you're missed."

"Not like this," I said defiantly, wiping blood across my face in an attempt to remove it.

"I know that." Grell waved his hand vaguely, the other placing the mangled uterus carefully in his pocket. "So come with me."

He swept me up again, carrying me to the rooftops. I looked back down at the mangled body on the street bellow, but I felt no remorse. Grell set me down on my feet, removed his gloves and slid his hands into his breast pocket, removing a handkerchief.

"Hold still," he said aloud, and dabbed it on his tongue wiping the blood off my face like I were some small child. "Now we'll have to redo all that makeup again. What a pity." I smiled a little.

"Grell," I said slowly, as he finished and folded up his hankichief.

"Yes, Madam?"

"It occurs to me that I never really knew why," I said. "Why me? Why was it me you came to?" Grell laughed.

"I'm pretty sure we've been here before," he said. "It's because I can feel your pain and to watch you take that anguish out upon those who hurt you is beautiful. It's fun in a way I guess."

"I sound like some kind of toy." Grell waved his hand, looking mildly insulted.

"Indeed no. You're beyond manipulation. You were grasping at straws, looking for escape, and I alone could help you." He splayed his fingers across his heart with a smile. "I'm an unusual Reaper as you are an unusual woman: the only human I have ever known who truely knew what it means to be Red. Red is passion. Red is pain. Red is blood." He looked back at Eddowes body again. "Speaking of which... we probably shouldn't stay."

"Grell."

"Yes, Madam."

"I never thought... thank you." Grell smiled widely at me.

"Just one deadly efficient butler," he grinned, and swept me back onto his back, as he leapt into the night.

He removed by coat before we arrived back at the party, and helped me redo the makeup that had been smeared. Grell disappeared into the night as he set me down upon the balcony, taking our bloody clothes with him. I smiled.

My Blood Red Grim Reaper.

What would I ever do without him?

I still couldn't find Ciel or Sebastian, but I hadn't been back long before the police started to arrive to arrest the Viscount Druitt. I'm sorry, Viscount, but you were too opportunistic. However, I was now cleared of the two murders that had occurred tonight and now there was only one left.

Mary Jane Kelly.

It was just her. Once she was dead, that would be it. Jack the Ripper would be gone forever, and I could bathe my broken heart in the blood of my victims. Maybe one day it will feel better.

I wonder what Grell will do when she's dead.

I hope he will stay with me. I'm getting rather used to having him around and getting the wrong number of sugars in my tea every morning. However I suppose he will go. It will pain me. I suppose he is the only man since my late husband who has shown me any kind of empathy. However, wondering will not change this. Ciel cannot possibly suspect me now. To him I was at the Viscount's home the whole time. I have one murder left to plan, and then I hope this need for blood will stop.