Jane

     Blood dripped down from his knuckles. She cowered in the corner, hands raised in defense, obscuring tear-stained eyes and a bloody nose. This was power. Her fear was a narcotic. She'd never report this. Even if she did, it wouldn't matter. No one was coming to help street walkers.

     He grabbed her by the hair and threw her onto the bed. Her crying had him rock hard. All those hours moving concrete, this was his sweet release.

     He was unbuckling his belt when he heard it. Whistling. An odd, minor key melody, haunting and sad. Eventually it passed and he focused back on the task at hand. As he stepped forward, he felt a sharp pain in his calf.

     A charlie horse? Now? He tried to flex his foot when he knee buckled. Something struck the back of his other knee sending him down onto both of them. He nearly toppled forward when the feeling of cold metal against his throat stopped him short.

     The terrified woman on the bed looked to the figure behind the man. It filled her with more dread than the man ever could. From underneath a mess of long dark brown hair stared two haunted eyes. Angry eyes. Kind eyes. Lucid eyes. Mad eyes. Eyes like she had never seen before and hoped never to again. She raised a finger to her lips conspiratorially, as though the two of them were sharing some secret. The new woman's voice was surprisingly light, a consoling whisper.

     "Are you alright?" she asked. 

     The terrified woman on the bed nodded.

     "Good. You'll want to leave now," the voice wearing the woman said. The woman on the bed nodded, scrambling to retrieve her purse and shoes before bolting for the door.

     "Oh," the new woman said. The terrified woman paused at the door. She saw something dark approach out of the corner of her eye. She flinched and raised her hands in self defense, catching something soft and smooth. His wallet.

     "His. He won't be needing it," the voice said. The terrified woman nodded and ran. She was halfway down the hall when the man's screaming began. Nearly an hour of screaming and gurgling later, the spectre of the woman emerged from the motel, melding into the shadows as the parking lot lit up with the strobe of blue lights that passed for justice in this city.

     The terrified woman alternated between drinking coffee and vodka, the melody stuck in her head. No, not just the melody, a legend attached to it. Of a woman, who hurt men, who hurt women. No, not hurt... ripped. Insane Jane they called her. Or, as she had become better known; Jane the Ripper.

Spiritus Dolorosa

She looked down upon her wilting body from the Shadowlands. Blood pooled over the edge of the bathtub, gathering along the tile in a puddle of tomorrows that would never happen. She noticed in the detached way they're only spirits can look at the world how thin she had become. In the last days she had no appetite and food had lost its flavor. Life and become an endless gray sky from which there was no escape. She looked up at the endless grey canopy above with a wan smile, realizing she had left only to come to the same place.

But here she no longer felt the anchor attached to her heart, tearing at it while pulling her through the floor. Here the constant aching in her chest and nausea no longer held her and its merciless embrace. She wandered for some time. There is no point in watching what became of her body, she wasn't there any longer. She did not know how long she wandered the graylands, alone and searching for nothing. Searching for nothing and constantly finding it, has she had in life.

One day she heard crying nearby and felt drawn to it, as though the sobs of this person were flame and she was a moth. She followed the invisible strands to the withered apartment building until it led her to a child. The child appeared no older than seven, crumpled in the corner of the bathroom in dingy pajamas. Her eyes were wrapped in tears. She could hear shouting from the other room and the sound of one person being struck by another. With each sound of flesh on flesh the child winced as though she herself were being struck.

She heard a fluttering behind her and turned to see black feathered wings. She touched them in confusion wondering where they had come from and how long she had had them.

“I have a task for you,” she heard a voice say.
She turned, searching for the source of it.
“There is no need to lay eyes upon me for I am formless.”
“Who are you?”
“I am the presence in the darkness that fills you with dread or makes you feel at peace when you are alone. I am the feeling of a warm blanket wrapped around you. I am the ache in your heart when you say goodbye to someone for the last time. I am the hope of tomorrow and the regret of yesterday.”
“And what tasks do you have for me?”
“To be an angel of comfort to the hurting.”
“Why do you think I would be capable?” she asked the sorrow of her former life gathering in around her throat.
“Because you know better than any the cloying creep of despair, the absence of hope, the growing strength of an ache that will never go away.”
“I was always told that suicides went to Hell.”
“That was for a time even worse than now to shepherd the tides of humanity from claiming the one escape they had from a life of misery and servitude.”
She looked back at girl on the floor.
“What should I do?”
“Let's the jagged lines in the memories of your pain be the roadmap that you need. Give to others what you did not have when you needed it most. And that will guide your every step.”
With that the presence of the voice was gone and she was alone again. No not alone this time. She shared the space with a wounded soul. So she sat down on the floor and wrapped her wings around the weeping child and cradled her close. From across the veil the child leaned in and wept against her. Her wings enfolded to guard the child against the awful sounds and creeping menace from all around. She held the weeping child until sleepover took her.

This new angel of sadness took a deep breath she no longer needed. The unsteady drip from the nearby faucet the only company to her thoughts. She felt a sense of completion within herself from comforting the child. As she stood she felt a new tether form. Another invisible string pulling her to some unknown destination. With her hand clenched around the possibility of purpose she strode into the gathering fog to find the next aching soul that she could land solace to.