Author's Note: Hello dear Chapelites, it's been a long time since I've visited Whitechapel, I know. Possibly a long time for many of you too. I never really meant to abandon Harper's bonus chapters, but, at the time, I think I was already writing Hedoschism and needed to focus on that, and so, the next chapter of Harper's pre-vampire life went unwritten. However, having struggled a bit recently to get back into writing again, I thought I'd re-visit Harper and catch up from where we left off before. If you would like a little reminder of when we last saw human Harper, please feel free to go back and re-read the previous two bonus chapters (I LOVE re-readers!) and familiarise yourselves with what our favourite 1920's mobster was getting up to. I've really enojyed writing him again, particularly as it's allowed me to investigate his relationship with his mother in a bit more detail. Martha Cain is a total first-class witch. I hope you hate her just as much as I love her ;-) 

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*

I always remember the first time I realized I hated my mother.

It was my fifth birthday and my folks had arranged a small party at the house. It was nothing special, just a few family people and some of my father's favorite happy-clappers from the Church – the ones that smiled too much, the ones that had those saccharin-fucking-grins plastered over their stupid, sanctimonious faces.

My mother hadn't wanted to throw the party. I heard her rowing with my dad about it, something about how she didn't want those snooty-ass bluenoses from the Church in our home. I didn't care who was gonna be there. I just wanted the party and the cake and to be center-of-attention for once, which sounds fucking lame I know, but when Martha Cain was around, it was hard to get noticed. She always got noticed, and she sure as Hell got noticed that afternoon at the party, when Henry Wilson Miller – one of those previously-mentioned sanctimonious pricks from my father's Church – stuck his hand up her skirt and made her sing like an angel in the food storage, right there up against the jars of sugar and sacks of flour.

I remember it to this day – the way his forehead glistened from grease and sweat, the way he still smiled, just like he did at Church, only then with his tongue between his teeth panting like he was a dog, the way his hand moved between her thighs. I was five, but I knew – I knew what she was doing was wrong, that what he was doing was wrong. They didn't know I was there at first. They were so caught up in their business that they didn't know someone was watching.

I mean, fucking stupid, right? If you're gonna do your dirt, at least be fucking smart about it. At least, be aware of your surroundings. Know who is watching.

After a while – I don't even know how long I was watching, seconds, minutes – my mother turned her head and saw me standing there wearing my best clothes, the ones I always wore to Church and, for a moment, just for a second or two I guess, she just looked at me. She looked at me, while this guy had his hand inside her underwear, and I swear – I swear to this damn day – that she smiled, like her mouth just turned up at the corner, kinda like a smirk.

Lucille once told me that I smirked just like my mother. I'd never wanted to hit a woman before, never even once thought about it, because I fuck women (and I fuck them good), I don't hit them, but that day, in that moment, I remember feeling so fucking angry – so fucking wronged – that I knew I had to walk away from her. I got dressed, even though I needed a bath because my whole body was drenched in the smell of her, and I grabbed my jacket and I went straight to the Sportlight and drank until I could barely stand up.

Just thinking about my mother always makes me want to get drunk or hit a fucking wall.

I want to get drunk now. I want to get drunk so fucking much that my eyes dart to the bottle of booze in the bar-runt's hand. The hand that's trembling slightly as he looks at me. I wonder how I look to him now? Maybe like one of the demons my father always warns his congregation about in his sermons? Good. I hope I fucking do. I must do, because as I look at her, sitting perched up high on the bar stool, her legs crossed, the side split in her dress revealing an expanse of stockinged thigh, I'm five years old again. I'm five and she's smiling at me in the exact same way as she did then – full of knowing and sheer Martha-Queen-Fucking-Bee-Cain-arrogance – and I hate her just the same too. The years haven't diminished my hatred for her. It's still there, like an animal under my skin, in my veins. The only difference now is I can deal with it. I don't have to be quiet anymore.

You shut your mouth now, Harper, do you hear? You don't breathe a word of this, or I'll make sure your father sends you away and you won't ever come home. Not ever.

I take the glass that's set down in front of her and push it back towards the bar-runt, nodding at him to get rid of it.

'What do you want, Martha?' I say, giving her the stare. It's a stare I use often, and it works. It usually works, but Martha doesn't flinch. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, her glossy lips turning down into a pout, even though I see the amusement in her eyes.

'Harper, darling,' she says. 'Is that any way to speak to your mother?'

She crooks her finger at the bar-runt, gesturing for him to put the glass back down and the poor kid looks like he's about to pass out. I almost feel sorry for him, stuck between me and this witch-woman who's enthralled him, just like she enthralls every fucking patsy who enjoys the way his côck hardens every time she so much as glances in his direction. She's old enough to be his mother for fuck's sake. She's my mother and I fucking hate her. I hate the way she looks, the way she smiles, the way she smells.

My father once said to her – when he didn't think I was around – that she smelt of the hot summer nights they spent in Rockport, but no matter what fragrances she wore, no matter the smell of her perfumed hair, no matter the lotions she put on her skin, she always smelt the same to me. She smelt like it did in the food storage that day when she closed the door and pushed me up against the shelves, right where Henry Wilson Miller and his hard-on had pushed her just moments before. She smelt of his sweat and her heat. Of course, back then, I didn't know what that smell was and didn't work it out until years later, but just the smell of her after that made me want to throw up, just like it does now.

I can't smell anything now except for how it smelt in the food storage. How they smelt. I want to vomit, and I swallow it back down. She sees my throat tense as I do and she smiles, wider now, and I know why she does. She thinks I still fear her, like I did when I was a kid. She thinks she puts the fear of God and the Devil and fuck knows what else into the street-rat-turned-gangster Harper Cain, who is himself known and feared on the streets of Boston.

Martha-Queen-Fucking-Bee-Cain.

She hasn't got a clue who I am now. She's got no fucking clue at all.

'I'll ask you again: what do you want?'

I take the bottle from the kid and tell him to fuck off as I pour myself a glass, but I don't pour her one. The bar-runt scuttles away just like he did before, daring to take one last glance at Martha before he leaves. He can't help himself. None of them can help themselves when she's around. I make a mental note to have a word with the kid when I see him next. Make sure that he doesn't let her touch him or I'll break his fucking fingers so bad that he'll never be able to wipe his own ass, let alone tend a bar again.

I take a swig of whiskey. It burns on the way down and I need that now. I need the fire.

'Not going to pour your own mother a drink?' she says, raising one perfectly-teased brow. She's still amused. Still thinks this is one big fucking joke. That's the thing about Martha. She thinks everyone is here just to amuse her. Everyone is here just for her to toy with.

'Not if it means you staying here a minute longer,' I reply. 'Tell me what it is you want or fuck off. Either way, you're not getting another drink.'

Martha shifts on the stool, straightening her spine, her toes brushing against my leg as she moves. Even with me she can't turn it off. Even with her own son, she thinks shit like this works. If I grip the glass any harder, it'll crack in my hand, but I can't let go because if I do, I'll grip her throat and squeeze that instead.

'What makes you think I want anything?' She sighs, reaching into her purse and taking out a packet of Lucky Strikes and a box of matches. 'Maybe I just wanted to see what my only son has been doing with his life recently.' She holds a cigarette between her slender fingers and lights one, extinguishing the flame on the matchstick with one sharp exhale of breath, before tossing the still-smoking stick into the nearby ashtray. Inhaling, she lifts her head and blows out the smoke towards the ceiling. It hangs in the air, drifting lazily in the dull haloes of light.

'And maybe you're full of shit.'

Like she gives a damn about my life. Like she gives a damn about me. She wants something. Martha always wants something.

'Such vitriol, Harper.' She looks at me sharply, taking another drag on the cigarette as she does so. 'You know, you're always so tense. When are you going to learn to relax a little? Is your little Italian bellissima ragazza not doing it for you anymore?'

My free hand darts out and wraps around her wrist. I squeeze hard. 'What do you know about her?'

She winces but doesn't wrench her arm out of my grip. Instead, she leans forward until her face is just inches from mine and smiles. Her breath smells of whiskey and cigarettes. Her eyes are full of fireflies. She knows something. That's why she's here. To taunt. To threaten. That's also Martha's thing.

'I know you're playing a very dangerous game,' she whispers, her voice all honey and sin. 'I know you got warned to stay away from her, and I know you ignored that warning. I saw her going in to your place.' She clicks her tongue against her teeth and shakes her head. 'Tut-tut, my darling. You really should learn to be more discreet with your affairs.'

'Like you are, you mean?' I shoot back, releasing her but not before I squeeze even harder, hard enough to bruise if I were to keep up the pressure a little longer. 'You're not exactly Queen of Discreet so don't come here and talk to me about my affairs, as you put it. You're hardly the moral fucking pariah, Martha, so why don't you head for the door and take a long fucking walk as far away from here as you can.' I sniff away my disgust of her and take another swig, before draining it to the bottom and slamming it down on the bar.

Silence drifts in with the cigarette smoke. The air around me is like glass, brittle and cold. One touch and it's going to shatter. I'm going to shatter.

Ignoring me, Martha reaches for the other glass that the kid left on the bar and grabs the bottle, pouring herself a measure. She drains it, licking her lips afterwards before pouring another, settling back on the stool and nursing this one, running her fingertip along the rim which is now stained with her lipstick.

'Can't say I blame you,' she says finally. 'She's a beautiful girl. Just your type. You always did appreciate a beautiful girl. Of course, I won't say love, because that word confuses you, I know.'

I laugh then, not because it's a funny joke, but because I can't believe Martha Cain actually just said that. Love. She wants to come here and talk to me like she even knows what it means?

'And what words confuse you, Martha?' I say. 'Mother, maybe? Wife, even? Loyalty? Fidelity?Any of those words ring a bell in that twisted fucking head of yours? Don't you fucking talk to me about love, because you've never felt one ounce of that in your whole pathetic messed-up life.'

'I love your father.'

The statement hits me in the gut like someone just socked me there real good.

I stare at her, wide-eyed. She actually has the audacity to say it like she means it. Like she's even hurt by the insinuation that she doesn't know how to love. My chest tightens. My throat burns and it's not the whiskey this time. It's the fact that she's here. That she's speaking to me. That she's lying to me. That she's looking at me in a way that makes me want to choke the fucking breath out of her.

'Sure you do, Martha. Sure you do.' I nod, sneering at her. 'You love him every time you open your legs to some desperate sap who wants to fuck Abraham Cain's wife. You love him every time you lay on your back and scream out someone else's name instead of his. You love him, alright. I don't know why they don't make a movie about your love. They could call it The Preacher's Whore.'

I turn my head to look right at her and as I do, she reaches out real quick and slaps me hard across the cheek. I close my eyes for a second and relish the sting. It's not the first time Martha's ever hit me and probably won't be the last, but every time, I fucking savor it. I hold it tight inside me, bind it, let it feed my hatred for her a little more each time. When I open my eyes, she's taking a drag on the cigarette, acting like it never even happened, but her hand is shaking slightly, and I like that. I like seeing her feathers get all ruffled.

'I need money,' she says. 'I want money.'

And there it is. There's the answer I've been looking for. Straight away, what she said about Lucille make sense. She knows about Joe Lombardi and Jackie Cerone. She knows about the beating I took. She knows I'm a dead man if I cross them again. She knows and that's why she's here, to twist the knife a little deeper. To get her thirty pieces of silver.

It's almost better this way. It's better she just gets straight to the point and doesn't pretend to be anything but the poisonous snake she is. Better than her coming here on the pretense that she gives a shit.

That's right, just get to the fucking point, Martha. Show me your fucking fangs and be done with it.

I pour another drink, but it doesn't go down as well as the first. The burn isn't a good burn and I lean against the edge of the bar, staring down at my shoes. I work fucking hard for shoes like this. I work too fucking hard to let Martha Cain destroy it all.

'How much?' I say, not looking at her. I can't look at her. Not yet. If I do, I'll kill her. 'How much do you want to fuck off and not ever come back here?'

'Five.'

I look at her then. 'Five large? Are you serious? What do you need that kind of money for?' Panic spikes sudden in my chest. 'Is Dad okay? Is someone causing him trouble?'

Martha smirks, all perfect glossed mouth and danger. 'Who on earth would want to bother your father? That man is the most inoffensive creature.'

'Yet he offends youso much that you choose to lay with other men?'

She laughs, a rich, warm laugh that falls from her lips like silk. 'Honestly, darling, and here I was thinking you had grown up and come to understand the way people are, but you're still that little clueless boy, aren't you?'

'I was never clueless. Not from the moment I realized what you really were.'

She rolls her eyes. 'A woman with needs that your father can't satisify? Just why does the thought of your mother needing to be satisfied bother you so very much, Harper?' She raises the glass to her mouth again but doesn't take her eyes off me as she drinks. 'You've never been a bluenose with other women, far from it, so what makes me different?'

'You're my mother,' I say, through gritted teeth. 'That's the difference.'

'Oh, so you're acknowledging that now?' She arcs a brow. 'There's a first.'

'And you acting like one would be a first too, but I ain't holding my breath, Martha.'

A flash of anger sparks in her eyes when I emphasize her name, not that she hasn't heard me say it a hundred times before. I stopped calling her mother so long ago that I can barely remember the times when I did call her that. At first, my father used to try and make me call her mother and I would get my ass beat if I didn't, and all the while he did it, she would sit there with her legs crossed, and her fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. She never took her eyes off me the whole time, and I always knew what she was waiting for.

She was waiting for me to cry, but I never did. Not once.

'You know, conversation with you is always so enlightening,' she says, dryly. Placing the glass on the bar, she goes to pour another, but I snatch the bottle from her hand.

'Party's over,' I snarl. 'And so is this conversation.'

'Not without my money,' she snaps back, dragging her gaze slowly around the Sportlight, before coming back to rest on me, where her eyes drink in the cut of my expensive suit. 'Great set-up you got here, my darling. You've done well for yourself, much better than I would ever have expected of you. Imagine, being taken under the wing of the great Frank Malloy himself! It would be a shame to lose it all, especially over a girl, don't you think?'

She looks pointedly at me and there's steel in that gaze. Steel and fire, and straight away I know she isn't going to let this go. She's going to keep taking a bite until she gets what she wants. She'll drain me of every fucking drop of blood, and she won't even flinch as she does it. I always thought a lot of bad stuff about my mother, but I never thought she would be the one to kill me. And she will. She'll sign my death warrant happily and without one ounce of guilt. That's who she is. That's Martha Cain.

My mother, my murderer.

I fucking hate her.

'I don't have it now.'

'But you'll get it.'

Hate. Her.

'Yeah.' My fists clench. 'Yeah, I'll get your money. Tomorrow.'

Martha smiles and taps her lacquered nails against the bar. I wonder what she sees now. I wonder if she sees her child, that boy she seemed to despise so much, that boy who could do nothing but irritate her. The boy who saw too much. I didn't cry then and I'm not crying now, but finally, somehow, she seems to have got just what she was waiting for all those years ago.

'Good,' she says. 'Then, I'll be back tomorrow.'

Sliding down from the stool, she turns as if to leave and then halts, looking back at me, triumph darkening her cheekbones and making her eyes look even brighter.

'I know this is hard, my darling,' she says. 'You never were very good at taking instruction, I know. It used to make you so mad.' She steps closer and places her palm flat on my chest and lowers her voice to a whisper. 'But remember, I'm really not asking for very much considering how delicate your situation is.'

She smooths her fingertips over my lapels, almost as if she's brushing away invisible flecks of dust. Her face drops into a mock-frown.

'She really is such a beautiful girl. It made me so sad to see her cry like that.'

'What?'

For a moment, I really want her to be talking about Kitty. I really want Martha to say it was her she saw crying, but I know it wasn't, because the image of Lucille's tear-streaked face still burns behind my eyes. The sound of her desperately trying to stifle her sobs as she got dressed still lingers in my ears. It haunts me. Just as it haunted me the whole time I fucked Kitty. Lucille's face. Lucille's tears. The knowledge that I have broken her – I have finally broken her, just like I always knew I would, and now I don't know how I'm ever going to fix things. Don't know if I even want to.

'We had a good, long talk, me and your Italian girl,' Martha continues. 'Woman-to-woman, you know? She needed a confidante, the little darling, she was so upset. She told me all about your situation.' She smiles. 'My, my, Harper, you really have been a very naughty boy, haven't you? So, you see, I could ask for somuch more, but I won't. Isn't that nice of your mother?'

Something snaps. I hear it. Feel it. Like a piece of string has been wound so tight around my heart, and the whole time she's been here, it's been pulling tighter and tighter still, the threads wearing thin and fraying at the edges. With a growl that sounds more animal than human, I launch myself at her and grab her by the throat, pushing her against the bar and bending her backwards over the edge.

'You fucking disgust me, you know that?'

Panic explodes from her eyes – those eyes that only just now were laughing at me, actually fucking laughing at me – and she grips my wrist, but it doesn't take her long to regain her composure. After a few deep breaths where I feel her throat moving under my hand, she seems to calm herself.

'And just why is that, my darling?' she croaks.

Removing her hand from my wrist, she strokes my face with her fingertips, grazing a line along my jaw. Martha smiles again and I know that smile. I've seen her turn it on so many times before and something cold unfurls in the base of my stomach. Her thumb finds my lips and she brushes languidly over them, and for one sick gut-churning moment, I think she's going to push her thumb into my mouth, just like Lucille does. My hand wavers from her throat and she takes the chance to clutch at the back of my neck, pulling me close so that her mouth is against my ear.

'I'll tell you why,' she breathes. 'It's because I remind you of yourself. You think you're better than me, Harper Abraham Cain? You think you're anything like him? You think you have preacher blood flowing through your veins? You're my child, don't ever forget that. We're cut from exactly the same cloth and deep down you know it. It's the reason you ran away. You can't face what you really are. How long do you think you will you keep running, Harper?'

She pulls back and her hand moves from my neck and down my chest, smoothing over creases in my shirt with her fingertips.

I can't move. I'm frozen. Like ice. Like stone.

'You can't run from what you are,' she says, toying with the buttons near my throat and I swallow involuntarily. 'One day, you're going to realize that.'

'I know what I am,' I say, but the words are forced. Stiff.

'And what's that? A gangster?' Martha laughs. 'Harper, please, you're no more a gangster than I am. You think this is your family? You think this is where you belong? You belong nowhere and to no one. Just like me. We're free spirits, you and I. Forever destined to do as we please and walk this world alone.'

Alone.

That word chills me then and I don't even know why. I feel it burying deep down into my bones, burying deeper still, like a parasite in my veins.

My hands drop to my sides and I blink, still hearing that word over and over again.

Martha brushes down her dress, pats at her hair, and straightens the pearls that line her throat. When she seems satisfied that she looks okay, she grabs her purse off the bar behind her and, with one hand lightly touching my chin, she leans in and presses her lips against the corner of my mouth. I feel the glossy layer of her lipstick like poison on my skin and imagine it seeping into the pores, spreading its sickness inside me.

'Until tomorrow,' she whispers.

*

You think you have preacher blood flowing through your veins?

I try not to think about those words, but I can't stop. I'm my father's son. I am. I'm Abraham Cain's only child. I am.

Aren't I?

I grip the edge of the bar, the tendons on the back of my hands sticking out as if they're about to burst through the flesh. Perspiration has broken out on my forehead and I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve my handkerchief, wiping it across my damp skin. My chest feels tight. I can't breathe. It hurts to breathe. Bright spots flash in front of my eyes and I rub at them with my balled fists.

I hate that she reduces me to this – a weak, pathetic shadow of a man, just like my father.

My father.

Just thinking about him now sends the rage spiking to fever-pitch and with a howl of fury, I grab the neck of the bottle, turn and hurl it across the room. It hits the wall right by the door through which Martha just left, and through which a man has just entered. The bottle smashes just inches from where he now stands, and the booze runs down the walls already yellowed by age and tobacco smoke. He turns his head to watch as the liquid drips in brown rivulets down to the floor, where the shattered fragments of glass are now scattered.

In the sickly light cast from the foyer beyond, he is drenched in shadow, hardly more than a silhouette, but even from here his presence unnerves me because he stinks of authority. It's like it just filled this place up as soon as he walked in, an overwhelming stench of arrogance and superiority that only comes from a Gumshoe.

He takes a step forward into the light of the bar, and I see straight away this guy's definitely no ordinary John. He's immaculately dressed for a start. Sharp suit. Long overcoat. Shoes that look like they cost more than mine did. That throws me off kilter for a second, because even the most successful Gumshoes – the smart ones that take a healthy cut from all the shit they turn a blind eye to – don't give two fucks about Italian leather shoes. Maybe he has ties to Lombardi and the North End. They'd be able to fix him up with shoes like that.

What the fuck is a Lombardi-paid Dick doing here?

This is bad. This is fucked-up. If Frank was here, he'd be able to handle this and now I need to handle it instead. I need to make sure I don't screw this up. My heart hammers harder in my chest.

The Gumshoe's head tilts slightly to one side as he looks at me, almost as if he's listening out for something in one of the side rooms of the Sportlight, and he smiles. It's a glimmer of a smile, barely-there, but I see it and it's not how I expected him to smile. I expected something cold and smug, the same waxy fucking grins they always wear when the cops know they got you rattled, but this isn't anything like that. There's not even a hint of amusement there. It's warm. Friendly.

Fuck. Gumshoes are not anyone's friend.

I straighten my spine and jut out my chin. Clench my fists.

'And who the fuck might you be?' I ask.

His eyes widen a little, a glint of... of what? Excitement? Exhilaration? I don't fucking know what it is that's got this guy standing here on Southie territory acting like he's King-Fucking-Dick, but I don't like it. I don't like it one little bit and each second he's just looking at me like that is making me feel like he knows more about me than I care for anyone to know.

'Do I fucking know you or something?' I say and I don't even know why those words fall from my mouth. I should have told him to fuck off before I dealt with his Lombardi-dick-sucking ass. I should have told him to turn the fuck around before I smashed the next bottle over his stupid fucking head.

'Oh, my apologies,' he says. 'I should introduce myself.'

Okay. Not a Dick. Not even an American. British. His accent is crisp and clear. Fucking cultured.

What the fuck is a British guy doing here?

He steps forward, crossing the bar until he's just a few feet away from me and he holds out his hand.

'Pleased to make your acquaintance,' he says, his eyes not leaving mine. 'My name is Garrick. Doctor Benjamin Garrick.'

A Doctor? An English Doctor?

And I don't know what it is about him but straight away I don't see it. I don't see this man healing anyone. I don't see him tending wounds, I see him making them. I don't see him making anyone better, I see him sending them to their deaths.

His outstretched hand hangs in the air between us and I don't want to touch it. The thought of letting him anywhere near me suddenly makes the hair on my neck prickle and my heart pound even harder.

He withdraws his hand but doesn't seem fazed by my rejection. Instead he inhales and, angling his head slightly, he reaches up and touches his fingertips to his cheekbone. With the ghost of a smile that seems more for himself than for me, he picks at something on his skin and it's then I see it: the glint of a tiny fragment of glass embedded in his cheek. Tugging on it gently, he deposits the tiny shard into the ashtray on the bar counter and then brushes his fingers over where the glass had pierced his skin, looking down at the blood that now stains his fingertips.

'Hmm,' he says, softly musing. 'It appears that you got me.'

It's funny how details can come at you fast.

Sometimes it's easy to overlook shit. Like somehow your mind just covers it up, drapes a shroud around it, rendering it forgettable, because sometimes the reality of certain things seems just so fucking ridiculous that your brain tells you that you should forget it instantly.

That can't have happened, right? You can't just have seen that? Come on, forget it. Discard it. It's not important.

But this detail was important. Don't ask me how. I just knew it. Like it was the missing piece to a puzzle I didn't even know about yet.

A piece of glass had hit this Dr. Benjamin Garrick in the face.

He'd walked right in just as the bottle hit the wall and shattered just inches away from him.

And he'd never flinched. Not once.

What kind of person walks in to a room to have a bottle smash right by their head and they don't even try to shield themselves from it or duck or move out of the way?

What kind of person is he?

I know all sorts of scum. I've had dealings with every lowlife goon, every button man in Boston, mobsters that'll make your balls shrink up into your body. You name them, I've dealt with them and each time I've lived to tell the tale, no matter what evil shit I've seen done. I've seen it all. I've met them all.

I've been knee-deep in monsters for years now.

But somehow, I know that Dr. Benjamin Garrick might just be the most terrifying monster I'll ever meet.

In fact, I'm sure of it.