Despite my promising to market, I had to write. I couldn't help it.

The idea came to me and I just had to do it. This will be my next novel. I've already begun Old geezers 3 and Kongomato 3 but they can wait for a while. 

   This is going to be another in which I know nothing until it rolls off my pen. Hopefully the rest will be as easy as the first few words, which will probably change a dozen times. But for the moment, this is it:

The Secret

Chapter One

The man’s face was ancient as time. Deep crevasses lined his forehead and shrunken cheeks, barely interrupting their flow at his battered, misshapen nose. Yet his eyes were bright blue and crystal clear like those of a young child.

‘Are you ready to receive the secret, the secret that only one man in the world may bear?’

‘But, if you tell me then there’ll be two us who know it.’ Perhaps my flippancy was born of fear. Lord knows my levels of terror had multiplied exponentially since meeting this man just a few short days before.

The man’s face darkened. For a moment, despite his age and apparent decrepitude I thought he was about to leap over and throttle me. Yet he smiled, if the expression he mustered could be called such.

‘If you deign to accept the secret, I shall die. I shall die knowing my job is done. I have waited so many years to die. The centuries have rolled slowly by as I waited patiently for one such as you. At first I revelled in my near mortality, travelling the world and seeing sights such as you could never imagine. However that finally palled and now I am ready. I have been ready for generations. Indeed I never thought I would live long enough to find you.

‘What, so how old are you?’ I asked mockingly. Perhaps he was so old that his word centuries were just a symptom of his senility. Still he didn’t rise to my bait.

‘All this and more I will relate if you decided to accept the secret. There is a lot to tell and little time left. Although the curse of my knowledge retards aging, it does not halt it. I must, for the sake of the world, find someone before it is too late. Someone must know; that he might use the knowledge when the time is right.’ This was all too much, too soon. I raised a hand but he ignored it. ‘The very survival of the human race hangs upon you stepping up to the plate.’ I sat, dumfounded at his words, judging if I could slip out without him shooting me.

‘Have you heard of Jack the Ripper?’