John Kearns

John "Jack" Kearns (d. April 1889) was one alias used by a notorious English serial killer in the late 1800's. Other aliases included Richard Cory and Jack the Ripper.

Early life and relationship with Warthrop
According to Kearns, his mother was an American, and an abolitionist. However, he said this when goading Robert Morgan by constantly changing his name and background, so he may have made this up.

Kearns described himself as "precocious", suggesting he began killing at an early age. His mother had him institutionalised in an asylum at the age of seventeen, but he managed to escape after three years, and returned home. His mother "accidentally" fell down the stairs a few days after his return.

Kearns was a highly skilled surgeon, and worked at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, London. His wit, charm and charisma made him extremely popular with the other doctors, especially the women, and he was considered the best trauma surgeon ever to work at the hospital.

At some point, Kearns met Pellinore Warthrop - and his apprentice James Henry - from whom he learned about the field of monstrumology. They travelled to numerous places together, including the Brazilian Amazon (where Henry was first infected by Biriminius arawakus), Istanbul, and Tanzania. Tanzania was the last trip the pair took before Warthrop took on Will Henry as his apprentice. Kearns had also met Abram von Helrung in unknown circumstances.

Anthropophagi in New England
In the April of 1888, Warthrop contacted Kearns by letter, requesting his assistance: a troop of Anthropophagi had appeared in New Jerusalem. When Warthrop sent for his help, he was staying in Washington, D.C, at the Smithsonian Institute.

On his way to New Jerusalem, Kearns stopped at the city of Baltimore, where he kidnapped a local prostitute to use as bait for the Anthropophagi. He kept the woman constantly sedated until he required her for his trap.

By the time Kearns arrived in New Jerusalem, the Anthropophagi had already attacked a local family, the Stinnets, leaving only one survivor, Malachi. When Kearns reached 425 Harrington Lane, both Malachi and constable Robert Morgan were visiting Warthrop: Kearns immediately and easily antagonised and enraged Morgan.

Kearns was the first to suggest that it was Warthrop's late father, Alistair Warthrop, who was responsible for the Anthropophagi's uncharacteristic appearance in New England, but Warthrop did not agree with this theory, and only grew angrier with Kearns. Nevertheless, the trio made progress on a plan to kill the Anthropophagi. In exchange for his services, Kearns demanded five thousand dollars, immunity from prosecution, and complete control over the entire operation. With Kearns being the only man for the job, Warthrop and Morgan were forced to oblige.

Kearns brought the sedated prostitute with him to Harrington Lane, along with sedatives to keep her asleep, and several supplies for the extermination ahead. The prostitute was kept close by him at all times.

The next morning, Kearns, after spending a night out inspecting the cemetary where the Anthropophagi made their home, met Malachi Stinnet at breakfast, and goaded him by asking how close he had earlier came to shooting Warthrop, an event Kearns had somehow learnt of.

The party, consisting of Kearns, Warthrop, Henry, Malachi, and O'Brien, set off near noon and arrived at the Stinnet house, where they met Morgan, Brock, and five other police officers. Despite Warthrop's protests, Kearns insisted on seeing the crime scene, and, due to his promises the night before, Morgan was forced to let him. Kearns returned after some time, and cheerily briefed the men on their mission, and their chances of survival.

Kearns had the officers build two four-by-eight-foot wooden platforms, which was to be taken into the cemetary and strung up at a height of ten feet. Whilst this was going on, he successfully goaded Malachi into attempting to attack him, by insulting his loyalty to his dead family. This caused Warthrop to allow Malachi to join the hunt.

Kearns expertly selected the time and weather for the hunt to begin. The platforms were put up at twilight, when it was starting to rain; Kearns hoped that the rain would disorientate the Anthropophagi, which would otherwise be able to detect the party through vibrations in the earth. In between the platforms, in his "ring of slaughter", distinguished by a deep trench running around it, Kearns secured the bait: he tied up the kidnapped prostitute, woke her up, and disembowelled her, before returning to the platform.

His bait worked, and attracted a single ''Anthropophagi. Kearns did not kill this Anthropophagi''; instead, he immobilised it by shooting its legs twice with his Winchester rifle, then left it, hoping its cries would draw in the others. His plan worked, and more Anthropophagi gathered around the edges of the "slaughter ring". Whilst Warthrop and Will Henry worked on keeping the gutted prostitute alive, Kearns managed to goad the Anthropophagi troop into attacking. At this moment, Kearns had the trench set on fire, trapping the troop inside.

As night fell, Kearns and the officers sieged the twenty-nine Anthropophagi trapped in the ring with gunfire and grenades. After some time, they were all dead. Kearns examined the bodies, and noted the fact that the one-eyed matriarch of the troop was not among the dead.

Kearns guessed that the way into the Anthropophagi's subterannean home was via the Warthrop family mausoleum, in line with his theory that Alistair Warthrop had brought them to New England. He managed to find a secret room in the mausoleum by swivelling the W on the brass Warthrop family crest into an M, for monster. He also correctly surmised that the clock in this next room was actually a lock, but he and Malachi were unable to figure out what time the hand had to be turned to in order to unlock it. Warthrop correctly guessed 3 o'clock.

The group made it into the tunnels below, only to find that the access tunnel had been blocked by dirt. Despite Kearns' eagerness to simply dynamite the blockage, Warthrop instead had Will Henry move through the small gap below the dirt. Following this, the members of the group became seperated.

Kearns eventually met up with Will Henry near the Anthropophagi's main denning area. Realising that the matriarch and the other remaining Anthropophagi were not going to emerge without enticement, he threw Will Henry into the main den as bait. Kearns shot and killed most of the Anthropophagi as they charged at Henry, and soon all where dead. Warthrop and Malachi met up with the pair, and Malachi, enraged that Kearns had used Henry as bait, attempted to shoot him. The two argued for a while before Kearns and Warthrop went looking for the matriarch alone. Whilst they were searching, the matriarch attacked Malachi and Henry. Malachi sacrificed himself whilst attempting to kill her with a grenade, but it was Will Henry who was forced to finish the job.

Three days after the slaughter, Kearns, Warthrop, and Will Henry visited Motley Hill to get answers from Jeremiah Starr. Starr, ill and bedridden, explained that Alistair Warthrop had brought the Anthropophagi to New England with the intent of crossbreeding them with humans, thus proving Kearns' theory correct. Once Starr had explained himself, Kearns snapped his neck, killing him instantly. During the night, he also killed Starr's assistant. Jonathan Peterson. Kearns left New England for London the next night, before Warthrop reported the crimes.

A few months after his return to Whitechapel, Kearns began his murders as Jack the Ripper. The news reached Warthrop, who knew Kearns was responsible, but the authorities had not taken any of his allegations over Starr or Peterson seriously.

Obtaining the nidus
At some point, Kearns began renting a Dorset Street flat from Wymond Kendall. This is where he claimed his final victim as Jack the Ripper, in late 1888.

In late January or early February, a man was admitted to the hospital, having been exposed to a nidus, the "nest" of Typhoeus magnificum. He was in the late stages of exposure, and died within hours. Kearns, who had been assigned to him, signed an order for the body to be cremated, then tracked down the woman who had brought him in: Mary Elizabeth Marks. Kearns managed to charm the truth from her, and found the nidus in the man's belongings. He learned from Marks that the man's last port of call had been in Socotra.

On 2 February 1889, Kearns lured Kendall to his flat by "forgetting" to pay his rent, then knocked him out with drugged tea. He tricked Kendall into believing he had been poisoned with a fictional toxin, tipota, and had him take the nidus to Warthrop, who Kearns claimed would have the antidote. The following day, he left with Sidorov - a disgraced monstrumologist eager to find the magnificum - for Saint Petersburg, then the island of Socotra. Before leaving, he informed the British Secret Service that he had found a nidus and sent it to Pellinore Warthrop.

Warthrop received the nidus eight days later. At Abram von Helrung's request, the London Monstrumology Society investigated Kearns' whereabouts, but were unable to find him: to them, it was as if he had disappeared. Warthrop himself, along with Thomas Arkwright, decided to investigate Kearns' whereabouts before trying to track down the magnificum. Arkwright searched Kearns' flat, whilst Warthrop questioned the staff at the Royal London Hospital. Neither investigation bore any fruit, but Warthrop, having interviewed Marks, correctly guessed that he would have left for Socotra.

On Socotra
Once Kearns and Sidorov arrived on Socotra, Sidorov went off looking for the magnificum with a group of Russian secret police, but accidentally caused a chain reaction which ended up infecting most of the island, including himself. Kearns escaped infection, and began surviving on the island. He in particular wanted to kill one specific infected; a pack leader, with a horn growing from its forehead; his Minotaur.

Kearns also discovered an infected woman with an uninfected child, and stalked her for days, waiting for her to turn for the sport of it.

A week after the infection broke out, Kearns found Warthrop, Will Henry, and Awaale's camp. They had discovered the infected woman; Kearns saved Will Henry's life by shooting her dead. He introduced himself to Awaale as Khasiis, Kearns' "African name", and was allowed to stay at the group's camp.

The next morning, Kearns and Warthrop had to defend the camp against some of the infected. To Kearns' disappointment, the Minotaur was not among them. The group was forced to move on, into some caves deeper into the mountain, where they stayed the night.

The next day, Kearns led Warthrop and Herny to the top of the mountains, where the magnificums lair was, whilst Awaale left with the infected woman's baby. The trio was forced to ascend so high, they passed through a thick layer of clouds. Eventually, they reached "the mouth", as Kearns called it, "the top of the world", where the dying infected were gathering and creating nidus out of their own bodies. Sidorov was among these infected.

After shooting most of the infected, Warthrop realised that the magnificum was nowhere to be seen. He threatened to kill Kearns with his revolver if he did not tell him where the magnificum was - Kearns admitted to him that the magnificum is simply a contagion. This realisation finally broke Warthrop's will.

Following this realisation, Kearns disappeared, and Henry ended up seperated from Warthrop and attacked by one of the infected. Kearns discovered him in the water, infected. Warthrop, who had taken some samples, managed to improvise an antidote for magnificum, and cured Henry. Whilst Warthrop watched over him, Kearns continued to hunt for the Minotaur. He returned to the group at dusk, having only killed three infected: Warthrop had decided to exterminate them all.

Over the next few days, the pair systematically killed many of the infected by using fire as bait. Kearns was not happy with this for two reasons: there was no fun in it, and he still had not killed the Minotaur.

Death and legacy
Warthrop and Henry both decided that Kearns was dangerous, and would kill both of them. Although Warthrop was in favour of simply knocking him out and leaving him, Will Henry believed that Kearns would be able to find a way off the island if left alive, so he snuck away with the intent of killing him. He found him on a rocky outcrop with his rifle. After a short conversation, Henry stabbed Kearns through the throat with Awaale's knife, then left him to die.

Other than Warthrop, only Lillian Bates was originally told about Kearns and Will Henry's murdering of him. However, she eventually shared this information with Samuel Isaacson.

Will Henry would later use Kearns' tipota trick, right down to some of the wording, to scare off Maeterlinck. Inverse to what Kearns told Kendall, Maeterlinck was given Kearns' address, and told only he had the antidote.

Personality and traits
Kearns accurately summed up his own personality during a coversation with Jeremiah Starr, shortly before he murdered him :


 * "The chains that bind most men do not bind you, and in this, you and I are brothers, dear Jeremiah. We are the men of a new and glorious age, free of lies and unbound by any ridiculous rectitude. The only truth is the truth of the now. There is nothing either good or bad, only thinking makes it so. There is no morality, is there Jeremiah, but the morality of the moment."

Kearns was free of any moral code, and was willing to do anything to achieve his goals, regardless of who had to die. He showed some sociopathic tendencies, and seemed to enjoy causing pain and killing people. He had no qualms about making his friend Wymond Kendall believe he had been poisoned. He also occasionally exhibited some degree of racial insensitivity; he joked about Warthrop becoming a Hindu when the latter bruised his forehead, and insulted the Somalian African Awaale.

Kearns enjoyed toying with people, mocking them and goading them into losing their tempers. He did this to Malachi Stinnet and Robert Morgan upon first meeting them, and continued to goad Pellinore Warthrop throughout his entire stay in New England. At one point he even goes so far as to simply stare into space for several minutes in order to anger Morgan.

Kearns did not fear death, probably due to his philosophy of living life in the moment. However, he did attempt to defend himself when he was finally murdered by Will Henry.

Speaking in an upper-class "leonine" British accent, Kearns was highly intelligent and sophisticated. He had a good accumen, and was able to correctly surmise the circumstances behind the Anthrophagi's prescene in New England, and how to access their lair below the cemetary. He also realised that Will Henry intended to kill him, but figured it out too late to defend himself. He was skilled in many walks of life: he was multilingual, an avid reader, a trained surgeon, and an expert marksman. Although he was not a monstrumologist, Kearns clearly posessed expert knowledge on the subject, enough to cause Warthrop to send for his assistance.

Despite his sociopathic tendencies and upper-class attitude, Kearns possesed a strong sense of sarcastic humour, and a playful sort of personality. In line with his anarchistic, amoral personality, Kearns actually admired monsters like Anthropophagi, believing that much could be learned from them.

Kearns had a complex attitude towards religion. He did not seem to believe in the Christian God, but claimed that people, if in danger, would be better off praying to the devil, since the devil is said to be the one who would harm people. When threatening Wymond Kendall, he even compared himself to God.

Kearns seemed to be somewhat misanthropic, and firmly believed that humans where in no way superior to any other animal - in fact, he believed humans to be inferior to other animals, and too arrogant to accept that, despite claims to the contrary, they are ruled by instict. He said that the only difference between humans and other animals is that only humans have mastery of hypocrisy.

List of appearances

 * The Monstrumologist (first appearance)
 * The Isle of Blood
 * The Final Descent (mentioned only)