Dangerous Spirits Read online

  Sylvester glanced outside. “There’s no time. We need to return to Devil’s Walk, before Fitzwilliam flees with the jar, or does it some harm after killing Emberey. For the moment, I can only beg that you trust me.” He looked back at them. “And if my word isn’t enough, trust James. Trust he had only the greater good in mind when he suggested this.”

  This wasn’t happening. Vincent was trapped in some awful nightmare. Or else Sylvester was lying, or had gone mad, or…something. Anything, as long as his words about Dunne weren’t true.

  “We’re supposed to look after the living and the dead,” he said raggedly. “Whatever these plans of yours are, the price is too high. Necromancy means dragging the dead from their rest, forcing them back across the veil, and enslaving them to our will. It’s against everything we stand for as mediums.”

  Lizzie stepped to his side. “Vincent is right, Sylvester. Now let’s return to Devil’s Walk and save Mr. Emberey. We’ll talk afterward, if you want.”

  For a long moment, Sylvester said nothing, his gaze turned inward. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I can’t trust you not to destroy the jar out of some misguided ideals.” He drew a wicked looking knife from inside his coat. “I’ll need to ask you to remain here until after I’ve secured it.”

  The candle’s reflection gleamed on the blade. Lizzie gasped, and Vincent pushed her behind him. “You—you won’t kill us. Not if we’re important to your plans.”

  Sylvester actually looked hurt. “I won’t kill you because I love you, my boy,” he said. “But I will hurt you, if I must. This is so much bigger than just us.”

  Neither of them moved. Sylvester backed to the door. “I’ll come back for you, as soon as this is ended,” he promised, and swung it closed behind him. There came the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  They were trapped.

  Chapter 15

  Henry tripped over a rail tie and swore angrily. The sun had gone down, and the wind began to howl. The branches of the trees swayed and thrashed against the sky. The light of his lantern barely illuminated the track well enough for him to see the rail bed in front of him, and he stumbled over every uneven tie. His heavy pack pulled on his left shoulder; after all the exercise of the last few days, its ordinary dull ache flared into a continuous thread of pain.

  What if he was too late? He should have insisted on accompanying them earlier, not wallowed in his guilt. What if Rosanna possessed Lizzie completely, or set fire to them all, or…

  No. He couldn’t think like that.

  A faint light winked at him through the trees.

  Henry froze. Was it a lantern? Did the others return already?

  Or was it Rosanna, trying to lure him to his doom?

  Instinct prodded him off the railroad track and into the trees beside it. Shuttering his lantern, he crouched down and waited. A pouch of salt hung at his belt; if Rosanna appeared, he’d fling it at her and run for his life. Or could he use the iron rails to ground her somehow?

  The light came into view once again. It belonged to a lantern, not a ghostly woman. But its light shone only on Ortensi’s face.

  Where were Lizzie and Vincent? Behind Ortensi, lost in the shadows? But the tracks were treacherous at night—they would surely need to see where they were going if they didn’t want to break an ankle.

  Something was very wrong.

  Henry all but held his breath as Ortensi drew nearer, irrationally certain the medium would sense his presence amidst the trees. But he was no spirit, and Ortensi hurried past without so much as glancing in his direction.

  Henry waited until the light vanished before unshuttering his lantern again. His heart pounded against his ribs as he climbed back to the tracks. What had happened to Vincent and Lizzie? Why would Ortensi return to the town without them?

  Did the ghost kill them both?

  Oh God. No. Bile coated at the back of his throat. His lungs couldn’t get enough air. What if Rosanna succeeded this time, without Jo or Henry to interfere? Set Lizzie aflame, dashed Vincent’s brains out, or burned him too…

  Henry broke into a run. He had to see for himself. Had to get to them. He wouldn’t believe it until he saw their dead bodies.

  “Vincent,” he whispered, like a mantra. “I’m coming, Vincent. Hold on, wherever you are, whatever’s happening. Please don’t leave me.”

  A few minutes later, he stumbled into the great clearing. The beams of the mill clawed at the night sky, like the fingers of a skeletal hand. “Vincent!” he shouted between pants for breath. “Lizzie! Where are you?”

  There came no reply, only the shriek of the wind through the trees.

  He ran through the site, tripping over boards, ducking through scaffolding, shining his light wildly about. But there was no sign of either of them.

  “Vincent!” he shouted again and again, until his throat was raw. The wind ate his words, flung them back in his face.

  He staggered to a halt, gasping. He had to find them. But how? They could be anywhere in this God-forsaken woods. He needed help.

  Help.

  Hands shaking, he slipped the straps from his shoulders and opened the pack. Taking out the portable galvanometer, he stared at the dial. “Rosanna!” he shouted. “You asked for my help, and I want to give it to you! But I can’t unless you show me where Vincent and Lizzie are!”

  The dial remained still. It wouldn’t work. Of course it wouldn’t—it would be as useless as everything else he’d done since coming to Devil’s Walk

  The gauge suddenly jerked to the right. A pulse.

  An acknowledgement?

  He turned to the right, and the reading died back. All but holding his breath, he turned in the other direction and took a step toward the old church.

  The field strength increased, sending the gauge to the right.

  “Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Rosanna. Now lead me to them.”

  ~ * ~

  Vincent leaned his back against the stacked stone wall of the receiving vault, his legs stretched out before him. Lizzie sat opposite, her arms laced around her knees and her head bowed. The candle burned between them, but soon its light would go out.

  Vincent had wasted half an hour desperately seeking some method of escape. Prying at the edge of the frame where iron met stone, attempting to loosen the mortar around it, and finally pounding on the door and shouting himself hoarse. He might still be doing the latter, had Lizzie not ordered him to sit down and stop giving her a headache with the noise.

  “Do you think Sylvester’s telling the truth?” Vincent asked. “About…about Dunne.”

  And about us, he wanted to add. But the words stuck in his throat. What did he say to Henry, about never knowing what Dunne saw in him?

  “…a boy with a good heart,” Henry said. And Vincent had wished it true.

  He wished it even more now.

  Lizzie shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to believe it. But that doesn’t make it a lie.”

  “It has to be.” Vincent wouldn’t—couldn’t believe anything else. “Sylvester’s gone mad. Dunne would never condone this, let alone suggest it to him in the first place. Never. And there certainly weren’t any other apprentices, especially not ones who came to some dubious end.”

  Lizzie said nothing. Vincent shifted his foot and prodded her ankle. “Right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He felt as though the ground had opened up, and he balanced on the last solid ledge above the abyss. “Dear God. You haven’t been lying about anything too, have you?”

  “Of course not!” Her head snapped up, revealing a face streaked with tears. “But something happened that I haven’t thought of in years until tonight.”

  He wasn’t certain he could take many more revelations. “What?”

  “I found a chest in the attic.”

  She must be misremembering things. “My room was in the attic.”

  “Eventually, yes. This was before you. Perhaps a month after Dunne rescued me. He went o
ut, and left me alone. I was horribly bored, having been bedridden since I arrived. My leg had finally healed enough for me to hobble around. I was so sick of lying in bed, I was willing to put up with the pain just to move about some. So I took the opportunity to explore the rooms of the house I hadn’t seen yet, and ended up in the attic.”

  Her arms tightened around her knees. “What would become your furniture was already there—clearly someone used it as a bedroom before. But there were other things—trunks and the like. They were full of personal belongings: hairbrushes, clothing, novels. Some of the clothes belonged to a girl. Dunne came back and found me trying on hats in the mirror.”

  “Were you frightened?” he asked softly. “When he discovered you, I mean.”

  “Not in the least.” A wistful smile trembled on her lips. “I’d say it was because he already knew. I gave him the whole sorry story when he offered to take me to his house, bandage my wounds, and set my broken bones. But truthfully, I never feared Dunne. Not for a single second.”

  Neither had Vincent. Not really, not in the way he’d feared so many other men. “What happened then?”

  Lizzie stared at the flame; it flickered in the depths of her haunted gaze. “He said I should take whatever I liked. I asked him who the things belonged to, and he said the previous owners of the house left the trunks. He’d simply never gotten rid of them. The next time I went into the attic they were gone. I assumed he’d finally had them removed, but…”

  She didn’t finish. Didn’t have to, because they were both thinking the same thing. Sylvester had used the word survived when it came to their apprenticeships.

  There had been tense moments, dangerous ones even, in their training as mediums. But Dunne would never have let anything truly bad happen to them.

  Would he?

  “We can’t worry about it now,” Vincent said, tipping his head back to stare blankly at the ceiling. “If Fitzwilliam hasn’t already summoned Rosanna to kill Emberey, he will soon.” Assuming he didn’t mean to wipe out the entire town.

  “Unless you have some way of getting us out of here, I don’t see what we can do about it.” Lizzie bowed her head again. “We’re trapped. There’s nothing to do but wait for Sylvester to come back.”

  “And then what?”

  She glanced up at him. “That depends on what happens to Henry and Jo.”

  Vincent closed his eyes. God, he’d been angry with Henry. Angry with himself for trusting someone who didn’t deserve it.

  No wonder Sylvester had seemed set against Henry from the start. It had nothing to do with Henry’s idiotic falsehood. It was all about the necromantic talisman. Sylvester surely didn’t want any more people to know about such a thing than absolutely necessary. Certainly not if his great comeback were to succeed. No one could know his renewed powers came from necromancy rather than simple talent.

  Vincent and Lizzie weren’t just a part of whatever scheme Sylvester and Dunne—no, Sylvester alone—had hatched. They were the closest thing Sylvester had to family. But Henry was an outsider. The modernity of his methods, the fact he wasn’t a medium, must have made him seem even more of a potential threat. Vincent revealing Henry spent the night in his bed certainly hadn’t helped.

  So Sylvester set out to separate Vincent from Henry, beginning on the first day. And it worked, thanks to Henry’s absurd lie about his reception at the Psychical Society.

  As long as Henry didn’t find out about the jar, he’d be safe. If he remained in the hotel and kept his head down, and let Sylvester and Fitzwilliam battle things out…

  Which he’d never do because, well, he was Henry. He’d run out at the first sign of the ghost, waving his rod around.

  He’d be on hand to see what Sylvester did with the jar, and notice Vincent and Lizzie were absent. And either Sylvester would come up with some very clever explanation…

  Or once the jar was in his hands, he’d let Rosanna deal with Henry.

  Vincent wanted to leap to his feet. To dig through the weight of earth above them, run through the forest, and save Henry and Jo. Carry his little family away from here, from Sylvester and the ghost and every danger.

  His family.

  Why didn’t he at least give Henry the chance to explain? Maybe Henry had lied about other things, but at least Vincent could have waited to find out why Henry had spun his falsehood about the society. Instead he’d screamed and thrown away his cufflinks, and refused to let Henry speak.

  He’d wanted Henry to hurt, just as much as he’d been hurting.

  What had Lizzie said earlier, about knowing Henry’s devices worked? Why hadn’t Vincent set aside his pride and overridden Sylvester? Insisted Henry come with them to make some sort of amends by lending his assistance?

  Why had he been such a fool?

  A heavy fist banged against the door. “Vincent? Lizzie? It’s Henry!”

  ~ * ~

  Vincent stared blankly. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

  Unlike him, Lizzie didn’t remain frozen in shock. Lurching to her feet, she ran to the door and struck it herself. “Henry! We’re in here!”

  “Thank God!” came the muffled shout. “Hold on a moment, and I’ll get you out!”

  “How? Sylvester took the key!” she shouted back.

  “An old lock like this should be simple to pick. Just give me a moment to get out some wire.”

  Vincent wanted to laugh aloud—partly in relief to have Henry here and unharmed, and partly because of course Henry would recognize an older lock. He swallowed it back, not certain if the laugh would emerge amused or hysterical.

  Within short order, there came a click, and the door swung open. Vincent scrambled to his feet. Lizzie said nothing, merely flung her arms around Henry. Startled, he patted her awkwardly on the back. “Er…”

  “I’ve never been so glad to see you.” She let go and stepped back. “But what are you doing here?”

  “Jo suggested I come and see if I could offer assistance, actually,” he said.

  “She’s a smart girl.” Her mouth flattened. “Sylvester locked us in.”

  “I saw him going back to town alone.” Henry shifted the pack on his back. “I knew something had to be wrong, so I hid, then came here to look for you.”

  “Good work, Henry.” She stepped outside. “Coming, Vincent?”

  Vincent didn’t move, his gaze fixed on Henry. His heart beat in his throat, and he didn’t know what to say, what to feel.

  “I…” Henry trailed off and looked away, his face crumpling. “I know you aren’t happy to see me, Vincent.”

  But he was. If only he could make his tongue work.

  “I don’t blame you,” Henry went on. “And I know this doesn’t make up for things somehow. I lied and…” His breath caught. “I’m sorry. I was so humiliated. And when I saw you with Christopher Maillard, I lost my head.”

  “Christopher?” Vincent exclaimed, shocked back into mobility. “What the devil does Christopher have to do with anything?”

  Henry’s mouth tightened. “I heard what he said. About composing poetry in praise of your performance.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear this,” Lizzie said, and moved farther away from the door.

  Vincent’s head spun. “Wait a moment. You thought I’d slept with Christopher?”

  “Of course!” Fire flashed briefly in Henry’s eyes. “Do you think I’m a fool? I know I’m not…not the sort of man you’d usually find interesting. Not an aesthete, or a poet, or a musician.” He swallowed convulsively. “I’m just boring old Henry. And when I saw him there, all but throwing it in my face that he’d had you—”

  “Dear God, are you mad?” Vincent stared at Henry aghast. “Christopher is in love with the sound of his own voice. Didn’t I go home with you that night?”

  “Because you thought I was worth something!” Henry shouted. He turned his head to the side, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Vincent. “Because I lied. You sacrificed so much to move, to go into business wi
th me, and I couldn’t even hold your attention in the bedroom.” A tear sparked in the candlelight. “I just wanted you to love me.”

  All the air seemed sucked out of the vault. Vincent took a step forward, then stopped, feeling as though both of them might shatter at the slightest touch.

  “Of course I love you,” he said.

  Henry lifted his head, eyes wide. “You do?” he asked, although it was more a sob than words.

  Vincent didn’t remember crossing the space between them. “Oh, Henry.” He wrapped his arms tight around his lover. “Of course I do. Why else do you think I was so angry with you?”

  Henry’s hands gripped his coat, crushing the velvet, but Vincent couldn’t bring himself to care. “But you…but I…we never…and Christopher…”

  “Then let me say it now. I haven’t been with anyone else since we met—and I hope never to be again.” And oh God, it was terrifying, to leave himself exposed like this, the most tender parts of his heart laid bare.

  “I never slept with Christopher—never so much as kissed him,” Vincent went on. “And—and I feared you’d grown tired of me, or found out the society refused my application.”

  “They did what?” And of course, of all the things to get Henry’s attention, that would be the one.

  Vincent sighed. “I…wasn’t entirely honest with you, either. I did apply, but they rejected me. I didn’t say anything because I knew their support might still be valuable.”

  Henry tried to pull free, but Vincent refused to allow it. Henry settled for glowering at him. “And why did they refuse you?”

  Vincent barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “You-um guess-um, chief.”

  Henry released a blistering stream of invective. “Mother fucking sons of whores,” he finished. “If I’d known, I’d have told them to shove my presentation up their asses!”

  “A lady is present!” Lizzie yelled from outside. “And what are you two doing? We have to get to the town! Sylvester and Rosanna are likely both there now.”