Dangerous Spirits Read online

  “About your friend? This Great Ortensi?”

  “He was always just Sylvester to us. And yes.” Vincent realized he was in danger of crushing the velvet of the coat in his hands and quickly relaxed his grip. “I haven’t seen him since…since Dunne died.”

  “They were close?”

  “They apprenticed together.” But that explanation wouldn’t mean anything to Henry. How to put it? “Sometimes mediumistic talent runs in families. But more often, the medium has to seek outside training. It can be rather…intense, for all involved.”

  “I understand.” The floor creaked as Henry crossed to him. “Dunne was like a father to you.”

  “A father I killed,” Vincent said, placing the coat carefully in the trunk.

  Henry put a hand to Vincent’s arm. “Stop blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Vincent didn’t bother to argue. Lizzie had told him the same thing, again and again. A malevolent spirit possessed him. He had no control over his body when his hands wrapped around Dunne’s throat and squeezed.

  Having a strong mediumistic talent paradoxically made him both more powerful and more vulnerable at the same time. He could summon ghosts at a séance with barely a thought, channel them, and send them back to the other side. It was simply easier for them to slip in and out of his skin.

  Even if they didn’t mean him—or anyone else living—any good.

  Dunne tried to banish the spirit, but he’d been too slow. They’d expected an ordinary poltergeist, not whatever hellish thing had met them.

  Dunne paid the price, and Vincent wore a silver medallion to keep the ghosts out, every moment of every day except when conducting a séance. But he had started to channel again, and he’d made peace with losing the shop in New York, the last thing of Dunne’s they’d owned.

  And now Sylvester came back into their lives.

  “I owed Dunne a debt,” Vincent said, picking carefully through the words as if the wrong one might cut him. “He saved me from a life that would have been ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ as the saying goes. The truth is, I’ll never know what he saw in me, to make him offer to become my mentor.”

  Henry’s arms slid around his waist from behind. “He saw a boy with a good heart.”

  “I wish.” Vincent put his hand on Henry’s. “You don’t know what I was like then. And I’m damned thankful for it.” Henry’s chest pressed against Vincent’s back as he drew breath to argue. “I know you’re going to contradict me, but you’re missing the point. I owe Dunne everything. With him dead, whether or not you think me responsible, the debt transfers to Sylvester.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Henry said. “Mr. Ortensi isn’t the one who scooped you up off the streets.”

  Vincent sighed. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you. I’m not even saying the debt is the same. But the closest I can come in this life to repaying Dunne is to help Sylvester.”

  Henry remained silent for an uncharacteristically long time. Then he shifted, resting his cheek against Vincent’s back. “I see.”

  Did he? Perhaps he did. Henry understood family and debts—why else would he have taken in Jo? The rest of the family had turned their backs on Henry for doing so—or, more accurately, for acknowledging her as his cousin and not presenting her as an unrelated maid or housekeeper. Of course Henry obviously loved Jo now. But he’d given her a home before he’d known anything more about her than she was his cousin and in need of a safe harbor.

  His willingness to help, his compassion, was one of the things that drew Vincent to him from the start. Well, that and the way his backside filled out his trousers.

  “I’ll do what I can to help you and put an end to this haunting,” Henry said after a long moment. He tightened his arms around Vincent, before letting go.

  “Vincent!” Jo shouted from below. “The cart driver wants to know how much longer you’ll be!”

  Vincent grabbed the handle of his trunk. “I’d best go, before he leaves without me and I have to lug the trunk all the way to my apartment.”

  Henry took the other end. “Let me help you down the stairs.”

  At the bottom of the stair, they paused. Henry leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the train station.”

  A part of Vincent longed to say he’d return after packing, to spend the night. But to come back here, just to return again to his apartment in the morning to collect his things, would be ridiculous. Still, once the trunk was secure in the back of the cart and the driver started off, Vincent couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder for one last glimpse of Henry. But his lover had already gone back inside the shop, so Vincent turned back to the fore, feeling strangely alone.

  ~ * ~

  Henry stared out the train window as night fell over the countryside rushing past. Jo slumped dozing against his shoulder. Her head rocked with every jolt of the car, and he couldn’t imagine how she could sleep through such jostling.

  They’d changed trains at the new Baltimore and Ohio Station in Pittsburgh. The bustle of the city gave way to farms dotted across low hills. Soon the hills grew steeper, the slopes covered by dark forests, and even the occasional lights of distant farmhouses vanished.

  Vincent sat across from him, beside Lizzie. He stretched his foot out to nudge Henry’s ankle. “Are you all right, Henry?”

  Henry turned from the dark landscape to the warm light of the car. “I’m fine.”

  Vincent met his gaze, thick, black brows drawing down. “You’ve been rather quiet.”

  Henry dropped his eyes, unable to meet Vincent’s searching look. He glanced at Jo, intending to use her rest as an excuse…but as she’d slept through the steam whistle and Emberey droning on about the steel mill, he doubted Vincent would believe him. “Travel tires me,” he lied. “A good night’s sleep will restore my mood.”

  He turned again to the window, so Vincent wouldn’t see the sick, crawling feeling that had lingered in his stomach ever since the night of his presentation. He’d dedicated his life to making certain no one would ever be taken in by a spiritualist fraud again, thanks to the application of science.

  And yet now he’d become a fraud himself. Vincent, Lizzie, everyone believed him the darling of the Psychical Society. They’d brought him here under false pretenses, thinking he’d been vindicated rather than cast out.

  And he’d let them believe it.

  But what else could he do? If he’d chosen to reveal his deception, surely they wouldn’t have brought him with them to Devil’s Walk. And from Ortensi’s letter, it sounded as though the ghost had already inflicted some sort of injury. Not to mention Emberey’s suggestion it might have killed, or at least harmed, the missing surveyor. If something went wrong, if Vincent were hurt and Henry not there to help…he couldn’t bear the thought.

  The train began to slow, and within a few minutes rattled to a halt. The view out the window looked less than promising, the depot nothing more than a tiny platform exposed to the elements. A few lights burned beyond, but for the most part there was only the night-shrouded countryside.

  Henry nudged Jo. “Time to wake up, sleepyhead.”

  She rubbed her eyes and sat upright. “Umph. Are we there?”

  “Yes. And you drooled on my shoulder.”

  “I did not!” She swatted him on the arm.

  “Welcome to Devil’s Walk, ladies and gentlemen,” Emberey said, rising to his feet from where he sat beside Lizzie.

  “It’s very…rustic,” Vincent said as they stepped onto the platform.

  “That’s one word for it,” Lizzie muttered.

  Henry eyed the muddy track, where a coach awaited them. Beyond lay a cluster of buildings, which appeared to be a mix of houses and shops. “I expect it will grow once the steel mill is built,” he said.

  Emberey overheard. “We’ve already made some improvements to the town. Some of the locals had reservations about the steel mill, including one or two influential families. We needed to demo
nstrate the progress we’d bring. Devil’s Walk now has not only a clock tower, but a moon tower atop it.”

  Vincent regarded the dark town. “I would have expected it to put out a bit more light,” he drawled.

  Emberey scowled, perhaps thinking him impertinent. “The house I rent fronts the square where the tower is, and the cursed thing kept me up half the night. When something went wrong with the arc lamp, I ordered it left alone. We’d already begun construction on the mill, so why waste the coal keeping the thing running when it had accomplished its purpose?”

  “Oh,” Jo said, obviously disappointed.

  Henry turned away to watch the porters unload their baggage. He hadn’t known precisely what to bring, and thus packed as many of his devices as seemed practical. Anything might turn out to be useful. Perhaps something of his might even prove decisive in removing the ghost. If it did, might it mitigate Vincent’s anger when he finally learned of Henry’s deception? Might this venture offer Henry the chance to redeem himself?

  “Hurry it, boys!” one of the porters shouted to his fellows. “The sun’s down—the ghost could be anywhere!”

  “Please, be careful!” Henry exclaimed as they began shoving crates hastily onto the platform. “Some of my equipment is quite delicate!”

  “Any breakage will come out of your pay,” Emberey shouted with a glare at the porters. The men gave him a few dark looks, and there was some grumbling, but they handled the rest of the baggage much more carefully.

  When the last bags were loaded, they climbed into the coach and started through the town. Most of the buildings appeared to be post-colonial in construction, but whatever prosperity led to the town’s founding, it had passed the area by long ago. Other than the train depot and the clock tower, Henry didn’t see any buildings less than fifty years old.

  The clock chimed as they rattled past. The brick tower itself was of respectable height, topped by metal scaffolding forming a second tower to support the darkened arc lamp.

  “That’s quite an erection,” Vincent remarked blandly.

  “We’re very proud of it,” Emberey agreed.

  “I imagine you are,” Vincent said. Henry bit his lip to keep from snickering.

  Jo leaned past Henry to peer out the window. “I wish we could have seen the moon tower in operation,” she remarked wistfully.

  Lizzie picked at a loose thread on her gloves. “Surely they have arc lights in Philadelphia.”

  “Yes, but nothing quite so tall. They’re meant to light smaller spaces, not an entire town.”

  The streets were deserted, save for a last pedestrian who all but ran to his door and slammed it behind him. Despite the heat, shutters covered most of the windows, as if to keep out whatever might prowl the night.

  “These people are frightened,” Lizzie observed.

  “Very,” Vincent agreed. He adjusted his tie, but Henry recognized the gesture as a surreptitious way of checking that the silver amulet still hung about his neck.

  If Henry meant to impress his partners, he should try to put a good face on things. “Lucky we came,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.

  Vincent’s mouth curved, as if he suppressed a laugh.

  “It had better be,” Emberey said. “Mr. Carlisle is paying a great deal of money to have you here. Hopefully you’ll be more effectual than the Great Ortensi has been thus far.”

  Vincent’s smile slipped away into a frown. Lizzie’s hands tightened slightly where they rested in her skirts, but her hat hid her expression.

  The carriage rattled to a halt in front of the hotel, which appeared to be the newest structure visible since the clock tower. The door swung open, and a carpet of golden light poured out. Henry climbed from the carriage, followed by Vincent and Emberey. Vincent paused to help the ladies, and porters swarmed from the hotel to take their baggage. Hoping to keep out of the way of the bustle, Henry stepped away from the crowd.

  Someone seized his shoulders, wrenching him backward. A moment later, his spine collided with the hotel’s clapboard siding. Rough hands pinned him in place. Breath laden with alcohol blew into his face.

  Henry froze, heart pounding madly. Was he about to be robbed? The corner of the hotel blocked the carriage lights. He could make out only the edge of an unshaven jaw, an uncombed rat’s nest of hair, and the gleam of angry eyes.

  “You,” the man growled into his face. “Are you one of the mediums?”

  “N-No,” Henry gasped truthfully. “But I came with them—”

  “Then I’ll give you a warning.” The man shook him, hard enough Henry’s teeth clacked together. “If you value your life, go back where you came from. There’s evil here, and the witch is coming for those men who’ve lost their souls to the devil already. If you try and protect them, there’ll be no mercy on you.”

  “I—I—” Henry stammered.

  “Get away from him!” Vincent shouted.

  Henry’s assailant let out a startled grunt and released Henry. Teeth bared and nostrils flared, Vincent hauled the man back. The ruffian tried to shove Vincent away, but Vincent refused to let go, clutching the man’s coat with one hand.

  The other he swung straight into his opponent’s face.

  The man let out a cry of either fury or pain. He struck at Vincent, but Vincent moved too fast, weaving out of the way like a snake.

  “Enough!” Emberey roared. Striding past Vincent, he grabbed the stranger and shoved him back. “Crawl back into the bottle, Fitzwilliam, or I’ll have the sheriff down to deal with you.”

  “This is God’s judgment!” Fitzwilliam wiped at his split lip, and his cuff came away stained in blood. “You’re all murderers!”

  Fury hardened Emberey’s features. “I’ve given you far too much license, out of pity for your loss. But this will cease immediately, or you’ll spend the next month staring at the bars of a jail cell.”

  Fitzwilliam spat at Emberey’s feet. Taking a step back, he met Henry’s gaze. “Remember what I said,” he growled. “This is the Lord’s judgment. Leave Devil’s Walk if you don’t want His wrath to fall on you as well.”

  ~ * ~

  “Are you all right, Henry?” Vincent couldn’t resist taking a step toward his lover, although he managed to restrain his desire to touch Henry’s face. “Did that brute hurt you?”

  He’d helped Lizzie and Jo from the coach, turned to say something to Henry, and realized Henry had vanished. For a moment, he’d thought Henry already inside the hotel. Then he’d caught a glimpse of a man standing just around the corner. He’d stepped closer and seen a stranger, pinning Henry to the wall, and…

  And the next few moments were a blur of white-hot rage, until Emberey stepped in.

  Henry adjusted his spectacles. “I’m fine,” he said, although his voice shook slightly. “Thanks to you.” A small smile touched his mouth, and his eyes warmed. “That was…impressive.”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve had the occasion to use my fists,” Vincent admitted. His knuckles stung. He flexed his fingers to make certain they all still worked.

  “Henry!” Jo ran up and grabbed Henry’s arm.

  “I’m fine, Jo,” he said, patting her shoulder. “But what on earth was—Fitzwilliam, I think you said, Mr. Emberey?—on about?”

  Emberey’s eyes narrowed as he watched the shadows where Fitzwilliam vanished. “An agitator who believes we should halt the march of progress,” he said disgustedly.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Henry said as they started back to the hotel entrance.

  “Constructing a steel mill is a difficult undertaking, Mr. Strauss.” Emberey paused to knock the mud from his shoes, before stepping inside. “In such an endeavor, accidents are inevitable. Part of a wall collapsed, and three men lost their lives. Mr. Fitzwilliam’s son was one of them.”

  “How awful,” Lizzie murmured as they stepped inside.

  “Don’t waste your sympathy,” Emberey said. “If he isn’t in a drunken stupor, he’s shouting th
e witch is bringing God’s judgment down on our heads.”

  “Quite the theological knot,” Vincent said. “But what is this about a witch?”

  “The ghost is supposed to be some sort of witch woman.” Emberey waved an impatient hand. “Peterson! Is Mr. Ortensi here?”

  “He’s waiting in the private parlor, sir,” said a man Vincent took to be the hotelkeeper.

  “Good, good. Take my guests to him.” Emberey inclined his head to them. “As for me, I must return to work. I’m certain a great many things needing my attention have piled up in my absence. Mr. Ortensi knows how to contact me, should you need anything further.”

  He departed. Peterson inclined his head to them. “The porters have taken your things to your rooms,” he said. “If you’ll follow me.”

  A slight air of shabbiness clung to the hotel interior, the curtains faded from sunlight and the carpets a bit threadbare, but an improvement over most of the apartments Vincent had rented. Certainly it was much better than the overcrowded tenements he’d lived in as a child in the Bowery.

  Peterson led the way past a small saloon, currently deserted. The fear that had descended over Devil’s Walk seemed to be keeping even the most dedicated drinkers home. Beyond lay the private parlor. A fireplace, currently cold, dominated one wall. A great pair of antlers hung above the mantel. Taxidermy owls and wild cats stared down from the walls with glass eyes. A table had been laid for dining. At its head sat Sylvester.

  Chapter 5

  The years had added gray to Sylvester’s temples, lines about his eyes, and a slight paunch to his figure. But the same smile still greeted them, the same voice exclaimed, “Vincent! Elizabeth!”

  He held open his arms. Vincent embraced him, closing his eyes tight against the unexpected burn of tears. “It’s g-good to see you,” he said.

  Sylvester hugged him. He smelled of hair tonic and something spicy, probably cologne from some exotic port. “I’m so sorry about James,” he whispered, and for a moment Vincent thought his resolve would crack, and he’d embarrass himself by crying on Sylvester’s shoulder.