Dangerous Spirits (4 page)

Yours most truly,

Sylvester

Lizzie’s green eyes met Vincent’s, and he read in them the
same thoughts that echoed through his skull. Sylvester and Dunne apprenticed
together, under the same master. That bond meant something. Sylvester cared
about them. He’d brought back presents from all over the world, stayed up late
telling them tales from far off lands, and faithfully mailed postcards when he
couldn’t visit.

The visits and postcards waned over the last few years,
which seemed only natural. Vincent and Lizzie were no longer apprentices, but
full mediums, their childhoods left behind. Sylvester, who never took an
apprentice of his own, had a busy life, filled with appearances before the
crowned heads of Europe. But some bonds couldn’t be broken with the mere
passage of time.

“I’ll send word to Mr. Emberey,” Lizzie said. “Vincent, check
the train schedules.”

“It seems the decision has been made,” Henry said.

“All else aside, Sylvester needs our help,” Vincent replied
with a shrug. “I’m sure you and Jo will do fine running the shop while we’re
gone. Obviously you can’t conduct séances, but at least you’ll be able to sell
books and incense.”

Henry paled sharply, his eyes widening as if Vincent had
slapped him. “Don’t be absurd. Jo and I will accompany you.”

Vincent’s heart leapt—foolishly, perhaps. Lizzie only
frowned. “Someone should remain and run the shop,” she replied. “Vincent and I
have an obligation. You don’t.”

This time Henry’s eyes narrowed behind their shields of
glass. “This ‘Great Ortensi,’ or however he styles himself, says the situation
is perilous. Do you truly think I’d let you,
either
of you, walk into
danger while I remained behind in safety?”

Vincent grinned. “That’s my Henry. Clever
and
brave.”

Henry flushed scarlet. Behind his back, Jo pantomimed having
a swooning fit. Vincent barely resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at
her.

“I don’t know about that,” Henry mumbled. He took off his
glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief, as if the gesture would
distract from his blush. “And…if you think…I mean, if you fear my inventions
will hinder rather than help…”

“Why on earth should we think such a thing?” Lizzie
demanded. “Dear heavens, you’re practically the next president of the Psychical
Society, after last night. If the three of us are agreed the shop can survive
being closed for a week or more, by all means, join us.”

It would be tight, money-wise. But it seemed this ghost had
Mr. Carlisle by the short hairs, and as his representative, Mr. Emberey as
well. Sylvester called the pay generous, so it would likely be more than they
could earn remaining here.

“Thank you, Henry,” Vincent said. A curious thrill ran
through him at the thought of introducing Henry to Sylvester. Like bringing
home a betrothed to meet the family.

Which was absurd. He had no claim on Henry, and certainly
not of that sort. Pushing the foolish thought out of his mind, he sat back and
met Lizzie’s eyes. “It’s decided. The four of us will go together to meet
whatever awaits us in Devil’s Walk.”

Vincent removed his coats and shirts from Henry’s wardrobe,
carefully folding them in his trunk. He’d finish packing at his apartment
tonight; in the morning, they’d catch the train to Devil’s Walk with Emberey.

And he’d see Sylvester again. For the first time since
Dunne’s death.

“Vincent?” Henry asked quietly from the doorway.

Vincent turned. Henry’s face wore an uncertain look, his
brow furrowed beneath the lock of honey colored hair, which tumbled free across
his forehead. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course it is.” Vincent gave him a quick smile. “Unless
you count the fact I won’t be able to take all my clothes with me. Tragic.”

Henry rolled his eyes and came further into the room. “Truly
how you will suffer.” His expression softened. “You just seem…melancholy.”

A flippant answer came to Vincent’s tongue. He would have
voiced it to anyone else without second thought and hidden the truth down deep,
where no one else could see. But he’d never been able to hold Henry at arm’s
length the way he had his other lovers. “I’m worried.”

“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 demonstrate 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.”