The Eterna Files (19 page)

Andre Dupris woke with a start to find his dead twin brother at the foot of his narrow cot. Andre's vision blurred and he felt dizzy; the riverboat was swaying at one pace and Louis's transparent, gray form, floating three feet above the floor, was moving at quite another.

“Go away,” Andre mumbled.

“I'm sorry my death is so
inconvenient
for you,” Louis said in the same tone he'd always used to chide Andre when he'd overslept after a night of carousing. Maybe the boat wasn't swaying after all—Andre had consumed quite a bit of whiskey the night before.

“I want you to be at peace, brother,” Andre mumbled. “We're working toward that. We put your sweetheart on the trail. She'll know something about what happened to you, at least.”

“Yes, she's very clever. And she's the only one I trust. But what if whatever was in that place, whatever killed me and my colleagues, goes after her?”

“I don't think the compound has that sort of effect, brother—”

“I don't think the compound alone did it. Something intervened. We should never have humored Malachi and moved operations. It made everything unstable. I can't wrap my brain around it. Here I thought Smith, constantly setting his vials aflame, would be the death of us.”

Andre snorted despite himself. “I did, too.”

“I was hoping great mysteries could be solved in the afterlife.” Louis sighed, disappointed. “Maybe in some other place, but not here in this great between. I'm no closer to understanding what happened to me, to our bodies, to that space.…”

“The ‘magic' you and your fellows cooked up is not the key to the universe after all, Louis.” Andre sighed. “All I know is that
home
is what's ahead. Where I shall endeavor to fix some of your mess.”

“And what about
yours
? Spying for England? If Clara is in danger because of you—”

“Information is all England wants, not your lover,” Andre exclaimed, putting a hand to his throbbing head. “What country would let a cure for death go by without interest? Besides, I was trying to extricate myself. I haven't given them any information since the incident. They don't know what happened, or even where, only that I have not reported. When Malachi started acting strangely, I hid your files and all your notes at Smith's old lab.”

Louis sighed. “Returning the sacred item I stole from the priestess won't appease her. She'll not easily forgive it, she won't understand. She'll think you're me!”

“Then advise me.” Andre shook his head. “You're not helping set yourself to rest. It's like you want to be here.”

“I'm
meant
to be here, there's a difference. To save my soul … and Clara.”

“She got you into this mess to begin with!” Andre spat. “Her
Eterna
is the reason you're dead—”

Louis shook his transparent head. “That isn't true, though I'm sure she blames herself—”

“Go haunt
her,
then,” Andre begged.

“I've tried to haunt her!” the ghost cried. “I
can't.
I've gotten near enough to try to talk to her, to touch her, to make her see me, but nothing worked. I tried to leave a message but hadn't the strength to complete it.” He floated to and fro, making Andre more seasick. “She's too intense a being. And from spirits, she has to shield, because of her condition. I helped her learn how to do so! And now it's impossible to get noticed. There are so many other energies around her, I can't get through.”

“You and your
energies.
Even in death—”

“Energy, life force, it's all the more present after death. That's all that's left of me, a trace of human life left in pulses, vibrations, an electrical spark; I am a mere whisper she cannot hear, talented and sensitive as she is. There's too much noise around her. So many spirits want to touch her—”

“That pretty, is she?” Andre asked with a leer.

Louis bobbed in the air, scowling. “You know, Andre, that you're being watched.”

“Yes. A British man has been following me since New York.”

“What did you do to involve the British, Andre? In trouble
again
?”

Andre threw up his hands. “Even dead, you sound like Mother—”

“Would you like me to go fetch her?” Louis seethed.

“For the love of God, please don't fetch Mother,” Andre growled, tossing back the sheet and pulling on the clothes he'd left lying in a messy pool beside the uncomfortable cot. “I made powerful people in London angry and one of them happens to have an interest in Eterna. It was leverage. I'm a coward, yes. But now I don't want anyone to have anything to do with it. If I could show them how you died—” Andre's voice cracked as sorrow struck. “No one would dare…”

Because Louis's ghost was ever-present, Andre hadn't begun to truly grieve. Though Andre had to consider the fact that the horrors he'd seen might have simply cracked his mind open like an egg and that he wasn't speaking to anyone other than his own inner demons.

“Dancing with the devil,” Andre muttered as he buttoned his trousers. Louis's stolen ceremonial dagger was hidden inside, in a scabbard lashed to his belt. He tied the neck of his shirt, threw on a vest, and knotted a loose ascot. “The devil was at work in that house and I don't even believe in God or any of your saints.

“I'm going above. Where I can't be seen talking to you.” He stormed out and onto the foredeck, still working on the buttons of his vest and trousers.

Of course, the Brit was there, lying back upon a deck chair. Though dark glasses concealed the man's eyes, Andre could feel the watcher's gaze as he crossed to the rail and looked out over the river. Home. He just wanted to go home.

As he imagined once again stalking the familiar lanes and favorite watering holes of New Orleans, a woman materialized beside him as if from thin air. She murmured; “You make a terrible spy.”

With a start, he turned to stare at her. Beneath a straw bonnet that curved around her face, held in place by a wide ribbon, her light skin bore a dusting of brown freckles; she had slightly rounded nostrils and tight brown curls. Her blue calico dress with lace detailing was perfect for the weather and nicely made. She was lovely, too, he noticed, and gave the appearance of being upper middle class—not the wealthiest on board, not the poorest. A good way to fit in and go unnoticed.

“You're right. I make a terrible spy,” Andre said mordantly. “I never wanted to be one.”

“That British gent has had you uncomfortable since New York,” she said. “Why?”

He eyed her. “Why should I tell you? Are you a spy?”

She smiled, revealing dimples in both cheeks. “I know for certain that
he
is,” she said, gesturing toward the current bane of Andre's existence. “And that he's tracking you. I boarded at your last stop upriver because I'm tracking him, wondering what a British agent is up to on a leisurely, southbound riverboat cruise. So if he's interested in you, then so am I.”

“I'm flattered.”

“That accent of yours.” She spoke with a charming air. “You're trying to put Northern on it, but you're Southern.” She leaned closer. “Louisiana, if I'm good, and I'm very good.”

Andre raised a brow. “How'd you get so good?”

“You want the truth or a lie?” She smiled disarmingly again. “Usually no one gets a choice, but I'm in a particularly gamesome mood.”

Andre smiled despite himself, allowing a bit more drawl to seep into his voice, now that he was found out. “The truth, of course.”

“The basement of my home was a stop on a certain railroad to freedom,” she began, her voice suddenly haunted. “So I heard every dialect the South had to offer. I grew up scared of everyone and everything. But I hardened, as we have to, and I am not scared of you.”

They stared at each other, deeply. “You could pass for white, you know,” Andre murmured, giving weight to his words.

“I do,” she replied, with the same hushed heaviness. “So could you.”

“I do, outside of home. French heritage lends advantage,” he said sharply.

“So here we are. A woman and her target, with grandparents of a darker color who somehow drop off the face of the Earth … and we go on without them, towards
better pastures
.” Her words were evenly clipped.

“Something like that, I suppose. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.”

“You're the one who needs to worry about your status,” she retorted. “Not me.”

Andre looked her up and down, nodding as she leaned more suggestively toward him, implying with her posture that their conversation was about something else entirely. He felt his muscles stiffen as tension swept through his body. “Are you here to arrest me or something?” he asked. “Do they have lady cops now in New York? I know the big city is full of surprises.…”

“I could have you arrested,” the woman murmured, “but I'd rather you tell me
why
that man finds you interesting.”

“I imagine that's fairly classified.”

“Listen,” she continued, “at some point that man is going to try to force you off this ship. Where he'd take you then, God only knows.” She paused and touched him lightly, keeping up the masquerade. “Where
are
you attempting to go, though?”

“Home,” he said, enraptured by this intrigue, despite his brother's chill whisper in his ear.

“Don't tell her about Eterna. I don't know if we can trust her.” Andre tried not to look in the specter's direction. The woman shuddered as the air around them dropped in temperature drastically. “But I like her far better than the Brit,” Louis added.

Home. Who was he kidding? Andre and his albatross of a ghostly brother … Some New Orleaneans wanted both of them dead, though for very different reasons. The fact that Louis was already dead wouldn't stop them from trying to exact revenge.

The woman continued. “Come under our protection.” She glanced briefly at her target before her gaze flickered toward the shore and her voice became even softer. “If we get separated, and it's a very good idea that we do, remember Sixty-one Pearl Street. Manhattan. Third floor.”

Andre stared at her, trying not to reveal that he knew that address already. Louis, surprisingly, said nothing, indeed, he seemed to have floated off. Ghosts were maddeningly unreliable.

The woman searched Andre's face. “Do you understand?” He nodded. She bowed her bonneted head. Nimble fingers slipped something into his pocket. His hand dipped in once hers withdrew: money. “To get you on your way,” she murmured. “My job with you is done.” She swept off in a bounce of calico and lace.

Andre thought of his belongings in his cabin—nothing he couldn't replace. On his person was money and the dagger. He looked after the woman, then swept his gaze around the deck. The British watcher had not moved, yet somehow seemed closer and more dangerous. Andre considered the speed of the boat. Studied the distant shoreline.

A chill breeze swept past him as Louis, brilliantly, gave him a gift; managing, with whatever strength a ghost could muster, to tip a passing tray of champagne onto the spy's lap.

Andre dove overboard.

*   *   *

Clara stared at the building on the middle of West Tenth Street. A home, once. Then, a lab. Now?

It looked sick. The shuttered windows seemed to seep, a dark substance oozing around their frames, discoloring the bricks, as if the eyes of the house wept dark kohl down its face.

The sight of the place made all the tiny hairs on Clara's body stand straight up.

She would not have much time at all, if this was how she felt
outside.
She catalogued her symptoms, what might come next, and considered a timeline.

Considering the magnitude of the oppressive energy the building exuded, a sense that had only increased since the first visit, she gave herself three minutes. Not a lot of time to find whatever she had missed before.

She descended the ground-floor stairwell and turned the key in the lock.

Three minutes.

Nearly immediately, the first symptom: the dim light of the entrance hall shifted and her vision swam, the corridor lengthening, then regaining perspective.

The out-of-place thing was on the second floor. She tore up the stairs. Something about the carpet. The corner.

She ran to the room's north wall and opened the shutters, despite the choking dust flying about, choking her.

Streaming sunlight barely enticed color from the worn, sad, floral-patterned carpets that covered nearly every inch of the wooden floor. If this had been Goldberg's house, before the team moved in, why was it so terribly bare? Did he know he was going to die?

Her breath was shorter than it should be, as if a hand was pressing directly on her lungs. Two minutes.

The flap of carpet she'd noticed on her first quick perusal was still upturned, something carved on the wooden board below. She knelt and found herself looking at a picture of an eye.

She lifted the carpet.

And stifled a cry of shock.

There was writing on every inch of the floor, screaming, apocalyptic text. She lifted another carpet.

More.

The words were etched into wood and filled in with either a dark, coppery-scented substance or thick black ooze. Blood and tar.

Countless quotes from the Book of Revelations screamed up from the floor in a shaking knife's hand, writ beside damning words from other faiths. Some words were written backward; there were phrases in Hebrew, in what looked like Arabic and probably in other ancient tongues, even pictograms in iterations of blood and tar. What she understood damned the faithful of every past age, the present, and times to come, lifting up demons as the only sources of power worthy of worship.