Dangerous Spirits (15 page)

“Oh, but it does. He’s the one who suggested I find a
necromantic talisman—not to kill, merely to command. The feats I’d be
able to order the spirits to perform would astonish. My career would be saved,
and I’d have the opportunity to gather the last few pieces we needed.
Unfortunately, it’s taken almost two years for me to find a genuine talisman.”

“No.” Lizzie shook her head. “Dunne would never have agreed
to such a thing.”

“He should have told you, when you survived your apprenticeships.”
Sylvester arched his brow. “Or did you truly think you were the first?”

“We were,” Vincent said, but his lips went numb. “He took
Lizzie in. Then me. There was no one else.”

 “And I suppose you also believe he scooped you up out
of the gutter for no other reason outside the goodness of his heart?”
Sylvester’s look became pitying. “James did have a good heart—of course
he did. You saw it for yourselves. He donated to every charity, gave a coin to
every beggar. But the two of you were chosen. Special. Why do you believe he
brought you into his house, instead of taking you to the orphanage or handing
you a coin? Why else did he raise and train you, give everything of himself to
make you better mediums?”

Vincent swayed. It was all lies. Sylvester spun a wild story
in order to justify his own desire for fame. Nothing more.

“If James still lived, we’d all be together now,” Sylvester
said gently. “He would have done an infinitely better job of explaining things
than I have.”

“I imagine so, as you’ve explained nothing!” Lizzie chopped
the air violently with her hand. “What are these plans of yours? Why should we
go along with anything that includes necromancy?”

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.

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 out, 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?”