Ghostly Echoes

by William Ritter

  The words struck Cordelia Hoole with physical force. She buckled, but caught herself with one hand on the desk. She looked as though she might need to be sick.

  “What was Hoole working on?” demanded Jackaby. “What did your benefactors want him to build?”

  “Let me go and I’ll send you to ask him yourself,” Pavel snarled. I could see his muscles straining against Jenny’s will, but his invisible bonds held fast. He breathed heavily. “Better yet, why don’t you tell them, Miss Cavanaugh? You helped your busy little beau build it the first time. Tell them what you helped us create.”

  Jenny’s scowl deepened. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

  “So many things forgotten. The future, Miss Cavanaugh. Don’t you remember? Well, not your future, of course. Yours ended years ago. You’re just one of the forgotten things now, like the rest of us.”

  “Tell me what happened that night.”

  The pale man twisted abruptly and squawked in surprise and pain.

  “Miss Cavanaugh . . .” Jackaby said.

  “Tell me what happened the night I died.” Jenny’s voice was hollow. Pavel’s back was beginning to curve in an unnatural backward arc. The wind whipped and the windows rattled. A piece of plaster chipped off from the wall and spun across the room.

  “Jenny.” Jackaby’s voice was soft. “We have time. He does not.”

  Jenny’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and the cold eased up a few degrees. She nodded. “Make yourself comfortable, Pavel,” she said, although her captive looked anything but. He revolved slowly like a grotesque ornament from an invisible string. “You have about three hours to sunrise.”

  Pavel continued to evade our questions for the rest of the night, although he was far from silent. He goaded Jenny at every chance, but she refused to rise to any more lurid implications about her fiancé and the mysterious murderess.

  Eventually he turned his venom on Jackaby.

  “The last Seer was much more fun,” he said.

  I froze. There was no way this monster knew about Eleanor, I thought. I watched Jackaby’s face, but he did not give Pavel the satisfaction of a response.

  “The two of you were friends, weren’t you?” Pavel continued. “What a pair. I don’t remember seeing you the day they sent the legion. You weren’t there, were you? You should have seen her. There was none of this standing around for hours nonsense. She was a firecracker, that one. What was her name? Ellen? Ella? Eleanor. That’s it.”

  “Miss Rook,” Jackaby said with forced calm. “Does that window look smudged to you? It would be a shame to miss even the smallest bit of a beautiful sunrise.”

  “I cleaned them just last week, sir,” I said.

  The sky was already beginning to glow. Pavel strained against his invisible bonds. “Your little Eleanor wasn’t so fiery by the end,” he continued. “She broke. My benefactors saw to that.”

  Jackaby set his jaw and did not respond.

  “They had such high hopes for her. In the end she was just another disappointment.”

  Jackaby took measured breaths.

  He knew. Pavel knew. Jenny’s past and Jackaby’s—both of my dearest friends’ darkest hours were somehow tied to this awful man. I was reeling. He knew, and time was running out. The sky was ripening to a soft orange as the sun prepared to breach the horizon.

  “Eleanor spoke of a man with red eyes and a long, dark hallway,” Jackaby said at last. “What was it? Where was it?”

  Pavel chuckled. “Is that how she described it? A child’s mind is a beautiful, tender little thing, isn’t it?”

  The chair slammed backward onto the floor as Jackaby stood up. He stepped forward until he was inches away, face-to-face with the pale man. “Time’s up.”

  The sky was growing lighter by the second. Pavel was breathing heavily. An unhealthy slate gray was darkening his pallid complexion. “You want to know about Howard Carson? He’s dead!” Pavel grunted. “Carson is long dead.”

  Jackaby looked at Jenny, and then back to Pavel. “Howard Carson is dead? You’re certain?”

  “Yes, damn it! Howard Carson is dead!”

  “You’re running out of shadows, Pavel, and I don’t think Miss Cavanaugh is satisfied with that answer, do you?”

  “I did it myself!” he roared. “I ripped out his throat and I drained him. The bastard had it coming.” Sores were beginning to break his skin, and the room smelled of sulfur. “You should thank me!” His head lolled at a sickening angle toward Jenny. “He abandoned you to go trotting after that strumpet, and he never looked back. She cut you open the very next day while the disloyal rake stayed on with us.”

  Jackaby closed the curtain, and in the sudden darkness Pavel sagged like a broken marionette. Jenny flickered. “No. Y-You’re lying. That’s not what happened.” Her voice shook. She was upright, chin held high, but then in the same moment she was on the ground. Her contours flickered. Her elegant pearlescent dress was now torn and darkness was spreading across her chest. The anger had left her. She looked sad. She looked confused. She looked like she was dying and she did not know why.

  “The council doesn’t leave loose ends,” Pavel panted. “That’s all you ever were. A loose end.” Wheezing breaths became a ragged laugh.

  I felt the blood rising to my head. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to wipe that wretched half grin off his face. Suddenly the room was spinning. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but whose I could not say. The edges of my vision darkened and I leaned against the shelf, my fingers stumbling over the broken half-brick. I blinked.

  Wind whipped through the torn curtains in front of me and I found myself kneeling on the floor. There was glass everywhere. Where had it come from? I felt nauseous.

  “Abigail?” Jenny’s voice sounded muffled and distant.

  Hands shook my shoulders and I looked up into Jackaby’s cloud gray eyes. “Rook. Rook!”

  I whipped around. Cordelia Hoole was still crouched behind the desk. Finstern lay on the bench, but Pavel was gone.

  Panic shot through me. “What happened?” I managed to say.

  Jackaby’s expression was furious. “Hold still,” he said, staring into my eyes intensely. At length he stood and helped me into the chair. “She is herself again,” he said. “What do you remember, Miss Rook?”

  I tried to make sense of what was happening. “I don’t know! I just—he was talking about Jenny and I was furious, and then I felt dizzy and . . .” I took a deep breath. “Where is Pavel? What happened?”

  Jackaby and Jenny looked at each other. Their expressions were not reassuring. Jackaby stepped over to the window. Glass crunched under his shoes as he looked through the broken frame into the garden. “He’s gone,” he said.

  “What was that?” Jenny asked, looking at me nervously.

  “She shows signs of a phrenic mutuality. The aftereffects of possession.”

  I glanced at Jenny. “There are aftereffects?”

  “Of course there are aftereffects!” Jackaby pulled the curtain shut again over the shattered hole and crunched back across the room. “Two spirits are not meant to occupy the same mind. If you and I were to wear the same pair of trousers at once, what do you think would happen?”

  I swallowed. “They would stretch out all wrong?”

  “That’s an optimistic outcome. How do you feel?”

  “A little weak about the seams, now that you mention it.” I took a deep breath. “Jenny, we need to tell him.”

  Jenny nodded. “Tell me what?” Jackaby looked back and forth between us. “You wouldn’t. You didn’t. Of course you did. What were you thinking?!”

  “Oh, Abigail! I’m so sorry! I had no idea,” said Jenny.

  “We only tried it once,” I said. “Well, a couple of times, but not for very long. She was making such marvelous progress, sir!”

  “Have you felt any other dizzy spells? Blackouts?”

  “No, I—” I caught myself. “Well, yes, actually. Right before Finstern turned on his machine, and mayb
e once earlier, in the office.”

  “This is all my fault.” Jenny looked mortified.

  “And how did you feel, right before it came over you?”

  “I was angry,” I said. “He was laughing, and it just made me furious.”

  Jackaby considered. “You may be experiencing Jenny’s emotions alongside your own. If she entered your mind, then she may have left a part of herself behind. Argh! How could you be so foolish? Both of you! Spiritual possession is inexpressibly risky and unpredictable. This is absolutely unacceptable!”

  “It won’t happen again,” I said. “But I still don’t fully understand it. I had a dizzy spell—but that doesn’t explain how Pavel broke free.”

  Jenny answered gently. “Pavel didn’t, sweetheart.”

  I shook my head. “What? Me? I pushed him out?”

  “I don’t think push fully expresses it. You were”—Jackaby paused to choose his words carefully—“forceful.”

  I wracked my brain to recall my own actions, but all I came up with was a headache. I stood slowly and crossed to the window. The morning light stung my eyes as I brushed aside the drapes. The sun was beating down and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Glass and scraps of wood from the window frame littered the front lawn. A rough patch of grass had been singed in the middle of the debris, and in the dead center lay a broken red brick.

  “Is he dead?” I asked. It felt like the brick was in the pit of my stomach.

  “If he isn’t dead, he is in exceedingly poor shape,” Jackaby replied. “He’s not the one we need to worry about right now.”

  “I’ll worry just a little bit, if you don’t mind,” I said. “I don’t make a habit of making enemies out of creatures inclined to murder me horribly in my sleep.”

  “Pavel mentioned a council,” said Jackaby. “His benefactors. Now, there are countless factions within the otherworldly courts, but the Unseelie have never been well organized. Dangerous, yes, but historically unruly and wild as lightning. The collective races have never coexisted, which may be the only reason the human race has survived this long. Now they’re organizing. And what’s worse, they’re good at it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. A splinter of glass freed itself from the ruined frame and tinkled to the ground. The tiny clink resonated in the silence of the room.

  “I don’t know who this council is,” Jackaby said, “but they’re organized, they’re effective, and they’re powerful enough to make a self-serving monster like Pavel risk death before disloyalty. If you’re going to worry, Miss Rook, worry about them. They are architects of chaos, and now they have the creative genius of some of the most powerful scientific minds of our age engineering their evil. Whatever they’re building, it isn’t good.”

  “The future,” Jenny breathed.

  Jackaby turned to the broken window. “Not if we can help it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “They’re going to kill me.” Cordelia Hoole’s voice broke the tense silence. Her eyes were glassy.

  “They’re going to try,” confirmed Jackaby without emotion. “But if you—”

  “They killed you,” the widow said. She was staring at Jenny.

  Jenny nodded. “Yes, they did. A long time ago. And we’re going to find out who did it, and we’re going to stop her from ever doing it again.”

  Mrs. Hoole just stared blankly. “They’re going to kill me.”

  “That isn’t going to happen, Mrs. Hoole,” I said. “We’re here to protect you.”

  “Yes,” Jackaby confirmed. “You’re safe here. Well, not right here, obviously.” Glass crunched beneath his feet. “The cellar is the most secure chamber on the property, and given the circumstances, probably the best place to put you up for the evening. Or down for the morning, I suppose.”

  “We have a cellar?” I said.

  Jenny nodded. “It’s just a little root cellar. There’s a trapdoor in the back garden.”

  “You’re going to make me sleep in a cellar?” Mrs. Hoole asked shakily.

  “It is ideally suited to your needs,” said Jackaby. “My home is warded, but I would prefer to exercise special caution for you, given the circumstances. The forces pursuing you are not common criminals, as you’ve just witnessed firsthand. We face foes of an eldritch and unearthly ilk. The doors of my cellar are reinforced with iron plates, soldered with silver, and etched with apotropaic charms. The walls are coated in a lacquer derived from wolfsbane, sage, and Irish white heather, and there are several significant reliquaries buried not far beneath the surface to discourage tunneling. You will find that it is a stronghold unlike any other, madam, and quite possibly the only place in the world where I can guarantee your safety right now.” Jackaby swallowed the last of his tea in one gulp and gazed gloomily at the leaves in the bottom of his cup. “Also, there are pickles and jam down there,” he said absently. “You are welcome to the pickles and jam.”

  The cellar was slim with an arched ceiling that made it feel a bit like the inside of an empty barrel. The air was cold but dry, and it smelled not unpleasantly like earth and incense. In the light of a little oil lamp, I could see that the walls were inscribed from floor to ceiling with symbols ranging from simple runes to sprawling, elegant patterns. A few wooden shelves toward the back housed, as promised, jars of preserves and pickled vegetables.

  Jackaby assembled a simple cot and showed Mrs. Hoole how to secure the door from the inside. Three heavy bolts made of silver, iron, and stone could be thrown and released only from inside the room. I brought down fresh linens and a good heavy quilt, and she thanked me for my kindness. As I left, I heard the three bolts click firmly into place.

  “Do you really think she’ll be safe in there?” I asked as we reentered the house.

  “There is no safer chamber in all of New England. I have come a long way since collecting lucky herbs in a cigar box. Besides, I prefer keeping the lady close but not too close.”

  “You don’t like her?” I said.

  “I don’t like secrets.” He paused at the spiral staircase. “Get some rest, Miss Rook. You’ve had a long day and a longer night, and I need you sharp.”

  I managed a few fitful hours of sleep while the day was still young, but by late morning I found myself staring at the ceiling feeling more anxious and discontent with each passing minute. I had attacked Pavel. It felt wrong. It wasn’t just that I could not remember it—I could not fathom initiating such a violent assault, even against someone so loathsome.

  Hearing the faint murmur of voices downstairs, I abandoned my bed and dressed for the day. Owen Finstern was awake.

  “Magic, Detective?” I heard him say as I slid down the hallway.

  “Yes.” Jackaby’s voice. “I know you’re a man of science, but please keep an open mind. This is important.”

  I stepped into the room. Finstern was sitting up on the bench and Jackaby had pulled up the chair next to him. If Jenny was around, she had not made herself visible. The inventor glanced up as I entered. “Hello again, miss,” he said without a modicum of remorse, although not with any ill will, either. His eyes continued to dart about.

  “Good morning,” I said. “No, actually, rather awful morning. You tried to shoot me with some sort of energy thing!”

  “I did shoot you. You survived. Mr. Jackaby informs me you carried my machine out of the woods. Where is it now? Were you very careful?”

  “Did Mr. Jackaby also inform you that you’re a cad?”

  “He mentioned something along those lines, yes. Subjective. Hard to quantify. He also tells me that I am the target of paranormal kidnappers.” He still had a slight twitch just under one eye, which only added to his naturally manic look.

  “It’s true,” I said. “One of them came by and tried to bully us into turning you over while you were sleeping. I’m beginning to wish we had let him have you.”

  “I think perhaps you should have. I would be very interested to meet a council of magical creatures.”

  It was hard to t
ell if Finstern was mocking my employer or if he was speaking in earnest. He showed little emotion and seemed as unfazed by talk of fairies as he was unapologetic about attempted murder.

  “I noticed the markings on your device,” Jackaby said. “Alchemical symbols and arcane invocations. You’ve made a study of the occult?”

  Finstern nodded.

  “Curious hobby for a man of science, isn’t it?”

  “Mother used to tell me that my father was a magic man,” Finstern said, his eyes wandering around the cluttered artifacts on the shelves. “He knew my mother for only one night, but she spoke of him as if he were the sun and the moon. She also told me that when I was born I had a twin, a sister. The girl could walk before I could crawl, and swam like a fish while I cried in the shallow bathwater. Her hair changed colors in the moonlight, Mother said. Not a child in the world was as precious or perfect. I certainly was not. Sometimes I think I can almost remember my sister. We were only infants when my father came back.”

  Finstern fidgeted a splinter of wood off of the bench and flicked it away. “He came back for the girl child only. I was of no significance. Mother told me this. Often.” He twitched.

  “No one believed the stories about my father, of course. They said my mother was that sort of woman. Unwed. Unfit. They said such terrible things. Mother pressed me to prove them wrong. She needed me to be exceptional—she needed me to be powerful.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure to heap on a little boy,” Jackaby said.

  “Pressure. Perpendicular force per unit area. Quantifiable. Yes, it was a lot of pressure. Spending my life as a disappointment proved to be an instructional childhood, though. I learned a great deal about power, Detective. I learned a great deal about how to control it, about how to make it, and about how to take it.”

  He met my employer’s eye, and for the length of a slow breath he was eerily still. The moment passed and he went back to assessing the layout of the room around him with darting glances.

  “That’s your life’s work?” said Jackaby. “Your machine?”

  “Transvigoration.”

  “How does it work?”