Ghostly Echoes

by William Ritter

  “Yes! Yes, that is much more her sort of thing. She makes friends so easily.”

  “She has been establishing a network of social and political contacts,” Jackaby said. “A spider weaving her web.”

  “I beg your pardon—that’s my wife!” Spade said.

  “I understand the late Mrs. Beaumont was one of the most influential socialites in the city,” I said. “Mary didn’t, by any chance, meet with the late Mrs. Beaumont before the poor woman’s death, did she?”

  “How can you even suggest such a thing! Mary was with me that whole evening! She was devastated when she heard the news. She and Mrs. Beaumont had been so close! Mary even bought the woman a cute little kitty to keep her company after Mr. Beaumont passed away.”

  Jackaby and I exchanged glances. “Mrs. Wiggles,” I told him, “is the reason Mrs. Beaumont was killed. She wasn’t really a cat, mayor. She was a dangerous supernatural creature in disguise. One of her brood became the fifty-foot dragon that nearly wiped Gadston off the map. Mrs. Beaumont was silenced before we could trace the thing back to its source.”

  Spade huffed in frustration and disbelief. A maid slipped out of a door at the far end of the hall, closing it gently behind her. She was carrying a large empty pitcher. Steam issued out of the ceramic mouth as if it had been only recently emptied.

  “She’s in there!” I pointed. Jackaby was a dozen paces ahead of us already.

  “Absolutely not!” yelled Spade. “You will not barge in on my wife while she is—”

  And then Jackaby threw open the door.

  Mary Spade had wrapped a towel around herself and was just testing the steamy water with one hand as her husband, the butler, a completely baffled maid, a wanted fugitive, a mad detective, and I all came to a stop and peered in at her. Mary was a beautiful woman with gentle brown curls framing a face that belonged on the cover of a saccharine dime novel.

  “Philip dear?” she said, taking our entrance remarkably well. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s over, Morwen,” said Jackaby firmly. “He knows.”

  “He damn well does not know!” Spade spluttered. “This is madness! Shut that door!”

  “No,” said Jackaby. “That woman is not your wife, Mr. Spade. She’s not really a woman at all, and she’s not called Mary. She’s a creature called a nixie, and she’s been pulling your strings from the moment the two of you met.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s really not. She showed us her true face less than an hour ago, and even if you can’t see her as I see her, there can be no question as to her species. Miss Rook had the foresight to equip herself with a silver knife for our outing. Silver is notoriously effective against fairies of the Unseelie Court. The slightest touch burned her hand badly. We saw it happen.”

  “Burned?” Mary lifted both hands and turned them around so that everyone could see. Her skin was flawless. “How perfectly ridiculous. My hands are just fine. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Of course they’re fine; you’ve had them in the water. Like mermaids and selkies and water spirits of all sorts, nixies need only return to their element to become rejuvenated. Miss Rook also caught you a cut on your leg with the silver blade before you fled, though. It’s just a nick, but I see you have not had time to attend to that. Had we gotten here two minutes later, you would’ve had time to soak the injury away.”

  “This is absurd,” said Spade. “You’re talking nonsense! Now stop looking at my wife’s legs this . . .” he faltered, “. . . this instant.” Mary could not lower the towel to cover any more of her legs without sacrificing modesty, and an angry red cut was just visible beneath the edge of the cloth.

  “I have no idea what that man is talking about,” said Mary. She sounded so earnest and innocent—something deep inside of me almost wanted to believe her, but I had landed that cut myself. “Oh, Philip, what’s going on?”

  “How did you hurt your leg, Mary?”

  “It’s nothing, darling. I had an accident with the washbasin earlier. It just slipped and cracked while I was—and you were . . .” She trailed off.

  “Oh, to hell with it.” Mary Spade stood up straight and let go of the towel. It rippled, and before it could fall to the floor it became the same sleeveless blue-green dress the nixie had worn in the Annwyn, right down to the black blade hanging from her belt. Her eyes lost their perfect symmetry, her brown curls softened to a shimmering strawberry blonde, and her face became Morwen’s again. “Let’s just get this over with already.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The maid dropped the pitcher. It shattered on the floorboards behind us and Mayor Spade staggered back a step. “What have you done with my Mary?” he managed.

  “You ignorant little gnat.” Morwen rolled her eyes. “At least Poplin was sharp enough to just demand a bribe. There is no Mary. There’s only ever been me.”

  She lifted her knee and plunged her injured leg into the steamy bath. The water climbed her dress, holding itself together like beads of dew on a leaf, collecting and rising upward until it swirled in a coil around her waist. It was mesmerizing, like watching a liquid boa constrictor.

  She pulled the leg out again and spun gracefully. Before I knew what was happening, a tunnel of steaming water whipped through the air and slapped into my chest with all the force of a beam of lumber. My feet slid out from under me and I flew back. My head cracked against the hallway wall so hard it made my eyes hurt.

  I blinked my vision back in place in time to see Charlie lunge toward the door. Morwen spun in another elegant twirl and the snake of water hammered into him. He was pelted sideways into Bertram, and the two of them toppled to the floor. Jackaby reached for something in his coat, but Morwen did not give him the chance. He was lifted completely off his feet by another blast of living water, tumbling sidelong down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  The maid had long since fled, and the rest of us were still picking ourselves up off the ground—all but Spade, who straightened and held his chin up. The mayor looked alone, his eyes full of hurt and pain. “I trusted you,” he said quietly. “I loved you.”

  “That was the idea,” said Morwen flatly. “Don’t give me that insufferable look. We’ve just reached the ‘death do us part’ moment in our relationship, honey pie.”

  The temperature dropped abruptly. The steaming water that had soaked my shirtwaist suddenly felt like ice. Morwen spun again, channeling the water back up her body, and whipped her arm out toward Spade. He flinched, bracing himself for the blow, but it never came.

  “What . . . ?” Morwen’s voice shot up an octave and she shuddered. The water, which was coiled around her from shin to shoulder, had frozen solid.

  “Neat trick, I’ll give you that,” she said. “Is that you, Jenny?” Morwen flexed and shook until the ice cracked and broke apart, tumbling around her in heavy chunks. She slid one hand to her hip and pulled the long black blade from her belt as she scanned the room from side to side. “That’s adorable. I took your meaningless life and now you’re going to pay me back with what? The chills?”

  The air shimmered on the other side of the bathtub and Jenny appeared. “I couldn’t see it before,” Jenny said. “But I see it now. You’re afraid.”

  “Afraid of you?” Morwen laughed. “You were pathetic when you were an idiot girl. Now you’re just the shadow of an idiot girl. You’re nothing. I can see why your boyfriend was so eager to give you the slip. You really think he didn’t know it was me? He knew.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Jackaby grunted, and pushed himself to his feet.

  “It’s all right, Jackaby,” Jenny said evenly. “I can handle her.”

  “You think so?” Morwen scoffed. “Because I think you’re a damn ghost. You think I’m afraid of being haunted? Haunt me. I’m going to gut every last one of your friends in front of you while you haunt me. I’m going to start with the girl.” She jabbed her black blade at me to punctuate the threat. “And then I’m going to wo
rk my way up to lover boy over there, and you’re going to haunt me through the whole bloody slaughter, because that’s all you can do.”

  “Leave her alone!” Jackaby pulled a slender chain from his coat. It was a dull iron-gray and no thicker than the chain for a pocket watch. He wound it around his hand several times until it formed a band of links across his knuckles when he clenched his fist.

  “No,” said Jenny. “It’s my turn.” She did not flicker. She did not slip into an echo. Her voice was steady and calm.

  Morwen laughed. “That’s hilarious. What’re you going to do to me? Make the curtains wiggle?”

  “I can manage a little more than that.”

  The whole house shuddered.

  Morwen sneered. “If you think a little tremor is going to scare me, then you haven’t met my fa—”

  Morwen’s sentence was cut short as the bathtub flipped suddenly upward and launched itself with a deafening crash through the bathroom wall and into the adjacent room, taking the unready nixie along with it.

  I stared at Jenny. She drifted through the wreckage as calm as anything, not a hair out of place. “My brick. My house. My whole wide world.” She slid through the demolished wall. “My turn.”

  We hastened to follow, clambering over broken plaster and cracked beams. The bathtub had carved its path into Mayor Spade’s study. It now lay with its brass feet pointed at the ceiling, splintered enamel shards littering the deep red carpet. Morwen’s groans echoed from within.

  “I’ve always been strongest when I was being strong for other people,” Jenny said casually. “And that’s not a bad thing. I would have made a marvelous wife.” She gave the slightest wave of her hand. It was no more effort than she had devoted to swatting at a handkerchief when we had first begun practicing together, but now the bathtub flew off of Morwen like a piece of dollhouse furniture, smashing into Spade’s desk with a clamorous clatter of enamel pieces and splintered wood. “But somebody reminded me today that it’s okay to be strong for myself.”

  From the mantle above the desk, the portrait of Mrs. Spade smiled placidly down upon the chaos. The perfect, elegant face behind the frame could not have looked more unlike the manic, furious madwoman lying crumpled in the middle of the carpet. Her uneven eyes glared up at Jenny, her hair was splayed out like Medusa’s vipers, and her lips curled in a spiteful snarl.

  Morwen pushed herself to her knees, swayed, and nearly toppled back down again. She held fast to her wicked weapon with one hand and pushed a mess of red-blonde hair out of her face with the other.

  Jenny drifted slowly toward her.

  “I remember every detail of it, you insignificant cow,” Morwen panted, affecting a crooked grin that failed to convey the same confidence it had before. “You screamed. You cried and blubbered like a baby before you died.”

  “It won’t work,” said Jenny. “You can’t rile me anymore.”

  “No? You should have seen your handsome Howard Carson after our vamp got through with him,” Morwen went on. For all her venom, she looked as though she might pass out at any moment. The trip through the wall had left several gashes along her arms, and her eyes appeared to be having difficulty focusing. “You could barely recognize his butchered corpse in the end,” she hissed. “We pitched what was left into the fire like greasy table scraps.”

  Jenny did not rise to the bait. She only drifted slowly to a stop, looming over Morwen. Morwen gripped her dark dagger so tightly her knuckles whitened. She lashed out wildly at the specter, but the blade met nothing more substantial than moonlight. The effort cost the nixie her balance, and she collapsed again onto the carpet.

  “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” said Jenny calmly. “Not being able to make contact.” She reached down and easily plucked the blade out of Morwen’s grasp. She shifted the weapon from one hand to the other, regarding the dark metal curiously. The solidity of the thing sat at odds with her translucent fingers.

  Morwen pushed herself up with great difficulty, swaying to an unsteady slouch on one knee. The fight had left the nixie, but not her fury. Her dress was torn and she had plaster ground into her hair. Her voice was hollow. “Just get it over with.”

  “It is over,” said Jenny. She dropped the blade onto the carpet behind her with a soft thump.

  Morwen narrowed her eyes. “Don’t waste your pity on me, ghost,” she spat.

  “I won’t,” said Jenny. “Nor any fear nor fury. I’m done with you, Morwen. My friends, however . . . are not. Mr. Jackaby?”

  Jackaby stepped forward. He unwound the chain from his hand as he moved around toward Morwen.

  “Done with me?” Morwen spat. “You only exist because of me, ghost! You’re nothing but a ripple in my wake, you worthless trash. I made you!”

  “You didn’t make me,” Jenny said gently. “I made myself, and I will continue to make myself forever after. What you did to me? That made you. It made you a murderer and it made you a monster. They buried the girl you killed, Morwen. I’m the spirit you couldn’t kill. You have no power over me.”

  Jackaby was approaching with the chain held taut. Morwen snarled and tried to swipe it out of his grasp. Jackaby managed to keep hold of one end as the other spun and coiled around Morwen’s wrist. “This binding is made of Tibetan sky-iron,” he said as she tried to pull away. “Very pure. Very sacred. This may sting a little.”

  “What?” Morwen cried. “It burns! Get it off!”

  The more she struggled and fought, the tighter the chain wound. The links slipped together with a series of quiet clicks, forming a seamless band.

  Morwen gritted her teeth and snarled. Her gaze drilled into my employer, and her fingers were tensed like talons. She was shaking with anger. “Why won’t my hands work?” she demanded.

  “Because of the work you would put them to,” Jackaby replied. “You’re bound by my will until I give you leave to go.”

  He inspected the pouch at her side and found a single remaining hex-acorn within it. She growled as he relieved her of the trinket, but she could do nothing to stop him as he tucked it away into one of the myriad pockets of his coat. Behind him a piece of plaster the size of a dinner plate slipped from the demolished wall and landed atop the debris with a crash.

  Mayor Spade stood watching from the ruined bathroom, looking rather like the bathtub had flattened him instead of his wife. He opened his mouth and closed it. He stared at Morwen. The damage done to his home was slight compared to the ruins that had just been made of the poor man’s life.

  “Mr. Spade,” I said. “I’m so sorry you had to find out this way.”

  The mayor only hung his head. “I have been a terrible fool.”

  “Yes,” Jackaby said gently. “Yes, you have. Well then, I think we’re finished here. Sorry about the mess, Mayor. Let me know if you need a good contractor for that wall, I’m happy to call in a favor or two. Don’t trouble yourself, Bertram. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The mayor’s estate was not the only property to have suffered that day; Jackaby’s house at 926 Augur Lane looked as though it had barely survived a war. The damage around us felt raw and personal as we stepped back inside. I tried not to think about the fact that the worst of it was still nothing compared to the carnage that would ensue if the earth and Annwyn became one.

  Toby skittered into the foyer and wound several circles around Charlie’s legs. Even Douglas flapped up onto the bookshelf and bobbed happily from one foot to the other. We had a lot of work ahead of us, but ransacked or not, it was a relief to be home.

  “What are you going to do with her?” I asked. Jackaby still had Morwen bound with his chain of sky-iron. She had said nothing since we had left the mayor’s estate.

  “We’re going to ask her a few questions,” said Jackaby. “We’ll start with finding out where she stowed her brother’s machine and then move on to the rest of her family. It may take time. This chain prevents her from actively fighting against me, but it can’t compel
her to cooperate any more than that. For now, we will simply keep her out of trouble.” Morwen narrowed her eyes but said nothing. “The cellar is still the most secure chamber on the property. It was originally meant to keep undesirables out, of course, but it should serve just as well to keep this one in until we’re ready to deal with her.”

  “It was originally meant to store jam,” said Jenny, “but in light of our current state of affairs, I suppose it’s a good thing you renovated.”

  “Mr. Barker, would you be so kind as to see our guest secured soundly in the cellar?” Jackaby commended his prisoner into Charlie’s care, and Charlie led her off through the house and toward the back of the building. Before they turned the corner, Morwen shot one last acid glare at Jenny. Jenny did not return the woman’s venom, but simply watched them with a blank expression until they had stepped out of sight.

  “How do you feel?” Jackaby said.

  “Good.” Jenny considered the question earnestly. “I feel good. I thought I would hate her. I thought I would want to hurt her, but I don’t. Not really. It feels strangely liberating.”

  “Excellent,” Jackaby said. “That’s excellent.”

  “And then there’s Howard,” she continued. “After all these years of wondering—it’s strange to just know. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to, and now I know. Howard is dead.”

  “He died a hero.”

  “Of course he did.” Jenny smiled. “I only wish you could have known him. The two of you are more than a little alike.”

  “You’re handling all of this well.” Jackaby said. “I must admit I wasn’t certain you would be here to have this conversation. I was afraid . . .”

  “Afraid?”

  “Of losing . . . Afraid that you . . .” He took a deep breath and tried again. “There were some very big questions keeping you tethered to the land of the living, Miss Cavanaugh. I was afraid that finding answers—finding closure—might cut your ties to this world.”