The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul)

by Hieber, Leanna

  I nearly physically recoiled at the sight of him. Somehow my dreams had foretold enough about the man that even though the description hadn’t been clear, my gut knew exactly who it was. The predatory nature about him, his stance, his eyes, the way he seemed to sniff more than breathe, all of it had the air of animal more than human that spoke of a possessed body. His behavior wasn’t overtly so, otherwise no one would entertain his presence, but it was subtle enough for me to feel and see that something was a bit off. But obviously the man was targeting those with little to lose, easy prey, who tended to overlook such things as eyes that shined a bit too oddly and movement that was a little too much like a puppet.

  He was holding court, it seemed, looming over a table of bleary-eyed young fellows who were considering the man’s words, one with skepticism, another with hope, one with desperation, and one who seemed a bit too intoxicated to focus. I wondered if somehow I could distract them, break the spell this man seemed to be casting over them like a pall. But then directing the man’s focus onto me seemed like a bad idea, considering the dream. I knew I was staring at all of them a bit too intently, rudely, but hopefully from the shadows I kept to, no one would notice.

  And then I felt arms slide around me from behind, and just as I jumped, about to cry out, I heard a familiar, delectable British accent purr my name. The whisper in my ear stilled me immediately.

  “Shh... Natalie. I know it’s you,” came Jonathon’s murmur and the action of his arms and the murmur of my name made me weak in the knees. “The trouble with disguises,” he continued with a bemused chuckle in my ear, “is that, when it comes to me...I can always see your light. You can’t hide the vibrant color of your soul. Not from me.”

  I drank in his words. We’d had such awkwardness, such distance, I was afraid the kind of dreamlike words and intense passion our relationship had been built upon had been banished to the world of his painted prison, I feared our poetry was lost in the “real” world. It would seem he still had fine words for me. Perhaps it took a bit of unexpected espionage for them to return. Thankfully we had magic to bring us home. He could see the colors of my aura, the clue that had allowed his soul the agency to communicate with me even in his prison. And it would seem I was illuminated by magic still...

  “I love it when you find me, Jonathon,” I whispered back to him. “And I always want you to…”

  He kissed my temple, breath hot against my ear as he murmured: “You ridiculous thing, you, what on earth are you doing here?” My body thrilled from head to toe. I relaxed in his hold and leaned against him.

  It was good that we were wholly in the shadows, considering how I was dressed. The bohemian freedom championed by such circles as Nathaniel Veil’s Association had no precedent here, and so two men embracing in this sort of intimate manner was simply not allowed in society at large.

  Maybe someday it would be. For my part I didn’t see anything wrong; love was love, a soul was a soul, I’d learned firsthand that the spirit defines the person, not the body it was in. But society, I knew well enough from the disability that still cast its occasional silent shadow over my life, didn’t like things to be anything but “normal,” expected, traditional, unquestioned. But considering paranormal had become my normality, all things had to adjust accordingly. I could only consider my own spiritual, psychological, and physical well-being and say my own prayers, knowing I’d gotten this far by a faith that was larger than the time and the constraints in which I lived. I couldn’t count on society to know how to adapt alongside me.

  “How did you know to come here, Jonathon?” I murmured, turning my face to graze my nose against his fine cheekbone, warmed also by the fact that he wanted to touch and be close to me no matter the clothes I was in, a reassurance that reached across myriad boundaries.

  “I asked you first,” he countered.

  “A dream. Foretold,” I answered. “You?”

  “I followed him.” Jonathon indicated the man in question, who was ordering a round of drinks for his captive audience. “From one of Brinkman’s addresses. He was coming around from the back of the building. I saw a sparkle of the red and gold of the demons’ light bounce about him, the color flashing out of the corner of my eye. No other addresses seemed to wield anything of particular interest or note. I’d watched each for many hours. I didn’t really think, I just came this way.”

  “Same, once I put the pieces of the dream together enough to evince the clues as leading to this location, I donned this disguise and made my move.”

  “Is this what you wore the last time you went someplace a lady shouldn’t go on her own?”

  I nodded. Jonathon held back a laugh. Whether I was or wasn’t convincing, he didn’t say, and I didn’t get the chance to ask before the man we were watching pulled a few glass vials out from his long, pale coat pocket and put them on the table, where the youthful audience stared at them with a mixture of hunger and apprehension. Jonathon seized my tall glass of stout and a second glass of ale that had been abandoned upon a nearby ledge. Gesturing for me to stay put, he then suddenly he stepped out from the shadows. I noticed he’d dressed down considerably, to mere shirtsleeves, suspenders, and trousers like a regular factory worker. A grubby cap with the brim pulled low concealed his fine black locks and a bit of soot was smudged over a chiseled cheekbone.

  It’s true that his more lordly appearance might have given him away, and in this case he didn’t seem to wish to play the demon to this Stevens fellow, just in case he was being sought as such. We both had come in covert costume, it would seem.

  Jonathon stumbled artfully forward, careful not to tip the glasses, until he jostled toward the table. He ran right into Stevens, first spilling the dark stout onto the man’s beige coat, then spilling the second glass over the glass vials, overturning them, sending a tiny puff of red powder near Jonathon’s face. He batted the particles away with a faux drunken movement. I wasn’t sure how potent or volatile the substance was, and I hoped there was no effect from his proximity to it.

  Disrupting the whole scene rather brilliantly, causing far greater hubbub and commotion around him, Jonathon fumbled over an apology—in an impressive New York–styled accent—before stumbling on to say he’d go get someone to help clean it all up. Stevens barked after him not to bother, the man’s dark and troubled eyes flashing, his drawn face scowling as the youths at the table blinked and reacted.

  Jonathon circled round the tavern, I lost sight of him in a cluster of bodies for a moment, and suddenly he returned to me in the shadows. Upon his return, he was sans cap and wearing a dark black jacket, blending into the shadows with me.

  “Where did you...” I gestured to the coat.

  “Hung upon a coat tree in the back of the bar,” he replied. “Brinkman wrote me a note with a few tips. Useful things, really.” Before I could ask further about fresh communication from the spy, Jonathon continued. “Watch for any changes or anything to do with those vials or the content. I’m going to speak to the management about someone coming and trying to make sales of products that were not sold by the tavern itself, something that might keep Stevens watched, and hopefully reported to the authorities.” He stalked off, and I watched the unfolding reactions at the table.

  The four youths seemed to have broken from a trance. They stared at Stevens and at the dripping mess before them alternately, their brows furrowing. Three of them stood to clean themselves off and walked away as if they weren’t exactly sure of themselves; one just turned from Stevens but remained sitting, using a kerchief to wipe down the surfaces directly around him, his shoulders hunched, either tired, drunk, miserable, or all three. Stevens clenched his jaw and turned to pace in the dim light of the tavern lanterns, thinking no one was watching.

  Just as the group dispersed and the moment was foiled, I noticed two young black-clad women in short black cloaks and hats with net veils peering in through the tavern window from the street beyond, arm in arm. They waved at one of the young men within, and his visa
ge brightened at the sight of them.

  My heart pulled, as all of them reminded me of the characters in my dream. In my dream, there had been screaming as young men were turning into monsters, transformed by insidious means, dehumanized to wretched experiments meant to keep the victims in fear. Here, there were only smiles. I wanted to cry out in triumph. We changed the fate of the night...

  Inside, Stevens turned, his sallow face hard and haunted. I wondered what drove that man. Was it as misguided as it had been with Doctor Preston, reanimating out of love? What made Stevens want to alter a person so? Or was he merely a possessed body, the actual original researcher having long ago been dispatched?

  He stole a glass from a ledge where a few smart-looking fellows were hotly debating politics and downed the beverage. His fist clenched and his arm raised, seeming ready to throw the glass before he then thought better of it as one of the staff approached him. I overheard the manager gruffly ask about whether he’d been trying to sell products in their establishment. Stevens was immediately contrite and ordered more alcohol. I wished in that moment this “doctor” of questionable repute would have picked a fight so that a local police officer would have been called to take him in. I thought about throwing something to seek escalation, but escaping a bar brawl wasn’t in my particular expertise.

  Confident the doctor wasn’t going anywhere as he sat back at the table now wholly abandoned, defeated, a glass of liquor in each hand, I took my eyes off the man and searched for Jonathon. Feeling so vindicated by Stevens’s failure to incite another incident, I turned to Jonathon upon his return to the shadows surrounding us and nearly threw my arms around him. Instead, I merely stood very closely, hoping to regain the scorching intimacy we’d had from the moments our souls had first met within the magic of a canvas...

  “Let’s not be strangers, Natalie,” he said, reassuring my foremost concern as if he’d read my mind.

  “Let’s not,” I replied eagerly. “I’ve been so worried, can feel you withdrawing—”

  “I’ve a lot on my mind,” he interrupted, his voice hard. “Dark things, Natalie. I don’t want to burden you—”

  “I want—need—to know everything. I want to bear the weight of that burden with you, just like when your spirit kept darkening that painting.”

  He sighed heavily. “Home is calling me, Natalie. I’m going to have to return to the estate at some point. I can’t avoid it any longer.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I declared.

  He just gave me a pained look.

  “I don’t want us to be apart,” I insisted. “I want us to be together and for everything to be perfect, never pressured, never looking over our shoulders, but just perfect.”

  He stared at me, and I could see the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “So you will accept me? If I were to ask...again?”

  My heart jumped at this, but it still had to be for the right reason. “If you ask for no other reason than for your own desire. Not because anyone forced you to. I’ve never wanted to say yes to anything more,” I whispered, achingly. He nodded, biting back a smile, seeming in part placated, in part still nervous. “Besides,” I added, “don’t you think the forces at work would like to see us split apart? We can’t give them that opportunity.”

  “True,” he agreed. “Tonight, I do think a crisis may have been averted.”

  We had intervened before further victims had been ensnared for Stevens’s experimental purposes, sowing seeds of chaos. I felt a proud surge flood my body. We were clever, resourceful, and gifted. We were more than the enemy would expect of us.

  As we left, for we could not stay out into the night indefinitely, we had to step from the shadows and into the brighter gas-lit entryway. I cast one look back over my shoulder. The man, Stevens, was staring at me. Right at me. Through me. His eyes flashed oddly, unnaturally.

  And suddenly I didn’t feel so clever anymore.

  Chapter Nine

  Jonathon and I shared a hired carriage back to our respective residences. I doubted he’d have to sneak back into Mrs. Northe’s in the way I’d have to sneak back home; men did not have to answer to their whereabouts. Lord Denbury was lord of his own domain, and that would never be questioned. A young woman was not afforded such freedom of destiny.

  But the particulars of freedom were lost to me the moment that Jonathon closed the cab door behind me, shutting us into the dark compartment. Somehow being truly alone together in full cover of night gave us permissions we hadn’t allowed ourselves of late. The intense situation we had just shared brought us back to each other, to the partnership and perils we had become so familiar with. With those perils also had come passion. He and I must have been of a mind, for the moment I reached for his hand, he took the opportunity…

  “Will you permit me a moment of not being entirely gentlemanly, Miss Stewart?” he asked in a hot murmur in my ear. “We’ve been trying to be so proper and behaved—”

  “You’re permitted,” I nearly gasped. He tore the cap from my head and entwined his fingers in my hair. Pulling me into his arms, he kissed me deeply, again and again, hands roving, until the carriage slowed its pace. East down the block stood my home, and I could not remain locked in his embrace indefinitely.

  With a reluctant groan, he released me to catch my breath. I was just as woeful to be let go. But the driver wouldn’t just sit there without question or further payment, and we did not dare to be suspect in our actions. Silent as I descended the carriage—I was afraid my voice would tell tales of me—I donned my cap once more, hoping no one was watching the front door of the divided townhouse, and that I could quietly ascend to our top floor rooms as undetected as I’d descended.

  I was in luck in returning to my bed unnoticed, though the eyes of Stevens still haunted me, as if I could see him hovering at my window like some creature in my beloved Gothic yarns. The sorts of tales that had once so titillated me left a far different taste in my mouth now that I was living what would only be believed as fiction.

  That night came a nightmare, as if the night’s victory was just a tease, as if I couldn’t possibly be afforded a sensual dream of Jonathon’s kisses alone, heaven forbid. Just as I was beginning to feel we were gaining ground as lovers and partners once more and winning against enemies in our waking hours, the dread fear and reality of his looming departure was writ large over my unconscious hours and the dread I could not entertain while awake had full reign while asleep.

  This time the dream was shared with Jonathon, as we used to when our souls met in the painting and our consciousness was linked in dreams, a life-saving particular his curse could never have predicted. I was so glad to see him in my mind’s eye, thrilled that he had returned to my resting self, but it seemed he didn’t see me down the hallway from his striking silhouette. He was preoccupied on something before him, far, far away down the endless corridor that was such a continuing construct of these dreams. Always a corridor, with different particulars. This time it was the long hall of a house. A fine house. Perhaps his...

  Something was calling him, voices, murmurs. From the empirical evidence of our horrors thus far, I knew that a swarm of murmurs in my mind meant that the dark magic of demons was amassing, building, coalescing, drawing him out and away from me...

  This was the darkness gripping hold of him as he’d intimated to me at the tavern, and I called out:

  “Jonathon, don’t follow shadows...”

  He looked over his shoulder, back at me. His bright eyes were at first pained, but then flashed oddly, like the demon’s once did. He turned back, away from me once more, and kept walking. Ahead of him was a familiar old room, his study, in Greenwich, England. The study he had been painted into, a painted prison we had both become all too familiar with. I couldn’t think he was walking back into it willingly... Forces would fight for him, yet, would he ever fully be free and could he ever regain his home? Could that place ever feel safe? What place could feel truly safe again when demons invaded with little care for do
ors or decorum, rejecting the sovereignty of soul? But thankfully, even though the devils wove their way into my dreams, so did the angels.

  Jonathon cried out far ahead of me, there was a burst of light, the door to his study splintered. He cried angrily and ran off into the darkness, pursuing something as all the gas lamps around me suddenly lowered their flame.

  They’re coming for you... A warning whisper in my mind.

  If the devils had anything to do with it, they would part us. Separate us and pick us off one by one because as a team, we were invincible. Or, at least, had been thus far, thanks in no small part to some divine intervention. In our separation would lie our downfall, I was sure of it. Why in the world had I turned down his proposal? It was just what the devils wanted. Maybe they were at work within us more than we knew.

  The nightmare meant that in the morning I rose at the time my father rose. He always did take to the morning better than I. Before I could face anything or anyone, I jotted down the details of the dream in my diary; purging the images was cathartic, and yet I still had to log details of the dream as potential clues.

  I’d been careful to take the time to be fond with Father, and with Bessie, our housekeeper who moved in after her Irish husband died building the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge. A friend of my mother’s from protestant civil liberties circles, Bessie had angered both her own family and her husband’s by the sheer fact she was black and he was not. She hadn’t had options, resources, or legal recompense when he died, and being a friend of the family, she filled a necessary void here, my widower father not knowing much what to do to keep the house when I’d been away at school learning Standard Sign.

  “I assume you’ll be going over to Mrs. Northe’s today?” he asked, when I knew the question really meant if I would be seeing Jonathon.