Spectris: Veritas Book Two

by Quinn Coleridge

  “What are you doing there, my dove?” he asks. “Need a bit more of the pipe?”

  That I have partaken of opium again still makes me sick at heart and knowing that it wasn’t my choice to do so infuriates me. The desire to punish Bloom overshadows his mesmerizing voice.

  I smile at him, doing my best impression of an intoxicated addict, which isn’t so difficult to pull off since I am both. As I smile, I call out to Tom telepathically.

  At the circus. Bloom kidnapped me.

  Emotion pours through our psychic connection: concern, relief, fury. Tom says he and Kelly are on the way. Both are excellent shots, good at fisticuffs. Their arrival does not bode well for the snake charmer.

  Hold on, love. Stay alive until we get there.

  Hurry. Louella’s injured and Bloom’s snake is here, too. I think we’re near his wagon, in a tent.

  Got it.

  Our connection breaks up, and I sink over on my right side, as though I’ve passed out. Bloom pinches my leg to see if I’m faking, but I resist the urge to yelp. He checks on Louella next and tugs on her ropes. Satisfied, the snake charmer strolls over to the tent door and walks outside. I pull up my skirt and reach for a throwing knife. Tarnation. It’s difficult to get the knife out of the sheath with my hands bound! Hurry, Hester. You haven’t got all the time in the world! Ah, it’s finally free. But the damn thing slips from my fingers and falls near my outer thigh.

  A ripple of awareness chills me. I lift my face and listen but only hear Louella and the snake within the tent. And then a magic being arrives. To add another MacBeth reference, by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

  Who goes there? I call out with telepathy. Tell me your name.

  Turning my ears up, I hear a loud, rude belch. It goes on for several seconds, and I grimace, glad when the expulsion is finally done. It’s Carver again. In a room of a hundred belching people, I’d pinpoint his specific sound right away.

  Carver? Show yourself. Where is my aunt? Tell her I’m in need of aid.

  He hunkers down at my side, gazing about the tent in fear. Don’t let them hurt me.

  The Carver I know never behaves like this. My Carver runs naked down High Street during a full moon or crows like a rooster when the mayor gives his annual address to the townspeople. Ridiculous, outlandish, and a bit delusional, but never terrified.

  Who can hurt you, Carver? You’re already dead. Now please get my aunt.

  Promise, Visionary.

  Fine. I promise. Whoever they are, I’ll protect you against them. But you’ve got to save me first.

  Carver responds by belching once more and disappearing.

  Wonderful. Thank you for that, Carver. Always a pleasure.

  Using my body weight, I pin down the knife handle, so the blade sticks out horizontally. The rope around my wrists feels rough and fraying, and I pull my wrists as far apart as I can and rub the rope against the blade. Sweat forms along my hairline. Surprising how much effort is required for this sort of thing. The ropes are just beginning to loosen when Bloom returns to the tent. I shift my skirt over the knife, a moment before he enters.

  Bloom strides in like a person with much evil to do.

  It sounds as though he rubbing his hands together. “All right, my lively ladies, what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”

  Bloom takes a few steps toward Louella and me. I’ve closed my eyes in hopes that he will think I’ve fainted. It’s painful to breathe quietly through my nose when my heart is pounding so fast. Merciful heavens, let him see an unconscious dwarf and an albino outcast who faints over the least amount of fear. Let him underestimate the small and different as most people do.

  Thankfully, it works! Bloom makes a sound of disgust with his throat and goes back to whatever awful activity he is undertaking for our demise.

  He must have left the tent before to get a tool of some kind, to pry the lock away from the lid on the snake’s container. A loud groan of metal, a curse from Bloom, and the lock comes undone. The dwarf still hasn’t awakened, and I nudge at her with my elbow. If I can keep Bloom and the snake busy, perhaps she can run away. My nudging accomplishes little, and Louella sleeps on undisturbed.

  The snake charmer grunts, as though he’s picking up something heavy, and turns toward Louella and me. Still thinking I’m asleep, he kicks the sole of my boot a few times. “Wake up, now. Wake up!”

  I flutter my eyelashes a few times and yawn.

  “Beautiful dreamer, I have a gift for you,” Bloom says. “Meet my Delilah. Unlike most females, I can always rely on her.”

  He drops something, and it hisses angrily. I jerk back. Delilah!

  Bloom kneels near my feet. “I keep some very valuable items in one of my wagons, my dear. Can you imagine my surprise when I saw that they had been disturbed earlier today? Who could have done it, I wonder? Do you know?”

  Shaking my head, I scoot farther back toward the canvas wall.

  Bloom makes a tsk-tsk sound. “Not even a guess?”

  “No idea,” I try to rasp.

  The snake charmer cannot hear me over the hissing. “Say again?”

  “I cannot guess.”

  He bursts out laughing. “What kind of speaking voice is that? You sound like old Delilah here.”

  The snake slithers forward, rests her head upon my hip. Bloom uses his persuasive voice on Delilah, and she slides up my ribs to my shoulder.

  “Do not move,” Bloom murmurs. “It will only make her upset. Delilah has a nasty disposition.”

  I consider plunging the knife beneath my skirt into Bloom’s belly or Delilah’s head. But I hesitate to harm the animal rather than the human. She’s only doing as she’s told.

  “Let me rephrase the question, my sweet. Who was in the wagon? Was it the man I saw you with earlier? The tall, dark fellow?”

  Delilah is now at my chin, her tongue flicking against my earlobe. She travels across my face, and I move my head side to side, hoping to knock her off. The undulating body is smooth and cool against my sweating skin. I endure the torture of having the length of her pass over me and ripple off.

  Snakes are not a favorite of mine. They exceed my dislike of dentistry and influenza.

  Breathe, Hester. Keep breathing. You have a knife, and Tom and Kelly are almost here. You can survive this, just stall Bloom a little longer.

  “Does your memory require stimulation?” he asks. “Let’s see if I can help.”

  Bloom attempts to soften my will with his mesmerism. My body shakes as I fight the desire to submit. “Tell me what you know, or Delilah will crush your windpipe.” He puts his hand around my throat and lightly flexes. “She can go away or eat you for supper. Which shall it be?”

  20

  Non mortem timemus, sed congitationem mortis.

  We don’t fear death but the thought of death—Seneca

  As I shudder with revulsion, someone else enters the tent. “What’s the delay, Mr. Bloom?” Charcoal Suit Lennox asks. “The circus must be gone in the morning. There’s a schedule to keep if you’re to pick up the next shipment in New Orleans. Why isn’t this tent pulled down and packed?”

  Bloom pushes himself to his feet. “We’ve had an unexpected complication. This woman and her accomplice searched our wagon and opened the crates. I’ll get to the bottom of it. Delilah and I just need a little more time.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  “No. The inventory is accounted for, but we can’t allow such brazen behavior to go without chastisement.”

  Lennox exhales angrily. “Indeed we cannot! I found that white-haired gargoyle snooping around in my office at Griffin House.”

  “How very foolish. I thought she was smarter than that.”

  The snake charmer moves away to discuss the impending shipment with Lennox. Delilah slithers down my body just like before, but in reverse, and follows after him like a puppy. I subdue the memory of what it feels like to be traversed by a python and flick my skirt off the
knife. A few swipes against the blade and the rope splits, leaving my raw wrist exposed.

  With their discussion about the shipment over, the men chat briefly over the best way to get rid of me: strangling, bullet, or snake? While they talk, someone arrives from the north, smelling of smoke and darkness.

  It’s Mary Arden.

  Help, I call to her psyche. Villains by the tent flap. Be careful.

  I need to check those smuggled crates first, child. I’ll return soon.

  Check the crates? Wait! I need you now. They’re going to kill me.

  She chuckles. Then don’t let them, ducky. I won’t be long . . .

  Droll even when my life hangs in the balance. And she’s searching the smuggled crates before helping her own flesh and blood? It’s that damned Russian mystic, I’d wager. Bloody Rasputin writing his stupid journal everyone wants so much!

  As Charcoal Suit and Bloom finish hashing out the minutiae of murder, I make a mental note never to trust my aunt again in lethal situations. Lennox removes something from his coat pocket. Next comes the sound that every citizen of Stonehenge knows intimately, the whir of a revolver cylinder spinning.

  “Damn, I’ve only got one bullet, Bloom. It’ll do for the dwarf, but you dispose of the blind one. She’s been such a nuisance, and dresses so poorly. I can’t look at her.”

  Bloom is uncertain. “But if you destroy Louella, Desmond will pitch a fit. He’s fond of the dwarf, you know. Gives her trinkets every time I turn around.”

  “Then we’ll kill Desmond, too. The fool’s not involved in this, anyway.”

  “You’re a turncoat, Lennox. I like the way you think.”

  The turncoat in question strides toward Louella, stopping about five feet away. Lifting my thigh slightly, I grasp my throwing knife. Lennox fumbles a bit as he cocks the hammer of the revolver, and I throw the blade hard. The gun fires at the same time Lennox screams. I cover my head, pummeled by the sound waves in the tent.

  Ears stinging, I run my hands over Louella and determine that she has not been hit by his bullet. Lennox must have missed the shot when my blade struck his hand.

  “Look what she did,” Lennox howls to Bloom. “Half my thumb is gone! It’s gone! I’m not an intact man any longer. How shall I ever find a pair of gloves that fit properly?”

  The snake charmer does not seem unduly worried. “Look for her knife, man. Pick it up, and use it on her.”

  As Charcoal Suit Lennox fumbles about in the bark chips searching for the knife, I remove another one from under my skirt.

  Lennox jumps to his feet. “Now I’ll slit your throat!” he growls, allowing me to pinpoint his exact location.

  I throw the blade in the area of his midsection and immediately roll to the left, out of his reach. Lennox stumbles and falls, cursing my name. “Blast you to hell. My hip! My hip!”

  Bloom swears also, but at Charcoal Suit’s lack of prowess. “Dropped by a sightless waif? You should be ashamed! My Delilah never fails. Get out of the way unless you want to join our prisoners in death.”

  There’s more cursing from Lennox as he scrambles away. Oozing fear like a festering wound, he isn’t aware that we’ve been joined by Mary Arden. Her voice croons throughout the tent and fills it with the power of Compulsion. None of it is directed at Lennox or me. Instead, the crooning is solely for Bloom. Mary Arden commands him to entrance Delilah.

  Sounding ill with fear, yet unable to stop himself, Bloom charms his beloved snake, telling her to wrap herself around his body and squeeze.

  What are you doing? I ask Mary Arden. You don’t need to kill him.

  Would Bloom spare either of us?

  Let the police arrest the man. Kelly and Tom are a hundred yards away. I hear them running toward us. Miserare. Show mercy, aunt.

  I have none today, dearie.

  Mary Arden leaves me with those words echoing in my mind. I extend my hand toward the screaming snake charmer and stumble across the floor to him. Lennox cowers in the corner of the tent and does not come to help me. I tug at the python, but she continues to crush the life from her owner. Drawing out my last knife, I raise the blade to cut the snake apart, but Bloom’s bones crack and pop with finality.

  Kelly and Tom enter the tent, other men rushing in behind them, but the danger is past. Bloom is no longer a threat to anyone. Both his heart and his shrieking have stopped. The mesmerist was right when he said Delilah never failed.

  “Have they hurt you?” Kelly whispers as he checks me for broken bones. “Speak to me if you can.”

  The touch of his large, capable hands and the nearness of his body makes me cry. “Not hurt,” I rasp. “Check Louella. Lennox.”

  Kelly leaves me once he is assured I sustained no injuries and tends to the others. Tom takes his place, slipping his arm around my shoulders. Mary Arden? I ask telepathically. Did you see her?

  No. She did all this?

  Some of it. I threw the knives at Lennox, but my aunt made Delilah kill Bloom.

  Tom rubs my back gently. It’s over. You’re safe.

  He speaks figuratively, for I am not safe and the investigation isn’t over. We have loose ends to tie up before either of those things are true. Fortunately, a frightened Charcoal Suit Lennox is now singing like a Wagnerian soprano. The would-be crime lord hopes to exchange the noose for jail time by promising to give testimony against James Scarlett. If the authorities offer a shorter sentence for the factory bombing, he’ll expose a bigger villain. Kelly is stitching Lennox up now, and he says he’ll live despite the knife wounds, though the doctor doubts much leniency will be shown in jail toward Charcoal Suit. He’ll have to wear the same distasteful uniforms as all the other prisoners.

  Willa Holloway, Pilgrim, Shaw, and the rest of the lace factory ghosts, stand beside me. Their murderer has been apprehended, and they are ready to cross over to the spirit world. All we need now is Sir Death.

  Did Hammersmith kill Him back at the boarding house? Is it possible to murder an immortal even if He is on holiday?

  Tom has gone to check on the Reaper. I grumble to myself as I stow my newly cleaned knives in the sheath under my skirt. Hammersmith must be apprehended tonight. Degenerated as they are, his victims matter and need to be avenged. Once we have the professor—if the Reaper cannot be found or if He has perished—I must contact the other immortals about replacing Sir Death with another . . . Sir Death. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

  My body warms with indignation as I think of Hammersmith, and this brings his ghosts out of hiding. Grey and silent, they stand in a line before me.

  Willa Holloway turns to them. “There, there. Don’t worry. She’ll help you find rest.”

  I could hug Willa for those supportive words, but she lacks corporeal form. While she hasn’t crossed over yet, I notice that her eyes are no longer bloody, just a warm brown. The cap on her head is not stained or askew, and the hair curling over her ears shines. Wonder fills my heart to witness the change in her. For the sum of Willa’s life far outweighs the manner in which she died. She has an identity much greater than that of a victim or a ghost. The real Willa is emerging, and I think I shall miss her when she crosses over.

  But I’m still confused about one thing. Why did she pace up and down the sidewalk in front of the ruins of the lace factory? What was the unfinished business?

  When I ask Willa this, she nods and says, Popover Friday.

  What do you mean?

  My granddaughter and I always had popovers on that day together.

  I remember Lizzie’s soft, sad voice telling me the same. Yes, I'm aware.

  How will she bake them when Friday comes round? It’s a secret recipe. Even her mother doesn’t know.

  This is Willa’s unfinished business? A secret recipe?

  Grinning at the ghost, I share my solution. I could give Lizzie a message from you and tell her your recipe for the popovers. Check on her now and again, and make sure she’s well.

  You’d do such a thing?

  It w
ould be an honor, Willa.

  Then you must also mention the cameo Lizzie liked so well. It slipped behind my dresser on the morning I died, and I’d like her to have it. Tell her I love her. It’s an important thing for a child to hear.

  Yes, I’ll tell Lizzie all that and more.

  Willa beams at me, and my breath catches. With Lennox facing justice, the ghosts are free to become their true selves, no longer overshadowed by the horror of his crime. All the women from the factory look just as radiant as Willa, but Shaw and Pilgrim seem less so. Perhaps they are worried about the way they treated their employees in life and fear the judgment to come.

  The newly rejuvenated ghosts attempt to comfort Hammersmith’s victims, and I step away to find a quiet space beyond the tents and people. As I wipe away tears and blow my nose, a man approaches from the south. At first I imagine he is one of the coppers milling around the circus, but the smell of hatred and opium tells me otherwise. I am not quick enough to get away from his grasping hands, and he pulls me around the side of the tent.

  “Let me go!” I rasp, with little effect.

  “Sorry,” Hammersmith says. “Bloom made me a promise.”

  It wasn’t Bloom’s promise to make, you maniac.

  He seems surprised when I kick his shin and punch hard in the area around the sternum. The professor groans with pain and releases me. I aim a few inches above where the groans originate and elbow him in the temple. Stomping on his foot for good measure, I deliberate briefly over pulling a knife or running. Fearing he will take my knife, I run and make it about ten feet before Hammersmith tackles me. He pins me with his body, holding my arms to my sides, and I buck against him.

  “Stop it! Stop fighting!” Hammersmith mutters frantically, huffing and puffing.

  In response, I knee his groin, a little off target, and he curses, pressing down on me with his full weight, until it is difficult to breathe. “Be a good girl, and this will end quickly,” Hammersmith says. The pig sounds as though my reduction in suffering is an indulgence.