Jack chuckled. “Sounds like a recovering crack addict, doesn’t she?”
Julia glared at the agent.
“Relax,” Jennie soothed. “I don’t really care what gets you off when you’re on your own. Work through this entire library and uncover secrets of raising bodies from the crypt and turning them into an uncontrollable army of zombies, whatever, I just wanted to ask if you’d be interested in a little day trip?”
“Her?” Carolyn questioned. “Why?"
“She’s knowledgeable,” Jennie replied, taking the book from Julia’s hands and chuckling as she flicked through the pages. “Who else do you know would have read through two hundred pages of The Mysteries of the Magic Beyond?” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Besides, I’m fairly certain that you haven’t chosen an alliance yet, have you?”
Julia looked at Jennie blankly.
Jennie laughed. “That’s what I thought. How about it, doll face? Fancy getting out of this fetid dusty room and into the big wide world?”
Julia was hesitant. “Okay…but this isn’t going to be for long, is it? I was kind of hoping to make my way through that middle shelf before the weekend.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Richmond, Virginia, USA
After the number of paranormal adventures they had been on that had taken place during the middle of the night, it felt strange for Tanya to finally be attending a meeting while the sun was at its zenith.
The city of Richmond was picturesque and reminded her of postcards and pictures she had seen on the front of magazines for housewives. It was a stark contrast to the concrete jungle she had grown up in.
The only thing to ruin the beautiful vista was the distant sound of drilling and machinery.
“What is that?” Sandra asked, tipping her head to listen to the noise.
“It’s the quarry,” Tanya replied. She had seen news of the disturbances in the local newspaper. The city’s Mayor had undertaken a sudden interest in a site just off from the town’s main perimeter in which something—although the paper had not stated what—was abundant in the soil and could provide a good source of income for the town’s architectural societies.
“Why is it so noisy?” Sandra complained.
Tanya thought how best to explain, settling with a brief explanation of the types of machinery that can be used, and touching only slightly on the internal combustion engine, and how noise can be generated and heard, even from miles away.
Sandra looked dissatisfied by the answers but said no more. Tanya didn’t know how else to explain it. She hardly knew herself.
Soon enough, they arrived at their venue next to City Hall. The bar was called the Golden Dragon. Nothing ominous about that, Tanya thought. It was a quaint little mock-Tudor with white-painted walls and rich dark beams. A swinging sign showed a mythical dragon—more akin to the types found in tales of legend, as opposed to the Chinese variety, Tanya was glad to see. They entered and found a sign leading them to the room upstairs where the Paranormanimals met once a month.
They were exactly as Tanya expected. A collection of mostly women sat around in gothic clothing, eyes thick with dark makeup. The curtains were drawn, although they did little to block the sun, and a variety of tarot cards, crystal balls, and even a Ouija board took the center of the table.
“Welcome, sisters,” a sultry voice declared. “Please, take a seat and join our company.”
“Most certainly,” Tanya replied, not sure what else to say. Sandra sat on her lap, and Jiao silently took a seat beside them.
They waited for the last of the stragglers to enter before the woman spoke again. She wore a dark purple cloak that shadowed her face, but even in the dark, Tanya could tell that she was in her fifties, at least. She was a plump woman, and strands of greying hair betrayed her as they snuck out from the folds of her hood.
She introduced herself as Madam Celestine. Tanya fought hard not to roll her eyes, having encountered many of these hacks before, women who could speak well enough of the paranormal phenomena to trick the gullible into believing that they had the gift of sight.
“I trust that everyone has brought with them their talisman?” Madame Celestine asked the room. “For those who are joining us for the first time, the talisman is often a trinket or item of some kind of sentimental value that can sometimes act as a vessel through which one can communicate with the deceased.” She held up a saltshaker, thick and domed at the top with three holes for the salt to pour. “This, for example, was my late husband’s. He was a huge fan of salt. Sprinkled it on everything, he did. Unfortunately, that was what led to his early demise.” Madame Celestine brought the shaker to her nose and took a deep sniff. “I can still smell his fingers. I can still feel his presence in the print marks on the glass.”
Tanya stared at the woman. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken such an intimate examination of a seemingly ordinary object.
When they were all settled in and had described their talismans, Madame Celestine set about creating a group seance in which they each tried to tap into their loved ones. Out of eight attendees—excluding Tanya, Sandra, and Jiao—only two were able to manage some kind of connection.
Tanya remained unconvinced. Surely, if someone had actually appeared, Sandra would have alerted her. Although she could not see the girl sitting on her lap, she was faintly aware of her presence.
They performed a few more exercises as the hours passed, and eventually finished with Madame Celestine presenting a Ouija board to contact the spirits. They stared at the board for five minutes after she asked the spirits to speak to them, then the spiritualist’s hands began to move as they were guided around the letters on the board.
This had been something that clearly even Madame Celestine wasn’t expecting. She called excitedly for someone to note down the letters as the planchette moved seemingly of its own accord.
They finally ended up with the word Bogus written on a napkin.
“Bogus?” the madame asked, scratching her chin. “What does it mean, ‘bogus?’”
Tanya had to hold in her laugh as she imagined Sandra guiding the woman’s hand and helping her to her conclusion. “Well, you know. It could mean any number of things.”
“Perhaps it’s a code,” one woman suggested.
“Was it a secret word of yours?” another woman asked. “A cutesy name or something that was meaningful?”
Madame Celestine shook her head and closed the seance with a final word spoken in what Tanya recognized as an amateur attempt at faking Latin.
“Thank you for coming, everyone,” Madame Celestine finished. “For our next meeting, I’d like you to find a passage from an ancient text that talks about the communion of the dead. Remember, Holly will be running the session next month since I won’t be here. Was that all, Holly?”
Holly nodded.
Tanya took her opportunity to speak privately with Madame Celestine as the others filed out the room. “May I speak with you a moment?”
The spiritualist didn’t glance up from packing her items away in her bag. “Sure, how can I help?”
Tanya didn’t know what to ask. She had been sent here to establish a connection for Jennie, but she wasn’t sure of what to do. She ran with, “Your experiences over the years with spirits…have you ever seen them or made a connection with any in this town?”
The sunlight faded as a dark cloud covered it up outside.
Madame Celestine looked offended. “Of course. Are you just another reporter trying to hack into my works and discredit me in the Richmond Gazette?”
“No, no. Of course not,” Tanya soothed. “I’m just asking because I’m interested in specters and the paranormal.”
Madame Celestine’s eyebrow raised. “Have you ever encountered a spirit yourself?”
Boy, where do I even begin? Tanya thought, her hand unconsciously looking for Sandra’s even though she wouldn’t be able to hold it in her mortal form. “Something like that. Can you tell me a littl
e bit about Richmond’s spectral hotspots? I’m new in town, see, and this stuff I find endlessly fascinating.”
Madame Celestine examined her for a moment then defrosted. “I’d love nothing more, dear. How about you buy me a drink and I’ll chew your ear off for free?”
Tanya threw a glance at Jiao. “Sounds perfect.”
Washington DC, USA
The conduits were ready and waiting in the car by the time Jennie and the others emerged from the SIA HQ. They split themselves into groups and were soon roaring down the highway toward NYC.
“Feels like ages since I’ve been back,” Baxter mused. “You know, at one point, New York was the only city I’d ever known. It was home.”
“Same here,” Carolyn agreed. “This time last year I would never have imagined that this is where I’d be. I had it all planned out—my life, my lover, my career. Now look where I am.”
Jennie grinned and pulled down her glasses an inch. “I know. Pretty awesome, right?”
They sped along the black roads guided only by their headlights and the odd street lamp as they passed through cities. Soon enough, the skyline of New York came into view, its towering buildings illuminated in a ghostly silver glow under the light of a near-full moon.
“I wonder what the Spectral Plane people are up to,” Carolyn muttered. “They were all so useful before, and now.”
“They’ve just gone back to their old lives,” Jennie replied. “Think of them as civilian reserves, they don’t need to constantly be prepared for battle. They’ll be there when we need them. Otherwise, there’s no need to pull them from their lives. After all, what are we fighting for if not peaceful lives? We can summon our allies if we need to—and who knows, we may well need to yet. But, for now, I’m confident that we’ve got a team that can at least crack this walnut open and get to the meat inside.”
Baxter laughed.
“Who is the Spectral Plane?” Julia asked. She had swapped cars with Rhone so that those with official military or federal experience could share a ride. Ruby was sitting beside her in the back, with Carolyn and Feng Mian awkwardly sharing their seats.
Baxter turned around in his seat. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’d love to hear it,” Ruby insisted. “Please, go on.”
Baxter smiled and informed them as briefly as he could about the former battle in Times Square and the spectral supporters they had amassed along the way.
“Your life is amazing,” Ruby breathed when Baxter was done. “I wish I was dead.”
Jennie looked pitifully into the rearview mirror. “Don’t wish your life away too soon. You’ve got a lot to offer, kid. Look at me, if death was all it was cracked up to be, don’t you think I’d have taken it a long time ago?”
Jennie parked on East Fifty-First Street, pulling the car up beside Baxter’s old haunt.
“Radio City Music Hall,” he announced. “Man, that takes me back. I could tell you stories about every single nook and cranny of that place. I could draw a blueprint on the back of my hand with my eyes closed. And the tech they had… Oh, man, if you ever want to experience the latest technological advances in sound systems for auditoriums, you’ve just got to check out what they’ve got in-house. Crisp, clean, music and sound fills your every pore—”
“Baxter?” Jennie interrupted.
He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes as he was lost in his train of thought. He cleared his throat and sat upright. “Right. Yeah, sorry. I just miss it, I guess.”
“I’m hoping that your enthusiasm for the Music Hall will yield us a certain advantage,” Jennie explained. “Did you ever go to Rockefeller Center? You can’t just have stuck within the auditorium.”
Baxter raised his eyebrows.
Jennie laughed. “I mean, of course you could have. But are there any routes that we could use to get from one into the other? Maybe a secret passageway or something?”
“The world isn’t all underground tunnels and intricate labyrinthian systems,” Baxter answered. “New York is different from London in many ways.”
She looked at him expectantly.
He grinned. “But, yeah. Yeah, there is. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
New York City, New York, USA
They had once been labeled “the Infamous Seven.” Decades ago, before technology had advanced the power of the NYPD and data could be hacked, there had been seven criminal overlords.
They each had their own turf. Splitting New York into seven territories and establishing their boundaries hadn’t been an easy negotiation. It had, in fact, taken seven years to come to a solution that everyone had been happy with, but they had managed it in the end.
Their names were feared among the underground. To step across your boundaries or to double-cross one of the infamous seven would result in torture or death. Of course, at the time, nobody had known about the spectral realm, and the seven profited on the fear that death was the final end.
Little did they realize how wrong they were.
They were restless and aged. Five of the original seven were present, and each man was in their late seventies. The only non-original sitting at the table was a woman by the name of Cassie Ferriss, who sat in her father’s place as the matriarch of the order. It was clear from looking at her that she could handle her own.
Darius Chu entered the room, and the chatter immediately stopped. Each head had a representative who stood behind their chair, though Darius had none. That confused the others. They wondered what the deal was, why Darius would be so stupid as to leave behind his protection when the stakes were so high. One stray bullet and the Dragon would be short a nephew.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet at such short notice.” Darius swept his gaze around the table. “I realize that my calling this meeting is slightly unorthodox, and although we could quip and establish that this is something of a reunion, I know that you’re all wondering what the truth is behind my assembling the group.”
Darius remained standing beside his chair. Tommy Vincenzo knitted his brows together and addressed the room. He spoke with the ghost of an Italian lilt. “I can’t work out if you’re stupid or just dumb.”
Darius didn’t rise to the bait. He waited patiently, knowing that each word was sacred in this room.
Vincenzo scoffed and looked at the others for help. “He summons us as though he’s the fucking kingpin of New York and wants to bring us back for our greatest hits, and he stands by his chair like a mug, not even doing us the courtesy of sitting down and facing us as a man. What is this, Chu? Your uncle’s dead and his will asked for one more laugh at his old buddy’s expense?”
“It’s been sixteen years,” Bobby Dalton added. He had once been fat, but now age had taken some of the weight away, leaving him with large folds of flesh that wobbled as he spoke. His forehead was liver-spotted, and one of his eyes remained half-closed as he spoke. “Our stings ain’t what they used to be. There was a reason that we disbanded all those years ago, and that was to not get caught. The cops wanted us all, and each one of us was a domino that, when knocked, would link to the other one. We’ve been working alone for years, and it works just fine for us. It may not bring in the money we once had, but it’s a living.”
Cassie Ferriss remained silent, her gaze locked on Darius, who did not wither at their remarks.
“It’s true that things have changed,” Darius agreed. “The world has moved on. Life is different. Crime has changed. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for a change in circumstance that has brought a fortuitous opportunity our way.”
He reached beneath the chair and pulled out a sports bag. Inside the bag were six envelopes and six packages. He walked around the room and handed one to each person sitting around the table. “My uncle, may he rest in peace, came across a revolutionary piece of information. For almost a year, he has worked within something truly extraordinary, and he would like to share it with you.”
Craig Cowley, a prol
ific serial killer who in his heyday had evaded all attempts at discovery by the NYPD, scowled and threw his letter and package into the center of the table. “Fuck this, Junior. Either get to the point or count me out. I’m supposed to be in a penthouse getting sponge-bathed by Portuguese nurses right now. Hurry the fuck up.”
There was a chorus of agreement.
Darius nodded, his face betraying no emotion whatsoever. “Very well.” His voice rose in volume as his arms swept wide. “The game is changing, gentlemen…and lady. For years criminals have sought a method to evade detection entirely and steal some of the city’s greatest treasures. Well, I’m here to tell you today that my uncle left me instructions for a secret weapon. A way for you all to go back to your glory days, a time when the world trembled before your feet, and we have discovered a way to remain unaccountable and free from any possibility of jail time.”
That grabbed their attention.
He swept a hand toward their envelopes. “Please, if you’d like to open your letters.”
Each letter was a replica of the others, and each held a simple message.
This gift is for you, for when we once again meet in the afterlife.
A wave of confusion swept across the room. A few accusations of some kind of traitorous trick were thrown. Vincenzo and Doltan joined Cowley in throwing their packages.
Darius laughed. “I assure you, the only thing that could kill you in this room is the shock of what you are about to discover.”
Cassie Ferriss was the first to take her package and tear the brown parcel wrapping. She tore off the end, and a pair of high-tech sunglasses slipped onto the table.
She scoffed, showing the glasses to her second behind her. “New from Ray-Ban? This is hardly revolutionary.”
Ruben McAffey and Sammy Garcia, two ex-cons with track records in smuggling drugs into the city, examined their glasses and placed them on their faces. They instantly gasped.
Agents, Agreements and Aggravations: In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service™ Book Three Page 17