[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  "Don’t trouble yourself," I said more curtly than I intended.

  He winced then bowed. "I've behaved despicably, both as a gentleman and as a guest." He spoke quietly and his mouth softened, no longer forming a grim line. "I hope you can forgive me." As apologies went, it seemed genuine. "I would ask the Administrators to assign someone else to you but there is no one else."

  "Isn't the Waiting Area filled with thousands of ghosts? That's what several of them had told me and I'd never had any reason to doubt them.

  "There is, but few are like me."

  "You mean solid, or at least have the appearance of it?"

  He nodded. "Without the solidness as you call it, I couldn't follow you wherever you go. Most spirits are limited to a specific location, as you know. I can go anywhere I please."

  "Fascinating." I cast my eye over him again. He certainly looked nothing like the other ghosts with their fuzzy centers and fading edges. Indeed he looked healthy, full of life. And so handsome it was all I could do to stop myself from reaching out and caressing the skin at his throat. It would be smooth and butter-soft, I guessed, but cool. I'd only ever touched a ghost once before and she'd been cool despite it being a warm day.

  "Really, Emily," Celia scolded.

  I snatched my attention away from Jacob but tried my best to ignore my sister, which wasn't easy considering her annoyance vibrated off her. She didn't need to say anything else. We knew each other well enough to know what the other was thinking. In this case it was my fascination with Jacob. I could almost hear her asking me why a ghost and not the very much alive vicar's son from St. Luke's who always tried to touch my hand or some other part of me after Sunday service.

  But how could she understand? She couldn't see Jacob. Couldn't get sucked in by those eyes, so like a dangerous whirlpool, or that classically handsome face. I could, and was, even though my brain told me I was a fool. He was dead.

  "Why are you so solid?" I asked him.

  He waved a hand and shrugged one shoulder. "It's just the way I am."

  I had the feeling there was more to it than that but I didn't want to be rude and pry. Not yet anyway.

  "So how do you propose to return this demon to the Otherworld?" Celia asked.

  "We must discover who wanted the demon released and why," Jacob said. "We can start by understanding the words you spoke during the séance."

  I repeated his answer to Celia and she in turn repeated the incantation. "It means nothing to me," he said, "but I'll ask the souls in the Waiting Area. It might be a more familiar language to one of them."

  "Wouldn't the Administrators know?" I asked. "Or if not, can't they just summon the demon back again with an incantation of their own?"

  "The Administrators don't have the power to reverse a curse issued in this realm. No one in the Waiting Area does. It can only be done by someone in this realm and only when the demon is near."

  I swallowed and looked down at the amulet in my hand. "So much trouble over a piece of cheap jewelry."

  "Keep the amulet with you. Whoever speaks the reversing incantation must be wearing it."

  "I should be the one to wear it and seek out the peddler," Celia said. She held her head high, her chin up, as if defying us to disagree with her. Despite her stance, I knew she was afraid. The supernatural was my territory. She'd never been as comfortable around the ghosts as me, and demons were another matter altogether. The guilt over releasing one must be great indeed for her to make such a bold offer to rectify the situation.

  "No," Jacob and I said together.

  "You can't see or talk to Jacob," I said. "And we need his guidance in this."

  She lowered her head and nodded. "Very well." She raised her gaze to where he stood, holding the frame. "Is it dangerous, this demon?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

  "Not terribly," I said and tried to look like I wasn't lying. If she thought it was dangerous, she would not agree to my involvement, no matter how important. I glanced at Jacob but he said nothing, just watched me beneath half-lowered lids. "Don’t worry, Sis, we'll send it back before anything happens."

  Celia breathed out and settled into the sofa. "That's settled then," she muttered. "Now," she said to Jacob, "tell me exactly what you mean when you say you are assigned to my sister? Will you be at her side until the demon is found? Are you tied to her in some invisible way?"

  Jacob went very still. "Tell your sister not to worry," he said stiffly. "I'll be the perfect gentleman."

  I almost told him he'd mistaken her and she wasn't suggesting he'd do anything untoward, but I couldn't be sure if that assessment was correct. Knowing Celia, it was highly possible she meant exactly that.

  As if understanding my hesitation, she added, "Can he protect you against this demon—and don't try to tell me it's harmless because I know it's not. It is a demon after all. And can he protect you against the person who cursed the amulet?" Her knuckles had gone white, clasped as they were in her lap. I gently touched her arm. It didn't seem to help—she remained as taut as a stretched rope.

  Jacob took a long time to answer and I began to doubt he would when he finally said, "I will do my best." He held up the picture frame. "I can wield Earthly weapons as easily as I can hold this, but I'm afraid weapons from this realm have little effect on demons. They can only be killed with blades forged in the Otherworld. Unfortunately the Administrators don't have access to one which is why I prefer to banish it."

  I squeezed Celia's arm again. "He said yes," I lied. "Don't worry, Sis, he looks very capable."

  She stared straight ahead at the picture frame held by Jacob and gave a small nod. "Very well," she said in a tired voice. "You may accompany my sister to find this demon and return it. But if anything should happen to her," she coughed to cover her cracking voice but I heard it nevertheless, "I'll find someone who can make sure your soul never crosses over."

  I stared at her open-mouthed. My sister, making threats to a ghost? Remarkable. I loved her for it.

  She released her grip on the sofa and picked up her teacup. "It would seem nothing can be done before Thursday, anyway, when the peddler returns. The day after tomorrow. Until then, Mr. Beaufort." She nodded and sipped her tea. Dismissed.

  He looked like he would argue but thought better of it and returned the daguerreotype to the mantelpiece. "Don’t worry, I can see myself out." He bowed to us then vanished like a bubble that's been popped. There one moment, gone the next.

  I flopped back in the sofa in a most unladylike fashion. "Oh Celia, I think we've bitten off more than we can chew."

  She handed me my teacup. "We'll conquer this demon, don't fret, my dear."

  I hadn't been referring to the demon.

  3

  It took me a long time to fall asleep. It was bad enough knowing there was a demon out there hiding in the many shadowy lanes of London searching out something—or someone—to eat, but it was thoughts of Jacob Beaufort that occupied my mind more. Whenever I closed my eyes I could see his bright blue ones staring back at me with unnerving intensity. Now that I was alone I could think of a thousand questions I should have asked him, each one circling my head like a carousel. Finally, when the longcase clock in the entrance hall downstairs struck three, I'd had enough. I got up and threw my shawl around my shoulders then lit a candle and padded barefoot to my writing desk. I sat and pulled a piece of paper and the inkstand closer and wrote every question down, one after the other. Except one. I re-read my list and tried to tell myself it wasn't important, I didn't need to know the answer to it.

  I wasn't very good at lying, even to myself. So I gave up and wrote the question at the bottom:

  Did he meet Mama in the Waiting Area?

  If he answered yes to that then there were so many other follow-up questions but I put the quill down without writing them. It was enough for now.

  I fell asleep quickly after that.

  Much later, I awoke to the sound of the brass knocker on our front door banging. It was daytim
e because light edged the curtains. It wasn't bright but then the days never were in London thanks to either the smog or rain or both.

  I heard Celia's voice and listened for another but no one else spoke. Perhaps I'd imagined the knocking and she was simply reciting poetry in the kitchen.

  But that was as absurd as it sounded. Celia regarded poetry as a useless form of literature read only by deluded romantics.

  Then I heard footsteps running up the stairs. Only one set. "Emily! Emily, are you decent?" Celia shouted. "I think he's here."

  "She means me," came Jacob's voice from just outside my bedroom door.

  Jacob! Good lord, I was still in my nightgown! What was he doing here so early? It couldn't be much past eight o'clock. What was he doing here at all when we'd agreed nothing could be done until the following day?

  "She'll be out in a few minutes," I heard Celia say in a loud voice. The door opened a crack and she slipped inside. She was dressed but her hair looked like it had been hastily shoved under her cap. "My sister is not yet ready to receive callers," she said as she shut the door.

  I heard Jacob's chuckle and I pictured his handsome features softening with his smile. "It's nice to know the rules of propriety still apply to the dead," he called out.

  Celia leaned against the door as if barricading it. "He hasn't zapped his way in here, has he?"

  "No. Help me dress," I said, climbing out of bed. "How did you know it was him?"

  She passed me a clean chemise from the wardrobe, which I put on over my head after I shucked off my nightgown. "When I answered the knock there was no one there so I closed the door. But then I heard a knock on the hallway wall and I realized someone was inside, alerting me to their presence. The only ghost I know who has turned up here without being summoned is that Beaufort boy."

  Hardly a boy. I made up my mind to ask him his age. Or his age at the time of his death. It was the first question on my list, still sitting on my desk.

  "I told him I'd fetch you," she said, helping me into my corset. "But as I walked up the stairs I felt a coolness sweep past me and I knew he was going on ahead."

  "At least he still possesses a sense of honor and hasn't entered." I gasped as she pulled hard on the corset's laces. "Careful, Sis, I might need to breathe at some point."

  "Why bother breathing if you look fat?" We both knew she was being ridiculous—I was washboard flat in stomach and, alas, in chest—but she was in an odd temper so I let her comment go. "The green gown, I think."

  "Really? What's the occasion?" The green dress was my newest and favorite. The color complemented my complexion and dark brown eyes. The bodice was shaped in the latest cuirass style, which hugged my frame all the way down to my thighs, emphasizing my small waist and the curve of my hip. It would have looked better on a taller girl, as did all dresses, but with heeled boots it looked quite good on me too. Although the satin had been recycled from one of Mama's old gowns, it nevertheless cost a great deal to have made. Celia had insisted on using the last of our savings for it. I suspected it was her weapon of choice in the battle to find me a husband. I supposed I looked quite good in it. Indeed, the dress never failed to turn heads, which was always a pleasant feeling when the heads were turned for the right reasons. Being singled out because I could see ghosts or because I wasn't fashionably pale, however, made me feel like the bearded lady in a sideshow.

  So, considering it was a dress Celia made me wear whenever she thought eligible men would see me, it was a little disconcerting that she was making me wear it now when I was only seeing a ghost.

  "I think Jacob will take you somewhere today," she said, fastening the hooks and eyes at the back of the dress. "He has a sense of urgency about him. Hopefully he wishes to communicate with his family after all, and if he has a brother or cousin … " She let the sentence drift, full of potential and possibility.

  "It's more likely Jacob is concerned about the demon," I said.

  She guided me to my dressing table and forced me to sit at the stool. "It can't hurt to be prepared," she said, undoing my braid. "You never know whose path you'll be thrown into."

  I couldn't fault her logic although I didn't like to think about eligible gentlemen, or marriage or any of those things. Some girls of my acquaintance may be married by seventeen, but I wasn't sure wedlock was for me. What would happen to Celia? And why would I want to live with a man, by his rules, in his house, when I could live here with my sister and do as I pleased?

  Besides, what sort of husband would want a fatherless bastard for a wife? And if my parentage didn't concern him, surely the fact I had conversations with the dead would.

  A knock at my bedroom door made me turn around, yanking the hair out of Celia's hands. "Be still," she snapped, "or I'll have to start over."

  "I can appreciate that a lady needs time to prepare herself to face the day," Jacob said through the door, "but do you think you could go faster?"

  "He wants us to hurry up," I told Celia.

  "Hurry!" she scoffed. "A lady cannot rush her morning toilette."

  "I won't be long," I called out.

  "Good because we need to get going," he said.

  "We're definitely going somewhere," I said to my sister's reflection in the dressing table's oval mirror. "And where are we going to?" I shouted to Jacob.

  He suddenly appeared in the room at my right shoulder, his back to me. I jumped and Celia tugged my hair. "Be still."

  "Sorry," he said, "but I don't like shouting through doors. Can I turn around?"

  "Yes," I said and hoped Celia thought I was speaking to her. I didn't want her to know he was in the room. She was already wary of him and for some reason I didn't want to turn that into outright distrust.

  "It's like hundreds of little springs," he said in wonder, watching Celia's nimble fingers work my black curls into a manageable style on top of my head.

  "Little springs turn into little knots very easily," I said.

  Celia paused. "Pardon?"

  "I, uh, was just thinking about my hair and how I wish the curls were softer like yours." My gaze met Jacob's in the mirror's reflection.

  He quickly glanced away, down at the dressing table, up at the ceiling, at the wall, anywhere but at me. "Just tell her to put it up as best she can," he said.

  "He's growing impatient," I told her.

  "He's no gentleman, that one," she said and put two hairpins between her lips.

  I cringed and caught Jacob's sharp glance in Celia's direction. He seemed … alarmed, and then embarrassed by her off-handed comment.

  She removed the pins from her mouth and threaded them through my hair. "I wonder if he ever was one," she said, admiring her handiwork." Perhaps he lost all sense of honor when he died."

  "Dying tends to cause one to misplace a great many things," Jacob said, voice dark and distant.

  "Can you go out and tell him I'll be there in a moment," I asked Celia.

  Her hand hovered near the hair above my temple as if she wanted to touch it but didn't want to mess up her work. "Be careful, Em." She kissed my forehead. "You do look lovely. Let's hope it's worth it."

  She left and I heard her telling the empty air outside that I'd be there soon. Her footsteps retreated down the stairs and I turned to Jacob.

  "You deserved to hear that if you come and go uninvited," I said.

  "I'm not concerned about other people's opinions of me." He gave me a crooked smile. "It's a bad habit carried over from when I was alive."

  It was the first time he'd referred to his life and what he'd been like. It wasn't what I'd expected to hear. Instead of giving me a clearer picture of him it just threw up more questions. Why hadn't he cared what people thought? "I'm sure people cared what you thought of them." I don't know why I said it but it seemed appropriate somehow.

  He didn't comment but he was no longer smiling, crookedly or otherwise. Indeed, he'd turned all his attention to my hairbrush sitting on the dressing table as if it was the most interesting object in the w
orld. Its tortoiseshell back and handle certainly weren't worthy of such scrutiny.

  I knew an avoidance tactic when I saw one.

  "How long ago did you die?" I asked him. He might want to avoid all awkward questions but I certainly wasn't going to shy away from them. If I was to spend time alone with him, I needed to know more about him.

  "About nine months ago. I was eighteen." He shook his head, dismissing the topic. "Are you ready?"

  So much for my investigative scheme. "Where are we going?"

  He strode to the door. I pulled on my boots, quickly laced them and followed at a trot. "The house of someone I went to school with," he said, opening the door. "George Culvert. He lives in the Belgravia area with his mother."

  "And why are we visiting this Mr. Culvert?"

  He turned around and his gaze dropped to my waist and hips. His mouth fell open and a small, strangled sound escaped. "You're going to wear that?"

  "Something wrong with it?"

  "No," he said thickly. "But can you breathe?"

  "Sometimes."

  He laughed softly. "I like it. It's very … snug."

  "So what were you saying about George Culvert?"

  His gaze lifted to mine and a shiver rippled down my spine. His eyes blazed like blue flames but then he blinked rapidly and shifted his focus to something behind my left shoulder. He cleared his throat. "He's a demonologist."

  "A what?"

  "A demonologist. Someone who studies demons, fallen angels, that sort of thing." He waved a hand casually, as if 'that sort of thing' was like studying for a career in law. "We can't wait until tomorrow to start looking for this demon. We have to start today. Now." He ushered me through the door onto the landing without actually touching me.

  "Before it hurts someone?" I asked.

  His gaze met mine for a brief second but in that moment I saw genuine worry in his eyes. There was no need for him to answer me. We both knew the demon might have already killed overnight.

  "Why didn't it attack us when it was released in Mrs. Wiggam's house?"

  "Until it makes contact with the master who set the curse on the amulet and controls it, the demon is weak and relies on instinct. It would have seen it was outnumbered and felt too vulnerable to attack so it fled. Once it felt safe, it would begin to search for nourishment."