The woman of the hour was nowhere to be seen as smoke began to fill the auditorium. The ringmaster was gone; so, too, was Edison. But where was the form that had been summoned by this display? Where was Moriel’s shadow?
Amid the harried rush to exit the theater, Fred emerged from backstage, carrying papers in his hand, rushing directly to Clara, Bishop, and Franklin, who stood to the side trying to account for their team. Knight joined them, her weaponry held tight in folded arms, a scowl on her lovely face.
“I found something,” Fred said, holding the papers out. Bishop took them for safekeeping and put them in his interior breast pocket. “They look like letters but they must be clues. I saw the ringmaster go out the back,” Fred offered.
“I’ll follow,” Franklin said, darting back in the direction Fred pointed, weaving through the skittish crowd.
“To the street,” Bishop instructed. Rose folded in with them, gripping Clara’s hand instinctively. Moriel was a shock, but it wasn’t enough to have triggered a seizure, not yet at least. Rose’s healing touch eased the problematic tension that led to an episode.
“I think Mr. Spire went after the lady,” Fred told Clara as their company joined the panicked throng heading for the least congested exit. Fire in a theater was nothing to wait out. “When she exited I heard him accost her with a proclamation of police. There was a dark shadow, pursuing.”
They exited on the Twenty-first Street side. The bells of fire pump trucks clanged along Broadway in response to the reports of a fire.
The famed Mrs. Langtry evidently wouldn’t get her debut there tonight after all.
Out on the street, their assembled team looked around for Spire.
Effie was examining a part of the projection equipment she’d managed to pry loose, frustrated she hadn’t gotten more before they were evacuated.
“Now, about those papers,” Clara said to Fred.
“I found these set down backstage,” he said. “I think they belonged to the woman in black.” Fred cleared his throat and adjusted his cotton neck cloth in discomfort. “They appear to be love letters. Odd ones, but, who am I to judge? Though something tells me there’s a pattern here I can’t quite see.”
“May I see them?” Rose asked. Fred passed them to her, his hands shaking.
“Patterns and ciphers are, if you recall, Miss Everhart’s specialty,” came a voice from behind them. They turned to see a flushed Spire, out of breath, join them. “She’s better with them than I am catching a waifish suspect,” he muttered.
Evelyn gestured that they get out of the congested street and move toward the park.
“What happened, Mr. Spire?” Clara asked as they walked.
“I followed the woman, thinking she might fit the bill via Miss Horowitz’s suggestions: an anonymous benefactor of new industry. When she saw me approach, she set down the papers in her hands and darted out a rear stage exit. I made pursuit, and called after her. That’s when I lost my way. A darkness fell all around me and I couldn’t see a thing. I tripped on cobblestones and when I righted myself, she was down the street like a flying ghost, a Summoned shadow tearing off after her. Why it was following her when we are known targets, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it was just following its mistress.”
“But that was Moriel,” Clara said.
“The shadow came through Moriel’s picture, but we’ve no idea if that silhouette is Moriel, and how could we know?” Spire countered.
They came to the corner of the park and paused, Rose sifting through the pages.
“These are love letters indeed,” Rose reported after inspection. “Between an ‘M’ and a ‘C.’”
“‘M’ for ‘Moriel,’ perhaps, and ‘C’ for ‘Celeste,’ from the suicide note you found?” Clara posited.
“Surely,” Evelyn replied. “Had Lord Denbury been with us, I’m sure he would have seen that her aura bore the telling hellfire color of the demons. Tonight I will see if the spirits can help me discern more, now that I have been in her presence.”
“There is something else here,” Rose began. “A pattern, but deeply buried. A cipher. Good eye, Mr. Bixby.” Hearing this praise, Fred beamed. “May I take this to the safe house?” Rose asked generally, not sure who could give permission. “I need my books to speed the translation.”
Spire, Bishop, and Clara looked at one another and shrugged.
“I’ll escort you downtown,” Clara offered.
“We’ve got to see to Gran again, she weathered her latest bout, thank God, but we’ll be continuing to check along the docks as Apex is still likely doing damage and the more folks are warned the better,” Effie said. “I’ll enlist Franklin to help in this, too, once he’s returned.”
“I can peruse as many city records as might contain a Celeste, I know that’s a needle in a haystack, but I’ll do what I can,” Fred offered. Bishop said his thanks to the siblings.
“I wish I could take everyone out to supper,” Bishop explained, “but I must pin down the mayor, who has been avoiding me. Tonight he dines with a number of captains of industry that I managed to invite. I cannot miss this opportunity to speak to them all at once. I’ve arranged for Lord Black to come with me to help charm them.”
Spire turned to Evelyn. “Miss Horowitz wrote to you about her concerns, yes?” Spire asked. “May I examine all your correspondence? Perhaps a clue will come to mind, something I haven’t drawn a connection to just yet.”
“By all means,” Evelyn replied gladly. “Come with me and I’ll open the study to you, where suitable amenities await. A glass of whiskey will take the edge off a failed chase,” she offered, and Spire attempted a strained smile.
A few blocks away, the column of smoke from the theater was now black and ominous.
Once a carriage had been flagged for Clara and Rose and the two had climbed in, they were quiet at first during the trundling trip downtown, each looking out the parted curtains of the glass-paneled windows covered in a film of the city’s innumerable particulate exhalations.
“How are you?” Rose asked. Clara turned to her.
“I am weary of one task after the next, desperate for it to crest to the same kind of battle like we all fought across Embankment. If nothing else I long to feel a sense of focus and accomplishment; this ebb and flow is unsustainable. But I am grateful for new talents, new emotions, and new possibilities…” Clara finished, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth now whenever she thought of Bishop.
“I believe it is hard for us to express the true bent of our hearts, is it not?” Rose asked. Clara nodded. “We keep stalwart company.”
“That we do. And despite the knowledge of mutual care, I simply don’t know how to begin,” she said quietly. “How to exchange something stable for something passionate.”
“Nor do I. I would love for a day just to enjoy the company of a man I’ve come to so treasure, with no other requirement but delight,” Rose stated. “To enjoy the bonds this work has created without the dreadful nature of it intruding.”
Clara nodded. Their compass rose of dear souls was forged out of the deepest respects. She did not press Rose for a communal dinner; she could see her friend needing to work on the puzzle as if it were an opiate and she were addicted. It was something to seize upon and solve and that drive was tantamount. Clara understood.
She, too, needed meditative time. Her relationship to ley energy, and to time itself, was a lesson she needed to let settle in, digesting like an ancient meal across her many lives.
Taking warm leave of Rose, Clara bid her luck on deciphering, and arrived home. Harper had prepared simple food, soothing peppermint tea, and saw to it that modest fires were stoked. Glad for the quiet, Clara dined alone with more candlelight than was her custom, lit Wards sitting amid the tapers.
Her lives, the way with time, the sound of energies, were all becoming more and more under her control. She did not feel as helpless as she used to, when her seizures were at their worst. This gift was a new expansion and e
volution.
Clara had never felt so powerful. Which meant, she thought with sinking surety, that something even more terrible would come to challenge her.
Ever more aware of energies sapping her, she had to take quiet moments when she could, and she undid her bodice, corset, and doubled skirts, her clothing fine enough to pass in high society but never so much as to require a lady’s maid in such a capacity. In her chemise and petticoat, she put on a quilted and lace-decked robe and lay upon her boudoir fainting couch for a meditative rest.
After a time, something woke her. Upstairs there was odd movement. Scraping. Was someone intruding?
After darting to her small boudoir fireplace to grab the poker, Clara opened her door a crack. Rupert’s study lights were bright and he was half-dressed in shirtsleeves and waistcoat. She let the poker clatter to the floor, throwing open the door and stalking to his threshold.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. He turned to her at his desk and arched an eyebrow.
“Hello, my dear,” he countered. It escaped neither of their attention that she was only in her nightdress and she hadn’t bothered to button it up all the way.
“Where are you going?” she asked, gesturing to his open briefcase, lying on the desk, a scatter of papers tossed within.
“To Washington,” he replied. “I’ve had quite a night. After a frustrating dinner with the mayor and industry, after which I went to Chief Patt directly to explain our latest concerns and clues, ‘Celeste’ and all, and being thoroughly dismissed, I was then tracked down and given this. From the president.” He handed her a telegram that had been encrypted, bearing the Secret Service symbol. She recognized his own handwriting below as he decoded the typewritten message.
STRANGE SHADOWS IN CORNERS OF EXECUTIVE MANSION. PLEASE COME IMMEDIATELY. TELL NO ONE.
The seal of the president followed the text. Clara looked back at Bishop, wide-eyed.
“The reverend and I will go to the capital in response, on the pretense of the National Cathedral commission,” Bishop continued. “His friend at the diocese can give us access to all sacred spaces in the District. From there we can assess the situation and what to do next.”
“But … You’re going without me?” Clara tried to process a burgeoning panic. “Leaving when I was sleeping? Do you give me no courtesies?”
“I was about to come and tell you—”
“I should go with you. It’s unheard of, really. ‘The heart of the matter,’ you say; you praise my gifts and instincts, am I not an asset?”
“Clara,” Bishop sighed. “Of course I want my greatest asset with me, but in a secondary wave. After I respond to the president directly. I think you’ll be of more help here, tracking ‘Celeste,’ the city’s changing energies and lines, and helping with what Rose finds. As women, you and she will have access if she’s captured. I’ve already wired Chief Patt that he must advise you. Whether he’ll listen or not may be our downfall,” Bishop muttered.
“I think you’re being too careful with me,” Clara said, trying to stay calm. “Don’t let the bent of our hearts now mean you treat me differently. You know I won’t stand for that.” She folded her arms.
Bishop sighed. “Clara, believe me when I tell you that I’ve every intention of bringing you along provided I can account for additional cover, clearances, and safety for the whole team. Washington is a different creature from New York, Clara. It lives in its own little world, one that changes people from the districts we represent, often into something monstrous and amoral. The president could be paranoid and I’ll not drag everyone out there if that’s the case.”
She scowled. “We had very few safeties in England—”
“This is different—”
“I don’t see that it is, Rupert. Don’t treat me like I’m your ward again when we’re well past that. I insist we move well past that,” she stated, lowering her eyes at him, trying her damnedest to actually say what she needed.
He advanced upon her, a desperate light in his mesmeric gaze.
“I’m sorry. I want nothing to revert, everything to progress … All I’ve ever done has been for your safety and happiness,” he said, his breath suddenly hot against her neck as he closed the distance between them. “For years I’ve been terrified the evil energies of the world would come for my bright treasure, burgeoning with gifts and powers, all the more a target.” He grasped her by the arms, pressing against her, his forehead to hers, his breath ragged.
“Clara, you’re such a magnet, you’re such a light, if darkness came for you before I could—” His voice broke; his hands fluttered at her cheeks as if he wished to cup them. There was hardly space between their bodies anymore, and she was nearly against the wall.
Clara smiled. He seemed taken aback.
“What?” he said, wary of the shift in her expression.
“I realize it is hard to love something and be scared to lose it,” she murmured. “But we can’t live in fear.” He stared at her, a bit wide-eyed. “Oh, don’t be a coward,” she exclaimed, pulled him to her by his unbuttoned waistcoat, and planted her lips directly on his.
It was a delicious, torturous, near-violent kiss, an instant explosion that spoke of years of their pent-up desires.
Clara’s hands swept up to claw at his shoulders, rake his neck, and grab his thick mop of luminously silver hair. He returned the force of passion, snaking his arms behind her back to hold her tight, pressing her against the wall.
After countless moments he pulled away, both of them gasping for air, hearts pounding against one another. His hands remained a vise grip around her.
“Well that’s about time…” Clara murmured.
“I’m sorry that I don’t always know what’s best to do,” Bishop murmured after a long moment, running his nose along her temple, kissing her brow. “Worry ties me up in knots but my desire to see you as free and independent will always win, though not at cost to your safety if I can at all help it.”
“You always help,” Clara said, caressing his cheeks. “I will stay here for the next two days to follow up on our leads. But you, in turn, must promise that you and the reverend won’t just charge in anywhere, the two of you, without reinforcements. Promise?”
“I do. Fair.”
Clara stared at him, now that concerns were settled, neither of them ready to relinquish their grip upon the other. She smiled again. Another furious kiss.
“Now what…?” she murmured in his ear.
“Now what, what?” he replied, drawing back.
“Are we…” She trailed off, allowing her expression and tone to become suggestive.
“Going to get married?” he stammered. “Of course we are, I’d never impugn your honor!”
Clara chuckled at his blustering insistence. “I didn’t mean proposing this minute, Senator.” She sighed and shook her head. He was so terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing when it came to her, his generally stoic and assured behavior turned flustered. It was both endearing and maddening.
He retreated an unsure step, his hands sliding down from behind her back, glancing over her hips, and then he clenched his fists at his sides. When he looked away, she noticed that his leather travel bag was lying out open on the floor beside his desk.
“You’re taking the night train, aren’t you,” Clara said with disappointment.
“I was planning to, yes, per the request of ‘immediately,’” Bishop said with evident discomfort, as if staying the night with her was as titillating as it was overwhelming.
“Very well then,” Clara said. “Shall I pack your bag? You know I’m fond of our rituals.”
He raked a hand through his mussed hair. “If you step into my room I … doubt I’d be able to control myself.”
“Will you come kiss me good night before you walk out the door?” she countered.
Bishop cleared his throat and spoke carefully. “If I were to come to your bed to kiss you, my dearest, in matters of control, I am sure I would have none.”<
br />
Clara saw that the dear man was visibly trembling, he loved, and wanted her, that much. She felt a bit faint realizing the magnitude.
“Gives us something to look forward to, then, I suppose?” she murmured, her cheeks flooding with heat as she dared to imagine spending an inseparable night together …
“Like nothing I’ve ever wanted,” Bishop murmured. “But for now … Please leave me to it, you beautiful creature, lest you unravel me further…” He was staring at the descending line of her nightdress, which had come almost completely open in their passionate embrace.
If Clara had ever been trouble to him, she was glad it was now in this way, now when they were ready for such unwieldy passions, now when she could truly handle herself and hold her own.
“Be safe, my love,” she demanded, moving to the threshold.
“I will, my love,” he replied, relishing the word “love,” his eyes still all fire.
She blew him a kiss and walked away.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
The letters between Lord Beauregard Moriel and the woman, C—Lady C, according to the pages—were stuff and nonsense, Rose determined. Meaningless drivel about flowers and the weather, nothing of actual import, which made no sense. No one went to the trouble to write of such mundane goings-on, to offer such hackneyed phrases of affection, when planning to destroy a national government. By using demons.
Their true meaning would take time to decipher. Her codebooks might provide shortcuts, make things quicker, but it would still be a long night. Thankfully Lord Black had made sure that the small kitchen was fully stocked with stores of tea and simple foods so she could focus on the task at hand.
What was the purpose of these letters? And why had they been abandoned at the theater? Spire said she set them down before running out. If they were truly important to her, she’d have run with them. Rose was certain that her compatriots were meant to find them, and that was as unsettling a notion as any.
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