Henry surveyed the graveyard. The wires on the phantom fence sagged. The dispeller sat inert. His ghost grounder lay where he’d flung it, its copper rod bent and the rubber glove singed.
His idea turned out to be a disaster, and Vincent had paid the price.
Heart heavy, he wrapped his arm around Vincent’s waist for support. “Come,” he said. “Let’s get you to the doctor.”
~ * ~
“I’m fine, Henry,” Vincent said with an air of patient exasperation. “And thanks to Jo, Lizzie is entirely unscathed. Stop moping.”
Vincent lay propped up in his bed at the hotel, a white bandage stark against the sienna skin of his forehead. The early light of dawn trickled through the cracks in the shutters and added to the illumination of the gas light on the wall. Henry knew he should have shut off the valve and lit a night candle instead, but after the scene at the cemetery, he found himself wanting as much light as possible.
“If you’re fine, it’s no thanks to me,” he said miserably. The moment when the ghost struck Vincent replayed itself over and over again in his mind. The moment he’d thought Vincent dead, and every possibility of light and happiness drained out of the world.
“It almost worked,” Henry added, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “We had her weakened. But she was too smart for us.”
“That’s the problem with intelligent hauntings,” Vincent replied. “They’re, well, intelligent. Rosanna no doubt received little education as a simple village girl, but she must have been formidably clever. Although not clever enough to avoid falling in love with the wrong man.”
“Yes, well, intelligence has nothing to do with love,” Henry said.
Was it his imagination, or did Vincent flinch? He lifted his head, but Vincent’s expression seemed serene. Imagination, then.
With Ortensi’s help, Henry had managed to get Vincent to the doctor, who opened the door rather fearfully at their knock. Fortunately, the man probed Vincent’s head carefully, proclaimed his skull in one piece, and recommended rest, so long as someone watched over him. Henry had spent the night at Vincent’s bedside, waking him periodically to make certain his condition hadn’t worsened. Mostly he sat and thought about how close he’d come to losing Vincent. About how badly he wanted to keep Vincent safe and happy.
About how much Vincent meant to him, with his ridiculous innuendos, and colorful coats, and tender smiles.
“You did your best,” Vincent said, reaching out to grasp Henry’s hand. “You couldn’t have known she’d be able to heat the grounder. Or the wire of the fence.” He started to shake his head, then stopped with a grunt of pain. “I certainly didn’t think of it. The power she has, to do such a thing…she’s very angry. Angry enough to defy three mediums in order to cling to this world. I’m not certain how we’re to stop her.”
Should he say it? “I have an idea. Not to say my last suggestion was any good.”
“You said yourself it almost worked.” Vincent frowned uncertainly. “Henry…is everything all right? You seem sad.”
Henry couldn’t meet Vincent’s dark eyes. Vincent had been injured, and Lizzie nearly so. The ghost might have killed them both, under slightly different circumstances. He owed Vincent—owed them all—the truth. He was a failure. The Psychical Society had been right, and he was more than a failure. He was a menace, a danger to them all.
But what if he told the truth now, and Vincent dismissed his idea out of hand?
“I’m only tired,” he said. “Just know I appreciate your friendship. The trust you’ve shown in me. Even if I haven’t deserved it.”
Vincent’s look became even more puzzled. “You do deserve it, Henry,” he said. He wrapped his fingers in Henry’s, tugging him toward the bed. “Of course I believe in you. You’re a brilliant inventor.”
Henry pulled free and rose from his chair. “I imagine the others are awake, assuming they slept at all. I should shave. We’ll talk more over breakfast, if you’re up to it.”
He shut the door before Vincent could call him back. Hastening to his own room, he went to the washstand and splashed tepid water on his face. The mirror showed him a haggard face, the line of his jaw darkened with stubble.
He shaved, then changed his cuffs and collar. Anything else felt beyond him at the moment. By the time he arrived back downstairs, everyone else, including Vincent, already awaited him.
“How are you feeling this morning, Lizzie?” Henry enquired as he took his seat.
She held her coffee cup as though it were a lifeline. “The dress is a loss, but I’m quite unharmed, thanks to Jo.”
Jo ducked her head. “It wasn’t anything,” she mumbled at the floor. “I’m glad you and Vincent are all right.”
Vincent had removed the doctor’s bandage, but his movements were stiff as he reached for the sugar. No doubt the impact with the tree had bruised his entire back. “I told the others you have a suggestion for us, Henry.”
Henry took a deep breath. He didn’t dare look at Ortensi, at the skepticism he knew he’d—rightfully—see on the medium’s face. Rather, he kept his gaze fixed on Vincent.
“I have a way of getting rid of Rosanna,” he said. “Or at least, of keeping her from haunting the town any more.”
“Another one?” Ortensi asked. “Really, Mr. Strauss, I think we’ve seen the value of your equipment.”
“That isn’t fair,” Jo protested. At the same time, Vincent said, “We almost succeeded, Sylvester.”
Henry huddled deeper into himself. Ortensi was right. “This has nothing to do with my machines,” he said quietly. “I propose we give her what she wants.”
Lizzie frowned at him. “Give her what she wants?”
“Zadock’s bones.”
~ * ~
“You want to what?” Vincent asked.
Henry didn’t meet his eyes, only stared miserably at his hands. Had the setback of last night truly crushed his spirit so? “I propose we dig up Zadock’s remains and reinter them in the old graveyard. Where they originally lay.”
“You must be joking!” Vincent stared at Henry. “Rosanna murdered the man in a jealous rage!”
“As Mr. Strauss pointed out when I first told you the legend, we don’t know for certain,” Sylvester said.
Henry looked up in surprise. “You agree with me?”
“Just because the townspeople believed her a witch doesn’t mean she really was one.” Sylvester spread his hands apart. “If she was indeed behind the haunting, she would have had to command a very powerful spirit.”
“Which would take a necromantic talisman, correct?” Henry asked.
Vincent gripped his coffee cup tightly. The one thing Dunne drilled into them both, again and again, was that their talents were meant to help, not to hurt. Compassion for the dead and the living must be their watchword, always. In light of that, necromancy was surely an abomination, a twisting of their gift into something corrupt and foul.
“If Rosanna killed him using necromancy…the spirit probably possessed Mary.” Vincent’s gorge rose, and he was glad he hadn’t eaten any breakfast. Did Mary awake to find her hands locked around her husband’s throat? Or had the spirit been merciful enough to take her while she slept, and she never knew what she had done?
He could still remember the crack as something delicate gave way in Dunne’s neck.
“Rosanna was either an innocent or an abomination.” Invisible hands seemed locked around his own throat, but Vincent forced out the words. “If the latter, we can’t give Zadock’s bones to his murderer. It would be foul.”
“There’s nothing to suggest his spirit is anywhere save for the otherworld,” Sylvester pointed out gently.
“That’s my biggest concern,” Henry said. He still seemed taken aback at Sylvester’s agreement. “Is his spirit still, ah, attached to his remains? Would he care, after all this time, where his bones lay?”
Vincent’s forced his grip to relax before he shattered the coffee cup in his hand. “Do
es it matter?”
“Vincent.” Sylvester’s voice was understanding, and grief showed in his hazel eyes. “I know this is difficult for you, but you must think rationally. If Zadock is truly at rest, nothing we do with his bones will change it.”
“But—”
“Our charge is the living as well as the dead.” Sylvester reached across the table and touched the back of Vincent’s hand with his fingers. “Rosanna has already murdered one man. If we hadn’t weakened her last night, we might have become her next victims. And what about tonight? And the night after? She is being drawn into a town filled with innocent people. If moving Zadock’s bones will confine her to the forest and keep the living of Devil’s Walk safe from her depredations, then that is what we must do. Once she’s safely ensconced back in the woods, we can consider our next move with a bit more leisure.”
Vincent willed his hands to relax beneath Sylvester’s light touch. Sylvester was correct on all points, and yet it still seemed wrong somehow. “You’re right,” he said at last. “I won’t pretend to like it, but I have no rational argument against it. Lives are in the balance.”
“Lizzie?” Sylvester asked.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally she gave a single, sharp nod. “Agreed.”
“So we mean to do it?” Henry said.
“Yes.” Sylvester pushed his chair back from the table. “I’ll get permission from Mr. Emberey and the mayor, to prevent any misunderstandings.”
“A good idea,” Henry stood as well. “Come along, Jo. Let’s…let’s see if we can repair the damage to the phantom fence.”
They left. Lizzie turned to Vincent. “What’s wrong with Henry?”
“He blames himself for letting Rosanna escape,” Vincent said.
She finished her coffee in a single gulp. “That’s foolish. And Henry has been acting a bit strange since we arrived. Even for him.”
So he wasn’t the only one to have noticed. A part of him had hoped it was his own paranoia, his fear the Psychical Society might have given Henry cause to rethink their association. “I tried to speak with him this morning, but he dismissed me.”
“Try harder.” Lizzie rose to her feet. “This situation is too uncertain. We all need to be focused on the job.”
She left. Vincent drank the rest of his coffee in silence, then went to find Henry.
~ * ~
Henry was in the midst of repairing the damaged equipment when he became aware of Vincent standing in the door. Blinking owlishly, he peered up from where he sat on the floor of his tiny room. Vincent leaned against the doorframe, his dark eyes uncharacteristically serious. Had he changed his mind and come to condemn Henry’s plan?
“Jo,” Vincent said quietly, “would you be so good as to get some coffee for Henry and me?”
“Jo is helping me work,” Henry said, even though the request was clearly one for privacy rather than coffee. After his failure last night, he wasn’t certain he had the energy to keep up a pretense in front of Vincent.
“It’s no trouble.” Jo, the traitor, slid off the edge of the bed, where she’d been splicing the wires of the phantom fence back together. “It might take a while, if the kitchen doesn’t have any ready.”
She left in a whisper of skirts. Henry returned his attention to the ghost grounder. The copper rod sagged sadly in his hand, its shape distorted out of true by the heat Rosanna had summoned.
“I’m not used to seeing your rod this wilted,” Vincent remarked, stepping into the room.
“Very funny.” At least the ghost grounder should still work, bent or not. Henry set it aside and took a deep breath. “I know you disagree with my suggestion.”
“No.” Vincent shook his head, then winced at the movement. “I’m uneasy, yes. But Sylvester thinks the idea a good one, given our options.”
It shouldn’t have hurt, that Vincent would take Ortensi’s opinion as more valid than Henry’s. Why wouldn’t he, given how wrong things had gone last night? “I’m glad the Great Ortensi thought an idea of mine might actually have some merit.”
Vincent’s thick brows snapped together. “You aren’t being fair. Sylvester has been a medium for a long time. He’s seen it all. So, yes, I do trust his experience in this matter. I trust it over my own.” His expression softened, grew more concerned than angry. “Henry…”
“Jo will be back soon.”
Vincent’s mouth pressed into a narrower line, but he nodded. “Of course.” Stepping closer, he crouched down beside Henry. His warm hand rested on Henry’s shoulder, the soft brush of his fingertips against the bare skin at the nape of Henry’s neck equal parts comforting and arousing. “Just know if something troubles you, anything at all, you can speak of it to me.” His grip tightened. “Whatever it might be.”
If only it were true. But Vincent wouldn’t understand, no matter what he thought. Henry had spent half his life railing against frauds, and now he was one himself. Vincent would be furious, and rightly so. It would be the end of everything between them. No more comforting touches or gentle smiles. No more waking in the night to feel Vincent’s lean arms around him. No more sleepy kisses when he rose for the day, leaving Vincent to snore away the hours until noon.
Each thought was like a tiny razor embedded on the inside of Henry’s ribs, slicing into his heart with every beat. How had he been so stupid as to get himself into this mess? If only he’d told the truth the night at the saloon.
If only he hadn’t lost his heart so thoroughly in the first place, none of it would have mattered. Not Vincent’s opinion of him, or Christopher Maillard’s knowing smirks, or any of it. How did he ever imagine he might hold onto someone like Vincent Night, who could have any man he wanted? Cleverness was the only thing Henry had to recommend him; not looks, or an exciting personality, or any of the other things a lover would want.
It had been doomed from the start.
“Vincent?” Ortensi’s voice drifted from the end of the hall. “Mr. Strauss? I’ve secured permission for us to proceed.”
“We should go,” Henry said. He rose and offered Vincent a hand up.
“Thank you,” Vincent said, with another wince. “You should see my back. The bruises make a lovely pattern. I’m thinking about having them copied to wallpaper.” He offered Henry a tentative smile. “Perhaps you can help me put salve on them later?”
It might be his last chance for such intimate contact. “I’d love to.” His hand lingered on Vincent’s, their fingers curling together. “But for now, we should probably go dig up poor Zadock.”
Chapter 11
Vincent watched Henry climb out of the hole and wipe the sweat from his brow. Bending over and resting his hands on his knees, Henry gasped, “I think we can remove the coffin now.”
Rather than conscript any of the workmen lounging in front of the saloon, they’d decided to undertake the task themselves. It didn’t seem likely Rosanna—or, heaven forbid, Zadock—would be able to exert much influence during the daylight hours. Still, Rosanna stalked both Henry and Norris in Devil’s Walk Woods during the day. Better safe than sorry.
The old trees cast soothing shadows over the graves, blocking out most of the hot July sun. Emberey, Lizzie, and Jo all stood in the shade, watching while Vincent, Sylvester, and Henry took turns digging. Vincent’s shoulders were soon afire, adding to the ache of the bruises discoloring his back. He tried to avoid physical labor whenever possible—and with good reason, given the blisters now decorating his hands and the dirt on his clothing.
Thankfully, the mass reinterment meant the workers buried the coffins just far enough below ground to ensure protection from scavenger or flood. If they’d had to dig through six feet of dirt, Vincent didn’t think they would have uncovered the coffin before nightfall. Tomorrow.
Henry sat on the edge of the hole and removed his spectacles. Taking out a handkerchief, he set about cleaning the glass lenses. “I take it none of you have sensed anything untoward?”
Vincent shook h
is head. With every shovelful of earth, he’d waited for some foreign flavor to invade his mouth. Dirt or blood, rot or dank water. Ashes and overdone pork. But he tasted nothing but fading coffee and the cinnamon cachous he ate out of habit more than anything else.
“Not a tingle,” Sylvester said. “But I would like to make certain.”
Henry frowned. “Make certain?”
“Let’s get the coffin up first.”
Henry and Vincent had already slid ropes around it; now, along with Sylvester, they hauled it free of its very temporary resting place. The moldering wood groaned and creaked, but didn’t break. As no doubt befit his position as one of the leading citizens in the old town, Zadock’s coffin had been constructed of sturdy materials.
Once it lay to the side of the hole, Sylvester pressed a hand to the small of his back. “Well. Almost done. All we need is a pry bar.”
Henry, Jo, and Emberey all looked alarmed. “A pry bar?” Emberey asked.
“We have enough troubles with Rosanna,” Sylvester said tiredly. “I’ve no wish to have Zadock haunting us as well. So, yes, a pry bar.”
A cart waited outside the graveyard, ready to transport the coffin back to its original resting place in the old town. A quick word to the man driving it produced a pry bar in short order.
“If the rest of you would step outside the churchyard and close the iron gate, I’d be grateful,” Sylvester said.
Henry frowned. “Why?”
“I mean to open the coffin and disturb the remains,” Sylvester replied. “We’ve received no hint Zadock’s spirit yet lingers in this world, or cares at all about his earthly body. But I don’t intend to leave this to chance. Handling his bones should tell us definitively one way or the other.”
“I’ll stay and help,” Vincent said.
Sylvester offered him a tired smile. “I appreciate the offer, but I only sent everyone else away as a precaution. I don’t truly think there will be any danger.”
“Please, Sylvester, let one of us stay,” Lizzie said. “Just in case.”
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