Jennie couldn’t answer. Her mouth flapped open and shut. She let out a sudden scream and collapsed to the floor, all her energy expended on building her connection to Annabelle.
It wouldn’t be until after the performance that the stewards and cast members sent to hunt for Jennie stumbled across her unconscious body.
It would be several more years before Jennie learned to control her powers.
Chapter Thirteen
Abandoned Subway, New York City, Present Day
The voices were everywhere. All types of accents and dialects from many different time periods. Words Jennie hadn’t heard spoken in decades, and some she had never heard spoken.
But she couldn’t see any of it. All Jennie was aware of was the hands carrying her somewhere she couldn’t see. The sack had been pulled over her head almost immediately, and now the specters were doing the work for her and saving her the energy of having to walk the final few miles to the finish line.
Always a good idea to save my energy.
Worthington was somewhere nearby. Occasionally, she heard snippets of his beautiful British blustering.
“Unhand me, you scoundrels!”
“Release me at once!”
“This is ridiculous! Don’t you know who I am, you rotten cads?”
Meanwhile, Jennie remained silent. During the 1980s, she had taken a few months to go on a journey of self-discovery. After meeting a man in a London bar who specialized in teaching yoga and meditation practices, she had taken his advice and taken the next flight out of the UK.
Her journey had taken her to Budapest and then on to India. She spent time with the monks, and she was mentored by the yogis. During a four-week stint in Chattarpur, she had studied with a yoga instructor who had taught her the tenets of mastering self-control and how to regulate her heartbeat.
These lessons had provided invaluable knowledge and had gone a long way toward aiding in the work she had performed for the queen over the last hundred and forty years.
Particularly now, when she’d been bagged and was being carried by an unknown number of spectral assailants deep into the underground tunnels of New York City.
Jennie calmed herself, taking her mind back to her happy place. A time when she had first learned to control her powers. When her parents were alive, and life was simpler.
Finally, she felt herself being placed on the floor, and she heard Worthington shuffling frantically somewhere nearby. “At last. Now, remove this damn sack.”
No answer.
They’d been left alone in silence.
Jennie looked inward, using her gift to feel around the room. The specters were still nearby, although Jennie couldn’t get a precise count.
“Remove the bags.”
A familiar voice.
Jesus. I’ve only been in the city for a few days, and already I’ve met everyone there is to meet.
The bags were whipped roughly off their heads, and the candlelight stung their eyes.
Jennie blinked, and the blurry face of someone she thought she’d meet along her path came into focus. “Lupe?”
Lupe looked surprised. “You know my name?” A grin appeared on his face. “I knew word of my work would spread.”
Jennie wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Or maybe you just can’t control your voice? You forgot that we were watching you in the park. You’re not the most observant member of the Spectral Plane, are you?”
Lupe sat back smugly in his chair. For some reason, they had procured an old leather armchair and placed it in the center of the abandoned train carriage. Specters lined the fold-down seats while Jennie and Worthington sat on the floor. Even through the grime-covered windows, Jennie could see dozens more specters watching from outside.
“Member?” Lupe chuckled. “The Spectral Plane is mine. I own this rowdy rabble of specters!” He laughed loudly. Obscenely, small globs of spit sprayed from his mouth as he turned to the specters, and they laughed in return. “Incluso en la muerte, los vivos controlan la historia.”
The specters laughed even harder.
Worthington leaned toward Jennie. “What did he say?”
“Even in death, the living control the story,” Jennie told him.
“Very good!” Lupe praised. “You have a good grasp of the Spanish language.”
“Thanks. I spent several months over there dealing with a group of specters who were involved in a drug cartel and got far too big for their britches. Spanish isn’t too different from any other Indo-European language once you know the basics.”
“Spanish is a beautiful language,” Lupe crooned. “The language of love. The language of laughter. The language of life.”
Jennie gave him a sharp look. “And, now the language of death, it would appear.”
“Bueno.” Lupe calmed down and stroked his chin, examining the pair in front of him. In the flickering candlelight, his litany of scars and cuts made his face look more gruesome than before, as though he had been resurrected. “I have to admit, I am surprised you found me down here. No other mortal has managed to figure out the location of our headquarters.”
“Well, you know.” Jennie shrugged. “Sniff out a specter, follow the trail. I’m kind of like a bloodhound that way. I’m more surprised that you are the leader of the Spectral Plane. Tell me, how does that work? You make a group of followers in life, and when you die, you’ve got somewhere to go to? That how it works?”
A smile teased Lupe’s lips. “Something like that. As I’m sure you well know. When you’re a conduit to the afterlife, anything is possible.”
His eyes fixed intensely on Jennie.
Worthington looked confused. “I’m sorry, a ‘conduit?’”
“One who can commune and channel the dead,” Lupe replied, his eyes not moving from Jennie’s. “We are a rare breed, you and I.”
“We’ll be rarer when I finally commit you to the afterlife,” Jennie retorted. “You know we have come straight from the queen, and we intend to shut you down and put an end to all of this nonsense.”
Lupe’s eyebrows raised. “Nonsense?”
“Too polite?” Jennie continued. “Okay, then, bullshit.” She broke Lupe’s gaze and addressed the specters crowding around them. “Her Paranormal Majesty, Queen Victoria, has personally sent us to pass on the message that any specter plotting against the crown will suffer severe consequences. There is only room in the world for one paranormal power, and the paranormal court has held this post for centuries. Put aside your petty differences and pledge allegiance to the crown if you wish to live. If not, then suffer your exorcism and accustom yourself to the final death. The choice is yours. I will not ask again.”
A moment of silence as the specters stared at Jennie. She met their eyes in turn, knowing it wouldn’t be as easy as that. Still, she had to at least give everyone the chance to surrender before things got ugly.
Lupe stood up and clapped. “I knew you had big cojones, señorita. I’d heard the stories about you and your…gifts. But let’s be real here. Your queen has overstayed her welcome. New is better.” He turned and indicated the crowd of specters around them. “We’re armed to the teeth. You’ve brought yourself and a teeny-tiny specter sporting the clothes of the enemy. I highly recommend you consider your options.”
“I did,” Jennie replied matter-of-factly. “I made my choice before I entered the underground.”
“Subway,” Worthington muttered.
“Does it matter?”
Lupe let out a snort of derision. He drew a knife from his side and pointed it at Jennie. “I knew you wouldn’t go easily, so I prepared. It’s a truth that sometimes you have to cut out a mole to prevent cancer.”
Jennie scoffed. “It’s a shame that you’re stupid enough to think that an itty-bitty knife is going to fix all your problems.”
As she finished talking, the two guns at her hips appeared as if from nowhere as the cloak of Worthington’s power lifted and allowed them to become visible.
“Fancy wea
ponry,” Lupe admired.
Jennie smirked. “Better than your prick.”
Lupe leaped, determined to attack Jennie before she could reach for her guns.
Jennie saw his maneuver coming. Her mind already focused, she reached out and latched on to two nearby specters, dragging them together and causing them to collide in front of her. The specters groaned as they solidified and formed a metaphysical barrier that stopped Lupe from crossing.
Jennie threw the specters and Lupe back against the carriage wall, shattering what was left of the glass from the window.
“Get them!” Lupe shouted before the wind was knocked from his stomach.
Jennie leaped to her feet, now completely surrounded by specters. She reached for Worthington and felt herself become incorporeal as she helped him to his feet and her connection grew stronger by the second. “If you want to fight like a specter, you have to become a specter.”
“Way to state the obvious, Jennie,” Worthington told her dryly. “But do you have a next step to this plan?”
Jennie grinned. She loved introducing new specters to her arsenal of powers, which was one of the reasons she allowed the queen to assign her new partners. Worthington had experienced some of the tricks in her bag, but there was a lot more hiding inside. “Now I employ the combat skills I learned while training in Thailand back in 1926. Or was it 1936? I forget. At a certain point, the years all become one.”
A specter reached for her. She swiveled out of the way, caught the crook of his arm over her shoulder, and pitched him forward. The specter tumbled over her body and disappeared through the carriage floor.
“Lucky son of a bitch. I wish I could do that.” She saw her ghostly glow. “Oh, wait. I can.” She slipped through the floor as several pairs of hands reached for her and landed next to the wheels of the train.
It was dark on the tracks. Jennie heard the frantic scrabbling above her and knew she had to act fast. The specter she had thrown through the floor was now nearly out of the underbelly of the carriage and gave her a sarcastic wave.
“Jennie?”
Jennie turned to her right at the sound of her name and saw Baxter tied up and strapped to the underbelly of the train. “Baxter?”
“Fancy seeing you here,” he remarked.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
The specter she had been chasing scrambled to his feet.
“Hold on.” Jennie reached into her pocket and pulled out a ghostly knife. She quickly slashed the ropes, and Baxter fell the couple of feet to the ground with a gasp.
She turned her attention to the other specter, gesturing with her hands as she reached out with her power. A thin trail of power ran between the pair. Jennie felt the moment her connection captured him.
With a cocky wink, she grabbed the thread and pulled.
Jennie launched herself forward at a remarkable speed and tucked her arms tightly at her sides as she propelled herself toward the specter. When she reached him, she grabbed him and the pair went rolling down the ancient tracks until they came to a standstill.
“How the…” the specter coughed.
Jennie straddled him and punched him in the face. “That’s what you get when you try to grab me.” Another punch. “And that’s for being a complete wanker.”
She turned at the sound of voices.
The specters from the train were outside the carriage and coming for her.
“Watch and learn. You haven’t seen the half of it.” She smirked, running back toward the throng.
She drew her pistol and the Big Bitch. As she ran, she fired at several specters and shot the cocky grins off their faces.
Panic set in when they realized that somehow, they could be injured by the guns.
Heads splattered as Jennie continued firing, but their bodies remained mobile. Now dozens of specters were walking in circles, bashing into each other.
Realizing there were too many, Jennie twirled the guns around her fingers and slotted them back into the holsters as she reached the throng and the specters came at her with dogged determination on their faces. She blocked several punches with her forearms, and one with her shin as she maneuvered around the group, dodging blows and sending several jabs and uppercuts their way.
Her heart beat fast, and adrenaline flooded her blood. She felt alert and present, able to see all the action taking place around her.
At one point, a woman went for a kick, and Jennie raised her leg just in time to avoid it connecting with her knee. She raised her knee to her chest, then stamped back down, at the same time managing to grab a man’s wrist and deflecting his punch, which was aimed straight at her face.
But there were a lot of them, and she was just one woman. After a few minutes of valiant fighting, the specters began to pile on top of her. Soon she was lost beneath a sea of them, all working to compress her and keep her down to stop her from doing damage.
After a few minutes, Jennie went still.
Lupe dabbed the blood which had formed in the corner of his mouth, still unable to understand what had just happened.
He had been a conduit to the specters for as long as he could remember. Could commune with them and see them wandering down the streets since he was a little boy on the borders of Mexico.
Yet, he had never felt a specter. In all his fifty years on this Earth, he had never run the risk of a specter hurting him. Becoming physical enough to do him damage.
But the specters had hurt you, hadn’t they? Had flown through the air and collided with you like boulders, blasting you back against the carriage walls.
Lupe rose to his feet and straightened his robes. The specters had jumped in to defend him, so that was good. It was nice to know that even in life, he had earned the respect of the dead. That his thralls had his back and hadn’t been full of shit when they’d pledged their allegiance to him as the leader of the Spectral Plane.
The true leader. Not like those shitty pretenders up on the surface. The ones who claimed to be clairvoyants and psychics but wouldn’t recognize a poltergeist if it fucked them in their sleep.
He wandered through the train carriage, past the old Englishman who had accompanied the woman. He was bound and held firm by two of his finest men. Lupe worked his way to the back window. His specters were down there now, a huge pile-up of bodies on top of the woman. A heaving mass weighing down upon her, neutralizing the one person he had met who he was sure would ruin his plans for revolution.
“You know she’s playing you like a steel drum?” Worthington remarked. “You’re playing right into her hands.”
“And what do you know of our plan?” Lupe retorted. “The Spectral Plane can shatter the girl with the power of Thor’s hammer. If she wants to risk her life and become a specter, then so be it. But she will swear allegiance to me on the other side.”
“In your dreams,” Worthington told him dryly.
Lupe stared intently at the heaving mass, wondering how long his specters would wait there. He growled as he saw the large black man he had tied under the train emerge and start tossing bodies off the pile.
He was about to shout for someone to get him back under control and tie the specter back up when he felt something change in the air.
The temperature dropped several degrees. A rumble on the subway floor caused dust and debris to fall like snow from the ceiling.
The specters began to murmur and mumble.
“I hate to say I told you so,” Worthington managed before one of his captors shoved an ethereal cloth into his mouth.
Lupe stared down at the pile-up, trying to work out what was going on. He heard cries of distress from somewhere deep within the pile, followed by fragments of bright white light bursting out of the center.
The next thing he knew, he could see nothing but bright white light. He shielded his eyes and listened to the cries of alarm from his spectral army.
Chapter Fourteen
Jennie had them all exactly where she wanted them. She huddled beneath the bo
dies of the specters. One by one, they had formed a protective cocoon around her.
A cocoon from which I can draw strength, suckers.
She formed connections to as many specters as possible, feeling the ethereal energy flow through her. Over the years, she had tested her limits, sometimes overreaching but always growing. Ever since her first test of strength against a little girl named Annabelle, she had continually expanded on how far she could push herself.
Jennie spoke despite the pressure bearing down on her. “Oh, boys? Are you ready to bow down before a new power?”
The specters within her immediate vicinity gasped, suddenly desperate to leave. They were too far beneath the pile to move.
Jennie grinned. “Here we go…”
She began draining the energy of every specter she had tapped, her eyes closed as she focused and worked to maintain her control. The power began to fill her, coursing through her and heating her blood. She felt herself become strong as the energy worked its way into every fiber of her muscles.
Jennie clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. Her arms were folded, but they wouldn’t be for long.
Gasps and cries of alarm came from those who could sense what she was doing. They hurried to scramble away, to no avail.
“Here we go…” Jennie’s face was inches from a woman who would clearly rather be anywhere than where she was. Jennie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Then came the flash of light, the energy forming itself into a ball of power. Jennie worked her arms free as the energy shot outward, immediately feeling the end of the resistance from the specters. The light exploded from her epicenter and the specters were flung away, each one pinned to the tunnel by the thread of power that connected them to her.
Jennie could finally breathe and was able to see the tunnel once more. Her powers held the specters firm against the walls and ceiling as she slowly rose to her feet. She looked haunting in her spectral form, with her eyes completely white and her hair flowing gently behind her as the unseen power pulsed its energy.
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 13