“Is that going to help us unlock the door?” Baxter asked.
“Yes.” Jennie placed the lid back on and returned the vial to her pocket. “If you want to cause the lock to become temporarily paralyzed for two to four hours and wake up with no memory of what just occurred.”
Baxter’s forehead creased. “Chloroform?”
Jennie considered this. “Think of chloroform on steroids.”
“You scare me,” Baxter told her.
“Thank you,” Jennie replied, placing the pink vial back.
Jennie reached into another pocket and withdrew a vial which housed a thick black liquid that moved like treacle inside its container. She nodded with satisfaction, then unscrewed the lid and poured it onto the metal mechanism.
“Sherlock certainly never had anything like this,” Jennie snarked, delicately targeting where she was putting the liquid. “Arthur never had the imagination to go as far as these types of chemicals. Way before his day, they were. Imagine how easy it would be for Sherlock to break in with advanced chemistry.”
“And let me guess, you met him, too?” Baxter asked.
“Nah,” Jennie muttered. “Met his wife, though. I had a cup of tea once with her. ‘Louisa,’ I said, ‘How can you go around popping out so many children? Surely there are better things to do.’ She said, ‘Yes, there are, but they’re all also married!’ Funny woman, that one.”
Jennie stood back. “Ah, here we go.”
At first, nothing happened. Then, a hissing sound came from the mechanism, and they both watched as the substance began to eat through the lock, dissolving the metal as though it were nothing more than cud for the cattle to chew.
Chunks of the lock fell onto a small piece of cloth Jennie had put on the floor to dampen the sound, and then the door was unlocked. Jennie turned the handle and nudged it open before ushering Lupe inside and pulling it closed it behind him.
“Took your time,” Lupe bitched.
Jennie flicked his ear.
Lupe’s hand shot up to protect his ear. “Ouch!”
“A simple thank you would have sufficed,” Jennie told him acidly.
They made their way up the spiral stairs into Lady Liberty’s inner sanctum. The echo of tourist footsteps still lingered as they rose ever higher, the chill of the night working its way inside and gripping them with cold fingers.
Before they reached the top, they came across a doorway, blocked off with a sign reading “Warning: Staff Only.”
Jennie bounced her eyebrows then crossed to the door. Repeating the same maneuver as with the main entrance, she floated through and examined the lock. This one was different from the last. The mechanism was embedded in the frame of the door itself.
She poked her head through the door, making Lupe jump.
“Well?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s a no-go, Loops. You can stand here and keep watch. Any sudden noises, let me know, and we’ll come down lickety-split.”
Lupe scowled at the nickname.
“‘Lickety-split?’” Baxter asked from the other side of the door.
“What about the stuff you used on the last door?” Lupe asked, his face still sour. “Use some more of that.”
“What do I look like, a dispensary?” Jenny scoffed. “That stuff doesn’t come cheap, y’know. It’s specially crafted by the Salem Sisters in Camden, London.”
“Witches?” Lupe asked, looking like he’d just won the lottery.
Jennie laughed. “I’m yanking your chain. Not about the sisters. They’re real, but they’re what people would call scientists these days. Alchemists who like to play with chemistry.”
Lupe huffed.
Jennie grinned. “You’ll be fine, Loops. Just take a seat, relax, and shout if bad guys flood the stairwell.”
“Fine,” he conceded unhappily.
“Good,” Jennie told him, dipping back through the door.
They were halfway up a narrow ladder located inside Lady Liberty’s arm when Jennie paused, feeling Baxter’s eyes on her. He had been walking several steps behind Jennie, with a full view of her derrière.
“Are you looking at my arse?” Jennie demanded.
Baxter realized he hadn’t managed to remove his eyes from the ass in question. “No! Never!” He was still looking. What was wrong with him? “I mean, well… Yeah. But, not on purpose. It’s, like, hypnotic.” He wiped his forehead. “Shit, Bax, keep digging, why don’t you? Sorry, Jennie.”
Jennie laughed. Baxter wasn’t the first male to fall victim to the sway of her hips. It was comical when you could kick the ass of any guy who pushed it. “Easy, you’ll give yourself a hernia.”
“Why don’t I go ahead?” Baxter managed. “Why did you tell Lupe you had no more of that mixture when you clearly do?” He pointed at the small pockets dotted around her hips and thighs as he walked past.
Jennie shook her head at Baxter. “Because the spectral energy up here is almost overwhelming and despite his best intentions, what we’re walking into is going to be no place for a mortal.”
The Plaza, New York City
The specters burst into the apartment with all the grace of a cohort of clowns exiting a clown car. Half a dozen of them, they came through the door and walls as if they owned the place.
Well, they were ghosts.
They were from varying time periods. There were two women from the eighties in high heels and power suits, both with their long hair scraped back into tight ponytails at the bases of their skulls. A man who appeared as if he had come straight from a 1950s gangster movie stood next to a Victorian woman, whose cheeks were stained permanently red. Her teeth were black.
Then there were the two at the front of the group, a man in a pinstripe suit with a Tommy gun who looked as though he might have once lived in the 1920s, and a woman in a gown who twirled her parasol in front of her and gave a small cackle. Jennie would have recognized them as Rico and Rita.
Rico leered at Carolyn and Feng Mian. He fixed his eyes on the Chinese man and spoke out of the side of his mouth to the man and the women. “Check the other rooms. Make sure she’s gone.”
Carolyn put on a mock innocence and took a step forward. “I’m sorry, who is it you’re looking for?”
Rico grinned, the type of smile you give to the victim of the hunt—a satisfied, crooning grin that said he’d already somehow won.
“Why, we’re looking for you, darling,” Rita purred, propping her umbrella over her shoulder. “Turns out you made the wrong choice in your affiliations when you died, and now we’ve come to claim you as our own.”
“You’re with the crown?” Carolyn asked.
“In a manner of speaking.” Rico grinned as the two women in power suits examined the rest of the apartment and declared it clear of other parties.
“Excellent,” Rico continued. “Now, it appears there’s something in this beautiful hotel room which belongs to us. Can you take a guess what it is we’ve come for?”
Carolyn turned instinctively to the girl, surprised to see that Feng Mian was silently still watching over her. Although he had warned her to the intruders’ presence, he had hardly shifted his position.
What was he playing at?
“You can’t have her.” Carolyn puffed out her chest and readied her fists. Was this how specters fought? She had no idea. “Go back to whichever asshole sent you here and tell them to back off. We’ve got powerful friends on our side.”
“And where are they now?” Rita crooned, much to the delight of the specters behind them.
Carolyn scowled. “They’re out.”
“Well, then,” Rico smarmed. “I guess we’ll take our chances, then. Shall we?”
Carolyn gasped as Rico lifted the Tommy gun from behind his back and aimed it at her face.
Liberty Island, New York City
The inside of the torch was stone cold and deserted.
The place was nothing more than a blank canvas of concrete with viewing ports along the wall
s.
Once a public tourist attraction, the torch was the highest-reaching part of the Statue of Liberty, where tourists had taken in the best views of the city from the Hudson until 1916 when an explosion triggered by the Germans during World War I fired shrapnel across Hudson Bay and straight into Lady Liberty’s torch.
The structural damage to the torch was so bad that the whole area was cordoned off and had since been abandoned, declared unsafe for public access for over a hundred years.
Jennie could smell it in the air. The stench of forgotten things. Dust and dirt and time gathered in the far recesses of the room. She took slow and careful steps, but even those caused soundwaves that disturbed the very memories which populated the chamber.
Jennie breathed in through her nose. “Can you smell that?”
“All I can smell is dirt and dust,” Baxter replied, his voice a mere whisper. “Why don’t they do anything with places like these? How do they deem something unsafe and not make an effort to repair it?”
“The world is full of forgotten places,” Jennie replied. “As much as the human race cherishes its people and its history, there are too many places left abandoned. Apartments, houses, mansions. Things that still could serve a purpose, but have arbitrarily been discontinued as the masses focus on the new and shiny toys of the world. If only we could clean up our messes and make use of the things we do have, rather than the things we wish we had.”
Baxter nodded in silent agreement. He joined Jennie by the viewing ports and stared out at the city. “Still, she is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Jennie grinned. Although she pretended not to notice, she could feel spectral energy nearby, great pulsing waves of the stuff. When she turned back to the chamber, she wasn’t surprised to see a specter standing in the center of the room.
“I was wondering when you’d appear,” Jennie commented, as though she were greeting an old friend.
The specter was apish-looking. His arms and neck were thick, and his back was so hunched his knuckles almost scraped the floor. There were horrendous burns on his face, and he scowled at them both now.
He grunted, not doing much to dispel Jennie’s first impression. “You’re trespassing.”
“Technically, we all are,” she replied. “You. Me. Baxter. The guys hiding in the walls.”
Sure enough, figures began to melt out of the walls of the torch. They had been clinging to its exterior, waiting for the right moment to appear.
She recognized a few faces among the crowd, specters she had fought in Brooklyn at the abandoned theatre. A few of the faces—those with fewer lines of concern on the brows—looked hungrily at the pair, clearly spoiling for a fight.
“You have a good sense for spectral energy, Rogue,” the apish specter remarked.
A ripple of excitement followed among the specters. Several specters murmured at Jennie’s alias.
“Thanks. I consider myself something of an expert in the arena. It’s nice to know my name is spreading across the city. It would be better if it were to carry across the US, but I’m sure we’ll get there.” Jennie cocked her head and examined the apish man. “Though, you catch me at a disadvantage, friend. Who might you be, and how is it that you’ve acquired this frisky bunch of rapscallions?”
“Rapscallions?” Baxter whispered.
Jennie shrugged. “Briticism. Go with it.”
“My name, as with my past, is long gone,” the apish man replied. “Some still call me Black Tom, but I do not answer to that title.”
“Okay, Tom, it is,” Jennie quipped, figuring out who he was in relation to the torch from his introduction. “Tell me, Tom, have you ever had your ass handed to you by a woman in front of all of your friends?”
A hungry grin grew on Tom’s face. “I have no intention of being defeated, nor are these my friends.”
“Who are they to you, then?” Jennie asked.
“Loans,” Tom told her. “Fodder borrowed to keep you distracted so our mutual acquaintance can work on the real job at hand.”
Jennie felt a shiver run down her spine. “‘Real’ job? What are you talking about?”
Black Tom chuckled darkly. A shadow grew over his face while his eyes lit with fire. A laugh like a choking petrol mower. “Didn’t you think it was too easy to find your way here? To follow the clues the specter gave you straight up into the torch of the Statue of Liberty?”
Jennie kept her mouth shut, having learned that when an enemy gets on a roll with a monologue, it was usually valuable to hear him through all the way to the end.
“I was told you were smarter than that, and you would see straight through the ruse. But you didn’t, did you? Like a good little sheep, you danced across the field and straight into the slaughterhouse. Now, we can have some fun figuring out how to destroy you while the real work begins in your home.”
My home? I don’t live here.
Jennie’s blood ran cold. “The girl!”
Black Tom laughed loudly. Before Jenny had a chance to take any kind of evasive maneuver, a fireball roared toward her and hit her square in the stomach.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Liberty Island, New York City
Although the fireball shone in the ghostly tones of the spectral spectrum, it burned like hell.
The heat of it tore at Jennie’s midsection, threatening to set the cotton of her undershirt on fire. If it hadn’t had been for the leather corset and trousers, she wondered if she’d be a human torch by now.
While the specters were closing in on her and Baxter, Black Tom was already busy growing a second fireball in his hands. His eyes glowed like the foundry of the munitions depot he’d died in, burning coals and smoking energy living inside him.
Jennie pushed herself to her feet and tried to get her head around the situation. In all her years of existence, she had never known a specter to be able to harness such abilities. Could it be to do with the circumstances under which he’d died? Did the explosions and the subsequent fires bind him to the torch and give him the ability to wield fire?
The specters closed in on them. Baxter drew his pistol and scattered his aim around the room.
Jennie cursed herself for falling for the trick. It had been a perfect plan. Distract her for long enough that another squad of specters could go to their hotel room and steal the girl.
How did they even know about her? Had it been from the items on the news and floating around the internet? Were the specters already in the apartment? Did they have time enough to make it back before they arrived?
All of these questions ran through Jennie’s head as she steadied her heartbeat and worked out her next move.
“You ready to go down in flames?” Black Tom crooned.
Jennie latched onto Baxter, feeling the power from their connection grow as Tom prepped his next attack. The space they had to work with was getting smaller by the second.
“I don’t think so,” Jennie replied. “Quite a few of these folks here already know what I’m capable of, so let’s quit with all the bullshit before someone gets hurt, shall we? I’ve got places to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Tom told her, launching another fireball.
This time, Jennie was ready. She dodged out of the way and felt the heat whoosh by her. The fireball popped and crackled as it shot through the air and hit the specters who had been gathered behind her.
Their clothes caught on fire, erupting into flames instantly. Their cries and shouts rang through the torch.
Jennie used the opportunity to spring forward. “Shoot Baxter. Shoot!”
“Who?” he shouted.
“Anyone!” she yelled.
Baxter turned his gun on the crowd and started firing in all directions. The horde began to disperse, a gap breaking in the chain where specters fell or moved out of the way of the shots.
Gunshots fired back, narrowly missing the pair as they ran toward Tom.
Tom leered at them with a confident grin.
Jennie spra
ng forward and lunged at him, right at the moment he finished preparing his next fireball.
Jennie knocked the ball out of his hand, and it fell to the floor. She gave it a swift kick and it flew into the other specters.
The smell of fire and burning flesh grew stronger. Specters patted their flaming clothes, rolling on the floor as they struggled to escape the onslaught of the rapidly expanding fire, a sight mortals wouldn’t be able to see, but which Jennie could see clearly.
“Always nice to visit an old flame.” Jennie failed to duck before a bowling-ball-sized fist slammed into her face.
Pain blossomed from her nose, and white fireworks exploded in her vision.
Tom cackled and reared back for another punch, and his fist connected with Jennie’s cheek.
“You know, for a big guy, you’re awfully fast,” Jennie snarked, taking a few swift steps back and clutching her nose. “Does that extend to every aspect of your life?” She glanced at his crotch.
“Big words from a tiny lady,” Tom growled, planting a kick in her midriff that pushed her toward the flames.
Jennie landed on the concrete with a resounding thump. She massaged her lower back and pushed herself to her feet.
Enough foreplay, she thought, reaching for the Big Bitch. Time to end this fucker.
But when she looked for Tom, all she could see were the flailing and shrieking specters jumping and running to avoid the flames. Tom and Baxter were gone.
The Plaza, New York City
“You ever been shot in the face?” Rico asked.
Carolyn’s heart beat double-time. What kind of question was that? Of course, she’d never been shot in the face. If she had, surely she would be—
Dead?
She shook her head.
“Then I suggest you move, darling. I don’t want to have to hurt you.” Rico paused and re-thought, then said, “Okay, I’m lying. I’d love to have an excuse to fuck up the opposition.”
Carolyn stood firm. She wasn’t sure why. She supposed that maybe the idea of dying when you were already dead seemed impossible. She knew the black veil lay beyond the spectral world, but she liked to think that in that land, there was no more pain.
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 27