Trifles and Folly 3, page 28
That thought chilled me, but I felt certain Sorren was correct. I stood in the old house’s entranceway and looked around. Teag had turned on the lights, but they barely made a dent in the gloom. Either Irene had used very weak lightbulbs, or the house had a darkness that light itself couldn’t dispel.
Long ago, the house had been grand. Now, the inside looked as worn and shabby as the exterior. A layer of dust lay over everything, and heavy cobwebs in the corners and on the chandeliers made me suspect they predated Irene’s death. I had feared that she might be a hoarder—one more reason to leave everything to the store to sort through—but as we moved slowly from room to room, I realized that given her age, the house was surprisingly uncluttered.
“No mirrors,” Teag noted as we moved from the parlor to the dining room. “That’s odd.”
A surge of vertigo hit me so hard I stumbled. Teag swayed on his feet as well. Only Sorren seemed unaffected. “Did you feel that?” I asked, a little breathless.
“Yeah, but I don’t know where it came from,” Teag said. “It felt…weird…like getting a head rush on a roller coaster.”
“I felt nothing,” Sorren said, frowning. “Interesting.”
I walked into the library. High bookshelves filled with leather-bound tomes and a worn, comfortable chair beneath a floor lamp gave me an idea of how Irene spent her evenings. On the far side of the room sat a leather couch that looked comfortable and well-used. A writing desk with tidy stationery and pens sat against one wall.
Tucked into the corner on a mahogany stand was a very fancy, old-fashioned Victrola, albeit one that appeared to be custom-made. I hadn’t noticed any portraits or pictures in the more public rooms, but here I spotted several framed black and white photographs and yellowed newspaper clippings.
I looked at the shelves, noting that each one held a variety of silver-plated knick-knacks nestled among the books. Fine white dust covered everything, even thicker on the shelves than elsewhere. I saw chunks of onyx and agate, minerals known for their protective properties, used as bookends.
Bundles of dried plants tied with ribbon were nestled on shelves, on the mantle, and on the windowsills. The room held the faint odor of sage, and I saw an abalone shell filled with ashes that I guessed was used for frequent smudging. Sigils that I recognized as wardings against evil had been drawn on the windows with soap.
“Irene must have been afraid something was going to get in,” I said, noting the abundance of precautions.
“But we haven’t seen any markings or protective objects in the other rooms,” Teag pointed out. “Maybe she made the library her fortress.”
My attention went back to the photographs. “I think I’ve got something,” I called out. I leaned over for a better look, hesitant to touch anything and activate my magic unless I had to. More than once, a strong reading has knocked me flat on my ass, and we still didn’t know what we were up against.
The woman in the photograph was a much younger version of the matron in the picture Teag found online. Irene sat primly in a long black gown at a table surrounded by six other people, all of whom were holding hands. The newspaper clipping’s headline read, Chicago Welcomes Famed Medium.
“She was a medium,” I reported as Teag and Sorren joined me. Teag lifted the framed article to read it in better light.
“That’s Irene,” he said, “but this says her name is Catherine Jenkins.” He set the frame back on the bookshelf and reached for his phone, doing a quick search.
“That’s interesting…Catherine Jenkins shows up quite a bit. She was a medium who appeared to have real talent, and she traveled all over, often hosted by the rich and famous. Even some of the infamous—a few reputed mobsters were big fans of her Vegas appearances. Oh…”
“What?” I prompted.
“According to this article, she vanished without a trace thirty years ago. She wasn’t married and didn’t have children. Some of the theories said that the Mob put out a hit on her for knowing too much, and others said she might have committed suicide.”
But we knew better. Catherine—Irene—had pulled a disappearing act worthy of Houdini and lived out the rest of her life in seclusion. “Why would a medium choose to live in a haunted house?” I asked. I didn’t have any special talent to see ghosts, but my psychometry picked up on plenty of ghostly energy. Even if I didn’t see them, I knew they were all around us, some stronger than others, watching and waiting. And as Alicia warned, I had the distinct impression that not all the ghosts were friendly.
Sorren had moved to the desk and withdrew a folder, wiping off a layer of dust. The vibrant red of the cardstock seemed out of place among the faded memorabilia of Irene’s exile. “I have the feeling Irene wanted us to find this,” he said. “Since it’s quite a bit newer than anything else here.” He flipped open the cover, revealing more articles and a slim journal. Sorren set the journal aside and leafed quickly through the clippings.
“It would appear that Catherine Jenkins attracted a questionable clientele in the years just before her vanishing act,” Sorren said. “Mobsters, politicians of ill repute, and very rich men with sordid reputations apparently wanted her to plumb the secrets of the afterlife for them. She was investigated for her connections, especially when some of her clients disappeared. None of the charges stuck, but that’s not very forgiving company.”
I looked at the photograph of Catherine at the séance table. “Do you think she was coerced into doing readings for crooks and wanted out?”
“Maybe,” Teag said, moving to stand beside Sorren. He picked up the journal and turned the pages. I looked over his shoulder, but at this distance, I couldn’t make out the cursive script in faded ink.
“If I’m reading this right, I think Catherine took notes on the sessions she had with her more infamous clients,” Teag said. “Just from the ones I’ve read, it looks like they wanted her to contact other dead criminals to find out where they hid their stash or get information that they could use for their own benefit.”
“Let me see what I can pick up,” I said. Teag pulled out the desk chair, and I sat since I didn’t want to find myself suddenly on the floor from a particularly strong reading. Teag and Sorren stayed close, protecting me since I was vulnerable in a trance.
I laid my hand flat on the journal, and immediately, I saw the room through Irene’s eyes. Everything looked fresher, newer. Opened curtains let the sunshine in, and the dust and cobwebs were gone. The library looked comfortable and lived-in, but I could feel the uneasiness of the woman who had made it her hermitage.
Irene was afraid. I picked up on the fear clearly, though the reason was less clear. She felt guilt over the way she had been forced to use her gift, and she loathed the men who had coerced her into being a part of their crimes. And yet, I had the oddest feeling she wasn’t afraid of being found or that she feared arrest. No, her fear ran deeper than that. She didn’t fear death. Irene Sacripant feared the dead.
I came back to myself with a gasp, and Teag gently took the journal from me. He pulled a sports drink from his backpack and pressed it into my hand. I gulped it down, needing the sugar and wanting a moment to compose myself and order my thoughts. Bo’s ghost, my spectral protector, bumped against me, reminding me of his presence and protection.
“She was afraid of the spirits doing…something,” I told them. “But I’m not sure whose ghost she was worried about or what she thought they’d do. Maybe she thought that the ghosts the mobsters made her contact were angry at being disturbed.”
“I’d like to read that journal more closely,” Teag said. “There were some odd phrases about ‘preserving souls’ and ‘cheating the scales’ that don’t make a lot of sense.”
Sorren shook his head. “I think we’re missing something here. The story doesn’t add up. Let’s have a look upstairs, and then see if we can find anywhere that the blueprints you talked about don’t match the current rooms.”
The second floor held bedrooms and bathrooms. All but one appeared to have been long disused. Some of the rooms weren’t even furnished, and the bedchamber that had been Irene’s was oddly devoid of personal possessions beyond clothing.
“It looks like she spent most of her time downstairs,” I said. “In the library, I’d guess.”
“That room does appear to have been her focus,” Sorren replied, in a tone that made me wonder what he was thinking.
Another wave of vertigo almost dropped me to my knees. For a few seconds, everything around me looked blurry, and I had the oddest sense that it was reality itself and not my eyesight that was affected. This time, I swore that the house shook beneath my feet like we were having a private earthquake. Beside me, Bo’s ghost growled and bared his teeth.
“Did you—” I asked Teag, who nodded with a sick expression as if he wanted to puke. My stomach was fine, but my head had started pounding. Once again, Sorren missed out on the excitement, and I figured it was no accident that the undead guy wasn’t being affected.
“Let’s finish what we came to do so we can leave,” Sorren said, and I knew his response was from worry for our safety.
Teag unfurled the blueprints, and Sorren paced off each room upstairs, comparing the dimensions to those on the drawing. All of them matched exactly. Sorren found the access to the unfinished attic, but a quick examination revealed nothing hidden or even stored among the rafters.
He repeated the process downstairs, starting in the parlor. The front room, dining room, and kitchen all matched the blueprints. But in the library, Sorren’s measurements didn’t add up. He paced the walls again, and once more, the numbers were off.
“We’re missing a couple of feet along that wall,” Teag said, pointing to the back of the library.
We all walked over to take a closer look. I squatted to look at the floor. “I think there’s a salt line here.”
Teag and Sorren ran their hands along the shelves and the supports, pressing their fingers into crevices, checking to see if any decorative carvings might activate a hidden latch.
I hung back, readying salt and holy water in case we were attacked. “It’s gotten colder in here,” I noted. “And it feels like we’re being watched.”
“I think…yes. There,” Sorren murmured, and we heard the snick of a hidden latch. Part of the bookshelves swung forward like a door.
Inside the secret compartment were more shelves, but instead of books, these held rows of glass jars and odd wax cylinders. The jars were each topped with a strange collection of copper wires which both fastened the stopper securely and extended down into the containers themselves. More disturbing were the odd flashes of green and blue that flickered intermittently like a slow heartbeat.
“What the hell?” Teag said.
I moved closer, still keeping weapons at the ready. Inside the hidden room, a thick layer of salt lay on the floor, which Sorren and Teag were careful not to disturb. Suddenly, the abundance of silver, onyx, and agate decorations on the shelves made a lot more sense.
“Those are Leyden jars,” Sorren said. “Bastardized, to be sure, but the spiritualists of the eighteen-hundreds thought the soul to be mostly electrical, and the jars could store electricity somewhat like a battery.
“Those rolls. They’re Edison cylinders,” I said in a hushed voice. “That Victrola wasn’t created as a music player; it was originally meant to record the voices of the dead.”
“So you’re saying that Irene recorded the confessions of the dead and trapped their souls?” Teag asked, aghast.
It all clicked into place. Catherine’s hatred of her criminal patrons, their unexplained deaths, and her dramatic disappearance, as well as Irene’s voluntary exile and the numerous warnings. Hell, it even gave me a good idea about what was up with all the ghosts downtown, if they were afraid Catherine’s bottled criminals might stage a jailbreak and descend on the city. All the orbs and manifestations were good spirits trying to warn us in the only way they knew how.
“She got her revenge,” I replied. “Whether or not she killed the men who forced her to work for them, I think she stole their souls. Maybe she wanted to punish them or thought they might cause harm from beyond the grave. But that’s why she went into hiding. She was their prison guard.”
“And once she died, without her magic to help keep the souls contained, they’ve started to ‘leak,’” Teag added, taking a step back reflexively.
“I’m not entirely certain about her motives, but I think we have discovered why Irene left the house—and its contents—to the shop,” Sorren said in agreement.
“No mirrors,” I said, suddenly making the connections. “Stories say ghosts can hide in reflective surfaces or travel between mirrors. That’s why there aren’t any.”
“So we’ve basically got a toxic waste dump of damned souls,” Teag said. “And we get to be the supernatural hazmat crew.”
I felt a chill against the back of my neck, but not from the ghosts in the hidden chamber. The air behind me stirred, and I had the overwhelming sense that someone stood behind me. “Where did Irene die?”
“No idea,” Teag replied. “Why?”
“I’m betting she passed away right here,” I said. “And I don’t think she ever left.”
The door to the hallway slammed behind us, and the wooden slatted shutters closed by themselves as the lights flickered wildly. The temperature plummeted as if we were in a walk-in freezer, so cold I could see my breath. The house shuddered, hard enough this time to rattle the objects on the bookshelves and make the chandelier swing.
Vertigo hit me hard, making me reel, and I caught myself with a hand on the edge of the writing table. The room…wavered. It shimmered like heat rising off asphalt, its dimensions skewing until it looked as if it were trying to fold in on itself.
Teag had gone pale, looking as if his knees might buckle. Sorren drew both his iron blades, alert for an attack.
“Look!” As my vision cleared, I could see what had caught his attention. A red pinprick of light glowed almost too brightly to look at, right in the center of the wall behind the Leyden soul jars.
Irene’s ghost took shape, standing between us and the shelves, and I could not tell whether her intent was to protect us from the trapped souls or to keep the glowing jars safe from our interference. Bo lowered his head and growled, baring his teeth.
Gooseflesh rose on my arms. The air felt charged with twisted energy; perhaps the tainted magic used to imprison the souls or force their unwilling confessions. Irene did not attack, but she did nothing to lessen the assault to our senses. Behind her, the red light grew from a speck to a larger dot.
“You willed the house to us.” I thought perhaps Irene didn’t recognize us and thought that we were come to steal or harm her unholy collection. “We’re here because you summoned us.”
Teag moved behind me and grabbed the journal. He paged to the end and then looked up at Irene’s determined ghost. “It’s not just the evil spirits you trapped, is it?” he asked. “There’s something else here we need to figure out before we try to deal with the jars, and you want us to figure it out.” Irene nodded.
The house shuddered again, sending a fine white cascade down the bookshelves. Salt, I thought. Not all dust. She lined the shelves with salt. But did she mean to keep the souls inside, or keep something else out?
Another tremor, this one hard enough to rattle the glass dangles on the chandelier. Behind Irene’s ghost, the pop-pop-pop of shattering bottles sounded like gunfire as three of the Leyden jars exploded, freeing the spirits housed inside. I didn’t need to be a medium to feel the shift in the room and know that the ghosts who had freed themselves were malevolent and hungry.
Three glowing red orbs from the broken jars dove at us as Bo snarled and jumped to intercept. I didn’t know what would happen if those orbs hit us, but I doubted it would be good. Teag deflected one with a slash of an iron blade, which made it veer and dimmed its light for a second.
Sorren’s quick reflexes kept him out of the way of the dive-bombing balls of energy, and he struck again and again with his iron knives, forcing the spirit lights to draw back or lose some of their glow. I couldn’t spare much attention for Irene, but I wasn’t sure whether her ghost was trying to block the orbs or us. The orbs blinked in and out as we tried to hold off the attack, and Bo continued to lunge and snap at them.
My martial arts experience wasn’t as extensive as Teag’s, and I didn’t have Sorren’s speed. I leveled my athame at those that came my way and pulled on its strong emotional resonance, sending a blast of cold power that swept the balls of light out of its path and rattled the bookshelf behind them. I angled my shot so I didn’t break any more of the bottles, and after I hit the orbs a few times, they drew back, giving me space.
The orbs obviously disliked contact with iron as much as they reacted to the force of my magic, and whether being struck hurt them or drained energy, it didn’t matter so long as it kept them clear of us. Our defense hadn’t gotten rid of them, but they were considerably dimmer than when we started, and I wondered if they could recharge or if we might win if we could outlast them.
“Cassidy, the light!” Teag said, and I saw that the fiery red light had grown to at least the size of a quarter. “What is that?”
“Nothing good,” Sorren replied.
The room shuddered, but this time it felt different. Even Sorren jolted with the tremor, and in the next heartbeat, the door to the hallway crashed open, splintering with the force that broke through the power holding it shut.
Archibald Donnelly framed in the doorway, and behind him, Father Anne Burgett. Donnelly was a big man with a shock of white hair and the kind of bushy sideburns and mustache that went out of style with the Civil War. Put a pith helmet on him, and he’d look like one of those English colonels from the height of the British Empire. Father Anne, a highly unorthodox Episcopalian priest, couldn’t be overlooked with her short, spiked black hair, clerical collar over a black T-shirt, and steel-toed Doc Marten boots.
