I narrowed my eyes. If I was parsing this out correctly, Mr. Swansby had formerly worked for the same agency we did. I asked outright, and when he said yes, I wasn’t the least bit surprised—but when Miss Hart volunteered that she, too, had been an agent for them, I blinked. Mr. Carlisle had sent recruiters all over the country to gather up disaffected agents from our previous employers, it seemed.
It made a certain amount of sense to rely on agents who had already been trained and who had field experience.
I wondered how he had found all of us so quickly.
“If you will all have a seat, we can begin.” Mr. Carlisle gestured to the chairs around the table. The men in the room waited for Mrs. Swansby, Miss Hart and me to be seated first. I made sure to leave an empty chair in between Miss Hart and me for her unseen companion, and Miss Hart shot me a thankful glance.
I took in all the gadgets on the table and stole a look at Trip and Mr. Swansby to find them doing the same. I was eager to discuss my impressions of our coworkers with Trip once we were in private. That would have to wait until after Mr. Carlisle had finished summarizing the situation, though. And definitely until after Trip had a chance to examine the weapons in detail.
“As I told you all in your telegrams, there is a demon disrupting a mining operation nearby. At first, we thought it was a fire demon, because of the various conflagrations associated with its attacks. Since then, however, we have begun to doubt our original assessment.”
“What makes you think you’re wrong?” Mrs. Swansby asked.
“Most fire demons are relatively simple—they attack with fire and little else. This one has shown a sophistication we’re unused to seeing.”
“What do we need to know to go after this demon of yours?” Trip, ever the tactician, went straight to the point.
Mr. Carlisle glanced down at the floor, an uncomfortable expression flitting across his face. “Well, first of all, you should probably know that three other agents have already gone down into the mine and tried to take this thing out.”
“What happened to them?” Mrs. Swansby sounded tentative, as if she wasn’t certain she wanted to know the answer.
“We don’t know.” Mr. Carlisle’s tone was solemn. “They never returned.”
Miss Hart tilted her head toward the empty chair as if listening to something her invisible partner had to say. “Have you arranged to search for them on the spirit plane?”
“That is at least one of the reasons you’re here.” Mr. Carlisle tipped his hat to Miss Hart before addressing all of us. “This is what we know so far. At first, everyone assumed that the incidents were, in fact, typical mining accidents. Beams collapsing, a cave-in, a few other problems of the sort. But then the survivors began telling stories of voices taunting them, whispers, laughter. The miners claim the mine is haunted. So initially, another agency sent in an exorcist—a former priest.”
“And is he missing, too?” Trip asked.
“No. He’s in a mental institution.”
We glanced at one another around the table. Suddenly, it made sense that they had brought in all of us.
“Do you have any particular suggestions going in?” I worked to keep my tone steady, but I was afraid everyone would be able to hear the anxiety threaded through my voice.
“Not so much advice as a potential strategy,” Mr. Carlisle said. “That strategy is dependent upon the tools I have brought with which to equip you.”
He sat up straighter, taking on the tone of a lecturer. “Mrs. Swansby, we assume that you will attempt to dream walk before any of you to enter the mine.”
Mrs. Swansby nodded.
“Excellent. To that end, we have brought a miniaturized version of Edison’s recording phonograph. The machines are becoming popular among doctors wishing to record their patient’s discussions of their experiences, but ours is the first miniaturized version. We have discovered that when we work with dream walkers, their experiences are freshest when they first wake. We ask that you keep this at your bedside and record your impressions as you awake.”
The boxy machine he gestured toward had a small speaking horn, a recording cylinder, and several wax cylinders for recording the speaker’s voice. I had seen a recording phonograph before but had never actually used one—and never had I envisioned one that could be held in one hand.
Next, Mr. Carlisle tapped the top of a square box with a lens in front, much like the cameras I had seen photographers carry, albeit again, much smaller than the usual. “This we expect Mr. Swansby to carry. It is a portable version of an unusual photographic device—it records moving pictures as well as stills. We have sold the design of the larger version and expect them to become popular soon.”
“I assumed I would be involved in the fighting, not in simply recording it,” Mr. Swansby objected.
“We don’t expect you to hang back, certainly. You can start the machinery with this hand crank here,” Mr. Carlisle pointed at the side box, then demonstrated its use. “Once it is set to record, you secure the handle like so, flip this switch over, lock it down, and set the box aside. Retrieve it when you are finished, and we will have a visual record of what occurred.”
I didn’t want to ask if someone he sent would fetch it if none of us survived, though the thought did cross my mind.
Next, he handed us small devices, about the size of our palms, with miniature links and levers, cogs and gears. At the very top, encased in thick glass, was a lightbulb of the sort being installed in some of the more affluent neighborhoods.
“I arranged to have one of these created for each of you. It detects demonic energy.” He turned a few knobs and levers to show us how to set it to detect the energy we were interested in finding.
“To start it, you simply pull this cord here, thereby setting the parts within working, and wait for it to detect the correct demonic signature.”
“Or incorrect,” Miss Hart muttered. I held back a snicker. I suspected I was going to like her quite a bit, despite her need for laudanum.
“And when it does detect this energy?” I asked.
“The lightbulb at the top lights up.” Mr. Carlisle smiled smugly.
“It seems as if you are eliminating the necessity for us one by one,” I said. “I assume that normally, I would be designated demon detector. However, this particular machine seems to eliminate that need.”
Mr. Carlisle looked a bit abashed. “Oh, not at all. I will say, though, that I would hope someday to be able to send automatons to do this work. I would rather never lose another agent again.”
My stomach clenched at the thought, and I felt abashed at having even for an instant thought my ability to detect demons might be more important than the lives of agents.
The rest of the gadgets were weapons, pure and simple. A gun that fired bullets of pure metals, the kind that would kill most monsters. Another that used a steam reservoir to intensify the blast when it ejected the bullet. A third that shot out a stream of a sticky substance that disrupted ectoplasmic intensity. In other words, a demon-confuser. It would be up to the five of us to determine how to distribute these weapons, Mr. Carlisle explained. Except for the five demon detectors, the machines were one-of-a-kind, prototypes.
“That means they’re untested the field, doesn’t it?” Trip asked.
Mr. Swansby leaned in, his eyes narrowed, as he waited to hear the answer to Trip’s query.
“They have all been tested against the creatures they are designed to defeat.” Mr. Carlisle’s answer seemed a little too pat, too quick. It was a lawyer’s answer, not a fighter’s.
“That means you tested them against, what? Caged monsters?” Mr. Swansby raised one eyebrow.
“Yes.” I was impressed that Mr. Carlisle didn’t try to defend or explain his answer any more than that.
So we were going into the field with largely untested devices and weapons and a crew that had never worked together before. This could be interesting.
It was late afternoon by the time he
had finished demonstrating how everything worked, so Mr. Carlisle suggested that we all retire to our rooms and meet the next morning, prepared to head out to Leadville, the town closest to the mine we would be entering and clearing of demons.
As we entered our room, a sudden pain shot through my abdomen. I doubled over, arms around my stomach.
“What is it?” Trip asked. “Are you okay?”
“I loathe that slang word so much. I will never be okay,” I gritted out between my teeth.
Trip snorted in surprise. “Well, you can’t be feeling too poorly, or you would not give such an answer.”
The pain passed, and I stood straight, smoothing my skirt down over my stomach. “I have a terrible feeling about this assignment,” I said.
“I do, too, my love,” Trip replied. “I do, too.”
Chapter 5
We set out the next day for Leadville, taking the train from Denver, though it had nothing of the luxury of the Pullman car Trip and I had taken from Fort Worth. The six of us, including Mr. Carlisle, boarded together.
The plan was to take rooms in the local boarding house for a week. We could stow the bulk of our equipment there, including anything we didn’t need to take up into the mountains with us. When we came back—I worked very hard not to think if we returned—we could gather our gear. It was worth it for the storage, Mr. Carlisle had announced.
“You’re not mounting an expedition to fight a demon at Christmastime because of any misguided religious beliefs, are you?” I asked Mr. Carlisle after we’d all taken our seats on the train. I had considered putting it more politely, but in the end, being blunt generally got me the answers I needed. At least so far.
Mr. Carlisle laughed aloud. “Not at all. We know as well as you do that these creatures—whatever they really are—care no more about a person’s religion than the grass or the dirt does. They seem to be creatures native to this world. I’m not sure it’s at all correct to call them supernatural, even.”
“Except, of course, that many of them do not follow the otherwise incontrovertible rules of nature,” Trip pointed out.
“The supernatural does have its own laws,” Miss Hart interjected in her slightly vacant voice.
“Indeed it does,” Mr. Carlisle murmured in a strange tone. “Indeed it does.”
Chapter 6
Leadville itself was much like every other mining town I’d been to in the Rockies, although perhaps a bit more prosperous than many. It had several storefronts, a couple of boarding houses, a saloon, and a disproportionately large number of men when compared to the number of women. There had been a time when I might have had to pull my gun on one or more of the miners who came to town to spend the money they pulled out of the ground. That hadn’t been a problem since Trip had joined me in my travels. I was glad of it, and though they didn’t realize it, the men of the town were glad, too. My most recent invention before we hit San Antonio to take out that nest of trolls had been a gadget of my own—a pistol powered by a miniature steam engine to create the kind of electric shock that would render a grown troll unconscious. I had not yet tested what it would do to a human male, but I suspected it would be particularly unpleasant.
Trip and I stowed our gear at the boarding house, where we also stabled our horses. The boarding house’s owner, Mrs. Halifax, gave us a suspicious look but didn’t say anything when Trip introduced us as Mr. and Mrs. Silver. It was all I could do to keep from laughing aloud.
When we made our way back down to the common room, Miss Hart was there, apparently whispering to herself in a corner. She glanced up to speak to us as we entered.
“We—I mean, I—am going to the saloon. Would anyone else like to join me?” She seemed a little more awake than before, and I wondered if she’d started to lay off the laudanum so as to better detect the spirits that might be around. In my experience, spirits in a place like this could often reveal more in an hour than could be learned in days of questioning the living. The dead don’t have as many secrets to hide.
Trip and I both assented without even having to look at one another. The saloon was often where we started our investigation into a new town, as well. People who were drinking were more likely to tell us what we wanted to know after they had imbibed. Also, it was the most common place for people to congregate. The others agreed to go, as well, with the single exception of Mr. Carlisle.
That evening, the last night we would ever be the same, we spent circled around a table in the saloon, telling war stories of the kind that hunters so often share. Trip and I talked the time we met in Rittersburg, Texas. He gave a description of me that was both flattering and embarrassing.
“She stood there in the middle of the street, directing a whirlwind of broken glass flying around her, and I thought she was as beautiful as any statue I’d ever seen, even when I went to Europe. And it only got better when she moved into action.”
“So you fought an earth demon there?” Cole Swansby asked.
“They don’t call ’em dust devils for nothing,” Trip joked. Neither of us mentioned the demon who had killed my first partner, Flint. Nor did we mention the church fire that had destroyed him—and come close to destroying me for years thereafter. Though this night was for bonding, those were the stories that were too personal to share.
Hattie Hart told a perfectly harrowing tale of a ghost town—a literal ghost town—where she had almost died even as some of the ghosts attempted to point her toward that which was real.
She didn’t introduce us to her spirit beau. I didn’t ask any questions about him then, but I intended to as soon as we had a spare moment.
Mr. and Mrs. Swansby talked of their first meeting, as well. She had ended up working for our former company because she had seen a flyer. Mr. Swansby, on the other hand, had been a skeptic, relying on his sense of reality to deal with issues of the supernatural. Well, that and the manuals the company had sent out. Right up until a haunted whorehouse had convinced him that the supernatural was real.
For all of us, those had been our last assignment with our former company. Soon thereafter, Mr. Carlisle’s compatriot, Mr. Johnson, had begun rounding us all up, signing us to contracts with the P.I. Agency.
“Do any of you find it odd that they would gather up our old company’s employees?” Mrs. Swansby asked.
Trip shrugged, turning out one hand. “It might just make good business sense,” he said. “Finding and hiring all of our former employer’s disaffected employees means getting people who know how to do the job. After all, they stayed alive.”
“As we all prove,” Miss Hart said.
We remained in the saloon until after sunset. Once it was completely dark outside, Hattie Hart and I glanced at each other and nodded. Without ever speaking a single word aloud, we clasped hands across the table from one another and inhaled, synchronizing our breath with each other and with the world around us.
I was shocked by how quickly my sight slipped into the spirit realm. Miss Hart was strong—stronger in this realm that I was, though my abilities were broader than hers. As soon as they realized we could see them, a score of sad-faced, gaunt, and otherwise miserable-looking men descended upon us. They stretched their hands out, begging us to take messages to the people they had loved in life.
With her hands clenched on mine, it was as if I could feel Miss Hart’s longing for the laudanum that would make it more difficult for these spirits to reach her. I suspected she hadn’t had any formal training, either. Using my spiritual mastery voice, I commanded the relicts around us to remove themselves from the earthly plane unless they had information about the haunted mine. All but three of the spirits responded to the command by leaving entirely.
“That’s better,” Miss Hart said. “Now. Tell us what you know about the haunted mine.” I examined all of the remaining spirits. One of them wore a US Marshal’s metal star… Wait. I recognized him, even having seen only a glimpse of him. Hattie’s spirit lover.
Well, then, he wouldn’t be particula
rly useful in this discussion. That left just the two men, both obviously miners, to discuss the haunted mine with us.
“Tell us what you know,” Miss Hart’s searching stare raked over the two specters. One of them simply stood shaking his head, as if his voice had been stripped from him. The other fell to his knees, covered his face and began weeping, crying out, “No, no. Don’t make me tell you. The horror.”
I was about to let go of Miss Hart's hands, convinced that our miniature séance had produced nothing of any value, when the Marshal stepped out from behind Miss Hart’s chair and strode over to the ghost of the miner collapsed on the floor. I watched in open-mouth amazement as he leaned over, grasped the spirit by the collar, and lifted him roughly, shaking him. “Pull yourself together, man,” Hattie Hart’s partner said. “You may have all the time the world to blubber away, but the men who are scheduled to go back down into that mine come the new year don’t. Do you want them to end up like you?”
It was truly stunning to see one spirit attack another.
“I don’t know what to do!” the miner wailed.
“Pull up a chair and tell these ladies what happened to you down there.”
The miner wiped his spectral face of its ectoplasmic tears and sat down in the equally spectral straight-back chair the ghost of the Marshal had pulled up to the table for him.
“Thank you, Grant,” Miss Hart said quietly.
I wanted to get the others involved, bring them into the circle by having them take one of my hands and one of Hattie’s. But I was afraid to let go, worried that if I did, I would lose my vision of this astounding sight.
When the miner’s spirit had seated himself, Miss Hart began asking questions. “When did you first notice something had gone awry?”
“It was the whispers. We heard them first. Then the laughter, and the voice that kept telling us we were going to die. And then some of us did.”
Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories Page 13
