Grave Voices

by Gail Z. Martin

  Della Kennedy staggered as if overcome by grief. Mitch Storm took her arm to steady her. Della gave a wan smile of thanks. “What will it require?” Della asked.

  “I need to prepare, but you’ve come at a good time of day to speak to the spirits,” Clare replied. “If you’re willing to wait for a few minutes in the parlor, I can get the séance room ready and we can call to your brother tonight. Would you like that?” Clare’s voice was comforting, her manner direct, and her gray eyes shrewd.

  “Oh, yes.” Della fingered a necklace made of dark, woven hair, a piece of funeral jewelry made from a lock taken from the dearly departed. “It’s just that… I miss him so much.” Once again, she might have swooned if her companion had not steadied her and guided her to one of the flocked velvet chairs in the darkened, comfortable parlor.

  Clare nodded. “Well then, I’ll get everything ready. Please, make yourselves at home. There’s a pot of water and everything you need for tea on the table. I’ll come for you when we’re ready to begin.”

  Della reached out and took Clare’s hand in both of her own. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “You can’t imagine what this means to me.”

  Clare gave a sympathetic smile. “I’ve lost loved ones myself, Miss Kennedy,” she said reassuringly. “And so have my clients. I am sorry for your grief, and I hope I can make things a bit better.” With that, she left them, closing the door to the hallway behind her.

  A moment after the door latched, Della was on her knees, searching beneath the chair and the fainting couch next to it for hidden wires or gadgets. “Watch the door!” she hissed. Mitch didn’t need to be told. He already stood where he could block the door from opening.

  “Hurry. We don’t know how long we’ve got until she comes back,” Mitch warned in a whisper.

  Della checked the undersides of the other furnishings. “Nothing,” she muttered after a few moments. The parlor was a shabby version of the most popular styles: dark woods, claret velvet upholsteries, and gas lamps with painted globes or faceted crystal dangles. Cheap paintings of storms at sea or moody landscapes hung on the walls. Della opened the drawers on the mahogany writing desk, smoothed her hands down the heavy velvet draperies, and pulled the large framed mirror away from the wall far enough to get a look behind it.

  Finally, after she had even looked under the slightly thread-bare rug in the center of the room, Della put her hands on her hips and glared around the room, as if it were a child keeping secrets from her. “Nothing,” she repeated in an exasperated whisper. “No wires. No cameras or equipment. No switches or peep holes. If she’s a fake, there’s nothing to prove it here.”

  Mitch grinned. “It was worth it just to watch you ‘swoon’,” he teased. “Did you have to practice in the mirror to get it right?”

  Della glared at him. Nothing about Della’s stance suggested the likelihood of swooning, and Mitch was sure she had one gun and maybe more hidden in her long skirt. Mitch and Della had worked together on a number of cases. This wasn’t the first time they had posed as a couple.

  Just as Della was about to reply, the white porcelain door knob rattled. Immediately, Della slumped into a chair looking beside herself with grief, and Mitch came to stand behind her attentively.

  “Everything is prepared,” Clare announced. “Please, follow me.”

  Clare led the way down a hallway lined with framed photographs of dour ancestors. Their bleak eyes seemed to follow Mitch and Della down the corridor.

  “Here,” Clare said, ushering them into a room that was decorated in a fashion Mitch could only describe as gypsy-Victorian. Ruby-colored fringed lampshades cast the room in an unsettling crimson glow. Swags of fabric were draped to each corner from a central point in the ceiling, suggesting a Roma fortune-teller’s tent. The smell of sage and sandlewood rose from burning incense. Pillar candles in a variety of sizes and heights flickered all around the room, and the gas lamps were turned down low. A round mahogany table sat in the center of the room, and three chairs waited for them.

  “Please, be seated.” Clare had changed clothes. Instead of the waistcoat and bustle ensemble she had worn to welcome Mitch and Della, she now wore a flowing silk gown. It reminded Mitch of the Voodoo mambos in New Orleans, though Clare did not appear to share their heritage.

  Mitch pulled out the chair for Della and took his seat, making sure their backs were to the wall. That left Clare with her back to the door. “Take my hand,” Clare said, offering each of them her outstretched palms.

  Mitch and Della complied, and Clare raised her face to the ceiling and closed her eyes. “Spirits from beyond,” she intoned. “Hear me.”

  As soon as Clare’s eyes were closed, Mitch and Della dropped their clasped hands and readied their guns on their laps, just in case.

  “Spirits! I call to you! Give me a signal that you hear me!”

  Although he was expecting it, Mitch still struggled not to flinch as the peal of a bell rang mournfully out of nowhere. Such gimmicks were common with the sham mediums the Department often pursued for fraud. Mitch suspected that a search of this room for wires and tricks might turn up very different results than they found in the parlor.

  “Thank you, gracious spirits,” Clare said, eyes still closed. Her body swayed back and forth and her expression suggested that she was caught up in a rapturous trance.

  “Kind spirits,” Clare entreated. “Send to me Simon Markham. His beloved sister wishes to know that his spirit is content.” Mitch heard strains of distant music, distorted and faint.

  “Do you hear that?” Clare asked, still not opening her eyes. “The spirits acknowledge our request. Oh, we are very lucky today!” She moved in her chair, her head turning as if addressing an invisible audience on the other side of the room. “Spirit guides! My trusted friends! If Simon Markham is among you, send me a sign!”

  Since Clare wasn’t looking, Mitch rolled his eyes at the dramatic presentation. Della gave him a reproving glare. They were on high alert, watching for trouble.

  Three hard taps, as if someone were knocking on a door, sounded from somewhere in the room. Mitch reined in his impatience. So far, everything he had seen was unremarkable as fake clairvoyants went. Mitch had seen more than his share of hucksters willing to cheat the bereaved out of their money for a chance to say a last good-bye to a loved one.

  “Yes! Yes!” Clare cried out. “The spirit of Simon Markham is present. Simon, use me as your vessel to speak to your loving sister.”

  A scratching noise drew Mitch’s attention. He frowned and glanced at Della, who gave a nod to indicate that she had also heard the sound.

  “I am Simon Markham.” The voice that came from Clare’s mouth was not her own. It was deeper and masculine, and something about it sent a cold chill down Mitch’s back. Della’s eyes widened. “And I don’t have a sister.”

  The door behind Clare burst open. A man’s rotting corpse stood in the doorway, and it lurched toward Clare, arms outstretched. Mitch’s sharpshooter training kicked in, and he sent a bullet past Clare’s head close enough to take off a few stray hairs that stuck out from her bun. The bullet caught the zombie square in the forehead and blew away a chunk of its skull. With an unnerving death rattle, the corpse collapsed.

  “You’re not going to make me disappear like the other ones!” Clare yelped. She tried to raise a derringer of her own against Mitch, but Della upended the table against Clare just as Clare’s eyes took on the unfocused look of a trance once again. From her expression, this possession was entirely unwanted.

  “I won’t let you hurt my friends.” Simon’s voice came from Clare’s lips, as the medium struggled against the influence of the spirit she had summoned. Della was already on her feet, with a gun pointed at Clare. Mitch circled, keeping his Peacemaker trained on the rotting zombie on the floor.

  Clare looked as if she were fighting an internal struggle between her own desires and the wishes of Simon Markham’s spirit. Simon was winning, at least for the moment, and Della
lost no time cuffing Clare to the chair, fearing that Simon would lose his influence at any second.

  “Thank you, Simon,” Della said. The slight tremor in her voice told Mitch that Della was as freaked out as he was that Clare had actually been able to summon the spirit of their late fellow agent, a brother in arms if not a brother in fact.

  “Not much has changed, I see,” Simon replied, sounding wistful. “I miss you and Jacob,” he said to Della, “and sometimes, even Mitch.” Clare’s mouth twitched in a smile that was pure Simon. “I have to go now. Take care.” With that, Clare slumped forward, completely herself again. And was she ever angry.

  “How dare you!” Clare struggled against the cuffs. “I am not going to go quietly!”

  Mitch knelt next to the corpse on the floor. He was trying not to breathe, since the body was old and decomposition was far along. “This corpse has been shot before—recently. As in, since he’s been dead.”

  Clare sighed. “Sometimes, I don’t know my own strength.”

  Della seemed to have recovered from the shock of actually encountering Simon’s spirit. “So you’re the real thing?” she asked, giving Clare and appraising look. “If that’s true, why all the fal-de-ral?” Della gestured to indicate the gypsy trappings and nudged the wires that were apparent on the underside of the overturned séance table.

  “Yes, I actually can summon spirits from Beyond,” Clare said, glaring at Della. “Occasionally, I get more than I bargain for,” she added with a nod toward the corpse. “As for the decorations and the spooky effects, it’s the show customers want for their money. I can call up grandma’s ghost and pass on a legitimate message, but without the scary extras, my clients don’t believe it’s real.” She gave an ironic half-smile. “They think the real stuff is fake, unless I give them a good performance.”

  “Who’s the stiff?” Mitch looked up, still keeping his gun trained on the sorry-looking corpse in case it moved again.

  “I don’t know,” Clare admitted. “He was buried in the basement. This is the third time he’s been shot. He keeps popping back up.”

  Mitch raised an eyebrow. Clare grimaced. “I really am a medium. I’ve been able to see and talk to ghosts for as long as I can remember, and in the last couple of years, I learned to channel their spirits. But if I focus too hard, I guess I send out too strong a signal or something and they show up in person.”

  “What’s this about being afraid we were going to make you disappear?” Della asked. She kept her gun on Clare, but Mitch could tell from Della’s posture that his fellow agent did not anticipate a threat.

  “Who are you two—really?” Clare countered. “I’ve told you too much already.”

  Mitch reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge. “Agent Mitch Storm and Agent Della Kennedy, Department of Supernatural Investigation,” he said. “We got called in after there were reports of body snatchers operating near here.”

  Clare rolled her eyes. “If you’re talking about the problem last week over at Allegheny Cemetery, it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t realize my client’s house was so close to the graveyard.”

  “So—who did you think we were and why did you think we were after you?” Della prodded.

  “Three other mediums have disappeared in the last couple of weeks,” Clare replied. “We all know each other, whether we’re legit or frauds. And right now, we’re scared.”

  “If you thought we might hurt you, why did you agree to meet with us?” Mitch asked. He poked the dead body with his gun, but it did not move. Warily, he rose to his feet and moved away, still keeping his eye on the corpse. If she could raise it once, she can probably do it again, Mitch thought. I don’t need to be clobbered by a dead man.

  “A girl’s gotta eat,” Clare said with a sigh. “This is how I make my living. And I thought you seemed okay, until the ghost ratted on you. Who was Simon, anyhow?”

  “Simon was a fellow agent,” Della said. “And a good friend. We lost him in the line of duty last year.” Mitch could see the pain that lingered in Della’s eyes.

  “Do you know who might be behind the disappearances?” Mitch asked.

  Clare shook her head. “No. But whoever it is only takes the people with real talent, the ones who can actually talk to the spirits. So far, none of the frauds have been kidnapped.”

  “And there’ve been no demands for ransom, no notes—nothing?” Della frowned, thinking through what Clare had told them.

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Clare said. “Look, if you’re government agents, do you have one of those black airships? Can you protect me?”

  Mitch gave a crooked grin. “Yes, and yes,” he said. Then he turned to look at the corpse and sighed. “But first, we need to drag this poor guy back to the basement.”

  Part Four: Haunted Dollhouse

  Life-size dolls, like wooden corpses, littered the workroom. Agent Jacob Drangosavich moved slowly, gun ready, careful not to make a sound. His partners Mitch and Della had gone after another quarry this evening, and Jacob went to check out a site the Department’s sources said had been a hotbed of strange energy fluctuations. The whole place gave him the creeps.

  The assembly area was in the back of an old shop on the south side of New Pittsburgh. Its display windows were filled with dolls of every size—wooden marionettes, porcelain babies that looked eerily real, wind-up mechanical figures, and hand-sewn ragdolls. Some of the life-size dolls were made for dry goods shop mannequins or for theater props. Rumor had it that poppets of another sort were sold from beneath the counter, custom-made to be the likeness of a living person, cursed or blessed to suit the desires of the purchaser.

  Most educated people in New Pittsburgh would have scoffed at the idea of a Voodoo doll. Jacob’s years working with the Department of Supernatural Investigation assured him there were many strange things that modern science could not fully understand. Still, science could help a great deal. Jacob was happy to have brought along several new gadgets from Adam Farber, genius inventor and wunderkind, firmly believing that in a fair fight, technology could kick magic’s ass. Unfortunately, fights were seldom fair.

  The workroom was dimly lit, just the glow of the street gaslights through the dirty windows. Weighing the danger of being ambushed in the dark against the risk of discovery, Jacob erred on the side of caution and lit one of the overhead kerosene lamps, turning the wick down low. Jacob consulted the metal box in his left hand, one of Farber’s latest creations. The box was an EMF reader, able to sense the presence of the electromagnetic energy of ghosts. Jacob didn’t pretend to understand how it worked, but he had seen enough of Farber’s wild inventions to trust its readings. And right now, the dial on the ‘ghost-finder’ box was pegging the meter. Another piece of equipment also hung from his belt. Farber called it a ‘Maxwell box’, and it could attract or repel ghosts using something to do with energy frequency. Jacob hoped he wasn’t going to need to use it, doubly so since he hadn’t yet tried out the new gadget.

  This isn’t good. Not good at all. Jacob muttered a curse in his native Croatian, and was glad he had worn his saint’s medal. He inched forward. The dolls were just shadows and silhouettes in the dim light, far too much like people. It would be so easy for someone to hide among them. The faint glow of the gaslight glimmered on the glass eyes of the dolls as he passed among them. He glanced down at the meter again, saw the needle fluctuating like a tree in a gale-force wind, and repressed a shiver.

  Headquarters thought the Dollmaker might be smuggling stolen inventions from Europe in the crates of dolls and materials. Mitch and Della wondered if the dolls hid other contraband, like plans for the kind of gee-whiz inventions Farber dreamed up, contraptions that could change the balance of power in a fight—or in a war. Whatever the Dollmaker was up to, Jacob was certain it wasn’t child’s play.

  He heard something creak, saw the shadows shift, and bit back a yelp as one of the large dolls tipped off a shelf right behind him. For a moment, Jacob stood with his gun trained on the doll,
which was the size of a small child. He was breathing rapidly, pulse pounding, and the EMF box meter was hitting so hard on the red side of the dial that Jacob could hear the needle clicking against the side. The doll did not move, and after a moment, Jacob took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.

  Jacob turned back toward the main workroom and froze. The dolls were not arranged as they had been just a moment ago. He was certain of it. The shadows had shifted subtly, enough for him to sense the change. A chill went down his spine. Forcing his mind back to business, Jacob took a few more steps toward the center of the workroom. Long tables filled the center of the room. Some held cloth and batting for the ragdolls and the soft bodies of the porcelain-headed dolls. Others held an assortment of carpenter’s tools for the wooden dolls. The third table looked more like it belonged in a laboratory than a doll shop. Odd wax cylinders, delicate copper wiring, unfamiliar mechanisms and small metal boxes littered the work surface.

  After another wary glance at the EMF reader, Jacob clipped the meter to his belt and picked up one of the cylinders with his left hand, keeping his gun ready in his right. It reminded him of a recording cylinder, the kind newfangled machines Thomas Edison had created to record and play back music and speeches.

  Odd. Perhaps the Dollmaker is recording voices? A darker possibility presented itself. If Headquarters is right, maybe ‘voices’ are what he’s smuggling. Voices with code words and classified information, hidden inside the dolls.

  Jacob glanced around the workshop, and once again, the dolls had moved slightly. This time, he knew it was no accident. He had intentionally noted the position of a few memorable dolls, and now they were seated differently. He swallowed hard, reminding himself he had shot far more terrifying monsters, and continued his search.

  Jacob came to another work station near the far side of the room. One table held an array of gears and hinges, perfect for the articulated joints of the mechanical dolls. The other table held a selection of life-size doll heads made from painted earthenware. Notes written on scraps of parchment littered the work surface. Compared to the fine features of the porcelain dolls or the carefully carved faces of the wooden marionettes, these heads were crude, barely human, without even paint to soften their appearance. The earthenware heads were skull-like with a separate lower jaw attached with twine.