Quicksilver

by Amanda Quick

  The unkempt appearance concealed a razor-sharp psychical gift for unraveling the secrets of dead languages, codes and other such mysteries. Nick was never happier than when he was deciphering an ancient manuscript, especially one that contained paranormal secrets. It was the nature of his version of the Sweetwater family talent.

  Ethel Sweetwater appeared in the doorway, saving Owen from having to come up with an answer to Nick’s question about the word “efficient.”

  Ethel was a fine-looking woman, fashionably dressed in a dark red-and-black gown. Like all of the women in the Sweetwater family, she was formidable, a force of nature. The Sweetwater men did not marry weak women. They required women who could handle the talent of the men of the line, women who could keep dark secrets.

  “What is this about efficiency?” Ethel asked.

  “Good morning, Aunt,” Owen said. “You are looking spectacular today.”

  “Do not evade the question,” she said crisply.

  Like many of the women who married into the Sweetwater family, Ethel was highly intuitive.

  “Have you ever heard of a Dr. Spinner?” Owen asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Ethel said. “He has an excellent reputation. Noted for his very modern treatment of female hysteria, I believe.”

  “I am told his therapy is highly efficient,” Owen said.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ethel said. “I have never experienced an attack of hysteria in my entire life.”

  “But you are aware of his therapy?”

  “Certainly. Dr. Spinner is a very fashionable doctor at the moment. He uses a new electrical instrument to achieve excellent results. Why do you ask?”

  Owen cleared his throat. “The subject came up in conversation recently.”

  Ethel raised her brows. “It must have been a very interesting conversation.”

  “Yes,” Owen said. “It was.” He made a valiant effort to change the subject. “Were you able to learn anything from your research into the Hollister family tree?”

  “Very little that will be useful, I’m afraid. The line ended with Hollister. There are no surviving close relatives, no uncles, brothers or cousins. It was not a prolific family. I did, however, turn up traces of madness here and there in the family tree. At least one cousin and a grandfather were confined to asylums. I suspect there were others who were mentally unstable, but in earlier times families generally kept their mad relations in the attic.”

  “But there is evidence of strong talent in the line?”

  “Yes,” Ethel said. “However, from what I could tell, the truly powerful talents in the family were the ones most likely to show indications of instability and insanity.”

  SIXTEEN

  The door of the shop opened just as Millicent Bridewell started to wind up the gleaming silver-and-bronze lobster. The latest creation from her workshop was exquisite, complete in every detail, right down to the snapping claws. She had not yet infused energy into the eyes. That was the last step of the process, an added touch that she provided for only her very special customers. There was, of course, an additional charge.

  She removed the key and put it into her pocket. The customer who called himself Mr. Newton entered the shop, bringing with him an air of unsettling energy.

  “I wish to commission some more curiosities, Mrs. Bridewell,” he announced in a low, raspy voice. “They must be powerful.”

  Everything about Mr. Newton, from his fine clothes to his watch fob, screamed money. By rights he should have appeared distinguished, Mrs. Bridewell thought. He ought to have commanded respect. Instead he seemed oddly bland and innocuous, more like a butler than a gentleman. He was rather short, with thinning hair that was a dingy shade of blond. His features were neither handsome nor ugly. In every aspect he was monumentally forgettable, the sort one passed on the street without a second glance.

  But Newton had now purchased several of her special curiosities, and she was becoming very uneasy. In general, her customers tended to be desperate wives or impatient heirs. They preferred to rent a clockwork device with the intention of using it only a single time. When the difficult husband or the lingering wealthy relation was out of the way, clients were more than eager to return the toys. The power infused in the devices made most of her customers nervous. Beautiful as they were, the curiosities were not the sort of objects that one put on display in the library, where well-meaning maids, visitors or children might attempt to wind them up.

  But Newton was different from her customary clients. He bought the toys outright, and he had not returned any of them, although she had assured him she would refund some of his money if he did so. She did not care to know how Newton was using her lovely creations. She never questioned her customers. What they did with the devices was their business.

  What concerned her about Newton was that he was using the toys far too often. If he got careless the police might stumble onto her profitable little sideline. The police, however, did not worry her nearly as much as Arcane’s new psychical investigation agency did. Rumor had it that the firm of Jones & Jones had assumed the responsibility of looking into crimes of a paranormal nature. Not that the agency had any right to interfere in the private business affairs of those who happened to possess a little talent, she thought. Nevertheless, she did not want any trouble from that quarter. The Joneses were a dangerous lot.

  “I don’t have any more curiosities prepared, Mr. Newton,” she said. She bustled around behind the counter, instinctively putting some distance and some glass between herself and the client. “I thought I made it clear that my special curiosities are made to order. It takes time to infuse the energy into the glass.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. I want you to start work immediately. I am in something of a hurry.”

  She cleared her throat discreetly. “May I ask if there was a problem with any of the other curiosities that you purchased? Did they fail to work?”

  “No, no, they functioned as you said they would. But I need more power. I have concluded that if I employ several of them at once I will be able to achieve the effect I require.”

  She hesitated. The sad truth was that the pursuit of her art took money, a great deal of it. There was never enough. The fine materials and components required to create the curiosities were expensive. Many of her clients had trouble coming up with the rental fee, but Newton never questioned her prices. Clients who did not try to bargain were scarce and, therefore, valuable.

  “I suppose I could have some more curiosities ready for you in three days,” she said finally.

  “Excellent. Remember, they must be as powerful as you can make them.”

  “I will see what I can do,” she said briskly. “But I must have the full amount in advance.”

  He was not pleased with that, but he did not argue. “Very well.”

  She waved a hand to indicate the several curiosities on display. “You may choose the ones you want me to enhance.”

  “Let’s start with the Queen,” Mr. Newton said. “She’ll be quite appropriate for what I have in mind.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Virginia followed Owen through the iron gate and into the night-shrouded gardens that surrounded the Hollister mansion. She contemplated the darkened house from beneath the hood of her long gray cloak. The windows appeared to be fashioned of obsidian. They glinted, black and opaque, in the moonlight. No gaslight or candles lit the interior of the house. There was no sign of a glowing hearth.

  “You were right,” she said. “It does appear to be vacant.”

  There was a muted clang of iron on iron as Owen closed the gate.

  “I made a few inquiries. I learned that Lady Hollister dismissed the staff very early on the morning after we found Hollister’s body,” he said. “A discreet undertaker took away the body. No one has seen Lady Hollister since that day.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “No one seems to know. Hollister had a country house in the north. She may have gone there by train.”

 
; “One can hardly blame her for wanting to escape this dreadful place.”

  They made their way into the old drying shed. Nothing inside had been disturbed, as far as Virginia could tell. She waited while Owen turned up the lantern. When the yellow light flared they started down the stone steps into the ancient abbey ruins beneath the mansion. She sensed Owen heightening his talent.

  “Do you perceive anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing to indicate fresh violence,” he said. “But the old energy is still here. He brought the girls in through this passageway and removed the bodies the same way. That kind of thing soaks into the very walls.”

  “Just as it does into mirrors.”

  “I suspect that there is a second entrance inside the house.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Convenience, if nothing else.”

  They went past a familiar intersection.

  “That is the corridor where we found the carriage,” Virginia said. “The one that leads to the cell where Becky was held prisoner.”

  “Yes. We are not far from the mirrored chamber.”

  They rounded another corner. The lantern light splashed down a short stone passage. There was a door midway along the hall. It was closed.

  Owen stopped. “That is the door to the mirrored room.”

  She halted beside him. They were standing so close together in the narrow confines of the stone passage that the hem of her cloak brushed against his leg.

  “This corridor looks just like all the others,” she said. “How did you find me the other night?”

  “The place reeks of violent energy. That room is the focal point.” Owen studied the closed door. “The other night when I came down here I feared that I would be too late.”

  She knew from the flat, cold way he spoke that if he had found her body in the mirrored chamber, her name would have been added to his personal list of those he had failed.

  “But you weren’t too late,” she said gently.

  He did not respond to that. He went toward the door, flattened his back against the ancient wall next to it and motioned for her to do the same.

  “In the event we encounter another clockwork guard,” he explained. “The stone is our best protection.”

  He reached out with one gloved hand and opened the door. It was not locked. The heavy iron-and-wood door swung inward slowly. The interior of the room was drenched in darkness. Virginia listened closely. She knew that Owen was doing the same. There was no clank and thump of mechanical claws.

  Owen pushed the door wider and moved into the opening. He held the lantern aloft.

  “Empty,” he said. “No clockwork devices. But someone has recently redecorated.”

  Virginia looked past him. The bed still stood in the center of the chamber, but it was neatly made up with pristine, crisply ironed linens and a pretty quilt patterned with pink roses. There was no sign of the bloodstained sheets.

  “I can understand that the person who removed the body would have taken the bloody sheets,” she said. “The killer did not want to leave any evidence of the crime. But why take the time to remake the bed?”

  “If whoever stabbed Hollister had no practical means of getting the bed out of this room,” Owen said, “he or she might have remade it in an attempt to conceal the bloodstained mattress in the event that someone else discovered this chamber.”

  Virginia studied the bed. “No, I don’t think that was the motivation. That bed was made up with great care and the highest-quality linens. The quilt is beautiful and expensive.”

  “Hollister was a wealthy man,” Owen reminded her. “All the linens in the household are no doubt costly.”

  “No, not all,” she said. “The servants would have had separate, much less expensive bedding. Whoever changed the sheets on this bed used the finest available, the ones that would have been reserved for the master and mistress of the household. In fact, that quilt looks feminine. I suspect it was intended for Lady Hollister’s bed.”

  “An interesting observation,” Owen said. He looked intrigued. “It fits with my suspicion that Hollister was murdered by his wife.”

  “But she is at least half mad,” Virginia said.

  “Only a madwoman would kill her monstrous husband and then use her own fine linens to make up the deathbed.”

  Virginia shuddered. “Yes.”

  Owen walked into the center of the room. Virginia followed, her talent still lowered in an effort to suppress her intuitive reaction to the terrible energy in the chamber. All of her senses were shrieking at her to run. She knew that Owen was aware of the same ghastly currents.

  She looked around uneasily. The flaring light of the lantern reflected endlessly off the mirrors, creating walls of cold flames that extended into an infinite darkness.

  “It’s as if we were standing in some anteroom of hell,” she said.

  “Yes.” Owen turned his attention away from the bed long enough to survey the walls of mirrors. “Which raises the obvious question: Why did Hollister create a room like this? If he was a glasslight-talent, surely he would have found the effects of the reflections disorienting and disturbing.”

  She met his eyes in the mirrors. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m afraid that there are some talents with an affinity for mirrors who would find this room thrilling to the senses. I suspect Hollister was one of them.”

  He raised his brows. “Something to do with the stimulating effects of the mirrors, do you mean?”

  “Yes.” She walked slowly around the room, heightening her senses very cautiously. “Mirrors reflect energy from across the spectrum. Those of us who work glasslight are especially sensitive to that reflected energy. Indeed, one of the difficulties in reading the afterimages in looking glasses is dealing with the reflections. When mirrors are arranged as they are in this chamber, to create an infinity of reflections, the effects can be quite . . . dramatic.”

  “When it comes to the laws of para-physics, glass is always unpredictable.”

  “Trust me, there is no need to remind me of that fact. I have been dealing with glasslight since I turned thirteen.”

  “Yes, of course. My apologies for the lecture. What do you mean when you say that the effects are dramatic?”

  She looked at the endlessly repeating scene in the mirrors. “Some glasslight-talents might find that their powers were enhanced by the reflected energy in this chamber.”

  The dangerous heat in Owen’s eyes burned hotter. “Permanently enhanced?”

  “No,” she said. “The effects would last only while one was inside the mirrored space. But the sensation could be quite exhilarating, I suppose, at least for some talents. The effects would act like a powerful drug on the senses. And if one were inclined toward some dark obsession, as Hollister obviously was . . .” She let the sentence fade.

  Owen looked thoughtful. “In other words, this chamber would have acted like an intoxicating elixir on Hollister’s senses while he committed murder.”

  “Yes. Once the afterimages were burned into the mirrors, he could come down here to experience them again and again before they began to fade. You told me that some killers return to the scenes of their crimes to savor the energy that is left in the vicinity of the murders. I think the effects of the mirrors in this room would be similar for a murderer who was also a glasslight-talent.”

  “And when the images did start to dim?”

  She swallowed hard. “He was no doubt driven to kill again. Like any drug, he would crave more and more of the stimulation he got from the mirrors.”

  “Each time he killed, he would have burned yet more layers of afterimages into the looking glasses.”

  “Yes.”

  She did not say anything else. There was no need. When she met Owen’s eyes again in one of the mirrors, she knew that he understood.

  “Raising your talent in this chamber will be like walking into hell,” he said.

  She sighed. “It is never easy looking into mirrors that h
ave witnessed death. I have seen some terrible things in looking glasses. But this chamber is different.”

  “Because more than one woman died here?”

  “In part, yes.” She thought about the first wildly disorienting sensations that had struck her elevated senses like shocks of lightning when she had awakened in the bed next to Hollister’s body. “But there is something else involved here, something I do not understand. Perhaps when I start to read the glasslight it will become clear.”

  Owen came up to stand behind her. He put one powerful hand on her shoulder. “You need not do this, Virginia. I can learn a great deal here on my own.”

  “Of course I must read these mirrors. We need all the information we can get from this place. But before I begin, tell me what you see in this chamber.”

  Energy flared when Owen elevated his talent. He looked around slowly, taking in the bed and the table with a measuring expression.

  “I didn’t have time to take a good look the other night,” he said. “But now I see that murder was done in this room, not once but on several occasions.” He walked to the bed. “The victims all died here.”

  “What of the killer?” she asked.

  “His energy is all over this chamber, but the darkest currents are concentrated near the bed.” Owen frowned. “The majority of the murders were done the old-fashioned way. Hollister strangled his victims. But the three most recent murders were committed by paranormal means.”

  “He started using the curiosities to kill his victims.”

  “Yes, I think so.” Owen prowled the small space. “There is other strong energy in here besides Hollister’s. It is difficult to distinguish from his, but I can see traces of it clearly, now that I am looking closely. It is the same energy I detected in Mrs. Ratford’s house.”