by Unknown
Yet each of those scammers lacked the one thing which made his efforts far more profitable. Where they all claimed they could speak to the dead, Ethan actually could.
Not that the dead were the most exciting of conversationalists.
Most earthbound spirits that he had encountered over the years barely even seemed to recognise the truth of their own deaths. Instead, the majority of the manifestations he communicated with were little more than fractured echoes of their former selves—each of them so deeply fixated on a single person or object that their obsessions kept them trapped upon the earthly plane with little else but their constant, and unfulfilled, yearnings.
The good news in all of this, however, was that if something was valuable enough to cause a spirit to become earthbound, it was also likely to be worth a tidy sum to just the right living relative. Gullible relatives, just like the one who opened the door still clothed in her mourning dress.
“Mister Carto!”
Ethan braced himself. This current dupe was a hugger, given to wanton displays of affection for the man she thought had come to bring peace to her late mother.
“My husband had doubts we would ever see you again. He took you for some kind of common swindler.”
Ethan nearly choked on the insult. Common? Me?! I am an exceptional swindler I’ll have you know.
Instead he flashed his best smile, the one typically reserved for wealthy widows and newfound heiresses. “A wise man no doubt, and he is certainly right to be suspicious with so many unsavoury types about these days. Unlike those nefarious crooks, however, my only aim is to bring peace to the ones who have passed and are unable to find it on their own.”
“And I thank you. As would my dear mother.”
Somehow, Ethan doubted that. Even now, as the brooch was secreted away in his coat pocket, the spirit it had once belonged to materialized over her daughter’s shoulder.
Just like iron filings to a lodestone. These spirits are all the same.
“Do you bring news of my mother’s lost brooch?” Her voice was so hopeful Ethan almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
“Better.” Ethan produced the object with a theatrical flourish, and the spirit’s eyes widened. Her translucent hands reached out to take hold of the jewelry at the same time as her daughter’s, but her non-corporeal fingers stopped short. The spirit knew something was amiss.
“Mister Carto!” the client exclaimed, clutching the brooch to her chest and planting a kiss on his cheek. Evidently, the woman had not the slightest idea that each precious emerald set into the brooch’s intricate border had been switched out and replaced with colored glass. Ethan would have taken the ivory cameo too, if he possessed the means and skill to replicate it without her noticing, but the gems alone would have to suffice this time.
Meanwhile, the spirit’s confusion turned to rage as it realized the deception and began a silent, impotent howl. Swiping helplessly at Ethan’s face, it took nearly all his reserves of self-control to keep from laughing. The wretched thing reminded him of a starving rat that had fallen into an empty bucket, desperately scrambling for some way to affect the world around her, yet failing miserably.
Ethan knew it took years, often decades, for a spirit to gather the strength and self-awareness needed to affect the physical plane in even the smallest way—and he planned to be long gone by then.
“Is my mother…?” Tears of joy had begun to well in the client’s eyes; her breath was ragged.
“She is with us.” Ethan smiled. “She is glad you have her brooch. Seeing you reunited with it has brought her peace.”
Hardly. That tormented, old witch will probably haunt you and this squalid hovel for the remainder of your own days now.
“Thank you,” the woman said, leaning in for another hug. “I can feel her near. I think she’s happy.”
“Indeed she is,” Ethan replied, deftly pocketing the purse he had secretly lifted from the woman’s skirts. If only that boy in the street could have seen him work, it would have taught him a thing or two.
For a moment, the Banker’s apparition flickered behind the screaming spirit of the client’s mother. The mysterious spirit caught Ethan’s eye, smiled, and disappeared.
* * *
The inner-clockwork of the dealer-mech whirred into life as its brass hand flipped over its own cards, bringing a growl to Ethan’s lips—and a sudden pain to his ebbing cash reserves. It was bad enough that he had only managed to sell the pilfered emeralds for a fraction of their true worth, but now he had managed to lose more than half of that amount in the space of three hands.
Ethan sighed as the automaton scooped his money into a slot on the felt-covered table.
I should have listened to the little brat.
The girl’s voice had come into his mind before her filthy, barefooted spirit materialized before him. “Please mister,” she had pleaded. “Don’t go in there. Naught but ill-luck awaits you there.”
Of course, the spirit probably had no idea who she was talking to. A mindless, residual haunt more than likely.
It was odd though. Ethan had been frequenting this dubious little establishment for well over a decade now, and this was the first time in all those years he had encountered the girl.
But then, who really knew what drove those things to act the way that they did? He certainly didn’t, and he’d being dealing with the restless dead since childhood.
Besides, Ethan had more important things to worry about right now—like winning his money back.
“Another game, sir?” The phonographic voice which issued from the amplification horn hidden behind the dealer’s expressionless face was hollow and metallic. Ethan hated the lifeless things, but he understood their purpose in a gambling den filled near to bursting with drunkards, criminals, and potential card cheats. Unlike their human counterparts, clockwork dealers could never be threatened, bribed, or blackmailed into colluding with the players assembled before them.
Ethan nodded, and threw another handful of coins onto the dealer’s scales—their weight allowed the automaton to calculate the value of his bet. As the dealer slid his new cards towards him, a firm, calloused hand landed on his shoulder.
“Mister Zao wants a word,” the hand’s owner said.
“Just a minute,” Ethan replied, without looking up. “Let us finish this game.”
The hand reached down to take Ethan’s cards and flip them upright. “Nothin’ but a junk hand. You don’t seem to be having much luck tonight, Mister Carto.”
“Tell me about it,” Ethan muttered, but the thug either didn’t hear or didn’t care.
“Gather what little is left of your cash and let’s go. Mister Zao doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Pocketing the last few coins stacked before him, Ethan stood and followed the musclebound thug into the hallway which led to the private suites reserved for high stakes games and other, more illicit, forms of entertainment.
A stark contrast to the pervasive filth and grime of the main playing floor, the lobby leading into the private rooms was a lushly-appointed affair which would not have looked out of place in the governor’s own mansion. Scantily clad women lounged on velvet-draped couches, their opiate-glazed eyes tracking Ethan’s movements with languid curiosity. One of the women caught his eye and moved as if to stand before the thug waved her away.
“Not this one,” he said. “The boss only wants a word with him and he’ll be on his way.”
Evidently Ethan did not feature high enough in Zao’s esteem to earn the privileges reserved for his wealthier patrons. A pity really, the woman had a mischievousness about her which promised a lot of fun.
The thug pulled aside a thick curtain leading into one of the private gaming suites, indicating for Ethan to enter. As he stepped into the room, a pungent, sickly-sweet mixture of opium and tobacco smoke filled the air, assaulting his nostrils.
“Is this him?” The voice which cut through the haze did not belong to Zao, but rather t
o the lithe, painted woman nestled provocatively in his lap. The woman’s voice had an accent that Ethan couldn’t place. Her words had a lilting, almost musical quality to them, and he instantly yearned to hear her speak again. Indeed, there was a palpable aura of allure about the woman in general, and he had no doubt there were countless men who would find the promise of her company irresistible.
Ethan also had no doubt that those same men would never be able to detect the sulphuric tang of hex-work which hung at the fringes of her presence, strong enough even to cut its way through the opium smoke. Over the years, he had spent enough time around those who dabbled in the magical arts to know a spellbinder when he saw one.
Or rather smelt one—and this one positively reeked of the arcane.
Ethan had no idea who this woman was, but he already knew one thing. She was dangerous, far more so than any of the thugs and felons who frequented Zao’s establishment…Zao included.
“Indeed it is, my dear,” Zao’s voice was an intoxicated drawl, his eyes dilated to the point where almost no iris showed within their bloodshot veneers. Whether due to the drugs or the Painted Woman’s spell-work, it was clear that Mister Zao wasn’t quite all there. “Ethan Carto, the swindler that claims to speak with the dead. As promised.”
The Painted Woman caressed Zao’s cheek, much as a master might do to a deserving pet. “Good boy,” she cooed. “You may sleep now.”
Jing ‘Frankie’ Zao, the self-styled lord of the Milborough underworld, grinned like a demented child and promptly went to sleep.
A dangerous woman indeed.
“Mister Carto, I’ve heard much about you.” The woman slid from Zao’s lap, every inch of her movement dripping with serpentine grace.
“Don’t believe a word, it’s all lies,” Ethan said. “I’m really quite a nice chap when all is said and done.”
The Painted Woman leaned in, placing her mouth a bare inch from his own as her fingers delicately traced their way up his shirt front. “I hope not,” she whispered. “I have no use for a nice man.”
Ethan felt a gentle tug at the edge of his thoughts, a delicate probe so light in touch as to be almost imperceptible.
Almost.
Ethan grasped the woman’s hands and forced them back. “Sorry, sweetheart, I like my thoughts to be my own. So how about you stop pretending to flirt with me and tell me what it is you want?”
A bestial snarl of anger flashed across the woman’s features for the briefest of instants, before disappearing entirely, to be replaced with a mocking smile. So sudden was the shift, Ethan even doubted whether he had seen it to begin with.
“Very well. Let’s try this another way.” The woman walked back to Zao’s sleeping form, the ridiculous grin still painted across his face barely shifting as she reached into his coat pocket and produced a thick wad of banknotes held together with an ostentatious gold clip. “I have a job for you, Mister Carto. An…acquaintance of mine died recently.”
“That’s a pity. I can tell you’re quite distraught,” Ethan said drily.
The woman pointedly ignored him. “She had in her possession a very rare book, but now it is lost. I want you to recover it for me.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
The Painted Woman tossed the bundle of banknotes at Ethan’s feet.
Ethan paused for a moment, weighing the implications before stooping to recover the notes. “Alright then,” he said. “You’ve got my attention, tell me more about this book of yours.”
* * *
Ethan instinctively recoiled in his chair as the pale figure opposite him broke into another spasmodic coughing fit. The sickly figure lifted his pocket kerchief to his lips, staining the white linen with scarlet blood.
“Consumption of the lungs?” Carto asked.
The man nodded, tears streaming from his eyes as he gasped for air. Clutching a nearby glass of brandy, he quaffed it down in a single gulp. “My apologies,” he said between ragged breaths. “The white plague is a cursed slow and uncomfortable way to meet one’s end.” The man poured himself another brandy from a nearby crystal decanter, motioning to Ethan’s glass.
He waved the offer away, being only a quarter of the way through his own drink. “No apology necessary,” he said. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.”
“Originally, I was not going to, truth be told, but then my curiosity got the better of me. I usually don’t stock much faith in all this spiritualism and mediumship mumbo-jumbo, but perhaps my own impending demise is forcing me to seek comfort in the thought of a life beyond this one.”
“You are certainly not alone in your reservations, Mister Condon, though I am led to believe your dear aunt was more predisposed to metaphysical beliefs?”
The man nearly choked on his brandy.
“Aunt Margery? That is one way of putting it. That the woman was a complete bloody lunatic is a far more accurate depiction of the matter. She was never the same after Miranda’s death.”
“Miranda?”
“Her only daughter, my late cousin. Poor thing never even reached her seventh birthday. Aunt Margery never did speak to the details of the accident, but it must have been horrific. The funeral was a closed casket affair.”
“I see…”
“Yes, terribly sad, what with her being widowed not long before Miranda’s death and all too. The whole thing sent her completely off the deep end, I’m afraid, spent the rest of her life babbling on about all kinds of strange nonsense.”
Mister Condon paused to take another drink of his brandy, draining his glass and refilling it a third time in as many minutes. The good thing about drunkards with a death sentence, Ethan realized, is that they were often an obliging lot with a helpful willingness to talk. Locating the Painted Woman’s mysterious “acquaintance” had proven a difficult enough task, given the sparse information that she either possessed or was willing to share. Ethan counted his blessings that her only living relative was so agreeable to his requests, even with his inherent sense of skepticism.
“Well then, are you ready to begin?” Ethan asked.
The man took another swig of brandy. “I have my doubts you’ll be able to rouse her spirit like you claim you can, but if you do manage it, don’t be expecting her to make much sense.”
They never do, Ethan thought.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Do you have an item of hers to draw her near?” Far from responding to a summons like a well-trained hound, the recent dead were never a very cooperative lot. More often than not they required a treasured object to draw them out.
The man nodded and produced an ornate set of rosary beads from his coat. Ethan’s eyes widened at the sight of its gold and ruby-encrusted crucifix. If this had been any other job, he would have set his mind to finding a way to liberate the object from its owner.
“It once belonged to my grandmother, before it went to Aunt Margery. I’ve heard it said that Miranda was holding it when she died, and my aunt refused to let it out of her sight right up until her own passing.”
“That will do perfectly,” Ethan said as he placed his open hands onto the glass tabletop. “Place the beads between us and take hold of my hands. If you will close your eyes and picture your aunt in your mind, I will begin.”
It was a strange experience for Ethan, undertaking a séance without feeling the need to embellish the experience with needless melodrama and carefully constructed fictions. When he had first met the late Mrs. Condon’s nephew, Ethan had decided to take the surprisingly efficient route of total honesty and introduced himself as a medium who had been hired to track down a lost book once believed to be in his Aunt’s possession. Surprisingly enough, Mister Condon accepted this explanation without the slightest hesitation or problem.
“I call upon the spirit of Margery Condon—join us. Cross the threshold between worlds and let yourself be known.” Ethan’s voice echoed in the room, but silence fell and little else happened.
“I don’
t think she’s listening,” the man quipped, a tight smile forming on his lips.
“Hush now. You need to concentrate,” Ethan corrected him. “Are you there, Mrs. Condon? Join us, Mrs. Condon. Let your presence be known.”
“I…” Just as Mister Condon opened his mouth to speak, the table at which they sat began to vibrate of its own accord.
Slowly at first, but gradually building to a rhythmic throb, the table groaned and shuddered under the pressure of its own movement. The glass of the tabletop turned icy against Ethan’s skin, burning the back of his hands with cold. Instinctively loosening his grip and pulling his hand from the freezing surface, he watched, stunned, as crystals of frost began to spread out from where the rosary beads rested.
Mister Condon’s eyes widened in alarm and Ethan cast a surprised glance in the direction of the spirit which had appeared in the corner of the room. Disheveled and wild-eyed, Margery Condon’s spirit was a mess of torn clothes and festering wounds which looked to have been caused by some savage beast.
The woman’s spirit paid little heed to those who had summoned her, and instead began screaming at something which remained unseen.
In the back of his mind, Ethan could feel the presence of someone or something else, and the pungent odor of rotting flesh cloyed at his nostrils.
Margery Condon, it would seem, had not come alone.
“Enough of this,” Ethan growled under his breath. Having seen all measure and manner of spirits over his years, from the harmless and feeble to the malignant and frighteningly potent, wanton displays such as this failed to impress him. “You are not Mrs. Condon. Who are you? What do you want?”
A sudden flash of light broke past the heavily-curtained windows, followed shortly thereafter by a terrible peal of thunder. One which was close and loud enough to cause the whole house to shake. A moan of terror escaped Mister Condon’s lips as his eyes darted frantically about the room. The poor chap was now clearly on the verge of panic.
