“I would not.” Her pale blue eyes measured him with a good deal more caution than usual. “You must know I had no control over what happened yesterday.”
“I know it.”
“And yet you think me a spider?”
“I think there’s somethin about this house I can’t get my feet unstuck from,” Trace said, and that was not a lie, either. Her lips quirked in amusement, and Trace felt his own face lightening.
Boz was wrong, he thought. She had no romantic interest in him, any more than he had in her. But there was something between them. Fellow-feeling. Recognition of mutual need. Something that didn’t fit neatly into the pigeonholes of male-female relationships, that was for sure. He just knew, somehow, his fate was tied up with this mean little Englishwoman’s.
Trace put out a hand and Miss Fairweather slid hers into it. “You are not lacking in courage, are you, Mr. Tracy?”
“I like to think not,” he said, and she took his arm to draw him toward the fireplace.
“Now we await only Herr Kieler.” Miss Fairweather ushered them into the wing chairs by the fire, and took her own seat beside the tea tray. “Have you both dined? Would you care for a digestif? I hope you will be content with coffee, Mr. Tracy. I think alcohol would not be a good choice for you tonight.”
“Coffee’s fine,” Trace said shortly. Courage or no, he was tight as a fiddle string with anticipation. “On second thought, I’ll have some of that Scotch.”
Miss Fairweather’s brows lifted, but she signaled to Min Chan, who brought Trace and Boz each a tumbler of whiskey. Miss Fairweather took sherry, and they all drank silently, absorbed in their own dark thoughts.
Boz had been cocky and purposeful all afternoon, almost belligerent. Trace guessed he had ideas about “settling” things tonight, maybe putting Miss Fairweather in her place. And that sounded like Custer’s plan to subdue the Sioux. He had tried to explain to Boz that pressuring her was a bad idea, that despite her outward coldness there was something vulnerable in her that she would defend to the death sooner than risk exposing.
As for himself … Trace could hardly define his own expectations. He only knew he wasn’t afraid. Not of her, not of Kieler. This séance had him a little nervous, but he found he did trust Miss Fairweather—if only to protect him in her own interest. And in the past several weeks he’d gotten a feel for his own strength. He might not have total control over his ability, but he was fair sure the two of them combined were no match for him in terms of raw power.
Already it was pooling and thrumming at the back of his skull, as if in response to his heightened nerves. And when he paid attention to it, Trace noticed again that sense of upward-drawing, as if invisible telegraph wires ran through the library and up through the timbers of the house. The area around the séance table felt particularly charged, and he knew she had not been exaggerating about her protective measures. There was no rug under the table and he could see no obvious marks on the floor, but the currents in the room dodged and flowed around that area like water around a boulder.
There was a low rumble of thunder, off in the distance.
“I do believe it is going to rain,” Miss Fairweather murmured.
“Trace tells me you’re an educated woman,” Boz said. “Does that include divinatin of the weather?”
Miss Fairweather smiled. “Divination is not among my skills, I am afraid. I do, however, watch patterns of winds and barometric pressure. The glass has been falling all day. The cool breeze entering from the north should combine with the warm humid air of the day, and precipitation is the likely result. Any worthy sailor could tell you the same.”
“You do the same thing with live critters? Bloodsuckers? Mesmerists?”
“Boz,” Trace said.
“What? I’m just makin conversation.”
“Mr. Bosley has a curious mind,” Miss Fairweather said, with deceptive mildness. “You mustn’t begrudge him that. Tell me, Mr. Bosley, were you fortunate enough to locate your wife and daughter, after the war?”
Boz froze with the glass halfway to his lips.
“Perhaps I am being naïve, as a foreigner, but I should think the Bureau of Military Information would have exercised its resources on your behalf, in return for your years of service.”
Boz swallowed audibly. “No, ma’am, they were not that generous.”
“What a pity. Did you think to ask Mr. Tracy whether he had encountered your family’s ghosts over the years?”
“No.” The revulsion on Boz’s face approached awe. I warned you, Trace thought. “Can’t say it ever crossed my mind.”
“Ah.” She sipped her sherry. “So you are less curious about things pertaining to you.” She smiled awfully. “We all have our tender points, do we not?”
“Herr Franz Kieler,” Min Chan announced from the doorway, and they all stood, the atmosphere twanging with heightened tension. Miss Fairweather slid from her chair and glided across the carpet, hands outstretched.
“Herr Kieler.” She took both his hands in hers and he bent low over them, obsequious in every line of his body. “What an honor you do me!”
“Dear lady, the honor is mine. I only hope I can reward your generosity by bringing enlightenment to you and your guests…” Kieler’s bright little eyes darted to Trace and Boz, and a furrow appeared between his brows. “Mr. Tracy … Mr. Bosley. Such a pleasure to see you again.”
“You can’t imagine my delight,” Miss Fairweather said, drawing him into the room, “when Mr. Tracy informed me of his visit to you. I saw you in London when I was a girl … at Mrs. Blanchard’s salon? I was too young to attend, but I crept down the servants’ stairs and listened behind the door. You were brilliant that night—so wise and compassionate. Mother talked about it for weeks afterward. I have so longed to meet you.”
Trace watched, fascinated, as she pressed both his hands between hers, an enraptured expression on her face. Kieler swelled with pride, taking on dignity despite his shabby suit and diminutive bearing.
“My dear child, it is clear to me, the fates have drawn our paths together again. When Mr. Tracy appeared in my salon I felt at once the pull of familiarity, but my poor skills could not have divined his connection to you—” (Whatever that might be, Trace thought, exchanging a sardonic glance with Boz) “—nor the connection between us. For we are all connected, my dear. No one is ever completely lost or alone, that is the wisdom I have learned over the years.”
“May I get you anything?” Miss Fairweather asked. “Brandy, or some tea?”
“Thank you, I will take nothing before the séance.” Kieler shot a glance at Trace. “Er—were you wanting me to lead this session, or will Mr. Tracy—?”
“Oh, he merely works for me.” She waved a hand airily. “I only agreed to let him sit in on this session because he likes to dabble, himself.” She threw Trace a smile that would have been dazzling if it were the least bit sincere. “Min Chan, would you dim the lamps for us? What marvelous atmosphere we will have tonight! I could not have predicted a rainstorm for my first séance. Tell me, Herr Kieler, do you still perform for salons and house parties? I have not been very sociable since I came to America, but I think the better members of St. Louis society would be greatly amused by a Spiritualist dinner party, for all they are supposed to be déclassé.”
“Indeed, you may be right, dear lady. Shall we begin, then?” There was sweat on Kieler’s upper lip, despite the cool in the room.
Miss Fairweather, on the other hand, seemed flush with health and then some; the color in her cheeks was high and excited, her pale eyes and diamond earrings reflected gold from the candle flames.
“Herr Kieler, I want to look directly into your face.” Her hand pressed down on Trace’s sleeve as she brushed past: Sit. Obediently, he pulled out the chair and sat. “Mr. Bosley, that leaves you the seat across from Mr. Tracy … Now, have I arranged this correctly? We are all aligned to the compass directions, although I suppose it would be better if I had invited another
lady…”
“We will manage quite well, I think,” Kieler said, smiling at Trace. Some small signal of humor was in his eyes, perhaps amusement at the flightiness of his patroness. Trace wished he could share it, but the poor bastard was her pigeon, not the other way around, and Trace couldn’t see how it would go well for him.
Miss Fairweather settled herself at Trace’s right and flounced like an excited child, her fingertips pressed to the table. “Oh! Would you like a planchette? Or perhaps pen and ink? Do you practice automatic writing? Min Chan, will you—?”
The Chinese stepped forward from his attentive position behind Boz, but Kieler waved him away. “We will begin simply, I think. If you please to join hands?”
Trace met Boz’s eyes across the table and tried to look reassuring, as Miss Fairweather’s small, cool hand slid into his. He felt a faint tingle between their palms, an echo of whatever it was in her that complemented his power, but none of the hungry pulling of their last contact.
Until Kieler’s right hand clasped over his left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Years ago, a much younger Jacob Tracy had attended a party hosted by a fellow who ran the local telegraph office. Late in the evening, after the obligatory rounds of Charades and Blind Man’s Bluff, the telegraph operator had suggested a new game. He’d crowded all the young people into his office and made them hold hands, and then sent a jolt of electricity through their clasped palms.
The shock Trace had felt then was minor compared to the one he got now, as if two opposing waves had collided around his heart. His power reacted to it, unfurling down the back of his neck, into his teeth, and down to the tips of his fingers, commingling and clashing with the foreign energies flowing into his hands. They pushed at him, Miss Fairweather and Kieler, testing each other through him, neither willing to relinquish an inch. Kieler’s grip was cold and drawing, tasting of that same bottomless hunger Trace had felt in Miss Fairweather the day before.
He almost pulled away, but her hand tightened on his. “This is all so exciting!” Her voice was giddy but her gaze, locked on Trace’s, was dead calm. “I confess I would be quite terrified if I were not in my own home, surrounded by the safe and familiar.”
Trace relaxed, but not much. He looked across the table at Boz, wondering if he felt anything strange, but Boz was watching Kieler.
The German’s eyes were half-shut, his chin high, his posture aristocratic. He looked suddenly older, and at the same time more substantial, his fine bones made bold by the shadows. “We vill focus on ze flames,” he said, his accent thickening as his concentration turned to other purposes, “und we will clear our minds of all thoughts…”
Boz’s eyes met Trace’s across the table. Trace gave him a nod, as much reassurance as he could offer without words, and then lowered his gaze to the flickering candles.
Their pull was immediate, drawing his attention downward and filling in the outer edges of his vision with black. At the same time, he felt a slacking in his mind, a letting-go of awareness. The edge of the table against his forearms, the crackle of the fireplace in his ears, Miss Fairweather’s grip on his hand—all became faint and far away, as his focus narrowed to the tiny heart of a candle flame.
“And we are very relaxed, at peace, and feeling ever-so-slightly drowsy. We haff the sensation of being wrapped in cotton wool, and it is very cozy…”
Kieler’s voice was slowing and lowering in pitch, as if Trace was hearing him through a fever. The candlelight splintered in his vision and his head rocked back but he caught himself, teetering on the edge of sleep. He struggled to blink, to pull his vision into focus.
“And we are still focusing on the candles … They are the only things we see, now…”
The table was seesawing gently as a raft on the Mississippi, and Kieler was dragging him toward the edge; the fine cool grip on his right hand was the only thing keeping him afloat. He tried to pull away but she clung to him and he saw, as if through a telescope, the long hard road that lay that way, the depth of her need and the toll it was going to take on him if he didn’t get free soon—
“And we give ourselves with perfect trust … and bid willkommen to those who come … We are bidding dem welcome…”
The table was tilting, the candles sliding, the faces around him drawing out long, mouths and eyes hollow, limbs stretching, reaching, grasping—
“So gently we slide into darkness…”
“Boz,” he managed, “don’t let me—”
“Fall,” said Kieler, and Trace did.
It was like going underwater, or stepping off the edge of awake into the first floating stages of sleep. Nothingness poured into his senses and closed over him without a ripple. He went down and down and then up and then there was no direction anymore, all directions were one and he was in all of them.
From a dreamlike distance he felt his body crumple like an empty rucksack, but it was impossible to care. He didn’t have time to struggle, and anyway there was nothing to struggle against. No sound, no color, no sensation. That great void was where the beating of his heart had gone unnoticed for thirty-eight years, that vacuum where air had swirled through his ears and lungs.
He was still in the room. But he was also above the room and around the room and a part of the room. All the normal directions and distinctions no longer applied. He was in the table and the flame, the velvet of Miss Fairweather’s skirt and the sweat on Boz’s brow.
“Trace?” Boz said, alarmed, as Trace’s body crumpled. He rocked forward to stand, but a band of leather lassoed around his chest and cinched him tight against the chair back. The flat, hard hand of Min Chan encircled his throat, pulling his head back taut. “What the hell—”
“Do not move, Mr. Bosley.” Miss Fairweather was out of her chair as well but she had not let go of Trace’s hand. She seized the tablecloth with her free hand and yanked it to the floor, revealing an elaborate design painted on the table’s polished face. From the velvet folds of her skirt she drew a slim, shining scalpel. Keeping her fingers laced with Trace’s, she unfolded her hand enough to made a short, precise cut across her palm.
“What are you doin, woman?” Boz heaved in the Chinese’s grip, but Miss Fairweather was undeterred. She dipped her ring finger in the pooling blood and touched it to various points on the tabletop diagram, murmuring as she did so: “Sanguis hic meus hominen hunc mortalem mihi ligat; ei panacea, protegeum, defensio impenetrabilis est…”
This my blood binds this mortal man to me; for him it is panacea, protection, impenetrable defense … It wasn’t Church Latin, but Trace had no trouble grasping the meaning.
The lady is more than she reveals, ja? Kieler said, and Trace turned his attention toward the German. The little man’s body was likewise slumped over the table, but his spirit was standing there next to Trace—insofar as either of them was standing, or in relative proximity.
Lot of that goin around. The speaking didn’t involve using his mouth. Nor was it using words, exactly, but Kieler seemed to understand him well enough.
I must apologize for the deception. I feared I would not have another opportunity. This is your first time in the spirit realm?
Yeah, actually.
And how are you finding it?
It ain’t bad.
It was as Agatha had said—there was no color, and little light, but he could see quite clearly. Most of the room was illuminated, but dull and flat, like contours in a fog. Kieler put out a little of his own light, but Trace outshone him like the sun did the moon. He could both see and feel the power emanating off himself and stealing toward Kieler. There was a sensation of cold, like a draft, the only thing he could really feel except for the anchoring tug of Miss Fairweather’s grip.
“Sanguis hic meus hostem quisque ab nobis repellat; Isti intrusori venenum fatalis, contagii, clades inevitabilis est…”
This my blood repels the hostile foe; to any intruder it is poison, pestilence, inevitable ruin …
So I take it
the two of you weren’t in this together? Trace said.
Goodness, no. Her deception is a surprise to both of us. I only hope my Master arrives before she can complete her spell.
If you’re tryin to recruit me for Mereck’s sideshow I coulda saved you the trouble.
The Master only initiates the very best, dear boy, Kieler said, with gracious condescension. You are far too crude to be chosen for his family, but your power should win me great favor with him.
Miss Fairweather dabbed Trace’s brows and mouth with her blood, while Boz watched in riveted horror.
Now what’s she doin?
I do not know … sorcery is not my forte. Ah … here is one who can tell us.
Cold rushed into the nothing, making it a brittle and hostile place: one of the upper layers of hell. And suddenly Trace was afraid. His body in the chair jerked in reaction; he felt it but had no control.
Meister, Kieler said. Mein meister. I have brought you a gift.
Malignancy swirled around them, curious, aloof, ravenous. Trace tried to retreat from it, but when distance was immaterial, there was no place to escape to. It piled around him like a thundercloud.
He is young and strong as I was, Kieler said. He will provide you better sustenance than I.
Icy claws sank into Trace’s soul. He screamed, but his agony made no sound, only rippled the nothingness around him.
“What are you doin to him?” Boz demanded, as Trace’s body again jerked in the chair.
“It’s not I,” Miss Fairweather snapped. “He must have been watching already.”
“Who?”
“Mereck!”
The claws withdrew, leaving Trace scattered and numb, shuddering with revulsion. The hungry swirling paused, to listen. Sabine, it said.
“Yes,” Miss Fairweather said, her voice a vicious purr. “It is I, Master—but no longer the student.” She drew the knife across Trace’s palm and ground her own hand into the raw wound.
A shock of power snaked through him like a whip, reaming out his veins like acid. The coldness spasmed, stretching and ripping through Trace’s soul in its effort to withdraw from him. Trace jerked away, collected the scattered parts of himself and pulled. For a moment he was free, but then Kieler seized hold of him, made strong by desperation.
The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel Page 24
