Killing in C Sharp

by Alexia Gordon

  She gave up on sleep and made her own coffee downstairs. An eerie stillness toyed with the base of her neck. No sign of Eamon and Orla, and it was none of her business where they were. Too many questions might lead to the TMI zone. Venus hadn’t come home but texted to say she remained among the living.

  A shower restored some sense of being human. She went to the hospital to check on Niall, but the cadre of gardaí clustered around his door convinced her to settle for a nurse’s assurances that the inspector “hung in there.” She hoped for better luck seeing Frankie in the infirmary.

  Nineteen

  Gethsemane turned on the road to St. Brennan’s. Sylvie stepped out of a shop several yards ahead.

  “Sylvie! Mademoiselle Babin!” Gethsemane shouted to get the other woman to stop.

  “I ain’t got nothing to say to y’all,” the diva drawled. French toast had given way to Georgia peach.

  “You spoke to Venus?”

  “That writer with the too-bright lipstick and those ridiculous heels? No, and I’m not speaking to you, either.” Sylvie resumed walking.

  Gethsemane followed. “Please, mademoiselle.”

  “You know my name’s Sadie. Did y’all think y’all could dig up my past without me finding out whose hands held the shovel? In a town the size of Attapulgus? I have friends, too.”

  “Sadie, please. A moment of your time. Tell me again how you met Bernard.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that toad.” She turned to walk back to the shop.

  “Not the details. Just about the restaurant you said he reviewed. Josephine’s, wasn’t it?”

  “Why do you care about a French restaurant that closed two weeks after it opened?”

  “Closed. After Bernard’s bad review?”

  “Yes, and some others.” Sylvie/Sadie stepped closer to Gethsemane and scrutinized her with one eye closed, the way Gethsemane’s grandma used to do when she suspected she or her siblings had been in her pantry. “What’s this about? Not food.”

  Gethsemane persisted. “Did Bernard say why he wanted to get out of the restaurant review business and switch to music reviewing?”

  “Not in detail, no. I assumed it was because my friend edited a music magazine. If my friend had edited an auto mechanics rag, Bernard would have gone after a job as an automotive reviewer.”

  “He didn’t mention anything, gave no specific reason, why he didn’t want to write about food anymore? You were in Paris, the food capital of the world. No shortage of review opportunities.”

  “One time he babbled about the food industry being fickle, people turning on you, that kind of thing. We were at my apartment getting drunk after a performance of ‘Tosca.’ Drunk on brandy I paid for.” Sylvie tapped her chest with her thumb. “I recall him mentioning something about people blaming you for things that weren’t your fault. Same things we all say when the world ceases to operate the way we want it to. I guessed he’d been fired and thought he didn’t deserve to be.”

  “Did he say why he was fired?”

  “No, or if he did, I was too drunk to pay attention. Did there have to be a reason? Publishing’s as fickle as music.”

  “Did he tell you he used to write under the byline Ben Schlossberg?”

  That stunned her. Sylvie gawped. “Ben Schlossberg? No, he certainly never told me he wrote as Ben Schlossberg.”

  “He wrote most of his food reviews under that name.”

  “Y’all don’t say? Seems I’m not the only one around here with a secret past.”

  Far from it. “Think. Try to remember. Did Bernard say anything at all that might give a hint why he changed his name as well as his career?”

  “I’ve no clue,” Sylvie said. “I could hazard a guess sprung from the well of personal experience. Maybe he was hiding from an enraged ex-lover. As one of the enraged, I’d have gone after him if I thought I could’ve gotten away with it. Or maybe an ex-lover’s cuckolded ex-husband wanted his head on a platter.”

  “He really left a wake of destruction, didn’t he?”

  “Like a nuclear missile.”

  Gethsemane climbed back on her bike. “Thank you for your time. I won’t hold you up any longer. I’ve got to get to the infirmary to check on my friend and my students.”

  “That weird sickness from the theater? I’m sorry about all that. Such young boys affected. How are they doing?”

  “Holding their own, from what I’ve heard. I haven’t seen them for myself yet.”

  She’d only pedaled a few feet when a voice called her back. “Hey.”

  Sylvie jogged up to her. “I just thought of something. Maybe Ben Schlossberg became Bernard Stoltz because Ben couldn’t get another job. Maybe he’d been blacklisted, stricken from the rolls of reliable food reviewers.”

  “Why would he be blacklisted?”

  “I dunno. Maybe one of the restaurants he reviewed gave someone ptomaine poisoning.”

  St. Brennan’s had last filled its twelve-bed infirmary in 1918 when the great influenza pandemic struck. Since that time, all its beds, save one or two used for the occasional boy with gastroenteritis or chicken pox, lay empty. Until now. Boys of all ages, all firstborn sons, all suffering from unexplained wasting—failure to thrive in her mother’s medical books—occupied eleven beds and two cots brought in to accommodate the overflow. Frankie occupied the twelfth. His red hair seemed brighter against his pallor, and his normally bright green eyes appeared dull and bloodshot.

  Gethsemane pulled up a chair next to his bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Worse than I look. How do I look?”

  “Um, well…”

  “That bad.”

  “Has the doctor been around? What did she say?”

  “She uses lots of fancy doctor terms that all mean she’s got no idea what’s got hold of us.”

  No surprise. The typical med school curriculum didn’t cover spirit possession.

  “She’s talking about calling in consultants from WHO and the American CDC.”

  And they’ll come, ask questions, order tests, then go home without finding a solution. But they’ll get a nice case report write-up. She fished in her bag. “I brought you this.”

  “My MP3 player.” Frankie took the device. “Thank you.”

  “And these.” She handed him a set of earbuds. “Don’t want to get in trouble with the nurse for disturbing the peace with loud music.”

  Frankie smiled.

  “I loaded it up with Miles Davis.”

  “You’re starting to scare me.”

  “You would have preferred Coltrane?”

  He barked a weak laugh. “You’re being nice. Say something snarky or I’ll think I’m dying.”

  “Fresh out of snark today. I’ll hit you up with a double dose when you get out of here.” When. Not if. Eamon and Orla had to beat Maja. The alternative…

  “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, are those tears? I really am dyin’.”

  She punched his leg through the thin hospital-style blanket. “Don’t flatter yourself, Grennan. You wish I’d cry for you.”

  “That’s the mean Sissy I know and love.”

  She glanced around to make sure the nurse wasn’t watching then pinched him. Hard.

  “Ouch.” He laughed as he jerked his arm away. “Now I feel better. You’d never attack a dying man.”

  “Dr. Brown.”

  Gethsemane recognized Ruairi’s voice. She turned to see him seated at the far end of the ward between two beds. Colm lay in one and Feargus the second. Aengus sat on Feargus’s other side.

  “Hey, guys.” She excused herself to Frankie and went over to the boys. Colm and Feargus shared the math teacher’s pallor. Blond-haired Colm seemed to disappear against the white bedsheets. Aengus’s brawn contrasted so much with his brother’s wasting, if Gethsemane hadn’t known they were
twins she wouldn’t have guessed they were related. Thin, wiry Ruairi seemed the picture of health. She dug her nails into her palm to keep the tears at bay. Jokes weren’t enough. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. I miss you in class.”

  Ruairi tapped Colm’s shoulder. “Tell her.”

  “Tell me what, Colm?”

  “I tried to call our parents, but I couldn’t reach them and the nurse won’t let me call again. Not unless I tell her why I want to speak to them.”

  Gethsemane leaned close to the boy. “But you’re going to tell me why you want to speak to them, aren’t you?” She suspected it wasn’t to ask them to bring him a teddy bear.

  “About Saoirse. She came to see me.”

  “When did she come by?”

  “A little while ago. She had one of Father Tim’s weird books. She said she was going to do something to get rid of this sickness.”

  “Do what?” She didn’t need to do anything. Eamon and Orla could handle it. “Where’s Saoirse now?”

  “We don’t know,” Aengus said. “Ruairi and I looked all over for her, but she’s nowhere.”

  “The devil couldn’t find her if she didn’t want to be found,” Colm said.

  “I peeked at her book,” Feargus whispered. “I learned enough at my Latin lessons to see it had something to do with magic.”

  “Which is why I can’t tell the nurse to let me use the phone. She’ll think I’m a header.” Colm squeezed Gethsemane’s hand. “Will you look for Saoirse? Please?”

  “I don’t have to look for her, Colm. I’m pretty sure I know where she is.”

  “Damn it.” Gethsemane recognized the SUV parked on a side street opposite the Athaneum. Kent said he’d finished with Dunmullach. What changed his mind?

  She expected to find the entire Ghost Hunting Adventures entourage when she entered the auditorium but saw only Ciara and Poe. They snapped pictures of empty corners, pausing every now and then to change cameras.

  “What are you two doing here?” Gethsemane asked. “Kent said you were leaving.”

  “Kent said.” Poe aimed an old-fashioned flash camera at Gethsemane and depressed the shutter button. Gethsemane flinched as the bright pop of the flash temporarily blinded her. The click-whir of the shutter sounded loud in the otherwise silent auditorium. Poe advanced the film and loaded another flash bulb.

  Ciara pushed Poe’s camera down. “We are leaving. Kent and Hardy and the others are packing now. But Poe and I just had to have one more go at Maja Zoltán or whatever this is.”

  “You know it’s Maja,” Poe said.

  “I know it’s making children sick, and I’m not okay with that,” Ciara said. “Isn’t there something Poe and I can do to help you stop it?”

  “Speak for yourself.” Poe moved off to take more pictures.

  “You started the party without me.” Venus stepped out of the shadows of the wings onto the stage. “Or am I unforgivably late?” She stopped halfway to center stage and retraced her steps. She reached behind the curtain. “You, too, party girl.” She pulled Saoirse onto the stage and put her arm around the girl.

  Gethsemane climbed onto the stage and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Saoirse, go home. Now. I know all about your spell book. Colm, Ruairi, and the twins told me what you were up to. Not happening.”

  “You don’t understand—” Saoirse began.

  “I understand this is no place for you. I don’t care how brilliant you are or how prescient you are or how old you think you are, you’re twelve and this is dangerous.”

  “Dangerous for Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy.”

  For Eamon and Orla? “Dangerous for them how?”

  Saoirse pulled a leather-bound book, smaller than the one she’d brought to the cottage, from her pocket. Latin letters in faded gilt marched along its spine. “Book Two. It contains the second part of that spell, the part that explains the consequences. If the McCarthys unite to create enough energy to overload Maja and blast her into the netherworld—”

  “Maybe we should discuss this somewhere—” Venus began.

  Too late. “That’s a cheap shot, brat.” Poe cursed and scowled down at Saoirse. “Maja can’t help what she is.”

  “Back off, Poe,” Venus said. “You want to get in someone’s face, pick a face that belongs to someone your own size.”

  “You?” Poe snorted and craned her neck. “You’re nobody’s size.”

  “You little—”

  Gethsemane pushed between the statuesque author and blue-haired photographer. “Stop it, both of you. A fist fight won’t help.”

  Venus stepped back. “But it’d make me feel better.”

  Ciara, hands on her hips, cocked her head at her colleague. “Poe! Maja’s infected half this village with her poison or anger or whatever. Children, Poe. She’s sickened children. Someone needs to stop her. Someone needs to fight for the children.”

  “Not me.” Poe fiddled with a camera lens. “I don’t even like kids.”

  Gethsemane looked back and forth between Saoirse and the ghost hunters. What the hell? They’d see proof of Eamon and Orla’s existence soon enough. “Don’t mind Poe. Finish what you were telling us, Saoirse. What do you mean the spell has a second part?”

  “It was split between two books. Like in that movie about the magician where the warning about the spell was on the page after the spell so the magician recites it without knowing—”

  “The short version, kid,” Venus said. “We’re trying to avoid Dunmullach’s own Armageddon. We’re on a tight timeline.”

  The girl opened the book and displayed a page full of Latin lettering and cryptic symbols. “If Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy short-circuit Maja, they’ll burn themselves out.”

  “Burn out, like,” Venus searched for a word, “burn out?”

  “They’ll use up all of their energy. There won’t be any left for them to use. They’ll stop existing.”

  “Are you sure, Saoirse?”

  “Pretty sure. The book’s handwritten, so some of the words are hard to make out. But I’m pretty sure. Like ninety percent.”

  “What do we do?” Venus asked.

  “You do exactly as you planned,” Ciara said. “I’m sorry if these ghosts are—friends—of yours, but children’s lives are at stake. Living children. Nothing’s more important.”

  “It’s not up to you, Ms. Save the Children.” Poe laughed. “The ghosts get to decide for themselves. Maybe they’re not as selfless as you are.”

  Ciara knelt in front of Saoirse and held her by the arms. “Sweetheart, isn’t there something in your little book to force the ghosts to go through with it?” Her grip tightened. “Some spell that puts them in your power, so you can make them do what you say?”

  “No, ma’am.” Saoirse yanked her arms free and backed away from her.

  “Finally, something you can’t be the boss of, Ciara,” Poe said.

  Saoirse mumbled, “There might be a loophole.” No one paid attention to her.

  Poe jammed a hand into a cargo pants pocket and pulled out a phone. A phone Gethsemane hadn’t seen her with before. A phone that looked a bit like Hardy’s special one. Poe swept it across the scene, capturing a panorama.

  “You’re recording this?” Venus asked.

  “Nothing will show up,” Gethsemane said. “It never does.”

  Pure malice lit up Poe’s smile. “You think Hardy’s the only one who gets special cameras?”

  Gethsemane lunged at Poe. She grasped air as Poe dodged.

  Poe sneered. “Nice try, school teacher. But I didn’t bring Maja back to have nothing to show for it. Bet I get a million hits after I upload this.”

  “You brought her back?” Ciara flew at her. She missed and crashed into a chair. “How? Why?”

  “Why?” Gethsemane said. “Because she’s bat shit crazy. How?” She
stepped toward Poe. “With the grimoire you stole from Father Tim.” No point in telling her about the overture and the aria and sympathetic resonance. God only knew who she’d call up if she had all the ingredients for ghost conjuring.

  “I borrowed the book. I gave it back.”

  “He took it back. But not before you had time to do a little speed reading. Or did you take a photograph?”

  “Whatev—”

  A noise from Ciara cut Poe off. She rushed the younger photographer again. Poe bobbed out of reach just before Ciara’s fingers closed around a handful of blue hair.

  “Easy,” Poe said.

  “Poe, I swear—”

  “Shh.” Gethsemane held up a hand. “This conversation is about to become academic.” She pointed at the blue haze that formed in a rear corner of the stage.

  “What are you pointing at?” Ciara asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Me neither,” Poe muttered. She moved toward the stage and shouted. “Maja Zoltán, show yourself to me! I’m on your side. You wouldn’t be here without me.”

  “Some claim to fame,” Venus said.

  Poe swore and glared at Gethsemane. “Why do you get to see her and I don’t?”

  “Clean living.”

  Gethsemane and Venus watched as the haze grew dense and morphed, first into an outline, then a transparent shade, then the solid form of an enraged Maja. Her eyes blazed red and her hair flew around her in a whirlwind fury. A blue aura enrobed her. Sparks popped and sizzled, and orbs twice as powerful—and deadly—as any Eamon ever launched hovered at her fingertips.

  “Game on,” Venus said.

  “Where’re your goody-goody ghosts?” Poe called from the rear of the auditorium where she’d taken refuge from Ciara. She continued filming with her phone’s camera. “Did they decide they preferred to exist after all?”

  A blast of leather and soap comingled with white roses and vetiver filled the theater. Gethsemane collapsed against a wall with relief. “You came.”

  “We’re here, darlin’,” Eamon’s voice boomed through the auditorium. He materialized center stage. “You knew we wouldn’t let you down.”