“You’re mortal. You’ll always be in harm’s way,” the goddess breathed. “It is not the fault of the Grand Work, Ibrahim Wasil-Tipton, and you know that better than anyone.”
The goddess and Ibrahim shared a sad, knowing look that made Beatrice wonder what Persephone knew about him and his fate. The boarding bell tolled again, and the divine one wrung her hands.
“Don’t you understand that the Grand Work has reached a new height? There waits a worthy army to put back in its place this growing cancer, this mounting Whisper-world press. I’m fighting for a way to make things right, but you must trust me. You cannot stay here, and you cannot be divided.”
Beatrice noticed that the people nearby, Egyptians and tourists alike, workers and the leisure class, were pressing their hands over their hearts and glancing around as if seeking the source of a sudden pain. Belle was doing her best to remove their memories, but if they weren’t careful, these mortals might drop dead right here, feeding the Whisper-world with yet more souls.
“All aboard!” the steamer’s captain cried.
“Ibrahim,” Beatrice pleaded. Verena bit her lip, tears in her eyes.
The goddess moved forward, her step still creating life, but it was sparse. Thorny green budding sprouts stabbed her feet, which shed droplets of blood on the struggling plants. The flowers faded behind her as if they were mirages. She took Verena’s hand and kissed it.
“That is a kiss of life,” Persephone breathed. “I do not give it lightly, as it requires strength I ought to conserve. I cannot promise danger will not come; that would be lying to you. But you’ll not die on my watch. That I vow.”
Ibrahim gave a shuddering sigh. “I suppose it is the best offer we have,” he said. He waited for Verena to meet his gaze and give consent. Beatrice doubted, with a jealousy that shamed her, that he would ever offer her the same gentle patience.
Verena nodded and addressed the goddess. “Please close up that terrible world. The example was not lost on us.” Even Ahmed was visibly rattled.
The goddess whirled to the portal and threw her arm out, her hand shaking, blood droplets spattering the hem of Beatrice’s skirts, and the maw snapped shut. The thick air thinned, the water receded, the sky opened to a clear blue, and the sun shone once more upon their harrowed faces.
“Don’t worry,” Belle assured Ibrahim and Verena. “I’ll make sure you’ve everything you need once we are on board.”
After the group shared one communal breath, Beatrice was the first to step onto the gangway. She was not eager for the journey, but she was Leader, and the pull toward England was undeniable. She would set an example. While her compatriots, especially Ibrahim, did an impressive job of hiding their fear, she wanted to show them no futher hesitation.
She took a position at the rail, where she was joined by the other five—and the goddess. Feeling a sudden chill, Beatrice turned to see a skeletal spirit in torn robes, its jaw hanging open like a gruesome puppet, drawn to taunt the goddess. It bobbed before her, looking much like the ghost they’d first fought, that muezzin of malevolence.
Persephone batted at the annoyance with her still bloody hand, which Verena again took into hers to heal and cleanse and this time the divinity let her. “Shh, you wretch,” the goddess hissed at the spirit, and Beatrice wondered what it was saying to make her grimace so.
The spirit hung its head, chastened, but instead of sinking or slithering away, it moved to the boat’s prow and hung there. Beatrice could swear that it was smiling. But it was a skull. It couldn’t smile. There was something about the ghost that filled Beatrice with unusual dread, as if it had been waiting for them or searching for a new world to terrorize. It turned to the sea and opened its bony arms.
“It seems we have brought some stowaways,” Belle muttered, gesturing to the specter.
“That’s bound to happen,” Persephone remarked. “The Grand Work is a magnet for spiritual forces. It’s inevitable that you trail the dead, and they you.”
“What a joyful life we’ve earned,” Beatrice muttered.
“It is, isn’t it?” Ahmed exclaimed, inverting her sarcasm into truth. He put his hands on Beatrice’s and Belle’s shoulders and they felt a breeze in their veins as if he had loosed a dove in their hearts, the flapping of its wings a flurry of peace. His eyes were on Verena, and she grinned. No matter what lay ahead, no one could refuse the Heart.
* * *
The vessel pitched. So did Beatrice’s stomach. She prayed for swift currents to bring the trip to completion. The sea was rougher than usual, she heard crewmen say in inelegant tones as they clomped past her door. She wondered if that was because the ship carried an entourage of death and restlessness to London.
Every rocking motion of the vessel brought another curse, and more bile, to her lips. She clutched the sides of her narrow bed with white knuckles, unaware of where the rest of her company was aboard the vessel, too queasy to take note of the multiple pulses tied to her own. Frankly, she didn’t care; she was unfit for company and too embarrassed to ask for help.
They’d settled in without incident. Belle’s powers were so frightfully useful. It was true that they were an unlikely traveling set, the six of them, and they’d raised more than a few eyebrows when seen together above deck. But one little smile and wave from the Frenchwoman and they were making themselves at home in first class. Beatrice was surprised by the luxury. Cairo had become quite the destination, she supposed. This brought her thoughts of her father with a small pang, and she wondered if more traveling Brits would help or hinder his work.
Beatrice fixed her gaze upon the dark porthole above her bed and tried not to move; the stiller she could be, the less disruption to her reeling body.
“Let’s go to London. It will be an adventure,” she muttered.
Suddenly she missed the life she could have lived, a haunted life that never again could be. In times of discomfort, one always wishes for alternatives.
She wondered if her mother had been this ill when they had traveled to Cairo, when Beatrice was four. She did not recall the journey, but remembered her mother hadn’t fared it well.
When the new life of the Guard had first begun, Beatrice had looked for the spirit of her mother everywhere. Now, realizing that only the restless dead remained on Earth, she was grateful to have never seen her mother’s ghost. It gave her a small amount of comfort to think her mother had somehow found peace. From what her father sometimes murmured, usually after he’d had a drink or two, Mum hadn’t much liked Cairo. So perhaps she was better off, but Beatrice would have loved a mother’s touch upon her forehead at that moment, gently telling her to hold on and have faith.
She felt a tweak at her temple—there were ghostly happenings afoot, perhaps the work of those who had followed the Guard aboard. Damn them. There was Work to be done and she couldn’t sit up straight.
There was a knock at her cabin door.
“I am indisposed!” Beatrice called, then snapped her mouth shut and willed back a wave of nausea.
“Leader, your services are required aft. There is some sort of … siren” came a deep and concerned voice.
“You’ll have to fight her without me, Ibrahim.”
The door swung wide.
“I thought I locked that,” Beatrice muttered, turning away from her Intuition, who stood in the doorway like an elegant statue; a stern yet beautiful work of sculpted art guarding ancient treasures. She didn’t want him to see her like this, so helpless. It would only feed his disdain.
“It appears the sea does not agree with you,” he said. “I’ll summon Verena.”
“This is no work of a phantasm,” Beatrice said, and hissed as she felt another wave of nausea. She hoisted herself over the nearby basin. “She will be of no help. Please leave.”
She was surprised when he did, and she returned to her bed to lie flat again. Moments later, to her chagrin, Verena appeared in dark, rustling robes, giving Beatrice a friendly smile. “You’re quite green,” sh
e stated.
Beatrice moaned. When the Healer placed a glowing hand on her stomach, she shuddered once, then went still. Verena’s glowing fingertips traced a line up her arm toward her neck and then her temple, as if gauging her pulse. After a moment, Beatrice heaved a long sigh and sat up.
It was as if Verena had detached the symptoms from her mind, her light some kind of block against the effects of her roiling stomach that matched the pitch of the seas. Beatrice would take it and hope it lasted.
“I’m much better, surprisingly. Thank you, Verena,” she stated. Ibrahim had been right to fetch her. “What did I hear we have out there? A siren?” She made a face and stood up. “Honestly, is there such a thing?”
Going aft and glimpsing the glowing specter, she couldn’t help but come to the same conclusion. The ghostly woman’s form was lithe and long; she trailed phantom fabric far above the deck and her hair whipped behind her in a snaky halo. Her mouth was a wide O, and while the Guard could hear no sound, the panes of glass in the door to the captain’s cabin began to fissure and splinter.
The Guard formed a circle below the floating form, which seemed even more luminous against the moonlit mist. Beatrice glanced around. Belle must have cleared the deck of all persons, for it was just them, the rough sea, an encroaching storm, and this unhappy wraith.
“Bind,” Beatrice commanded. A trickle of blue fire leaped from her hands and lit a ring of light around the group like a match dropped upon a line of oil. The spirit’s face snapped down to stare at them.
“She’s shrieking. So sad,” Belle said. “Drowned, drowned she was. Taken by the sea.”
“Can you hear her?” George asked, always in awe of her talent.
“No, no. It’s just what I sense. My powers could gather more sense of her if I had something to touch. Ibrahim, what do you feel?”
Ibrahim closed his eyes and concentrated. “I don’t believe she is malevolent,” he admitted. “She is merely displaced, having drowned, as Belle said. Perhaps she is warning us. Perhaps she doesn’t want us to perish in a storm as she did.”
“Or she wants us to follow her to yonder rocks,” George muttered.
“Perhaps,” Beatrice replied. “And so we ought to try to quiet her.”
Ibrahim opened his mouth, prepared to give a benediction and begin the process of importuning the ghost to peace when his brow furrowed and he stared at Beatrice’s hands. She lifted them, showing everyone the flickering, faltering flame. “Yes. The fire is hard to muster for long, given the current distance.” She hissed. “And it’s terribly uncomfortable.” It was downright agonizing, but she couldn’t let her fellows know how bad it was. That was leadership’s curse.
“Where’s our goddess when we need her?” Ibrahim asked grumpily. “Wasn’t she just with us?”
“Our Lady comes and goes when and how she will,” Ahmed said. “She’s likely resting. Didn’t you see how the Whisper-world affected her?”
Like Ibrahim, Beatrice felt bereft, but offered no comment.
Great light bloomed as Persephone appeared. Her bare feet balanced on the ship’s masthead, the shifting-colored beauty smiled at them from on high. “Sometimes you need only ask,” she said, and turned her attention to the sea.
“Thank you for the help, m’lady,” Beatrice murmured, glancing to her dim hands, which held hardly the light she would need for a fight.
“I only wish I could do more, beloveds,” the goddess murmured, her gentle voice rising above the waves. “I wish I could fight at your side each and every time.”
The air calmed, the clouds cleared away, and while the sea did not grow immediately still, the boat ceased its frightful rocking and adopted a more gentle sway.
“How the spirits obey you,” Ahmed wondered. “Would that we had such swift facility.”
“You do,” Persephone assured. “It is you who improve me. I need you as my warriors—to remind me of my duty, to bring out the best in me, to rally me to my own cause. And I cannot always be in this mortal world,” Persephone said before turning to the troubled siren still wailing above the Guard. “Peace, friend. Peace.”
As the spirit ascended, like a star rising into the sky, calmed by the goddess’s gentle powers, Beatrice ran to the rail and vomited over the side, Verena’s cure evidently a temporary salve.
Verena went to her, placed a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, dear, let’s get you back below. I wish my gifts were constant, or that my hand could utterly smooth the sea.”
As she took Beatrice’s hand, a few crewmen scrambled past them to the prow. A few crossed themselves, others murmured that they were being watched over by angels. Belle and George remained on deck, Belle doing her best to keep the damage to a minimum.
“Angels and devils both,” Ibrahim muttered.
Beatrice longed to ask her second what and how he was feeling, if his instinct was roiling here like her stomach. But he was her business associate and not her friend. He would tell her only if it became necessary. She let herself be led below, steeling herself for the rest of the voyage.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
The next day, a loud rap at Beatrice’s door made her aching head reel. This was followed by Ibrahim’s smooth voice. “Miss Smith, I have come to pay you a visit, if you are of a mind to admit me.”
Thankfully, she had been well enough that morning to dress and had dressed nicely, though a glance in the mirror showed dark circles under her eyes. She scowled. Why should she care what Ibrahim thought of her appearance?
“Yes, Mr. Wasil-Tipton, how may I help you?” she asked, moving carefully to the door and bracing her hand hard upon the frame to mask the shaking of her limbs.
“As second-in-command, I thought I should confer with you.”
“About what? Is there a decision at hand? Do you bring another doomsday account?”
“No,” he said simply as she opened the door.
“Then why are you here?” Her tone was sharper than she intended.
Ibrahim blinked. “I … I came to tell you that I appreciate the way in which you allowed my viewpoint to be presented to our fellows, and to our Lady.”
“Noted. You are welcome,” she replied and moved to sit upon her bed, her head swimming. Fainting in front of him would be beyond humiliating. He’d have to catch her in his arms … Not to mention it was terribly improper for him even to be in her room in the first place.
He looked closely at her. She was sure it was just her miserable imagination, but it seemed he was masking a laugh.
“Please go,” she growled. “Stop enjoying my humiliation.”
Instead, Ibrahim came closer. “Lay back,” he said.
Beatrice felt a shiver rush down her spine, this one not originating in her quivering stomach as she eased down onto the bed.
Ibrahim dipped the waiting cloth into the basin of cool water on the bed stand, then placed it gently on her forehead. It was the first time there had been any contact between them. Granted, there was a cool cloth between his fingers and her skin, but Beatrice felt the exchange nonetheless. She tried not to have her pleasure become visible as he stared down at her, his face impossibly noble. He looked too much a prince to have been left on a doorstep. How could anyone abandon such beauty?
Perhaps it was the gentleness in her gaze that allowed his firm expression to soften, his dark eyes to warm. The two of them said nothing, but Ibrahim kept his hand on her forehead and the compress.
Beatrice closed her eyes. “I want to go home,” she murmured.
“That’s something we can agree on,” Ibrahim replied. “Breathe deep. Try to rest.”
He rose and was about to leave the room when he paused. “I cannot presume to understand your recent physical state, as your powers differ from mine, but I was quite overtaken by the physical effects of the Grand Work, and if the force you’ve been cloven to has been ripped away, I cannot imagine the discomfort. I cannot imagine it helps seasickness, either. You are somewhat composed, considering.
”
Beatrice eyed him. “Are you attempting to give me a compliment, Mr. Wasil-Tipton? You might practice a bit more.”
The corners of his lips twitched, and his dark eyes sparked. Then he shrugged. “It isn’t my fault if you women have a need for praise but no appreciation of subtlety. Good day.”
“Good day,” Beatrice replied.
She gave a bemused chuckle as the door closed behind him, telling herself that it was only because she hadn’t been touched in so long that his small gesture had been so pleasant. Had seasickness upended more than her stomach? She gave a moment’s pause to considering Ibrahim’s hand and what it might feel like were there no fabric between it and her. Another distinct shiver unrelated to the sea coursed down her spine.
Beatrice cut the thought from her mind. Touches were meaningless, and she would do fine without them. She was a woman self-assured, set apart from such romantic nonsense.
* * *
When Beatrice at long last went abovedecks, she found the other ladies of the Guard appreciating the bright sun from deck chairs, soaking up as much as they could before the clouds of the British Isles were drawn over them. Thankfully, the sea was presently calm, and her battered nerves were in a better state of cooperation.
The three women chatted happily, shifting between languages with a fluidity that went without comment, facilitated by occasional words in the Guard’s communal language and the uncanny aid of Belle’s mental tricks. As they shared a second pot of tea, they noticed a bright light appear in a wicker chair beside them.
“May I sit with you? The company of bosom friends is something I’ve always craved,” murmured Persephone, smiling shyly. As powerful and ancient as she might be, she often seemed young and preciously awkward.
Belle and Verena looked at Beatrice, who shrugged and rose to play hostess. The teapot was suddenly fresh and full, when no human had been near. A fourth cup was waiting at the ready. Such, apparently, was the benefit of taking tea with a divinity.
“You were talking of love?” Despite her shifting colors, it was clear Persephone blushed.
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