The Eterna Solution

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  “Rose, I need your help…” Clara cried.

  “Yes, yes, Clara.” Rose rubbed her head, her eyes, coughed. She put her hand out to steady herself and knocked over a vial on the floor. “What’s wrong…”

  Oh, God. The Wards. Spire had evidently taken spent Wards from Clara’s office desk and set them around the perimeter of their incapacitated bodies, in an effort to keep protective watch, but in an already tainted space, it was an extra danger, a fouled space rendering the Wards moot.

  They would become choked out. Dead just like Louis when he created the Wards in the first place, their lives snuffed out, taking the whole Eterna research team under in a violent suffocation.

  Panic threatened to undo her utterly. She didn’t know what to say or how to move; her jaw began to chatter.

  “I may seize again, Rose.… This office, tainted…” She grabbed Rose’s hand and put it down on the carved board to show her.

  This snapped Rose into action, finally clearing the fog from her mind and vision.

  Six silhouettes, Summoned shadows inky black, lightless and in vague human forms, the very picture of dread despair, peeled from the wallpaper as if they’d been waiting in hiding all along.

  The bell rang again from downstairs, clanging an unbearable note, declarative of the danger they were now too late to avoid. Their death knell.

  “Bloody hell!” Spire cried. “There’s no one ringing that bell.”

  “Harold!” Rose screamed. Spire ran up the stairs to see the demons drifting closer and he cursed again. These shadows did not wait politely at the threshold as they had in her room, a space that was not the invitation that these carvings had become. Who had carved them was a mystery for another moment, if they lived long enough to solve it.

  From around the shadows’ airborne feet, issuing from their inhuman absence of life, their unnatural reversal, they exuded exhalations of death.… A distinct, sulfuric smoke rose and swirled in the room, behaving not as smoke would, but its own animate force, there to strangle and snuff.

  Clara thought, dimly, that she was about to experience how Louis died, a thought through a glass. She tried to suppress her terror long enough to elongate time in this thickening air, trying to again cast out her many selves. But her body failed her. Having so recently seized, and on the verge of another seizure, she had nothing left.

  “Clara…” Rose whispered, a soft cry. Then her throat constricted. A gasping cough. Rose managed to get to her knees as Spire hoisted Clara to hers.

  The air grew closer; the mist of oppressive pall clouded up the entire office into a gray, opaque, sightless night, rooting their bodies and souls and stilling their breaths. The three of them stumbled as Spire was dragging them toward the threshold.

  A shattering sound pierced the air, then a loud thud. Something hurled through the windows. The fog around them lessened, drained by a hole in the window. They took shaking breaths of lighter air.

  Another sound of shattering glass, a pounding sound of something heavy, then sounds at the front door. More glass breaking.

  Feet running upstairs. A voice.

  “I renounce thee, I renounce thee,” came a strong, youthful voice. Joe. Josiah. That trusted, wondrous boy, Clara thought with a flood of thankfulness. With one hand, he held a kerchief against his face to block the smoke and noxious odor. In his other hand, he held a silver dispenser.

  Clara felt drops of water on her head, thrown about the room. Holy water. He had learned well from his idol Reverend Blessing. She could feel herself being picked up into Spire’s arms.

  “Help Rose, please,” Spire pleaded, choking out the words.

  “I’ve got her, come on,” Josiah insisted, tying his kerchief around his mouth and nose as a mask. His young, strong hands pulled Rose toward the door.

  “I renounce thee, I renounce thee,” Josiah repeated over and over against the demons’ approach. Blessing’s trusted right hand was not far behind Josiah: Evelyn Northe-Stewart came charging up with Bible in one hand, nearly screaming texts before the smoke got to her and she gagged, a cross held out prominently in the other.

  Clara’s vision swam. Rose was coughing. As she was carried by a straining, choking Spire, Rose was walked out, Josiah helping her, while Evelyn took up the rear, facing the hovering, approaching shadows. Tucking the Bible to her chest the medium cupped a lace cuff of her sleeve at her nose, but still held out the cross with her other hand, struggling to speak the scriptures of protection and banishment as she edged away. Everyone coughed and gagged against the acrid, toxic air.

  They all leaned heavily on the rail as they tried to inelegantly descend the flight to the front landing. Once they crossed the empty hall, the guards gone, perhaps helping with the fire, Josiah flung open the front door and the group tumbled toward the street, collapsing on a stoop a few addresses west.

  “How did you know to help us, Josiah?” Spire asked before another coughing fit.

  “When I first started working for the senator, he asked me to keep an eye on the house and offices as often as I could. So I make rounds whenever I can. Everyone was so focused on the burning house, even the Eterna guards. When I saw something wrong here, I thought to do what the firemen do; break windows to let smoke out. I didn’t know it wasn’t a natural smoke until inside when it smelled all strange and sulfur-like—”

  “You brilliant child,” Clara gasped. “Saved our lives.”

  “You called me family, remember, that’s what we do,” Josiah said with a grin. “Now breathe deep, get all that smoke out. I’m so sorry about this, and for your house, Miss Clara, it’s too much,” he said sadly.

  The countdown to a second seizure was well under way. Terror perhaps had its uses in having staved it off thus far. But as an aftershock seizure like this had never happened, she was in entirely uncharted waters and didn’t know if her body would again fail in sequence or all at once.

  Clara clawed at Rose’s forearm clumsily. “I may fade … Again…”

  Rose clamped her hand on Clara, creating a renewed frisson of energy between them. “Stay with me,” Rose demanded, her voice scratchy and broken from the acrid smoke.

  “What now?” Josiah asked.

  “What can I do?” asked Spire, coughing again, this time into a handkerchief, then grimacing at a black substance marring the fabric, a mixture of smoke and the acrid airborne poison made when Summoned entered tainted rooms. He wadded up the linen and tossed it onto the cobbles.

  “Clara is about to have another seizure, we need to get her someplace safe,” Rose explained.

  “Nowhere is safe,” Clara moaned.

  “Come back to me,” Evelyn demanded, and went ahead toward greater traffic to hail carriages as another figure rushed up to them in a tearing huff.

  Clara’s vision blurry, she shrank back, cowering behind Josiah with a pathetic whimper. She didn’t want to be attacked any more.… Rest … God, she needed rest.…

  “It’s Lord Black, Miss Clara, don’t worry,” Josiah said gently, pressing his hands on hers, steadying her. “And Miss Knight, too.”

  “My friends, thank God you’re all right!” the nobleman exclaimed, breathlessly. “After dinner with the senator, I remained out, convincing a few magnates with British investments to take Warding to a more direct level. I raced downtown as soon as I was wired on the senator’s trip. When the safe house door was found open, and the bells all clattering here, I feared the worst! What happened?”

  Spire tried to answer but was still short of breath.

  “Well, first there was a fire in Miss Clara’s house,” Josiah explained. “I saw that after it started. When I went looking for where she’d gone, I noticed smoke in her office so I broke the windows to get them out. The devil’s smoke though, sir, is something terrible.”

  “What happened to Louis,” Clara stammered. “Tainted. Something got to the offices.”

  “Both offices,” Spire added, his voice raw. “Rose was attacked there, she decoded a summoning. We
must stay together. Gather everyone in the team that remains, warn them all, no one should be alone. Go to Northe-Stewart.”

  “Of course,” Black exclaimed, and ran to help Evelyn hail.

  “Bishop. In Washington. Call for my Rupert,” Clara begged, and began to wink out.

  This time Clara’s sight failed first. Only hearing and feeling remained in this unprecedented second wave. Her muscles began to twitch and lose control once she was aided into a carriage.

  “Keep me from falling over,” she mumbled, and dragged the tie of her robe out, placing it in her sore, raw mouth. The interior of the cab was padded enough. Knowing she was as safe as she could be, for the second time in one night, she let go as her internal clock ran out. She seized. Her body would feel beaten, but she was damned if she would not survive the night.

  * * *

  This time she woke more slowly, but memory still returned in a rush. Her body felt heavy and bruised everywhere. Everything hurt and her home was gone. Her safety was gone, her offices tainted. Every place she loved had been wrenched from her.

  Where was she now? Dead? Trapped? Did she dare open her eyes? There was a noise down the hall, a familiar voice. A rush of relief flooded her as she remembered talk of Evelyn’s house before she went under and heard her mentor’s voice.

  The terrifying events of the night paraded through her mind and she had to shift her thoughts lest the panic trigger another episode. Two seizures. That couldn’t be a good sign. She tried to stave off fear that she was worsening, weakening.

  Bishop. She longed for Bishop. The sight of his face, the feel of their impassioned kiss was a glorious alternative to the course of her thoughts.

  She opened her eyes to a view of Tiffany glass and satin drapes, with daylight coming through them. Evelyn and Rose peered down at her, one on either side.

  “Is everyone … safe?” Clara asked slowly, her voice thin and cracking. “The Summoned seemed to be making a sport of trying to kill one by one.… The rules of their coming and going are more fluid now, constant danger. Everyone needs to be accounted for,” she insisted.

  “Always looking after everyone else first,” Rose said fondly. “We’ve asked everyone to check in.”

  “Rupert?”

  Rose glanced at Evelyn.

  “We haven’t heard yet,” Evelyn replied. “When Mr. Spire realized the danger Rose was in, I had my staff alert as many of our team as possible and headed downtown. Gathering you up, we brought you back and you’ve been asleep for nine hours. In the meantime, Miss Knight and I held a private séance here, trying to find out more from the spirit world about this possible Celeste.”

  “And?” Clara pressed.

  “Nothing conclusive,” Evelyn said angrily. “We were overwhelmed by the frenetic nature of the spirit world, it was so much noisier than usual.”

  “Rupert wired me about Washington and to keep watch on everyone.” She turned to Clara and Rose, grieved. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, I should have known—”

  Rose put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “No. If the psychic realm was all turbulence then you wouldn’t have been able to hear a distress call in the storm.”

  Evelyn helped Clara to a sitting position and pressed a glass of water to her lips. Clara drank desperately. Looking down, she noticed she’d been put into a fresh day dress with a shawl draped over her, a simple wool and thick lace frock with its ties, hooks, and cinches left open; her undergarments had been left on and alone.

  “I put you in a fresh layer as I couldn’t have you lying here in a bloodied, soot-stained robe, dear,” Evelyn explained as Clara examined the dress with trembling fingers.

  “Have you checked this house?” Clara asked Evelyn. “Nowhere is safe … the offices. Someone got to the offices.” She heard her voice crack and closed her eyes, hot tears leaking out.

  “I will inspect again, and when you can move, you can help me do so once more,” Evelyn stated, patting Clara’s hand. “We’ll get through all of this, we have so far.”

  There was a knock at the guest room door. Evelyn looked to Clara, who nodded.

  “Yes?”

  Spire, Black, and Knight entered.

  “We wanted to see you awake and well,” Black said gently.

  “Does anyone know … the extent of the damages to my home? I had to throw a lamp and the Wards to close a demon’s corridor, I didn’t know what else to do, I was alone in the room, Harper downstairs. I started the blaze, in a panic, because it’s what stopped Moriel, and what if that shadow was him?” She felt tears itch her eyes. Evelyn placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Where did Harper go?”

  “The damage to your home was extensive,” Spire answered, moving toward Clara. “Fred and Josiah are seeing if anything is salvageable. Your housekeeper is staying with family.”

  “Well, I suppose that settles moving…” she said sadly, thinking how Bishop might take to the news. “Rupert will be so upset.…”

  “The house is immaterial. You’re Bishop’s treasure, you’re all he needs,” Evelyn assured. “Now rest.”

  “No, I don’t dare. Not after a seizure. Two, even. I need to stretch.”

  “Tea?” Rose asked.

  “Yes, please. And I’m starving.”

  Clara helped herself up, waving Evelyn off. “If I don’t move myself, it’s like my body calcifies. I will rest, but when awake, I need to gently keep moving, lest the bruises really set in. Is … is someone missing?” She cocked her head to the side as if listening for something, the ineffable internal bells of her instinctual gifts ringing with a sudden urgency. “Where is Effie? I feel like Effie should be here.…”

  “I don’t know, dear,” Evelyn replied. “She and Fred came here when they heard what happened but stepped out. After that I haven’t seen them.”

  Rose presented a porcelain teacup, and Evelyn fussed over pillows around Clara. Knight brought her a bowl of stew, which she began devouring immediately.

  “Come down to the parlor when you’re ready and you can tell us what happened,” Evelyn said gently. “Take your time.”

  “We don’t have time. I’m very worried,” she stated, handing Rose her food as she stood, slowly adjusting the shawl over her shoulders and hooking the front panel of the dress to the side so that she wouldn’t be hanging open exposed. Gesturing for her friends to follow with one hand, lifting skirts in the other, she called, “Let’s talk this out and get to work.”

  She was bruised and battered, but if anything, this sequence of terror had strengthened her resolve to find ways to best the demons.

  Once the assembled company was in the parlor, Evelyn dug in. “What happened?”

  Clara explained the events as best she could, and even though the parlor was warm with a blazing fire, there remained a chill to the air and Clara shivered for what felt like the thousandth time. Spire put another log on the fire and rekindled the blaze.

  “So that leaves us to wonder who tainted those offices,” Spire stated. “Miss Kent, those guards, the Bixbys or Mr. Fordham, or even our dear senator.”

  “No!” Clara spat, horrified.

  “But you have to think of all the possibilities. You have no choice,” Spire said with a slight sharpness. “We cannot let sentiment cloud us, that’s likely precisely what the enemy wants.”

  “Then I am glad you do not suspect me, Mr. Spire,” Clara said, holding his gaze.

  “It is far more likely that an enemy gained clearance to those offices,” Spire replied. “Our poor, late Mr. Brinkman had no trouble doing so.”

  The ringing of the doorbell made both Rose and Clara start, nerves mutually frayed.

  Sure enough, Effie was shown into Evelyn’s parlor.

  “There you are! I had a feeling I’d see you,” Clara said with a warm smile that quickly faded when she saw her colleague’s expression.

  The lovely woman, dressed in a floral-patterned calico with ribbon and eyelet trim and matching bonnet, bore a look that was the jarri
ng opposite of her dress. She looked pale and shaken, ashen against the soft peach and rose colors of her ensemble, a few brown spiral curls hanging distractedly from beneath the bonnet. Fresh dread overtook Clara, the day proving a further cavalcade of unfortunate events.

  Spire studied Effie with intense scrutiny, reminding Clara that now none of her team were safe from suspicion. This did prompt Clara to look closely at Effie’s eyes. Brown and tired, but not blackened. Effie didn’t taint the offices, of that, Clara felt certain.

  “Clara…” Effie came close, sitting next to her on the divan.

  Evelyn poured the woman some tea and handed it to her directly. Clara knew from years with Evelyn that this was a part of the medium’s process of assessment, seeing how a person would take to small but expected civilities. If there was hesitation, they were not themselves. Effie accepted the cup and saucer graciously, but the porcelain rattled a bit and she had to sit with it in her lap to still her own trembling limbs.

  Evelyn shook her head, meaning she didn’t suspect Effie either. But something else was wrong.

  Effie took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been truly through hell. So I’m sorry to make it worse. But … it can’t wait. How well are you?” Effie countered.

  “Well enough to do whatever needs to be done,” Clara replied, “I’ll take some palliative pills for the aches and bruises. Tell me, you look like you saw a ghost, and I should know.”

  “It’s … Franklin. Something’s wrong. I think you need to see his house. “I … If you’re able to come and take a look, it’s better explained by seeing it. I frankly don’t know what it means, but if a clue is missed, it could be deadly.”

  “Very well,” Clara murmured.

  “I’d not trouble you, especially not in seizure recovery, if it weren’t—”

  “I know,” Clara reassured, patting Effie’s hand. “I’m glad you’ve come to me, you know I hate it when I’m coddled due to my condition.”

  “Still, please take extra care,” Effie replied carefully. “What I’ve seen could easily be another trigger.”

  “She won’t go alone,” Spire stated firmly. “We are a team. None of us is allowed, from this point forward, to be split up. Police orders.”