The Eterna Solution

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  “I’ll ask first for your willing participation, then I’ll take it by force,” the woman replied honestly. “The world does not respect you as anything but prize and property. You’re too clever, the lot of you, not to be spared as the field is leveled, evils for evils.”

  “While women deserve equal footing,” Evelyn said, “seizing any goal with the help of the Summoned will only drag you to hell.”

  “I’m interested in doing something quite different with the Summoned than Moriel did,” Celeste countered.

  “You’re co-opting the rails, electrical and telegraph lines,” Rose stated. “Poisoning them with your tainted boxes.”

  “Empowering them, rather,” Lady C corrected.

  “Those who work with the Summoned don’t last long,” Rose cautioned. “You’ll be torn to bits. Or don’t you know what happens when those who hold court with the demons fall out of favor?”

  “No, I won’t be torn to bits,” the lady scoffed. “I pledged no loyalty to the Summoned, thus they have no leverage nor sway. I have no allegiance to anyone but myself. Evil—mind you that evil is conceptually subjective—will always adapt. It is a river that never runs dry, especially not in this country. All the bloodshed and dynastic horror of a colonial empire creates a perfect palette for channels of visceral, violent energy. You’ll join this rising tide, one way or another.”

  “That’s not what we were born for,” Clara countered. She bit her tongue as she fought numbness to continue speaking. “Our minds and hearts were chosen for the fights of the angels, not devils.”

  “Yes, I suppose you think you’re rather special,” Celeste sneered. “All of you. Gifted. You stand out in a crowd.” She narrowed her eyes at Clara and gestured around Clara’s head: her aura. “You’re very loud.”

  Clara set her jaw. “So I’ve been told.”

  “That’s all right. Makes it easier for the demons to find you.” She smiled again.

  “So I’ve seen,” Clara retorted. “Are you trying to intimidate or recruit us?”

  “Can’t I do both? Do you remember, each of you, when you first knew you were gifted? I began with small monstrosities in Chicago slaughterhouses. I saw what I could do, my gifts of persuasion and clairvoyance burgeoning in blood. Fed by the intersection of blood and steel blades. Moriel was the first kindred spirit I ever knew…”

  Celeste’s lovely face turned harrowingly angry. “But he, in his aristocratic blindness, discounted this country, and my superior power. He used the Industrial Revolution in his experiments, but hoped to do away with the very technologies that broadened his terrorism. There is no going back. One must embrace progress. One must use industry to rule. Moriel could not see that he underestimated the ingenuity of the American imagination, which can be turned to a beautiful, terrible purpose.”

  Clara wondered at this turn of events in Society legacy. If she wished women to be considered equal they must then consider each other capable of just as many terrible things as any human being. Beautiful and terrible.

  “To what end?” Rose demanded.

  “In constant momentum I gain the eternal,” the Shakespearean villain replied. “In wielding all of mankind’s energies into my body I will live limitless in a limited world. Men are so afraid of women’s bodies. They deem us a mere collection of parts. Why not make them frightened of our holistic selves for a legitimate reason?” she asked.

  “Proving women can be equally monstrous does our sex no favors,” Clara retorted, fighting a wave of nausea.

  “I’m not interested in favors. I’m interested in completion of a wondrous task. My slaves have been building pyramids!” she said excitedly. “I know you’ve been dismantling my boosters as you find them, but there are too many you’ve not found. Nothing can douse the bonfire that shall set the ‘Presidential Palace’ alight tonight.

  “I’ve set up a pentagram. Moriel’s perversion of the sacred, I will admit, does help the power I amass flow more quickly into me. And you, my dear ladies, are the arm of my star! You know, after all that mess in England, you should know better than to split up. When all together, you’re quite a force. But alas…”

  Staring hard at Clara, the woman continued, “Your Bishop, for all his powers, all his posturing about suffrage and women’s rights, wouldn’t take you to that precious house tonight because society says no. How bold. What a soldier for progress.”

  This cut Clara to the core. Surely he could have brought her and Rose along; using his power of mesmerism wouldn’t have taxed him beyond the pale. Then their compass would have been present. Celeste seemed to see in Clara’s expression that she had touched a nerve, and she smiled.

  “You’ll still defend him, even after this? After being discarded as second class?”

  “We’re not discarded—” Rose countered.

  “Your gentlemen have left you here at my mercy. Leaving me the perfect offering.” Celeste removed her apron, revealing a stunning black brocade dress beneath, and then whipped the white cloth away from the bottom of the cart. Sitting on the shelf below fine china teacups were black boxes, scraps of fabric, surgical tools, and a small pistol.

  “From gifted bodies I require gifted tokens,” she added, and licked thin lips.

  Celeste rapped on the service door seamlessly folded into the wall. It opened and in walked Franklin Fordham in a soot-stained brown suit.

  Clara’s heart plummeted as he entered. His eyes were glassy, reddened, and full of pain. Her worst fears, what she’d tried to tell herself wasn’t true, was. He’d turned, he’d tainted their offices, his home, and now …

  “It’s easy to mentally control someone so lacking in confidence and security,” Celeste said, her voice sickly sweet. “To overtake them with your own agenda and make them act against their own interests, just by pulling the right strings of their deepest misery. Play upon a man’s fear and he’s yours for the taking. A few psychic tricks and mesmerism doesn’t hurt.”

  Franklin took a step toward Clara, who couldn’t move from the neck down. She lifted her head defiantly, her gaze drilling into her friend, willing his true spirit to fight to the surface of the water his soul was drowning in.

  “Don’t do this,” she begged. “Remember the storm. Remember what I did for you in that life and in this one…”

  “Shut up,” Celeste hissed, and raised her arms, flexing her palms, and the environment in the pleasant room with all its fine furnishings reacted.

  What had begun as a low hum in Clara’s ear burst into a palpable vibration, as if all the energy from the electrical grids, telegraph wires, and railways was harnessed to her directly, pulled all along the New York rails. The white walls darkened, as if tar was bubbling forth—an overwhelming excretion of shadow. The Summoned would be upon them soon.

  “Remember what we’ve been through,” Clara demanded of Franklin before he pulled fabric from his pocket to wind around her mouth in a gag to silence her.

  Clara closed her eyes and unfolded her many selves, allowing for time to stretch, for the power of her multiple lives to anchor the room.

  First to step forward was the old ship captain, the one who had saved Franklin in a previous time. Long ago Clara had discovered that she and many of her close associates had gone through many lifetimes together, sometimes aware of their previous connections, sometimes not.

  Something shifted in Franklin’s expression as he stared at the captain; Clara saw a spark of recognition and detected a faint image superimposed over the man who stood before her. A gentleman dressed in eighteenth-century seafaring garb stared at Clara’s potent former self.

  Franklin swiveled his head from the captain to Clara, confused. It was like watching a man wake up from a nightmare, only to realize that the nightmare was still happening.

  Clara couldn’t tell if Celeste could see the layers of her lives or not, if she did, she refused to let further company daunt her.

  Reaching under a warming tray on the cart, the woman withdrew a sharp golden dagger.
Clara could see inverted symbols of many faiths and traditions etched into the hilt—once again harnessing the perversion of the sacred. Celeste handed the blade to Franklin, who took it in a shaking grasp.

  “You know what to do,” Celeste said, the stretch of Clara’s lives slowing her words as she touched Franklin’s hand, moving it to point the blade at Clara’s face.

  Clara felt terror lurch over her in waves, the physical effect of which actually fought back against the lethargic toxin. She tried to force her lives, her energy, to be more.

  However, this application of her lives had a cost, widening the spaces for spirits and dark forces alike. What Lady C was doing to the corridor between the worlds, Clara’s extension only opened the door that much further.

  The air shimmered and the now-familiar corridor appeared, where the Summoned waited. A few shadows slipped into the room, while others peeled away from the walls in a lightless line of silhouettes.

  For now, the shadows were relegated to hang back from Clara and her Warded operatives, each of them having a Washington Ward on their person. One of the shadows floated toward Celeste, who shifted her head slightly, beholden to the same slow time as the rest of them. A low growl sounded from the back of her throat and the shadow backed away as if recognizing one of its own.

  “Now,” Celeste urged Franklin, gesturing to the dagger. Franklin balked, looking again at the sea captain, then back at Clara, wide-eyed.

  “We’ve always lived to help each other, brother,” the sea captain Clara once was said to the man Franklin used to be.

  Franklin’s gaze cleared, and awareness dawned to terror.

  Behind them, the soul corridor that Clara had opened widened, enabling Clara to see the other end, where two familiar figures stood at the threshold of a dark room. Bishop and Spire. As if he could sense someone looking at him, Bishop turned to face her. Rose managed to touch a shaking finger to the back of Clara’s hand to bolster their connection. Even Harold Spire turned his head, staring toward something he could not see.

  “Damn it all, this is the final piece,” Celeste demanded, her voice in this altered state sounding far away. She seized the knife from Franklin and lunged at Clara, who screamed as she felt the blade dig into the side of her skull and begin to cleave …

  * * *

  The gentlemen stared at the pyramid of defilement.

  “We need to alert the authorities to the nature of this offering,” Blessing said, wiping sweat from his brow though the room was cold. Spire noticed that the reverend’s dark brow was wet with perspiration. The idea of psychic exertion would have seemed absurd to Spire even a month ago, but time spent with persons of unique talents had kindled in him a growing awareness of the physical toll those talents could exact.

  “This is an explosion awaiting a lit fuse,” Blessing explained, “but emergency workers must understand this pyre will need to burn out to diffuse the power of this spiritual offal. If the spirits don’t burn this denigration in offense, they’ll never truly be free.”

  A vibration rippled through the room. Bishop clapped hands over his ears and moaned.

  “What is it?” Spire asked.

  “Do you hear that?” Bishop responded. “A terrible whine, a scream…”

  “No … I don’t…” the Englishman replied slowly, feeling a sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach. “However I … Do you feel something? Like something … pulling at you?”

  He and Bishop both stared at the same invisible point on the wall of the dank chamber. As one, each said the name of his beloved.

  “Go to them,” Blessing urged. “Lord Black, Brown, and I will handle the authorities and the fire.”

  “I’ll help the reverend with sacraments,” Black said, nodding. “It’s all right, none of us are alone and that’s the important thing. Go to the heart of the matter!”

  * * *

  If there was a rising, grating whine in the air caused by polluted power and the growing presence of the Summoned, Clara did not hear it for the agony. All her lives screamed with her as the knife came away with her ear.

  Blood rushed down the side of Clara’s skull as the monstrous woman placed Clara’s severed ear in one of the waiting black boxes.

  When Franklin, seemingly returned to himself, moved to intercept as the woman next went for Rose’s hand, Celeste cursed. Lifting the blade again, she drove it into Franklin’s side, pushing him toward the open service door behind him. He collapsed beyond the threshold and slipped down a few of the steep steps.

  Amid a renewed cry of grief, anger, and agony and the shudders of shock as the hot blood poured down her white shirtwaist, Clara closed her eyes and reached, no, lashed out to seize the eldest lines of life, perhaps the eldest throes of magic, ancient ley power, flowing in an unbroken river since the dawn of time, desperate for the help of such a primal force in her moment of most primal need.

  In response a sudden frisson washed over her body and for a moment eased the pain, a flush of life leaching out the rest of the poisons, and her left hand flew to remove her gag as her right hand flew to the open wound, pressing in hopes of stanching the blood flow even against the burning pain and the sickening feeling of missing cartilage.

  Marlowe the visitor had taught Clara to feel ley lines with her body, Mosley to hear them; both were in play in these cacophonous moments as Clara tried to focus only on the power itself, to live and breathe it, to embody it as Mosley did electricity and Celeste did the darkness.

  With a ripping sound separate from the whine and hum of the battling lines, there she was: Marlowe, dressed in a simple riding habit. Wobbling on her feet a bit at her abrupt arrival, the woman steadied herself by clamping a vise grip on Clara’s shoulder. Everything stopped save for Marlowe and Clara. They had paused time together, and every sensation was muted.

  “Hello, Clara—Heavens!” the visitor exclaimed, staring at her bloody charge in horror. Marlowe looked at Celeste, frozen in a fierce scowl, knife in hand and eyes glowing coals of evil. “Well, well…” Marlowe murmured carefully. “We only have a moment, you and I, in this heartbeat we carved out of time. Let me help.” Gently she pried Clara’s hand away from her head as a whimper of pain escaped her lips.

  Hissing at the gory sight of the wound, Marlowe reached into a pouch on her leather belt and withdrew a thick, padded patch marked with an unknown British Ministry seal and pressed it hard against her head, holding it there as a white-hot heat emanated from the center of the visitor’s palm. Clara winced and groaned, clasping her hands together to keep from shaking, bloodying them both.

  “Hush dear, just a lay of hands.”

  After a moment, Marlowe murmuring some private liturgy, the warm buzzing sensation she proffered took the edge off the agony and traded it for a throbbing pain instead. The visitor took the gag and used it as a bind around her head to keep the patch pressed to her ear.

  “What will stop her?” Clara asked of the enemy before her.

  “You, and the ley lines, all of you, have to be louder than all her wires and rails and the work she’s done to make them sing devils’ music,” Marlowe replied, cocking her head to the side. “All of you can counter it. Just be louder. Be more.” Marlowe hummed a note. “Hold to that…” Squinting at Celeste, Marlowe spoke with disdain. “Your soul is far older than hers; make her fear your age. Only a new soul would be so selfish as to do all this…”

  And that was all the time they had, for Celeste lifted her arms wider and the air gusted around them suddenly, the Summoned rousing to their master and pressing in a step, bouncing off the boundaries of the women’s Wards.

  Marlowe was gone and the whine in the fouled air ground to a louder pitch. Celeste narrowed her eyes, staring at the bandage on Clara’s head and how it could have gotten there. This moment of confusion was a distraction to Clara’s advantage. Her heart swelled with purpose.

  Behind them, in the corridor, Clara’s gifts opened to connect the compass, she could no longer see their other half, Bishop a
nd Spire. But a black pyramid was still visible as the dissonant chord vibrated through her bones.

  If that pyramid was a vile magnifier, then Clara knew she must stand as the same to the vibrant, verdant ley energy, the counter to this woman’s raw dissonance. Clara stood, letting her own bloodied hands rise to her sides. Rose’s eyes went wide.

  Evelyn, at her other side, was murmuring exorcism liturgy. It was helping to press the Summoned forms back against and into the walls.

  The evil was all in parts, but those who fought it were whole.…

  Miss Knight was the next to overcome the toxin fully and stood, withdrawing a hand from her skirt to produce one of her chemical pistols, pointing it at the enemy, who had backed behind the dessert cart, putting it between her and the women she had overtaken.

  Evelyn, eyes blazing in fury, still murmuring renunciations in a growling hiss, rose to a crouch, seemingly prepared to charge. Celeste exchanged the dagger for the pistol from the cart, cocking it, ready to shoot, keeping it trained on Knight as she grabbed the box containing Clara’s severed ear and backed out into the service stair Franklin’s body had been so unceremoniously disposed into.

  The sound of shouts on the other side of the locked parlor door, a key turning in the lock.

  With the press of a lever the service door slid shut before Celeste’s face, her eyes filled with fire to the last, and as Knight and Evelyn both rushed to pry back open the panel, there was a sound of heaving and dragging, the body being taken away. Rose was assessing Clara from top to bottom as the parlor doors were thrown open and Bishop and Spire rushed in, the power of the compass connection nearly lifting the four off the ground toward one another.

  “Good God, Clara,” Bishop choked, blanching at the sight of her, bloodied down one side.

  Rushing to her, hands flurrying around her, he tried to discern where to help or heal. For just a moment Clara felt terrified that she would no longer be loved now that she was so damaged. But that petty thought vanished for the larger scope.