Trip and I stowed our gear at the boarding house, where we also stabled our horses. The boarding house’s owner, Mrs. Halifax, gave us a suspicious look but didn’t say anything when Trip introduced us as Mr. and Mrs. Silver. It was all I could do to keep from laughing aloud.
When we made our way back down to the common room, Miss Hart was there, apparently whispering to herself in a corner. She glanced up to speak to us as we entered.
“We—I mean, I—am going to the saloon. Would anyone else like to join me?” She seemed a little more awake than before, and I wondered if she’d started to lay off the laudanum so as to better detect the spirits that might be around. In my experience, spirits in a place like this could often reveal more in an hour than could be learned in days of questioning the living. The dead don’t have as many secrets to hide.
Trip and I both assented without even having to look at one another. The saloon was often where we started our investigation into a new town, as well. People who were drinking were more likely to tell us what we wanted to know after they had imbibed. Also, it was the most common place for people to congregate. The others agreed to go, as well, with the single exception of Mr. Carlisle.
That evening, the last night we would ever be the same, we spent circled around a table in the saloon, telling war stories of the kind that hunters so often share. Trip and I talked the time we met in Rittersburg, Texas. He gave a description of me that was both flattering and embarrassing.
“She stood there in the middle of the street, directing a whirlwind of broken glass flying around her, and I thought she was as beautiful as any statue I’d ever seen, even when I went to Europe. And it only got better when she moved into action.”
“So you fought an earth demon there?” Cole Swansby asked.
“They don’t call ’em dust devils for nothing,” Trip joked. Neither of us mentioned the demon who had killed my first partner, Flint. Nor did we mention the church fire that had destroyed him—and come close to destroying me for years thereafter. Though this night was for bonding, those were the stories that were too personal to share.
Hattie Hart told a perfectly harrowing tale of a ghost town—a literal ghost town—where she had almost died even as some of the ghosts attempted to point her toward that which was real.
She didn’t introduce us to her spirit beau. I didn’t ask any questions about him then, but I intended to as soon as we had a spare moment.
Mr. and Mrs. Swansby talked of their first meeting, as well. She had ended up working for our former company because she had seen a flyer. Mr. Swansby, on the other hand, had been a skeptic, relying on his sense of reality to deal with issues of the supernatural. Well, that and the manuals the company had sent out. Right up until a haunted whorehouse had convinced him that the supernatural was real.
For all of us, those had been our last assignment with our former company. Soon thereafter, Mr. Carlisle’s compatriot, Mr. Johnson, had begun rounding us all up, signing us to contracts with the P.I. Agency.
“Do any of you find it odd that they would gather up our old company’s employees?” Mrs. Swansby asked.
Trip shrugged, turning out one hand. “It might just make good business sense,” he said. “Finding and hiring all of our former employer’s disaffected employees means getting people who know how to do the job. After all, they stayed alive.”
“As we all prove,” Miss Hart said.
We remained in the saloon until after sunset. Once it was completely dark outside, Hattie Hart and I glanced at each other and nodded. Without ever speaking a single word aloud, we clasped hands across the table from one another and inhaled, synchronizing our breath with each other and with the world around us.
I was shocked by how quickly my sight slipped into the spirit realm. Miss Hart was strong—stronger in this realm that I was, though my abilities were broader than hers. As soon as they realized we could see them, a score of sad-faced, gaunt, and otherwise miserable-looking men descended upon us. They stretched their hands out, begging us to take messages to the people they had loved in life.
With her hands clenched on mine, it was as if I could feel Miss Hart’s longing for the laudanum that would make it more difficult for these spirits to reach her. I suspected she hadn’t had any formal training, either. Using my spiritual mastery voice, I commanded the relicts around us to remove themselves from the earthly plane unless they had information about the haunted mine. All but three of the spirits responded to the command by leaving entirely.
“That’s better,” Miss Hart said. “Now. Tell us what you know about the haunted mine.” I examined all of the remaining spirits. One of them wore a US Marshal’s metal star… Wait. I recognized him, even having seen only a glimpse of him. Hattie’s spirit lover.
Well, then, he wouldn’t be particularly useful in this discussion. That left just the two men, both obviously miners, to discuss the haunted mine with us.
“Tell us what you know,” Miss Hart’s searching stare raked over the two specters. One of them simply stood shaking his head, as if his voice had been stripped from him. The other fell to his knees, covered his face and began weeping, crying out, “No, no. Don’t make me tell you. The horror.”
I was about to let go of Miss Hart's hands, convinced that our miniature séance had produced nothing of any value, when the Marshal stepped out from behind Miss Hart’s chair and strode over to the ghost of the miner collapsed on the floor. I watched in open-mouth amazement as he leaned over, grasped the spirit by the collar, and lifted him roughly, shaking him. “Pull yourself together, man,” Hattie Hart’s partner said. “You may have all the time the world to blubber away, but the men who are scheduled to go back down into that mine come the new year don’t. Do you want them to end up like you?”
It was truly stunning to see one spirit attack another.
“I don’t know what to do!” the miner wailed.
“Pull up a chair and tell these ladies what happened to you down there.”
The miner wiped his spectral face of its ectoplasmic tears and sat down in the equally spectral straight-back chair the ghost of the Marshal had pulled up to the table for him.
“Thank you, Grant,” Miss Hart said quietly.
I wanted to get the others involved, bring them into the circle by having them take one of my hands and one of Hattie’s. But I was afraid to let go, worried that if I did, I would lose my vision of this astounding sight.
When the miner’s spirit had seated himself, Miss Hart began asking questions. “When did you first notice something had gone awry?”
“It was the whispers. We heard them first. Then the laughter, and the voice that kept telling us we were going to die. And then some of us did.”
“Do you remember how you died?”
“I remember the beams creaking, someone yelling the tunnel support was about to give way. That’s all.”
“Had any miners died before you?” I interjected.
The specter jerked around as if startled to see me. “I did not know of anyone else who died.”
“Before the cave-in,” Hattie continued, “how long was it between the time you heard whispers and when you heard the beams start to creak?”
“A couple of days, maybe three or four, tops.”
Miss Hart and I glanced at each other. I gave my head a little shake, letting her know I had no more questions. I didn’t think the ghost had much more information to give us.
Apparently, Hattie felt the same way. “I’m going to release you now. When I do, I want you to know that you are free to go. You do not have to remain in this world.”
It was an oddly passive means of sending away a spirit, I thought. Generally, I was much more forceful in my dismissals. But the miner stood up, straightened out his rough-hewn clothes, and nodded firmly, as if he had been granted the permission he’d been waiting for. Then he turned and walked away from us, fading as he went. Within seconds, he was gone.
“Well done, my love,” the Marshal said.
Unwilling to intrude, I released Miss Hart’s hands, but not before squeezing them.
When I released her, everything around me seemed to flicker as if something had rushed by me, even though I knew, logically, that nothing had. As I regained my senses in the world of substance, I realized that Trip and the Swansbys had moved from their former positions. I hadn’t been able to see them while I was focused on the spirit realm. I hadn’t even realized it, and that was new for me, as well.
“Did you learn anything useful?” Trip asked, his eyes crinkling in concern.
“You seem worried,” I murmured.
“You were in deeper than usual, and gone longer, as well.”
“I was?” I glanced around the saloon and found its inhabitants in somewhat different positions than they had been in when I began the trance with Miss Hart. “It seemed as if we were gone for only a few moments.”
“You sat stock still, holding one another’s hands and staring at each other, silent and motionless, for over an hour.”
I blinked my surprise. That suggested a deeper state than I was used to, certainly, though Miss Hart’s story of an entire ghost town engrossing her so much that she almost starved to death certainly seemed to fit with such a trance.
Trip’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t pursue the topic, turning to include everyone in our conversation and speaking to Miss Hart and me both. “Did you discover anything useful?”
“We learned the order of events,” I said. “First, there was whispering, then laughing, and then physical attacks.”
“But each attack seemed, from what I can tell, to come from objects already within the environment.” When she took less laudanum, Miss Hart was insightful.
I nodded. “The demon, whatever it is, doesn’t ever seem to touch people with its own body.”
“So it possibly has no corporeal form,” Mr. Swansby suggested.
“Or hasn’t managed to take one yet, if it has that capability,” Mrs. Swansby said.
“That’ll make it hard to shoot with most of our weapons,” Trip said.
“It’s in a silver mine, right?” I asked.
My companions nodded.
“Paranormal specters are generally repelled by pure metals. Gold, silver, and the like,” Miss Hart said.
“And iron, too, at least for the Fae,” Mrs. Swansby interjected.
“Exactly. So what is it about this creature that makes it able to exist deep inside a silver mine?” I glanced around at my companions
“Not only exist,” Mrs. Swansby said, “but function well enough to attack.”
“Unless, of course,” her husband said, “the metal is the reason that it hasn’t been able to manifest a complete body.”
I shook my head. “No. Something about this whole thing bothers me.”
“Do you think it might be like the earth demon we encountered in Rittersburg?” Trip asked.
“Possibly. I’m not sure demon was even the right word for that, whatever it was.” More than that, I was fairly certain it was the same thing that had killed Flint. I hadn’t cared what we called it at the time, not as long as I could destroy it. But now, I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I would have been better off trying to learn more about it before I dispatched it.
“I have never known the spirits to survive contact with a pure metal,” Miss Hart said, her voice musing.
“I will double-check my manuals tonight to see if I can find anything like it in them,” Mr. Swansby offered.
Trip flashed him a sharp look. “Took those with you when you left, huh?”
Mr. Swansby gave a lopsided smile. “Seemed the least they owed me under the circumstances.”
“And I am planning to dream walk tonight if I’m able. Perhaps I can gather more information,” Mrs. Swansby said.
“Mind if I take a look at those manuals with you?” Trip asked, and Mr. Swansby nodded his assent.
We gathered up our belongings, paid the bartender, and headed back to the hotel. I slipped my arm through Trip’s, holding on to him as we walked along the wooden sidewalk, each wrapped in our own thoughts. The winter cold swirled around us in the darkness, and I was glad to reach the warm comfort of the hotel.
The next day was Christmas Eve. If we took a full day to get to the mine and waited to descend into it until the next day, it would be at least thirty-six hours before we encountered the demon. We needed to spend part of that time resting, if at all possible.
Chapter 7
The next morning, we all gathered for breakfast in the boardinghouse dining room.
After we had all our fill of breakfast, Cole Swansby pushed back his seat from the table. “Are you ready?” he asked his wife.
She looked pale and tired, but she nodded. “I dream walked last night.”
“What did you see?” Trip leaned forward eagerly.
“You have to understand, I’m not as good at dream walking as I am at communicating with spirits in my sleep. None of the spirits came to me, though, so all I have are the images from the dream walking.”
“Tell us.” Miss Hart’s voice was distant. I was pretty sure she’d been into the laudanum again. I hoped she would abstain during our descent into the mine.
“It was a strange dream, full of odd images. Not as clear as I would like it to have been or even as it usually is.”
“Maybe we can figure the messages out as we go,” I suggested.
“We were in a dark place, all of us. But there was another man with us—not Mr. Carlisle, but someone else. He was surrounded by stars. They spun around him and then turned into a gun. He used it to shoot a log.”
“A log?” I asked. “From a tree?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Swansby replied. “And I knew that he was saving us. He’s important. We’ll need him.”
“But it’s no one you’ve met before?” Trip frowned. “I don’t know how we’re going to find anyone else at this point.”
“If he’s meant to be with us, he will find us,” Miss Hart said.
Mrs. Swansby chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds. “And sometimes my dream walking symbols are merely symbols. He might not be a real person at all.”
“What else?” I asked.
“I dreamed of silver and iron and bronze, all braided together and wrapped around us, tying us to each other and staking us to the ground, like horses tethered. And Mr. Carlisle watched us, but no one could see him.”
We all blinked and looked at each other.
“I’m afraid none of it made sense.” Mrs. Swansby turned her eyes toward the floor.
I didn’t want to agree with her, to suggest to her that her dream walking was useless, but I feared it might be.
At that moment, Mr. Carlisle joined us.
“Is there any breakfast left?” he asked, more cheerfully than any of the rest of us had managed that morning. We pointed him toward the sideboard dishes. “I arranged to have a map of the mine sent over this morning,” he announced, possibly explaining his cheerful demeanor. “I think you should all study it.”
We spent the rest of the morning tracing the route into the mine and down to the cave in. When we were certain of our route, we made a plan for taking down the demon.
Then we separated, each to spend the remainder of Christmas Eve in our own way. Trip and I retreated to our room, taking a bottle of wine with us for our own, very private celebration.
The evening reminded me that it was important to make the most of the time we had. Every hunter knows that. And this might not be a traditional Christmas Eve, but it was the one we had, and we would delight in it while we could.
We loaded our horses and left the next morning, spending Christmas day traveling up the mountain, following the snowy path in single file. The mine wasn’t far in sheer distance, but the treacherous terrain meant that it took all day.
That night, we camped not far from the entrance to the mineshaft entrance.
I don’t think any of us slept well that Christmas night.
Chapter
8
The next morning, we gathered at the entrance to the mine. We had grown increasingly quiet that morning as we collected our gear, both standard and special issue from the P.I. Agency. Now we stared solemnly at the entrance.
“I have an idea,” I said.
“You mean other than saying to hell with it and going home?” Mr. Swansby asked with a wry grin.
“Other than that, yes. I suggest that now would be a good time to begin calling one another by our Christian names.” I paused briefly, then added more quietly, “It will make calling for each other’s attention simpler during times of danger. I’m Ruby, and this is Trip.”
“Call me Hattie,” said Miss Hart.
“I’m Annabelle, and my husband is Cole,” Mrs. Swansby supplied.
We all looked to Mr. Carlisle.
“As I will be remaining up top, you may continue calling me Mr. Carlisle.” His tone was dry, but not without humor.
“Whatever you say, boss man.” Cole Swansby settled his hat more firmly on his head.
I had opted to wear my Stetson that morning, as well. My hair was coiled up into a bun inside it. I’d learned early on that wearing my hair long provided unnecessary handholds when I was engaged in battling demons. I was glad to see that Miss Hart—Hattie—and Annabelle Swansby wore their hair up, as well.
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