The Eterna Files Read online

  She could tell when they first glimpsed her: heard Franklin’s distinct gasp of breath, Bishop’s sad sigh, and clear words from Evelyn Northe-Stewart who ordered the escort to “get his dastardly hands off her or she’d cut them off herself.”

  If she had to be taken hostage, at least she had good company. Her hood and blindfold were removed, revealing a lovely parlor, lit only by a pair of sconces, gas jets trimmed low above a fireplace where embers gave off an eerie, molten glow.

  Before her sat her friends, in chairs around a circular table. Their shoulders were all awkwardly back, indicating they were bound like her. The abductor shoved Clara into a chair next to Evelyn, with an empty chair on her other side. Bishop was across from her, with Franklin next to him. The table was covered in a black satin cloth; a small, brass bell rested at the center beside a single lit candle. The satin was wrinkled, it hadn’t been there long. The bell was of the type used in séances to call forth spirits, to change the sound of a room, to pick up on the vibrations of those across the veil.… Was this to be a séance, then, conducted under duress? A séance by force?

  Clara began to look about the room, trying to take in the entirety of the situation.

  Another man was brought into the room, bound like the rest of them. Clara’s heart seized and sunk in a dizzying, sickening tumult.

  “Louis…” she murmured. He looked at her sheepishly, his usually warm eyes rimmed with guilt. What did he have to be guilty about? Across from her, Bishop clenched and released his jaw almost imperceptibly. Louis was placed in the last empty seat, to Clara’s right.

  Beyond the table, Clara saw a large wooden arch leading into another wing of the house. The space was deeply shadowed; she could barely make out a figure in an angled shaft of dim light.

  Someone spoke from the darkness: the voice of her captor. But it was now deeper, accented differently. Clara couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, vaguely French? Why didn’t he save the trouble and speak in his British accent? It was likely the infamous Brinkman himself.

  “I’m sure you’ve wondered why I’ve brought you all here—” he began.

  “It has something to do with Bishop’s work,” Evelyn interrupted sharply. “And you need me to preside as medium, which is where I assume this Louis fellow comes in. I’m clairvoyant, I’ve worked that out. But why you need all of us here is what I cannot comprehend, it’s terribly inefficient and potentially dangerous to you to have this many variables. We’re a very variable crowd, after all,” she concluded.

  “Information,” Clara supplied. “On the Eterna compound. Whatever we know.”

  “Indeed, Miss Templeton,” their captor stated.

  “Bishop is a damn fine medium on his own, why me?” Evelyn asked.

  “You’re better at hearing spirits directly, the very best there is, we’re told,” replied the voice. “We don’t have time to take chances with spirits who won’t talk or with mediums who can’t hear.” Clara watched Bishop scowl and Evelyn fall prey to the flattery for a moment before she copied her old friend’s sour expression.

  “You’ll be asking about the location of all Eterna evidence and the last known locale of the team, of course,” the voice from the shadows replied. “If we simply came to you directly, I doubt you’d be forthcoming. And there have been some new … wrinkles of late.”

  Clara watched Louis shift uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Name of the departed you wish to contact?” Evelyn asked angrily.

  “Louis Dupris,” said the shadows.

  Clara sputtered in confusion. “But Louis is right here,” Clara said, nodding toward him. Evelyn turned to Louis, then sent a questioning look toward the invisible speaker.

  “No, he isn’t,” said the disembodied voice. “Will you explain, or shall I, Andre?”

  There was a terrible silence. “Andre…” Clara said slowly.

  “Yes. I am Andre Dupris. Louis’s twin brother,” Andre murmured.

  The strained pause that followed was unbearable. All eyes were on Clara. She blinked back tears. “I … didn’t know…”

  “That he had a twin brother? Few did. But he does. Did…” Andre cleared his throat, his low voice trembling, “He never spoke of me. None of my family did. I brought only shame to them. But he was a good brother to me. And for what it’s worth, he loved you very much.”

  The first tears she’d allowed herself to shed for Louis Dupris fell, in public, and Clara was helpless to wipe them away, hands bound, humiliated, furious. She could not bear to look at Bishop, not wanting to see the surprise on his face. She was not supposed to have known Louis Dupris at all, let alone well enough to have been loved by him. Bishop would be offended by her lies, pained by her secrets. And she couldn’t blame him.

  “Why,” Clara nearly growled, “did you let me believe—”

  “Because I am a selfish bastard and in the moment, I thought it might protect me, keep me safe.”

  “Ask Louis the questions,” the voice from the shadows said angrily. “Save the parlor theatrics and petty dramas—”

  “You brought us all here, you’ll have to deal with the events of the night, however they unfold,” Bishop barked. “You don’t have hearts, but try to have a moment of respect.”

  Clara couldn’t look at her guardian but this response was kinder toward her than she’d have expected.

  “I’m fine,” Clara said, putting steel into her voice. She hated to be thought vulnerable in this; one of the most terrible moments of her life. It was her worst nightmare, shocked, grieving, and publicly humiliated in front of people she deeply respected and cared for. Her heart and mind were in such pain, she didn’t even know where to begin to sort the mess.

  “Please make contact, Evelyn Northe-Stewart,” insisted the person in the shadows.

  “And ask what, exactly?” she spat. “Perhaps I should ask your name?”

  Their captor chuckled. “Call me … Faust.”

  “As in dealing with the devil?” Clara growled.

  “Aren’t we all?” Faust countered airily.

  “No, we are not,” Franklin stated flatly.

  “Certain information from the beginning of your commission,” Faust continued, “is well known because I’ve had my eye on you for a while. Your security systems leave something to be desired and the locks on your file cabinets are laughable. You really should tell your government to invest in better safeguards.

  “But awhile ago all your theorists left their laboratory for an undisclosed location. So. Firstly: please ask the dead where he died.”

  Clara could feel everyone, herself included, bristle at the rude, callous manner.

  “Did you hear that, Mr. Louis Dupris, or do you need to hear it in my voice?” Evelyn asked the room. She closed her eyes. There was a very long, tense silence before she spoke again. “Someone is present. I can feel them, but I cannot hear a word.” She opened her eyes and looked at Bishop. “Rupert?”

  Clara was always surprised to hear his first name from anyone else, however those two powerful spiritualists had known each other for longer than her lifetime. The senator shook his head.

  “I … I know why you’re not hearing anything,” Andre Dupris said quietly. He turned toward the shadows. “It’s because of Miss Templeton. Louis told me he can’t get close to her, can’t communicate with her. He’s tried, but there’s too much interference. She’s too powerful or something, too guarded, there’s too much that wants her attention, she has protections—”

  “That’s enough,” Bishop said, watching Clara. Her stomach again lurched in a terrible, nauseating roil. She felt them all staring at her again and wished she could take what had been said as a compliment rather than another knife wound to her heart.

  “Remove her,” Faust growled.

  “No!” Clara shrieked, pulling against her bonds. “Let me stay. I need to know—”

  “We are here for information, Miss Templeton,” Faust continued in a threatening rumble.

  Another mask
ed man in black pulled her out of her seat. Her friends—even Andre—cried out in protest. “Silence!” Faust bellowed. Everyone shifted in their chairs, eyes lit with angry fire.

  The voice in command continued: “Anyone who stands in the way of communication must be removed. And if our resident mediums cannot do their duty, then Mr. Dupris, the living had best get some answers out of his brother.”

  At that, the sconce at the back of the room guttered and went out. “That’s promising,” Faust added with a chuckle that made Clara want nothing more than to punch him directly in the throat.

  “Let me listen from another part of the house, then,” Clara begged. “Will that work?”

  “I don’t know how he operates,” Andre said with a shrug.

  “You’re useless,” she hissed. Andre stared at her, not refuting, not angry, just haggard and tired, as if he hadn’t slept a wink since his brother died. Maybe he hadn’t.

  “Take her to the balcony!” ordered Faust. “If still no contact, toss her out into the night!”

  “If you hurt her, we will kill you, mark my words,” Bishop assured calmly, bright eyes flashing, straightening his broad shoulders in defiance.

  “Painfully and slowly,” Franklin added.

  “We can torture you eternally,” Evelyn added for good measure.

  Clara’s heart surged with affection as her friends issued their threats. Andre Dupris looked at her apologetically. Useless … liar. She wanted to slap him. Oddly, she had never known how violent her urges could be until she was denied the use of her hands.

  “Information!” the voice in the shadows bellowed. “Will you bloody get on with it?”

  Bloody. A Britishism if she’d ever heard one. Unless it was meant to throw them off.

  She was dragged roughly back into the entrance foyer and forced up a grand staircase of carved wood. All the gas lamps in the place were set at eerily low levels. Her feet caught on the hems of her skirts as she climbed the stairs; she felt and heard the tearing of the cotton petticoats and her muslin and satin outer skirts. After every stumble she was dragged along more forcefully. The British, she concluded, were truly damnable creatures.

  They reached a landing that looked out over the parlor, a bird’s-eye view looking down over the circular table where her friends sat captive. Only then did Clara truly appreciate the towering ceiling of the space; how much wealth the building represented. The brute shoved her onto the balcony and she tripped, striking the substantial balustrade and knocking her breath quite out of herself for a moment, heart hammering against her corset stays.

  A breeze rose in the room that was not naturally possible, it was ghostly. Her heart ached for the man who was present but who could never get close to her again, living or dead. She cursed Eterna in all it had given and then taken away.

  “Your work, Mr. Dupris,” the emotionless voice prompted from the dark.

  Clara could almost hear the murmurs of the silhouettes from the disaster site, feel them breathing down her neck.… Perhaps there was more hidden information than England knew of. Perhaps since their Pearl Street offices had already been breached, they ought to have left that moving box in Smith’s office. No, it had been dying to get to them. They did, as the British operative suggested, need better security. A lot would change if they got out of this alive.

  There was a long pause. Evelyn bowed her head before offering a reply. “Louis Dupris says he cannot account for his work. He gave his files to the justice who was his superior.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely true, Mr. Dupris,” was Faust’s response. He snapped his fingers and the masked man suddenly pressed a knife to Evelyn’s throat. From the darkened shadows, there was a click; Clara saw a gleam of something metallic in her attacker’s hand. “This pistol is aimed at your brother’s heart, Mr. Dupris.”

  “Louis doesn’t know where the Justice left them!” Evelyn cried.

  “You have to believe us, please,” Andre begged.

  “What was in the papers? If he can tell us, then we’ll have the knowledge, which is all that we are looking for, really,” Faust stated. “Knowledge. That’s not harmful, now is it?”

  “It’s too complicated,” the medium moaned. “Too many particulars. He doesn’t remember. The mind is blurred in death, he can’t translate it all to me here.” The woman snapped her head toward Faust in his shadowed realm. “It isn’t like I’m receiving a letter or a telegraph here, you know,” she growled.

  “Well then, all the more reason to find his work,” Faust stated. “Who is the Justice?”

  There was another flash of metal and Clara held her breath as a second gun emerged from another point in the shadows, this one trained on Franklin’s head.

  “Allen, you bastard! Justice Samuel Allen,” Bishop barked. “He resides in Riverdale.”

  “Is this true, team?” the voice asked with dripping sarcasm. “Is your dear senator telling the truth in this, Templeton? Fordham? Otherwise your medium will lose a finger.”

  “It is!” Clara cried, in concert with Franklin.

  “And will the documents be coded?” Faust pressed.

  Silence. Clara wondered at this. She knew that Allen likely possessed a great deal of information on Eterna, but doubted it was everything. Louis was playing a good game here; deflecting a search away from them. More tears fell from her burning eyes. For a moment, she did not know what was worse: that he was dead in truth, or that he was present but blocked from her even in death.

  “Sympathetic stain,” Evelyn offered finally.

  Faust called into the shadows. “Find Allen, search everything he owns or touches, bring a solvent to decode the papers.” The unseen person who received those orders could be heard scurrying away, followed by a slam of the hefty front door.

  “Now. Onto our next quest,” Faust declared. “Where was the disaster site?”

  No one said anything. Clara debated shouting out the answer, to get this terrible ordeal over with, but paused. Why would they want to know that? And could she say any address instead of directing them to the right place? A whooshing sound came from another dark corner and everyone, including Clara, screamed as a knife twanged into the wooden balustrade near her head. Who were these people?

  “The disaster site, if you please,” the villain demanded.

  “Stop threatening us,” Bishop barked. “It’s childish. Play like gentlemen. We know a British agent has been looking into our operations. If you’re agents of England—”

  “Ah, no making assumptions about us one way or another,” Faust warned.

  “What do you think you’ll gain?” Clara shouted down at Faust. “The compound is a failure. Nothing but disaster. Why would you—” The guard who had dragged her upstairs now silenced her with a punch to her gut, proving that layers of boned corset and bodice did not make for very good armor.

  The punch had her reeling—but so did her newest realization: someone wants it as a weapon. She gasped for breath and fought off the pain of the blow. What if that was the point? Not prolonging life—bringing death. That was all their research had been good for, thus far—death. She nearly retched upon the exquisite carpeting.

  “There are uses for this research and everything that has been achieved with it thus far,” Faust stated smoothly. “No one country or one person should have access to your findings.”

  Clara found herself again shouting, this time from her knees through the railing, recalling the memory of holding Mrs. Lincoln’s shaking hands in her childhood grip. “The Eterna Compound was born of a specific situation for a specific need; born of Lincoln’s death! England has no right! Only Americans can understand what this country went through!” Clara felt tears well up again and the guard leaned close with a threatening arm, hissing at her to shut her godforsaken mouth.

  “Clara, dearest,” Bishop called, “you can’t explain anything to people like these, don’t waste your breath.” He glared into Faust’s shadows. “Fourteen West Tenth Street, though you’l
l not find anything there. Just the ravings of a madman scrawled onto the floor.”

  “Only death remains there, Louis says,” Evelyn murmured.

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll find it enlightening,” Faust assured them smoothly.

  The murmurs from her vision again swarmed about Clara. If anything related to Eterna became a weapon, she’d truly never forgive herself. Before she could muse further, she was dragged downstairs and thrown back into her chair next to Andre. Her captor swiftly tied her into place once more.

  Faust emerged from the shadows, the spiderweb cracks from where she’d struck him becoming visible in the dim light. He murmured in her ear, though it carried ominously through the room. “Until we meet again.”

  Everyone around the table stiffened at that terrible promise. Clara stiffened her spine.

  “At which point,” she said with an icy edge, “I’ll be inclined to kill you.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Faust said as he retreated under the arch. From the sound of it, he was followed by his operatives, who had remained almost completely unseen throughout this odd and dangerous audience.

  Andre had just allowed his shoulders to fall in relief when Clara’s abductor grabbed him by the shirt collar, tearing it as he hauled Andre to his feet. “You’re coming with us, Mr. Dupris. Someone wants to see you.”

  There was a sudden wind in the room. The bell in the center of the table fell over with a jarring clang, the black tablecloth whipped about as if in a whirlwind, and the dim gas lamps and the candle upon the table all guttered and went out, casting the entire space into darkness.

  “Don’t threaten a man when his dead brother is in the room,” Evelyn said quietly.

  There were sounds of scuffling, fighting, heavy breath, the chair overturned, a punch, a heaving grunt and groan, and running feet.

  “After him!” came Faust’s cry.