A Summoning of Souls Read online

  She debated not telling them. If they were asleep, they wouldn’t have missed her, but Cora, who had also roused, after rubbing her eyes stared at Eve with an intense scrutiny. Eve had long ago promised them she’d never lie to them, that lies would not be tolerated in a team so close-knit. They were each tied to one another in energy, intuition, and life; a team that lived together in Eve’s side of “Fort Denbury.” Withholding would become an unraveling thread, and her Sensitives would sense it all.

  Both of these women, full of their own special strengths and resilience, had Eve questioning herself, wondering if she shouldn’t turn the leadership over to the stalwart Cora. At the same time, she didn’t want either friend to face additional dangers by being at the head. She had always wanted to bear the brunt of any criticism or threat, and even more so now. The spirits had designated her to be the one to take a hit, and she had the most privilege among them to do so. But they all needed to be rallied, not to mention prepared for tonight’s lesson in protection.

  “My dears, I want to thank you for your tireless efforts, one day into the next,” Eve said, standing up and shifting to be able to look at all three of her colleagues. “Each day has felt like a lifetime. You have not complained, or balked, and I am so utterly impressed by and bolstered by you.”

  “We’re glad you push us to the limits,” Cora said. “It proves what all we can manage.”

  “Yes, it does, and I hope you feel appreciated, because we’ll need every strength and talent to counter a powerful adversary we can only take down with the utmost tact and discretion, by assembling all our pieces and proof. We’ll regroup tonight, as there’s more to learn and discuss.…” She trailed off, swallowing hard, fumbling for words and stalling the inevitable. “Thank you again for putting up with what hasn’t been my best week, in terms of my presence of mind, to put it generously.” Eve’s cheeks colored. “I…you know I can’t bear it when I lose my composure, so I’m sure you can imagine how mortified I am.…”

  You’re human too, Jenny signed, reaching out for a glass of water that was too far from her reach. Eve chuckled and brought it to her.

  “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Cora said. “You’ve held up impressively, and I know you’ve done so battling migraines the whole time.”

  “Yes, but you don’t know the latest…” Eve sighed. “I wandered out again, before dawn.… I came to at Sanctuary.”

  Cora exhaled. “Again?”

  “I wish it weren’t true. This time, Gran came after me. Clara Bishop too. She and her husband are coming to the house tonight to teach us about psychic shielding.”

  “Good. I want to know every possible trick,” Antonia said with scholarly relish. “A healthy psychic life is one with myriad weapons in one’s arsenal.”

  “They may bring wards of protection, too, so be prepared,” Eve instructed. “I don’t know what they’ll need of us, so just follow their leads. I’ve a lot to learn from them, and, considering they were never allowed over for dinner, I’m making up for lost time.”

  “Why were your parents so strict about not allowing them by?” Antonia asked. “I mean, I know from your parents’ trauma that they don’t entertain and certainly don’t enjoy the paranormal, but it’s not like that’s all anyone would talk about. Those of us who work in spectral realms don’t live it every moment of the day.”

  Eve sighed. “I know. It always baffled me, especially considering the Bishops are so close with Gran. But I think it was the Bishops drawing my father back into a supernatural investigation, when he’d promised to walk away from anything of the sort. That, in my mother’s eyes, must have been unforgivable.”

  “My parents won’t speak of that time either, with the former Eterna Commission,” Cora said, shaking her head. “Even Uncle Louis, when his ghost comes to visit and guide, he won’t talk about his death or anything surrounding it. I know how maddening it is, Eve, to be curious, and to have your questions rebuffed. Those who wish to no longer be haunted sure do create ghosts out of their own anxiousness.”

  Eve laughed hollowly. “I’m glad you understand how it is to deal with supernatural veterans of other wars. All the battle scars they refuse to acknowledge. Thank you.”

  “You should have Detective Horowitz come to tonight’s lesson.” Antonia rose to pin her long, dark hair into a top bun with hairpins from the dresser and smoothed the faint hints of rouge on her high cheekbones. “He needs to know any tactic we learn, and as you’ve said, he seems to be gaining a bit of his own sixth sense. Maybe just about you, but he’s intuitive.” At this, Eve cleared her throat. Antonia chuckled. “I’ll cook.”

  At this, Eve could see both Cora’s and Jenny’s shoulders relax at the offer. The team tried to share all tasks equally in rotation, but Eve didn’t have to be Sensitive to know they barely choked back what she herself made. Antonia was a sorceress in the kitchen with even the barest ingredients. As if her scholarship wasn’t enough; she excelled at the role of mothering them all.

  Eve looked to Cora, silently asking permission to invite the detective. Cora smiled. “He is part of our team now, Eve. And he is a very good man. However, do sort yourselves out; settle what’s unsettled because otherwise you’re a distracted disaster and that’s no good to us.”

  Called to account for her recent dramatics, Eve’s cheeks reddened. She swallowed and nodded. “My wise friends. Take your time and I’ll see you back at the house by dinner.” It was only morning and there was so much yet to do.

  Chapter Three

  Mulberry Street Police Headquarters in downtown Manhattan, south of the bustling theatre district and north of the teeming financial district, was a multistoried building situated beside an infamous part of town rife with vice that seemed unperturbed by the law as its neighbor. For so many years the two had existed hand in hand, until now-governor Roosevelt cleaned up the corruption within. There were still cracks in the foundation of the institution, but like everything in New York, it was going through growing pains.

  Showing her card at the front entryway, she had to hand over the new access document sent to all the girls by Roosevelt himself after they’d been targeted by threats.

  Sending their Ghost Precinct entirely underground, these cards demoted the girls to research and records but allowed them access to any police building in the city. Eve chafed but didn’t argue; having a secret job she was proud of was better than being erased from the books and taken off duty entirely. Even so, she still faced a frowning scowl from the patrol officer stationed at the door, as if her very presence in the building was suspect. She wanted her work to be welcomed as a way to ease the tension between the living and the dead, seeing ghosts as a “help, not a horror,” but the force would need to accept living women as colleagues first. One step at a time. But she didn’t feel patient about it, and she didn’t feel she should have to.

  Mulberry Street Headquarters’ interior was less grand than its façade, and it became more worn the further back from the main entrance one got. So, too, did it get more raucous, the walls less stately and the floors plainer.

  In the rear guts of the building were some small offices, converted storage rooms cleared out to house a growing but hesitant interest in new sciences, technologies, and manners of mental and physical study. Alienists were a new concept, studying the patterns and possible motivations of the human mind. The new process of fingerprinting was in the stumbling stages of becoming routine. Eve found the possibilities exciting and was glad when any department kept an open mind.

  No one was more sensible about all methods and practice than the man whose office sat before her at the end of the hall, his door open.

  Eve stared at Detective Jacob Horowitz, framed in the open doorway of his dimly lit room with its well-worn furniture and stacks of collected case material: papers, bound notebooks and the occasional item from a crime scene that the evidence room seemed to have forgotten but he never
did.

  He wore a finely tailored black frock coat, dark blue waistcoat, and crisp white neckwear tied in a loose knot. Not required to wear the uniform of a patrol officer on a beat, he dressed in elegant simplicity, a gentleman conducting interviews and professional business who could seamlessly disappear into a crowd from one clue to the next. To Eve, though, he would always stand out.

  He looked up. His dark eyes, ringed in striking slivers of blue, suddenly lit. His frown of concentration vanished, his sharp-featured face shifting into a devastatingly handsome expression of delight. His smile nearly lifted Eve off the ground. The growing fire in his gaze at the sight of her made her toes curl in her boots.

  They had become something that could no longer be ignored. Steady sparks struck between them had caught. They were now a conflagration.

  But the work. The cases came first. As they should. But at some point, what they kept pushing aside might drag them over the edge if they weren’t careful. It might become a necessity to let the fire breathe; putting it out didn’t seem possible. Eve couldn’t imagine dousing it.

  Floating to his threshold, she wondered if she appeared ghostly in her approach.

  “Hello, Whitby,” he murmured fondly, gesturing her forward. “What brings you to me? I’m glad you’re here, as I’ve a lot to share with you, but you look…well, lovely, but worried.”

  “Well…for a start, I want to see you, and I have something to confess.”

  At this, he rose out of his chair.

  Realizing her voice had sounded more sensuous than intended, she continued at a stammer. “I mean…something happened today you need to know about, and you should come by tonight for dinner. And an instruction.”

  He came around to the side of the desk and approached her. “Are you all right?”

  Reaching out, he cupped her elbow in his hand, running his thumb softly over the wool. He managed to touch her in the most caring of ways. Never possessively or too untoward, he won her with small, delicate gestures. Every one unlocked her further, and she feared she’d simply open; in trust and in desire. Her mind swam. Cheeks scarlet, she was grateful for his dim office. Her knees went weak at the thought of such surrender, and he reached out and cupped her other elbow in his hands, steadying her as he searched her for an answer.

  “Yes, I…” Her eyes fluttered closed; the sensation of him so near and holding her in such a gentle touch was overwhelming. She debated about lying, but he deserved the truth. “You…affect me…sorry. I nearly forgot what I was going to say. I woke up…came to…this morning at Sanctuary again. Driven there, mentally, by Prenze. Whatever read and hold he gained on me through his devices, he’s using it and I have to fight it.”

  “Why Sanctuary? What does he want with that place?”

  “I suppose because Sanctuary is a place where spirits have ultimate control? He seems threatened by spirits. Maggie was one of his prisoners, and she escaped only by Sanctuary’s intervention. I just have to make sure I’m not aiding the enemy by my own connection to spirits. Not having control over myself is the greatest terror I’ve ever experienced.”

  “I can imagine,” he said, keeping that soft hold on her. “But you’re strong.”

  “Sanctuary itself has a pull on me too; my soul feels bonded to the place, I just have to be sure if I visit it’s on my own terms. So, that’s what dinner will be about: psychic shielding and maintaining control.” She dared look in his eyes. The fear and anxiety of the morning fell away. In its place, all their near misses threatened to bowl her over. She found herself blurting out, “Not that there…aren’t cases when I wouldn’t mind…losing a bit of control, I suppose. In the right place. With the right person.”

  “We’ll have to do something about that,” he replied in a murmur. A subtle shudder coursed down her body and an overwhelmed little laugh leapt from her lips. “But not now,” he cautioned. “Not here. Certainly not in this zoo. I can’t be seen embracing you, and I dare not close my door. The higher-ups remain unnerved by me, especially now that I’ve got other precincts cooperating with me, something they never manage to do well.” He stepped closer. “And of course, we’ve a great deal of casework to do. But something has very nearly happened to us. More than once. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  They’d had several, maddening, time-stopping near kisses by this point without actually kissing, and Eve felt sure he was thinking of each and every one of those missed opportunities as she did.

  “And at this point,” he continued, “we must plan for it. I don’t want to get caught up in a hasty moment and regret imperfect circumstances. But if we don’t…allow ourselves…a moment of affection…” He stared deeply into her eyes and then shifted his gaze to her lips.

  “I won’t be able to stop myself,” Eve breathed.

  “And, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t stop you.…”

  Her arms itched to seize him, to run her hands through his gentle curls, to press against him so that she could drink him in, feel his wiry strength, press her forehead to his and imagine what he was thinking; one mind to the next.…

  “So…we’ll be intentional, then,” Eve said haltingly as noise from the hallway reminded them this was no place for passion, even if she could lose herself in his gaze indefinitely. “Soon.” It was a promise that couldn’t wait forever. But not here, Jacob was certainly right.

  She stepped back, and they both took a deep breath. That she seemed to affect him in just the same way made her heart beat with a joyous thrum. Despite all the fear that came with her work and present cases, this fresh pulse was stronger. Yes, the work came first. Work now. Indulgence later: an earned, sweet reward.

  He returned to sit behind his desk, safer to put a barrier between them to keep them from colliding against one another like magnets.

  “What was that you were saying about dinner before we got distracted?” He chuckled.

  “Please come to my side of Fort Denbury tonight, for dinner and a lesson,” Eve said. “The Bishops will be teaching us how better to shield our minds from intrusion and the kinds of projection Albert Prenze has been inflicting on us.”

  “I’ll happily go with you, but since it’s many hours until dinner, there are several things I’m sure you’d like to see first.”

  He gestured for Eve to sit opposite him as he opened a file.

  “I salvaged this before anyone stating that ‘no Whitby works here’ could toss it,” Horowitz said, sliding a telegram envelope across the desk. “Since you’ve gone even quieter about your precinct than before, it seems this circled a bit before alighting here.”

  “Oh, thank you for catching it.” Eve glanced at the otherwise unadorned Western Union telegram envelope and then opened the flap.

  “If I’m in office,” the detective explained, “I try to be present when the mail arrives. They call it snooping; I call it due diligence, making sure nothing comes in that my colleagues are eager to throw away for not wanting to deal with it.”

  “It’s from Houdini!” Eve exclaimed. “I wrote to him about Mulciber’s act, asking if he’s seen it or if he had any thoughts about it.” She read aloud:

  Miss Whitby,

  Writing to you on English tour.

  Met Mulciber once. Set my teeth on edge. He’s not right. Something’s disturbed about that act but can’t put finger on it. Levitation would be done by levers and angles. Mesmerism: harder to say. Not every audience is a plant. Some want to believe, to be mesmerized, to give over control.

  Mulciber ran afoul of infamous, underhanded bookers now touring in England. Ask about Snare & Fiddle. M. swindled plenty. They’re the ones still out for him, even though a third party was said to have intervened, they weren’t paid in full.

  Had a chat with A. Conan Doyle. He and I may start addressing sham acts that prey upon the vulnerable. “Spiritualist” liars when simply magicians. No betraying a magician’s v
ow if none claim they’re magicians. I’d be exposing their spiritual lie. Thank you for your inspiration.

  H. H.

  “Well, that’s something,” Eve said excitedly. They needed any association to crimes they could get, and she was pleased the magician had been so moved by her desire to see genuine Spiritualism lifted up and the charlatans revealed that he wished to take up the cause.

  “I was in touch with Fitton to be sure that Jim Boot, Mulciber himself, was to be watched in custody at all times after what happened to Dupont,” Horowitz explained. “Can’t have Prenze coercing his associates to trepan themselves in custody. I’d planned on doing further interrogation, and now we’ve specific names to mention, with no time to waste. Shall we to the Tombs?” He rose to his feet and palmed two official-looking papers. “Then, after that,” he added, brandishing the papers with a sparkle in his eyes, “I’ve more on the case docket if you’d be willing to spend the day with me.”

  “More than willing,” she said eagerly, his smile contagious. Any moment with him was a joy, even if working on the most dreadful tasks.

  “Good, then,” he said, circling around toward her again.

  He held out a hand for her. She took it, and he lifted her up and toward him and the magnetization returned. In this brief moment of closeness, she breathed him in, inhaling his freshness, a pleasant aroma of clean soap and a trace of mint. Her cheeks flooded heat again at the thought of tasting that mint, and as she looked away, he let go. Not here.

  Out the office door at a clip, he looked back over his shoulder at her with a tantalizing smile. It was then that she realized how much he was enjoying the temptation of their closeness, testing the boundaries, teasing her at every tense turn, dancing around the edge of control with playful excitement. Driving her endearingly mad. She stared at him incredulously as she rushed to keep up down the long hall and out the headquarters’ wide front door.

  A few curious spirits bobbed along beside her as she exited the headquarters; she was grateful their chill cooled her blushing cheeks. Once outside, the spirits, like Eve, were accosted by the myriad sights and sounds of New York and were instantly distracted, especially at this curious Mulberry intersection of a finer neighborhood ahead and a vice-ridden area behind. The city existed all at once and on top of itself, constantly active.