Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties) (20 page)

After using one hand to find a side table by touch, Bacall set his tea down with shaky fingers. “Tell me, Mr. Magnusson. Do you believe a woman can be in love with two men at the same time?”

Lowe’s jaw tightened. “No, I don’t.”

“I once shared that sentiment.” Bacall sighed deeply and leaned back in the wheelchair. “But I suppose I should start from the beginning. Back when Noel and I were still friends, in the late eighteen hundreds, he was terribly interested in the occult, and dabbled in magic to mixed success. Little spells to increase our luck in finding treasure, or to create light in a dark tunnel—nothing extraordinary. Though, looking back years later, I often wondered if he used a love spell to coerce my wife into sleeping with him. Or maybe that’s just my pride talking.”

Lowe shifted in his seat, feeling extremely uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”

“You and me both. But they were lovers for several years. I suspected, but didn’t know for sure until 1898. I left Noel to watch over Vera in Cairo while I traveled for a month. When I came back, I found them both seriously ill with a local infectious disease. They needed Western medicine but were too weak to get out of bed, much less travel. The local doctor said they had days to live, if not hours. Noel begged me to fetch a witch he’d met on our previous trip.”

“And you did?” Lowe asked in a quiet voice.

“I felt I had no choice. Vera was several months pregnant with Hadley. If she died, I’d lose them both.”

“Christ.”

Bacall shifted in his wheelchair. “So I tracked the witch down. She said she could save them from death, but there would be consequences. You don’t upset the natural order of things without paying a price.”

“There’s always a catch,” Lowe murmured.

“Indeed. And this one was eight years,” Dr. Bacall said. “Eight extra years of life, then they’d die. That was the curse. What could I do? Watch them die in front of me? Lose my unborn daughter? I was out of my mind with grief—over their betrayal, over the loss of my innocence and trust in the two people I cared most about in the world.”

Bacall shook his head, remembering, then sighed deeply and continued.

“The witch pulled them both back from death’s grip and saved Hadley in the process. I was elated for a time. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the true nature of that magic and what had gone wrong. Because the spell, you see, was intended to make the recipient deathless.”

“Deathless?”

“Indestructible. For eight years, anyway. And I saw it with my own eyes. Death wouldn’t touch Noel. He would not bleed out from a stabbing, nor die from a bullet. Disease and poison had no effect. I pushed him off a cliff in 1901. He fell several hundred feet, brushed himself off, and walked away.”

Dear God.

“Terribly inconvenient for me, as the more I learned about the length of their affair, and how much my wife still cared for him, I was rather sorry I saved him. The only thing I wanted in those ensuing years was to bury the bastard—and it was the one thing I couldn’t do.”

“And your wife had this same advantage? This deathlessness?”

“No.” The blind man felt around the table for his tea and took a sip. “My wife seemed perfectly normal. Human. And Hadley was born healthy. Nothing was amiss. I began to hope perhaps she got lucky, and that since Noel got the curse’s blessing, he’d also be the one to pay its price after eight years—that Vera would live a normal life.”

The old man shook his head and continued.

“But eight years is a long time when you’re young. And spell or no spell, Vera just would not give Noel up. She insisted she loved us both equally, but would leave both Hadley and me if I forced her to end the affair. I couldn’t risk that. If she wouldn’t leave him, I figured I’d just take him off the playing field. So, two years into the curse, I began searching for a way to kill a man who can’t die.”

“The amulet,” Lowe whispered.

Bacall nodded. “If it were assembled, I could call up a door and Noel would be claimed. Maybe it would be enough to pay the ferryman, so to speak. Or, if nothing else, Vera might borrow Noel’s extra years once he was out of the picture.”

“So you searched for the amulet and found the crossbars, but you couldn’t find the base.”

“Exactly. I sent them home, hoping to keep them hidden from Vera. But she was smart. And she couldn’t bear to lose Noel, which is why she hid the crossbars when she realized what I was planning on using them to do. She couldn’t let me kill him.”

Lowe remembered Vera’s words during the channeling, warning Hadley to keep the amulet out of both men’s hands. “But after she hid the crossbars, the earthquake hit.”

“Exactly eight years to the day that the witch had cast the curse on them,” Bacall said. “I arrived home from England an hour before the earthquake struck.” Unseeing eyes blinked away tears. He shook his head and composed himself. “As you can see, this house survived both the quake and the Great Fire. But Vera was not so lucky.”

He leaned toward Lowe, as if he could see him. “You see, the spell was meant for one person—not two. And because it was cast on both Vera and Noel at the same time, the magic split. My partner got the advantageous part of the spell—the immunity from death. And my wife’s soul was dragged into the underworld, harvested by dark reapers.”

Hadley’s Mori.

“And as if that weren’t enough,” Bacall continued, “not only did these reapers take my wife’s life, they somehow got passed along to my daughter. I suppose it’s because Vera was pregnant with Hadley when the original spell was cast, because after my wife died, the spirits started appearing to my daughter.”

Christ. Mummy’s curse, he’d told Hadley all these years.

Anger tinted Bacall’s voice. “You can’t fathom how shocked I was to see them again after they’d taken Vera’s life. I thought they’d come to take Hadley, too. But no. They were just attached to her, appearing for short times, then disappearing. It was as if she was being haunted by ghosts—ghosts that never seemed to scare her, even when she was a child.”

“Did she see her mother taken by them?”

“No, and I never told her. You can’t imagine how terrifying it was to watch them following my daughter around like hellhounds. They are a plague. Nasty, evil creatures. They’d taken my wife, and for eight years after Vera’s death, I was terrified they’d take Hadley, too. I prepared for the worst, waiting for them to turn on her.”

“But they didn’t,” Lowe said quietly.

Bacall shook his head. “They seem to be merely bound to her without purpose. I’ve come to believe they are still hanging around because of Noel. He tricked death. That spell should’ve taken his life, too—not just Vera’s. But as long as he’s alive, Hadley bears the burden of the specters.”

They may not want Hadley’s life, but they were still hungry to reap souls. Lowe nearly said this out loud, but caught himself. In Dr. Bacall’s mind, Lowe barely knew Hadley at all. And if the man got an inkling of what Lowe had been doing to his daughter? Well, he damn sure could take away the dangling check, couldn’t he?

“We haven’t spoken for years, Noel and I,” Bacall said. “But I knew he’d heard about your discovery of the amulet base, because a week after it appeared in the papers, I received an anonymous note telling me I’d never see the amulet rejoined with my own eyes. Later that day I lost my sight.”

“The blindness is magically induced?”

“Quite. I believe the spell was embedded into his note. And it’s degenerative. I seem to be aging at an inhuman rate. He’s slowly killing me.”

Lowe exhaled a long breath. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop the aging?”

“All my hope rides on the amulet. If he dies, I live—if he lives, I die. It’s not just revenge anymore. It’s both self-preservation and concern for Hadley’s well-being. If I die, I’m not sure what he might do to her.”

As long as Lowe was still breathing, not a damn thing.

Christ. He now understood why Bacall was willing to part with a small fortune to obtain the amulet. And consequently, why Noel Irving would go to any lengths to stop him. Lowe would have to give Bacall the real amulet—not Monk. That’s all there was to it. He’d figure out some way to make it work. He always did.

“Where can I find your partner?”

Bacall shook his head. “He officially dropped off the map after Vera died. I can tell you where he might be hiding, but if he’s trailing you, you’re going to need to seek out some stronger protection.”

Lowe began to assure the man that he would, but Bacall seemed to struggle with several breaths. Sweat broke over the man’s brow. “Are you all right?” Lowe asked.

“My neck seems to be—” The blind man slammed a fist to his own chest and clutched at his shirt before his body began slipping out of the wheelchair.

HADLEY GLANCED UP AT
the oversized clock in the hospital waiting room after the doctor strode away. It was nearly midnight, and she and Lowe were the last people sitting on a cold bench in a long, sterile hallway. She could hardly believe mere hours had passed since she’d gotten Lowe’s phone call. It seemed like days. But now that she could finally take a moment to exhale and relax her alert posture, her mind decided to crackle into action.

“Only a mild heart attack,” Lowe said at her side. “You heard the doctor. It happens all the time. Some people never even seek medical help.”

“Yes, but those people aren’t having the life sucked out of their bones by a madman wielding dark magic.”

“It was likely just the natural progression of the original aging spell, not a new attack.”

“Not much of a consolation.”

“And he’ll be able to come home in a day or two,” Lowe said. “He’s going to be fine.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough for us to either find his old partner and send him to the bottom of the Bay in a bag filled with rocks, or to find the last two crossbars.” He ducked to catch her gaze. “Listen to me, Hadley. We won’t fail him.”

She slumped against the stiff bench and sighed. “All of this is simply overwhelming. The heart attack and everything he told you before it happened. I’m torn between feeling sorry for my father and selfishly angry with him for not telling me sooner. And the worst part is that I have to pretend I don’t know.”

“Perhaps you can sort it out with him when this is over.”

She nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. In the stress of the last few hours, she’d completely forgotten about something. Now it hit her like a punch to the gut. “Lowe? You’re going to think I’m mad, but . . .”

“Madness is in the eye of the beholder. Try me.”

“You said my father called his former partner ‘deathless,’ and that nothing could kill him.”

“Yes.”

“Are we to assume that means the man doesn’t age?”

Blue eyes slanted her way. “I didn’t ask, but anything’s possible.”

“Oliver confronted me at the museum this afternoon.” She told him everything he’d said. Told him about the kiss. Lowe made a low, growling noise in the back of his throat. “I pushed him away,” she argued. “It wasn’t reciprocated, and he’s never been that brash before. It’s just you’ve told me all this about my mother and Noel Irving, and Oliver said . . .” She looked up at Lowe, too shocked to finish.

“Impossible,” Lowe mumbled. He swiped a hand over his hair and jostled his foot nervously. “I mean, you’ve seen photographs of your father’s partner, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but the man had a beard and mustache. Besides, all those photographs are from the turn of the century—all blurry or from a distance. Taken on antiquated equipment.”

Lowe exhaled through his nostrils and frowned. “When exactly did you first meet Oliver?”

“Exactly? I don’t know.”

“Three months ago?”

She started to pick at her coat and stopped. “Yes.”

“When I uncovered the amulet base in Egypt. When your father got the note from Noel Irving and started aging.”

“But . . .” Her brain grasped for anything at all that would disprove this madness. “If Noel Irving was interested in finding the amulet—”

“Not interested in
finding
it. Interested in stopping your father from assembling it. If he believed that the amulet would be the end to his ill-gained immortality, he’d damn sure want to ensure that door never opened.”

“Easiest way would be to take one of the pieces,” she said.

“And your mother hid the crossbars, but the newspaper reports of my find might as well have put a gigantic red arrow pointing to me.”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “But if Noel Irving is Oliver Ginn, why in the world would he try to get to know me? Why not just befriend you if that would better serve his purpose?”

A string of Swedish curses spilled from his lips. “Oliver’s got family in Oregon?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“What about your father’s partner? Any idea where he’s originally from?”

She shook her head, suddenly sickened. “I don’t know anything about Oliver. He always called on me at work—he never picked me up from home. Never even asked for my home telephone number.” Panic sunk its claws into her belly. “Lowe, I don’t even know where the man lives. And my God, if Oliver is Noel, he’s been flaunting himself under my father’s nose, courting me at the museum in the room right next to his own enemy?”

Lowe whistled sharply and put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? One thing at a time.”

“Yes,” she said, forcing her frantic breathing to slow on a long exhalation. “Yes, of course. You’re right. Panic will get us nowhere. Must stay clearheaded. For Father’s sake.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can dig up on Oliver, and I’ll ask my brother if he can send someone here to keep an eye on you and your father. Until we know for sure, I don’t want Ginn within a hundred feet of either one of you.”

“I have the Mori,” she argued, more to calm her own nerves. Because of course she had them, and cursed though they may be, they would protect her.

“That’s well and good, but I’m still calling someone out here to watch the two of you. Not taking any chances. If that jackass is Noel Irving, he’s a dangerous maniac. And if he’s not, he’s got ulterior motives. Not to mention, he put his hands on you. And no one gets to do that but me,
ja
?”

She nodded as warmth bloomed over her cheeks.

A thousand thoughts swirled in her head. Noel. Oliver. All the secrets her father had kept from her. “What if I’d gotten married and had a child? Would the curse pass on when I died? Was my father ever going to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“And how could he still worship that woman?”

“What woman?”

“My mother. She was having an affair with his best friend while pregnant with me? That’s ghastly. Scandalous. And goddamn selfish.”

“She paid for it in spades,” Lowe said.

She slanted him a sharp look beneath her lashes. “You just don’t want me to get angry and smash you with an operating table.”

“I’d prefer not, given the choice,” he said, smiling softly.

She attempted to smile back, but ended up merely wilting against his shoulder. He slung a strong arm around her and tucked her tighter into the diminishing space between them. She didn’t resist. He was warm and reassuringly solid. Even his clothes smelled comforting. And if one of the nurses told her father of seeing them like this, she didn’t really give a damn at the moment.

All of this was madness. Pure, unbridled insanity. Thank God Lowe had been there. If not, would she be picking out caskets for her father? Heading out to Lawndale again to make funeral arrangements? No matter what problems stood between them, she couldn’t bear to lose Father right now. Not like this.

Feeling uncharacteristically fragile, she reached across Lowe’s lap for his maimed hand. A small noise vibrated in his chest before he curled his fingers around hers. How quickly things had changed between them. When they’d met on the train, she’d avoided shaking his bare hand, but now his touch was a balm to her shattered nerves. She shoved aside her worries for the moment as exhaustion settled. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the lily.”

“You liked it?” He said this with a boyish tilt to his lips, as if he wanted to be proud of himself for thinking of it but needed her confirmation to be sure.

“It was terribly romantic,” she said, repeating Miss Tilly’s pronouncement.

“Oh, good.” His squinting eyes twinkled with muted joy. “My pleasure.”

“I’m not sure what the proper thing to do now is—after last night I mean.”

“None of what we did was proper,” he said in a hushed, teasing voice that sent a little shiver through her. “Just please don’t tell me you regret it.”

“No.” She smiled softly, feeling unusually shy. “Definitely not.”

“Thank God,” he said, squeezing her hand. “That’s all that matters for now.”

 • • • 

Noel Irving’s home was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. Lowe made a couple of phone calls the next day and discovered the man’s name popping up again in 1910 as the owner of a small bungalow in Noe Valley. But when Lowe went there to investigate, he found it occupied by a family of Greek immigrants who didn’t speak much English—barely enough to tell him they’d purchased the house a decade ago.

He changed tactics and began searching for Oliver Ginn. The man had told Hadley he was looking for a house to purchase in Pacific Heights, but Lowe couldn’t find an address there, nor in any other neighborhood—not at the telephone company, the electric company, or the property tax office. And a quick flirtation with a young operator got him a tally of all the telephone numbers assigned to any people with the surname Ginn in the state of Oregon: zero.

Lowe took a different approach and began telephoning all his archaeological contacts from Berkeley, asking if they’d ever heard of Ginn and his financed digs in Mexico. A couple of them had, but only vaguely.

He finally thought they had something when Hadley had Miss Tilly dig through her files and they found the business card Ginn had presented when he first showed up at the museum’s offices. No telephone, and the address printed on the card belonged to a bakery in Russian Hill.

The family who owned the bakery had, indeed, heard of Mr. Ginn: he’d rented an apartment above their shop for several months. He’d also packed up and left two weeks ago. No forwarding address.

“Why would he give me one?” the shop owner asked with a shrug. “The apartment is a weekly rental. We had almost a dozen boarders come and go last year alone. As long as they paid rent, we didn’t ask questions.”

Might as well be chasing down ghosts.

If he couldn’t find either man, then he’d have to make it difficult for either man to find him and Hadley. The one person Lowe knew who could help with that was the owner of the Gris-Gris Club.

Two days after Dr. Bacall’s heart attack, Lowe called Velma Toussaint and gave her a general idea of his problem. Anyone else would laugh at his crazy request. She merely said, “You can come by on Friday. I’ll have something ready for you then.”

And so, he waited.

The hospital released Dr. Bacall. He looked weak, but was well enough to complain constantly, so Hadley thought that was a good sign. Even though she was staying with him at his house, she wisely hired two full-time nurses to oversee his care.

For his part, Lowe talked to Winter’s assistant, Bo, who wrangled two intimidating men to stand guard over the Bacall house, watching out for anyone fitting either Noel Irving or Oliver Ginn’s descriptions. Though Lowe desperately wanted to get a better idea about what Noel Irving might look like these days, questioning Hadley’s father didn’t prove helpful; Bacall hadn’t seen his partner in twenty years, and had no idea if the deathless magic would also preserve his age.

When Friday night finally arrived, Lowe ate dinner with his family before heading to Gris-Gris. Only a few blocks from Chinatown, the North Beach speakeasy’s entrance sat behind a locked door. A long line of patrons already waited to show their membership cards, but like the rest of the Magnusson family, who supplied the club’s booze, Lowe only needed to flash his smile to the doorman to receive a cheery welcome. He was waved in immediately and run through a gauntlet of handshakes—half the staff having heard about his return from Egypt—before being shown to a table on the main floor to wait for Velma.

A round of applause ended a jazz trio’s set, and after the club’s master of ceremonies announced a short piano interlude between acts, Lowe watched couples leave the dance floor to converge upon the bar for drinks. He spotted a black-haired woman in the crowd and thought of Hadley. Five days had passed since she’d patched him up in her apartment. Five days since he’d kissed her. Held her. Made her moan with pleasure.

A goddamn eternity.

He’d seen her briefly the previous afternoon at the museum. Too briefly. With her father recovering at home, she was handling both their workloads and juggling telephone inquiries about his health. No Oliver Ginn sightings, thank God.

She’d given him the canopic jar paintings and their list of names, since he had more time to decipher the last two jars. He’d narrowed one of them down to four possible names on the list, and once he had Velma’s magical protection in his hands, Lowe was eager to start looking for the crossbars. He’d do it alone if he had to, but he secretly hoped Hadley might be ready to continue the hunt with him. And because he was a selfish dog, he also hoped she’d soon be ready to continue putting their hands on each other.

Mostly, though—and this was the most pathetic part—he just missed her. God, was he actually moping over a woman? A cursed one, at that. With an entourage of dark spirits and a fear of being touched. Why was nothing in his life ever easy or normal?

Maybe he needed a drink.

A flickering candle cast shadows on the white linen tablecloth near his elbow. He measured his desire for a glass of gin against the effort it would take to brave the crowd at the bar. And while he considered it, his gaze fell on a woman who had stopped in the aisle a few tables down. She was accompanied by the club’s floor manager, and the two of them were scanning the room, searching for someone. Her back faced him, so he couldn’t see her face. Didn’t have to. The hem of her black dress was hiked up unevenly in the middle.