The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart (23 page)

“That’s bloody right you are,” he breathed, wrapping his arm around me.

“Come, we don’t have time for this. Rachel just told us something very important.”

“Is that girl gone, Mary?” Jonathon asked in the hall. “Please God, tell me she’s gone.”

“In a huff, that’s for sure,” Mary said, wearier by the moment. “Mrs. Northe is gone too. She sends her love, Lord Denbury.”

“Gone?” Jonathon cried. “She can’t leave. This place is a madhouse.” I ushered him into the entrance hall. “Why on earth would she leave at such a critical—”

“Because her friend is dying. Her friend with important information. You know I don’t question Mrs. Northe’s important information. And she’s also going, Jonathon, because of Elsa,” I replied. He stilled.

“What?”

“Rachel has been receiving information from spirits, all in a jumbled rush. She’s been quite knocked out by it. She just woke with a message from Elsa, either transmitted through her comatose state or because she’s dead and her spirit has a message. Something’s wrong in St. Paul. Elsa is begging to be let go, as are all the spirits Preston has been asking Rachel to collect. And Mrs. Northe has dire business in Chicago.”

“We’ve got to get to Samuel.”

“She promises to go farther west to take care of Samuel. You know that woman has more resources than she’d ever let on. It’s up to us to take care of Preston.”

Jonathon ran a hand over his face. “Good God.” He entered the parlor, looked at me, then greeted Rachel. “Do you ever get the feeling we’ve become the grim reaper’s clerks?” he asked.

Rachel nodded. “All the time,” she signed.

Something overtook Rachel again. She swooned on the divan. Jonathon placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. I shook Rachel gently, as I had before.

“What are they saying?” I asked calmly, squeezing Rachel’s hands, clutching her by the arms, and forcing her to look at me.

“So many tears,” she signed, tears falling down her own cheeks, which had again gone gray pale. “They’re calling. For me. All of them. They don’t understand.
They’re
not alive, so how could
it
be alive?”

“What’s she saying?” Jonathon asked quietly. I translated.

“What’s…
it
?” he asked as if he really didn’t want to know.

Nearly as quickly as she had fainted, Rachel jumped to her feet with a gasping breath. It was dizzying, the shift between her receiving information and then coming out of an alarming-looking trance to an utter, sharp lucidity.

“I must go,” she signed. “Whatever is in the basement, I must end it. Today is the day it will wake. It must not wake. It must not live.”

As I translated, Jonathon and I shuddered but straightened ourselves.

“Yes. But we’re going with you,” I said as she looked up at me.

“You don’t have to,” she signed, and I grabbed her hands.

“Yes. We do,” I insisted. “The Master’s Society used Preston and you, and has hurt all of us.”

“Come, let’s get to the root of their dirty business,” Jonathon stated, putting on his black wide-brimmed hat by the door. A hunting hat. Fitting. I saw a small flash of light shimmer over him, as it did when he came to my aid or affected positive change. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one who saw the truth of a good soul in ways beyond the body alone.

“Mrs. Northe left me in charge,” I said sheepishly, wondering if Jonathon would chafe at this. “So…”

“So, lead on, captain.” Jonathon saluted me with a grin.

I let out a kept breath and put my hands firmly together in a gesture of strength, but really it was to keep them from shaking. Since I didn’t have the luxury of time to question being leader, my mind went to the same state I’d been in while pursuing clues to save Jonathon’s life. There were simply things to be done. There was only time for action. It was actually far better than the anxiety of waiting.

“First off,” I stated, “we alert Mr. Smith.”

“And he is?”

“A man I wouldn’t want to cross. At our service, courtesy of Mrs. Northe. He’s in the carriage house awaiting our orders.” I turned to Rachel. “Are you sure you’re ready? Strong enough?”

“If we don’t do something soon, they will kill me,” she signed.

“We won’t let them kill you,” I assured her.

“We promise,” Jonathon added.

The three of us strode to the carriage house where I found a lean, tall man in a pinstriped suit and a bowler, with a scar on one cheek that sloped slightly upward from the dark stubble of his chin. He was brushing one of Mrs. Northe’s mares.

“Mr. Smith.”

He set down his brush, came forward, and tipped his hat. I introduced Jonathon and Rachel. He tipped his hat again. “The German Hospital on Seventy-Seventh Street,” I said. “There’s a doctor named Preston and a guard of his, a large, pale Brit who will likely prove more powerful than he seems. They’ll try to keep us from entering the basement. There’s something down there I doubt any of us want to see, but we have no choice. We must get into that basement and stop whatever is being done there.”

Mr. Smith, who had yet to say a word, nodded, went to a case, and opened it. He pulled out a long-barreled pistol and slid it into a holster under his jacket, while palming another gun, a pocket-sized pistol with a pearl handle. This he handed to Jonathon along with some bullets. Smith’s raised eyebrows asked the question of whether Jonathon knew how to use it. Jonathon took the bullets, loaded the gun, set the safety, and put the pistol in his breast pocket.

It was amazing how much could be said by action alone.

“We have to see one more person,” I said. “We’ll meet you there. Perhaps you can examine the premises?”

Smith nodded and was off down the street.

“One more?” Jonathon queried.

“I’m bringing Reverend Blessing with us.”

“And who’s that?” Jonathon asked.

“An exorcist.”

“Ah, of course.”

Chapter 20

A smile crossed the reverend’s face when he saw me at the door, and he examined Jonathon and Rachel. “Hello, Miss Stewart. To what do I owe this sudden honor, and what’s all this company you’ve brought with you?”

“I’m so glad you’re here. I’m sorry for the emergency call, Reverend Blessing, but that’s just it. It’s an emergency. This is Lord Denbury and my friend Miss Rachel Horowitz.”

As I expected, two heads poked curiously out from either side of the reverend: the tall, elegant greyhounds, Blue and Bunny. Jonathon gasped.

“Well, hello, and aren’t you two
beauties
,” he said admiringly, his face aglow, reaching a relaxed hand out so they might sniff him as he closed the distance. In one fluid motion he had confident hands on both dogs and was speaking to them excitedly, clearly having some knowledge of their prowess and the sports in which they were used. The dogs were equally thrilled. They circled around him closely, quaking with joy, their tongues lavishing kisses on his hands.

“They like you,” Blessing said to Jonathon.

“Well, they’re gorgeous,” Jonathon exclaimed, remaining on his knees and beaming like a schoolboy, perfectly happy to have the dogs’ fond black noses directly in his face as he stroked their short fur.

Rachel, watching, couldn’t help but smile at Jonathon too. She turned to me. “I
really
like him,” she signed to me. “You’d better keep him.”

“I plan to,” I signed back, and we shared a girlish grin.

“Tell me your troubles,” Blessing called, gesturing us into his parlor. Bunny was lockstep with Jonathon, hardly allowing him to sit. Blue had repositioned herself to stare at Rachel, who did not waver from returning the creature’s gaze. The dog padded up closer to her, putting a damp nose directly onto her trembling fingers.

“Ah, my little bleeding heart,” Blessing said, nodding toward Rachel and her new friend. “She can tell if something’s wrong. Intuitive, intelligent, emotion-filled creatures,” he added. “She knows you’re here with troubled hearts, so tell me everything.”

“Well,” I began and listed all that had brought us to this point and what we might expect at the hospital. Even the dogs listened. There was an occasional squawk from some other creature somewhere else in the house.

When I finished, there was a long silence. Blue nosed Rachel’s hand. Gingerly, Rachel touched her, and her tensed shoulders relaxed. Bunny had returned to Jonathon. Smitten, she was practically in his lap. She had good taste, that dog.

Blessing, who had listened with a passive face, rose, slid a well-worn
Book
of
Common
Prayer
from a nearby shelf, and stood at the parlor threshold. He looked up at us expectantly. “Well, then, come on. No time to waste.”

“And we are to…” Jonathon prompted, hoping Blessing might elaborate.

“If spirits cannot go onward toward their eternal peace, then we must set them to rest ourselves. And if there’s a demon, that requires an exorcism, of course,” he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Of course,” Jonathon murmured. He and I shared a nervous smile. Rachel’s lips were thin, her slight frame trembling. If I wasn’t mistaken, Blessing had a distinct twinkle in his eye, as if he lived for days like this.

We followed him to the door. His hands stroked the hounds until the last moment out of the house, and even then the dogs strained their necks over the threshold toward him. He grabbed what looked like a black doctor’s bag at the door.

“Shall we take a trolley? Hansom?” he asked.

“I need the air,” Jonathon said, and we were out for another walk in the light rain.

To explain our group, we had agreed that while Jonathon was there on “Society business,” Rachel would escort the rest of us in for an unrelated séance in her basement office.

Jonathon looked up at the Gothic-style building. “You know, it looks like the House of Usher,” he muttered.

“I thought the same thing.”

Neither of us commented on the tale being about a body buried alive, which might relate to what we’d encounter.

Blessing pulled a purple silk ascot from his bag. He tied it around his neck to hide his white cleric’s collar, but the collar remained there beneath. Like hidden armor.

Mr. Smith was outside on the corner with a carriage parked up the block. He took one look at Blessing, raised his brow, and folded his arms. I took in Mr. Smith’s expression and defensive stance for a moment, then stepped forward. I thought of how Mrs. Northe might bring parties together and said what I hoped would be the right words between us.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Smith?” I asked. “I hope you understand the nature of this unconventional mission. We need warriors of two kinds. Physical…” I gestured deferentially to Smith. “And spiritual.” I nodded to Blessing.

Smith looked at me a moment, turned, then tipped his hat to Blessing. “Father,” he said in a gravelly voice. Blessing nodded in turn.

As we approached the rear entrance of the wing we knew was Preston’s, we felt the air temperature drop a few degrees. As we reached the door, it opened on its own. There was no one on the other side.

“Well. Something must be expecting us,” Jonathon said. Undeterred, Mr. Smith was the first one in. A cool draft immediately surrounded us as we followed him.

“Quite the welcoming committee,” Blessing noted.

The interior was no more welcoming than the exterior, and there were still no patients to be seen, just row after row of neatly made-up white cots down the long hall. Only our footsteps broke the oppressive silence as we waited for someone to greet or stop us. We moved without notice.

At least, no one
living
noticed. The chill worsened, and I glanced at Jonathon as I rubbed my arms. He nodded. We were most certainly in the presence of ghosts. Many.

Rachel turned to me, her face a pained mask. She signed that she “was not welcome.”

“Wait for us by the door, then,” I signed, gesturing to the front portico. Her face as pale as the neat sheets tucked into their springs, she turned toward the door but then turned back. She shook her head, signing that her comfort was not important now. The look on Rachel’s face wasn’t something to question.

Jonathon had pulled ahead of us. At the opposite end of the hall was the frosted glass door marked DOCTOR PRESTON. He put his ear to the door.

We all jumped back when the guard, Roth, opened it and stepped out into the hall.

“You again.” He narrowed his eyes at Jonathon, then at me. “What’s all this?”

“
I’m
here to talk to Preston,” Jonathon said as if it was obvious. “This lot is here for a séance. That’s the girl’s job. Now stop keeping me from doing mine.”

“Preston is indisposed,” Roth said through clenched teeth.

Mr. Smith evidently had no patience or inclination for diplomacy, for he stepped forward with a lightning-swift motion and threw a punch that made the stocky guard collapse unconscious to the floor.

“Careful, Mr. Smith,” Jonathon said. “I probably should have warned you that was a demon.”