The Eterna Files (11 page)

Clara felt the change in atmosphere and knew they drew closer to their destination. Bishop felt it, too—she saw that in the hesitation of his firm, purposeful step, the subtle tilt of his head. The hairs on the nape of Clara's neck bristled and rose.

The Eterna team had usually hidden in plain sight, in various industrial locations where deliveries of goods would not be suspect, but this location was unexpectedly residential.

“What's the address?” Clara asked softly.

“Is anyone listening?” Franklin countered.

The three looked around. Passing pedestrians, the occasional buggy, hansom, or cart. No one seemed interested in them. No faces in windows. No doors ajar. One learned to look for the signs of a city that was listening. New York had much to listen to; it was the perfect place to hide. But it was a city that also might not hear you scream.

A sudden voice rang out from across the street. “Miss Templeton, Mr. Fordham, and Senator Bishop. Together again?” A familiar face tipped into view beneath a bowler hat. Clara sighed, aggrieved. “I've missed you, Miss Templeton!” called the man, who looked roughly near Clara and Franklin's age, late twenties. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

Peter Green, journalist for the
New York Tribune,
had first encountered Clara during an investigation into grave robbing years prior, and had pestered her ever since. Brown hair poked out from beneath his hat; his dark blue frock coat and a long striped ascot somehow made him seem even taller than he was, with their angular cut and strong vertical lines.

“Nothing about Miss Templeton is any of your concern,” the senator quipped.

“What's brought you to this fine neighborhood?” Green asked, ignoring the two men and focusing entirely on Clara.

“You know, Mr. Green,” Clara said with a bite in her voice, “that I'm not at liberty to tell you that. As I say every time you manage to run into me.”

Green crossed the street to stand near them on the sidewalk, speaking more quietly. “It has to do with your secret initiative, the one that's been years in the works—”

“I will have you arrested, Mr. Green,” Bishop stated calmly.

“On what grounds?” the journalist whined. “I'm not trespassing—”

“But you're following us,” Bishop interrupted.

“You're flattering yourselves.” Green laughed. “I happen to live a block away.”

“You do follow Miss Templeton,” Franklin growled. “It isn't gentlemanly. You've been warned—”

“If a journalist takes being threatened seriously,” Green said, shaking his head, “he needs to rethink his profession. For the record, I follow Miss Templeton because she's interesting and clearly up to something. All the great New York detectives—of which you are not one, Mr. Fordham— rely upon dogged investigative journalists. You should see me as a resource, not an enemy. As for what the senator here is up to, I'm always intrigued—”

“Would you like me to report you to the local precinct?” Franklin asked with a gamesome smile. “I believe Lieutenant Kaminski is on the beat at the moment.”

“Ah, Kaminski, good man.” Bishop nodded, folding his arms. Everyone glared at Green.

Green sighed. “Can't blame a man for trying to get a story.” Seeing he'd get nothing more out of the three, he strolled away, occasionally glancing back. The investigators stared after him until he disappeared around the corner.

“Every good operation needs an irritating, nosy busybody,” Bishop muttered with a chuckle.

“Could you not simply mesmerize the man to keep his distance?” Clara asked. Only she and Franklin knew about that particular talent of the senator, who, out of pride, hardly ever utilized his powers of persuasion.

Bishop shrugged. “Tails can keep us vigilant,” he replied, then took a breath, looking not at the whitewashed building they'd paused in front of but the next one over. “This one,” he murmured. “It's been years since I saw the paperwork, but I think Malachi Goldberg lived here.”

The building in question was a dark red brick with brownstone detailing, a basic, unremarkable town house save for the pall of dread that seemed to hang over it. A film of smoke and dust ringed each black-trimmed window frame. The building's cloistered air was off-putting on such a well-lived street.

The feeling the building exuded was one of a held breath. Clara hoped whatever the building wished to exhale wouldn't be too overwhelming. Bishop sniffed the air, squinting up and then scanning slowly down the structure as if he were a building inspector, but Clara knew his consideration was far more spiritual in nature.

“The structure isn't teeming,” Bishop concluded. “Something is off about the place, but does it require extra precaution? Clara?” Her name was a request for confirmation.

“Not yet,” she replied. “It won't be comfortable, but we can take the time we need.”

A fine mahogany brougham passed behind them as they descended the stairs to the lower-level entrance, which was shaded by a black iron overhang that protruded from the face of the building like a mourner's veil. Rivets in the wooden door signaled that a layer of metal had been added. The door bore vague smoke marks that tinged the threshold and added to the general air of menace.

“Open the door, please, Mr. Fordham,” Bishop commanded. He turned to Clara. “The moment you begin to feel the aura—”

“If I do, then I will exit,” Clara assured him, steeling herself. Neither of these men knew the keening ache in her heart, the fear of what they'd find within, and she could not let on. “I would hope after all these years you trust I'm not cavalier about my condition, but I will not let it exclude me from our work.”

Bishop nodded.

Franklin withdrew the bloodied key from his coat pocket and he slid it into the lock. The latch fought a moment before yielding, squealing on hinges that sounded but did not look rusted.

A peculiar metallic scent accosted Clara's nostrils with the strength of smelling salts. The outside light filtering past the shaded entrance revealed a dark hallway with a wooden staircase leading up on the left and a closed door down to the right. The sheet of metal indicated by the exterior rivets had been affixed to the inside of the door and bore, near the handle, a terrible image.

The oxidized print of a hand.

Clara shuddered and forcefully shut down the part of her mind that insisted on imposing horrific iterations of Louis's demise onto this eerie setting. She owed it to his memory to keep herself together. She pressed trembling fingertips to the protective talisman under her bodice and said a prayer for strength.

A great deal of soot and ash drifted about on the floor in the draft from the open door. Clara prayed she was not standing in someone's remains, but had the sinking feeling she was—they all were. That's why there were no bodies. The team all went up in dust.…

They stepped into the first room.

“This is the room I saw,” Franklin declared.

In a typical home, the space beyond the pocket doors they stepped past was likely used as a parlor, but instead of settees and console tables and genial discussions of the weather, there were slate-topped wooden laboratory tables where coiled gas burners with small-nozzled jets sat between an array of glass containers. There were wooden stools at each station and a scattering of steins and coffee mugs surrounded each place.

Across the room towered a hefty bookshelf that held formidable tomes and various brass instruments that reminded Clara of astrological tools. The long, rectangular room sported greenish satin wallpaper above wooden paneling; the velveteen floral flocking of the paper was the only remnant of the room's past life as a place of teacups rather than tubes and beakers.

The whole of the wooden paneling that covered the lower four feet of each wall was charred in an odd pattern that never rose above the paneling. The greenish satin was unmarked save for the occasional searing lick of flame. The damage did not appear consistent with a normal fire, and Clara had seen many, for New York had no shortage of conflagrations.

The residue on the walls was slightly yellow. The scent in the air was bitter and sour. Sulfuric.

It was hard to acknowledge the presence of sulfur and not think of hell.

Clara wondered suddenly—though not for the first time—if her idea had not been born of a divine and loving God; if it sprang, rather, from some less amenable force.

Bishop had trailed them into the room and now she saw his body stiffen, as hers had within the constraints of her corset. She knew he could feel the distressing vibration of the room just as she could. He turned to her.

“I'm all right,” she insisted. “I give myself about ten minutes.” Clara timed herself in any place that retained any amount of spiritual charge, joyous or dark. Any emotion could overwhelm in large doses.

Clara and Franklin had a routine when investigating a building or a person. She took notes and retrieved empathic and occasional psychic images, Franklin used his psychometric touch to gather further information. If the person or place raised too many concerns, they would send Bishop with one of his several trusted mediums (all of whom worked completely out of the current fashionable spotlight) in instead.

She was in the middle of the room, withdrawing her notepad from her reticule and studying the windows, which were oddly frosted over when a motion drew her eye. She turned to see that Franklin had gone to the wall and was taking off his glove. The soft beige leather slipped from his hand and he flexed his bare palm. Clara well knew what that meant and she'd never been so scared for him. Not in a place like this. He might never return from what he saw.…

Their regular routine did not apply to this place. The signals and cues triggering one of her episodes were not present, but the house itself was like nothing they'd yet encountered.

“Franklin, not here.” Clara dropped her notebook as she rushed to intercept him, but it was too late. The terrible secrets within the bricks would reveal themselves.

She watched her partner's body seize up, crumple like a doll, and then seize rigid again, his hand affixed to the wall, palm pressed to the charred wood paneling as if a nail were through it. It was impossible for Clara to bear seeing such a gentle soul in so much pain. Not that she liked seeing anything in pain, but cruel souls in pain proved some satisfaction. There was no glory in this moment, only concern. She wondered if this was how she looked during one of her fits.

“A few glimpses, Mr. Fordham,” Bishop cautioned, “that's enough, surely—”

Clara tried to pull Franklin's hand away from the wall. He seized and shuddered, again convulsing on his feet.

Empathy wasn't enough, she could sense what he was feeling but she wanted to see with his eyes. She felt she owed it to the memory of Louis Dupris to understand what happened to him, even if she could hardly face it. Whatever Franklin saw would haunt her dreams and fabricate new nightmarish terrors, she knew. Still, she owed it to the soul of the man she'd only just begun to imagine a future with.

“
Enough,
Franklin,” Bishop said, moving near, obviously intent on detaching Franklin from the wall. With his free hand, Franklin shoved Bishop back with preternatural force. The senator reeled into Clara and they both tumbled to the floor, banging into one of the old laboratory tables. Clara struck her head, then lost her breath in a rush as Bishop landed atop her. A rush of undulating energy washed over all of them, like a pungent vapor, and in it was the cry of death.

Clara's impact with the floor kicked up an acrid dust. As she gasped for breath, it rushed, burning into her lungs, she coughed and the room spun and shifted. Damn. An episode. Or was it?

This was immediately different than a fit, nor was it one of her clarion clairvoyant moments. Her body, though free from a seizure's clench, floated in a different reality. Her fits were whirling light and psychic frisson and the occasional message, like a scream from the spirit world, always stressful and traumatic. Her successful clairvoyant moments came when single messages from the spirit world or glimpses of past lives appeared in specific sequence before fading, leaving her able to relay them calmly. This was, instead, a slow, cool descent as if into a darkened pool in a dream.

Franklin and Bishop vanished. The room seemed to lengthen into a long corridor and before her were shadows. Tall, long, human-shaped shadows.

A host of black silhouettes.

“Help us,” they chorused in unison: a deep, male tone.

“How?” Clara murmured. “Who are you?”

“You know who we are,” they replied.

“The team,” she prompted. “Are you the team who died?”

“Find the files. One still knows. One survived.”

“What are your names?” Clara said, searching to find any distinguishing characteristics in the black voids, for confirmation of who they were. If one of them was Louis, she yearned to talk to him. To be forgiven by them all.

“We cannot rest until what's wrong is made right,” the voices droned.

“Please,” Clara murmured, feeling her lungs continue to burn. If this was indeed one of her episodes, it was the strangest and most lucid one yet. “I'm so sorry.…”

“Something went wrong here, dreadfully wrong. Find the files. Woe to those who allow this power to fall into unworthy hands. Watch for those who are watching you, for they will come after you.”

The silhouettes lunged at her. She choked and turned onto her side.

As she came to, Bishop was folded over her, staring, concerned. Despite this compromising position, it was hardly her first thought to get out of it.

She turned her head to Franklin. His back was against the wall, eyes closed, breathing heavily. The tether was broken. He'd recover, and live haunted. Like the rest of them.

“He's strained but all right,” Bishop stated, keeping his focus on Clara. “What happened? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”