The Eterna Files (20 page)

She felt a roaring in her ears, as if she could hear the coursing of her blood in her veins.

One minute.

She lifted the last carpets, confirming that the whole floor was covered with writings of end times. Dancing around the bits of text were hieroglyphs, runes, talismanic symbols, and numbers, numbers everywhere.

In one drawing a huge dragon tore at an eagle; in another, an inverted pentagram pierced the heart of a crudely depicted naked woman. This would be too much to take in even for someone who had no psychic inclination whatsoever. For Clara, it was an assault almost beyond measure. She didn't need to scream—the room was screaming for her.

With a sick lurch, she realized that what she was looking at was terribly similar to an old case of hers, and if that sort of dark, twisted, sick magic was somehow wrapped up in the Eterna Commission, God help them all. If immortality were to be gained on these counts, it would be lived out in a vicious hell.

Whoever had converted this house into a literal book of death had invited the disaster across its threshold.

Thirty seconds.

She backed away, nearly tripping on the folds of carpet, her boot heel sticking in tar and dried blood. She did not think whose blood it was.

Fifteen seconds.

Her eyes began blinking rapidly as everything took on a hazy glow. She stumbled on the second-floor landing and her feet nearly went out from under her, tearing at her petticoat hem. She almost threw herself down the stairs, focusing her strength in her arms as those always failed her last, and half-slid to the first floor, where she hurled herself at the front door.

One second.

Clinging to the doorknob, balancing her strength and attention on her hand, grasping the metal ball, she desperately heaved the heavy door open. Whether she hurtled forward or the house expelled her, Clara could not tell. She dragged her rebellious body up the stairs to the sidewalk, where she collapsed, half on the pavement, half on the steps. The slam of the door behind her was simultaneous with her desperate gasp for breath, knowing that if she lost herself now, she would convulse with no one to keep her from further injury.

Breathe, breathe,
she commanded.

She did. Gasping, wrenching breaths.

She was trembling, but shaking was not convulsing, though it was so close. Far too close.

“Miss, are you…” A passerby, an elderly woman with a parasol, was staring down at her.

“Fine,” she said. “I … lost my balance for a moment. Please, leave me be, and don't ever come near this house.” Her tone brooked no argument and the frightened woman scurried away. Clara would do the same as soon as she could stand.

She would run very far from that place indeed.

CHAPTER

NINE

Rose Everhart had watched the bullet strike her father's back, pierce his dress uniform, and continue through his body and into her mother, whom he was embracing. He had just received a medal honoring his outstanding naval service. The regal Buckingham appointment room had filled with screams.

That one small bullet took two lives, her father's immediately and her mother's after a scant week.

It would have been the biggest scandal of the age if the truth were told; Everhart being a heroic general and the marquis who shot him being barking mad.… It wasn't the hush of it all she hated as much as the soft murmurs of pity that still haunted the halls of Parliament where she worked in the same kind of secrecy that shrouded her parents' murders.

When she'd been asked what she wanted to keep her quiet those eight years ago, she asked to lose herself in “distinct matters of Parliamentary government.” Her family was proud and she enjoyed the idea of earning rather than being given charity. The merchant who had been courting Rose at the time, for whom she'd have settled to please—and silence—her mother, found this request amoral. They forgot each other swiftly.

Lord Black had stepped in to handle the whole affair, already pegged, from his first term in the House of Lords, as the foremost man for delicate matters.

The rest of the Everhart family was never told the truth about her parents' deaths, fobbed off with a tale of a swift mutual illness. Lord Black counseled Rose not to say otherwise, and she obeyed, though the guilt and lies ate at her for some years.

She had quickly settled in to work. From the first, she had loved her job and enjoyed her quiet life alone with her cousin, victim of yet another tragedy. They did well enough on her earnings and were pleasantly established in a house provided by the government.

The Tourney case had struck this old nerve. She'd had her fill of mad, overprivileged murderers. Yet she would not turn away. Neither, she knew, would Spire. Lord Black had given her information about Spire's past that Rose was certain Spire would not wish her—or anyone—to know. His life's trajectory was not dissimilar to hers, yet she could say nothing to him about that.

Weary of waking with the assassination in her mind, Rose resolved to pray with her parish priest about her nightmare, to see if such mental scars could be healed or the images replaced with more pleasant memories. Could anything of peace erase such horror? Negativity and sorrow held a weight that joy did not. How could something less traumatic balance upon the scale?

If only her twin hadn't died, she'd have someone to share the burden with. She'd always wondered what happened to the soul of that stillborn sister and what her life would have been like had they both lived.

As she stepped onto the otherwise unoccupied Millbank office, a familiar clicking whirr sounded. A telegraph machine had been installed, as Lord Black had promised, along with a desk stocked with paper, envelopes, and writing implements. Rose opened the thin cipher book that was always on her person—every dress she owned had an adapted pocket for it sewn into the bodice—and went to work on the message.

Lord Black entered almost silently while Rose worked and soon presented her with a cup of tea with a hint of sugar, just how she liked it. She was too engrossed in her task to thank him.

There were two messages. The first was not good news. The latter was terrible news from her most reliable news desk contact, whom she regularly appraised on matters she wanted immediately brought to her attention. It took every ounce of Rose's willpower not to cry out or shudder in revulsion at the information. She tucked the message deep into the pocketed fold next to her code book.

Rose heard the front door open and shut and footsteps on the iron stairs.

Black was staring at her from beside the tea trolley, where he was preparing another cup. She would have to say something.

“Brinkman lost his target,” she stated finally.

“What about Brinkman?” Spire asked, striding into the room.

Lord Black handed Spire his tea and Rose took advantage of the pause in conversation to pick up her own cup. “You're welcome,” Black said with a pout.

“What?” Rose and Spire both asked, befuddled.

“For the tea,” Black muttered. “I'm a
lord,
I'm not supposed to serve. I was being nice.”

They blinked at him; Rose wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. He wasn't even supposed to be there, she knew there was an important vote on in the joint houses.

“What happened?” Spire asked.

“Whatever Brinkman was following, he lost it,” Rose said. “He pledges to regain the target and to send us materials from the disaster site.” Rose turned to Black. “Do you have another contact in America we might use, milord?”

Black shrugged. “Not that I know of, but the government has many operatives I don't know about.” He grinned. “I can enlist Omega to find the ones I'm
dying
to meet!”

Rose sighed. “Lord Black,
please
don't send any of us out on another wild goose chase after those people, they don't exist.”

Spire stared from one to the other, eyebrow quirked in that way that Rose already knew indicated curiosity.

“Ghosts, Mr. Spire,” Lord Black explained. “The ghosts of this age elude me. I've been told by Her Majesty that specters are handled by another department.”

“Ghosts? Another department?” Spire's vague contempt at this idea was thinly veiled.

“It's the strangest thing;” Black continued. “Her Majesty spoke about it falteringly, as if searching for a missing memory. It's a terrible mystery. Of course London has ghost stories,” he added, lounging on a nearby stool in a position that made the chair look more comfortable than it was. “And séances have their time and place, but something else is going on, I just know it. So keep your eyes out, Spire, for this other department. I
must
meet them!”

“I'll be sure to send them your way,” Spire stated dryly.

“Yes, but today—new scientists!” Black cried. “Profiles are waiting in your office, Mr. Spire. I'm off to Parliament! I should make an appearance for a vote now and then.” He swept to the door. “Tell that wily Brinkman to hurry everything up!” With iron-echoing footsteps, Black proceeded out the front door.

Spire turned away, stalking to his office. Rose thought about running after him to tell him the unfortunate news she'd concealed from Black, but if the rest of the team came in and saw her emerge from Spire's office … it would appear wrong. The Omega team were hardly the arbiters of propriety, but Rose had to be careful not to allow anything to become too casual. Such would only hurt her and her reputation, of which she must take great care if she was to retain her position.

Propriety was most inconvenient because it was about what was seen and how it might be construed; never about the simple truth. Spire was able to overlook the fact that she was a woman for the sake of the greater task at hand; Tourney—and then Lord Black—forced them together and in less-than-usual circumstances. But Spire didn't have to consider the same things she did. As a man, he wouldn't receive the same scrutiny, needn't be as circumspect.

Her superiors could never have any reason to think her immodest. Honor and absence of scandal was critical.

Miss Knight entered, looking distracted, in a shimmering, bustled turquoise gown. She gave Rose a brief nod before gliding to the desk she'd taken for her own, where she perused a letter she drew from her reticule. The Wilsons walked in quietly and took seats in the rear of the room.

Spire stalked out of his office, carrying a stack of papers—likely the profiles Lord Black had mentioned. Rose tried to catch his eye, so he'd see there was something she needed to say, but he was engrossed.

Spire spoke as he distributed materials to the team. “We need to know everything about the new scientists, their habits, what to be suspicious about. Wilsons…” As he called them, they stood. “Inspect homes, habits, family. It looks like these men are all bachelors. Learn everything; make note of everyone who goes near them. We must be able to immediately recognize something out of place or added. Considering the unknown fate of the previous scientists, we can't lose more. Remember to keep a low profile.” The Wilsons nodded, folded the papers out of sight, and exited as if dismissed from rank and file in a military operation.

“We also need a doctor on call.” As he crossed to hand Miss Knight a sheet of notepaper, he walked past Rose. She tried to touch his elbow but he was too far away—she would have to reach, and that would be noticed.

Fluttering her satin-gloved hands over the list, Knight made a disdainful face. “Boring. None of them will do. None creative enough. Still, I'll examine them.” She tucked the note in her bosom and turned to Rose. “Miss Everhart, will you come give a less flamboyant opinion, one that Spire will respect more than mine? Don't bother objecting, Mr. Spire,” she added. “I'm not offended.”

“With your permission, Mr. Spire, I shall,” Rose said, willing him to see, with eyes that bored into him, that there was news at hand. But he was not a psychic. Perhaps if she were out she could excuse herself to follow up on that damned wire on her own.…

“As you wish,” Spire replied. “Miss Knight, where, might I ask, is Mr. Blakely?”

The tall woman shrugged, turquoise fabric rustling as she replied casually, donning a fanciful headpiece that trailed ostrich feathers; “I've no idea, he's not my husband.”

Rose watched Spire clench his jaw. While she generally found Knight entertaining, she did not envy Spire having to direct such personalities, and on a day like today, everything irritated. She threw her gray wool half cloak over her shoulders and fixed a simple riding hat atop her head; a practical piece of fashion in stark contrast to Knight's plumage.

“I'll go ahead and hail a hansom,” Knight called over her shoulder as she exited.

Spire watched the woman go and Rose seized her chance.

“Tourney's dead!” she cried in a harsh whisper. “Found torn apart in his cell. Blood
everywhere
.”

“Damn it all,” Spire seethed, balling his fists, a groan of anger growling past clenched teeth. “Anyone who he indicted, then, will likely die in the next round and the trails will go still colder. Their network can't be this endless, or have such power at their command!”

“It's maddening,” Rose wanted to shout. “Even if the Crown threw all their resources to us, even if we were given leave to fully take part in the Metropolitan case, is this beyond all of us?”

“I feel it's the tip of the iceberg,” Spire said woefully, then brightened. “Grange has the list you crafted, and it's far more comprehensive than what my boys were given clearance to investigate. Grange said they were doubling arrests, and will have to do more now, under the guise of protection.”

“But as Tourney was killed in his cell, prisons aren't any safer,” Rose countered. “Not that I'm not glad the bastard is well and truly dead,” she added.

“Hear, hear,” Spire agreed.