The Eterna Files (24 page)

“I thought a man like Allen,” Bishop continued, “trustworthy but hardly sensitive, was better suited for implementation. But perhaps I was in error. Maybe lack of psychic understanding became a vulnerability. I haven't the foggiest comprehension of what Franklin saw in his touch, or the exact dark nature behind the carvings you glimpsed. But I do know you and I could not have stopped what killed the team.” He looked out the window as the carriage came to a stop. “And we have arrived.”

Clara's heart was racing, frustrated that Bishop made everything sound so sensible.

At the open quadrangle at Madison Avenue and Forty-ninth, Bishop handed Clara down from the carriage. “We'll be back, Leonard, my good man,” Bishop called brightly.

“Yes, sir,” the driver replied as if he could have cared less.

The college loomed across a wide stretch of mid-Manhattan Island, an impressive amalgam of large, dark brick, Gothic buildings.

Clara was enamored of the grand setting, the school whose legacy traced back to the mid-eighteenth century when New York was still a British holding. Its immense power and prestige had only grown since King's College had tossed off its monarchial name to don Columbia. She wished she'd had a university education rather than a succession of boarding school and private tutors. She knew, as she looked around at the fine gentlemen parading about the stately library in crisp, dark suits bespeaking means and influence, that she, like all women, was unwelcome here.

Bishop spoke gently, his gifts uncannily picking up on her mood. “It is my hope that soon, Clara, you won't be the only woman standing within these blocks,” he said. “And I'll do whatever I can in the legislature to assure it.”

“Thank you, Rupert,” she replied quietly, grateful that he could acknowledge what an outsider she felt and how unfair it all was. At the sound of his name rather than his title, he smiled once more.

“The School of Mines,” Bishop stated, leading her past the library toward a vast building erected eight years prior. He peered into a window that looked in on an office rather than a classroom, then strode to the nearest door, under a pointed-arch eave. Inside, a placard at the end of the long hall read,
ANALYTICAL AND APPLIED CHEMISTRY.

“Perfect,” Clara stated.

They soon came to an open office door, where they looked in on a fastidious-looking man with neatly trimmed mustache and graying brown hair in a tweed coat. He was reading at a fine cherrywood desk. Clara stepped up beside the senator as the man within looked up past wire-rimmed spectacles.

“Hello?” he said cautiously.

“Greetings,” Bishop said brightly. Clara saw his gaze flick over the nameplate on the door. “Professor McBride, I presume?” The man behind the desk rose, nodding. “My colleague and I are with the Secret Service. We're looking for some paperwork.”

McBride's eyes went wide. “Secret Service … Isn't that for counterfeiting? We're just chemists here.”

“We're looking for papers recently delivered here,” Clara added, ignoring the confusion on his face, guessing he was wondering why she had been referred to as a “colleague.” “Relating to Barnard Smith? Who might we speak with in that regard?”

The man went pallid. “Ah. Yes. Those. I was told someone might come for them. Good. We had to lock the box away in Barnie's old office.”

“Why?” Bishop asked.

The man looked away with a nervous laugh. “Because it kept moving on its own.”

“Then it's certainly what we're looking for,” Clara said sweetly. The man looked even more uncomfortable. She would have to add poltergeists to the list of Eterna effects.

“Can you … please, take it with you?” the professor asked. “Mr. Smith was beloved of this department, but this is a gift we'd like to return.”

“We shall take it,” Bishop said.

“Oh, good, then follow me,” McBride said. They stepped aside to let him lead the way, which he did swiftly.

Bishop turned to Clara, murmuring, “After perusal I'll bring this to the depository. No haunted objects inside your office, lest all the talismans and wards I've collected for you through the years be rendered useless.”

Clara did not object. The team stored objects of interest deep below a bank vault in the heart of the financial district. Years ago, when Clara had gone there to stow away some exorcism equipment, the residual psychic and spiritual energy amassed in that cellar space had almost instantly brought on a seizure. She had not been back since.

McBride stopped after a few doors and fished a key ring out of his pocket. He flipped past several keys before finding the right one and opening the door. “When Smith retired six years ago, he donated an extensive library to the college, under the orders it be open to all students. Women as well,” he added; Clara could feel him trying to overcome a deep discomfort at her presence.

“Barnie was a dedicated man in that regard,” McBride continued. “His daughter died a year into his tenure, and because of her, it seems, he became more devoted to women's minds than this college was and is ready to accept.”

“I'd adjust your antiquated minds if I were you, professor,” Bishop said sternly. McBride glanced sheepishly at Clara, who smiled sweetly.

“You can't keep us in the Dark Ages forever,” she stated, stepping into Smith's office.

Floor to ceiling books; what a haven, was her first thought. One large stately window shed daylight through white curtains; a small stone fireplace on the east wall was a dark maw. There was no sign of wood or ash but the mantel framed a few glass containers with burn marks on them. Clara held back a smile, remembering Louis's colorful tales of Barnie's tendency to use fire in his experiments.

McBride pointed at Smith's wooden desk. In the center of the blotter was a cardboard box banded with a leather strap.

“That box was brought in a little over a week ago by a young Frenchman. He gave strict orders that it was only to be turned over to an American who came asking for it. He had a healthy distrust of the British. What that has to do with the notes of a chemist I'm not sure. What has Barnard been up to? Sounds a bit more intriguing than academia,” the professor said with another nervous laugh.

“That's what we're here to find out,” Bishop replied smoothly. “He's … gone missing and we're hoping what we find here will help us.”

“Oh, goodness.” McBride frowned. “I consider Barnie a dear friend; please do let me know if I can be of service.”

“You already are,” Clara assured, reaching into her reticule for one of her cards and passing it to the professor. “But if you think of anything else, anything strange you noticed in your last encounters with him, drop by those offices. Either I or my colleagues will take your testimony.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Clara noticed the box slide ever so subtly toward her on the desk. Eager to prevent a more obvious demonstration, she snatched it up in her gloved hands and passed the container to Bishop. Even in that brief contact she could feel the box's contents trembling. Louis and Barnard must have infused a great deal of their essence into the material.

The room was cooler than it had been when they'd entered. If she were a betting woman, Professor Barnard Smith would be haunting his office for some time to come. This might be useful to them.

“Thank you, Professor McBride,” Bishop said, tipping his top hat. “That will be all.”

“Who are you again? I know you're from the government, but…” McBride's voice trailed off as the senator leaned toward him. Clara could feel the pull of Bishop's mesmerism, like a magnet.

“Don't worry about that and don't ask any more questions, Professor, it's all confidential. However if the British come sniffing, be a dear and alert us, will you? This isn't King's College anymore, it is indeed Columbia and we've our American interests to preserve. And while we're chatting, professor, what do you think about
Barnard
? Sounds like a fine name for a women's college. You should get to work on that.”

“Yes, sir,” the professor said, somewhat dreamily.

Clara grinned and kept stride with Bishop as they left the building. She knew McBride would soon shake the lingering, dazed thrall of the senator's unusual ability. Bishop had once explained to Clara that he wielded it infrequently lest he become addicted to the power.

“Not everyone is meant for our work, are they?” Bishop shook his head as they crossed the quadrangle to their waiting carriage. She laughed, feeling his kind yet commanding personality counteract the dread chill that so often accompanied their missions.

Once in Bishop's stately carriage, heading back downtown, he slid off the leather strap and opened the box. The first item he produced was a leather-bound diary, which he handed to Clara before turning his attention to the papers under it.

The cover was plain, but she could feel that the book weighed more than it should—an additional density that was metaphysical in nature. Opening it, she immediately recognized the script and her heart fluttered. This was Louis's book! She scanned for her name in a panic and did not find it.

No, this was Louis's work diary, filled with essays on nature and the spirit. Her gaze fell on sweeping, beautiful passages of theory and limitless possibility; he drew parallels between scientific relationships proven in nature and the interaction between his spiritual core and the
mystére
intercessors of his Vodoun faith.

Much of this, Clara remembered with a fond blush, he had shared with her in impassioned odes. Clara skimmed further and saw more of Barnard Smith's theories of the natural sciences coming into play. Louis and he had developed the idea of every city and place having a specific spiritual energy that was harnessed by its material surroundings. They had speculated on how this might protect those who lived within its localized sphere.

Bishop offered her the three sheets of paper he'd been looking at and reached for the diary. The slightly crumpled pages were also in Louis's hand, Clara saw; they seemed to recapitulate the theory of the diary as a sort of recipe:

The theory of Eterna in Spiritual Materialism is as simple as it is profound:

Seven ingredients are an ideal combination.

Separate: inert.

Combined: potentially the compound, and that which keeps this uniquely ours, American.

From these distinct, live cultures, the tether to a long life begins.

Herein are three distinct examples of our localized compounds.

The Power of Protection unfolds as follows:

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—Our nation's capital: The Heart of the Matter

BASE MATERIALS:

Capitol building soil, soil from the great Architect sites.

Air from within sacred triangles.

Water at the center of sacred circles.

POSSIBLE ADDITIVES:

Fibers of founding documents.

Bullets from all American wars.

Final step: Burn with fire.

Clara looked up. “What do you make of it?” she asked.

Bishop rubbed his clean-shaven chin, considering. “The first page is a good bit of Masonic flattery,” he said. “But that's D.C. There's no changing or disputing that, and if Dupris was indeed the mystic he seems, with Smith interested in the organic, those rites and sites would have their significance. When I next return to Congress, perhaps I'll collect the items listed.”

Clara examined the next two pages.

NEW YORK—The Economy and Engine of the Matter

BASE MATERIALS:

Take from the most charged place of the city; where the striving meet the gods.

Soil of the harbor; cross—waters of the world.

Mix with the air of the center of the city.

Find haunts. Add item from scene.

ADDITIONAL CHARGED ITEMS:

Bone shards from Potter's fields.

Stone from Trinity churchyard.

A Wall Street dollar.

Final step: Burn elements collectively.

SALEM: An Old Wound of the Matter

BASE MATERIAL ELEMENTS:

Take from the most charged place of the city.

Soil of the harbor.

Mix with the air of the center of the city.

Find haunts, take elements from site.

ADDITIONAL CHARGED ITEMS:

Stone from the witches' graves or properties.

Piece of Literary legacy or other historical importance.

Final step: Burn elements.

How fascinating; how tied the ingredients were to the United States, to Americana. The team evoked patriotism by limiting the scope of their work to within their country's borders. Which was brilliant, in a way, as how on earth could that be useful to those who spied for England?

“Well,” Bishop mused, closing the diary, his gray-blue eyes alight with excitement. “I wonder, when's the next train to Boston?” When he was spontaneous like this, he was hard to resist—but it wasn't his powers at work, simply his natural charm. He gestured at the papers Clara held. “Let's try one. We can collect a New York sample any time, and I'm in the mood for a bit of adventure. Are you game for a day trip to Salem?”

“I…” Clara cocked her head at him. “What do you mean…”

“I want to truly understand this,” the senator replied. “The principles Dupris and Smith are outlining are clear, though they leave ingredients to instinct.

“Instinct isn't a formula, but I think I'd recognize the most charged place in a city,” he said with confidence. He pounded on the roof of the cab, slid the small window close to him open and shouted up at lackadaisical, amenable Leonard. “Lenny, Grand Central Depot if you please.”