The Eterna Files (33 page)

“So what to do now that the trail of the rest of the research has gone cold? Do we try to summon Mr. Dupris again, if that's even possible? Another of the scientists?”

Clara shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“I'm sorry,” Franklin murmured. “That wasn't very thoughtful of me.”

“It's fine,” she said coolly. “Go on.”

“I'm going back to the Goldberg house,” Franklin said, and got to his feet.

“To do what?”

“I assume our abductors went snooping, considering they wanted to know where it was.” He flexed his hand, the hand that could see into the past in a way that still made Clara marvel at its magic. “I'm going to see what I can see.”

“Indeed, that's very sensible. While you're there, will you look to see if there are other carvings I missed on the first floor? Perhaps anything on the walls?”

“Aren't you coming with me?” Franklin held out an arm. “You dare not go in, but you ought to be nearby. We'll catch hell from the senator if we split up.”

Clara thought for a moment, then rose. She'd see Franklin to the site. As Lavinia did not live far, she'd tell him she was going to visit. Instead she'd go to Columbia. Moving to a cabinet by the office door, she procured a small carpet bag.

“Going on a trip?” Franklin asked warily.

“In case you find something interesting to take away,” she replied.

As they rode a jostling trolley uptown, Clara's instinct to withdraw and say nothing was powerful, and thankfully the car was too crowded for them to talk openly about anything.

Always cautious of her condition, Franklin accepted her declaration that she would go no closer to the house than the corner of West Tenth and Fifth Avenue. She warned him of the carvings and eerie omens within.

“The senator will flay me if he knows I let you go—”

“I'm not a child, Franklin,” Clara snapped. “I appreciate everyone's care, but I'll visit Lavinia and then go straight home. Tell me tomorrow what you find.”

He acquiesced and parted from her, not even noticing that she retained the bag she had brought ostensibly for his use.

*   *   *

Professor McBride was not in his offices in Columbia. The few students or staff who passed Clara gave her disdainful looks, despite the fact she was dressed in fine layers of lace-trimmed muslin, with pearl buttons down her bodice and sleeves, an artful feathered straw hat, and lace gloves. All markers of her place in society and certainly nothing threatening. Just—and it pained her to think this—out of place.

The light flow of traffic was also to her advantage when she stood before Smith's office, trying the door. It was no surprise that it was locked. Clara withdrew two of her hairpins and set to work.

She'd practiced lock-picking on all the doors of Bishop's house when he wasn't around to notice, having decided that in her line of work it would be a very handy skill. It had indeed been one of the most helpful things she'd ever learned. As she shut Smith's door behind her, she felt the cool draft and knew that she was not alone. Far off, she felt the first hint of a headache, but felt she would be safe for some time yet.

One of the glass beakers in the small fireplace was alight, smoke curling in small wisps up the shaft. Clara was quite sure no one had dared enter this office.

“What's this, Mr. Smith? A hint? Please remember I'm here to help and I am on your side, and I honor your life, your loss, your legacy,” she murmured quietly. The cold draft that had been directly upon her seemed to dissipate. If that was Professor Smith, he was giving her a wide berth.

She went to the mantel and bent, one hand keeping the skirts of her favorite cornflower blue dress well clear. With the other, Clara picked up the iron tongs from the set of fireplace tools. Collaring the smoking beaker, she moved it and its low-burning contents, which appeared some kind of soil or coal mixture, onto the marble-topped mantel. She took care to position it where it could not fall onto her head or her skirts.

Trading the tongs for the poker, she stuck the implement up the chimney and traced its tip along each side of the square shaft until the pointed tip jostled against something metal. Removing the white gloves she had no wish to ruin, she reached up and found a rectangular tin.

She pulled on it gently but it did not move. Clara shifted position to look up into the shaft. The object seemed to be hanging from a nail. Lifting the box disengaged the hook that had secured it to the nail and she was able to retrieve the sooty box and set it on Smith's desk.

Wiping the box down with a handkerchief plucked from her sleeve, she shook it and heard papers shifting. That was enough. Clara deposited the box in her small carpetbag, wiped her hand, and replaced her glove.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” she murmured to the room. “If you can hear me and you see my Louis, tell him … that I miss him,” she said, swallowing hard.

Grasping the bag's wooden handles, she listened for footfalls at the door. When there was utter silence, Clara set Smith's door to latch lock behind her and slipped out again as unannounced as she'd arrived. Her hint of a headache receded as soon as she left the room.

In the hackney home, Clara rubbed her temples, the starched lace of her cuffs scratching irritatingly at her cheek, wanting to think but feeling like she was standing in a sinking quagmire.

She wanted to sit with papers and dream, like Louis. Darling, truly dead Louis; still dreaming and inventing, even as a spirit. Perhaps he was dreaming more purely than ever, being pure energy, devoid of a body.…

Clara felt on the edge of some breakthrough; she felt something tingling at the corners of her brain, something she had missed. She did not want the Eterna project to go forward but she did want to understand what drove Louis, what drove all of them to unveil the secrets they discovered. She wasn't interested in the science or medicine of it—it was the spirit of the work that captivated her.

Stepping back onto Pearl Street, she took a deep breath; the evening had begun to settle though the city never truly did.

Lamplighters did their work on some streets while electric lamps flicked to life on other blocks. Clara thought for a moment about the mix of the old ways and those that would likely soon become commonplace. New York was forever a city in transition, always striving, moving forward, trying to save time, save hours, save life.… She felt that she was poised in a similar place, trapped between old and new, surrounded by her many past lives but seeking yet another future. Clara shook herself out of her reverie.

Something caught her eye. Someone.

A young man—he couldn't have been older than sixteen—stood across the street, wearing a modest brown suit and trousers. He was standing directly under an electric street lamp. Cocking his head slightly to the side and taking a wide stance, he stared at her hungrily. Improperly. She narrowed her eyes and fixed a stern expression on her face, descending the small stoop to the sidewalk.

As she turned toward home, she saw the lamp gutter above the young man. In the flickering light, she seemed to glimpse human silhouettes floating around him … dark, opaque silhouettes, like those that encouraged her to find the files.

The light blew entirely, with a pop that made her jump. Clara hastily turned away, lest she be thought rude, staring at the boy. She also turned away because something about the young man's face and those black, smoky shapes terrified her.

Everything that caught her eye of late seemed haunted. So, thusly, she was haunted.

Something clicked into place within her mind.

She thought about the single defining characteristic of the papers listing three city's respective magics. Each had their own regional components, items to create a sense of boundaries for the compound, that it be tied to this country's soil and governance. But then there was one recurring theme. One word, even.

Charge.

That was it; the idea nagging at the corners of her mind.

Bishop thought that meant something spiritual and Clara knew he was at least partly right. But
charge
had many meanings and connotations.

They were not far from Thomas Edison's Pearl Street dynamos, wonders of the modern world. She suddenly felt called toward their electrical whirr … their
charge
. And called toward someone who created in her a spark.

She opened the door to the home she and Bishop shared together, intent on asking him whether electricity could also be a factor in overarching Eterna theory, preferably over a nice, long, lovely dinner.

Behind her, all the lights on Pearl Street went out.

That's the trouble with electricity, Clara thought. Can't be relied upon.

Nor could her emotions, flickering like an unstable bulb. It was clear almost immediately that the senator wasn't home. She went upstairs to her room. Moments later she slipped a note under the door of Bishop's study so he would know she was home safe, then locked herself in and penned notes in her diary, making lists, fleshing out a plan that she hoped would help set everything to rest.…

Eterna was full of the restless living and the restless dead. It needed to die once and for all. If England wanted to pursue a literal dead end, then let them be the ones damned for it.

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Spire watched Everhart as she stared out the window of the Millbank offices onto the teeming, jostling narrow waterway of the Thames, the next duty upon them. He wondered if she felt nervous.

He felt frustrated. Grange and the Metropolitan had managed to keep several people in custody and alive; trials would be held regarding the Tourney business within the month. But Tourney himself was dead, and most of those still alive knew very little. Spire practically burned with desire to question them, to determine if they knew more than they'd revealed, but that was impossible, and not only because he was no longer on the force.

The Omega team had been busy: communicating with Brinkman in a flurry of wires, preparing the route for today's exchange of material, vetting the remainder of the new scientists, and making sure the facility was ready for them and secure.

*   *   *

“Are you a believer, Miss Everhart?” he asked, moving to stand with her by the window. “In the supernatural?” he clarified.

“Does my answer really matter to you?” she asked. “Would it change anything?”

Spire stared at her. “No. No, I suppose it wouldn't.”

“I'm not,” she replied. “Not really. But, I should say that if certain elements of this work prove themselves, I will believe them when they do. I hope you will respect that.”

There was no possible response he could make to that declaration, Spire realized.

The clock struck. It was time for them to take their places.

“Are you ready?” Spire asked. She nodded.

Spire had to assume the rest of his team was in place. Unease gnawed at him, as if he could've created a better plan if he'd thought a little longer. Too late now. But was putting Everhart right into the thick of things the best call? Lord Black had rejected Spire's request to delay in order to prepare more thoroughly, insisting that Brinkman's material be sent on the first mail packet possible.

Thankfully he'd have Grange and Phyfe on hand—he'd been allowed to use a few trusted Metropolitan contacts. This comfort countered his unusual sense of dread.

Miss Everhart cleared her throat, the sound stirring him, and he looked up to find she was at the door. “Are you coming?”

Spire joined her at the threshold, glad she did not seem to have the doubts he did, chiding himself for worrying about her ability to accept a bloody suitcase.

*   *   *

Rose didn't think she had any reason to be nervous, yet she was. She shifted in her boots, feeling the gentle sway of her thick layered skirts, then realized she should stand still, lest nervous movement be a tell. At the turn of the quarter hour, a large black carriage drawn by horses accessorized with green and silver feathered plumes barreled across Longacre as if the dogs of hell were nipping at its heels. Though the carriage and its haste were as expected, the vehicle's speed was so at odds with the generally lazy pedestrians that Rose thought some passerby would surely take notice.

She detached her arm from Spire's and walked toward the vehicle, which slowed as she approached. The driver tipped his hat—again according to plan, the same plan that had dictated her outfit: a fine green dress and a black crepe hat, which driver and passenger would look for.

The carriage's window curtain was drawn, but Rose glimpsed the shadow of a single figure within. She drew near. The window opened and the person inside—still unseen save for black gloves—offered Rose a small, black, leather-bound, rectangular case.

As Rose reached for the case, something flew at her from the alley directly behind the meeting place. Something slammed into her. She felt a shock wave of pain; a fistful of dread pummeled her gut and everything faded to black.

Spire watched Everhart approach the carriage, which had appeared precisely on time. While he did not relax, he was reassured that all was going according to plan.

Time seemed to slow as a figure appeared as if from nowhere and knocked Miss Everhart to the ground. Two of his armed agents rushed forward, one attempting to untangle the two tumbling figures, the other at the carriage, battling for the case.

In the instant, Spire understood why the Wilsons had requested a high vantage point. Two lithe, masked persons in tight breeches and form-fitting frock coats rappeled down from an upper balcony, landing effortlessly on the roof of the carriage. Spire assumed it was Mr. Wilson who nimbly tossed himself beside the driver, who looked to be preparing to jump from the vehicle, and held him in place.

The smaller one, likely Mrs. Wilson, went after a black shape that had flung itself from the opposite side of the carriage cab and was running down an alley.