The Eterna Files (7 page)

“What I know of you won't solve life's confusion,” she countered bitterly, “and the team will still be dead!”

“Maybe it doesn't matter to you how you found me,” Franklin murmured, tapping his walking stick nervously on the wooden deck, “but it matters to me.”

“Of course it matters how I find the important people in my life!” Clara snapped. She sighed, lowering her voice when ferry passengers in plumes, ribbons, and top hats turned toward her agitated tone. “But often telling them kills something inside me, some mystery I've kept alive.”

“You like the mystery,” Franklin argued. “I don't.”

The haunted look bloomed on her face again; Franklin hated seeing it, for it made her seem a thousand years old. She had an air of gravity far beyond her years, much like her guardian the senator; it unnerved him when displayed so plainly.

“You'll learn to enjoy mystery one day, Franklin,” Clara murmured. “Treasure it, even. When there's mystery, you might still be wrong. I've been right about too many sad things.”

“Your mysteries changed my life for the better and I yearn to know why,” he pleaded. “Out of all the people who need help in this world, why me?”

“You still feel you don't deserve it,” Clara said sadly. “Because of your brother.”

Franklin looked away and shrugged. “I doubt Ed would've wanted me to feel guilty.”

Clara looked around her with a heavy sigh. “And on a ship, no less,” she muttered, and took a deep breath. “There's a recurring dream where you're always in a storm, on a ship, dangling from a rope, and you're afraid no one can hear you screaming?”

Franklin's eyes widened. “Yes, how did you—”

“Think for a moment about the ship. Do you remember a flag?”

“Yes. White,” Franklin said excitedly. “With yellow. A crest. Yellow fleur-de-lis?”

“The standard of the King of France.” Clara stared at him and he could feel her piercing gaze even from behind tinted glass. “You were the bosun on that ship and I was your captain. I heard you against the horrid gale; I hoisted you back on deck and you were suitably grateful.”

Franklin stared at her; as always, she spoke in an unflinching way about a previous life. She hadn't shared many of them, but the ones she had, Franklin didn't dare question, though he wondered how she could recall details he was unaware of.

“I sometimes visited with Mrs. Lincoln, after Eterna was underway,” Clara continued, “and she would ask for news around the country, of those still grieving their dead, of fellow broken souls. Her soul and mind were so wounded, commiseration made her feel more whole. A servant brought in your picture, with a letter explaining how your mind had been wrecked by the loss of your brother in the war. I recognized your picture, because that recurring dream haunted me, too. When I saw your image, I knew that I had kept that dream so that I'd remember to find you in this life.”

“And again rescue me from a storm,” Franklin murmured mournfully. “This time a storm of my mind. I wish I wasn't the one who always needed saving.” The ferry docked and passengers began spreading like ink onto the shore and up into the veins of narrow, curving Manhattan streets. They followed the current. “Maybe I can save you someday.”

“Maybe that's what this life is for!” Clara said with a hollow laugh, hoisting up her skirts and jumping from the deck onto the dock, never letting feminine finery get in the way of an active spirit no matter how much the fashion of the age tried to limit her sex. He stared after her for a moment, then took a few quick strides, limping slightly on his bad leg, to catch up with her.

“If you'll let anyone,” he said as they turned onto Pearl Street.

“Beg your pardon?” Clara said, climbing the brownstone stoop of their building.

“If you'll let anyone save you. I've never met a more independent soul in all my life, Miss Templeton. It's like you don't need family, friends, a lover—” Franklin fell silent as Clara scowled at him, snatching the keys from his hand and opening the door, blowing past the first two floors where the Manhattan County Clerk kept records.

Franklin in her wake, she stormed upstairs and threw wide the double doors to her offices. She froze on the threshold. The wide, long office, which might heretofore have been mistaken for a hoarder's den or art museum vault, was
very
clean.

Tall, sturdy wooden file cabinets now stood between her beloved floor lamps of cutting-edge Tiffany studios provenance, their stained-glass domes lighting controversial Pre-Raphaelite-style paintings upon maroon-painted walls above dark mahogany paneling. Metal sorting trays sat upon the three hefty wooden desks in the room, their plain rectangularity a sharp contrast with the curves of the lily pad and peacock-feather desk lamps; more Tiffany.

“Franklin…” Clara began, with a rising pitch to her voice as if panic were barely being held at bay. “An eclectic, lived-in,
meaningful
office makes me feel safe and protected. How can I find anything with everything put away?”

“I
organized
,” Franklin assured her. “Nothing's gone, merely sorted. You know what mess does to me. I assure you everything is safe. Safer than it was when your towers of paperwork leaned perilously close to the flames of your beloved stained-glass gas lamps. The whole place could've gone up in a minute.”

“Where are my window talismans?” she said slowly, stepping into the room and gesturing to the clean, empty panes of her curving bay window where pendants, amulets, gems, crystals, dream catchers, and leaded-glass icons had all floated behind her wide leather desk chair. “I told you not to touch them. They are of extreme spiritual importance and are there because of my … condition.”

“They were collecting considerable dust,” he replied gently, as if afraid to wake a dragon. “And several of them fell, all at once. We can put them back up,” he said reassuringly.

“When?” Her voice had grown even more shrill. “When did they fall?”

“Yesterday,” Franklin answered quietly, aware of the significance of his answer.

“When the team died…” she said with a choking hitch in her voice. “Perhaps it's best, then, that this place is clean.”

Her frown deepened as she went to her desk, a great carved rosewood beast at the center of the office. Behind her was the bay window in which she often curled up to take a nap, or read, or simply stare down at Pearl Street; Franklin wondering all the while what was going on in that uncharted mind of hers.

Fishing in a small beaded reticule hanging from a ribbon at her waist, her gloved fingers plucked out a small silver key. Unlocking her center desk drawer, she withdrew a file and set it on her blotter. Her gaze, still hidden behind the small tinted frames, fell upon something further inside and Franklin had the sudden impression of an arrested engine.

Slowly, she sank into the high-backed, thronelike leather chair. A shaking hand pulled out a small, white bit of paper as her shoulders hunched forward, curving slightly over the open drawer, unable to contract more than her corset would allow. She held the folded paper, hands pressed as if in prayer, brought her steepled fingers to her lips, and bowed her head.

“Pardon me, Miss Templeton,” Franklin murmured in the strained silence, desperate to say something. “What I said before was too bold, about your life, I don't—”

“Know what's gotten into the polite, soft-spoken partner I once knew?” she retorted sharply. “I don't either. Please go find that man and return him to this office.”

“Yes, Miss Templeton. I'm sorry.”

“I don't mind being told I'm independent,” she continued vehemently. “I am. But when
man
kind thinks there's something wrong with that, I chafe.”

“There isn't anything wrong,” Franklin said, eager to diffuse her anger, but she bowled over him with a mounting fury.

“You say I act as if I don't need friends or family, are you not my friend? Is the senator not family? And just because I don't talk about a lover doesn't mean I haven't had one.” Her fingers reached up beneath her glasses—was she crying? That would be a first for Franklin to see. “Ugh.
Sentiment.
” She tossed the mysterious note back into her desk, closed and locked the drawer.

Franklin had never seen her as anything but a composed coworker; compiling literature on any reference to curing death, chatting with extraordinary—if not oft unhinged—persons, scanning communications, sending ears into the field, keeping an eye out for promising discoveries and innovators. He'd not seen anything truly affect her—not visibly. He knew she trusted very few and kept mostly to herself. For a sensitive, Franklin was surprised at how very steeled she seemed. Perhaps there were infinitely more layers to her than he could have imagined; lifetimes of lessons deepening the magnetic nature of her old soul.

“There now. Am I more human to you?” Clara asked with a bitter smile. “Surely my tears make me more a woman. Quick. Go tell all the men who have ever insulted me, they'll be so pleased.”

“Miss Templeton.” Franklin looked at the floor again. “I'd never delight in your pain.”

He chided himself for pressing her. Clara Templeton liked clever gentlemen with whom she could verbally fence, generally best, and leave staring after her. He'd watched her flirt with countless gentlemen if it suited her cause, and he'd once wondered if she was capable of anything beyond that arch distance. Perhaps that note, whatever it was, proved differently.

“Stop pouting, Franklin,” Clara said with a laugh. Her bite never lasted long, a quality that he appreciated deeply. “I know you want to play the rescuing hero to all the world. In due time, surely.” She squinted at something that suddenly caught her eye. “Franklin, are we not the only ones with keys to this floor?”

“We are,” Franklin replied, following her gaze.

“Then what, pray tell, is
that
?”

Across the room, jutting from a metal tray that was commonly used for incoming correspondence, was a yellow envelope that she was sure had not been there before.

Clara crossed the room, picked up the envelope, and carried it to Franklin's desk. Seizing the engraved letter opener from the fine desk set his mother had proudly given him upon his appointment to “government work,” Clara swiftly slit open the envelope, which was bulky at the base.

Glancing inside, in the next instant Clara gasped sharply and dropped both letter opener and envelope. She took a step back as the items clattered onto the wooden surface of the desk. Franklin could now see that the envelope held a key. A dark smear marred the metal surface.

Blood.

Franklin reached for the key.

“Franklin,” Clara cautioned. “Don't touch it.”

“I'd like to feel useful for a moment,” he declared, just before the soiled, black iron key disappeared into his fist.

He closed his eyes, feeling the metal heat up in his palm and the familiar pain flare at the back of his skull. He saw a plain, redbrick town house with brownstone details. A number: fourteen. He heard screaming. He saw plumes of odd-colored smoke from beneath the garden-level door. A man in a black suit came tearing out, holding a kerchief over his mouth, and ran away. Smoke lifted, curling as a dark substance pooled out from under the door and dribbled down onto the landing.

Franklin opened his eyes. He could see that Clara had already guessed where the key had come from. Franklin nodded. “I know where they died.”

CHAPTER

THREE

When Spire hopped into the hired hansom that arrived at the designated hour, he was startled to find Miss Everhart already seated inside.

“Don't be surprised again, Mr. Spire, please, it will grow quite tedious,” she stated. “I've a good eye for numbers, research, codes, and ciphers. I'll be useful to your team—”

“I am aware of your talents, Miss Everhart,” Spire replied cautiously. “Your Parliamentary employers took great pains to ensure you could do your work without bother. I don't think they'd take kindly to your abandoning it.”

“Who said anything about abandoning it?” she replied sharply. “We're all doing the work of the British state, Mr. Spire.”

“But not all work is meant to be shared. Especially work as dangerous as this.”

“I survived thus far.” Her tone was steel. “Why else do you think Lord Black put me on as Gazelle but to prove myself to you?”

“Have you been appointed to the Eterna team, then?” Spire asked directly. She nodded. “You'd truly want to work for the man who spied on you?”

She pursed her lips. “At least I know you'd keep track of me.”

Spire loosed a humorless chuckle.

He couldn't let the memory of Alice cloud everything, everyone—a whole gender. He'd need someone like Everhart; detail oriented, dogged, persistent, loyal, selfless. Fond of work. He hated to think they'd actually have a great deal in common; he'd set himself up to despise her for the trouble her presence at Westminster had caused.

“Today we meet Mr. and Mrs. Blakely at the British Museum,” Miss Everhart said. “They've been consulting on the Eterna project for a while now. You'll inherit some ‘staff,' as it were, but Lord Black will flesh out your full brigade and provide new researchers.”

Spire narrowed his eyes. “Whatever happened to the previous ones, then?”

Miss Everhart swallowed and looked away, clearly uncomfortable. “No one knows. They disappeared—all four researchers and their security adviser.”

“Lovely,” Spire muttered. “The queen could've mentioned that. Any leads?”

Everhart frowned. “None.” There was an uncomfortable silence. “How is Rochester Street?” she asked finally.

“Does it matter?” he replied with a shrug. “I doubt the crown would accommodate me if I complained. I'd have liked a bit of warning, though. And to have taken my piano.”