Читать книгу A Summoning of Souls - Leanna Renee Hieber - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Fort Denbury wasn’t terribly far south or west, two adjoining brick townhouses along Waverly Place, just off Washington Square Park. The nickname for the properties had come fondly from Maggie, and she, along with the other Ghost Precinct regulars, kept to Eve’s somber-looking side out of respect for Eve’s parents who lived in the one next door. Lady Denbury held a notable dislike of ghostly intrusion, a seemingly incurable tension between her and Eve.

Eve glanced up Waverly toward the edges of trees nearly leafless as autumn drew cooler. Her eye caught a few luminous forms floating a stroll along the stones, losing sight of vague outlines against the white of the Washington Square Arch.

“I’m trying to see if I can see the ghosts that catch your eye,” the detective said, as if by being around her he might pick up on more of her talents. He’d started their acquaintance an unapologetic skeptic, but he’d grown more aware and able since they’d been working together and he seemed to be warming to the ghosts’ chills.

“I can’t help it here; I always try to see any that pass along the park, even if only an echo. I want them to feel seen and known. The bones below the park are so numerous and so forgotten in this now prized neighborhood, thousands piled together from the epidemics of the last century. They lie there all unnamed. No plaque, no memorial. The more recent dead of the city fear they’ll be similarly neglected.”

“It is good of you to honor the forgotten, Eve, in a way no one else I know can,” Jacob said as they climbed her stoop, facing the black crepe mourning wreath she maintained on the outside of her door.

“The occasional spirit that floats across the bricks and paths are the only monument to that pit of bones,” Eve explained, turning back to the edge of the park visible from her doorstep, “whispering to anyone who cares to listen that this is a place where hordes rest. I try always to hear the voiceless, in everything I champion.” She shook her head, frustration rising in a wave of heat. “I don’t want to lose track of that battling Prenze. I hate that this living man who was supposed to be dead is taking so much time away from the actual dead that need me to help them help the city. It’s maddening.”

“It is, and we’ll stop him.”

For all the ways that her Sensitivities made her feel volatile, the detective was a welcome force of balance and determination. She turned the key in an ornate silver scrollwork lock.

As Eve entered, she heard commotion in her parlor, the clinking of glass. Stepping forward into the center of the entrance hall, she looked through the open pocket doors to see Gran, backlit by a fire in the parlor’s brick fireplace. She sat at the large circular parlor table that hosted séances when the girls chose to work from home rather than their offices.

Turning to the window at the sound of clinking glass, Eve was surprised to see Clara Bishop, already there and at work with curious glass vials in her hands. The distinct features of the birdlike woman seemed more pronounced by the gaslight sconces casting her dark blond hair in a halo. A flowing silver evening dress brought out the silver streaks in the braids coiled atop her head, especially the one that hung low to hide her scar.

Clara clinked one of the vials with her fingernail, and the material inside, soil or something of the sort, settled. Gran had spoken of wards before. This must be how the Bishops had crafted them.

“Hello Eve and companion,” Clara said. “I’m protecting thresholds. Come in.”

Gesturing beside her, Eve brushed her hand across Jacob’s sleeve as she introduced him. “This is Detective Horowitz, Mrs. Bishop. He has been a part of all my recent cases and has also been threatened by Albert Prenze. He is a vital asset to my team, and I want him to learn any strategy of advantage and protection.”

The detective bobbed his head. “Mrs. Bishop, a pleasure.”

“Ah, yes, Detective.” Clara cocked her head to the side like a songbird, listening. “Evelyn has said wonderful things about you, and your presence complements the young Eve stunningly. And that’s not an easy feat seeing as she’s so distinct a tone, she’s loud, like me, but...” She gestured around her good ear, as if she were hearing something, and smiled. “You’re harmonious.”

Before Eve or Jacob could react to any of this, or before Eve could explain to Jacob that Clara heard energies like music, the force of nature continued. “Forgive my barging in and working ahead of you.” Mrs. Bishop turned toward the furthest of the two front windows, where she sat down one of the vials against the window in the corner of the sill. “But there’s no time to waste. A character like Prenze will stop at nothing, and I sense that he feels he is above capture or prosecution. Power drunk, wealth has afforded him being above the law, and this is vastly heightened by his discovery of his own psychic powers.”

There was another clinking sound from down the hall, and as Eve turned her head toward the open downstairs door, Clara explained the noise. “That would be Rupert downstairs with your colleagues, who are showing him any place that they feel could be vulnerable to intrusion, psychic or otherwise. And thank you for keeping your ghosts at a distance. I don’t mean to be inhospitable to them, but you know my condition....”

“Oh, of course, they understand!” Eve said, winking up the stairs when she saw Zofia poke a spectral head out from the top landing, the child eavesdropping from a safe distance.

Their absence was particularly evident to Eve as the room was far warmer than usual, the roaring fire notwithstanding. At any given time, at least three of their regular haunts were generally present, up to five if their resident spirit tethered to music felt like playing piano. Sometimes they’d attract seven full manifestations, not to mention those spirits that were simply and quite literally passing through.

Gran must have urged them out ahead of the Bishops’ arrival. Not that Clara wasn’t a gifted Sensitive, but due to her neurology, too many ghosts gave her seizures. Eve recalled her saying that there was “always a cost to these powers.”

A visceral hope that there would be a cost to Prenze’s powers hit Eve in a fervent prayer. As she’d indicated to the detective, her anger seethed. That a whole houseful of good, talented people cultivated protections when other worthy cases in the city needed their ear and attention was an egregious injustice. But that was the way of the greedy and selfish. Eve wished that immorally taking the talents and energies of others for personal gain was considered as criminal as theft of money or property.

“You’ll want to reinforce the wards with your own beliefs and traditions,” Clara added, clicking a fingernail against one of the vials. “Some find salt helpful, but…” She gestured outside. “From your descriptions, this is an astral projection of one unwanted, living man rather than what we would consider a demonic force. So”—she gestured to the vials then to Eve—“add to these vials any ingredient that you find resonant and synonymous with safety and fortification. I’ve lent some of my energy; you must bolster it and seal it with yours.”