Читать книгу The Spectral City - Leanna Renee Hieber - Страница 8

Chapter One

Manhattan, 1899

Only the ghosts surrounding Eve Whitby could cool her blushing cheeks as the inimitable Theodore Roosevelt, Governor of New York, stood to toast her before a host of lieutenants, detectives and patrolmen, all of whom found her highly dubious.

Many of these same New York Police Department officers found Roosevelt just as problematic. He wasn’t Police Commissioner anymore—he’d used the notoriety from having cleaned up corruption within police departments and ridden it straight to the governorship, but as some detractors noted, the man couldn’t leave well enough alone. So here he was meddling again with the police, and Eve was at the center of it.

While Eve tried to appear confident in most situations, being at the center of a crowd made her nerve-wracked and flushed. She was surer of her mission than she was of herself. When one followed a calling, passion was often a driving force greater than self-assuredness.

Whole departments turning to her and lifting glasses made her stomach lurch and waver like the transparent, hovering ghosts glowing about the room who made her work possible. She looked down at the hem of her black dress—simple light wool attire of clean lines and polished buttons she’d designed to look like a police matron’s uniform, but in the colors of mourning. When she took on this department, she donned mourning. Not out of sorrow, but in celebration of her co-workers, the dead.

I am a woman of particular purpose . . . she thought, an internal rallying cry. Any moment Roosevelt was going to make an announcement about The Ghost Precinct, the project she’d put everything in her young life on hold to spearhead.

Taking a breath, she steadied her feet, shifting the heel of her black boots on the smooth wooden floor. She glanced in a mirror and tucked an errant thick black lock of hair back into her bun, trying to shift her pallid, nearly sickly-looking expression to something that appeared more commanding lest her wide green eyes give away her concerns.

The manner in which the three ghosts at the edges of the room were bobbing insistently in the air meant something. They had something to say and were her most vocal operatives. Vera, Olga, and little Zofia, who was actually wringing her hands. Eve had asked that her operative spirits not come tonight, for fear of distraction, but they had come regardless. She ignored them, though their behavior made her nervous. Something was wrong. But she couldn’t ask what. Not now. Not in the spotlight in front of a crowd who didn’t trust her.

Roosevelt, dressed in a white suit with a striped waistcoat, his iconic moustache moving with his expressive face as if it were punctuating his dialogue, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, lifted a glass, and bid his fellows do the same.

“I give you Miss Evelyn H. Whitby, daughter of Lord and Lady Denbury, and I bid you toast the inception of her Ghost Precinct. Now, because we live in an age of skeptics and charlatans in equal measure, we’re not going public about this Precinct beyond our department heads here. We don’t need undue fuss, we don’t need hysterics. What we know conclusively is that this young woman’s talents aided in solving two brutal murders to date. As we near a new century, no one knows what new crimes will come with it, but one thing we can count on is that there will always be the dead, with a perspective none of us have. It’s foolish to leave such a resource untapped, especially as this city grows by the thousands every month.

“We await many more resolutions and have directed her to cases that have gone cold. Perhaps, dare I say, she and her colleagues may even garner a few premonitions to stop a crime before it’s even begun! To the young lady and her ghosts! Whether you’re a believer or not, she has assured me there’s nothing to be afraid of!”

There was a polite if less than enthusiastic clap of hands.

Nothing to be afraid of . . . she repeated to herself. That’s exactly your purpose on this earth, to make ghosts a less frightful reality for those who do believe. For those who can see, for those who want to know. You are the voice of the departed, you are their champion. Be proud. Show these people how proud you are to be the advocate for the dead.

Eve nodded to the politician, squared her shoulders, lifted her flute, and allowed herself to enjoy the distinct, sweet bite of a good champagne, feeling the chill of the dead on the air. If her spirits could not calm her nerves with their presence, at least their drastic temperature wafting towards her warm cheeks made her appear more poised and stoic than nervous in the spotlight.

While she was fairly certain she was the only one present who could fully see and interact with her spirit department, she didn’t rule out that some members of the force might be aware that they were being watched from beyond the veil. While the ghosts had disobeyed Eve’s orders to stay entirely away tonight, at least they were keeping their distance from the attendees, as some of her friends and family were too affected when more than one was in the room. When she had agreed to be noted in tonight’s reception, she’d done everything in her power to avoid a scene.

The intense, inimitable Mister Roosevelt had never tried to convince the New York Metropolitan Police Force that creating a ‘Ghost Precinct’ was a good idea; he had simply done it. He made it Eve’s purview and ensured, thanks to powerful allies, that she had access to departmental services, support, and resources. He had also kept the press out of it lest the Precinct become, as he’d said, “an unnecessary rodeo. I don’t want to field calls for you to contact departed loved ones unless they can solve crimes.” Roosevelt wasn’t a man who much cared what other people thought when he was committed to a cause, and that quality was maybe the only thing she had in common with the bombastic legislator.

When Roosevelt had told her family he wanted to honor Eve and the Precinct, her grandmother Evelyn, whom she was named for, had taken control of the arrangements to ensure the reception was held in the grand downstairs foyer of The Players Club, Edwin Booth’s beautiful brownstone complex in Gramercy Park, established in hopes of making the theatre more respectable—a much harder sell after his brother had killed President Lincoln.

While most of the city’s grandest clubs were for men only, as was the Players Club’s regular membership, Eve fought additional stigma regarding Spiritualists, mediums, psychics and the lot—a hierarchy of respectability that kept a celebration like this relegated only to theatrical spaces. Whether they were believed or exposed as frauds, people passionately loved or hated a woman who spoke with the dead. There was hardly a middle ground. She could not be entirely lauded, and would always be considered suspect. Eve had heard one detractor say that people like her were for ‘parlor tricks, not politics’. The man had been a New York congressional representative and had stood in the way of her department when it was first being finalized with the police commissioner. Roosevelt had ignored him and had bid Eve do the same. She was hardly as positioned or as powerful as the Governor, but she tried to follow his lead.

Her parents, Lord and Lady Denbury, were sitting off to the side of the richly-appointed foyer. Poised on cushioned benches against the wood-paneled wall, they watched uncomfortably, in elegant but subdued evening dress, matching the tone of mourning dress Eve had taken on out of the kind of respect and engagement she hoped would ensure spirits’ ongoing help. The mourning, she felt, was not only a uniform for this work, it was a mission.

To either side were her grandparents, Evelyn looking on in beaming pride in a stunning black gown direct from France, taking the mourning cue from her granddaughter. Her grandfather Gareth looked pleasantly baffled in a plain black suit, choosing to cope with a strange world by way of detached bemusement. This attitude had served him well thus far and kept relations with his clairvoyant wife at their most pleasant.

Eve’s parents had come to know the paranormal by violent force. By murder and horror. Her father was a titled English Lord who had been targeted by a demonic society, her mother was a middle class New Yorker. She and Gran had been the only ones who had helped him and it was incredible they had survived at all, having both been targeted by abject evil. They’d survived thanks to cleverness, good friends and Gran’s help. They’d fallen in love, married and remained in New York, hoping to have a normal life with their newborn Eve, praying none of what they went through would be passed on to her. They would never fully accept a life lived with ghosts at the fore and Eve could not expect them to.

The gifts Eve manifested placed a distinct strain on the family. Not wishing to bring such loving parents any inconvenience, let alone pain, she had tried to block out her gifts, once.

That effort had nearly killed her at age nine. When she’d tried to stop hearing the dead, migraines had seared her head for weeks, and she couldn’t eat or sleep. Only when she opened back up to hear the murmurs of the spirit world could she breathe again, her fever breaking and life returning to her paranormal normal.

The reality of this precinct meant she could never go back on her talents. The dead would never let her. Her parents knew it, as she could tell by their haunted gazes. A new chapter had begun.

Roosevelt was staring at her. So were her ghosts, expectantly. So were all the men.

“Would you like to say a few words, Miss Whitby?” Roosevelt prompted.

“Ah.” She wouldn’t have liked to, really, as nerves always got the better of her if she was put on the spot in such a manner, but it was necessary.

Taking a deep breath, she thought about what was best to say. The absence of trust in the room felt like an impossible gulf to cross. She wanted to thank her mediums but that seemed odd after not having invited them. She didn’t want the patrolmen, detectives and lieutenants to look at a group of four young women of vastly different backgrounds and judge them all as a threat. She wanted that pressure to land solely upon herself, and keep her Sensitives sensitive, not defensive.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that this department was her mission, it was not about her. It was about respect for the great work of mediums and all the good the dead could do for the living. Just like Edwin Booth had sought to lift up the profession of theatre by this grand space. This freed her to speak with a calm, crisp tone.

“In this day and age of charlatans and magicians in the guise of Spiritualism,” she said. “I blame no one for their skepticism. In fact, I encourage it. Skepticism offers investigative integrity. A questioning mind solves a case. My specific and unprecedented Precinct hopes to earn continued trust by the thing we can all always agree on: solving crime and easing suffering.”

She could see the unsure faces before her, some bemused, some seeming openly hostile. Every woman entering a predominantly male field had encountered these same faces, even without her subject matter being additional fodder for derision. Her nerves crested but she kept talking. She believed, above all, in her mission, and no critic would change that.

“However unorthodox the means,” she continued, raising her voice and commanding more of the room, “however unprecedented the methods, our aims are mutual and always will be. Ghosts are far too often misunderstood, and I hope that by working with them in proven, positive ways, our work can begin to change the perception of hauntings. Spirits can walk where we cannot, hear what fails our mortal senses, and keep the most vigilant of watches when we must take our rest. I hope you will see them as a help, not a horror.” She finished not with a request but a demand: “Thank you for your support.”

“Hear, hear!” said Ambassador Bishop, a tall, striking, silver-haired man across the room. Impeccably dressed in a black silk tailcoat and charcoal brocade waistcoat, the diplomat to England and lifelong friend of the family lifted his champagne glass for a second toast. It was Bishop who had gotten Roosevelt involved in the first place, since his present ambassadorship did not carry the same legislative control as when he had been a New York senator. In those days he’d have seen to such a department himself.

Bishop’s wife, Clara, a sharp-featured woman many years his junior, with dark golden hair that matched the gold core of her piercing eyes, stood at his elbow in a graceful plum gown. Clara stared at Eve with a fierce pride that held none of her family’s hesitance. Eve owed more to Clara than either of them would admit to anyone but each other. Clara nodded at Eve as if she knew she was passing off work she could no longer do herself.

“Hear indeed, Ambassador!” Roosevelt exclaimed, grinning at the Bishops. “Now enjoy refreshments and the fine company! I’ll be here if any of you men need me and Miss Whitby has been gracious enough to agree to answer some questions from the department present, provided they are posited with all due respect. Respect, and transparency. I didn’t clean this filthy force up for nothing. Well, I reckon the Ghost Precinct will be our most transparent department yet! Ha!” Roosevelt slapped a hand on a serving table and enjoyed his pun amidst a few groans.

When asked Eve’s opinion on Mister Roosevelt, she had once replied that he was a man who wanted to preserve wilderness so he could shoot things within it. That summed him up, she concluded. She found many of his ideas sensible but was often baffled by his road getting there. But no one could deny he was a compelling, larger-than-life character who never failed to surprise.

Gratitude was her most abundant sentiment, if she were asked how she felt in this moment. Thanks to Bishop and Roosevelt’s machinations, she’d been given steady employment, without which, like all the many strong working women around her, she’d go mad. The moment she’d signed paperwork on the precinct, the constant, dull ache that rested at the base of her neck even if she wasn’t having a migraine had eased. It was as if the whole of the spirit world that clutched at her from behind had released their talons ever so slightly. It was a world that wanted to be seen and acknowledged, and that’s why it sought to communicate in such a wide array of methods. Now it was seen in a whole new light and given responsibilities.

At nineteen years old, when most young women of any kind of title and society were very busy with their ‘seasons’ and hoping for a well-placed marriage, Eve found she had no interest in following the path of her supposed peers in the city. Of course there was the occasional ball she attended due to the pressures of her father’s Lordship, her gran’s high-society dealings, her grandfather’s Metropolitan Museum soirees, the Bishops’ esteemed gatherings. But theirs were generally philanthropic functions that had great purpose, not dances meant to pair up eligible bachelors with debutantes. The former suited her, the latter bored her.

Her circle attracted a constant parade of ghosts whose chill presence ruined the warmth of a good party. Here at the Players, the fireplaces were roaring as the new electric fixtures were buzzing in a juxtaposition of ancient and modern light and heat, making the room so warm that the ghostly retinue on the margins caused a much-needed draft. But she couldn’t keep ignoring them. If she did, they might start throwing things, and now was hardly the best time for a poltergeist.

Roosevelt held up his hand, hailing Eve as if he wished to speak with her, but men in tail-coats blocked his path as he took a step forward. As legislators were forever called upon for favors, the veritable inferno of energy that was Roosevelt was immediately beset by an entourage. Eve took this as a chance to slip away, into another room where the ghosts and she could speak freely.

Glancing around, she moved towards an opening in the crowd, preparing to make her way to whatever empty, dark space she could find in the grand place. But a young detective stepped into her path and she paused with a smile she hoped did not appear strained.

She recognized the dark-haired, clean-shaven, sharp-featured man with rich brown eyes ringed in blue; a distinct gaze that pierced her right to the core. During a recent case, Eve’s ghosts had bid her examine a crime scene herself, as they were having trouble describing it. While she had not been welcome at the site, and it was assumed she would both be in the way and taint the evidence, this man had quelled the protesting officers on duty. He had found a place for her to stand within view of the exsanguinated body and take notes. It had been grim but her composure was a test that she’d passed.

“Detective Horowitz, it is good to see you again and I hope you’re well. This is a more pleasant scene than when I last saw you.”

“Ah, yes.” He grimaced. “That ugly bloodletting.”

“Have you figured that one out?”

“How a body could be that drained?” he asked. He shook his head with a humorless laugh. “There were suction marks near the puncture wounds—something drew it out of him.”

“How odd. I believe in ghosts, but not vampires, detective.”

“Well that’s reassuring at least.” His face transformed from angular to warm for a moment before cooling again.

“Thank you for honoring me this evening,” Eve said, bobbing her head.

“I do have a question for you, if you don’t mind.”

“Go on,” she said, glancing at Zofia, a ten-year-old in a simple pinafore, bobbing in the air impatiently, gesturing for her to hurry up with this chat.

“I try, whenever I can, to work in new technologies. Fingerprinting, psychological profiles from alienists, taking exquisite stock of a scene so that not even a hair of evidence is tampered with. In regards to your department . . . Say one were to believe in poltergeists. To be clear, I don’t believe, but if I did, wouldn’t a host of spirits be liable to disrupt and thus corrupt a crime scene by moving objects? Couldn’t any of the various ways the spirit world has been said to commune with mortals potentially foul a scene?”

She stared at him. It was a valid point.

“My spirits aren’t ones for moving things,” she began. “They aren’t the poltergeist sort, at least not that I’ve been aware, but it is a cogent point to bring up to them; to be aware of the ways their presences might affect a given environment. To be fair, my ghosts wouldn’t leave any additional fingerprints,” she offered. The young man twisted his lips as if he wanted to smile but was too focused to allow the indulgence.

“What I have tried, with my contacts, is to cultivate details beyond a crime scene,” Eve explained. “My ghosts and mediums pick up on expansive aspects, specifics of place, people, setting, weather, clothes, and they’re drawn to things the living might find mundane. And they do so in a non-linear manner, so I have to constantly sift for relevance. That’s what was so maddening to me at first, why ghosts kept coming and telling me far too many details about seemingly meaningless things. Until I finally saw a pattern in the noise. These patterns led to the arrests and cases solved that Mister Roosevelt so kindly referenced.”

“While I am glad of the eventual outcome, how can you be sure all the facts presented to you were real and not just luck?” Horowitz pressed.

Suddenly Roosevelt was behind him like some bold, pouncing apparition. “Because she has spies!” the man cried, waggling his great moustache. “Her ladies, both living and dead, are everywhere and in everything,” he added delightedly. “And if any man here underestimates a woman’s craftiness, or her ability to pick up a litany of detail so intense as to leave you breathlessly disarmed from argument, well then you’ve never had a single one of them cross with you!”

This broke a distinct layer of ice. The entourage of fine suits swarmed the Governor again and Eve edged away, Horowitz following a pace behind.

“When he’s right, he’s right,” Eve said, turning to the detective with a smile. Just as Eve felt that the man was beginning to warm to her, the temperature around her went ice cold. A plummeting of twenty-some degrees wasn’t just a draft; it meant only one thing. A ghost wasn’t just nearby, but directly behind her, toying with a lock of her hair, threatening to lift it up into thin air. She was familiar with the trick to get her attention. Eve smoothed the lock back down again and gave a sideways glare to the spirit.

“I look forward to your further questions, Detective. But if you’ll excuse me for the moment . . .” she turned away, crossed around the corner of the next threshold and stared into the eyes of the chill directly.

Her best scout, young Zofia, floated before her in full greyscale, dark hair back in a haphazard bun, in a plain work dress blackened just slightly at the hem; the only reminder of her premature death in a garment district fire. Because the ghosts who communed with Eve were full-consciousness spirits, her burned body wasn’t what became a shade; this was her silvery soul. The agony of death was long shed—souls were a glowing whole while the body’s raw materials returned to dust. Spiritualism’s greatest and most comforting gift was this reassurance.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Eve, I really am, but you have to know . . .” she said in a thick Polish accent, her ghostly voice never heard above a whisper, no matter how emphatic. “I know you told us to hang back, to not to talk to you, but . . .”

Eve turned her head away from the crowd, moving into the shadows of the hall beyond so that she couldn’t be seen talking to thin air.

“But?” she murmured through clenched teeth.

“Margaret is gone,” the spirit replied.

Eve blinked at the spirit. The spirit wavered in the air, blinking back.

“Gone?” Eve prompted, not entirely sure what Zofia meant. The spirit world was full of comings and goings.

“Gone, gone,” Zofia insisted. “None of us ghosts have any sense of her. Her candle is out. We’ve tried everything. There is no waking her. There is no summoning her. This world, or the next, we cannot find her. Our Maggie. She’s gone.”

Eve reeled. What could be worse timing? Just as she was on the cusp of being taken seriously, her best asset was dead. Again.