Eterna and Omega (28 page)

As Clara packed a few simple dresses, skirts and shirtwaists, workable things, disallowing even the thought of finery, as there was no pleasure in this business, their town house doorbell rang, followed by a large dragging sound and business at the door.

Stepping out onto the landing, she descended to hear Bishop and Evelyn mid-conversation and smiled broadly.

“Please tell me you've told Gareth, and Natalie, about this decision,” Bishop demanded.

“I don't ask permission of my husband but I'm not
rude
about it, Rupert. Goodness, of course I alerted him! Natalie is horrified by the trip, naturally, but she's made me swear not to let her Jonathon out of my sight and I've instructions to bring him back with me. She'll allow herself to be distracted by the new wardrobe and gifts I left in my grandbaby's nursery as a surprise.”

“Evelyn, you've a
family
now, you don't have to—”

“You
dare
to think you don't need me? Are you not family?” Evelyn scoffed.

“Clearly, I shouldn't dare think, my beloved friend,” Bishop replied, bemused exasperation and deep fondness in his tone. The two of them sensed and turned to Clara at the landing in concert.

“I knew you'd turn up,” Clara said, tapping her temple. “And thank God for it, my favorite medium!”

“I'm going to make sure your congressmen do what they are told,” Evelyn declared. “And then, I'm not leaving England until I know everyone in that horrible Society is good and dead and incapable of reanimation!”

Everyone was focused indeed.

*   *   *

Bishop was grateful that his abilities of mesmerism had first manifested in concert with his Spiritualist teachings, when the throes of boyhood had been cast off for the responsibilities of adulthood and his career was well under way. He hated to think what use he might have put mesmerism to before he'd learned the necessary qualities of temperance, patience, and justice.

For Bishop, mesmerism was the ability to bring a person or persons under his thrall and persuade them unto whatever aim he thought was best for them.

For
them.

Not for
him.

This was the most vital of distinctions.

Only in extreme circumstances had he ever used this power. Much as he wished to mesmerize the world into equality and sensible justice, that was not what he had been called to do. He knew the ability was as much a danger as a gift, and that kind of guiding of minds was rightfully the province of a divinity, not a fallible mortal.

He'd spent the entire train ride to the District of Columbia deep in meditative thought, silently gathering up power and thrall as if it were a stream behind a dam, ready to be burst open upon Capitol Hill. Clara did not once for a moment disturb him, only offered a supportive smile whenever he turned her way. She kept the deep, contemplative silence that was so comfortable between them, a quality that spoke of their old, familiar souls.

Evelyn had chosen to travel in her own compartment, similarly wishing for peace. With deep sensitivity often came a penchant for solitude. Leaving luggage at the station, the three strolled onto the grand Mall as a quiet, confident team, and within a matter of an hour, the operation was under way.

*   *   *

Bishop managed to call a special session of Congress together—to be entirely honest, he'd mesmerized the vice president into calling a special session—in the Capitol building's grand Senate Chamber. In a matter of hours, the space filled with restless men in fine black frock coats and satin top hats, toting ubiquitous cigars of the most expensive quality.

Many stared at Bishop with contempt, particularly the Democrats, unhappy at having been called away from their dalliances or respites on a matter they clearly doubted was an emergency despite the strange occurrences reported in a few city papers. Not all senators were present, as Congress was between sessions, but enough were accessible that Bishop felt he had a quorum.

At this point, whether they believed him or not didn't matter. Bishop would tell them exactly what to do, whom to trust, and they would do it, not to honor his dear, dead Mr. Lincoln, or the grand, progressive ideals of the Republican Party, not for partisan gain, but so that the devils could not win.

There was no time for any margin of error or pride.

He climbed atop his own Senate desk to see them all more easily and to ensure that his voice would reach every corner of the great room.

“Gentlemen, I have gathered you here today to address a dire threat. A complete coup, an entire overthrow of our way of life and freedoms, may be at hand. An evil organization, the Master's Society, has taken aim at this country's ideals, using supernatural means to terrorize and injure our population, targeting industry and perverting the dead. You need but look to newspaper reports in New York, Boston, and New Orleans to know I speak the truth.”

Bishop felt he owed these men an explanation, in the hope that even though they'd have only a hazy recollection of these proceedings, they could know in their hearts they were doing the right thing. This conviction would bolster the hold of his mesmerism as well.

“Our great cities will be held hostage unless we act now. Protective Wards are being created in New York, and similar compounds will need to be created across our nation's industrial centers. Look to your local Spiritualists, mediums, healers, and ask for their help Warding your cities. My New York office stands ready to advise you.

“This is not witchcraft and superstition. This is life and death, angels and devils. This is not about belief in anything but the love of mankind and the places you call home.

“We recently bled and died together as a war-torn country. Let us not have another war. If we do not fight this good fight, our entire world will be overthrown.

“England faces this same threat, and we must be allies with our former governess, uniting with her now in a mutual struggle.

“What say you, will you Ward your wards?” Bishop cried, and the air around him crackled. The fine silk of his black frock coat buffeted his frame as if there were a breeze, and the crowd leaned in, rapt, his presence and thrall holding all breath.

“Shall we submit to darkness, or shall we protect against it? Do you rise to this challenge, my Congress?”

“We do,” they chorused, not in a droning trance, but genuinely moved.

Bishop stepped down from the New York delegation desk to a smattering of applause. With careful deliberation, as if lifting the bow off of the strings of a violin at the conclusion to a beautiful serenade, he broke his hold over his fellows.

“As you were, gentlemen,” he said quietly.

Within moments, everyone began to speak as they roused from their reverie. At Bishop's direction, they would think what they were about to do was as much their idea as his. Men formed a line to shake his hand and congratulate him and ask if there was anything else that they could do for the cause.

He looked at the gallery above. Clara was staring at him, smiling broadly, her bright green-gold eyes wide and her face flushed. Bishop in part hoped she had not been caught in the same thrall as his fellow legislators, and in part he did.

Now that the lawmakers were persuaded toward protection, the remaining members of the Eterna Commission would help disseminate Wards locally and submit other city recipes from Louis and Barnard's files to their designated locales. It would take time, but all the affected cities would soon have an aid to stem the tide and then reverse it.

Soon he'd have to repeat this little trick in London, with their infamous Parliament. While he sincerely hoped the British would be as amenable to his preternatural persuasion as his congressional colleagues, something told Bishop he had a certain advantage on home soil. It was, after all, part of the magic.

Seeking courage, he glanced back up at the gallery, to Clara. She nodded. He was convinced she was sharing his thoughts.

Clara wasn't alone in the galley. A few paces off stood Andre Dupris, who carried a parcel of Wards, with the pale grayscale ghost of his brother floating between Andre and Clara. To Clara's left, Evelyn Northe-Stewart was applauding Bishop's performance.

The woman to Clara's right, to whom she was speaking knowingly, Bishop assumed must be Rose Everhart. This likely meant that the three people beside her—a small, nervous-looking man, a tall, black-eyed woman in a bright gown that seemed too flashy for day wear, and a darker-skinned woman in a head scarf whose expression reflected profound grief—were the other Omega operatives.

Though Bishop had extended the invitation to Washington, he, Clara, and Evelyn had left New York without awaiting Omega's reply, so he was most pleased to see them, warmed by this show of trust. A full team indeed, watching him perform. If the British contingent had shown up in solidarity, it meant they had faith in their former colony after all, and his confidence was thoroughly bolstered. Time for a trip to merry old England to do all of this again, hoping for the best.

*   *   *

For their journey, Bishop and Rose had between them decided on the fastest ship, not caring about fine accommodations. Space was small, spirits were cordial—and the trip offered opportunities for further intermingling and bonding.

Rose continued to relate to Clara as her missing sister, feeling that old ache of something lost finally assuaged.

“With you,” Rose said to Clara as they sipped tea on the upper deck on a crisp morning, “the life I had chosen, a lonely life of work and solitude, now feels more full; there are possibilities ahead.”

“I've chosen the very same life,” Clara replied. “We are twins indeed, in so many ways. We see the world in much the same way. Whatever sent my soul to America, it was because we were meant to become greater separately than we would have been had we been together all along. I have to believe that.”

“I agree.”

“Twins are like that,” Louis murmured, hovering near.

Rose noticed Clara glancing at a patch of air that looked as if light was caught in some sort of gauze or film. She asked, “Forgive me, Clara, but I
must
ask. Are you communing with a ghost? I see the faintest irregularity in the air just there and feel a bit of a chill.”

“Yes, Louis is here,” Clara replied, gesturing to the air beside her. “Louis, Rose Everhart, my age-old sibling, Rose, Louis Dupris, my … muse.”

Rose was glad she was matter-of-fact about ghosts and in fact treated them as if they were alive, simply with different particulars. Somehow Clara made it all seem perfectly normal, which was in itself a gift.

When Louis was not around, Clara told Rose of their relationship and alluded to a certain aching and unresolved strain between her and Bishop. Now and then Rose would say something about Spire, and Clara would look at her knowingly. Having a friend, a true kindred spirit—not just her distracted relation who was more like an empty body than a confidante—made Rose feel buoyed.

She'd deliberately turned away from what society prized about women in an effort to stake out her own territory, but here was proof that she didn't have to forsake sisterhood. Clara's example perhaps meant that she didn't have to give up entirely on the idea of male companionship either. Clara bucked convention and societal traps and still made room for caring, however much of a loss Louis had been and a complication Bishop might be. A more full life … Provided they stopped the shadows.

Rose, ever adept at listening in, enjoyed Evelyn Northe-Stewart and Miss Knight as they compared notes on clairvoyance. Knight was exceedingly keen to learn further mesmerism techniques from Bishop.

Andre and Blakely basically drank themselves complacent, with Louis hovering in rotation between his twin and Clara.

Only Adira Wilson held herself apart; she mourned in her bunk, reading holy texts and keeping a silent fast while her husband lay cold in the cargo bay in a slim airtight metal coffin provided by the embassy. Reginald had converted to Islam for her—she had sacrificed so much to be with him, he would not ask for her faith in addition. Now she would bury him in accordance with their shared beliefs, in a plot of land watched over by the small cottage in the north of England they'd bought to retire to.

Now and then Miss Knight or Rose would check on her and be sure she at least had some water.

Conversations covered any moment the company had—good, bad, normal, or paranormal—that might bear relevance to tasks ahead, thickening a web of shared experience so the shadows could not slip through. Rose hoped Mr. Spire, reigning skeptic, would deign to see this kind of shielding as vital as any physical retaining wall. If nothing else, she would try to be the one thing he could believe in.

*   *   *

Spire, with Lords Black and Denbury in tow, met Eterna and Omega at King's Cross, where the whole motley lot was assembled after having docked at Southampton and taken the train into the corporation of London.

The teams stepped onto the main platform at the loud, luminous steam-filled hub, the morning oddly bright as rare sun cut distinct shafts through glass panes into the grand, smoky station. Spire was glad Miss Everhart's eye was on him like a hawk the moment her boot made contact with stone and floorboard. They nodded at one another, and Spire's ongoing irritation at being wedged impossibly between fact and phantasm eased at the sight of his compatriot.

Introductions were made, with tipped hats, and gloves meeting gloves in firm or delicate shakes of hand. Once the obligatory pleasantries passed—only Lord Denbury lingered at Mrs. Northe-Stewart's side to inquire eagerly after his wife and child—Spire separated everyone into designated groups with immediate goals.

Spire's intent was to get as many people on task as efficiently as possible. For his part, he wanted nothing to do with the Wards, though he was admittedly curious about Senator Bishop's mesmerism. Spire was as dubious about mesmerism as a particular
power
as he was about Warding, but he felt that an enigmatic, persuasive personality could indeed have an effect on an audience and was worth some consideration.