The Eterna Files (23 page)

Red hair poked out in unruly wisps from beneath the dancer's crepe hat. Louis had said Clara was a blonde so Andre felt it safe to proceed, knocking upon the glass. The woman froze, then stared at the door, piercing green eyes boring into him even through the glass.

When she opened the door, she did so only to the width permitted by the chain locks he saw gleaming in the gap between door and frame.

“And you are?” the woman asked, unsmiling. Andre was not put out; he'd had worse greetings.

“A woman on a boat told me to come here for safety,” he said quietly. “A British spy was tailing me. He wanted information.”

Her lovely face appeared unimpressed beneath her black hat. “Hmm. What kind of information?”

“I should probably tell that to some sort of officer of the law or department official,” Andre said carefully. “Do you know where I might find Senator Bishop?”

Her entrancing, bright eyes narrowed, assessing him further. Then she shut the door, but only so she could unfasten the chains and beckon him in. She held a thin black stick in one hand.

Andre stepped into the hall. The woman held up one hand, stopping him.

“Pardon me,” she said. She flicked her wrist, and with a whipping sound, the small black stick became a full baton that she ran over Andre's body: first one arm, then the next, down one side then the other, up one pant leg and then the next. “Do
not
get the wrong impression,” she said, even as Andre's senses thrilled. He glanced at her hand. A ring. Yet she was all in black, perhaps the poor chap was dead.

“I'm unarmed,” he said softly.

“I don't take anyone's word for such things,” she countered, boldly sticking one gloved hand into each of his pockets, smiling primly the whole time. Apparently finished with the physical exam, she stepped back and studied him.

The sharpness of her gaze made him feel like he was being picked apart by a vulture. Perhaps, in her mourning, all men represented loss.… No, that wasn't it. She was summing him up.

After a moment, she seemed to come to a conclusion. She turned to the bell pulls hanging behind her and tugged on one rope. Andre heard a bell ring upstairs, then the sound of a door opening.

“Send them up,” a female voice called.

The redhead flashed a toothy smile. “‘Some sort of officer of the law or department official' will see you now.”

Andre felt a cool draft on the back of his neck. Louis spoke, “
Bishop.
Tell the receptionist where to find my work and ask for Bishop. Then get out.”

Andre offered the redhead his most charming smile and bowed his head before climbing the stairs, ignoring his brother's ghost.

On the third-floor landing, a thick wooden door stood open. Waiting on the threshold was an intent young woman, broad-shouldered but slight. Her stature would have been awkward had she not seemed older than her years, an impression borne out by her distinct features and piercing eyes that were nearly golden. Magical. Her dark blond hair had been done up in artful braids, though wisps were coming free. Captivating.

Why was she staring at him like that?

She grabbed him and with surprising strength, dragged him into the room, closing the door behind them. Startled Andre realized he was in some kind of office. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Louis floating outside, beyond an open window. Though the woman was dragging at him, Andre focused on his ghostly brother, whose expression conveyed frustration and anger. Louis appeared to be trying to move into the room but was unable to pass a small, carved talisman that hung from the center windowpane. Likely it was meant to keep his kind at bay, Andre thought.

“Louis,” the striking woman choked out. “It
was
you who survived!” She threw her arms around him and kissed him passionately.

Oh. Trouble. Or perhaps wonderful. This could solve everything. Well, for him, at least.

This amazing woman must be Clara Templeton.

“Darling,” Andre breathed, returning the kiss. Healthy self-preservation also had its unexpected delights.

“
You cad!
” his dead twin cried. Furious, the spirit managed to slam the window closed, startling Andre out of Clara's embrace.

*   *   *

Clara reeled. Her darling … Not dead … She gasped for breath and embraced him again, suddenly very thankful Franklin was not there.

Louis drew back to look at her. His dark eyes looked haunted; his skin, with its warm hints of brown, looked darker than usual under the eyes. “You saw where it happened. It's important you know that.”

“Yes,” Clara breathed. “And while there I was very affected by a message. From spirits, who spoke of files to find—”

“Yes!” he said excitedly. “Detailing elements of the compound, that's what I need to tell you!” Clara warmed, though the joy on his face looked a hair different than she remembered. She imagined the harrowing events he'd survived had taken their toll.

“Not only that, Louis, but something was
in
that house. Markings on the second floor, carvings across the floor, it's similar to a case from a couple of years ago, I think there was a curse in that house.… That may be what caused the disaster.”

“There was definitely something terrible at work in that place.” Louis shuddered, shaking off a memory. He pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “Take this, it's the address where Lou— where
I—
stowed some of our most important work. Go quickly, before anyone else finds it. I can't stay, I may have been followed. I don't want to let anyone know I'm alive but I'm afraid I'll need protection.”

He shifted a bit in her arms—making Clara realize that she was still clutching him. She broke away, hand pressed to her lips and cheeks flushed. “Yes. Yes, of course, I'll … We'll figure something out. I dare not tell the senator about us … about our…” Tears threatened to fill her eyes. “Oh, but you're alive,” she exclaimed, pressing herself against him once more.

Louis bit his lip before speaking quietly. “It's good to see you, too, dear. But…”

“Of course, of course. Go. I'll retrieve the files. Stay low, hide, Louis, and I'll find a way to make sure you're protected. Whoever followed you, the British agent, will be very persistent—”

“Oh, I don't doubt it.” He moved onto the landing. She followed him and pulled him into another kiss, but he resisted, holding himself away from her. Her heart fell and she drew away to hide her blush. “I'm sorry,” she murmured.

“Don't be,” Louis said quietly, an odd guilt on his face. “I'll stay safe and come again when I can.”

He stared at her sadly for a moment, then raced off.

Clara ran back into the office and to the window—when had she closed it? Through the lace curtains she watched Louis dart down Pearl Street. How could he be alive when every fiber of her being had felt him die?

Her entire world, which he'd upended when he defied Bishop's orders and spoke with her, then overturned again by his death, was in turmoil once more. Her head throbbed at a sickening pace, in time with the pounding of her heart.

How was Louis still alive? What had saved him?

Yes, he seemed different, but who would not be? Clara brushed aside her unease as a natural response to believing someone dead and then discovering that that was not true.

If she found Louis's files, would she suffer as the Eterna team had? Perhaps the whole gruesome business should be put to rest and never taken up again. Yet she could not set the task aside—her love had set the work before her and she had to complete it.

While she yearned to go directly to the address he'd given her, she knew that would be unwise. She hated her limits but ignoring them would make everything worse. Considering she'd barely escaped Goldberg's home safely, she needed her guardian now more than ever.

Clutching the paper Louis had given her in a fist, Clara started for home, still in a daze. She ignored Lavinia's inquiry as to her visitor's identity. When the skies opened, she protected the paper Louis had given her in trembling hands and darted the last block to her stoop.

The senator had a mug of coffee in hand and was poring over a legal document in his study when Clara charged in, dripping wet, and blurted: “Two things. The files. I've a location. And West Tenth Street. The building. It's…” Her teeth were chattering despite it being a warm summer rain.

“Clara, sit, please.” He guided her to a chair, then picked up a velvet throw and placed it over her shoulders before perching on the edge of his desk. “Take your time. You've seen a ghost or two. I know that look.”

“I have, of sorts.” She took a deep breath. “The disaster site. I went again.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. “Don't chastise me, it's done and I'm fine … but I won't examine a questionable site alone again and tempt fate. Something was in that house. Something terrible was bid to enter. You'll have to see it. Remember that case two years ago that introduced us to Lavinia?”

Bishop nodded.

“One of the locations Sergeant Patt showed me then was similar to what I saw yesterday. Ritualistic in the worst way. The floorboards of the entire second floor were etched with quotes. I've encountered that sort of apocalypticicism before, but never in this combination. I can't help but think those two are related.”

Bishop rose. “I'll have a look.”

“No. This first.” She offered him the paper Louis had given her. “I received this. From … an unnamed source. It should lead us to the missing Eterna materials.”

Bishop raised a disapproving brow. “You, a trained and seasoned professional, are following an anonymous note? You don't think that has
trap
written all over it?”

“No, I don't, and I have my reasons.”

He looked sharply at her but she did not explain. “Why are you only telling me a partial truth?” he asked warily.

Clara pursed her lips. “You don't like not knowing everything either, do you? Welcome to my world,
Senator.
”

Bishop pursed his lips right back at her and she realized she'd probably picked up the gesture from him in the first place.

“Come on, then,” Bishop said, striding briskly out the door and down the carpeted stairs.

She shed the velvet throw and followed, trailing lace-gloved fingertips down the carved maple balustrade. Her clothes had begun to dry and she no longer felt as cold. Bishop plucked his hat, a fine summer frock coat with embroidered detail—one she'd given him as a gift the year prior—and a silver-topped walking stick from the wardrobe by the door. He studied her for a moment, then handed her a floral shawl which had been hanging from a peg next to a line of top hats.

“Thank you, Rupert,” she said, wrapping herself in the soft fabric.

He smiled. “You just called me Rupert. It's been ‘Senator' for a while now. You've been in a formal phase, I suppose.” He winked at her.

Clara blushed. Her fondness for him was a hardy flower she could never pull up by its roots.

They walked the half block to the carriage house, Bishop helping her into his fine black hansom. He gave Leonard—their favored driver, as he didn't give one whit about anyone's personal life or the odd hours they kept—the address from the note, and they were off.

The destination was on Forty-ninth Street: Barnard Smith's old laboratory in the natural chemistry department of Columbia College.

During the trip, Bishop's piercing stare threatened to provoke Clara to say more than she wanted. To avoid him, she stared out the window at the undulating tumult of New York. Pedestrians from every walk of life, in every class of dress, flooded the streets in rippling waves. Most wore dark hues but Clara spied the occasional pop of bold color, an errant red capelet or blue frock coat that bobbed about in the sea of people swarming the brick, cast-iron, and carved stone shores of Manhattan.

“From what I understand,” Bishop began casually, “it wasn't until Louis Dupris came on in 1880 that the researchers gained ground. He must have been very gifted. It's a shame we never really got to know them better.”

Clara concentrated on sitting very straight and focused on an errant thread on her lace glove. She took a calculated risk and went on the attack. “And why not? I wasn't given leave to know them at all.

“The Eterna idea was mine,” she pressed, “the implementation was yours. Why give it over to Justice Allen? A nice man, but he has the supernatural inclination of a lamppost. I don't believe Eterna was taken from your oversight. You must not have wanted it anymore, which has left me, as a woman,
doubly
ignorant on the legacy of that night with Mary Lincoln. You can give me the same pat answer you always do about the distance kept, but I'll keep asking until I hear something I believe.”

Bishop chuckled.

“It isn't funny.” Clara glared at him. “Don't patronize me.”

“I'm not laughing at you Clara, I'm simply very proud of myself,” he said earnestly. She narrowed her eyes at him. “I've raised just the woman I'd hoped you would be.”

She folded her arms and glared, nostrils flared. “And that's all due to you, of course, I don't suppose I might be thought to have played some role in my own development? No, surely not. Men are responsible for every machination of the world, women simply stand there gaping as they are formed by the hands of their betters,” she hissed. He beamed at her. “Stop dodging me, Senator Bishop!”

“Back to ‘Senator' again,” he countered bitterly, as if wounded, then sighed and spoke more softly. “Clara, truly, I began to distance us from the team for the simple reason that I knew Eterna would attract all types of potentially dangerous energies. Psychically, it's better that you and I are out of that fray. From what you saw in the lab, you know I'm right.