Chapter Twenty-Two

Topaz pressed her palm against each door as she passed it, employing her inner sense to search with ever-increasing ease. No one there. No one there.

Romney had said corpses lay somewhere down here—perhaps they’d now been taken away. Corpses had a short shelf life; these might have outlasted theirs. But nothing lived beyond the closed doors.

She supposed she should open them anyway. She needed evidence to share with Patrick Kelly, but now, sensing that single glimmer of life, she could do nothing but locate it.

Halfway down the hallway, her inner sense quickened almost unbearably. She looked hard at the door in question: not locked but barred from the corridor side.

Someone wanted to keep something in there.

All the hairs on the back of Topaz’s neck rose as she laid her hands to the bar and lifted.

She had been in the cellar before, of course. But not recently, not since Danson Clifford came to work in the house.

Danson Clifford, the undertaker.

She drew a deep breath and opened the door. Inside, a single steam lamp burned.

One of the larger rooms, it had been fitted out with equipment: tables, tools of dubious purpose, a deep sink, and a decent-sized steam plant. It smelled of cleaning fluid and disinfectant, with another underlying odor even less pleasant.

On two of the tables lay forms shrouded in sheets—corpses? The hairs on Topaz’s arms rose in sympathy with those on her neck.

She hadn’t sensed corpses.

On the third table something stirred. Rom? But no, she didn’t sense him. Topaz’s hand flew to her stiletto. Against every instinct, she stepped farther into the chamber.

A woman slid from the table onto the floor and stood facing her.

Tall and strongly made, she had light brown hair worn loose down her back and pale skin that showed livid marks at wrists and temples. Her face, a plain oval, looked unremarkable save for the eyes, which burned with desperation. She wore only a nightdress, which seemed inadequate against the chill, and she certainly appeared alive.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice creaked like that of a very old woman, though she couldn’t possibly be more than twenty-five.

Topaz had to draw a long breath before she could speak. “My name is Topaz Hathor. Who are you?”

“Get me out of here. Get me out, get me out—” The woman’s voice rose dangerously.

“Hush! Do you want someone to hear? How did you get here?”

“I want out. Away.” The woman glared at the two shrouded forms on the other tables and then down at herself. “This isn’t my body.”

Topaz’s heart clenched and dropped; her stomach twisted. “Whose is it?”

“I don’t know. Not mine. I think I died. Yes, I’m sure of it. I remember he beat me. I fell and cracked my head. I died.”

“Shhh,” Topaz cautioned again, sure her father must surely sense this encounter and come, which only added to her horror. She could feel this woman’s spirit—strong, burgeoning, fighting the flesh as she might the bars of a cage.

She sucked in a breath. “If you died, how did you come to be—in that body?”

“He called me. The other one forced me in. He’s the Devil.”

“He—?”

“The man with the dark eyes called me. I was almost free—I didn’t want to come back, but he’s powerful, so powerful. He held me, and the Devil forced me in here. It hurt.”

She held out her hands and showed Topaz her wrists. “Hurt.”

Topaz nearly recoiled in horror. The woman’s wrists showed not only bruises to match those on her face but livid burns, as well. She swallowed convulsively. “Do you have a name? Do you remember it?” Topaz could feel the spirit’s confusion. “I can report your name to a friend who may be able to investigate.”

Not precisely what Topaz wanted to do; whatever unsavory thing went on here, Topaz’s father had to be in it up to his ears. Was she truly prepared to incriminate him?

“I’m not sure about my name.”

Carefully Topaz said, “Let me understand. Following your death you were called here?”

“Netted. Trapped.”

“Caught and forced into another body, into that body?”

“I think it’s a corpse. Like those.” The woman nodded at the shrouded forms, and a long, slow shudder convulsed her. “I don’t want this. Let me go!”

“I’ve no idea how.” Aside from committing murder. If Topaz used the stiletto at her side, would the spirit then be freed? But that raised all sorts of ethical questions. Could one murder a spirit already dead?

The woman waved her hands wildly. “Reverse the process.”

“I don’t know how to do that either. What about them?” She too nodded at the tables. “Are they alive?”

“Failed attempts. I heard the Devil and the enchanter talking. They’re not the first. I’m not sure why it worked with me—but I’m not the first that’s succeeded, either.”

“This Devil—describe him.”

“Sheer evil. I could see it from the other side. His aura is dark. You have a powerful aura—not unlike the enchanter’s. Do you also possess magic?”

“It’s not magic.” And at this point it turned Topaz sick to think she shared any of Frederick Hathor’s abilities. “Did you hear any names, the name ‘Danson Clifford,’ perhaps?”

“No. Look, get me out of here.”

“I wish I could, but I don’t dare. I promise I’ll get you help. It may take some time.”

The woman stepped toward Topaz. “No. I refuse to let you shut me back in this terrible place. Let me out.”

“Quiet, or he’ll come. My father will come.” Topaz could now see the woman had brown eyes that burned with fervor. Only they weren’t her eyes, were they? She tried to imagine how it would feel to be trapped in someone else’s flesh.

“All you have to do is step aside. I’ll leave on my own.”

“And do what?” Topaz’s thoughts raced. “Go where?”

“I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”

“How much do you know about what’s been going on in this place? What else did you hear?”

“Enough.”

Abruptly, Topaz made up her mind. “Then yes, come with me. But you have to be absolutely silent and tone down the anxiety. He will pick up on it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Come up to my room; we’ll find you some clothes. And I have one more stop to make.”

****

Creeping past her father’s door with a reanimated corpse on her heels proved one of the most terrifying things Topaz had ever done. Once they gained the safety of her room, she eyed the woman critically.

“Find something to wear. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Wait.” The woman seized her wrist with fingers chilly as ice—or death. “You promise to take me away from this place?”

“Yes, but we need to bring someone else with us.”

The third floor lay still and very nearly dark. Topaz could sense the spirits of those who slept the sleep of the exhausted. She found if she listened hard she could identify Carlotta’s spirit among the others. But she shared a room with two other girls. How to get her away?

After some inner debate, she moved into the room soundlessly, laid her hand across Carlotta’s mouth and bent to whisper in her ear. “Be silent. Get up, gather your clothes and belongings. You can dress in my room. Bring your coat.” She added, for the sake of gaining the girl’s compliance, “We’ll go find Sapphire.”

She crept back out, not giving Carlotta a chance to argue. Soon the girl slipped through the door, clothing in her arms and her hair loose around her shoulders.

“Miss, what—”

“Hush! Just come.”

She half expected the strange woman to have fled for freedom. But she and Carlotta entered the room to find her standing clad in some of Topaz’s best clothing, working at her hair with those scorched hands.

Carlotta balked. “Who’s that?”

“Someone I’m helping.”

“One of your streetwalkers? Sapphire says you help a lot of them.”

“Yes.”

The woman drew herself up indignantly, but voiced no objection to the label.

“Get dressed quickly, please. We need to leave at once.”

“You’re taking me to Sapphire?”

“Yes.” Eventually.

Carlotta climbed into her clothes and turned to don a ragged coat.

“Here,” Topaz said, “that’s not warm enough. Wear this.”

She had a heavy jacket, now too small for her, that she thrust at the girl. She could still hear sleet ticking against the window, and wind rattled the glass.

“Now come, both of you. Absolute silence.”

“What about the steamie in the front hall?” Carlotta objected.

“We’re going out the back.”

“Through the kitchen? But they’re all—”

“On shutdown. Let me go in first; I’ll deactivate them. Now, not another word.”

Topaz realized she had begun listening with all her senses, the facility to use the sixth increasing as she went on. They passed through the throng of spirits outside her father’s door, and she listened within. The bright power of Frederick’s spirit lay banked, dormant. He slept.

She could feel the emotions of the two women who accompanied her—Carlotta quivering with anxiety and the other woman seething. Anger? Fear? Violence? Topaz couldn’t quite decide.

She left them at the kitchen door and went on into the cavernous room, where she flipped the switches on all the units. Only one roused before she reached it; she heard the tick as its boiler reignited, and it stared at her even as she thumbed its button.

Damn. It had seen her and would be able to tell her father. Not that he wouldn’t figure it out as soon as he discovered both Topaz and the woman from the cellar missing. As a last thought, she locked the cellar door and pocketed the key before collecting her charges and herding them out through the kitchen exit.