There came a shriek from the most recent occupant of the Tombs prison, groggily rising to his feet, coming to in a foreign, unwelcoming cell of stone and murk.
“How dare you,” Prenze growled, and reached out toward the woman that had been in his mental grasp earlier in the night. But Eve wasn’t there. She’d gotten away and he’d ended up here.… Yet he was still tied to her. He shoved his way back into her psyche.
He gained sway upon her, dragging her under, but she retaliated with fresh strength. She was now surrounded and supported by others. He had no one. Bitterness rose again in him, and he felt his consciousness entirely knocked back into his body as that young bitch cast him out as if he were a demon. Well, then, perhaps he’d act like one.
Prenze’s fresh shriek of rage was followed by the most incredible rising racket: a thundering, tearing, rending, ravening roar that would become legend among inmates.
The sporadic gas torches blew out as if from a great breath. Their pilots would need to be relit lest the gas poison the air, but in this moment the paranormal had taken over and the mortal world was no longer their own. The resulting light that replaced the flame was a luminous silver wave. A dam had burst, and spectral light flowed like water.
The roaring wave poured over the inmates, many of whom shivered and saw nothing, several of whom cried out in fear, a few of whom laughed as if in hope of release. But the silver river pooled and swirled, creating a vortex around Prenze in his stone cell with a cot in the corner where he cowered in his fine suit coat.
“I was done with you! I banished you!” Prenze cried to the wave that was drowning him. “Back, you unnatural wretches!”
It wasn’t one ghostly voice that spoke to him. It was a spectral force, a coalesced army of souls, collected sentiment coming through in choice words curated to address his specific wrongs and what the ghosts of New York, and any other spirit he had wronged anywhere in the world, intended to do about it:
You could have used your near-death moments to see the divine and make a brighter world. Instead, you used powers granted at that precipice for spite and pain. So then must your gift be revoked. You do not deserve it. Be then as you were. We close the spectral door to you but open you to all the suffering you’ve caused.
The light swirled around his head, and he clutched at it, as if trying to peel back an invisible foe. He screamed. A vein in his forehead bulged. A rivulet of blood ran from his nostril.
Collapsing onto the cot, his eyes rolled back in his head.
The scream brought no guard. Screams were common in the Tombs.
Albert Prenze went silent and curled up on his cot as if shriveled and deflated, his world suddenly, painfully small, the weight of consequence crushing the air out of his lungs.
* * * *
Zofia returned to Eve’s parlor in a burst of cold and enthusiasm. “It’s over!” she cried. “It was amazing. There was a whole river of spirits, everything Sanctuary had protected flowed back over the city! And somehow,” she said excitedly, “everyone took Prenze’s powers away!”
“When I was attacked by Prenze, en route to the bridge,” Eve shared, “I lost consciousness, but in doing so, because of being controlled, I had access to his mind and memories. I saw so much of what made him hateful.” She fiddled with a fresh cup of tea as she explained those unnerving moments.
“He was dealt a cruel hand, yes, but also his choice to live in the pain and exacerbate its effects rather than reject it is where he lost his way. I saw his near-death experience. I was with him in the Corridors between life and death when he gained his abilities. I heard that space offer him power. He accepted it as if it were owed him. I suppose what the spirits give, the spirits can take away if the gift is squandered.”
Zofia floated close as if relishing in a secret. “Exactly! And after all that, the best part? Prenze can still see ghosts; he just can’t do anything about it!” She giggled a bit maniacally before sobering. “Serves him right for disappearing my family,” she said, transparent tears suddenly glistening in her greyscale eyes. “It’s my fault, though, Vera and Olga were trying to save me—”
“None of that, little one,” Eve cautioned. “They’d have done it for any spirit, for the whole of the city, buying it time. You know that. They’re at rest. Peace. Not as any of us planned, but peace none the less. There is nothing of their energy the sky won’t welcome as a gift.”
She hoped that was true. In her heart, she felt they were resting after a long, hard life and afterlife of good deeds.
You’re very impressive, Eve, I’m so glad your mind and body could withstand all that has happened, Rachel signed, tears in her eyes. With a smile, Eve rose to her feet and moved to embrace Rachel.
“I live blessed by so many talented people and spirits in my life,” Eve said, squeezing Rachel’s hands before withdrawing a step. “All I know how to do is to try to always do right by all of you.”
Eve wobbled, and Jacob was right there behind her, steadying her with hands firmly on her waist. “Careful,” he said gently.
Eve threaded her fingers through his, and, pulling on his arms so to draw him against her, she leaned back against his shoulders and breathed deeply.
Looking at the lovebirds with a knowing smile, Rachel took the teapot and motioned toward the rear of the house, exiting to refresh tea and giving them a moment alone.
Eve turned to face the man she now was no longer afraid to say she loved, winding her arms around his neck as she spoke.
“The pressure that, for weeks now, has been drilling into my skull, has finally released its torturous grip,” Eve said. “I haven’t felt so good in weeks. Save for the day in the park… Because that day… Before everything went wrong, our day was ecstasy—”
They crashed together in a furious kiss, one devoid of the careful hesitation that happened during the injuries on the bridge, ignoring their still-flaring aches and pains. This was a kiss of release: rough and passionate, made from all their hopes, their fears, and the searing depth of their desire. Jacob sunk with her onto the settee again and only drew back when they heard Rachel’s step in the hallway.
They breathed raggedly and smiled at one another with dazed grins drunk with adoration.
“I am so glad you’re feeling better.” Jacob adjusted his skewed clothes and straightened hers.
Rachel entered the parlor with more tea and another smile. Eve knew she approved of them, so she didn’t feel she had to hide anything; she was among family.
“It’s like the spirits took the pain away in the torrent, and whatever they did to Prenze cleared away whatever hold he still had on me.” She clapped her hands and darted to the séance table where the Prenze notebook and Spire’s casebook sat lying open.
“Let’s get this case together,” she said, taking one of the notebooks in hand.
“Eve!” Jacob laughed. “You have to rest.”
“We have to charge him,” Eve insisted, “and with solid grounds, before they release him, no matter the effects of the spirit world. And believe me, when one suffers migraines, when it finally leaves, it’s like dawn breaking and energy fills you. I could work for hours!”
Jacob sighed and chuckled, placing his hands gently on her shoulders and bending to kiss her on the head then sitting down beside her. “I’d be angry with you for such bullheaded determination if I didn’t find the quality so attractive,” Jacob said.
Eve turned and signed to Rachel what the notebooks were and continued with an invitation: Would you like to get a read on them, for clues on the page and with the scope of your Sensitivities?
Rachel eagerly joined them, and the three lost track of time, poring over notes and making their own, until each of them fell asleep face forward on the séance table.
Little Zofia kept watch, diligent, loving, and all the brighter a manifestation for all her work on behalf of the living.