CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With the help of Ida and Gregory, Evelyn Lumiere collected an array of books, instruments, and mechanical doodads to bring with her. Tembo browsed the shelves, tutting contentedly to himself, while Adelaide went upstairs to try to get a signal to the Silverhawk. Evelyn made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t going to walk halfway across the world just because Tesla was afraid someone might see his flying whale. “There’s no one out here!” she said. “Why do you think I live here?”
Once we’d helped haul an enormous volume of supplies out into the courtyard, Gregory and I took a rest. Night had fallen, and an incredibly clear sky stretched from horizon to horizon. There were so many stars, it looked like God had littered the sky with diamonds, bright enough to drown out the moon. The songs of crickets echoed back and forth through the surrounding cornfields, accompanied by the distant hooting of owls, or the yipping of wolves. Despite the fact that we were completely in the mundane world, it was hard not to feel bathed in magic. Greg and I leaned against the boxes, to gaze up at the heavens and listen to the night run riot.
“So what do you think of our new friend?” Gregory asked after a few minutes.
“Evelyn? It’s hard to get a bead on her.” I adjusted myself on the pile of crates. There was so much strange stuff in there. “She sincerely seems to hate the vampires. But she doesn’t exactly love anyone else.”
“Her parents, maybe. I can respect that.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Trauma does strange things to people.” I saw Chesa come out and glare at us. “Hey, Ches. Check out this sky.”
“The others are looking for you. Needed inside,” she said. “I told ’em you were probably lying down on the job.”
“A knight must take his leisure when he can,” Gregory said, clambering upright. “Bereft of the holy waters of my sanctuary, I am weary and worn.”
“Whereas I’m just lazy,” I said with a grin.
Chesa rolled her eyes, then jabbed her thumb toward the front door. “They want you on guard duty. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” I asked.
“They didn’t say.” She shrugged. I gave Gregory a meaningful look, then collected my sword and shield, which I had laid aside while hauling boxes, and headed inside.
The rest of the party was waiting for us by the shackled doors of the main ballroom. Evelyn waited patiently, a delicate silver key in hand.
“What’s up, folks?” I asked. “Something needs guarding?”
“A foolish precaution,” Evelyn said. “I assured your mage friend that everything is perfectly safe. I just need to collect one last thing.”
“There is a dark presence in this room,” Tembo answered sternly.
“Well, we’re familiar with dark presences.” I pulled my helm down over my sweaty bangs, leaving the visor up, then shouldered my shield and drew my sword. “After you, my lady.”
Evelyn sighed patiently. The tiny key seemed much too small for such a large lock, but as she turned it, the latch popped open and the chains fell away. That alone felt magical. She held one bony hand against the door for a long moment, as though gathering herself, then turned to us.
“Be kind to her,” she said. “She’s hardly herself these days.”
The once grand ballroom had fallen into disrepair. A thick layer of dust covered the scattered furniture, and the floorboards were warped and twisted with age and neglect. Addie had been right about the bloodstains, as well. Dark shapes covered the floors and splattered the walls. Tears in the fabric wall coverings and upholstery spoke of great violence, and greater rage. The far wall was all window, but had long since been boarded over. A path led through the dusty carpet.
In the center of the room, surrounded by broken chairs and the shattered remnants of a table, was a cube of translucent light. It was slightly taller than me, and about eight feet wide on all sides. On closer inspection, I could tell that I was seeing a sheet draped over something, and the ghostly light was coming from inside.
“So, when you say we’re deep in the Mundane, what exactly do you mean?” I whispered as we crept closer. “Because this doesn’t meet my expectations.”
“I said we were isolated from the Gestalt, and far from the Unreal. I didn’t say we were in the Mundane.” Evelyn brushed past me, one of the hellhounds close to her heel. “I never cared much for spiritualism. That was my mother’s world, and perhaps my mother’s downfall. Still. It’s hard to throw away old things.”
She wrapped the glowing cloth in the fingers of her left hand, then jerked it back, like a magician revealing a trick. There was no dust on the drape nor, I noticed, on the floor surrounding the cube. The covering came away with a whoosh. I stepped back, shield up, ready for whatever came at us.
What lay beneath the sheet was an iron cage of meticulous design. Its curving bars and filigreed walls resembled a giant birdcage, inlaid with silver runes and more esoteric symbols. The floor of the cage incorporated intricate machinery, like the open face of a clock, escapements and gear trains ticking silently forward. Even to my medieval imagination, it was clearly a work of both science and magic. But that’s not what really caught my attention.
Floating in the middle of the cage was a ghost. The insubstantial form spun to face us, as though it had been examining something on the other side of its enclosure. The spirit wore diaphanous clothes that faded into nothing at the edges, but resembled the straight lines and low neck of a flapper dress. The woman turned her glowing features toward us. She was beautiful, even in death.
“Hello, Cecilia,” Adelaide said quietly. “Death certainly becomes you, doesn’t it?”
The glowing phantasm drifted closer to us. As could be expected, the ghost of Cecilia Lumiere bore a striking resemblance to her daughter, though the specter looked younger than Evelyn, and somehow more alive, despite her obviously deceased nature. Cecilia looked us over one at a time, spending extra time on Gregory, as could be expected.
“Mon Dieu, cherie, what have you brought us? A woodland spirit? Some kind of squire? And a knight in shining armor?” Cecilia asked, putting an insubstantial hand to her throat and batting her eyes. “If I had known the party was fancy dress, I would have worn my angel wings.”
“Stop flirting with the help, Mother.” Evelyn folded the sheet primly and set it aside. “We’re going on a bit of an adventure. Do you like the sound of that?”
“This is quite the setup,” I said quietly. “Did you make this?”
“Oh, this old thing?” Cecilia flattened her dress against her bosom. “Just some tat I had lying around. Do you like it?”
“Not the dress, Mother. And I suspect he was talking to me,” Evelyn said. “The foundation of it was Father’s design, though he never saw it through. She’s been haunting me . . . well, ever since.”
“Ever since you killed me, dear,” the ghost said, her face placid as the fathomless deeps, and just as dark. “I don’t think you can blame me for that.”
“No. So, rather than leave her trapped between worlds, I offered her a way back. A way home.” Evelyn smiled sadly. “A second chance to get to know her daughter.”
“My dear little Evie,” Cecilia whispered. “So sweet to her mother. So kind.”
“Your dad designed this?” I asked. “Seems a little weird for a man of science.”
“He was very open-minded. Very curious.” Evelyn picked up a leather satchel that had been sitting on the broken remnants of a plush chaise longue. “What say you, Mother? A little trip?”
“You know best, dear.” Cecilia drifted closer to the bars, folding both hands under her chin as she gazed dreamily at Gregory. “My little girl is so serious. Always in her father’s books. I do wish she would get out more. Meet a nice man. Or a not so nice one,” she said with a wink.
“My lady!” Gregory shouldered me aside, clutching the hilt of his zweihander to his heart as he tossed his luscious curls over his shoulder. “The foul evil that has doomed you to this pale existence must be defeated! Be assured that I will not rest until it is vanquished! This I swear by the holy waters of the Everfont, which surges unending from the depths—”
“Now this is how you greet a lady,” Cecilia purred. The apparition floated closer still to the bars of her cage. “Tell me more about these surging waters, good sir.”
Just then, her hand drifted too close to the cage. A snap of electrical discharge shot out from the arcane runes worked into the metal. Cecilia’s hand dissolved, and her entire form flickered, like mist caught in a sudden wind. She swore elaborately and retreated to the center of the enclosure. After a moment, her body returned, though the edges of her figure were frayed.
“Mon Dieu, that hurts.” The ghost stared at her fingers, which were only now reforming. “It is like having all of your teeth out at once, without the lovely ether frolic beforehand.”
“What have we said about touching the bars, Mother?” Evelyn asked.
“La mort doit mourir,” the ghost whispered. “Et toi aussi.”
“Be nice,” Evelyn said. She opened the leather satchel and produced a small device, about the size of a loaf of bread, covered in dials and gauges with a metal door on one end. “We can talk about this later. Time is of the essence.”
The ghost sighed, then batted her eyes at Gregory. “If you get lonely later, my dear boy, you know where to find me.”
Evelyn fitted the device to a panel on the side of the runic cage, then fiddled with the dials until the machine began to hum. Cecilia closed her eyes, then placed her hand next to the panel. The machine hoovered her up like so much glitter on a dance floor.
“That seems kind of extreme,” Chesa said. “You keep your mother in a box?”
“I do not expect you to understand.” Evelyn shut the device down, then secured it back in the satchel and closed the latch. “After all that she and I have been through, I can’t very well leave her behind, can I?”
Without another word, Evelyn slipped out of the room. With her mother’s ghost gone, the dining room fell into darkness, the only illumination coming from the open door. I cleared my throat.
“That was downright weird,” I said.
“What did her mom say? You speak French, don’t you Rast?” Gregory asked.
“Something about death and dying. It sounded like a threat.”
“Every family has their problems,” Adelaide said. “Let’s not judge.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But not every family keeps their dead mother in a magic cage in the dining room.”
“Again, not as uncommon as you might think,” Addie said. She jerked her head toward the door. “Let’s get going. Nik’s going to wonder where we’ve been.”