The Spectral City. Leanna Renee Hieber

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      “However unorthodox the means,” she continued, raising her voice and commanding more of the room, “however unprecedented the methods, our aims are mutual and always will be. Ghosts are far too often misunderstood, and I hope that by working with them in proven, positive ways, our work can begin to change the perception of hauntings. Spirits can walk where we cannot, hear what fails our mortal senses, and keep the most vigilant of watches when we must take our rest. I hope you will see them as a help, not a horror.” She finished not with a request but a demand: “Thank you for your support.”

      “Hear, hear!” said Ambassador Bishop, a tall, striking, silver-haired man across the room. Impeccably dressed in a black silk tailcoat and charcoal brocade waistcoat, the diplomat to England and lifelong friend of the family lifted his champagne glass for a second toast. It was Bishop who had gotten Roosevelt involved in the first place, since his present ambassadorship did not carry the same legislative control as when he had been a New York senator. In those days he’d have seen to such a department himself.

      Bishop’s wife, Clara, a sharp-featured woman many years his junior, with dark golden hair that matched the gold core of her piercing eyes, stood at his elbow in a graceful plum gown. Clara stared at Eve with a fierce pride that held none of her family’s hesitance. Eve owed more to Clara than either of them would admit to anyone but each other. Clara nodded at Eve as if she knew she was passing off work she could no longer do herself.

      “Hear indeed, Ambassador!” Roosevelt exclaimed, grinning at the Bishops. “Now enjoy refreshments and the fine company! I’ll be here if any of you men need me and Miss Whitby has been gracious enough to agree to answer some questions from the department present, provided they are posited with all due respect. Respect, and transparency. I didn’t clean this filthy force up for nothing. Well, I reckon the Ghost Precinct will be our most transparent department yet! Ha!” Roosevelt slapped a hand on a serving table and enjoyed his pun amidst a few groans.

      When asked Eve’s opinion on Mister Roosevelt, she had once replied that he was a man who wanted to preserve wilderness so he could shoot things within it. That summed him up, she concluded. She found many of his ideas sensible but was often baffled by his road getting there. But no one could deny he was a compelling, larger-than-life character who never failed to surprise.

      Gratitude was her most abundant sentiment, if she were asked how she felt in this moment. Thanks to Bishop and Roosevelt’s machinations, she’d been given steady employment, without which, like all the many strong working women around her, she’d go mad. The moment she’d signed paperwork on the precinct, the constant, dull ache that rested at the base of her neck even if she wasn’t having a migraine had eased. It was as if the whole of the spirit world that clutched at her from behind had released their talons ever so slightly. It was a world that wanted to be seen and acknowledged, and that’s why it sought to communicate in such a wide array of methods. Now it was seen in a whole new light and given responsibilities.

      At nineteen years old, when most young women of any kind of title and society were very busy with their ‘seasons’ and hoping for a well-placed marriage, Eve found she had no interest in following the path of her supposed peers in the city. Of course there was the occasional ball she attended due to the pressures of her father’s Lordship, her gran’s high-society dealings, her grandfather’s Metropolitan Museum soirees, the Bishops’ esteemed gatherings. But theirs were generally philanthropic functions that had great purpose, not dances meant to pair up eligible bachelors with debutantes. The former suited her, the latter bored her.

      Her circle attracted a constant parade of ghosts whose chill presence ruined the warmth of a good party. Here at the Players, the fireplaces were roaring as the new electric fixtures were buzzing in a juxtaposition of ancient and modern light and heat, making the room so warm that the ghostly retinue on the margins caused a much-needed draft. But she couldn’t keep ignoring them. If she did, they might start throwing things, and now was hardly the best time for a poltergeist.

      Roosevelt held up his hand, hailing Eve as if he wished to speak with her, but men in tail-coats blocked his path as he took a step forward. As legislators were forever called upon for favors, the veritable inferno of energy that was Roosevelt was immediately beset by an entourage. Eve took this as a chance to slip away, into another room where the ghosts and she could speak freely.

      Glancing around, she moved towards an opening in the crowd, preparing to make her way to whatever empty, dark space she could find in the grand place. But a young detective stepped into her path and she paused with a smile she hoped did not appear strained.

      She recognized the dark-haired, clean-shaven, sharp-featured man with rich brown eyes ringed in blue; a distinct gaze that pierced her right to the core. During a recent case, Eve’s ghosts had bid her examine a crime scene herself, as they were having trouble describing it. While she had not been welcome at the site, and it was assumed she would both be in the way and taint the evidence, this man had quelled the protesting officers on duty. He had found a place for her to stand within view of the exsanguinated body and take notes. It had been grim but her composure was a test that she’d passed.

      “Detective Horowitz, it is good to see you again and I hope you’re well. This is a more pleasant scene than when I last saw you.”

      “Ah, yes.” He grimaced. “That ugly bloodletting.”

      “Have you figured that one out?”

      “How a body could be that drained?” he asked. He shook his head with a humorless laugh. “There were suction marks near the puncture wounds—something drew it out of him.”

      “How odd. I believe in ghosts, but not vampires, detective.”

      “Well that’s reassuring at least.” His face transformed from angular to warm for a moment before cooling again.

      “Thank you for honoring me this evening,” Eve said, bobbing her head.

      “I do have a question for you, if you don’t mind.”

      “Go on,” she said, glancing at Zofia, a ten-year-old in a simple pinafore, bobbing in the air impatiently, gesturing for her to hurry up with this chat.

      “I try, whenever I can, to work in new technologies. Fingerprinting, psychological profiles from alienists, taking exquisite stock of a scene so that not even a hair of evidence is tampered with. In regards to your department . . . Say one were to believe in poltergeists. To be clear, I don’t believe, but if I did, wouldn’t a host of spirits be liable to disrupt and thus corrupt a crime scene by moving objects? Couldn’t any of the various ways the spirit world has been said to commune with mortals potentially foul a scene?”

      She stared at him. It was a valid point.

      “My spirits aren’t ones for moving things,” she began. “They aren’t the poltergeist sort, at least not that I’ve been aware, but it is a cogent point to bring up to them; to be aware of the ways their presences might affect a given environment. To be fair, my ghosts wouldn’t leave any additional fingerprints,” she offered. The young man twisted his lips as if he wanted to smile but was too focused to allow the indulgence.

      “What I have tried, with my contacts, is to cultivate details beyond a crime scene,” Eve explained. “My ghosts and mediums pick up on expansive aspects, specifics of place, people, setting, weather, clothes, and they’re drawn to things the living might find mundane. And they do so in a non-linear manner, so I have to constantly sift for relevance. That’s what was so maddening to me at first, why ghosts kept coming and telling me far too many details about seemingly meaningless things. Until I finally saw a pattern in the noise. These patterns СКАЧАТЬ