Dead to Me (27 page)

“We have to try,” he said, and then grinned. “Besides, I got you a present.”

Connor held up the torn edge of Cyrus’s shirt and dangled it in front of my face.

“Let’s see what you can do,” he said. “Fetch, kid.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I can divine anything off this.”

Connor shoved the piece into my hand, then closed his own around mine.

I didn’t get a chance to argue further. Before I could say that it was probably a useless exercise, Connor pulled his jacket protectively over his head, and dashed off down the aisle into the storm of books. Not one to leave my partner to face danger alone, I wrapped my hands tightly around the bat with the piece of cloth firmly in hand and batted my way after him.

Between the piles of scattered twitching books on the floor and the occasional ones targeting me as they leapt from the shelves, it was slow going. Several volumes gnawed at my ankles, biting like a pack of rabid Chihuahuas, but with only paper teeth, they were more a nuisance than any real threat.

I caught up to Connor, my arms already sore from swinging. He was standing at an intersection looking confused. He looked at me.

“Try,”he said.

“I can’t,” I said. “Clothing is a hard thing for me to get a reading from.”

“Don’t give me that,” he shouted, knocking away several flying books. “Remember when I hit you at the Antiques Annex? Tap into that raw emotion you felt, the kind that sparked your power. There’s a science to this!”

He wasn’t taking no for an answer so I threw my concentration into the strip of cloth and prayed that a book didn’t catch me in the temple while I attempted to pull a vision from it.

I thought of how Connor had hit me, the pain and shock of it causing my blood to rise. Then I thought of the events of the last few days—Irene’s tearful eyes and her trashed apartment, Jane’s fall through the air and her mangled arm. It could all be Cyrus’s fault. Anger mixed in to the swirl of emotion and I felt the sudden spark of connection to the piece of shirt in my hand. My psychometry kicked in.

I wasn’t sure how far back in time my mind’s eye was taking me, but I could see Cyrus sometime back in his past carrying a bucket full of building supplies and tools through the Black Stacks. It was hard to tell what aisle he was walking in, but I hoped it would give me some clue as to where he was going now. I needed some kind of visual clue to orient myself. I caught a small sign along one of the rows of books.

M.

I snapped myself out of the vision. “Head toward theM ’s!” I shouted and dashed off to the right. I plowed my way through fallen books, made two lefts, and then another right before I led Connor into theM section. Cyrus was nowhere to be seen, but the books were even wilder here, harder to push through. I stumbled blindly forward as I attempted to get another reading from the strip of cloth. It took considerably more effort this time to read the item, and when the image came, it was not as strong as the previous one had been. “It’s losing its charge,” I said. I pushed Connor out of the way as a particularly nasty copy ofCrime & Severe Punishment flew toward the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, my selfless act meant that I caught the full force of the book’s corner against my cheek, and immediately tasted blood. But I was still clutching the cloth, and before I could control it, the pain flipped me back into my vision. I saw Cyrus with his tool bucket once again. I pushed back the pain and flipped back out. “Back to theB ’s.”

We must have been on the right track, because as we continued forward, the intensity with which books were throwing themselves at us increased dramatically. I fended off books with such ferocity that I had to make sure I wasn’t in danger of cracking Connor’s skull open. By now, the books were piled knee-deep and our pace grew slower, both from weariness and from plowing the books aside. When we reached theB section, however, there was no sign of Cyrus.

“Again,” Connor said. He continued to dig away at the books around him.

I dropped my bat and gathered the piece of cloth in both hands. Concentrating like a kid taking the SATs, I felt weariness set in as I went for my third use of my powers. I hadn’t eaten anything coming into this to boost my blood sugar, and adrenaline was the only thing keeping me going. There was a tiny tingle of connection, but it was so faint I could only make out a quick psychic flash—Cyrus adjusting the hinges on a hidden doorway built into one of the bookcases. Behind theH ’s, maybe forhidden , I thought.

Abandoning the image, I came back to reality, popped a roll of Life Savers out, and quickly began downing them one by one as we pelted toward theH ’s. I immediately started to feel less shaky. It still took five minutes to clear our way to the bookcase I had seen. My arms felt like they had been digging for hours.

We cleared out a space in front of the bookcase. Once there was room to move, I pulled it away from the wall. Behind it was a hallway that led down a short dark corridor and dead-ended at a door. I pulled out my lock picks, but Connor barged ahead of me and kicked it open instead.

“Sorry, kid,” he said. “Time is of the essence.”

I prepared to swing at any sign of Cyrus, but when the door fell open, the sight before us caused me to forget all pursuit. We had been prepared for a secret escape route. We were not prepared for a pile of bodies. My arms went weak and the bat fell from my hands.

Cyrus was nowhere to be found. My first impression was that Connor and I had entered some kind of mass tomb, except it struck me (morbidly so) that there was no stench of rot or decay. The dark room smelled only of the unwashed, some of whom stirred lethargically in response to the thin column of light pouring in behind us. At a quick count, there were close to twenty people lying on the ground—and they all looked like utter crap, but I was relieved that they all looked alive. There were men and women, some old and some young, but they all had one thing in common: their hair was completely white.

“What in God’s name is going on in here?” Connor said softly.

I stooped over a girl in her midtwenties and moved her head from side to side gently, looking for bite marks. Despite the lack of vampires in a city like New York, I had no idea what else it could be. The girl seemed barely aware I was in the room. She looked quite gaunt, though physically unharmed. Connor bent over, scooped something up, and turned to face me. In his hand was a small clay pot, roughly the size of a tennis ball.

“Look familiar?” he said. “All those broken shards of pottery in the alley that night…”

“They looked strung out,” I said.

Connor handed me the pot. It was empty, but whatever had been in it had left a sickeningly sweet smell, like overripe fruit. A drop of opaque residue clung to the container’s lip. “What is it?” I handed the pot back to Connor, who slipped it into his coat pocket.

“It’s a residue left by the plasmic energy generated from the electrical impulses of a spirit when it’s been confined to a tiny area for too long.”

“Spirits are tangible?” In my dealings with Irene, I hadn’t been able to touch her, but it made sense that there must be some level of corporeality. As Connor had pointed out, she could sit on a chair or walk across a floor without constantly drifting through it.

Connor nodded. “Some spirits more so than others. Depends on their after-death strength. Like your Irene, for example. There’s not really an exact science to it, although I hear that Haunts-General is doing some fantastic phantasmagoric research in that area.”

“If these jars are here and the residue is here,” I said, “where the hell are the spirits?”

One of the bodies near my feet stirred, rolled over, and resettled on my shoes. I stepped back gingerly, careful not to disturb anyone in the process.

“That’s what I’m getting at,” Connor said. He looked sadder than I had ever seen him. “This is some serious stuff going on here, Simon. These spirits have been entirely destroyed by this group of junkies. They’re Ghostsniffers.”

I stared blankly at Connor.

Connor simply looked at me and continued. “The Fraternal Order of Goodness basically put a stop to this type of activity over thirty years ago, kid. Certain cultists and spiritualists became addicted to the momentary high experienced when a spirit passes through a living person. When an uncontained spirit passes through someone, no harm really comes to either party, unless you count the hair damage. Thing is, the spirits that were in these jars have been purposefully packed tight into containment. These addicts have been mainlining concentrated plasmic energy straight into their systems.”

“Sounds ghastly,” I said.

“Ghastly?” Connor said. “Christ, that’s an understatement. Just look at them! Even for Ghostsniffers, they look bad. Something’s amplifying the effect on these people like some kind of supercrack. Normally they’d have streaks in their hair, like mine, but they’ve gone totally white. Whatever is juicing things up is shocking out the pigment entirely.”

“Maybe the fish has something to do with this,” I suggested. “I mean, we asked Gaynor to point us toward the fish and this is what we find.”

“Maybe,” Connor agreed, “but we still don’t know the why of it all.”

I looked down at all the people lying around us. These had to be some of the sickliest-looking people I had ever seen. Not only were their eyes sunk deep into their sockets, it seemed like their very souls were sunken as well.

“This is bad juju, Simon. It’s a taboo practice even among the more hardcore cultists. It wouldn’t be so bad if the spirits survived the process, but it absolutely destroys them when they’ve been forcibly concentrated like this. We’ve got to figure out who’s been processing these spirits. Containing them, distributing them…it’s not an easy task.”

“You mean this isn’t just Cyrus’s doing?” I asked.

Connor shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” Connor said. “It’s too large a project. Look around. This is just a flophouse. There’s no equipment set up for this type of operation here. At the worst, it looks like he was running a Ghostsniffing lair, like one of those old opium dens.”

“I’m still going to hold Cyrus accountable when we catch up to him,” I said. “This is not cool. Not coolat all .”

I wished I knew what to do to help these pathetic souls, but this wasn’t my area of expertise at all. I pulled out my phone, but there was no signal. “Once we’re outside, I’ll call it in.”

“We need to get these people help,” Connor said. “Have them send a Shadower team to watch the store in case Cyrus comes back. Make sure they put someone on Cyrus’s apartment, too.”

I nodded.

“I’m sure Greater and Lesser Arcana would like to get their hands on some of these books,” Connor continued. “They’ll probably want to get one of their agents in here to run the store until the Enchancellors figure out exactly what to do with Tome, Sweet Tome.”

I looked down at the pile of near lifeless users on the floor. They were our first priority. Catching Cyrus would have to wait.

23

As expected, the Inspectre was disturbed by our find at Tome, Sweet Tome, but both he and Director Wesker seemed quite pleased to add the Black Stacks to their list of departmental acquisitions. Representatives from every division showed up, especially a large contingent of archivists from the Gauntlet. I spied one of their rank-and-file members, Godfrey Candella, grinning from ear to ear, despite the abominations that had happened there. He and several other agents chased a few eager-to-escape books around, scooping them into fishing nets.

At that point, there wasn’t much for me to do. Using my psychic ability over and over to track Cyrus had exhausted me, and I no longer felt of any use. I’d offered to try to use my power on one of the clay pots once it came back, but Connor’s face had gone white. “I would not recommend that, kid,” he said, stricken. “You might not come back.” Since there was no update from Shadower on Cyrus’s whereabouts and I had little expertise in dealing with a roomful of ectoplasmic nose-candy junkies, I quietly dismissed myself from the store and let those better equipped to do so work the scene.

I made my way back to the Lovecraft, but stopped by my desk only long enough to grab Jane’s journal. I didn’t want to do this, but the stakes were getting higher and higher. Maybe the journal would give me some insight into the Sectarian involvement in all this. I walked out to the coffee shop after deciding to forgo the office environment entirely for the comfort of an enormous puffy chair. The steaming hiss of the espresso machine did little to relax me while I waited for a coffee. I stared at the unopened book. Its cover was gilded with astrological signs. Tension mounted thick across my shoulders.

Hadn’t this exact sinister act, reading someone else’s journal, been the very thing Tamara had accused me of? The guilt was consuming. Was I really going to learn enough about Jane from what she might have written to help the investigation? Was I in a state of mind to deal with what I read? And why was I reading it here? Was I hiding away from the office environment as well as avoiding my apartment now?

I knew why I brought Jane’s notebook to the office, though. If Irene suddenly reappeared in my apartment, I feared how she would react to seeing me nose deep in another woman’s personal thoughts in her newly unstable state. I told myself I was doing the heroic thing.

I took a tentative sip of my newly arrived drink, and opened the book. I flipped through it, starting at the back and watching the blank pages slip on by until I caught the first sign of words, and I sought out her entry from last night.