Deadly Curiosities (4 page)

“Just because it was snowing doesn’t mean it was in the United States,” I said. “It could have been somewhere else, like London, Toronto –”

“Chicago,” Teag supplied. “How about Chicago?”

I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see past him to the computer screen. “Maybe. They get snow in Chicago. What did you find?”

“December 30, 1903. The Iroquois Theater caught on fire. Over six hundred people died.”

I caught my breath. “What else does it say?”

“There are a lot of articles,” Teag mused, and I saw him clicking on links and scanning down through the information. “The theater had only been open for a few weeks. They did a special holiday performance on December 30, and had a standing room only crowd. It was so full, people were sitting in the aisles.” “Children,” I murmured. “There were children in the aisles,” I said, remembering the vision.

“Here’s why you thought of a pirate,” Teag said grimly. “The play was called
Mr. Bluebeard.
It seems to have been a mish-mash of rather forgettable songs and scenery including a castle, and partway through, a spark from one of the spotlights caught the scenery and curtains on fire.”

“People couldn’t get out,” I said, reliving the horror of what the opera glasses had shown me.

“Says here that’s because some of the doors were locked to keep out gate-crashers, and other doors were hidden behind curtains,” Teag said, reading down through the articles. “They had even put locked gates at the bottom of the stairs to the upper levels, I guess to keep people from switching to more expensive seats than what they paid for.”

“They locked them in?”

Teag nodded. “The theater was supposed to be fire-proof –”

“Yeah, and the Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable,” I muttered.

“But apparently, the owners skimped on fire extinguishers, and some of the fire escapes weren’t even finished,” he said. He paused long enough that I looked at him, worried.

“What?”

“The fire broke out while the orchestra was playing a waltz,” Teag said quietly. “One of the actors, Eddie Foy, Sr., tried to keep the people from panicking so they could make an orderly exit, but it didn’t work.”

“Eddie Foy, Sr.” I repeated. “Trinket said her great-grandmother had seen most of the famous actors and actresses of her time. He was one of the names she mentioned. I’d never heard of him before.”

“He survived,” Teag said. “And everyone hailed him as a hero. They even made a movie about him, and it included the fire.” He drew a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, staring at the screen. “It says here that some of the cast were dressed in holiday costumes,” he added. “And here’s a picture of what the Iroquois Theater looked like before the fire.”

He scooted the chair aside so I could see. The grand facade of the doomed theater had pillars in front, a Victorian version of a Greek temple, just like I had seen in the vision.

“Wow,” I said. I took a sip of my soda. My heart was racing. Baxter seemed to sense that I was uneasy, because he gave me a curious look with those little black button eyes and snuggled closer.

“You’re good, Cassidy,” Teag said, shaking his head. “Sometimes a little too good.”

I stared at the old photo on the screen in silence for a moment. “What I want to know is why Trinket was able to see the images,” I said. “I didn’t get the feeling that she had any clairvoyant abilities. She seemed too freaked out for that.” I was quiet again, mulling things over.

“The fire was certainly horrific,” I said slowly, working it out as I went. “That kind of trauma can leave a residue that even people without a ‘gift’ can sense – that’s why normal people see ghosts.”

“The opera glasses have been passed down for several generations,” Teag said, turning his chair to look at me. “You’d think if they were so blatantly haunted, someone would have gotten rid of them by now.”

I nodded, having had the same thought. “I think we need to talk to Trinket again. Maybe she’s heard stories about her ancestor and the fire. She might not have mentioned that the glasses had a tragic past if she thought that would hurt the sale. She really wanted to get rid of them.”

Teag leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Which makes me wonder – if they freaked out the people who owned them, why hang onto them?”

“And if they didn’t cause a problem before, what changed?” I said, my thoughts racing. “Did something... activate them... somehow?”

Teag met my gaze. “We’d better find out. It’s bad enough if the glasses were always that powerful.

That makes them definite spookies and something Sorren will want to deal with.”

“But if something charged up their hauntedness, then we’re dealing with more than just the opera glasses,” I said. “Because whatever – or whoever – it was could juice up something else.”

“And in this city, with all its haunts, that would be a real problem.”

B
Y THE NEXT
morning, I had recovered from the trauma if not the embarrassment. Fortunately, being Sunday, we didn’t open until noon, which meant that I could spend the morning in the back going through some of the more benign pieces. Teag handled the mundanes. Right now, we didn’t have any spookies in stock except for the opera glasses, and I was grateful. Still, the tragedy of the fire stuck with me. I hadn’t slept well. My dreams had been dark, lit only by flames, and once I had woken with my heart pounding and my palms sweaty.

I was mostly recovered by the time Monday morning rolled around, although I hoped that none of our customers had attended the play on Saturday.

“You doing okay, Cassidy?” Teag stuck his head in the back room.

“A little tired, but that’s all. The coffee is definitely helping. Thank you.” Teag had come in early and had the coffee pot in the shop’s small kitchen already chugging out liquid wakefulness before we opened for the day. It was exceptionally thoughtful of him, since he didn’t drink the stuff, but he probably figured I’d need it more than usual today. Teag had a large mug of tea, his beverage of choice.

“I put in a call to Trinket,” Teag said, standing where he could keep an eye on the front of the store. “I got her voice mail, and I asked her to give me a call.”

“Maybe she caught wind of what happened at the play and decided to high tail it out of town for a while,” I said with a lopsided grin.

“Maybe,” Teag replied. “But she has to come home sometime, and I doubt she’s skipped town just because of you. In the meantime, I’ll check the Darke Web.”

Teag’s gift with information makes most hackers look like newbies. If it’s anywhere online, no matter how well hidden, he’ll find it. That goes beyond the Dark Web, used by mortal criminals, and into the currents of information shared by the supernatural, magical, and immortal communities, the Darke Web. Law enforcement can’t break the enchantments, and Teag wanders those digital pathways like a native son. If it was out there, I knew he’d find it.

I’d felt like skipping town after what happened, but I figured it would blow over faster if I just faced the music. Although the physical effects were gone, the embarrassment lingered on. Even now, two days later, I’d settled for toast and peanut butter at home instead of my usual muffin at the bakery down the block, not quite willing to answer questions yet or dodge curious gazes.

The front door opened and the bells clanged against the glass. “Cassidy? Teag?”

Andrea Andrews, owner of Andrews Carriage Rides, was one of my best friends, and one of the most connected business owners in Charleston. I took a swig of my coffee for sustenance, and squared my shoulders. “Hi, Drea,” I called.

Drea gave me the once-over when I stepped up front. She was a dark-haired whirlwind, a petite bundle of energy who could rival a hurricane for sheer force of nature. She had built her family’s carriage ride company from one carriage to a fleet of twelve, and expanded into specialty tours, including one of the top ghost tours in the city.

Clutched in her hand was a bag from the Honeysuckle Cafe, my favorite bakery. I could smell the fresh blueberry muffin, my usual breakfast selection, all the way across the store. “I brought you something,”

she said with a grin. “Somehow, I figured you’d skip your morning muffin.”

“You’re an angel,” I said as she handed off the bag and I could feel the still-warm muffin through the paper.

“Trina said today’s muffin was on the house,” Drea said, watching with a satisfied smile as I took a bite of blueberry-packed goodness and closed my eyes, savoring the taste. “She thought it might cheer you up.”

“You two are fantastic,” I said, and I meant every word. Not only were Drea and Trina good friends, but we also referred a lot of customers to each other.

“So let me guess,” Drea drawled. “You had a problem with one of your latest acquisitions.”

Drea didn’t know the full truth about what we did at Trifles and Folly. She didn’t know about the Alliance, or that Sorren was an immortal. But she did know about my ability to read objects by handling them, and she believed in my gift, and me, without reservation. Drea didn’t have any clairvoyant abilities of her own, but she accepted that there were things in this world that operated outside conventional wisdom, and truth be told, she thought what I could do was kinda cool. Right now, I didn’t share her sentiment.

“Yeah. I decided to try out a new piece I got.” I gave a wry, self-conscious smile. “It didn’t go as well as I had hoped.”

Drea’s snort confirmed my opinion. “Ya think? Fortunately, everyone who mentioned it to me thinks you had the flu, except for Mrs. Monroe, who wondered if you were pregnant.”

I almost choked on my muffin. “Did you tell her I’d need a boyfriend for that to even be a possibility?”

Drea grinned. “I didn’t think it was any of her business, so I just told her that I was pretty sure it was just the flu.”

I had wolfed the muffin in record time, proof of just how stressed I still felt over the incident. “How many people make up ‘everyone’?” I asked.

Drea’s fingers moved as she made a mental count. “Four or five,” she said. “Most of those were in the bakery and Valerie asked about you when she came in to pick up her paycheck.” Valerie was Drea’s leading ghost tour guide, and another good friend.

Out of the dozens of people who ran shops and restaurants in historic downtown Charleston, I guess four or five wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “Do you think they’ll lose interest any time soon?” I asked.

“In the flu?” Drea chuckled. “They might avoid you for a week to keep from catching anything, but that’s about it. You won’t be ostracized.”

That was a relief. “So how’s business?” I asked, eager to change the subject. Drea’s carriages were beautiful and her horses were pampered. Her tour guides shared interesting information on their rounds, as well as legends, scandals and unsolved mysteries. It was a profitable combination.

Drea made a face. “We’ve been booked solid with conventions and tourists. But if the news people keep talking up those murders, I’m afraid visitors will stop coming out at night.”

I frowned. “You mean the homeless men?” Charleston’s temperate climate attracted tourists, conventioneers and retirees, as well as some folks who were down on their luck.

She nodded. “The body they found makes two so far,” she said, and shivered. “I don’t know why anyone would do something like that; robbery certainly isn’t the motive.” She dropped her voice. “The police aren’t saying, but there’s a rumor that both of the dead men were torn apart.”

“Ugh,” I replied. Her description pinged a warning in my mind. That kind of killing could be mundane, but the brutality of it made magic suspect as well. “Anything else?”

Drea browsed the shelves where Teag had put out new stock. “Actually, yes. Valerie took a tour past Gardenia Landing two nights ago, and she got a little more than she bargained for.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Spill.”

Drea grinned. “It was one of the late night ghost tours. You know what they’re like.”

I did. Charleston is a marvelously atmospheric city, and even more so after dark in the Historic District.

Ghost tour guests ride in a horse-drawn carriage listening to Valerie spin tales of murder, mayhem and unrequited love, all ending in death – the more gruesome, the better.

“Valerie was filling them in on all the duels and suicides and star-crossed trysts and it all went well until they came to Gardenia Landing.”

“And?”

“When they came up in front of the B&B, she noticed that the shadows near the building seemed strange. At first, she thought that maybe someone was hiding there, so she made sure she kept the carriage in the light.” She shook her head. “She swears that she saw men come out of the darkness toward the carriage, but there were only shadows – no real people.”

“Did anyone else see them?”

“Just one guest, and it turns out that person has seen ghosts before.” Drea said with a ‘how about that’ expression. “Valerie said she left as fast as she could, and was afraid to look back.”

“Wow,” I replied. “Has Valerie ever had anything like that happen on her other tours?”

Drea shook her head. “Not with Gardenia Landing. She’s had enough encounters with strange things down by the Old Jail that she won’t do a late night tour there unless Mrs. Teller rides along.” Mrs. Teller was well-known in Charleston as a sweetgrass basket weaver and also as a ‘root’ woman, someone with powerful magic.

“The shadows Valerie saw seemed to glide rather than walk,” Drea added. “And they vanished in plain sight.” She met my gaze. “And you know how hot it was last night? Valerie said that the street felt colder than a winter night.”

Valerie, like many Charlestonians, felt rather possessive about our neighborhood ghosts. After all, they were part of the lore that brought crowds of tourists to the Holy City season after season. But more than that, Charleston’s many ghosts were the warp and the woof of the city’s history, and their tragic stories felt like family heirlooms, handed down from generation to generation. I had never known her to make up a story about a sighting.

“How did the guest react?” I asked.

Drea chuckled. “She felt like she got a bonus, and left a big tip.”