Evermore (11 page)

Thankfully we were quickly distracted by the
door opening and the appearance of Blunt.

"Bloody hell!" he cried when he saw me. He
spun on his heel and would have walked right out again if he hadn't
lost his balance. George caught him and staggered under the weight
of the bigger man, almost dropping him.

"Steady on," George said, helping the
headmaster to stand.

Blunt pressed the heel of his hand to his
forehead and leaned heavily on George's arm. "How did you find out
I was here?" he asked, his voice unnaturally thin.

"The spirit world can see a great many
things," I said.

"Go away." The half of his face not covered
by his extraordinarily bushy beard and moustache was pale, the skin
glistening as if he were in the grip of a fever.

"Are you ill, Mr. Blunt?" I indicated George
should help him to one of the chairs. "You look very unwell."

"Just go." He groaned and lowered his head
into his hands. "I've done nothing wrong since...since then and I
want no trouble."

"That's not why we're here, Mr. Blunt."

Theo and George took up positions on either
side of him as he sat, but I doubted they would be needed in any
strong-arm capacity. Blunt looked far too ill to run or be any
physical threat to me. Indeed, I was quite sure I could land a
harder punch than him at that moment. From the way he slumped in
the chair, he looked like a shadow of the man we'd first met mere
weeks ago.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "Get on with it
then."

"You might be ill, but there's no cause for
bad language around ladies," George said.

"She's no lady. Go on, state your business,
or I'll call the footmen." Blunt's unfocused gaze met mine and I
was startled by the web of red lines crisscrossing the whites of
his eyes.

George bent down to Blunt's level. "Call the
footmen and Miss Chambers will unleash a spirit on you."

Blunt's gaze flicked from
George to me to Theo. He did not look afraid, and for a man who'd
shown considerable terror whenever Jacob visited him in the past,
it was rather telling—he
must
have known I couldn't summon any spirits from the
Waiting Area.

"Where did you go after leaving the
Clerkenwell school?" I asked. "It could not have been here. The
footman said you were appointed only a few days ago."

"I was in the country. Visiting family. I
returned to London last week and applied for the position here when
I heard it was vacant. As soon as it was granted, I moved in. It's
a live-in position and I have rooms on the top floor. Satisfied,
Miss Chambers?"

He got up to leave, but Theo put a hand to
his chest and Blunt fell back into the chair again, as limp as a
doll.

"Call off your thugs," he said to me. "I have
to go. I have a, uh, very important appointment to keep. Very
important."

"Not yet," I said.

A shudder wracked Blunt and
any remaining color in his face drained until he was completely
white. "I don't feel well. Please...let me go...I
need
to keep my
appointment. I'm begging you."

"Do you know a youth named Frederick
Seymour?"

He swallowed heavily and ground his fingers
into his eye sockets. "Should I?"

"Do you know anyone by the name of
Seymour?"

Another shake of his head which produced a
loud groan. He clutched his hair, almost dragging it out by the
roots. "Miss Chambers..." He began to rise but once again, Theo
shoved him back.

"Do you know any gypsies?"

He pulled a face, although I couldn't be sure
if it was because the thought of meeting a gypsy filled him with
horror or he was going to throw up.

George looked at me and shook his head. I
sighed. He was right, we weren't going to get anywhere by
questioning Blunt. If he knew anything about the curse, he wouldn't
freely admit it to us.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Blunt,
although—"

Blunt made a great heaving sound and
propelled himself out of the chair so fast that he tripped over the
rug and landed on his hands and knees by the fireplace. A horribly
demonic sound burst from the depths of him before he emptied the
contents of his stomach in the grate. The contents of his pockets
had emptied all over the rug near his knees.

George buried his nose and mouth in the crook
of his arm.

"I think we should go," I said.

George and I walked quickly to the door.
Instead of joining us, Theo bent beside the miserable figure of
Blunt. He picked something up and pocketed it. The three of us left
the Institution in a hurry.

"He knows something," I said once we were
inside the carriage. "Did you see how he wasn't afraid when you
threatened him with spiritual violence, George? He knows the ghosts
cannot easily come here and we're rather powerless in that
regard."

"That doesn't mean he's connected to whomever
is responsible for the curse," George said. "He may have heard the
rumors of your recent difficulty summoning spirits."

"Not Blunt, surely. He's the master of a
charity school. It's unlikely those rumors have reached him yet."
It was something Celia and I were counting on. We had as much
business from ordinary folk as we did from the upper regions of
society. Indeed, it was the middle classes who tended to take us
more seriously, whereas we were mostly seen as frivolous
entertainment by the wealthy and privileged. Lady Preston had begun
to change that through her circle of friends, but all her good work
was unraveling a little more each day.

George and Theo exchanged glances.

"Are you two hiding something from me?" I
asked.

"Emily," said Theo gently, "you must prepare
for the worst."

"The worst?"

"Your business may fail completely," George
said.

"What?"

"Mother has reported that even more people
are talking about you in a, er, somewhat negative light."

"My aunt said the same thing." Theo grimaced.
"I'm sorry, Emily, but I think you'll find you have many more
cancelations before the week is out."

Bloody hell. "Celia will go into a panic if
that happens."

"And you?" Theo asked. "It is your livelihood
too, after all."

"We'll survive. We must have built up some
savings by now." I heaved a sigh. "By the time it runs out, we
should both have found employment elsewhere. Perhaps Mrs. White can
tell me how to become a governess." The prospect of leaving behind
my work as a medium lifted my spirits a little. I was tired of
being seen as an oddity. All my life, I'd been treated differently,
partly because of my heritage, but mostly because it was known I
could communicate with the dead. It made making new friends
difficult. Those who believed me were generally afraid of me, and
everyone else just assumed I was mad or a fraud.

"Good," George said. "I'm glad you'll be all
right. Aren't you, Hyde?"

"Of course, of course."

"I do hope Blunt's illness isn't contagious,"
said George after a moment of silence.

"I don't think it is." Theo pulled a small
package out of his pocket and unwrapped the brown paper to reveal a
little pile of black powder.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I think I know," George said, adjusting his
glasses and taking a closer look.

"So do I," Theo said.

"What is it?" I asked them. Neither answered.
George sat back and Theo shuffled his feet. "Tell me!"

"It's opium," George finally said.

Theo nodded. "It seems Blunt is addicted to
the stuff."

CHAPTER 7

"Opium! Good lord," I said. "I don't know
much about it, but I do know having an addiction to it can be
debilitating."

Theo folded the brown paper
over the powder and tucked the parcel into his waistcoat pocket.
"That explains why Blunt was sick. He must be due his next dose."
He patted his pocket.
We
now had his next dose.

"That's what he must have meant about his
appointment," I said. "Will he be all right? What will happen if he
doesn't take it?"

Theo shrugged. "Culvert, do you know?"

George's nod was grim. "I
do unfortunately. There was a fellow in the Society who was
addicted to the stuff. He started smoking it to lessen the pain of
a back injury obtained from a riding accident. After a few months,
it no longer had the same effect and he needed to smoke more of the
stuff to get some relief. That's when his health began to decline.
He lost weight, lost his ability to focus, and looked ill all of
the time. He ceased caring about everything and everybody, which I
think was part of its allure. When he tried to give up, or when he
hadn't smoked it for a period of time, he was very much like Blunt
was now. Sick, shaking, terrible nightmares, and that was only on
the nights he
could
sleep. More often, he could not."

"I almost feel sorry for Blunt," I said.

"Was he like this the last time you met him?"
Theo asked.

"No." I pressed a hand to my stomach,
suddenly feeling a little ill myself. "Oh George, what have we
done? What if Jacob's haunting was the reason Blunt took up the
habit in the first place?"

"Don't think like that, Emily," George said.
"We are not to blame."

"Agreed," Theo said. "You cannot be held
accountable for the actions of a grown man capable of making his
own decisions." He suddenly took my hand and kissed it, eliciting a
polite cough from George. Theo let go, removed his hat, and dashed
his fingers through his hair. "My apologies," he muttered.

"No need to apologize," I said, bemused. He
was behaving rather oddly all of a sudden. Very...earnest. Perhaps
he'd been overcome with ardor. I quite liked the thought of
that.

"I wonder what he'll do when he finds his
next dose missing?" George said.

A terrible thought struck me. "Will he die
without it?"

"No, nothing like that.
Having too much of it will kill him, not the withdrawal. Although
he'll probably
want
to die as the pain worsens."

"I wonder if this was all he had left." Theo
took the package out of his jacket pocket again.

George gasped then half rose out of his seat.
He removed his hat, pulled down the window, and shouted at the
driver to stop and return to the Institution. We jerked back and
forth as the coach halted. The movement sent me closer to Theo. Our
thighs touched. Neither of us shifted away.

"I hope we're not too late," George said, his
eyes sparkling like gems.

"Too late for what?" Theo asked.

"To follow him," I said, as George's
intention became clear. Excitement trickled down my spine. "If
Blunt has no more opium, he will probably go to buy some before his
condition worsens. If we can stop him but promise to let him go if
he answers our questions, we might finally find out if he is indeed
the villain."

"Blackmail." Theo grinned. "Brilliant!"

"I prefer to think of it as an incentive,"
George said. "Blackmail sounds so despicable and our intentions are
honorable."

The coach swung into the traffic and headed
back the way we'd come. Within moments it had pulled up outside the
school again. Theo got out and spoke to the school's footman. A
moment later he returned to the coach and spoke to our driver.

"Blunt did indeed leave just after us," he
said as the coach rolled forward. "I've given the driver
instructions to slowly scour the nearby streets to search for him.
He cannot have gone far."

George looked out one window and I peered out
the other. Theo, sitting next to me, reached over my shoulder and
lifted the curtain higher. He was so close I could feel his warm
breath on my ear and his chest against my back. His heart drummed a
strong, rhythmic beat. I liked it. Liked it very much. But I was
acutely aware that he wasn't Jacob. I closed my eyes and threw up a
prayer that he was all right.

Theo drew in a deep, shuddery breath then
shifted back a little. I applauded him for doing the honorable
thing, yet part of me missed his solidness, and the way he made my
nerves thrum with anticipation.

"I think..." George was off his seat, his
nose squashed against the window pane. "There! Getting into that
hansom."

"Has he seen us?" I asked. George's coach was
distinctive with the Culvert escutcheon painted on the door. Blunt
would recognize it instantly.

"I don't think so. By the look of
concentration on his face, he's trying not to be sick and doesn't
seem to be noticing anything except the cab." He pulled down the
window and ordered his driver to follow the hansom but to keep some
distance.

"Let's hope they don't travel too fast," I
said. "There's an awful lot of traffic. It'll be easy to lose him
if your driver is not vigilant."

"I'm not so worried about losing him as I am
ending up at an opium den," George said.

Theo murmured agreement. "I've heard some of
them are gruesome, certainly unfit for a lady to enter. We must
decide who goes in and who stays here with Emily."

"You are not leaving me behind!"

George put up his hands, placating. "Let's
worry about that when we find out where he's going. If we can stop
him entering the den altogether, we will not need to separate."

I had never seen an opium den before and I
wasn't going to see one today. I knew where we were heading as soon
as we hit the newer, blander streets of London's outskirts, and it
wasn't to a squalid back lane. We drove past houses that were all
the same, their features indistinguishable from each other, their
facades unassuming.

"He's going to Price's house," I said.

"Leviticus Price?" George screwed up his
nose, pushed up his glasses, and squinted at the houses sliding
past the window. "Good lord, I think you're right."