The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel (6 page)

“AAARRRGGGHH!” McGillicuddy screamed, his face going purple. He reared backwards, on his knees, and Trace saw the black smoke surge up his chest and pour into his open mouth. He batted with his hands but the blackness swirled around them, undeterred.

The front of his shirt bloomed bright red. He clutched at his guts, which were heaving and roiling beneath his shirt like the belly of a horse about to foal. McGillicuddy screamed again, and Boz backed sharply away, hand held out as if to ward away the sight before his eyes.

Buttons popped off like bullets. The fabric parted across McGillicuddy’s straining gut, revealing a small hard shape like a fist, pressing the skin from the inside, and the ropy edges of a long scar splitting like leather before the strain.

Something ripped out of the Irishman’s belly and shot across the room, striking the wall before it dropped to the floor and rolled a few inches back across the rug. McGillicuddy made a repulsive gurgling sound and flopped forward onto his face. A gush of blood poured from the wound, and wisps of black smoke rose up from it, eddied away across the floor.

“Faithful,” he croaked. “Master…”

A red bubble swelled between his lips and burst. He sagged limp into the carpet.

Trace looked at Boz, saw the whites of his eyes all around; his own vision was starry and wet. He looked around the room, at three dead men and another wounded, and a small black object on the floor near the hearth.

“Is that it?” Boz said harshly.

Trace stumbled across the carpet, stooped to grasp it. The coating of blood and grease squished under his fingers and he had a brief, maddening idea that it was the Irishman’s heart.

But no. It was a wooden box, egg-shaped and stained dark.

Voila,
Lisette murmured in his ear.
I am the good servant, non?

“Let’s get out of here,” Trace said.

CHAPTER SIX

It was about the size of Trace’s fist, carved in a rough pattern of crescents and triangles. The opening seam was coated thickly with some white waxy substance, but underneath they could see what looked like ordinary brass hinges, and a latch.

Trace didn’t like handling it. It felt warm, even after he had washed it under the pump in the chill March air. He held it in a piece of flour sacking cradled between his knees, sitting on a hay bale opposite Boz.

“You got to be some kind of sick pup to let somebody sew somethin up in your guts,” Boz said.

“Miss Lisette wasn’t that crazy,” Trace said. “She refused to keep it for him. Told him to get out. So he killed her, found somebody else. Somebody dumber and greedier.”

“That was
her,
who tried to knock you down when you first set foot in the door, wasn’t it? And she broke the bottle at the bar.”

“Yeah.”

“So why didn’t she kill him sooner?” Boz’s eyes widened. “Did
you
tell her to—?”

“No! She was showin off. She thought I was gonna be her new master. She didn’t give a damn about the box, she got it for me like a … love-token.” He didn’t like the way Boz was looking at him. “
That’s
why I don’t talk to them, Boz. Talkin to them makes them stronger, makes them come around more. Then they get mad if I don’t pay attention. They start bargaining. Beggin for things, offering me things. Like imps of Hell. Christ, I’m never sure if some of them
aren’t
demons. And I don’t care what that preacher said—certain mysteries aren’t meant to be known by men.” Trace folded the sacking over the box, wrapped it around, and stood to stash it in his saddle pack.

A knot of worry appeared between Boz’s brows. “Then what you reckon Miz Fairweather…?”

“Don’t know.” Trace pulled the flap down, knotted the ties. “Don’t care. Don’t plan to ask.”

“You just gonna hand it over?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Boz stared at Trace as if he were a stranger, and a crazy one at that. “These folks are
killin
each other over that thing. You don’t know nothin about Miz Fairweather except she’s a liar and prob’ly as bad as the rest of ’em—”

“And that’s why we’re gonna hand it over and not say a word about where it was or how we got it.” Trace slung his bedroll across the saddle skirt and turned to face his friend, keeping a hand on the horse’s flank. “If we don’t, how long you think we got before one of them comes lookin for it?”

*   *   *

“Y
E GODS, YOU
found it,” Miss Fairweather said, almost before she had entered the library. “Show me. Is that it?”

Trace rolled the wooden egg out of the sacking and put it into her hands. She seemed to flinch at the touch of it, her mouth tightening with the same repellence he had felt, but she looked it over carefully, inspected the wax seal with her fingertips. “You didn’t try to open it.”

“Not my business what’s in it,” Trace said. “Just my job to fetch it back.”

“My goodness. A paragon.” Her brows lifted slightly, as if he were something rare and intriguing. “May I ask how you were able to locate this?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” He could not quite keep the hostility out of his voice, and he guessed she heard it, because her cool blue gaze flicked up to his, lips curling cynically.

“You will forgive me if I doubt that claim, Mr. Tracy.” She tossed the box on the map table with such alarming disregard that Trace had to stop himself from diving after it. “I spent months trying to be certain you possessed the necessary talents, before I ever learnt your name or how to find you. I am quite certain
your
methods were no less deliberate.”

Trace stared at her for a moment while her words sank in. He had not expected her to lay down her hand like that. She eyed him right back, with interest and a certain covetousness, as if he were a prize thoroughbred.

“How did you
know
?” he demanded.

“The spirits, of course. I’ve been watching them cluster about you for months.” She cocked her head. “You’re afraid of them, are you not? I suppose you take the Christian view that all spirits are evil. I expect you believe your power comes from the devil.”

Her matter-of-fact dismissal of his entire creed was as shocking as a slap.

“Everyone I told is
dead
because of it,” Trace said sharply.

“Due to your negligence?”

“Negligence?”

“Did you perhaps summon some malevolent spirit beyond your control?”

“I
don’t
summon them. They come to me. I tell them to go away.”

“And do they obey?” Her slight smile implied she knew the answer.

And Trace knew, completely and without doubt, that she had
all
the answers. Her eyes fairly gleamed with eagerness to educate him, just as Eve had Adam, and all he had to do was take that first bite.

He was more tempted than he would have believed. In the early years he’d sought out Spiritualists and faith healers and even a Voudou queen down in New Orleans, but all of them had been frauds or fools. This woman was neither.

But he didn’t like being driven like a mule. And clearly Miss Fairweather was messing with some very dark forces. Whatever her purpose in seeking him out, he doubted it was wholesome.

“If you can see them,” he said at last, “why didn’t you go yourself?”

“I cannot see them. Not as you do, at any rate—my gifts are of a different persuasion. Besides, I could hardly visit an establishment of that ilk, now could I?”

If she had been a man, he might well have taken a swing at that damned smug smirk. “So this whole job—had you any claim to that box at all? Or was this just a ruse to flush me out?”

“I have as much claim as the man who held it, as you must realize. And I needed to be sure of your qualifications.”

“Qualifications.” He laughed, harshly. “And just what else were you plannin to have me do for you, lady?”

For the first time her expression sobered. And even as she opened her mouth again, Trace knew there’d be no truth coming out of it. “As I mentioned, my health prevents me from traveling. I have a rare condition—not contagious, but debilitating. Most days I cannot safely leave this house.”

He looked her up and down. Pale and thin she might be, but she was no wilting flower. “Consumption?” he said dubiously.

She made an ironic sound behind her nose. “Nothing so plebian.”

“Somethin darker,” Trace guessed. “Havin to do with the spirits. Somethin you summoned, beyond your control.”

She didn’t like that. Her nostrils flared in annoyance. “In any case, I need someone of your talents to aid me in my search for a cure.” She turned a step away, indicating dismissal with a wave of her hand. “Your payment is on the table beside the door.”

Trace figured that was the right direction for him to be heading. There was a paper envelope on the small reception table. He picked it up, thumbed through the bills inside, and tucked it into his vest pocket. And he looked back at her.

She was watching him. Dainty and refined at first glance, but with something …
hungry
in her expression and in the clenching of her hands at her waist. Immediately she relaxed her posture and resumed her cool poise.

“I guess you know about this Mereck fella the Irishman was so afraid of,” Trace said.

“Do you?” she countered.

“No,” Trace said. “Can’t say I’d welcome the acquaintance.”

“No, I don’t expect you would. The Russian Mesmerist, as he bills himself of late, makes a practice of trapping useful spirits in small vessels, and caching them with his dogsbodies until he has need of them again.” She waved a hand over the box, resting in the open pages of a large atlas. “Would you like to see who or what is in this one?”

“Thanks, no,” Trace said. “What’re
you
gonna do if he comes lookin for it?”

“Please don’t concern yourself about
me,
Mr. Tracy.” The corners of her mouth curled in a frosty smile. “I shall send word via Mr. Jameson when I have need of you again.”

Trace let out an explosive gust of humor. “Ma’am,” he touched his hat sardonically, “it’ll be a cold day in hell.”

He let himself out of her house. The sun was out, melting the last patches of snow in the low places. Tufts of green stood up and waved from the mud.

Trace patted the envelope in his breast pocket and went to find Boz.

MARCH 1880

PRINTER’S DEVIL

CHAPTER SEVEN

Temptation, like guilt and grief, was an emotion that never really went away. He could tamp it down and cover it over and try not to think about it, but like a campfire buried too shallowly, it could flare up and singe a man’s boots if he wasn’t careful.

So naturally, Trace spent several days after Sikeston in a smoldering snit.

It was bad enough Miss Fairweather had tricked him into revealing himself. But far worse that she had fanned the flames of that old hope—the childish, arrogant hope that God had laid this curse on him for a good reason.

In the early years he’d supposed it was divine retribution, for defying his father and leaving seminary to enlist. Aloysius Tracy had been a staunch abolitionist, and while the nineteen-year-old Jacob had had no love for slavery, he’d subscribed to the more moderate view that the institution would die out on its own. He’d felt much more strongly on the issues of State’s Rights and Throwing Off the Yoke of Oppression.

It had taken him a few years to realize whose heavy hand he’d been looking to throw off.

By the time he left the hospital he’d acquired a certain stoicism toward the curse. Plenty of men had lost their limbs or nerves or minds on the battlefield. He was better off than most. Plus he was on his own in the world for the first time, working ranches with the type of rough men he had never been allowed to associate with in his youth, men who drank and swore and fornicated and got along just fine without God, thank you very much. It was impossible not to notice that good and bad fortune were distributed among the ungodly in the same portions as the righteous, but on a cattle ranch folks didn’t spend as much time wringing their hands and wondering why.

He read the Bible cover to cover in those years, then moved on to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and even delved into some real heterodoxy—Martin Luther and Maimonides and Aristotle. Gradually he’d admitted to himself that he’d never wanted to be a priest. He’d even come close to declaring himself apostate, but only in his own mind. He wasn’t given to dramatic gestures, and anyway he and his father were still estranged at that point so the rejection of his faith only gave him an uneasy feeling of anticlimax. But then he’d met Dorothea, and he’d begun to believe, again, that God still loved him and had a plan for him.

Which just showed he had not been as old or wise as he’d supposed.

He couldn’t afford to start thinking that way again. Eighteen years now, he’d been carrying this curse around, and all it did was accumulate more carnage, every time he indulged it. Trace could not stop seeing McGillicuddy’s fat florid face, blood bubbling between his lips, knowing it could have been Boz.

He
hated
not knowing what triggered the destruction surrounding his curse. He hated lying awake at night and puzzling over that dead priest’s words—
to some men are given the gift of discerning spirits—
First Corinthians, chapter twelve, where Paul was describing the different spiritual gifts that were allotted to the faithful. What did that mean, to
discern spirits
? Did it mean merely being able to see them, or did it mean telling the good ones from the bad? Because he’d never seemed to have much success with that … But that train of thought led him inexorably to Miss Fairweather’s smirking observation:
I suppose you take the Christian view that ALL spirits are evil?

What was the distinction? What did she know that he didn’t? What was God trying to do to him, bringing all these disturbing events and questions into his life just now, when he had enough trouble trying to keep himself and Boz in room and board?

“What’re you stewin about over there?” Boz said, pacing along on his own horse at the other side of the road.