Bitter Spirits

EIGHT

WINTER HALTED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARLOR WHEN AIDA’S breath turned visible, barely hearing the gasps of surprise around him. He wasn’t unsettled by the puffs of white billowing from her mouth—not anymore. He was more interested in the silver instrument she had in her hand.

Aida’s body stiffened, then her face became animated. Her head swiveled around in all directions until she found Florie. “Sweetheart,” she said. “I never thought I’d lay eyes on you again.”

Florie froze, then backed up as Aida stalked her around the rows of chairs.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” Aida’s voice said. “I remember your last words like it was yesterday . . . when I found you riding the Halstead boy like a prized pony at the county fair.”

Florie paled, then laughed nervously. Her eyes flicked to her apparent lover, Andy Halstead, who stood next to her looking as if he were going to faint and keel over.

Aida walked faster. “When my heart failed, you didn’t even try to save me. You just said, ‘Looks like we killed him.’”

Florie’s back hit the wall. She yelped. Aida lunged with outstretched arms. Something flew from her fingers and sailed through air, dinging against the wall, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy grasping Florie’s throat with both hands as she wrestled his college friend to the floor. Winter raced toward them, knocking chairs out of the way while party guests stood by in a drunken daze.

Aida straddled Florie. The mesh handbag dangling around her wrist smacked against the floor as she choked her. A vase shattered. Florie was grasping the leg of a side table, trying to buck her off in a panic. Christ. The medium was going to kill her.

“Aida!” he shouted.

Her head snapped toward his voice. She looked at him with her eyes, but it wasn’t her. She was possessed. Feral. Unearthly. A violent chill ran down Winter’s arms.

“Aida, let go,” he commanded roughly.

She shuddered . . . then fell sideways off Florie and landed in a heap. Her frosty breath swirled away. Florie gulped air and pumped her legs, scurrying backward. People snapped into action.

One of the servants bent to help her up. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

Florie coughed, then pointed at Aida and choked out, “She’s crazy! Get her out of here!”

Winter slung an arm around Aida’s waist and hefted her to her feet. He brushed dust off her black dress and slid both hands around the back of her neck to hold her steady and get a look at her. He could feel her pulse hammering beneath his hands. “You okay?”

She sniffled. “Fine.” Her chest heaved with several labored breaths before she nodded her head. He released her. She looked over her shoulder at Florie and made a low noise of regret, her face contorting with a reluctant embarrassment.

“Come lay down, ma’am,” the servant was telling Florie. “I’ll bring you water and your pills.”

Halstead helped the servant lift Florie onto a settee. Winter watched him with mild interest, unsurprised that the man had been screwing Florie behind her husband’s back. Rather fascinating what Aida’s ability could dredge up.

“I want her out,” Florie yelled at no one in particular.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Aida rotated her shoulder to pull away from him, mumbling, “I just need to get my bag.”

As people were filing past, he spotted a flash of silver on the floor—what Aida had dropped—and picked it up as she got her bag, nearly cutting himself on a small, sharp blade. Before he could inspect it properly, he spotted the black lines of Aida’s stockings moving toward the door. He slipped the silver instrument inside his tuxedo pocket, hearing it ding against something inside as he ran after her and called for one of the servants to retrieve his coat.

“Hers, too,” he added, guiding Aida toward the entryway as guests scattered around other rooms—some whispering in corners, others looking for another drink. He helped Aida into her coat and instructed the maid to tell Florie that he was leaving and to call them a taxi.

Outside, he followed Aida down winding steps, then continued up the sidewalk. Packards and Cadillacs lined the curb, some with drivers asleep at the wheel, napping until their employers stumbled out after the party. The Magnusson family driver, Jonte, would normally be here as well, but he had the night off and Bo had dropped Winter off before heading to Chinatown.

“Where are you going?” he asked Aida.

She stopped in front of a nearby lot with a half-constructed house. Cement steps built into the hill were still framed in timber, flanked by two freshly bricked posts on either side.

“Let’s wait for the taxi here,” he suggested.

She didn’t turn around to look at him. Her silence was confusing. Maybe he was wrong, but the way she’d reacted to Florie’s obnoxious chattering was as if—well, that couldn’t be right. She wasn’t jealous, was she? Because that’s damn well what it seemed like in the heat of the moment, but maybe it was only what he wanted to believe.

Frustrated, he stared at the fog clinging to the trees and the roofs of houses across the street. “That was interesting.”

“I’m not sure what got into me. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“Florie’s smashed. She won’t even remember it in the morning. She never does.” He reached in his tuxedo pocket and held out the silver knife in his palm. “What is this?”

Her fingers brushed his as she took it. They looked at each other for a moment, then her gaze broke away. She rummaged around in her bag, retrieving a small silver cap. “It’s a military snake bite kit. I think it once belonged to a British pilot.” She screwed the cap over the blade. “Lancet is here and the other end holds medicated salve.”

“A lancet,” he repeated, still confused. “Why were you holding it when you called up Florie’s husband?”

“Because even though I can send ghosts away without help, I need to enter a trance state in order to call a spirit who’s left this plane.”

“Wait. If they leave this ‘plane’ after death, where do they go?”

“Across the veil to the beyond.” She made a vague sweeping gesture. “Look, don’t ask me to tell you the meaning of life or the one true religion or what happens to souls once they’ve crossed over, because I don’t know. They won’t tell you if you ask them, either. All I know is that I can call most of them back from wherever they are to communicate with their loved ones, as long as they haven’t been dead too long.”

“So you need to be in a trance to do that, but what’s the lancet got to do with it?”

“Lots of ways to enter a trance, but since I don’t usually have time to meditate, the fastest way for me is pain.” She twirled the lancet in her fingers, then palmed it, showing him. “I can hold it onstage without anyone noticing it.” Her big eyes blinked up at him. She pointed the capped lancet at her thigh. “I prick myself here.”

“Jesus! You injure yourself every time you call up a spirit?”

“It’s not bad, and I like helping people. Provides some resolution to the past.” She slipped the lancet into her coat pocket and retrieved her gloves. “Besides, it pays the rent, you know?”

She was tougher than he imagined. He studied the silhouette of her face beneath the brim of her cloche. The upturned tilt of her nose echoed the curved front of her bob, curling ever so slightly against her cheeks. She caught him staring and turned away, testing out the concrete steps. Finding them solid, she ascended one step, then another. She toed the wooden board housing the third step.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I was telling you about wanting to do séances,” she said with her back to him. “I’m sure you feel like you’re doing me some big favor by getting me this high-paying gig, but I don’t need help arranging work. And it doesn’t matter how much money people throw my way—if they don’t take me seriously, I might as well be dressing up in a jester suit and tap-dancing.”

Why was she so agitated? “Look, I wasn’t trying to do you a favor—”

“And I didn’t mean to upset your lover, but maybe if you would’ve just explained the situation to me instead of having her summon me out here—”

“Whoa! Florie and I are not lovers. Haven’t been since college. And it wasn’t as if we were sweethearts then, it was just . . .”

She turned around and crossed her arms over her middle. “Just what?”

“Convenient,” he finally said. “I’m sure that’s shocking.”

“Shocking?” Her laugh was mean and hard. “Like your silly postcard collection?”

“I believe you called me a deviant and a pervert, not silly.”

“You are. That doesn’t mean I’m prudish. I may not be as loose and free as Mrs. Beecham, or however many other flappers with whom you’ve had ‘convenient’ affairs, but I’m no virgin.”

Oh, she was a big talker, wasn’t she? Aida might be tough and independent, and she might not be a virgin, but Winter wasn’t convinced she was carefree and modern when it came to sex. He could tell by the nervous defensiveness in her speech—the way she blinked rapidly and wouldn’t look him in the eyes. The way she’d reacted when she’d discovered the postcards in his study, and how she’d acted in the dressing room. He’d been so worried about his own feelings that afternoon, he’d confused himself in regards to her motives.

She wasn’t concerned with propriety—she was skittish.

“How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?” he teased.

She narrowed her eyes. “Twenty-eight.”

“Practically dead. And how many lovers have you had?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He rested one foot on the bottom step. “You just accused me of being a promiscuous lout. I think it’s a fair question. How many? One?”

“Two,” she said, putting distance between them by ascending another step without turning around. “And both of them could barely manage a proper kiss, much less anything else, so I can’t say I was impressed. Like I said earlier, I can take care of myself.”

Now it was Winter’s turn to be astonished. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away.

Well, well. No woman he’d known had ever admitted to pleasuring herself, and being curious, he’d asked plenty of times. Frankly, he’d started to believe females just didn’t engage in such depravity, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He was quite fond of the activity himself. He must be; he’d been doing it daily half his life.

His mind conjured an image of her sprawled on a bed with her hand beneath her skirt. Big mistake. He tried to think of what she’d said before the taking-care-of-herself bit, and that didn’t help matters. She’d admitted to two lovers, and they weren’t any good. The sudden shift of blood from his brain to his cock made that sound like a challenge.

“So you’re saying that you can judge a man’s worth by his kiss?”

“I . . . no, I don’t think that’s what I said.”

“That’s what you implied. Would you like me to kiss you, so you can judge my worth?”

“Just because you look handsome in that tuxedo doesn’t mean I want you to kiss me.”

Handsome? She thought he was handsome? Perhaps she was blind, because he knew from all the uneasy stares he tolerated every time he stepped out in public that this couldn’t possibly be true. But he used to be, once, and oh, how he wanted to believe she meant it, so he allowed himself to do so, just for a moment, and climbed one step.

She made a small anxious noise and tried to do the same, but the top step was barricaded by a piece of timber, while his body blocked the descent. The freckled wildcat was trapped on the step above him.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, and that’s final.”

He chuckled. “You said that to Florie about the séance, then ended up pinning her to floor.”

“Yes, well . . . I mean it this time. What are you doing?”

“I’m considering kissing you.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t.”

He lowered his face very close to hers and smelled violets again. That drove him a little mad. His breath was coming faster. So was hers; for a moment, he watched her breasts rise and fall beneath the weight of her coat. “Why not?”

“I’m sure I have a really good reason, but you’re making it awfully hard for me to remember it.”

He chuckled. She gave him a sheepish smile.

“Maybe you’ll even kiss me back,” he said, becoming greedy.

“I doubt that. But if you insist on trying, what could I do to stop you?”

The heated look she gave him sent a bolt of heat through his already hard cock.

Jesus. She was teasing him. For a crazed moment, he wondered if he’d been the one to start this or if she’d manipulated him. Maybe she wasn’t skittish after all.

He leaned in closer. She smelled so good, he worried he might pass out and crack his head open on the sidewalk. He could see the gossip headline in the newspaper now: Suspected Bootlegger Succumbs to Spirit Medium’s Seductive Charms, Makes Idiot of Himself. He put a hand on one of the brick posts to steady himself. “This is what’s going to happen,” he said in a low voice that sounded far surer than he felt. “I’m going to kiss you—just a kiss. I won’t lay a finger on you. And if you find you don’t like it, if you find my worth lacking, you can shove me back down the steps. Deal?”

She hesitated, just for a moment, before answering him in a threadbare whisper.

“All right.”

Something between victory and vertigo raced through his veins. He swallowed hard and lowered his mouth—near hers, but not touching. Not yet. Her breath was warm against his lips. Their noses grazed. He tried to hold his eyes open, but his eyelids were heavier than wet sand.

Her mouth was so small. For a moment, he worried over this, feeling oafish and hulking. But he was too hungry to withdraw. His pulse swished and pounded inside his ears. He closed his eyes as his lips brushed hers, testing. So soft. He felt her mouth open against his as she breathed out the tiniest moan. The reverberation that went through him was wildly disproportionate, like a whisper causing a landslide.

Keeping his promise not to touch her with his hands, he pressed careful kisses on the corner of her lips, on the big freckle he’d first noticed that afternoon when she was in his study, then on her bottom lip, tasting salt. Her mouth opened wider, and that did him in. He was lost. He kissed her fully, trying not to swallow her whole, but unable to restrain himself when she pressed back.

She was kissing him.

Every cell in his body vibrated. Warm chills ran down his arms. He lost all good sense. His tongue slid inside her mouth before he could think that this might be crossing a line, but for some miraculous reason, she didn’t resist—she moaned into his mouth and joined him.

My God, she was kissing him in the slowest, most erotic fashion that he momentarily forgot where they were. He was hard as iron, barely able to stop himself from grabbing her around the waist and pushing his hips against hers. He’d never wanted to touch anyone so badly.

They broke away from each other, breath ragged. She could’ve pulled back, could’ve pushed him away, but she didn’t. A single syllable fell from her mouth—“oh”—and her cheek fell against his.

An unexpected tenderness washed over him. He bent his head lower, breathing in the sweet smell of her skin. “Aida . . .” His hand twitched. He wanted to touch her face if nothing else, and he might have broken his promise and done just that, if it weren’t for the blinding headlights that shined on them from the street.

Aida turned her head. He lifted a hand to block the light, out of sorts. She said something that he couldn’t hear. He made some strange noise in return, and she repeated herself.

“I think that might be the taxi,” she said hoarsely.

“Oh.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her glove and cleared her throat as a door slammed in the distance. “The driver’s headed up to Mrs. Beecham’s.”

He pulled away and composed himself. “Seems so.” Whistling loudly, he waved a hand in the driver’s direction, catching his attention as he was heading up Florie’s stairs. The driver lifted a hand in acknowledgment and returned to his taxi to pull forward.

Winter thought of the potentially cramped backseat, which in most taxis was barely big enough for him alone. The thought of Aida crowded into that constrictive space alongside him inspired several ideas all at once.

Oh, the things he could do to her in the back of that dark cab. Maybe she was right about him being a pervert; he’d certainly never felt more deviant than he did at that moment.

And something more . . . a dizzying lightness. A burden lifted. If a monster’s heart beat inside his ribs, her kiss was a sharper lancet than the one she used to pierce the veil: it opened up a small hole that allowed some of the darkness to drain.

She straightened her hat and pulled the brim down tight. Stepping aside, he allowed her to shuffle past him, the fronts of their coats lightly brushing. He followed her to the curb, smiling the entire way.

As the taxi shifted into gear and began rumbling down the hill from Florie’s, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. A figure stepped out of the darkness near his shoulder: a man dressed in a red suit, his hair in disarray. His eyes glowed yellow, reflecting the headlights of the taxi as it rolled toward them.

White smoke rushed from Aida’s mouth at the same moment Winter realized that the man’s suit wasn’t red at all—he was covered in blood.

Ghost.

Aida looked down at her breath. “Oh no . . . not now.”

Winter turned to face the ghost, all the hairs on his arms rising as panic tightened his chest. The bloody man looked straight at him—saw him, just like the prostitute. This was no random ghost, no accident victim tied to the street where he’d been hit. This was deliberate. And if the poisonous spell was broken, and he was no longer a walking ghost magnet, then something else was drawing it to him.

This was an attack.

The ghost came for Winter, reaching out with both hands. A strange electrical current crackled through his arm where bloody hands touched him.

Touched. Solid. The ghost was corporeal. Worse—Winter knew his face! From somewhere, someplace. So goddamn familiar, but he couldn’t remember.

Recoiling in horror, he jerked back and slammed into Aida. She yelped. He swiveled around in time to witness her, mid-stumble, as she tripped on her heel and fell into the path of the taxi.

Brakes squealed.

Winter lunged.

Aida felt her ankle give way as she staggered into the taxi’s path. She heard a terrible squeal and squeezed her eyes shut as headlights flashed across her face.

Her world tilted. She was jerked in the opposite direction, away from the rolling car. A sharp impact shook her bones as her face smashed against linen and wool and male. The taxi skidded by, veering sharply. Then everything was drowned by the sound of the crash. Metal exploded. Burnt rubber and asphalt filled her lungs.

Winter’s arm slackened and she tumbled from his grip. Her face scraped against the pavement as the wind was knocked out of her lungs. She wanted to cry out in pain but couldn’t. It took her several seconds to get her breath back. When it did come, that breath remained cold and white.

The ghost was still here somewhere, but she couldn’t see it.

Arms shaking, she pushed herself up on her elbows and twisted around, terrified until she felt Winter’s leg under hers. He was on his side, cradling his arm, grimacing. She shuffled around and quickly surveyed the rest of him. Saw no blood or tears in his clothing. Nothing but a streak of dirt on the bulk of his upper left arm.

He’d been struck on his shoulder while pulling her out of the taxi’s path. That was the thud she’d felt in her bones; he’d absorbed the impact.

“Winter?” She didn’t want to touch him, fearing that she’d hurt him further. His jaw clenched. “Mr. Magnusson?”

He exhaled on a loud grunt and shifted his leg, pain causing lines to crease around his eyes. He pulled himself up to sit, coddling his arm close to his side. “You okay?” He nodded to a small rent in her coat sleeve.

“Must have scraped the wheel cover or running board. It’s fine. Your shoulder hit the car. Is it broken?”

He rolled it and groaned. “Not dislocated. Just hurts like hell. It’ll be fine.”

Metal squawked behind her as the driver’s door of a white and black Checker Cab opened. He’d hit a telephone pole and dented the grille of his car, but nothing was on fire. No broken glass that she could see. “Are you folks okay?” the driver called out from across the street.

They exchanged brief answers, confirming that no one was seriously injured, as a porch light flickered on in a nearby house—neighbors curious about the crash. Aida scanned the street looking for the ghost. She found it a few feet away, bending over in the middle of the road.

“Behind you,” Aida warned Winter as she pushed herself up.

The ghost was seemingly unaware of them. It was fixated on something round lying on the pavement. Something gold and shiny and small.

Another glinting object lay just behind Winter, and a third near his hip.

The ghost picked up the first object, admired it, and then focused his attention on the next one, shuffling a couple steps closer.

“What the hell?” Winter murmured, warily watching the ghost bending again.

As he grunted and sat up, Aida squinted at the object closest to them: a gold coin with a square hole in the center that was bordered by familiar characters. “Chinese coins.”

“Shit!” He pushed himself to his feet. “I heard something clink in here when I pocketed your lancet.” He rummaged inside his tuxedo jacket pocket and pulled out a fourth coin.

“They must’ve spilled into the street when you pulled me out of the taxi’s path.”

“They aren’t mine. Someone put them there.”

The ghost had two coins and was now bending over the third. Bizarre, but the show was over. Aida started toward the ghost with the intent of getting rid of it, but Winter’s hand gripped her arm. “He’s solid, Aida. Feels like electric flesh.”

“Solid?”

“I knew this man when he was alive. Whoever poisoned me sent him.”

“The coins are the magnet,” she said. “Velma removed the magic in the Gu poison. Whoever is after you is trying something new.”

The ghost stood, holding the third coin. Its head snapped toward Winter, and then it lumbered toward them.

“It wants the magnet,” Aida shouted. “Throw the damn coin!”

Quick as lightning, Winter hurtled the coin into the street. The ghost immediately changed directions and lunged for it. The moment he had the coin in his grip, he . . . disappeared.

Aida’s breath returned to normal. It worked. Would she have been able to send the spellbound ghost away on her own? She didn’t know. She’d never encountered a solid ghost.

They stared at the street, both of them wary, but when it was clear that the thing was truly gone, she turned to him. “Someone put those coins in your pocket to attract that ghost.”

“It must’ve happened at Florie’s.”

“Someone at that séance isn’t your friend.”

The taxi driver was heading toward them, a young boy in a gray uniform, his pants tucked into tall black boots. Up the sidewalk, several guests from Mrs. Beecham’s began spilling out of her house. Someone called out to them, inquiring if everyone was okay.

“Winter?” Aida asked in a low voice.

He made a vague noise in acknowledgment.

“You said you knew the ghost when he was alive . . . ?”

He nodded his head once, then looked away. “I couldn’t place him at first, but I realized where I’d seen his face when he started picking up those coins.”

“Where?”

Winter waited so long to answer, she almost thought he wouldn’t. “He was a spy working for a small bootlegger out of Oakland. Pulled a gun on my father when we caught him snooping around one of our warehouses.” Winter turned his head and looked Aida in the eyes. “His name was Dick Jepsen. He was the first man I ever killed.”