A Summoning of Souls. Leanna Renee Hieber

wanted to bask in his sentiment but remained angry at herself about her lapse. Hesitating a moment, she allowed herself to be distracted by watching the sequence of passersby from every walk of life, background, and identity, the city street the true equalizer of humankind.

      “Did I somehow say something inappropriate?” he asked after many blocks of silence.

      “No, no, I’m sorry. It’s just that maybe I’m too much so,” Eve responded ruefully. “Your liaison between worlds. That’s likely what Prenze hopes of me. I think Prenze was pushing me to Sanctuary in hopes of gaining access himself, to do damage.”

      The detective frowned. “As Sanctuary is a place of rescue and respite for ghosts, I can imagine his hatred of hauntings would make him want to strike there, but if he can…”—the detective searched for the term—“astral-project himself, why not just try accessing Sanctuary on his own? Why involve you? Just to try to prove some sort of control over you?” The detective’s frown deepened, a storm in his eyes.

      “Yes, precisely that, I hate to say. Not only to remind me I’m under ongoing threat but to make me think I’m a danger to those I love and am called to serve. He wouldn’t be let into Sanctuary on his own. The denizens are careful; they’ve a clear sense of a lurking shadow with malevolent intent. It’s a broach of their rules to let me, a living soul, in as it is, and they’re battening down their hatches. They were literally shuttering their windows against a storm.”

      “It’s such a fascinating place, Sanctuary,” Jacob said, recalling his experiences with her at that spiritual precipice. “I can’t say I’ve actually been fully through into it, but trying to reach you there, when I grabbed you, lifted you, and bid you return to me, I was overtaken by a blinding light. For a moment I saw grand onyx columns, with arched capitals of gold, just like in my temple, and I could hear the most beautiful cantor singing. The vision was partial, vanishing when you came to at my side. But it was an incredible awakening to spectral occurrences that honored my culture in turn.”

      Eve sighed softly, following him as he turned onto Fourteenth Street. “It is a blessing to hear what you saw. I am affirmed that Sanctuary bends to the sacred architecture and rites most familiar to those who seek it. And it speaks so well of you Jacob, of your heart, that it opened light to you and knew you. Sanctuary did not see you as a threat. Lily Strand, my guide there, did say you were my tether, and that your heart was radiant.”

      He beamed, as if showcasing the very quality. Even despite all the fear and frustration of late, the fact that she felt so buoyant in his presence, that he seemed so happy in hers, was something priceless, unfathomable in its scope. Eve was stunned by the magnitude of alchemical magic happening in her heart.

      They turned north onto Irving Place, and a chill washed over Eve in a wave.

      The parade of ghosts was still there, marching around Dupont and Montmartre’s Viewing Parlor for the Dead in a floating circle of protest.

      Chapter Four

      “Why are you still drawn to haunt this place?” Eve asked the parade, troubled by this lack of resolution. “I’m so confused.”

      Eve had sincerely hoped they’d put to rest the spirits haunted by what had happened in and around Dupont’s work, but then again, the spirits so affected by the theft of body parts and tokens of their death were all children. The assembly remained of several adults and elderly souls. What else had the spirit world so unsettled about this place?

      They ascended the stoop, reading the letters painted on the front bay window indicating funerary services and the viewing parlor.

      The detective plucked a set of keys from his pocket and began trying each one in the lock.

      “You managed to get a key with this warrant?” Eve asked, incredulous.

      “Bills was so unnerved by Dupont’s work he has proved helpful. He handed me Dupont’s keys when we were at the theatre to separate the body parts from the stage set, thorough about the evidence of remaining parts. His cooperation with me, directly, insisting on me alone and not my superior, has me additionally suspect in the captain’s eyes. But the people who know the case must remain the ones working it. So many things get lost in a hierarchy of ego and superiority.”

      Horowitz emitted a small laugh of victory as one long brass key turned in the lock with a resonant clang and the glass door swung open.

      “Agreed. You’re good about creating rapport, and the results follow. It’s one of your best qualities,” she said with a smile that he shared.

      They entered the empty white entrance hall and the open, plain doorway that led into the long white-walled viewing parlor, empty save for the dais where a coffin would have been laid out for those who had become interested in separating death from their own home.

      “I was inside briefly with the girls so this part is familiar to me,” Eve said. “Jenny broke in through a back window, and we looked around quickly before anyone could report us as intruders. We didn’t have a warrant. In our haste I realize we didn’t check the rear exit, and I didn’t know yet to look for a box near the electric, keeping the ghosts out like in other venues.”

      “Then let’s see,” Horowitz said, and charged in, through the parlor and around to the back half of the building. Eve followed quickly.

      Beyond a small preparatory kitchen left over from when the parlor had first been a home, they found a rear door with a dark shade over its window. The detective went out, Eve following to the small patch of struggling green surrounded by the backs of other buildings. Horowitz noted the fuse box on the exterior brick of the parlor and gestured to an additional small metal box beside it.

      Eve reached forward and flipped open the lid to reveal the tines of metal and a sparking current snapping between them.

      “Antonia broke the current of one of these boxes before.” Eve peered closer. “If we can get something nonconductive, and break the wires there, it should disconnect it.”

      Horowitz picked up a broken plant pot and knocked the edge on the side of the wires, and with a click and scrape they fell to the side.

      With a rush of cool air, spirits swept into the space. Eve followed the lead of the dead and the detective followed her. These older spirits were not dogging Eve like the children had been before their parts and tokens were found in Dupont’s “reliquaries” and “art projects.” In the wake of the spirits’ chill came drops of rain falling from a darkening sky.

      Reentering the parlor’s hall, Eve watched the spirits swoop around, some five to seven of them, darting through walls and windows, experiencing the freedom of movement they’d not had when kept outside; but there was a focus to them—they were looking for something. A host of them went down a narrow stairs to the side of the kitchen, stairs Eve hadn’t noticed before.

      At the top of the winding stairs floated a distinct spirit that struck Eve with a sequence of memories. He was dressed in a dark robe and cap and had a long black-and-silvered beard; his skin was a dusky grey, which in life must have been a rich bronze. She’d noticed him before, floating outside of sacred sites but, not wishing to disturb his peaceful mien, Eve had never spoken with him, nor he to her.

      He turned and floated down the stairs. Eve followed, Jacob on her heels, only to vanish at the bottom stair to leave them alone in a whitewashed room.

      Downstairs, two narrow rectangular windows at the top of the cellar-level wall lit the room; coarse wooden floorboards were laid over a dirt floor. Set about the plain space were several wooden cabinets, most that looked like the base of a phonograph stand, two with wheels on tapered legs, one stocky and squat against a wall, and a few large wooden spools set against the far wall.

      “These cabinets look like…” Horowitz trailed off as he looked into one of the wooden cabinets and examined the top tray. It was empty.

      “The bases of the device attached to Gran during her abduction,” Eve finished, opening another of the rolling cabinet bases.