Bitter Spirits

THIRTY

WHO SENT THE LANCET? VELMA? WINTER? WHOEVER IT WAS, someone knew where she was—or at the very least, knew how to send something to her.

Reeling with hope, she spent several minutes considering how to hide the lancet, and decided to wedge it under her garter, as it was less likely to be found and taken than it would be if it were palmed in her hand.

No one returned for her, so she began inspecting the food. The beer was capped. She smelled it, poured some out to inspect the color, then tasted it in incrementally larger amounts, until she was as certain as she could be under the circumstances that it was untainted. Once it was finished, out of sheer desperation, she relieved her aching bladder in the rusting sink. Not her finest moment, and she cursed Yip’s name for treating her like an animal.

An hour after the food was delivered, the big man returned with a partner. He held up the tin with the noxious cloth as a warning before herding her out of the room. A terrible rush of anxiety rattled her nerves as she was led down the corridor. But instead of heading back to the booze storage, they took her to a room with double doors. The metal plate on the wall, stamped with both Chinese characters and English, read FIRST-CLASS DINING ROOM. They entered.

“Ah, Tai,” called a cheery voice in the distance. Yip. “Bring in Miss Palmer.”

Her eyes darted around the expansive room. Like the rest of the ship, it lacked electricity, but lit lanterns had been set upon round tables. She could imagine those tables, when the ship had seen better days, covered in white linen and silver tableware; now, they were pushed to either side of the room to make an aisle, broken chairs piled near the walls. Two other sets of doors had been nailed shut with boards.

A large chandelier hung in the center of the room. Some of the bulbs were broken, and a few dripping candles had been stuck in their place. The candles cast a meager golden light on two tables below that had been shoved together. A long, dark box sat atop them, and behind stood Doctor Yip.

“Come, come,” the herbalist said, waving her closer. “I hope you’re well rested now, and you’ve eaten.”

Aida didn’t answer.

He gave a command in Cantonese to the big man, who dismissed his partner, and closed the doors. Yip spoke to her again. “Tai will mind the door while we talk, yes? Step closer, please. I have something marvelous to show you.”

No need to panic, she told herself. She was armed, and by calling her forward, he was putting several yards between him and Tai. She’d be alone with him, and the lancet sat snug against her leg.

He should be the one frightened.

Steeling herself, she slowly approached the doctor, but didn’t make it halfway before she halted.

“What’s on the table?” she said.

“It’s a coffin, my dear.”

“An empty one?” The second the words were out of her mouth, something putrid and foul wafted. She recoiled and clapped her hand over her mouth. Something crunched under her shoes: dirt and gravel. A line of it led to the coffin.

Yip chuckled. “You would think someone with your skills would be less wary of the dead. Though, I do forget that your talents are different than mine. Not accustomed to graveyard work, I take it?”

“No,” she managed.

“It’s not pleasant, I’ll admit. But you must remind yourself that it is just a body.”

“Whose body?”

“Come closer, and I’ll show you.”

Another smell hung over the stench of death. “Are those herbs? More of your spellwork?”

He laughed. “No, that’s to help with the odor of the body. If I wanted you drugged, I would’ve already done so. I’m trying to show you something, please.”

She stepped closer, giving the coffin a wide berth as she tried not to breathe through her nose.

“Let us be frank,” Yip said, wiping his hands on a soiled handkerchief. “I know you have been seeing Mr. Magnusson. I also know you are booked in New Orleans, so I am assuming your time spent with the bootlegger is merely a dalliance.”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is.”

He waved a hand, dismissive. “I don’t care about that. What I’d like to talk to you about is a partnership.” He tipped his head her way. “All hives have a queen, yes?”

She nearly choked. “What?”

“I don’t suggest anything physical. I am referring to a working partnership. An indoctrination into my organization.” He held up a hand when she balked. “Now, hear me out. We are cut from a similar cloth, you and I. We both can call spirits from the beyond. My powers are stronger, but you are able to do something I can’t, which is to speak to them. I cannot do this, I confess. I can bring them back and command them—and truly, this gives me more power than you.”

“Truly,” Aida muttered.

“You’ve seen my results, yes? Mr. Magnusson’s murder victims? I think he’s been using you to get rid of them.”

“It’s a fine trick, luring them with the coins and buttons,” she said.

“I knew it! You can send them back. Is this a skill you’ve been taught?”

She didn’t understand why he was so excited, and she wasn’t going to admit that she hadn’t been able to send them back—at least not when she tried it on the bloated ghost in the tunnel under the street. “So you basically channel spirits into dead things instead of yourself.”

“Yes,” Doctor Yip said, throwing his handkerchief aside. “It is one difference between us. I can call them and give them life again. Command them. You can call them into you temporarily. You cannot command them.”

“I can send them back.”

He smiled at her, as if this was the best news he’d ever received, then cleared his throat. “Yes, yes. And you can speak with them. I cannot. They will follow my commands, but they will not talk to me. And someone with your particular talent might be helpful in obtaining information from the dead. Not this plebeian work you’ve been doing, but real information from important spirits.”

“Why in God’s name would I want to help you with that?”

“I know you are sympathetic to the Chinese people—”

“I’m sympathetic to most people, as long as they aren’t trying to kill me.”

He made an impatient noise. “What I’m offering is a chance to use your abilities for a greater cause. You will be given a place of honor in this organization.”

“And live on a rotting boat like a rat?”

“Live wherever you’d like. I will pay you a salary that will allow you a luxurious lifestyle, if that is important to you.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe that. You did try to burn me alive in my old apartment.”

He idly brushed the front of his vest. “I was only thinking of you as a problem then. I’ve been doing a lot of consideration and prayer, and I see now that I was wrong. You’re much more useful to me alive.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“You are suspicious. Very smart. And we can talk about this for hours, but you will not be convinced until you can see what I’m capable of. Action will convince you where words fail. And I truly believe that something in you will understand better.”

He cracked open the lid of the coffin.

Aida recognized the moment for what it was: an opportunity. She should stab him now, while he was weak, while his goon stood across the room. She could kill him, or injure him badly enough to escape. But how loyal was the big man, Tai? Would he stop her at the door?

Her mind whirled.

“Like speaks to like,” Doctor Yip said as he stood the lid open on its hinges. “We are the same, you and I. No one can truly understand who you are like I can.”

The stench worsened considerably.

Yip leaned over the open coffin and chanted something she didn’t understand several times. “Hay-sun-la, hay-sun-la . . .”

Aida’s breath turned white.

She scanned the coffin for a ghost and saw nothing.

Yip’s shoulders drooped. His breath wasn’t like Aida’s—no ghostly fog billowed from his mouth. His breathing was, however, strained. He gulped air like he was drowning and made a crude hacking noise.

Aida’s focus splintered when something thudded from inside the coffin.

He’d called something over the veil, her breath told her that. And she expected it to look much like the ghosts he’d sent after Winter.

It didn’t.

A decomposing corpse came into view as it sat upright in the coffin. Half bone, half decayed, rotting flesh, it turned its head toward Yip. It was hard to tell if it was male or female, as most of the hair and flesh was missing from the back of its skull. It was wearing clothing, but it was soiled beyond recognition with decomposition, its chest sunken. Shriveled lips remained, sutured closed. The eye sockets were filled with dark sludge.

“You channeled the spirit into the corpse,” Aida whispered.

He coughed and placed a hand on his vest, as if to steady his laboring lungs. “Yes. I don’t use memento mori, as you say in your show. I use their bones as a beacon.” He mumbled incoherent words to the corpse, which promptly lay back down in the coffin. But he didn’t send her back over the veil, because Aida’s breath was still cold.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Westerners would call her a revenant.”

“Animated corpse.”

“If I command her to seek a person, she will walk for miles until her legs fall apart—and when that happens, she’ll crawl. Her hands will scrabble across dry desert, long after her head has fallen in a ditch. I bound her spirit to her bones, and she can do nothing but obey my commands.”

She. That thing was a she.

“Behold,” he said with breathless excitement. “This is the kind of power I wield.”

Aida stared at the corpse in horror. “Put her to rest, for the love of God. You’ve proven your point, and I can’t stand the sight of her.”

“She is alive now. I can’t kill her.”

“You’ve created an immortal creature?”

“I didn’t say immortal. She can die again, in a manner of speaking.”

“How?”

He inhaled deeply, ignoring her question. “Besides, this girl is special. Today I will pack her up and let her loose on her husband.”

Aida held one exhalation of cold breath for several beats.

“Who is her husband?” she finally asked in a small voice.

Yip smiled very slowly.

It can’t be—no, no, no . . .

“Take heart,” Yip said. “I am not arranging for Mr. Magnusson’s death because of his respect for my people. I’m just pushing forward what would naturally occur in the future—Mr. Magnusson has the burden of too much death by his own hand, and his mind is weak like his father’s.”

Dear lord. Winter wasn’t crazy, but Yip was. A very rationalized, polite insanity, but crazy nonetheless. Aida stared at him, both horrified and feeling pity for the man.

Yip gestured toward the coffin. “Now that you’ve seen my power, what is your decision?”

“If I declined your offer?”

“Do you know how to swim?”

Aida started to shake her head in answer until realization sunk in.

“That is the best way. Your spirit will travel fast—very little chance of it staying here as a ghost if you’ve drowned in the Bay. And no one will grieve you, which is a small blessing. I will simply send word to your future employer in New Orleans that you’ve changed your mind, and no one will even know you’re gone.” He smiled at her as if he were a kindly old lawyer, breaking tough news about a judge’s decision.

A loud noise coming from somewhere on the ship made her jump.

Then again. A sharp bang!

The report of a gun.

Doctor Yip blanched. His men carried no guns.

Aida knew someone who did.

More shots were fired in quick succession, and suddenly gunfire reverberated inside the belly of the ship. It sounded like a battlefield lay beyond the walls of the dining room. Not single shots anymore, but the distinct rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns. Muffled shouting followed. The teardrop crystals in the chandelier clinked; the boards beneath her feet vibrated.

“Tai! Get out there and see what’s going on!” Yip yelled at the big man as he rushed to close the casket top.

While he pulled it down, Tai swung both doors open. A shot exploded. The big man stumbled backward. Movement in the dim doorway took the shape of an even bigger man whose arm lashed out to shove Tai. His teetering form crashed to the floor. He did not get up.

The gunman who’d shot Tai stormed into the ship’s dining room holding someone else in front of him like a shield, a handgun pressed to the side of his head. When he walked the hostage into the light of the first lantern, Aida, with a start, recognized the man being held at gunpoint.

Ju’s thug. The man she’d burned with incense.

The gun fired. Flesh and bone exploded. Ju’s thug dropped to the floor.

The gunman kicked him away and stepped into the light.

Splattered in blood, Winter strode into the room like a furious titan.

Aida cried out in relief, but a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and yanked her sideways. Yip crushed her back to his chest and pinned her there. “Mr. Magnusson,” his voice called near her ear as he shoved her forward. “I had plans to visit you at your house later tonight. I have men there watching your sister.”

“I know. They’re all dead.”

“Ah.” Yip’s grip tightened. “And I see I miscalculated the depth of your allegiance to the spirit medium. Is it really worth damning your soul further to take more innocent lives on this ship?”

“Winter—” Aida started.

Yip slapped his bare hand on her mouth. Ghostly breath, now stoppered there, shifted paths and streamed from her nostrils in quick pants.

“I couldn’t care less about her,” Winter said.

Aida’s chest tightened. Surely he was bluffing.

“Your actions betray you,” Yip said.

“She’s leaving the city tomorrow. It was a fling. She was giving it up for free—just a skirt, nothing more.”

Aida’s throat constricted. Anger and hurt welled up in equal parts.

“Then why have you come for her?” the herbalist asked.

“I didn’t even know she was here.”

It couldn’t be true—no! Why did he send the lancet? She struggled to throw Yip off, but he only held her tighter. After huffing several strained breaths near her ear, he snapped at Winter. “You mean to tell me that you brought death into my house—that you’re killing my workers—because of a few ghosts I sent your way? I don’t believe that.”

Winter’s face was stone. Lantern light cast shadows over his eyes, making his scar stand out in sharp relief. His mouth was the same immovable grim line he’d worn when she first met him, as if he’d never learned how to smile. “I’m here to look out for my business and take back what you’ve stolen from my associates.”

Aida’s pulse pounded in her temples as panic shot through her limbs. Did he mean it? Her heart didn’t believe it, but her mind pulled at the loose thread of their fight. The way he’d shouted at her. The way he’d ignored her for days before the fight. Maybe he’d only sent the lancet as a token—maybe it was his way of telling her she was on her own.

She searched his face for some sign of hope but found none. Her confidence unraveled.

“I wasn’t aware you had any associates,” Yip said.

“You’d be surprised how quickly the dollar will make friends of rivals.”

“If you are that intent on saving your business, then go ahead and shoot the girl.”

“I’d rather shoot you. Let her go and face me like a man.” Winter took another step. His nostrils flared. A brief flash of repulsion crossed his face. He smelled the corpse. His eyes finally flicked to the coffin. Hesitation chinked his steely exterior—Aida could see it. Yip saw it, too.

“Before you shoot anyone, why don’t we see if another woman might change your mind?”

All of Yip’s muscles seized. He barked out a rough command. Aida struggled against him, trying to get away. His grip changed from firm to bruising. Pain sliced down her arm as his fingernails jabbed hard enough to break skin.

The coffin lid creaked open, blocking her view of Winter.

A gunshot cracked. Shellacked wood splintered.

Yip reacted immediately, dragging her backward as he circled around the coffin like a clock—a ticking second hand trying to outpace Winter’s steady minute hand. She attempted to slow Yip by biting the meat of the palm gagging her mouth. Yip stomped on her toes. Pain radiated through her foot as tears streamed down her face. He dragged her farther and shouted another command.

They stopped at the head of the coffin.

Winter aimed a gun at her from the coffin’s foot.

Their gazes locked. She saw nothing in his eyes—nothing at all!

The corpse’s head lifted. Winter’s focus shifted. She watched horror dawn over his face as he looked upon the rotting body of his dead wife.

“No introductions are necessary,” Yip shouted to Winter. “True love never dies, yes?”

The body crawled out of the coffin, sloshing viscous dark fluid as it stood with creaking bones. Her dress was plastered to her limbs, indistinguishable from the pieces of embalmed skin clinging to her arms. Most of her flesh was gone around her upper legs.

A grotesque nightmare.

Yip gave her another command. Her head twisted toward her former husband.

Aida heard Winter make a pained noise. He aimed his gun at the walking corpse.

“You killed her once,” Yip shouted near her ear. “Will you again? I called her spirit from the beyond. The body is crude, but it holds her, truly. She is alive, for all intents and purposes. And she still loves you, even from the grave. Would you really kill her with your own hands?”

Aida stared at Winter, hoping he wasn’t falling for this insane man’s words. He’d contradicted himself so many times, even she didn’t know what was true. He’d said the revenant wasn’t immortal. It was just a spirit occupying a dead body . . . nothing more than what she did when she channeled, only the spirit didn’t have a live shell to occupy.

Winter hesitated, unsure, whispering, “Paulina?”

The broken sound of his voice was like a shock of cold water over Aida’s nerves. Twisting in Yip’s arms, she sloppily hiked her dress up and snatched the lancet from her garter. Yip shouted some threat in her ear, but she wasn’t listening. Four quick twists and the lancet cap bounced on the floor.

Reaching behind her, she stabbed the blade into the only place on Yip she could properly reach: his right hip.

“A-a-ah!” he yelped as his hand released her mouth.

Not a serious wound, but enough to free her.

His grip around her shoulders sagged. She spun around and hit him again, slashing his bicep. He screamed in Cantonese and lunged for her, grasping at air when she jumped.

“Move out of the way!” Winter roared from the other side of the coffin.

Aida glanced over her shoulder. Was he talking to her, or to his dead wife?

Yip shouted a command at the revenant. The rotting corpse turned and lumbered toward Aida.

“If you kill me now,” Yip yelled at Winter, “you will doom both of them. Your wife will not stop until Miss Palmer is dead—only I can command her. And if she kills the medium, her spirit will be tainted with blood debt. She will no longer be innocent, and she’ll be stuck in limbo on this plane.”

Stuck on this plane.

The words jarred something loose in Aida as she backtracked, eyeing the revenant as it shambled toward her, moving faster with each step. Doctor Yip had been too happy about the knowledge that she could potentially send his ghosts back across the veil.

Because he couldn’t.

Could she?

The ghost in the tunnel hadn’t budged, and this one carried the weight of a dead body. She honestly didn’t know if that was better or worse, but Yip had used the bones to call the spirit, and maybe she could use them to send the spirit back. All she could do was try.

White breath clouded her eyes. She concentrated. The revenant lifted rot-bedraggled arms and reached for her as Winter shouted something jumbled and elusive in the distance. Aida made a whip-fast decision to boost her chances by doing something she usually only did to call a spirit: she raised the lancet and jammed it into her own thigh with all of her force.

One second of brightness. One second of a clear mind, free of chatter and thought.

One second of trance.

She grabbed cold, slimy bone and pushed her willpower into a single command.

Leave.

Current crackled inside the revenant, sending a shock through Aida’s fingers. She jerked her hand back as the corpse quivered for a moment . . . then collapsed.

Aida’s next breath was clear.

With a grunt, she pulled the lancet out of her leg and glanced up. Winter stood a couple of feet away. His gun was pointed at the fallen corpse. Their gazes locked briefly. His nod was barely discernible, but she caught it right before his eyes flicked to Yip. His gun followed.

“Are you hurt?” Winter asked, voice even and low. He was looking at Yip, but talking to her.

“I’m okay.”

“Did they touch you?”

She knew what he meant. “No.”

The herbalist spoke up. “Do what you will, Magnusson. I will not run from you or beg for my life.” Blood stained the slice in his shirt where Aida had slashed. He held his hand over the wound on his leg.

Winter stepped over the corpse. “And I won’t enjoy taking it. But you put my family in danger. You kidnapped and nearly burned Miss Palmer alive, and she is under my protection. You cursed and poisoned me, and you defiled my wife’s corpse.”

“I don’t deny it. They are war crimes, and I don’t regret them.”

“Turn around, Aida,” Winter said in a quiet voice.

She could have protested. She didn’t. More for Winter than her own qualms. A little for Yip’s dignity. Some part of her still pitied him, even then. She turned around and closed her eyes. Her shoulders jumped when the gunshot cracked.