Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(37)

“You don’t like her?” I said.

“I don’t like secrets.” He paused at the spiral staircase. “Get some rest, Miss Rook. You’ve had a long day and a longer night, and I need you sharp.”

I managed a few fitful hours of sleep while the day was still young, but by late morning I found myself staring at the ceiling feeling more anxious and discontent with each passing minute. I had attacked Pavel. It felt wrong. It wasn’t just that I could not remember it—I could not fathom initiating such a violent assault, even against someone so loathsome.

Hearing the faint murmur of voices downstairs, I abandoned my bed and dressed for the day. Owen Finstern was awake.

“Magic, Detective?” I heard him say as I slid down the hallway.

“Yes.” Jackaby’s voice. “I know you’re a man of science, but please keep an open mind. This is important.”

I stepped into the room. Finstern was sitting up on the bench and Jackaby had pulled up the chair next to him. If Jenny was around, she had not made herself visible. The inventor glanced up as I entered. “Hello again, miss,” he said without a modicum of remorse, although not with any ill will, either. His eyes continued to dart about.

“Good morning,” I said. “No, actually, rather awful morning. You tried to shoot me with some sort of energy thing!”

“I did shoot you. You survived. Mr. Jackaby informs me you carried my machine out of the woods. Where is it now? Were you very careful?”

“Did Mr. Jackaby also inform you that you’re a cad?”

“He mentioned something along those lines, yes. Subjective. Hard to quantify. He also tells me that I am the target of paranormal kidnappers.” He still had a slight twitch just under one eye, which only added to his naturally manic look.

“It’s true,” I said. “One of them came by and tried to bully us into turning you over while you were sleeping. I’m beginning to wish we had let him have you.”

“I think perhaps you should have. I would be very interested to meet a council of magical creatures.”

It was hard to tell if Finstern was mocking my employer or if he was speaking in earnest. He showed little emotion and seemed as unfazed by talk of fairies as he was unapologetic about attempted murder.

“I noticed the markings on your device,” Jackaby said. “Alchemical symbols and arcane invocations. You’ve made a study of the occult?”

Finstern nodded.

“Curious hobby for a man of science, isn’t it?”

“Mother used to tell me that my father was a magic man,” Finstern said, his eyes wandering around the cluttered artifacts on the shelves. “He knew my mother for only one night, but she spoke of him as if he were the sun and the moon. She also told me that when I was born I had a twin, a sister. The girl could walk before I could crawl, and swam like a fish while I cried in the shallow bathwater. Her hair changed colors in the moonlight, Mother said. Not a child in the world was as precious or perfect. I certainly was not. Sometimes I think I can almost remember my sister. We were only infants when my father came back.”

Finstern fidgeted a splinter of wood off of the bench and flicked it away. “He came back for the girl child only. I was of no significance. Mother told me this. Often.” He twitched.

“No one believed the stories about my father, of course. They said my mother was that sort of woman. Unwed. Unfit. They said such terrible things. Mother pressed me to prove them wrong. She needed me to be exceptional—she needed me to be powerful.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to heap on a little boy,” Jackaby said.

“Pressure. Perpendicular force per unit area. Quantifiable. Yes, it was a lot of pressure. Spending my life as a disappointment proved to be an instructional childhood, though. I learned a great deal about power, Detective. I learned a great deal about how to control it, about how to make it, and about how to take it.”

He met my employer’s eye, and for the length of a slow breath he was eerily still. The moment passed and he went back to assessing the layout of the room around him with darting glances.

“That’s your life’s work?” said Jackaby. “Your machine?”

“Transvigoration.”

“How does it work?”

Finstern scratched his neck. “Manipulation of currents.”

“Electrical currents?”

“Vital currents,” corrected Finstern. “Electrical would be easier. Volts. Electromotive force. Quantifiable.”

“You’ve created a lightning rod for vital energies?”

“No, no, no, no. Too primitive. A vital life force has no inclination toward conduction through grounded wires. Won’t do. Fields are a better analogy. My latest prototype actually built on some of the principals of Nikola Tesla’s study last year. Radio frequency resonant transformers excited to induce coupling. Tesla has vision.”

“That’s all very technical and impressive,” I said, “but you’re not doing anything new. People have been taking lives for a lot longer than they’ve been playing with frequencies and volts. You’ve just put a shiny brass casing on a very old wickedness.”

“It’s not about taking life.” Finstern twitched. “It’s about controlling life. It’s about transferring vital energies from one host to another. It’s about power, Miss Rook. It’s always about power. About who has it, and who gets left behind.”