Evermore (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #3)(57)

"But Jacob couldn't do it," Celia muttered. "He couldn't give you up, Em." She stared at me, her eyes widened and filled with wonder.

"A man can never truly set aside the woman who occupies his heart," Louis said. "No matter how much distance or time separates them."

"Very true," George said.

Jacob took my hand and kneaded my fingers.

"So you never told Price the truth?" I asked Mrs. Stanley.

"He soon realized something was wrong when you poked your nose in. You claimed to be speaking to Beaufort's ghost and he knew you had no reason to lie. Leviticus blamed me for giving him the wrong curse. I told him it was innocently done, and he...he believed me." She wiped away the tears washing silently down her cheeks. "He decided to use Beaufort's spirit state to his advantage instead. He did not know that Beaufort was not really dead, see, and I never told him."

"So he thought he'd make Jacob's spirit suffer by watching his loved ones hurt," I said. "He set the demon onto Jacob's family and he summoned Mortlock into his sister's body."

"When that did not work, he wanted to end it once and for all by destroying everything, the entire Otherworld," Mrs. Stanley said. "He didn't care what would happen to himself anymore, and by then I loved him too much not to help."

"So you gave him the most dangerous curse there is," George said. "Mad. Utterly mad."

"Hush, George," I said. We needed Mrs. Stanley's help and blaming her was not going to win her over. "Mrs. Stanley, where is Jacob's body?"

"I do not know, do I? I was not there when Leviticus set upon him."

"You don't know!" I stormed over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "How can you not know? Why didn't you find out?" I was so angry I wanted to shake her until the answers fell out, but someone gently pulled me away. Two someones, I realized, Celia and Louis.

"We'll find him," George said. "Let's approach this scientifically."

"Emily," Jacob said. "Emily, it's no use. I can't do it. I can't give you up. And I'm so weak..."

I knelt in front of him. He closed his eyes and his face crumpled. "Be strong. You have to be. There must be a counter curse?" This I said to Mrs. Stanley.

She nodded. "There is. Find his body, speak the words, and his spirit will return as if nothing were amiss."

"You'll tell us what to say," said George. It was not a question but a demand.

"I will. If you do something for me."

"Name a sum."

"I do not want money," she said. "I want you to kill me."

Celia and Mrs. White gasped. George swore under his breath, but I simply sat back on my haunches and stared at her.

"I cannot do it myself," Mrs. Stanley said. "Taking my own life goes against my beliefs."

"As it is against ours for taking another's," Mrs. White said. "We cannot do it. I won't be a party to it."

"Then you can look the other way," George said bluntly. "We'll do anything required. Even that."

"Why?" Mrs. White asked her dead husband's lover. "You could have money, live comfortably."

"Because she wants to be with him," I said. "If you've never loved deeply, Mrs. White, you wouldn't understand."

She shook her head slowly. "You're right, Miss Chambers, I don't understand."

"You must hurry," Mrs. Stanley said. "Now that Leviticus is gone, the body will be dying. Beaufort's spirit will not last much longer."

"How much time have we got left?" I asked.

"Perhaps an hour, maybe two."

"An hour!" I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. How could we find his body in an hour when no one knew its location?

To my surprise it was Celia who sprang into action first. "Jacob, do you know where you were killed, or cursed? Perhaps your body is nearby somewhere."

"It was in the country," I said, recalling an earlier conversation I'd had with him. "But his body could have been moved afterward for safe-keeping."

"Is there a basement to this house?" Celia asked Mrs. Stanley.

"Yes, but I can assure you there is no body in it."

"I'll look," Louis said and ran out the door.

Mrs. Stanley sighed. "You could try the Society."

"Of course!" George slapped his thigh. "I'll drive to the hall now."

"It would require utter seclusion," Mrs. Stanton said. George paused mid-stride. "Leviticus could not risk it being found."

"Hell. There's nowhere particularly secluded at the hall. We have other storage rooms, though. Small warehouses really. Beaufort could be in one of those, but—"

"Then let's go," I said, rising.

He shook his head sadly. My heart plunged at the pained look on his face. "Emily, there's so many, littered around the city. I don't know where they all are. Nor do I have keys."

"Price had keys. They must be here somewhere." I looked to his body, but Mrs. Stanley got there first.

"I'll search him," she said, lovingly unbuttoning his bloodied waistcoat.