The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) (8 page)

"You like
it." Mr. Culvert seemed genuinely pleased.

"It's
wonderful," I said on a breath. "Are they all works dedicated to
demonology?"

"Not all. Only
half of that wall there." He indicated the wall opposite the door, the
only one where the shelves weren't interrupted by windows or the fireplace. "The
rest are volumes on other supernatural phenomena, and there's a few novels and
medical texts too. My father's tastes were eclectic."

Even Jacob
looked impressed. He went straight to the demonology books and scanned the
shelves. "This might be a good one to start with, Emily."

I came up beside
him and extracted the book he indicated. "
An Introduction to Demonic
Phenomena
."

Culvert pulled
out a chair at the large central table. "Would you like to sit while you
read?"

"Thank you,
Mr. Culvert."

"Please,
call me George."

I smiled at him.
"And you shall call me Emily."

"That's a
little informal on such short acquaintance, don’t you think?" Jacob said, suddenly
standing behind me.

I wanted to
retort that he and I had dispensed with formalities on an equally short
acquaintance but I couldn't alert George to his presence. Not yet. And I
suspected Jacob would tell me the normal rules didn't apply to him anyway because
he was a ghost.

I sat in the
chair—I was right, the leather was soft and welcoming—and flipped to the table
of contents. Jacob returned to browsing the shelves while George closed some
books he had open on the other side of the large desk and tidied his notes.

"George!"
came a shrill voice from outside the room. "George, do you have your nose
buried in a blasted book again?" A striking woman dressed in a burgundy satin
gown with excessively puffed sleeves and a cascade of ruffles on the skirt strode
into the library. She stopped abruptly when she saw me and fixed me with a
glare that could have frozen the Thames in summer. "Oh. You have a guest."
She didn't sound pleased although she seemed surprised.

I lifted my chin
and gave her a sweet smile in return. It was a tactic I'd seen Celia use at our
séances. Whenever she was faced with a skeptical audience member, she would
charm them. It worked most of the time. "Emily Chambers," I said,
rising. "Pleased to—."

"I wasn't
addressing you."

I plopped back
down in the chair. So much for charm.

I felt rather
than saw Jacob move up beside me. "Would you like me to pull the pins out
of that ridiculous hair style and poke them one by one into her ear?"

I laughed then
tried to stifle it but only ended up making a horrid snorting sound. Mrs.
Culvert's glare—for I'd guessed it to be her—turned even frostier. I could not,
however, quaver anymore, not after Jacob’s offer. She did indeed have a rather
ridiculous hairstyle, scraped back so tightly it made her eyes slant. The
ridiculousness was amplified by her tiny hat with the very tall feathers
shooting straight up from the crown in a V-shape. I'd not seen anything like
it.

George placed a
book on the table and gave me an apologetic grimace. "Mother, this is Miss
Emily Chambers. She was a friend of Jacob Beaufort."

"Beaufort!"
Mrs. Culvert's eyes widened and she suddenly smiled. It was dazzling and
changed her face from one of severity to friendliness. The transformation was
remarkable, if insincere, and I could see she must have been a beautiful woman
in her youth. She had the same well-defined cheekbones as her son and a
luscious, wide mouth with perfect teeth.
"Such
an illustrious
family, and
such
a lovely boy was poor Jacob. So handsome and charming. Clever
too. Cleverer even than you, George." This she said with a satisfactory
gleam in her eye. George merely shrugged.

"Maybe
she's not so bad after all," Jacob said.

"Shame he
died," Mrs. Culvert continued with a sigh. "And in terribly
mysterious circumstances too. I hear his poor mother hasn't quite got over it."

I glanced up at Jacob.
A muscle pulsed high in his jaw and his fingers dug into the leather backrest
of my chair. The indentations would have been noticeable to anyone who cared to
look. I went to touch his hand to obscure the marks and calm him but he
vanished. He reappeared near one of the long windows overlooking Wilton
Crescent, his straight back to me.

"My dear Miss
Chambers," Mrs. Culvert said, coming up beside me and standing in the
exact place Jacob had vacated. She continued to smile but I now thought it
stretched, almost gruesome. "How well do you know the family? Could you
introduce me to Lady Preston I wonder?"

Lady Preston? Who
on earth was she?

"Mother,"
George warned.

"I believe
they throw the most lavish parties," she went on. "Or they used to. There
haven't been any parties there since poor Jacob died." She stopped smiling
for all of a second then the beam returned, harder than ever. "Perhaps a
party is exactly what they need to take their mind off their loss. What do you
think, Miss Chambers? We can have one here. I'll send the Prestons an
invitation but if Lady Preston refuses you simply
must
speak to her and
insist. Tell Lord and Lady Preston their daughter needs to enjoy herself again.
It’s not wholesome to keep a young lady of spirit away from Society. She should
be enjoying herself, attending balls and teas and meeting young men." Her
gaze flicked to George, then back to me again. "She must be about your own
age, hmmm?"

If I was
following the conversation correctly—and that was an If with a capital I—then the
Prestons were Jacob’s parents and Jacob was nobility!

Good lord, and
I'd been addressing him by his first name all this time. I turned to him but
he'd disappeared again. Thank goodness. Apart from the awkwardness of knowing
he was so far above me on the social ladder that we might as well have been on
different ladders entirely, I was also beginning to feel sick on his behalf
having to listen to the awful Mrs. Culvert prattle on about his family in such
a heartless way.

"Mother,"
George said again but to no avail. She was completely ignoring him now. It was
as if he wasn't even in the room.

"Thank you
for the invitation," I said although I wasn't sure
I
was actually
invited without the Beauforts or Prestons or whoever they were. "However I
must decline. I'm otherwise engaged that evening."

Her smile wilted
like a lily in the hot sun as my snub hit home. She hadn't given me a date.

Her cold stare
turned on George and I felt sorry for him. To his credit, he didn't flinch. He
was probably used to her. "I'm going out for the rest of the day." She
strode to the door, her broad skirts rippling like waves in time to her
vigorous walk.

"Sorry,"
George said when she was gone. He glanced around the room. "Is he terribly
mad now?"

All the blood
drained from my face and plunged to my toes. "Uh...who?" I felt like
a fool for even asking. He knew about Jacob. Of course he did. He was a clever
man and I was hopeless at lying and keeping secrets. "He's gone," I
said, answering my own question.

"Tell me
when he returns so I can apologize."

"I didn't
realize it was that obvious. How did you work out he was here?"

He smiled. "You
are
the
pre-eminent spirit medium in London, you used his name as an
introduction to me and you kept looking at certain spots about the room as if
you were listening to someone speak. Oh, and you picked out the most useful
book on demonology without even browsing the spines first."

I bit my lip and
the blood returned to my cheeks with a vengeance. Now I knew why I was a
terrible liar—because being caught out gave me such an awful feeling that I
preferred not to risk it, hence the lack of practice. "I'm awfully sorry,
Mr. Culvert. It was very wrong of me to mislead you."

"You agreed
to call me George."

"George, as
I said, I'm very sorry. Can you forgive me?"

He grinned and
he had the same beautiful smile as his mother, although his was by far the more
spectacular because of its sincerity. "Of course, although I'm not sure
there's anything to forgive. Not telling me about Beaufort's ghost was
understandable. I imagine not everyone is so...believing in your abilities."

"Not
everyone, no. Not even all of the people who pay us to perform séances in their
drawing rooms. I'm afraid we are still very much seen as a novelty act. A
harmless entertainment for ladies."

"You're not
entirely thought of in that light, let me assure you. Some are beginning to
take you seriously. I'd heard about you and your sister at one of my Society
for Supernatural Activity meetings. One of the members had witnessed a séance
you conducted and was convinced you were genuine. I wanted to see for myself
and tried to convince Mother to have you perform here for her friends while I
watched on but she'd have none of the paranormal. She said she'd had enough of
that nonsense when Father was alive."

"Then I'm
glad we finally get to meet in this way." I indicated the bookshelves, the
luxurious furniture. "This is a far more interesting setting. Perhaps one
day, after this is all over, I can come back and summon a spirit for you."

"Thank you!
That would be fascinating." He frowned. "But what do you mean, after
all this is over? Does it have something to do with shape-shifting demons and
why you want to study them?"

I nodded and finally
told him the story about the demon's release. "Dear God," he murmured
when I'd finished. He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This
isn't good. Not good at all."

"Jacob told
me it's very dangerous."

He nodded and
put his glasses back on. "It is. But...didn't he tell you everything about
them? Why do you need to read books?"

"It seems
he's not privy to some details. How is it directed, for instance? Is there
another way to return it to the Otherworld? Which cultures know of its
existence? That sort of thing. We hoped you might be able to help us while we
wait for the amulet peddler to return tomorrow."

"Of course,
I'd be happy to. My own knowledge of the shape-shifting variety is somewhat
lacking but I'll tell you what I know and then we'll search the books."

"Excellent.
Let's see...ah yes. Jacob thinks it can only be killed by a weapon that has
come from the Otherworld. But what kind of weapon?"

"It must be
a blade of some kind—sword, dagger, axe, that sort of thing. Oh, and the
demon's head must be severed from its neck by the blade."

Ugh.
"Next question, how does it harm people?"

"Through good
old fashioned physical violence, but of course its capabilities are dependent
on the form it takes. In other words, if it changes into a snail, it cannot
claw someone's heart out. No claws on snails you see."

"Perhaps it
could slime them to death."

He laughed,
loudly. "Very amusing." He continued to laugh much too vigorously. I
hadn't thought it
that
amusing, particularly considering the gruesome
nature of the conversation but I didn't say so. He seemed to suddenly notice I
didn't share his enthusiasm for my own joke and his laughter died. He cleared
his throat and said, "Did you know it could kill ghosts too?"

"Kill
ghosts? That doesn't seem entirely logical. Ghosts are already dead."

"What I
meant was a demon can extract a ghost's soul." He tapped his chest. "From
here. The soul can be quite literally pulled out. Not by us of course."

Why didn't I
know this? Why hadn't Jacob told me? "And what happens if a ghost's soul
is removed?"

"You don't
know?" I shook my head and he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well
it ceases to exist at all, in any realm," he said. "It has no energy,
no cognitive abilities. It becomes...nothing."

Oh. No. To
become nothing would be, well, a fate worse than death to use a cliché.

"So your
friend Jacob must be careful," he added.

"Yes,"
I said weakly. "Extremely." This information put Jacob’s involvement
into an entirely different context—this assignment could destroy him.

"Now,
that's all I know. Shall we each find a book and begin?"

We spent the
next three hours looking through books, making notes and cross-checking facts. Jacob
didn't return but I didn't mind. I suspect I would have found it difficult to
concentrate with him in the room. He was rather distracting. George and I
worked quietly until a footman interrupted us with lunch, which George had requested
to be served in the library.

"What's he
like?" George asked, in between bites of warm ham. "Jacob Beaufort's
ghost, I mean."

I paused, the
fork half way to my mouth. Jacob was handsome, magnificent, intriguing and
compelling. I found it hard not to look at him when he was in my presence, and
hard not to think about him when he wasn't. "He seems nice," was all I
said. Gushing about a ghost, particularly to a man, seemed foolish. It was
times like this I wish I had a female friend of my own age to talk to. Celia
wasn't quite the understanding type when it came to discussing men, dead or
alive, unless it was with a view to matrimony and even then she would want me
to temper my descriptions. "I was surprised when you said Jacob didn't
really notice people at school though," I said. "He seems very aware
of others." He'd definitely noticed me. My face still burned just thinking
about his intense stares.