Boston Metaphysical Society Page 19

  When Samuel nodded to Andrew, the Medium closed his eyes and prepared to summon the demon. Unlike ghosts, the act of summoning a demon revealed their physical presence to a normal person. As soon as Andrew sensed the creature was near, he backed off, waiting to snap a picture of it to add to their growing collection. It wasn’t long until the demon attacked.

  Over eight feet tall, the demon had arms knotted with sinewy muscle, its skin glistened a pale yellow in the torchlight. Its long fingers undulated as a huge talon emerged from the insides of its wrists and the backs of its ankles. It reeked of carrion, which forced Andrew and Samuel to step back. What was most disturbing was the creature’s face. Angelic, it held a beauty reserved for ancient Roman statues.

  “Andrew! Get the children out of here!” Samuel called out, but Andrew had already run to the cage to do just that.

  The creature stomped forward sure Samuel would be its next kill, but stepped into one of the traps. The steely teeth locked on to its ankle, tearing flesh and crushing bone. Never making a sound, the demon acted as if the trap were a minor impediment. It grasped the trap and attempted to pry the bloody springs apart.

  Samuel fired rounds of salt into the creature’s neck and torso. The demon abandoned its effort to free itself from the trap writhing and clawing at its wounds every time Samuel shot it. Guttural screams erupted from deep within its chest as it twisted around.

  As Samuel grabbed one of his axes to dart in to make the kill, he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, then felt a searing pain slice through his back. Samuel screamed but still ducked just as one of the talons flew through the space his head once occupied. He threw himself forward driving his shoulder into the demon’s gut shoving it off-balance and hacked at the creature’s torso. The demon swung at him again, but this time he used the ax handle to block the blow.

  With the demon’s foot still caught in the trap, Samuel stayed just out of its reach. He ducked and weaved, edging closer and closer, while keeping a careful eye on where its talons were. He knew that if it were not for the trap, he would have little chance of killing it.

  A slight breeze against his cheek was all the forewarning he had as the creature launched another attack. Samuel twisted his body to avoid the blow, but he wasn’t fast enough. The demon’s talon slashed through his shoulder like a fish-hook taking flesh and bone with it. Samuel knew he could not fight much longer, so he stayed just out of the demon’s reach dancing in and out waiting for an opening. When he saw one, he leapt up swinging the ax at the demon’s neck. It connected, but lodged in between the its neck and clavicle. Weaponless, Samuel jumped back but was too slow; the talon skimmed across his face next to his left eye. Blood poured from the wound as Samuel staggered back.

  A flash of light blinded the demon. It roared in frustration.

  “Are you daft! Get in there!” Andrew yelled at Samuel while holding on to his camera with one of his new-fangled flashbulbs spent. Behind him, the children hid under several fallen logs.

  Samuel ignored the blood streaming from his eye as he raced toward the demon. It threw its arms around hoping to rip something apart. He flew in feet-first, knocking the creature to the ground with a huge thump. Samuel stood on the creature while it flailed, yanked the ax out of its neck then with one mighty swing took the demon’s head off. Gore oozed from the hole where its head had been and evaporated. Soon after the creature’s entire body melted and absorbed into the earth.

  No longer under its control, the children whimpered then sobbed.

  Andrew walked over to Samuel to steady the younger man. “You be getting a wee bit slow there, laddie.”

  “Andrew.” Samuel blinked a few times. “Shut up.” Then he passed out.

  SAMUEL WOKE IN THE ROOM next to his office he used as a bedroom. Ship horns echoed outside as the Boston fishing fleet made its way out of the harbor as they did every morning except for Sunday. Andrew slept in an unvarnished oak rocking chair next to Samuel’s bed. Sparse and utilitarian, the room gave no hint Samuel used to be married. Not long after Elizabeth’s death, he had sold their house and moved back to his parents’ old warehouse. How Andrew had gotten him there from Essex was another question.

  Samuel touched the bandage around his eye gingerly, but even that small movement was enough to awaken Andrew.

  “Don’t be touching that,” the older man groused. “You lost a lot of blood, but it looks like you’ll get to keep the eye for all the good it’ll do ya. Though I reckon there’ll be a scar to scare the children.”

  “Speaking of which…did they get home?” Samuel asked.

  “Aye.” Andrew nodded. “As soon as that beastie lost its grip on the young’uns they ran all the way home. Mayor Becket gave us a cart to get you back after they patched you up.”

  “Gave?”

  “That tight bastard took it out of our fee.” Andrew made a face.

  Samuel tried to laughed, but the pain in the rest of his body put a quick stop to that. “Fine. Have we got another case lined up?”

  Andrew raised an eyebrow at him. “There be no more cases 'til ya heal. I be getting a bit tired of hauling your carcass around every time one of those beasties takes a piece out of you. Besides, there be things that need a-changing around here.”

  “Other than your attitude?” Samuel responded without a hint of irony.

  Andrew sighed and gave Samuel a hard look. “Laddie, it’s time you found yourself better weapons.”

  “And I suppose you know where I can get them?”

  A hint of a smile crossed Andrew’s face. “Aye. But you’re not going to like it.”

  THE MIDDLE DISTRICT WAS HOME to the vast majority of the people of Boston. Each neighborhood which surrounded Beacon Hill served as a protective ring and was responsible for its care and feeding; for here lived the tradesmen, shop owners, skilled house staff, and laborers who supported the Great Houses. There were social and economic layers within each ring that were sometimes obvious while others were more subtle. Most of the inhabitants agreed on one thing, however; they looked down upon the Irish of the South Side.

  Samuel had stopped the steam-powered buggy at the corner of Beach Street and Harrison, one of the unofficial dividing lines between the white and Negro sides of the Middle District, to allow traffic to pass by. The locals called the Negro neighborhood Liberty Row even though it took up eight square blocks and stood a few blocks north of the channel. One could look across the street and see the same brownstones, window boxes, and flowers on one side as the other. The white families who resided across from Liberty Row were much like their neighbors; many were skilled workers or owned their own businesses. Neither side displayed family emblems nor had guards or doormen at the entrances as in Beacon Hill. Horses and steam-powered buggies shared the road though there were more horses here than in Beacon Hill which was many blocks and a large park away.

  It was rare to see a white person venture across the street to the Negro side though every day Negro men and women crossed over to the white side to work. Therefore, it was very unusual for two white men to drive a buggy not only across this invisible dividing line, but past it for four blocks before stopping.

  Andrew helped the still-recovering Samuel exit the vehicle as Negros made a wide berth around the Irishman. Even here prejudice against the Irish ran strong, which annoyed Samuel, but he knew this was neither the time nor place to have an argument. As he shut the door to the buggy, he caught a whiff of the smoke that drifted across the channel from the coal mines on the South Side where most of the Irish worked. They spewed a horrific combination of soot laced with chemicals that if it landed in your eyes burned for hours. For most of the Middle District and those on Beacon Hill, the ocean breeze forced the acidic air out to sea. However, if the wind shifted, those who lived closer to the South Side closed their windows and brought their children inside to play.

  Andrew gestured for Samuel to follow him toward a well-maintained brownstone in the middle of the block. Behind a six-f
oot tall wrought-iron fence, where morning glories had woven intricate patterns between the bars, sat a small yet delightful garden filled with blossoms and butterflies. On the side of the building ran a long alley, revealing a much larger house than one would have thought at first glance.

  More wrought-iron fences protected the building, which was four stories high and held several garages in the back. Even the lower windows were covered in decorative iron bars that were twisted into geometric patterns. Though elegant in design, they had a more practical purpose—protection. None of these people could afford the fortified rooms constructed inside the Great Houses of Beacon Hill, but they could do something else to protect themselves in case of another House War.

  Though over thirty years had passed since those violent times, none of the inhabitants of Liberty Row were wont to forget. Many of them still remembered being slaves in the Southern Houses and the capriciousness of their Northern counterparts. Their freedom was not won by a philosophical or moral conviction slavery was wrong, but a belief that it was an inefficient way to do business. In simpler terms— it was not profitable.

  Everyone who lived in Liberty Row knew that what the Northern Houses gave, they could take back. Those who lived here did two things: protected themselves and their property as best as they could and made themselves integral to the economic success of the larger white community. It was a different kind of slavery, but at least it was one that kept families together and afforded more choices than they would have had otherwise. No one discussed it with strangers, but it was every Negro family’s dream to accumulate enough wealth to establish a Great House of their own. All they had to do was survive long enough to make it happen.

  Samuel limped after Andrew, who he led him towards a gate installed in the iron fencing protecting the garages. Several Negro gentlemen walked by and tipped their hats at Samuel never giving Andrew a passing glance.

  They stopped at what appeared to be the pedestrian entrance to the garage. The door on the other side of the gate had no doorknob and after a brief inspection, they discovered it was locked from the inside.

  Samuel glanced around for a bell or a buzzer, but couldn’t see one. He studied the door for a second and frowned. “This is a dummy door, isn’t it? Is there a secret passage hidden somewhere?” he asked, half joking.

  Andrew grinned. “Aye, laddie. You’ve a good eye.”

  The older man stepped sideways, reached his hand through the iron bars, and slid his fingers along the outside edge of the knob-less door. Samuel watched as Andrew pressed his fingers in three different places. After a moment, the gate slide open and a portion of the interior wall swung back, revealing another entrance.

  Samuel smiled and nodded in appreciation. “I want one.”

  “If you be lucky, he might build one for you.” Andrew gave him a sly wink as he pushed the door open.

  They both walked in to see a staircase that was steep and narrow with high brick walls that went up for at least two stories. Samuel noted that any attack on the building would force men up the staircase single file with no cover. As he walked up he noticed there was no wiring to the small electric light bulbs attached to the walls.

  “It be behind the walls. The wiring, that is,” Andrew remarked. “I wondered the same the first time I came here.”

  “And how did you find this place, or should I say person?” Samuel asked. “This is a little off your beaten path.”

  “Those new-fangled flashbulbs I used in Essex?” Andrew stomped up the stairs. “This gentleman invented them.”

  “Wait…I thought Edison—” Samuel said before a high chirpy voice interrupted him.

  “Mr. Edison is a liar, a cheat, and a scalawag.”

  Samuel and Andrew looked up to see two small feet wearing pink shoes hanging over the wall at the top of the stairs. Soon after, a dark-skinned girl maybe ten years old wearing a long pink-and-white cotton dress peeked over her knees to give the men the once-over. A lovely girl who wore her long, dark hair pulled back into a braid, Samuel was surprised to see copper filaments were woven through it. He had not thought that the people of Liberty Row had the audacity to display any wealth.

  Her eyes lit up when she saw Samuel, but when she got a good look at Andrew her eyebrows scrunched together in a frown. “You don’t belong here, Irish,” she pretended to spit at him, removing any hint of beauty from her countenance.

  “Sarah!” a male voice boomed from above them. “Don’t be rude.”

  “But Uncle Gran, it’s that Irishman again.” She pouted. “He doesn’t belong here. Ma said so.”

  A disapproving male voice with a tight edge to it said, “Apologize, right now, young lady, or you’ll be banished from my workshop.”

  Samuel and Andrew kept walking up the stairs under the watchful eyes of the young Miss Sarah.

  “If you say so, Uncle Gran,” she said with a huff. Sarah stood up and without one ounce of sincerity gave them a short curtsy. “My apologizes, good sirs.” She called back to the yet-unseen man. “Can I still call Mr. Edison a scalawag?”

  “Yes. Now go fetch some tea.”

  Sarah swept her skirt around her imitating the snootiest Beacon Hill girl, then ran down the stairs past the two men like the ten year old she was.

  When Samuel reached the top, he was surprised to see a massive workshop that took up the entire floor. Every tool he had ever seen and many more he had not filled half the work-space. Half-completed steam engines, a cupboard lined with chemicals bottled and labeled in alphabetical order, as well as more commonplace fixtures and appliances in need of repair took up the other half. Rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves were interspersed throughout the room, each one stacked with metal parts and pieces from machinery he had never seen before.

  Samuel spied different types of steam engines that ranged in size from a small box to a large travel trunk attached to cables an inch in diameter. Those cables disappeared into the walls. Samuel assumed they were what powered the lights. The engines puffed away as their gears churned in a smooth, rhythmic fashion. Photographic developing curtains hung from the ceiling isolating one corner of the room and numerous daguerreotype photographs were clipped on a string from one side of the room to the other.

  Though it was impressive, Samuel wondered why Andrew had brought him here.

  The Irishman cleared his throat. “Mr. Granville Woods, sir. I’d be pleased to introduce you to Mr. Samuel Hunter.”

  From behind one of the shelves emerged a Negro man in his mid-forties with skin the color of Ceylon tea. He wore clothes that were at the height of fashion where even the lapels on his black woolen suit were woven with silver and brass as were the cuffs on his jacket and trousers. His hair lay on his head in loose, but small black curls. Perched on it was a multiple-lens eyepiece that sat a bit askew, but otherwise not a stitch was out of place. In his hand, he carried a series of interlocking gears no larger than his palm.

  Samuel extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, though I’m at a loss as to how Andrew knows you and what this place is. I’m looking for weapons, not the latest in steam engines and other contraptions.”

  Granville gave Andrew an annoyed look as he put down the device he held before shaking Samuel’s hand. “Then maybe you’re not as good a detective as you think you are.”

  “There’s no reason to be rude,” Samuel replied.

  “I think Andrew made a mistake. As you can see I have no weapons here.” He turned his back and walked over to a workbench.

  “Please, Mr. Woods, sir,” Andrew pleaded, “you need him as much as he needs you.”

  “I see we’re not welcome here Andrew,” Samuel said. “Let’s go.”

  Just as Samuel reached the top of the stairs, Granville spun around to face him. “Tell me, Mr. Hunter, has Andrew ever lied to you?”

  “What are you talking about? Of course not.” Samuel fumed, the idea was so absurd.

  “Then why do you think he’s lying now? If he said I had weapons, then don’t you th
ink I’d have weapons?” Granville crossed his arms as he regarded Samuel.

  “I’m not here to play games.”

  “But you’re giving up so easily,” Granville taunted. “Seems contrary to your usual behavior.”

  Samuel glared at Andrew. “What did you tell him?”

  “Andrew told me nothing. Though I asked him not to bring you here, I suspected he would anyway,” Granville remarked. “So I did a little detective work on my own.”

  The tension in the room rose.

  “Samuel Hunter. Former Pinkerton detective, left for reasons unknown even though he was heralded as a hero in some parts. Though you are from the Middle District, you married into one of the most powerful Houses in Boston. How you managed that must be quite the story.” Granville raised his eyebrows, then continued. “Elizabeth Weldsmore, your wife, died under mysterious circumstances a year ago. And now, sir, you are on a quest for vengeance. My condolences on your loss.”

  Samuel stepped forward, his fists clenched, his lips thinning as a snarl came out of his mouth. “You sir, have overstepped.”

  “Have I?” Granville dropped his arms to his sides. “You wouldn’t think that if I were a white man. A Negro has no right to interfere in your business, but you seek to interfere in mine.” Granville’s voice took on a hard edge. “I have the right to know who I’m doing business with just like any man.”

  Samuel let his anger subside, then unclenched his fists. “You’re right, you do. My apologies.” Samuel clasped his hands behind his back. “Mr. Woods, I’d be most appreciative if you’d show me what weapons you’ve invented.”