The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel by Holly Messinger

hand and closed the valve again, marveling at the luxury of hot water anytime one wanted it. The water sped down a series of grooves and vanished, gurgling, through a tube in the floor.
    The floor, he noticed then, was chalked with an elaborate diagram, full of esoteric symbols—alchemical, some of them, and a few Hebrew characters he recognized from his seminary days. He felt a lurch of excitement, and wrongness, as he realized that yes, the woman was working in magic, and yes, she wanted him to know it. She wasn’t just granting him audience, she was … enticing him. Offering him a glimpse of things he’d always suspected existed, and been afraid to find.
    A throat cleared gently behind him, and Trace turned guiltily, as if she had caught him peeping in her window.
    She looked more like a schoolmarm today than a fashionable society lady. Her cornsilk hair was scraped back in a ruthless chignon that did nothing to soften the gaunt bones of her face. She wore a sensible nurselike apron, and her hands were in the pockets of it.
    “What a pleasant surprise, Mr. Tracy.” Her voice was lower than he remembered, and there was a hint of mockery in her cool blue gaze. “I was beginning to think you had taken a dislike to me.”
    Trace bit his tongue. It wasn’t in him to insult a lady to her face, whatever he might think of her in his mind. “This is a … uh, interesting place you got here.”
    “I find it so,” she agreed. “Are you interested in the study of natural science?”
    Oh, is that what you call it? he thought, but he considered the question at face value. “Can’t say I ever studied the sciences much. In seminary they were more concerned with preparin us for the next world than studyin this one. But I don’t suppose I’d be much of a trail guide if I didn’t know a bit about the beasts of the field.”
    “Well put, Mr. Tracy. Very sensible of you.”
    The civilities thus acknowledged, they regarded each other with curiosity, and a certain caution.
    “So I guess you—” he began.
    “May I ask—?” she said at the same time. They both broke off, and Trace yielded the floor to her with a nod.
    “What made you change your mind about calling on me?” Miss Fairweather said. “Has it something to do with that newspaper you are clutching?”
    “Matter of fact, it does.” Trace moved to the nearest table, and laid the Carondelet Citizen on it so it faced her. He stabbed a finger down into the appropriate headline. “What do you know about that?”
    “‘Three Murdered at Local Homestead.’” Her fine brows lifted in surprise. “This is today’s paper?”
    “Well it wouldn’t be last week’s,” Trace said, not sure what she was getting at.
    “But the murders only occurred last night.” Miss Fairweather circled the table to the writing-desk, which was piled high with books and papers. “I shouldn’t have thought the bodies would be discovered yet.”
    “So you did know about this.”
    “It is why I sent Min Chan to fetch you this morning.” She teased out a sheet of foolscap and held it out to him. Trace declined to take it. She rattled it at him impatiently. “I had been seeing an increasing concentration of spirit activity around you for the past few days, and—”
    “Hang on—you been watching me?”
    Miss Fairweather lowered the paper and gave him a patronizing look. “Mr. Tracy, I monitor spirit activity in and around this city for my own purposes. You are an unfortunately bright and distracting beacon in the area. It is quite impossible that I should not notice your whereabouts. However, I gather from your reaction that you were unaware of the menace in your proximity—”
    “You might’ve warned me if there was!”
    “I tried,” she said crisply. “I sent you a card four days ago and you chose to ignore it.”
    That indictment was hardly calculated to increase his charity toward her. But his ire was held in check by the guilty fear that had been clinging to him all