Bitter Spirits Part 1

BITTER SPIRITS.

by Jenn Bennett.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHTING . . .

Aida concentrated and willed her to leave. Static crackled around her fingertips. When the chill left the air, Aida knew the ghost was gone.

She considered pretending to faint, but that seemed excessive. She did, however, let her shoulders sag dramatically, as if it would take her days to recover. A little labored breathing was icing on the cake.

"Your breath is gone."

She cracked open one eye to find the giant's vest in front of her. When she straightened to full height, she saw more vest, miles of it, before her gaze settled on the knot of his necktie. It was a little annoying to be forced to tilt her face up to view his. But up close, she spotted an anomaly she hadn't noticed from a distance: something different about the eye with the scar. Best to find out who the h.e.l.l this man was before she asked him about it.

"Aida Palmer," she said, extending a hand.

He stared down at it for a moment, gaze s.h.i.+fting up her arm and over her face, as if he were trying to decide whether he'd catch the plague if they touched. Then his big, gloved hand swallowed hers, warm and firm. Through the fine black leather, she felt a pleasant tingle p.r.i.c.kle her skin-an unexpected sensation far more foreign than any ghostly static.

To the ghost of Mary Ellen Pleasant.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I couldn't do this without my extraordinary agent, Laura Bradford, who never blinks or loses patience with me when I hurl my (often) madcap book ideas her way. And I'm so thankful for my lovely new editor, Leis Pederson, who not only "gets" my voice but also champions it with grace and positivity. Many thanks to the talented Aleta Rafton for her gorgeous cover art, and to everyone at Penguin who works tirelessly behind the scenes.

Thanks to: Ashley Diestel at the Palace Hotel for her archival a.s.sistance, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Bancroft Library at Berkeley, the Swedish Club of San Francisco, and the numerous people who answered my questions about the (often painful) history of Chinatown, especially Philip Choy. Hat tip to Stacey Luce for the 1920s map of San Francisco.

Much love to the fab Sandy Williams and my wonderful beta readers: Miriam Blackmon, Cat Lauria, and Katie Morley. Special shout-outs to: Annika Einarsson (who corrected my wobbly Swedish) and Daphne Yeung (who made me fall in love with Hong Kong and taught me how to swear, toast, and give thanks in Cantonese). And I'll never be able to thank my (ma.s.sively creative) husband enough; his ideas for fixing plot problems are always better than mine. Always. Lastly, my unwavering grat.i.tude goes out to: all the booksellers and librarians who carry my books, the bloggers who write about them, and to the readers who read them.

ONE.

JUNE 2, 1927-NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO.

AIDA PALMER'S TENSE FINGERS GRIPPED THE GOLD LOCKET around her neck as the streetcar came to a stop near Gris-Gris. It was almost midnight, and Velma had summoned her to the North Beach speakeasy on her night off-no explanation, just told her to come immediately. A thousand reasons why swirled inside Aida's head. None of them were positive.

"Well, Sam," she muttered to the locket, "I think I might've made a mistake. If you were here, you'd probably tell me to face up to it, so here goes nothing." She gave the locket a quick kiss and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The alley entrance was blocked by a fancy dark limousine and several Model Ts surrounded by men, so Aida headed to the side.

Gossip and cigarette smoke wafted under streetlights shrouded with cool summer fog. She endured curious stares of nighttime revelers and hiked the nightclub's sloping sidewalk past a long line of people waiting to get inside. Hidden from the street, three signs lined the brick wall corridor leading to the entrance, each one lit by a border of round bulbs. The first two signs announced a hot jazz quartet and a troupe of Chinese acrobats. The third featured a painting of a brunette surrounded by ghostly specters: WITNESS CHILLING SPIRIT MYSTERIES LIVE IN PERSON!.

FAMED TRANCE MEDIUM MADAME AIDA PALMER CALLS FORTH SPIRITS FROM BEYOND,.

REUNITING AUDIENCE MEMBERS WITH DEPARTED LOVED ONES,.

-PATRONS WIs.h.i.+NG TO PARTIc.i.p.aTE SHOULD BRING MEMENTO MORI- One of the men standing next to the sign looked up at her when she pa.s.sed by, a fuzzy recognition clouding his eyes. Maybe he'd seen her show . . . Maybe he'd been too drunk to remember. She gave him a tight smile and approached the club's gated entrance.

"Pardon me," she said to the couple at the head of the line, then stood on tiptoes and peeked through a small window.

One of the club's doormen stared back at her. "Evening, Miss Palmer."

"Evening. Velma called me in."

Warm, bra.s.sy light and a chorus of greetings beckoned her inside.

"The alley's blocked," she noted when the door closed behind her. "Any idea what's going on?"

"Don't know. Could be trouble," said the first doorman.

A second doorman started to elaborate until he noticed the club manager, Daniels, shooting them a warning look as he spoke to a couple of rough-looking men. His gaze connected with Aida's; he motioned with his head: upstairs.

Wonderful. Trouble indeed.

Aida left the doormen and marched through the crowded lobby. At the far end, a yawning arched entry led into the main floor of the club. The house orchestra warmed up behind buzzing conversations and clinking gla.s.ses as Aida headed toward a second guarded door that bypa.s.sed the crowds.

Gris-Gris was one of the largest black-and-tan speakeasies in the city. Social rules concerning race and cla.s.s went unheeded here. Anyone who bought a members.h.i.+p card was welcome, and patrons dined and danced with whomever they pleased. Like many of the other acts appearing onstage, Aida was only booked through early July. She'd been working here a month now and couldn't complain. It was much nicer than most of the dives she'd worked out East, and to say the owner was sympathetic to her skills was an understatement.

Velma Toussaint certainly stirred up chatter among her employees. People said she was a witch or a sorceress-she was-and that she practiced hoodoo, which she did. But the driving force of the gossip was a simpler truth: polite society just didn't know how to handle a woman who single-handedly ran a prosperous, if not illicit, business. Still, she played the role to the hilt, and Aida admired any woman who wasn't afraid to defy convention.

Though it was a relief to work for someone who actually believed in her own talents, all that really mattered was Aida was working. She needed this job. And right now she was crossing her fingers that the "trouble" was not big enough to get her fired. A particular unhappy patron from last night's show was her biggest worry. It wasn't her fault that he didn't like the message his dead sister brought over from the beyond, and how was she supposed to have known the man was a state senator? If someone had told her he preferred a charlatan's act to the truth, she would've happily complied.

Grumbling under her breath, Aida climbed the side stairs and sailed through a narrow hallway to the club's administrative offices. The front room, where a young girl who handled Velma's paperwork usually sat, was dark and empty. As she pa.s.sed through the room, her breath rushed out in a wintery white puff.

Ghost.

She cautiously approached the main office. The door was cracked. She hesitated and listened to a low jumble of foreign words streaming from the room, spoken in a deep, male voice. Beyond the cloud of cold breath, she saw a woman with traditional Chinese combs in her hair, on which strings of red beads dangled. Bare feet peeked beneath her sheer sleeping gown. She stood behind a very large, dark-headed man wearing a long coat, who stared out a long window that looked down over the main floor of the club.

Aida's cold breath indicated that one of them was a ghost. This realization alone was remarkable, as Aida had only encountered one ghost in the club since she'd arrived-a carpenter who'd suffered a heart attack while building the stage and died several years before Velma came into possession of Gris-Gris-and Aida had exorcised it immediately.

In her experience, ghosts did not move around-they remained tethered to the scene of their death. So unless someone died in Velma's office tonight, a ghost shouldn't be here.

Shouldn't be, but was.

Strong ghosts looked as real as anyone walking around with a heartbeat. But even if the woman with the red combs hadn't been dressed for bed, Aida would've known the man was alive. He was speaking to himself in a low rumble, a repeating string of inaudible words that sounded much like a prayer.

Ghosts don't talk.

"Is she your dance partner?" Aida said.

The man jerked around. My. He was enormous-several inches over six feet and with shoulders broad enough to topple small buildings as he pa.s.sed. Brown hair, so dark it was almost black, was brilliantined back with a perfect part. Expensive clothes. A long, serious face, one side of which bore a large, curving scar. He blinked at Aida for a moment, gaze zipping up and down the length of her in hurried a.s.sessment, then spoke in low voice. "You can see her?"

"Oh yes." The ghost turned to focus on the man, giving Aida a new, gorier view of the side of her head. "Ah, there's the death wound. Did you kill her?"

"What? No, of course not. Are you the spirit medium?"

"My name's on the sign outside."

"Velma said you can make her . . . go away."

"Ah." Aida was barely able to concentrate on what the man was saying. His words were wrapped inside a deep, grand voice-the voice of a stage actor, dramatic and big and velvety.It was a voice that could probably talk you into doing anything. A siren's call, rich as the low notes of a perfectly tuned cello.

And maybe there really was some magic in it, because all she could think about, as he stood there in his fine gray suit with his fancy silk necktie and a long black jacket that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe, was pressing her face into his crisply pressed s.h.i.+rt.

What a perverse thought. And one that was making her neck warm.

"Can you?"

"Pardon?"

"Get rid of her. She followed me across town." He swept a hand through the woman's body. "She's not corporeal."

"They usually aren't." The ghost had followed him? Highly unusual. And yet, the giant man acted as if the ghost was merely a nuisance. Most men didn't have the good sense to be afraid when they should.

"Your breath is . . ." he started.

Yes, she knew: shocking to witness up close rather than from the safe distance of the audience when she was performing onstage. "Do you know what an aura is?"

"No clue."

"It's an emanation around humans-an effusion of energy. Everyone has one. Mine turns cold when a spirit or ghost is nearby. When my warm breath crosses my aura, it becomes visible-same as going outside on a cold day."

"That's fascinating, but can you get rid of her first and talk later?"

"No need to get snippy."

He looked at her like she was a blasphemer who'd just disrupted church service, fire and brimstone blazing behind his eyes. "Please," he said in a tone that was anything but polite.

Aida stared at him for a long moment, a petty but sweet revenge. Then she inhaled and shook out her hands . . . closed her eyes, pretending to concentrate. Let him think she was doing him some big favor. Well, she was, frankly. If he searched the entire city, he'd be lucky to find another person with the gift to do what she did. But it wasn't difficult. The only effort it required was the same concentration it took to solve a quick math problem and the touch of her hand.

Pus.h.i.+ng them over the veil was simple; calling them back took considerably more effort.

After she'd tortured the man enough, she reached out for the Chinese woman, feeling the marked change in temperature inside the phantom's body. Aida concentrated and willed her to leave. Static crackled around her fingertips. When the chill left the air, Aida knew the ghost was gone.

She considered pretending to faint, but that seemed excessive. She did, however, let her shoulders sag dramatically, as if it would take her days to recover. A little labored breathing was icing on the cake.

"Your breath is gone."

She cracked open one eye to find the giant's vest in front of her. When she straightened to full height, she saw more vest, miles of it, before her gaze settled on the knot of his necktie. It was a little annoying to be forced to tilt her face up to view his. But up close, she spotted an anomaly she hadn't noticed from a distance: something different about the eye with the scar. Best to find out who the h.e.l.l this man was before she asked him about it.

"Aida Palmer," she said, extending a hand.

He stared down at it for a moment, gaze s.h.i.+fting up her arm and over her face, as if he were trying to decide whether he'd catch the plague if they touched. Then his big, gloved hand swallowed hers, warm and firm. Through the fine black leather, she felt a pleasant tingle p.r.i.c.kle her skin-an unexpected sensation far more foreign than any ghostly static.

TWO.

WINTER MAGNUSSON WASN'T SUPERSt.i.tIOUS. IF ANYONE would've asked if he believed in ghosts a week ago, he might've laughed. He wasn't laughing now. And after a lousy week marred by one bizarre event after another, he frankly wasn't sure what he believed anymore.

First, a crazy old woman had accosted him on the street and shouted some hocus-pocus curse at him. After that, a specter began appearing in his study every afternoon-something no one in his household could see but him. Then, during a business meeting tonight at a bar in Chinatown, someone spiked his drink with a foul-tasting green concoction. And before he could spit it out, a prost.i.tute with a gaping hole in her head walked right through a wall from the brothel next door.

Like the specter in his study, no one but Winter saw the dead prost.i.tute, but she'd d.a.m.n sure followed him from Chinatown to North Beach. All she did was stare at him, but until the spirit medium walked in the room, he'd been questioning his sanity.

Now he was too unsettled to question much of anything.

After the medium's breath returned to normal, the first thing Winter noticed about her was her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were respectable. Much like looking into the sun during an eclipse, staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s would only lead to harm, so he quickly s.h.i.+fted his gaze upward. Slender fingers combed through blunt caramel brown bangs covering her forehead. Straight as a ruler, her sleek hair was styled into a short French bob that fell to her chin in the front and tapered to the nape of her neck. When she introduced herself and extended her hand to shake, it drew his attention to her skin, which was pale as milk and densely covered in bronze freckles. Not the kind you'd see smattered on the sun-kissed face of a child.

Freckles everywhere.

They began in a sliver of pale forehead above arched brows, gathered tightly across her nose and cheeks, lightened around her neck, then disappeared into the dipping neckline of her dress.

Winter's gaze raked over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s again-still respectable-down her dress to the jagged handkerchief hem below her knees. He followed the path of the spotted skin around her calves, half hidden by pale stockings, to the T-bar heels on her feet. Freckles on her legs-how about that? For some reason, he found this wildly exciting. Increasingly lurid thoughts ballooned inside his head after he wondered exactly what percentage of her skin was speckled. Did freckles cover her arms? The curving creases where her backside ended and her legs began? Her nipples?

He pushed away the enticing reverie, shook her hand, and successfully remembered his own name. "Winter Magnusson."

Her enormous brown eyes were ringed in kohl like some exotic Nile princess. A strange heat washed over him as their gazes connected.

"Good grief, you're a big one, aren't you?"

He stilled, rooted to the floor, unable to think of a response to that.

If he was big-and at four inches over six feet, he definitely was-then Miss Palmer was very small. Average height for a woman, legs on the long side, but there was something pet.i.te and slender about her frame. Graceful. She was also unusually pretty-far more attractive than the sketch of her on the poster outside Gris-Gris's entrance.

"I suppose everyone jumps when you snap your fingers." The way she said this, in a calm manner, almost smiling, made him think it wasn't a criticism as much as an honest a.s.sessment. Maybe even a compliment.

"They jump when I snap my fingers because without me, they have no income."

"Aha! I knew I'd heard your name around here. You're Velma's bootlegger."

She had such a disarming, casual way about her. Very straightforward, which was off-putting and exciting at the same time. Women didn't speak to him this way-h.e.l.l, most men didn't speak to him this way.