Jenn Bennett - Bitter Spirits

He cracked open the lid of the coffin.

Aida recognized the moment for what it was: an opportunity. She should stab him now, while he was weak, while his goon stood across the room. She could kill him, or injure him badly enough to escape. But how loyal was the big man, Tai? Would he stop her at the door?

Her mind whirled.

“Like speaks to like,” Doctor Yip said as he stood the lid open on its hinges. “We are the same, you and I. No one can truly understand who you are like I can.”

The stench worsened considerably.

Yip leaned over the open coffin and chanted something she didn’t understand several times. “ Hay-sun-la, hay-sun-la . . . ”

Aida’s breath turned white.

She scanned the coffin for a ghost and saw nothing.

Yip’s shoulders drooped. His breath wasn’t like Aida’s—no ghostly fog billowed from his mouth. His breathing was , however, strained. He gulped air like he was drowning and made a crude hacking noise.

Aida’s focus splintered when something thudded from inside the coffin.

He’d called something over the veil, her breath told her that. And she expected it to look much like the ghosts he’d sent after Winter.

It didn’t.

A decomposing corpse came into view as it sat upright in the coffin. Half bone, half decayed, rotting flesh, it turned its head toward Yip. It was hard to tell if it was male or female, as most of the hair and flesh was missing from the back of its skull. It was wearing clothing, but it was soiled beyond recognition with decomposition, its chest sunken. Shriveled lips remained, sutured closed. The eye sockets were filled with dark sludge.

“You channeled the spirit into the corpse,” Aida whispered.

He coughed and placed a hand on his vest, as if to steady his laboring lungs. “Yes. I don’t use memento mori, as you say in your show. I use their bones as a beacon.” He mumbled incoherent words to the corpse, which promptly lay back down in the coffin. But he didn’t send her back over the veil, because Aida’s breath was still cold.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Westerners would call her a revenant.”

“Animated corpse.”

“If I command her to seek a person, she will walk for miles until her legs fall apart—and when that happens, she’ll crawl. Her hands will scrabble across dry desert, long after her head has fallen in a ditch. I bound her spirit to her bones, and she can do nothing but obey my commands.”

She. That thing was a she .

“Behold,” he said with breathless excitement. “This is the kind of power I wield.”

Aida stared at the corpse in horror. “Put her to rest, for the love of God. You’ve proven your point, and I can’t stand the sight of her.”

“She is alive now. I can’t kill her.”

“You’ve created an immortal creature?”

“I didn’t say immortal. She can die again, in a manner of speaking.”

“How?”

He inhaled deeply, ignoring her question. “Besides, this girl is special. Today I will pack her up and let her loose on her husband.”

Aida held one exhalation of cold breath for several beats.

“Who is her husband?” she finally asked in a small voice.

Yip smiled very slowly.

It can’t be—no, no, no . . .

“Take heart,” Yip said. “I am not arranging for Mr. Magnusson’s death because of his respect for my people. I’m just pushing forward what would naturally occur in the future—Mr. Magnusson has the burden of too much death by his own hand, and his mind is weak like his father’s.”

Dear lord. Winter wasn’t crazy, but Yip was. A very rationalized, polite insanity, but crazy nonetheless. Aida stared at him, both horrified and feeling pity for the man.

Yip gestured toward the coffin. “Now that you’ve seen my power, what is your decision?”

“If I declined your offer?”

“Do you know how to swim?”

Aida started to shake her head in answer until realization sunk in.

“That is the best way. Your spirit will travel fast—very little chance of it staying here as a ghost if you’ve drowned in the Bay. And no one will grieve you, which is a small blessing. I will simply send word to your future employer in New Orleans that you’ve changed your mind, and no one will even know you’re gone.” He smiled at her as if he were a kindly old lawyer, breaking tough news about a judge’s decision.

A loud noise coming from somewhere on the ship made her jump.

Then again. A sharp bang!

The report of a gun.

Doctor Yip blanched. His men carried no guns.

Aida knew someone who did.

More shots were fired in quick succession, and suddenly gunfire reverberated inside the belly of the ship. It sounded like a battlefield lay beyond the walls of the dining room. Not single shots anymore, but the distinct rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns. Muffled shouting followed. The teardrop crystals in the chandelier clinked; the boards beneath her feet vibrated.

“Tai! Get out there and see what’s going on!” Yip yelled at the big man as he rushed to close the casket top.

While he pulled it down, Tai swung both doors open. A shot exploded. The big man stumbled backward. Movement in the dim doorway took the shape of an even bigger man whose arm lashed out to shove Tai. His teetering form crashed to the floor. He did not get up.

The gunman who’d shot Tai stormed into the ship’s dining room holding someone else in front of him like a shield, a handgun pressed to the side of his head. When he walked the hostage into the light of the first lantern, Aida, with a start, recognized the man being held at gunpoint.

Ju’s thug. The man she’d burned with incense.

The gun fired. Flesh and bone exploded. Ju’s thug dropped to the floor.

The gunman kicked him away and stepped into the light.

Splattered in blood, Winter strode into the room like a furious titan.

Aida cried out in relief, but a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and yanked her sideways. Yip crushed her back to his chest and pinned her there. “Mr. Magnusson,” his voice called near her ear as he shoved her forward. “I had plans to visit you at your house later tonight. I have men there watching your sister.”

“I know. They’re all dead.”

“Ah.” Yip’s grip tightened. “And I see I miscalculated the depth of your allegiance to the spirit medium. Is it really worth damning your soul further to take more innocent lives on this ship?”

“Winter—” Aida started.

Yip slapped his bare hand on her mouth. Ghostly breath, now stoppered there, shifted paths and streamed from her nostrils in quick pants.

“I couldn’t care less about her,” Winter said.

Aida’s chest tightened. Surely he was bluffing.

“Your actions betray you,” Yip said.

“She’s leaving the city tomorrow. It was a fling. She was giving it up for free—just a skirt, nothing more.”

Aida’s throat constricted. Anger and hurt welled up in equal parts.

“Then why have you come for her?” the herbalist asked.

“I didn’t even know she was here.”

It couldn’t be true—no! Why did he send the lancet? She struggled to throw Yip off, but he only held her tighter. After huffing several strained breaths near her ear, he snapped at Winter. “You mean to tell me that you brought death into my house—that you’re killing my workers—because of a few ghosts I sent your way? I don’t believe that.”

Winter’s face was stone. Lantern light cast shadows over his eyes, making his scar stand out in sharp relief. His mouth was the same immovable grim line he’d worn when she first met him, as if he’d never learned how to smile. “I’m here to look out for my business and take back what you’ve stolen from my associates.”