Spirit Read online

  The doors opened and the thugs pushed us into a large foyer. The floors were tiled with varying hues of browns. They had been intricately inlaid with three large detailed star designs. Two on either side of the elevators. The third we crossed towards a closed door.

  Elliot frowned as he walked. I could just about see his mind ticking. He leaned into me and whispered, “This is familiar.”

  My heart pumped with adrenaline. If this was the Melbourne of his time, then he might remember details of his life. And the reason he died. Grey-Suit moved in front of us and opened the beautiful wooden veneered door. A flood of voices, laughter, bodies, and colour bombarded me.

  The other thug pushed me by the base of my spine through the door. I stopped short after a couple of faltering steps. All eyes turned towards us, interest on their faces.

  We were in a large board room. A huge rectangular table with arched sides gleamed from the middle of the room. It was littered with plates of food, bottles of alcohol, and both full and empty glasses. Ashtrays over-flowed with stubs as cigarette smoke trailed towards the ceiling in lazy spirals.

  People were sprawled in the heavy-looking, square chairs around the table. Some lounged back in the chairs with their feet propped on the table-top. Women decorated the armrests, draping themselves over the shoulders of the men. Where the men were dressed in sombre greys and browns, the woman wore rich reds, glittering silver, and glowing gold. Their hairstyles were intricate, with tight curl florets about their faces. Fascinators of various sorts matched their gowns. They smoked from long cigarette holders, clutched between shining, painted nails.

  More people were edged around the room. Men grouped together, women in chairs in conversation. The men looked mean and the women no better. We’d interrupted a party I’d had no intention of attending.

  A man at the head of the table rose, placing beefy arms on each side of him. His jacket was cut to accentuate the broadness of his shoulders and barrel-sized chest. A fedora was pulled down low over his forehead, but it failed to hide the darkness of his eyes or the mean slash of his mouth. He might have been handsome, but the twist of his features detracted from the symmetry of his face. He reminded me of an alpha gorilla. Big, mean, and ready to punch anyone to dare intrude on his territory.

  He leant forwards and studied us. A bull weighing up a red flag. “Nice of you to join us, Elliot. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to join the party.” His voice was smooth, mid-range, and very clear. He spoke well, but his pronunciation couldn’t hide the harshness of ugly undertones.

  “Black John,” Elliot said.

  I gasped. This was the Black John that Elliot had told me about. The master-mind criminal of the nineteen thirties. The guy who ran organised crime in Melbourne.

  The man Elliot thought he’d been working both sides for.

  I glanced at Elliot. I saw the muscle working his jaw as his teeth clenched. His body radiated tension and anger. His eyes were locked on Black John with a steel-edged stare.

  “I see you’ve met my welcoming committee.” Black John indicated the thugs behind us. With a tilt of his head from Black John, one of the men closed the doors behind us. The quiet click could have been a slam of an iron door and a key in a lock. We were cut-off.

  My blood froze as the tension in the room ramped up. The people who’d been merely curious before, were now alert. There were straighter backs, feet slipped to the floor, cigarettes extinguished, depraved eagerness in the eyes. Jackets opened, guns revealed, women sidled closer to the walls away from the men, but regarded us hungrily. These people were not the nice variety.

  My fist scrunched in Elliot’s shirt at his arm. His fingers tightened on my shoulder in response, “Is this how you treat all your visitors?”

  “I admit, if I knew it was you, I would have called them off sooner. But you never know the type that comes here. They’re not exactly…salt of the earth if you know what I mean. It’s in my better interests to make a relatively ‘peaceful’ first meeting.”

  “Peaceful in that you hurt people before they can fight back.”

  Black John straightened and smiled, “It is an effective way to show people how we work around here. Don’t you think?”

  “And where is here?” Elliot said.

  Black John indicated the room with a sweep of his hand, “You don’t recognise where we are?”

  Elliot’s mouth twisted and I could all but feel the frustration radiate from him. He was on the verge of remembering something, but it was just out of his reach, I could feel it. “I know what’s it’s meant to look like and I also know it isn’t real. Why don’t you just come out and tell me straight up where we are?”

  “I’d have thought you’d remember where you spent the last moments of your life, Elliot. After all, it is something that’s usually hard to forget.”

  I jerked, “Elliot! You died…here?” I tugged him closer to me.

  His jaw clenched, and a frustrated noise escaped him.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember?” Black John’s voice held notes of incredulity.

  One of the men at the table scoffed. Another echoed the sound. I glared at them, but they ignored me.

  “You don’t mean to tell me the late, great Elliot Stone…can’t remember? That has to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in eighty years!” Black John laughed. The sound cut right through me.

  As though he’d set off a chain reaction, others laughed with him. Women twittered, men tilted their hats back on their heads, amusement glowing from their features.

  “Shut up. All of you!” I shouted.

  Black John’s eyes landed on me, “And who might you be?”

  “None of your damned business who I am, that’s who,” I said. I jerked back as a dangerous glint entered John’s eyes. His demeanor had changed in an instant. The man was unstable and dangerous. The noise diminished as all eyes turned to Black John. I don’t think anyone knew what his reaction would be. They were all as unsure of Black John as I was.

  Finally, Black John emitted a guffaw, “The girl’s got spark. I like that.” Relief spread like a wildfire amongst everyone. His gaze went back to Elliot, “Just keep a tightrope on her, Stone. Next time she might not be so amusing.”

  One of the men behind Black John pulled his chair back when he started to move around the table. He swung a cane as he walked. As he got closer, I got a better look at him. He was dressed like a prince, in a light beige colour that could have been called silken-gold. His clothes were of the same style as everyone else, with matching suit jacket and pants, but his waist-coat was brocade, the threads sparking light when he moved, the interplay of matte and shining thread more obvious the closer he got. A gold chain that was attached to a bob-watch and tucked in a purpose-made pocket swung beneath the hem of the waist-coat and tapped his hip. His shoes shone in matching patent leather. He looked classy, but I knew looks were deceiving.

  He was as tall as Elliot but thicker in the waist and broader in the shoulders. There was no kindness about him. Just icy-cold. Each movement was calculated and measured and done to tell everyone that he was the boss.

  He swung the cane, the end tapped the ground with each step. There was a flash of glowing red at the tip. I frowned, trying to see what it was. He perched on the end of the table right in front of us. He played with the cane, balancing the end on his shoe and holding the top end in a loose grip, showcasing the ruby to us, doing it for effect.

  The end was gilt gold and in the middle of the catch was the largest ruby I’d ever seen. As large as my fist. The cut was perfection and so intricate that it reflected light like it was alive. The inside of the gem was so clear that it glowed with an inner light of its own. I could be tricked into thinking that it was breathing. It was, quite simply, breathtaking.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Elliot.”

  “Why am I so important to you that you would wait for me?” Elliot said.

  “I admit, I hadn’t expected to wait for you at all, but when
you died, you escaped me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Elliot ground out

  Black John sighed, “Of course you don’t. I guess I’ll have to spell it out for you. I killed your body. Before I could have a chance to capture your soul, you escaped me. I’ve been waiting for you and I don’t like to wait. I think I’ve been very patient.”

  Elliot gasped, “You. Killed. Me.”

  Black John made a twirling motion with his hand, “Yes, yes. Get with the program, Stone, for God’s sake, although I don’t think he’ll see you here.” There was an answering chuckle from around the room.

  Elliot shuddered, looking blindly at the floor. I put my hand on his chest, “Elliot. Are you okay?” I felt his heart beating wildly, saw him swallow.

  When he looked at Black John, there was murder on his face, “You’ll pay for this.”

  Black John’s mouth fell open in amusement, “That’s not in the rules in this place. Here, I don’t pay for anything. You see, I built all this. Everything you see. Here, I’m king. It’s my world and anyone who comes into my world gets to work for me. Once you come in, there is no getting out. Besides, where do you think you’d go? Back to the Grey-Mists? That’s never a good place to be.”

  I was beginning to think the Grey-Mists would be much better than being here. “What about Heaven. Hell. A place you could well occupy.”

  “You do have a tongue on you. Think of this place as an…alternative. A place to be where there is nowhere else to go. Once you get used to it, you’ll see it’s not so bad. I don’t hear anyone else complaining.” He gestured the room and there was an answering silence, “So, now that you’re here, I’ll explain this only once. You will do what I want you to do, or I will make your life a living hell. I can do that here, by the way. The real fire and brimstone stuff. If you do what I want you to do, you can have a good life. Heaven on a plate. It’s up to you.”

  “You think you’re God!” Elliot gasped.

  “God of this world, yes.”

  “You’re insane,” I said.

  “Brilliant, yes. Insane, no. You see, I didn’t want to go beyond the Grey-Mists. I wanted my own world, and thanks to you Elliot Stone, I learnt what I could do in them before I got there. I had it all planned out.”

  “How could you know anything about the Grey-Mists?” Elliot said.

  “Well, you told me, of course. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that either? You helped me to create all this. You’re the right hand of God, if you want to look at it that way.”

  “I didn’t help you do any of this!”

  “Elliot, you know more than that feeble mind of yours has blocked out for some reason. Maybe it was the shock of your death. It was quite sudden, I admit, but it had to be done. You were beginning to show a conscience and I couldn’t have that.”

  “I worked for you once, I’ll never do it again. What did you do to Sam?”

  “Sam Sloane. Your partner? Could someone go get Sam for our poor, forgetful Mr Stone?”

  Elliot seems to crumple in on himself, “He’s here too?”

  The door clicked open behind us. Elliot turned, an expression of deep regret in his eyes, “Sam! I’m so sorry!”

  Sam walked past Elliot and stood at Black John’s side, “The word is he can’t remember. Seems it's right.” Sam leant against the table at Black John’s side, crossing his arms as he regarded us.

  At first glance, I thought I could like Sam with his blond good-looks, strong masculine features and a mouth that could easily smile. But when I studied his eyes, I saw the same calculation in them as Black John. Warning sirens went off in my head. My gut kicked in, telling me he was no good.

  “Sam! No! You can’t side with Black John,” Elliot chocked.

  “This is embarrassing,” Sam rolled his eyes. “Elliot, you and I were working with John. We helped him create this. You thought of it while you were still alive. You are part creator of this world.”

  “No!”

  “Elliot. All three of us are partners. We decided to create this world before we died. A place where we can bring like-minded people. A gathering place.”

  “I wouldn’t…couldn’t know how to do that.”

  “Yes. You do. It’s in there, Elliot. All you have to do is to remember how.”

  “Remember? Remember what?”

  “What we want you to do. You set it all up. You said you would start before we arrived, but then things went…a little bit wrong.”

  Elliot shook his head, his hand coming up to his forehead. He was struggling, fighting, waging an internal war.

  “You wanted to come here first. You asked me to help you,” Sam said.

  “I didn’t ask anything of you,” Elliot said.

  Sam sighed, “Elliot, you told us to kill you first. It was planned. Black John didn’t put a bullet in your skull. He was only here to send you off properly. Elliot, you fool, I was the one that killed you.”

  Chapter Five

  “No!” Elliot gasped.

  “Elliot, don’t trust them," I said. “Don’t trust a word they’re saying.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes at me and I was blasted with the full force of wrongness, “She’s familiar.”

  Black John turned his dead eyes to me. I felt the impact of that look and I instinctively straightened, “So, it wasn’t just me,” he mused, “I learned long ago not to ignore feelings like this.”

  “Give my sister back to me!” Anger blasted through my better judgement to stay quiet and not make a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t help it. Time wasn’t on Laura’s side and I needed to know where she was.

  Black John shrugged. “She could be anywhere around here.”

  “You know exactly where she is. Tell me and we’ll just go. Get out of your hair.”

  Black John smiled, “That’s what you don’t understand. There’s no going anywhere else. This is it. My kingdom.”

  I had created the beautiful romantic beach, but as soon as I stopped concentrating, it had dissolved back to the Grey-Mists again. So how was this world held together with such reality, and how was he able to turn it into a prison? If there was one thing I’d started to discover about Black John, it was that he wanted to own. Death hadn’t changed him at all. I decided to pander to his ego to make some sort of sense out of this place. “So, if you couldn’t have Melbourne when you were alive, you created your own when you died?”

  Black John puffed up like the vain little prick he was. “Thanks to Elliot, I have achieved what I wanted.”

  “Why is it so important to you to have Elliot? What does he know that you need?”

  “We told you. Because he’s one of us.”

  “Then why take Laura? Why not just go to him and ask him to come? And why stab him when we got here?”

  Black John smiled, “I wanted to bring Elliot home. I knew Elliot lost his memory, but he’s still the same inside. He could never resist saving a damsel in distress. Laura was there and I knew he would follow. I just didn’t know he’d bring you along for the ride. Actually, come to think of it, he wouldn’t have killed you to bring you here, so…how are you here?”

  He was getting too close to knowing that I really wasn’t meant to be in the Grey-Mists at all. “Give my sister back to me!” I demanded. My body shook with rage I barely contained.

  Black John’s eyes widened, “I tell you what. We’ll trade. You get your sister back and Elliot stays here in his rightful place by my side.”

  “I’ll stay as long as you let them leave.” Elliot lounged heavily against me, head lolling forwards. I saw that his wound hadn’t stopped bleeding, and he was getting weak. If I saw someone like this come into the hospital, they’d already be on the operating table.

  Black John’s mouth thinned. It was meant to be a smile, but it was more calculating than genuine, “Deal.”

  “No! Elliot! There’s no way he’ll let us leave. He wants you here. Needs you here for some reason. He was quite willing to leave you in the middle of the Grey-Mi
sts for eighty years while he lived here. He had his chance then. Why now? You’d still be there if he didn’t want something.”

  Black John straightened from the table, arms uncrossing. His stance was casual but did nothing to hide the menace he knew he showed. “Elliot belongs here. This is his rightful place. He is home.”

  “He’s right, Cassie,” Elliot’s voice slurred slightly.

  My arm tightened around Elliot’s waist. “You belong somewhere much better than this…this…place. It isn’t even real. It’s just a figment of his imagination.”

  Grey-Suit and the other mobster sidled up to our backs. I felt the heat from their bodies, “That’s real tough. Get your thugs to molest a woman and a man who’s been stabbed,” I spat at them.

  “That’s the way things work around here,” Grey-Suit said.

  “That’s why Elliot doesn’t belong here!”

  Grey-Suit wrapped his fingers around my upper arm, pulling me away from Elliot. His head swung up, a dangerous gleam in his eye, “Get your hand off her!” Quicker than I could see, Elliot smashed his fist into Grey-Suits jaw. He stumbled backward, hit the wall, and sunk to the ground.

  Before my mind could calculate what had happened, Elliot swung his fist into the other mobsters’ mid-section. He bent double with a guttural sound. Elliot grabbed my hand, pulled the doors open, and raced into the foyer.

  “Stop him!” Black John screamed from the stunned room.

  “The stairs,” he hissed.

  I had no idea where the stairs would be, but Elliot guided me to a door, swung it open, and pushed me through. I glanced over my shoulder to see men running from the boardroom towards us.

  Elliot locked the door behind us and we raced down the steps. “How did you know the door was there?” I gasped.

  “I remembered. Hurry, they’ll get through soon enough,” Elliot said. He didn’t say anything else, just kept my momentum going.