The devil doctor *Completed*

Fighting of ghosts

*Bill*

Within the library, I pour myself a whiskey, toss back my head, and down it all. The medium’s performance makes no sense to me. Could it be that she is actually capable of communing with the dead? If she were a charlatan, why hasn’t she pretended to contact Riverdale? Her reputation, the amount of payment she could demand, is dependent upon her success at reaching the spirits.

And how the bloody hell did she know that I’d been responsible for my mother’s death?

Downing an additional glass of whiskey, I feel another fissure of anger rip through me. After Mrs. Ponsby revealed my mother’s supposed message, I came up out of the chair with a vengeance, knocking it over in the process. I’m not exactly certain what I’d planned to do or say. I know only that I’d needed to throw something, to walk from the room, to escape the demons of my past.

But Wicky flinched and cowed, damn her.

“I wouldn’t have struck you,” I say now, hating the way my voice seethes with emotions. I feel as though I were four years old, being battered by my mother again.

“I know,” Wicky says softly. “My reaction was formed by habit. I know it upset you. I’m sorry for that.”

“No matter how angry I get, I do not lash out with my fists.” I fought back once and my mother died as a result. I avoid confrontation at all cost.

“Yes, I know that as well,” she says softly.

Following my reaction, the medium excused herself, saying she was late for another appointment. Satisfaction shimmered off her, as she walked from the room without uttering any other word. Evangeline and Claybourne also took their leave shortly thereafter. And I headed straightaway for the liquor. I take another long gulp. I hadn’t been able to protect myself when I was a child, but I damned sure want to protect Wicky.

“Perhaps we should adjourn to another room,” she suggests.

“The whiskey’s here and I’m in need of whiskey. Would you care for a brandy?”

She glances around. “I don’t like this room. It feels like he’s here, as though he’s watching us.”

“He’s not. Spirits do not come back to haunt us.” Or at least that’s what I believed before tonight. Grabbing my glass, I stride over to the fireplace, press my forearm against the mantel, and stare into the fire. All these years, I’ve managed to hold thoughts of my past at bay. I’ve worked obsessively to save lives so I don’t have to focus on the one I’ve taken.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Wicky studies the table where the candle continues to burn, the shadows dancing around the rings and the pewter necklace. Even though the gaslights are now on, the candle seems to provide more light. She brings her shoulders back, shoring up her courage I have no doubt. She marches over to the table, snatches up the rings, and walks to the desk. Opening the cigar box on the corner, she drops the rings inside.

“Out of sight, out of mind?” I ask.

“Something like that.”

She wanders back over to the table and picks up the necklace. As she approaches me, I am grateful to see no hesitancy in her step, no wariness in her eyes. Stopping before me, she gives me a soft smile as she lifts the chain to place it around my neck. Bending my head, I relish the feel of her fingers skimming over my hair as she carries the chain down to rest against my neck. She pats the pewter that now hovers over my chest. “I think it’s very sweet that you wear your mother’s cross.”

“Sweetness has nothing to do with it. It’s so I never forget how quickly and easily death can come.” My father gave it to me. “So you’ll remember,” he’d said, and I’m fairly certain what it is he wanted me to remember. Because of me my mother is dead.

Using only the tip of her finger, she touches the pewter again, and I imagine the tips of her fingers skipping over my chest, lingering here and there. “As soon as Mrs. Ponsby implied that you killed your mother, I knew the foolishness of thinking that anyone could truly contact the dead.” She lifts her gaze to mine. “I know you had nothing at all to do with your mother’s death.”

Only I had everything to do with it, but I can’t tell her that. I don’t want to see the same fear in her eyes that I saw in my father’s.

“How did she know her words would strike a chord with you?” she asks.

She is so damned trusting, being this near to me, touching me, looking into my eyes. I want all of that: her trust, her touch, her deep brown eyes filled with adoration. For me, a sinner who has spent a good deal of my life striving to undo my sins. Wicked, my mother called me, wicked boy, and I’ve never understood exactly what I’d done that was so revolting. It had to be something inside of me, something only she could see.

“Because Mrs. Ponsby is very skilled at reading people. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard a parent say of their child, ‘He will be the death of me.’ I told her that my mother beat me. My mistake. I gave her something that she could work with. She would know that even if I had nothing at all to do with my mother’s death, I would harbor some guilt over it because I would have wished her dead a thousand times.”

“How do you know that she manipulates things in that way?”

“Because I grew up under the care of a Pupsman who was very good at fleecing people. He would knock on someone’s door, and within a matter of minutes he would know what sort of tale to weave in order to separate a man from his coins. Reading people is a skill that one can develop.”

“Are you skilled at reading people?”

“It comes in handy when I have to deliver unpleasant news, if I can gauge how best to deliver it.”

“Can you read me?” she asks.

I try not to, don’t want to know exactly what she is thinking, how she feels. “I know you’re afraid.”

“Not of you. I’ve never been afraid of you. I know you’re a good man.”

Only I’m not. My past is a labyrinth of wrongdoing. My redemption rests with her, if I can only protect her from her husband, protect her from myself.

But she is making it so difficult when she steps in closer, until her body is flush with mine. She may as well have laid a hot brand to my flesh. I am acutely aware of every luscious dip and curve that comprises her.

I am familiar with the human body, have examined hundreds of them, have examined her, but I have never wanted to explore one with the patience and depths that I want to explore hers. I want to know the smallest of details, slide my tongue along the tiniest of crevices. I want to become lost in her until I forget my past, until hers can no longer create a chasm between us. I want what I cannot have, what I should not take.

But at this moment I need the surcease she can offer, the balm of her innocence, the solace of her trust.

Cupping her face, I plant my mouth over hers. Triumph rushes through me as she sags against me, an invitation I can no longer ignore. I will have regrets in the morning. I have little doubt she will as well, but tonight we are both raw and wounded, reeling from disappointment, despair. The unexpected turn of events.

I lift her into my arms. “Not in here,” I say, “not in here where the ghosts from both our pasts linger.”