A Barricade in Hell by Jaime Lee Moyer

tangible to believe in what we’re doing. You used to live in this house, so I’ll leave building wards to you. We should be able to keep out most harmful spirits.”
    My failure to keep one small ghost out of my home and away from Gabe still weighed on me. “I’ve not done well on that front of late. Are you sure?”
    â€œQuite sure. There are methods of layering protections and weaving barriers I haven’t taught you yet. I foolishly thought neither of us would ever need protections that strong. Not in San Francisco.” Dora paused on the second-floor landing, shoulders tense, and looked back toward Mr. Baskin’s room. “Obviously, I was mistaken. Evil has no regard for borders. The Great War is changing the world, and balances are shifting. I’d do well to remember.”
    A gust of icy air swirled down the stairwell from the top floor, chilling me through my winter coat and rising gooseflesh on my arms. Daniel was still trapped in Europe, subject to all the unsettling changes and dangers Dora spoke of. I refused to think of the tiny shivers rippling across my shoulders as an omen.
    Open windows on a January day and a drafty old house. That’s all it was, nothing more.

 
    CHAPTER 7
    Gabe
    Gabe stared out the car window, struggling mightily to keep his impatience from getting the best of him. Traffic crawled along the downtown streets. Fewer horse rigs worked in the city every year, but the remaining horse-drawn cabs and delivery wagons clogged the roadways, slowing everyone down. Henderson navigated the car down side streets and shortcuts in an attempt to bypass the worst jams, but there was only so much that could be done.
    That Jack hadn’t said more than a dozen words since they left the station didn’t lighten Gabe’s mood. He wanted this trip to Chinatown over with and done.
    He and Jack had met in his office early and gone to Baldwin’s cell first thing. Both of them had hoped a night in a warm bed and a good meal might have helped Archie regain his senses. If anything, Baldwin was worse, cowering in the corner of his cell and whimpering each time Jack tried to speak to him.
    They’d quickly given up trying to question Baldwin. Persisting was cruel, as much for the pain Jack felt as for the distress their questions caused Archie. He wasn’t sure he could stomach that a second time.
    Sadie had taken the news of Amanda’s disappearance and Archie’s incarceration hard, just as Jack feared. Any hope Sadie might have an idea of where Amanda was died pretty quickly. The two women hadn’t spoken since Amanda’s visit to deliver a gift for the baby. Weeks had passed since.
    Henderson, Dodd, and Baker hadn’t turned up much of anything on Effie Fontaine either, another disappointment. A few of the men drinking in the most popular dockside taverns had heard the name, but not much more. The same was true for the prostitutes working near the wharves. Gabe suspected Miss Fontaine didn’t frequent the same social circles as Baker’s and Henderson’s contacts.
    He and Jack had discussed other ways to track down information on Miss Fontaine and her followers before confronting her, but the Bradley Wells murder case and the trip to Chinatown came first. They’d agreed, reluctantly, to put off delving into Effie Fontaine’s life until after they met with Dora that afternoon.
    Secretly, he hoped Dora would put them on the road to catching Wells’s killer quickly. He’d almost welcome her pointing out some obvious clue they’d missed and solving the case. Life, and police work, never resolved itself that cleanly, but he saw no harm in daydreaming.
    Gabe knew which case was foremost in Jack’s mind and the reasons behind his silence. He felt the same way. A strange sense of urgency—part experience, part instinct he couldn’t quite explain—pushed him toward finding out more about Effie