Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb Read online

  Home was a twenty-mile flight from downtown Zenith. The Graphics’ house, Birchwood, was a couple hundred yards up from the rocky shore of Great Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the world. From Lake Highway down by the shore, the brick house could barely be seen through the evergreens, birches, and poplars that filled its big front yard.

  The instant they touched down on the driveway, Johnny hopped off the ghost horse and rushed up the porch steps. He threw open the front door and shouted, “Mel! Are you home yet?”

  No one answered.

  Johnny trotted into the living room, tossing his camera bag onto the sofa. “Mel?”

  Again, not a peep from anyone.

  Johnny went back into the hallway and ran up the stairway two steps at a time. Maybe, he thought, Mel was back, working in her bedroom. When she was really busy with a project, it took a stick of dynamite to get her attention. But when he peered into her open bedroom door, no one was there. Just her stuff. A cluttered desk and bookshelves. Her upright piano. Her bed, neatly made up, with the crossed army sabers up above it, hanging on the wall. The landscape painting by the Contessa di Altamonta, the famous ghost artist and friend of their mom.

  “Master Johnny?”

  Johnny nearly jumped out of his skin. He twirled around and saw Mrs. Lundgren standing in the hallway by the bathroom door. Pale and translucent, the ghost housekeeper held a real bucket in one hand and a real mop in the other. Her apple-doll face showed a look of worry.

  “What’s wrong, child?” she asked in that peculiar whispery tone. “Is anything the matter?”

  “I’m looking for Mel, Mrs. Lundgren. Something important’s come up and she needs to know about it.”

  “I believe Miss Melanie said she would be back by suppertime.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Lundgren,” Johnny said, and headed back downstairs. He went out on the front porch and sat on the long oak bench, waiting for Mel’s return. It wasn’t very long before someone arrived home—but not his sister.

  Puffing up the driveway on her balloon-tired bicycle came Nina Bain, attired in a khaki safari jacket and stout skirt of olive drab. Her short, black corkscrew curls bobbed with every pump of the pedals. The dark-skinned girl and Johnny had been best friends ever since she and Uncle Louie came to live in the big brick house—right after Will and Lydia Graphic had vanished.

  Johnny thought it was swell, how Uncle Louie had been granted custody of Nina after her father died. That kind of made her Johnny’s honorary cousin. The two were about the same age and natural allies in the fight against sober adult points of view. Johnny sometimes called her “Sparks,” because she was a dedicated ham radio operator. She had her radio gear up in the attic and a tall antenna on the roof.

  Almost out of breath, Nina rested her bike against the side of the porch and joined Johnny on the bench. “So how’d it go?” she asked, taking off her backpack and laying it on the floor.

  “It went okay, Sparks, but it was a little bit scary. First time I’ve taken shots of people who don’t want their photos taken.”

  “Is your picture going to be on the front page?”

  “Yup, they said it would be.”

  “That’s great. So what happened exactly?”

  And Johnny told Nina about the whole adventure. At several points during his narrative she shook her head in amazement. But when he finished she had a kind of funny expression on her face. “What?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  Nina narrowed her eyes. “The Johnny Graphic I know would be grinning and jumping up and down. You seem awfully subdued, considering you’re getting your first front-page photo credit. Smells a little fishy to me. You have a bellyache or something?”

  “I wish that’s all it was,” Johnny said. Then he told her about Mongke Eng.

  * * *

  Melanie Graphic didn’t make it home for supper that evening. By the time she finally came through the front door at half past ten, almost everyone else had gone to bed. But Johnny was waiting for her in the entranceway.

  Mel looked utterly exhausted. Her limp black hair was limper and stringier than usual, and the circles under her eyes more pronounced. She wearily took off her green plaid jacket and hung it on the coat rack, then headed toward the kitchen, giving her brother a half-hearted wave.

  He hopped out of his chair and followed her. “Bad haunting?” he asked.

  “I’ll say,” Mel yawned, making straight for the refrigerator. She pulled the door open, extracted a bottle of milk, and found the cheese-and-sausage sandwich Mrs. Lundgren had made for her.

  Johnny sat down opposite his sister at the table. “So what happened?”

  “People sometimes don’t know how lucky they are, not seeing and hearing ghosts,” she said after her first mouthful of sandwich. “New family bought an old house in Hector Town. The daughter can see ghosts. Of course, she can hear them, too. Moved into a place with a screamer, and the mom and dad didn’t know it beforehand.”

  Johnny winced. Screamers were ghosts that howled and screeched pretty much non-stop. Not because they couldn’t stop, but because they were angry with everyone and everything.

  “It wasn’t easy,” said Mel, “but I got him to move to an abandoned mansion about a mile away. I convinced him he’d sound even louder in a big empty house like that. Took a while, though.” She took another bite of sandwich and regarded Johnny with a quizzical look. “You seem suspiciously grim. Do you want to tell me something?”

  Johnny looked at his seventeen-year-old sister. She had the same spray of freckles across the cheeks and nose as him. But her eyes were hazel, not blue; her hair black, not dark blond. Sometimes they almost didn’t look like siblings. She resembled their mom, he was a lot like their pop.

  “What is it, Johnny?” Mel asked, suddenly concerned.

  Johnny took a deep breath. “They killed Mongke Eng. Some ghost assassin in Silver City. The article in the Clarion said it was some kind of a warrior.”

  He expected her to show some shock, but to his surprise she didn’t. She merely slumped down in her chair.

  “Steppe Warriors,” Mel said, almost in a whisper. “They’re called Steppe Warriors. Now that you know about it, I might as well tell you everything.”

  Johnny’s mouth dropped open. “‘Everything’? What do you mean, ‘everything’?”

  “It’s not just Mongke,” Mel said. “Five other members of the Hausenhofer Gesellschaft have been murdered by ghost assassins. The first two or three, we hoped it was just some grisly coincidence. But now…” She trailed off.

  What Mel had just said hit Johnny like a ton of bricks.

  It wasn’t just a single etherist who had gotten himself killed. It was specifically members of the group to which Mel belonged—the Gessellschaft. There were only about twenty-five of them in the outfit. And now six were dead. This was a lot worse than he had thought.

  If someone was targeting members of the Gessellschaft, then Mel’s life was in danger, too!

  Chapter 3

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Johnny asked with a flash of anger.

  Mel pulled herself upright and stared back at her fuming brother. “You went through so much when Mom and Dad disappeared. We didn’t want to put you through the wringer again.”

  “I handled what happened to Mom and Pop pretty good for a kid. Did you think I’d fall apart if I found out I might lose you, too?”

  “You’re not going to lose me,” Mel said, trying to reassure Johnny that he wasn’t about to become an only child, as well as an orphan. “Besides, why would anyone want to kill someone like me? It’s utterly insane.”

  Her comforting words didn’t calm Johnny.

  “I mean, six people murdered,” he said. “And you’re in the same small group as them. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these ghost assassins might come gunning for Melanie Graphic.”

  “We all just hoped that this thing would blow over,” Mel said, “that you’d never even have to know about it.”
/>   “And what do you mean by ‘we’?” he asked, still bristling. “Who else knows?”

  “Uncle Louie knows. Colonel MacFarlane knows. He gave orders to the troopers to set up pickets around the house twenty-four hours a day.”

  That made Johnny feel a little better. The colonel and his Border War ghost soldiers would definitely keep a sharp eye on Mel. But it didn’t feel good knowing that everyone had left the kid brother in the dark.

  “Dame Honoria knows, of course,” added Mel. “That’s why she cut short her visit here and went down to Capital City. To talk with the authorities.”

  Johnny thought about the situation for a moment. “Someone has to be controlling these warrior ghosts, or whatever you call them.”

  “Steppe Warriors,” Mel said. “Well, that’s how it works, isn’t it? Specters can’t operate in the real world unless a living person asks them to.”

  “But why would anybody want to eliminate a bunch of musty old etherists?”

  “Hey, watch it!” Mel gave her brother a crooked, little grin. “You think I’m musty and old?”

  “Naw, not you, Sis. But you gotta admit, just about everyone else in the Gesellschaft is. At least everybody I’ve met.”

  “Well, apart from insulting my friends, you make a good point,” said Mel. “Why murder us? We’re harmless. All we do is study how ghosts can come out of the ether into the real world and function as if they were alive. How can Mrs. Lundgren make me a cheese-and-sausage sandwich? A woman who died thirty years ago? How can the colonel and his men play poker all night in the basement, with real cards and chips?”

  Johnny smiled. The colonel and the boys sure did love their poker games.

  “Something one of you did or said maybe threatened someone,” Johnny speculated.

  “But what?” Mel answered. “What could it possibly be? I’ve got to admit, I don’t have a clue.”

  Johnny let his sister finish her sandwich and drink her milk in silence. Then he took a deep breath, puffed himself up—because he didn’t like what he was about to say—and spoke.

  “Doesn’t seem there’s much else to do but cancel the trip out to La Concha. Wouldn’t be safe.”

  Mel looked at her brother in astonishment. “Ab-so-lute-ly not,” she said. “In case you’ve forgotten, Iron River Mining Company has gone bankrupt. Mom and Dad’s contract with Iron River has been our meal ticket ever since they vanished. Now it’s out of business. No more checks in the mail.

  “Sorry, Johnny, but what I’m earning plus what you’re earning plus Uncle Louie’s salary from down at the aeroboat port just isn’t enough. We have to pay for this big, beautiful house. If we don’t start making about twice what we’re making now, the bank will repossess Birchwood.”

  Johnny, of course, knew all this, though he usually tried to put it out of his mind.

  “If my hypothesis about the physics of etheric light transmission is proved correct,” said Mel, “we could make a bundle.”

  Mel had spent long hours trying to develop a formula for a movie film that would actually photograph ghosts—something that had been utterly impossible up to now.

  “Couldn’t you just do the research here in Zenith and send it to Megatherian?” Johnny suggested. “Instead of going out to La Concha?”

  Mel shook her head. “The studio wants to put me together with its film chemists to see if we can actually make an etheric film. And I’ve got to be there in their laboratory.”

  Johnny’s face suddenly brightened. “Is it true that Donnie Anderson wants to make a movie with Megatherian?”

  Donnie Anderson had been Johnny’s favorite cowboy star. That is, until the unfortunate actor had taken a fatal tumble off his horse two years before. Johnny wanted nothing more than to see the singing cowboy back in the saddle and up on the silver screen again—strumming away on his guitar.

  “That’s just a rumor,” said Mel. “But I know there are five or six big ghost stars who are ready to go back to work.”

  “I really want to go to La Concha,” Johnny admitted. “Taking pictures of movie stars would be incredible. And Miss Beale at the Clarion said she’d buy every shot I take. But you know, I’d rather have a big sister than a big pile of money. We don’t have to go. It’s too dangerous. We can find some other way to keep the house.”

  Mel shook her head. “It’s really sweet that you’re worried about me, Johnny. But a fat contract with Megatherian would solve all our money problems. My mind is made up. I’m going to La Concha.”

  Chapter 4

  Monday, October 7, 1935

  Zenith

  As the Morton Monarch touring car pulled away from the big brick house, Johnny spied Mrs. Lundgren floating out through the front wall. The ghost housekeeper waved and shouted, “A safe journey, children.”

  A few moments later, the big convertible was zooming south on Lake Highway. Johnny sat in front, feeling both excited and uneasy. Looking at things from his normal point of view, this trip could be really amazing. Meeting movie stars. Taking their pictures. How could a news photog not love that?

  But that annoying, grown-up voice inside his head—ever more insistent since he had tested out of school—kept saying, “Boy, oh boy, not a good idea.”

  Driving the car was a tall, muscular man in blue dungarees, tan work shirt, and a Zenith Blue Sox cap—the “S” resembling a lightning bolt. Louie Hofstedter had dark, slicked-back hair and a square face with lots of wrinkles from smiling all the time. But today Johnny noticed that his uncle wore a glum expression.

  The gals—as Uncle Louie called them—were all in the backseat. Nina had arrived home from school barely in time to ride with them and was still wearing her navy blue sailor dress. Beside her sat Mel, intently reading the latest letter from Megatherian Studios and making notations in pencil in the margins.

  Squeezed in next to the two girls was Dame Honoria Gorton Rathbone, looking as if she had just eaten a sour pickle. But she usually did look that way. Quite famous in the Royal Kingdom, the heiress of the Gorton’s Little Pills fortune had helped win females the right to vote back in the late teens. More recently, she collaborated with the dead author Sir Chauncey Holyfield, shepherding his bestselling scientific romances into print.

  Johnny thought she wasn’t that bad an old stick, for someone almost sixty. Practically a member of the family—and Johnny’s own godmother—Dame Honoria had spent two full weeks with the Graphics during her tour of the New Continent. Uncle Louie and Mel had even thrown a big dinner party in her honor, where the great lady held forth for hours and enjoyed showing off her necklace with the giant black diamond, known as the Star of Gilbeyshire.

  After a slow slog through rush-hour traffic, the Morton Monarch finally pulled onto Superior Avenue, just as its gaudy neon signs and theater marquees started blinking on. Johnny adored Superior Avenue. It was always lively, always hopping. The sidewalks were crammed with people going to the stores and restaurants, to the movie palaces and nightclubs. Streetcars rattled along the length of Zenith’s main shopping street, and cable cars trundled noisily up and down the city’s steep central hill.

  Johnny glanced over his shoulder. Half a block back, passing through autos and streetcars and pedestrians, trotted Colonel MacFarlane, up on Buck, his chestnut bay ghost horse. Behind him rode the entire First Zenith Brigade—every trooper present and accounted for. That was the only concession that Johnny and Uncle Louie could wring out of Mel: she’d allow the colonel to come along on the journey west, just in case.

  Uncle Louie swung the convertible left onto Lake Street and cruised into the Bowery—a very different, darker place than Superior Avenue.

  The Bowery always gave Johnny an uneasy sort of feeling. It showed what could happen to folks if things went bad—often through no fault of their own. It made him grateful for everything he had, even without his parents around.

  But he had to admit, he felt conspicuous here, in his nice blue wool suit, red silk tie, and gray fedora.

  R
agged, defeated men and dreary, frumpy women gathered in clumps in front of saloons and fleabag hotels. Lots of ghosts floated around, too—the specters of drowned sailors, starved children, desolated people of all kinds. The living and the dead gazed at Johnny, and in his mind he could almost hear them asking: why do you have so much, boy, and we have so little?

  A few minutes after crossing the Aerial Bridge onto Zenith Point, the big touring car pulled up to the main concourse of the George Babbitt Memorial Flying Boat Port. On its landward side the terminal building was a broad edifice of cream-colored limestone decorated with giant relief sculptures of water birds. On the bay side a number of aeroboat docks extended out onto the water, all but a few of them occupied by seaplanes great and small.

  Uncle Louie darted into a spot under the long canopy. In a wink he and Johnny had every piece of luggage on two porter carts—one for Dame Honoria, who was flying east to Neuport, and another for Johnny and Mel’s flight west to La Concha. After shaking Dame Honoria and Johnny’s hands, Uncle Louie gave Mel a big bear hug.

  “Take care now and keep your eyes peeled,” he told his niece and nephew, climbing into the Monarch. “If needs be, let the colonel do his job.”

  As the touring car pulled away, Nina hollered, “Johnny, don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

  “Will if I want to, Sparks,” Johnny shot back.

  * * *

  The Zephyr Lines Night Goose to La Concha didn’t depart until late in the evening. So Mel and Johnny had time to escort Dame Honoria through the bustling air terminal and right to her flying boat.

  Johnny’s godmother was short and heavyset, her perpetually overcast face resembling that of a gloomy horse. She wore a gray lady’s suit with a skirt that reached mid-calf.

  The noblewoman stopped just shy of the ramp up to her aeroboat, pulling Mel and Johnny off to the side. A stream of travelers trudged by them and into the four-engined Como Eagle.

  “I beg you, Melanie, one last time,” Dame Honoria said, her voice grave and quiet. “Please postpone your trip. Jules and B. J., Elmer and Anna, Deng and Mongke. All murdered.” She peered intensely at Mel. “You are every bit as vulnerable as they were, as I am.”