Cauldron

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Anarchists and countesses aside, we still need to figure out the vamp angle and who’s snatching people in Moscow Heights,” I reminded him. “I’ve got no idea how that ties in. But I’m going to find out—and I need you to back me on it.”

  He gave a bored wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah. Just try not to get the whole Cleveland PD on your tail. Even I can only pull so many strings.”

  I never did promise anything about not ending up crosswise with the CPD. I know better than to guarantee something I don’t control. Still, West came through with an address and a time for the next anarchist meeting, and I dug out some dungarees and an old shirt that had seen a lot of wear to look the part, down to my hard-worn boots and faded kerchief.

  My room at the lodging house isn’t fancy—just a bed, a lamp, a chair, and a desk, plus a beat up armchair I pulled out of the trash. The bathroom is down the hall, but at least we’ve got electric lights and running water—a big improvement over what I had back in Homestead. Still, seeing myself in clothes like I wore in the mill made me melancholy. I didn’t dress like that anymore, unless I was going out on the sly, like tonight.

  The face that stared back at me didn’t look changed at all by the last thirty-six years. I should be gray-haired, a grandfather at sixty-seven. But my blond hair was the same as ever, my face still unlined, and even the scars I’d earned in bar fights or at the steel mill were gone, courtesy of Krukis. Everything stayed the same, except for the eyes. I thought my blue eyes looked every bit my true age, and then some.

  I figured I’d best get going before I went all maudlin. The past was past, and as much as my dreams still remembered flames and blood, nothing could bring those people back, or my beloved Agata and Patryk. But maybe, if I could get my ass in gear, I could stop a riot or worse from destroying someone else’s life.

  The anarchists met in an old dance hall that rented out to meetings on weeknights. It didn’t look like it got much business on the weekend, either, judging from the worn, sagging wooden floor and the faded paint on the walls. I imagine it had been quite the place for a hot date years ago, but time had passed it by, and now it just got by the best it could. I knew the feeling.

  “Ain’t seen you before,” a man said in Russian when I drifted toward the middle of the crowd. People milled about in front of the stage where other nights, a band might play.

  “First time,” I replied, in the same language. “Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

  “Keep your ears open,” he said. “There’s plenty to hear.”

  Inwardly, I sighed with relief at having passed the first test for fitting in. The man who’d spoken to me moved away, chatting with others, but I didn’t get the feeling he was ratting me out. I avoided eye contact, not wanting to test the limits of my remembered Russian, working my way toward a point where I’d still be hidden in the crowd but could see or hear whatever happened on stage.

  Meanwhile, I listened to the conversations around me. It was hard to follow a single voice in the babble, especially when I had to work to translate the words in my head. I quickly gathered that people weren’t happy with their wages at the mill, the beef at the butcher shop was tough this week and the grocer’s potatoes had bugs, and that beets here didn’t cook up as well as they did back in Russia. I heard comments about the pilot, Amelia Earhart, comparing her with Charles Lindbergh. One of the men said he’d seen a motion picture with a whistling mouse and a steamboat and thought America was very strange.

  I’d almost decided this was just a group of gossipy old roosters when I caught a word that made me snap to attention. “Tsar.” I tried not to swivel my head, looking for the speaker. In the noise of the crowd, I couldn’t pick out who had spoken. Maybe someone was just nostalgic for the old days. Or perhaps, there really was a link to darker purposes.

  Just as the bells in the clock tower struck nine, a man bounded out onto the stage, greeted by a smattering of applause. He didn’t look like an actor and didn’t move like a politician. His thinning light brown hair gave him a prominent forehead, and he had a spare, gaunt look to him that I associated with priests and professors. The man wore a suit and tie, but even I could tell that they weren’t of good quality, though he looked better than most of his audience. The ill-fitting suit made me wonder whether it was second hand, and how an anarchist earned his bread.

  “Good evening, loyal Russians!” he greeted the crowd, which answered with less enthusiasm than I anticipated for a bunch of rabble-rousers. I’d expected a pack of young wolves, eager for a fight. There were a few groups of men in their twenties and thirties, but more of them were in their middle years, looking worn and disillusioned. If this group intended to riot, they’d best do it before supper and early bedtime, or they’d lose half their protesters.

  “I bring you news from England, and a prediction from Spencer Percival, Junior!”

  That was a name I didn’t recognize, but it sounded hoity-toity, and I wondered if this Spencer guy wrote things to rile people up.

  “He has published an article just this month, sent to me from friends across the waves. In it, Percival confirms that we are soon to see the end of the world. Make no mistake—things are grinding to a halt. This wisdom is reserved for the few brave enough to hear it, brave like you!”

  The crowd perked up at that, with more applause. The young men hooted and hollered, which didn’t seem to bother the man on the stage. Out of a crowd of perhaps thirty people—all men—about half looked to be young enough to cause a problem. I tried to get a good look at them, without drawing notice.

  Now that I paid attention, I realized that the crowd had divisions aside from age. The older men looked like tradesmen I’d expect at the union hall, or down at the pub drinking at the bar. Perhaps they came for something to do, or because talking politics was more exciting than going home to their wives. They didn’t seem angry enough to be anarchists, just tired and maybe bitter from a bad run of luck.

  The younger men, on the other hand, seemed to be looking for a fight. They talked loudly, reacted to the speaker with whistles and stomps, egging each other on. When the speaker paused, they filled the silence with cries of “burn it down!” and “throw out the trash!” The man on the stage didn’t address them directly, but he looked pleased with their outbursts, while those around me appeared uncomfortable and dismayed.

  “We have been given this knowledge for a reason!” the man on the stage declared. “Now that we know that the world is corrupt and broken, on its last legs, we can rise up and reveal the rot for all to see! Cast out the vipers and break down the walls they’ve used to keep you from claiming your fair share of all that you’ve labored to build.”

  “Percival says the end of the world is coming—and he’s right,” the man on the stage shouted. “But he doesn’t understand what he’s said. It’s not our world that’s coming to an end—it’s his! It’s the world of privilege, the robber barons, the gilded thieves—their world is ending. Our world is just beginning—a world of equality! Where men are paid fair wages for hard work! Where the hired thugs and the Pinkerton goons get what’s coming to them, where they’re the ones thrown in jail, not us!”

  The huckster on stage painted a pretty picture. Men around me called out in support, clapping and cat-calling. Salted throughout the crowd were other men I was certain were shills; they shouted and yelled, trying to get the others to follow their lead. The speaker spun an appealing fantasy, but I’d been around long enough to doubt his promises. I could see some of the audience hesitate, trying to make up their minds, enticed by a yarn they desperately wanted to believe.

  As the speaker continued, saying very little new or concrete but repeating the same ideas in different words, I sensed the crowd shift. He didn’t need magic to win them over; he held out their wildest dream, dangled it in front of them, and described it in loving detail until the attraction overwhelmed them and pulled the crowd to him. I saw the hope in their eyes and realized that it was as powerful as any dru
g. That made me angry because I knew in my bones that the huckster on the stage intended to use these men, in his own way, just like Carnegie and Frick and their ilk had done, and leave their bones behind.

  I caught a glimpse of the vamp out of the corner of my eye, but I knew what I’d seen. When I first scanned the crowd, I’d been on alert for non-humans. I knew there were shifters around, as well as vamps, and Ben Lavecchia wasn’t the only witch in Cleveland. Even though I hadn’t quite figured out the huckster’s angle and what was in it for him, I knew why the mortals were gathered here. But a vamp? He didn’t care about the likes of Carnegie, Frick, and their gilded friends. A vamp would outlive them all. He wouldn’t be forced to take a shitty, dangerous job in the mills or mines to put food on the table and keep a roof over his family’s heads. Vamps, like other predators, could fend for themselves. So why would one of them come to a rally like this?

  I didn’t know, but I intended to find out.

  As the huckster wound up the crowd with another pitch, I shouldered my way toward where I’d glimpsed the vamp in the crowd. The last thing I needed was to have him spook an already emotional crowd into a stampede or a fight. That would bring the cops down on the gathering for sure, and no matter how much I distrusted the man on stage, I didn’t want to see a bloodbath. The police wouldn’t believe reports of a vamp, but they’d go hard on the anarchists—dangerous or not.

  But maybe I could draw off the vampire, pull him away from the crowd, or scare him off. I caught sight of him again, a short, slightly-built fellow with yellow hair like a haystack and an unnaturally pale complexion. We were both caught by the crowd, trying to make our way to the exit without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

  I jostled a man who didn’t like being distracted. He glared at me, and he might have looked menacing if he hadn’t stood half a head shorter and been about forty pounds lighter than I was—not to mention my other unfair advantages. My height helped me keep track of the elusive vampire, since I could see over the heads and shoulders of the crowd around me, while he had to fight his way blind toward the wall.

  If he made it out the door ahead of me, he’d vanish in the seconds it took for me to follow. He was holding back on his immortal speed here in the crowd, not wanting to be noticed, but he’d take off like a shot into the dark, and as fast as I was, I wasn’t sure I could overtake him. That meant I had to catch him before he got outside.

  Muttered curses followed me as I hurried toward the door, bumping shoulders in the crowded hall. I reached the door a heartbeat before the vamp and brought my steel grip down on his shoulder.

  “I’d like a word,” I said in a quiet rumble that left no room for debate. The vamp squeaked as my fingers dug into his bicep. His eyes widened as he tried to figure out what I was, because vampires aren’t used to being manhandled.

  I steered him outside. As soon as the door clicked shut behind me, he tried to pull out of my grip, and when that didn’t work, he showed me his fangs and went for my throat.

  I stiff-armed the son of a bitch and held him six inches off the ground, out of reach of his kicking feet and his nasty teeth. Just for good measure, I gave him a shake.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” the vamp spat.

  “I want to know why a vampire showed up at a labor rally,” I replied, keeping him dangling. “Were you scouting for dinner or spying for someone else?”

  He didn’t answer right away, so I shook him like a dog with a rabbit, back and forth quick enough to blur, with enough strength to have snapped his neck if he hadn’t already been undead. When his brain was suitably rattled, I stopped. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or you want another shake-up? I can do this all night.”

  “No!” The vamp must have figured out that whatever I was, I could hold my own. He probably hadn’t run into anyone who could take him since he’d been turned, and wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Start talking. What’s your name?”

  “Thaddeus. Tad for short.”

  “All right, Tad-for-short. Spill it.” Just for good measure, and because I could, I gave him a little shake.

  “Okay!” Tad glared at me. “Stan, my maker, sent me. Told me to size up the crowd, see what the guy on stage was selling, and report back.”

  “Were you going to eat anyone?”

  Tad’s gaze slid away. “Of course not.” I shook him back and forth a few times. “All right! Maybe. I hadn’t made up my mind yet. Did you smell those guys? Phew! Besides, their blood’s probably half moonshine.”

  “What did your maker want with a bunch of loser factory stiffs?”

  “I don’t know.” When my grip tensed for another shake, he cringed. “Honest! He doesn’t explain himself; he just gives orders.”

  “Why do you think he was interested?” I tightened my fingers. He’d have bruises for sure. Tad was smart enough to realize that I could just as easily break his arm, or rip it clean off. Vampires can heal from a lot of damage, but I’d never known one to grow a limb back. I gambled he’d want to stay in one piece.

  Tad looked from side to side and licked his lips, a nervous gesture left over from his mortal days. “He’ll kill me if he finds out I talked to you.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t,” I replied with a shrug. “So you can take your chances that he won’t find out, or piss me off and get a sure thing.”

  Tad slumped in defeat. I didn’t ease my grip, not trusting him half as far as I could throw him. “It’s the Russian vamps,” he said. “Nothing’s been right since they got here. I think they’ve got something on Stan, or they’ve threatened him. He’s had us keeping tabs on the anarchist guys, and on the shifters, and a couple of Mob bosses. Not doing anything, just watching and reporting back.”

  “Is he interested in any particular kind of information?” My hand was starting to cramp, and I hoped that I could finish the evening without getting blood all over my clothes.

  “He wants to know what they say, who they see, how many show up to meetings, that sort of thing,” Tad replied. “Useless stuff. I think he tells the Ruskies, but I don’t know why they’d care.” He dropped his voice. “And I think Stan’s scared. When we’re not being his spies, he keeps us real close, like he’s afraid to let us out of his sight. That ain’t like Stan. He’s not usually afraid of anybody.”

  I believed him. Stan wasn’t likely to tell his flunkies what was really going on, especially if it made him look weak. And getting ordered around by out-of-town vampires definitely wouldn’t do good things for Stan’s ego—or his authority.

  “Now, we can do this hard or easy,” I told Tad. “I could just set you down. Unless you’re going to try to go for my throat, in which case I’ll knock you into next week. Or, I can throw you down the street, no guarantee on how you land. Your choice.”

  “Just put me down. You’ve made your point.” Tad sounded like a sore loser.

  “Get out of here,” I said. “Find dinner somewhere else. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. When we do, I’ll want an update. You want to help Stan?”

  Tad nodded. I figured that Stan might not be the best leader, but Tad realized there were worse options.

  “Then when I see you again, you’re going to tell me everything you can about those Russian vamps. The more you tell me, the more I might be able to do to get them out of your hair for good.”

  Tad looked skeptical. “You’re going to help me?”

  I raised an eyebrow, and he winced and rubbed his sore upper arms where I’d gripped him. “I’ve got my reasons. You want rid of the Ruskies? I’m your best bet.”

  Tad hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. But Stan can’t know. Doesn’t matter if it would help him—he’ll be sore if he knows I talked about our business to an outsider.”

  “So you’ll just have to be sneaky,” I replied. “Just make sure you keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll find you. Now, get gone.”

  I blinked, and Tad was gone. A gla
nce in each direction told me that no other vampires or creatures lurked around the outside of the meeting hall. No human criminals, either. Since I got what I came for, I ambled off, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and why Cleveland was Little Russia, and what that meant. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  4

  “Stand still. Your bow tie isn’t straight.” Grace Harringworth stretched up on tip-toe to adjust my tie. I grumbled but stopped fidgeting.

  “I look ridiculous.” A tux was wasted on the likes of me. The suit probably cost more than my wages for a year, back when I worked in the mills. Grace had it custom-made for me, since I was her go-to partner in crime and needed to look presentable. Still, the jacket felt constricting across my shoulders, the fancy shoes pinched, and I would have felt better with my Colt 1911 holstered instead of jammed into the waistband of my trousers.

  “You clean up well,” Grace said and patted my cheek.

  “How did you get invited to this shindig again?” I asked, resisting the urge to tug at my tie.

  “Money, darling. I have it, and they want it. Occupational hazard,” she added with a smirk.

  Grace McAllen Harringworth was the embodiment of something I never thought I’d see—wealth with a conscience. She was the only child of James “Baron” McAllen, a Pittsburgh steel magnate and Carnegie rival. Her husband, Henry—heir to the Harringworth coal fortune—ended up shot by the angry boyfriend of one of his many mistresses. His death left Grace obscenely wealthy and completely independent, free to pursue her real passion—vengeance.

  “So how does this whole social register invitation thing work?” I asked, snarky as ever. “Is there a secret handshake?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “No. It’s all in the pedigree. Florence Abingdon, tonight’s hostess, went to boarding school with my mother. Her father’s sister was married to my father’s second cousin. I dated her nephew when I was young and foolish.” She leaned closer as if to impart a secret, though it was only the two of us and her butler. “And Mrs. Abingdon’s parents were part of The Club.”