The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  “Ready?” she asked, giving her lapels one final tug to cover what evidence there was of the shape of her corset beneath the suit.

  Harte turned and gave her a good long, appraising look. “We should just use your affinity and slip out without all”—he gestured toward her new outfit—“this.”

  “Didn’t you see what happened in the hallway?” she asked, shuddering a little at the memory of the darkness. There was something about it that felt both empty and all-consuming at the same time, like if she stared at it straight on, she might lose herself in it. And then there were the sounds of the cables groaning. She didn’t trust her affinity right now—at least not when it was linked to Harte.

  “If you’re still feeling weak, we can go in small spurts. You don’t have to hold time for so long.” The desire she’d seen in his eyes earlier was gone now. Instead, Harte was looking at her with the soft pity that made her skin crawl.

  “I feel fine,” she told him. It was a lie—she felt shaken and unsure of her affinity, but the darkness wasn’t her fault . . . or was it? Had she brought something through the Brink—something dangerous and unexpected? She didn’t know, and they didn’t have time to figure it out. All she knew for sure was that she hated the worried emotion in his eyes. “There’s no reason to push our luck. Let’s just do this my way, okay?”

  She didn’t leave him much choice; she was in the hallway before he could argue.

  Once again the sounds of an orchestra and the distant murmuring of a party came to them through the quiet. “If we can get to the ballroom, we can use the crowd to hide,” Esta said, pointing in the direction of the music. “If there’s a ballroom, there has to be a way to get to the kitchen—a service hall or something. From there maybe we can find a delivery entrance for the hotel.”

  “They’ll be watching those doors too,” Harte said, checking behind them as they continued onward down the hall.

  “Probably.” They paused only a moment before crossing in front of the stairwell the man in the bathroom had been guarding. “But if I have to chance using my magic, I’d rather wait until then,” she said.

  “If we get that far,” he muttered under his breath.

  She shot him a hard look. “They’ll have discovered the empty elevator by now, and if they figure out that the guard on this floor is missing . . .”

  “I’m not planning on standing here, waiting for them to find us,” Harte finished, sweeping his arm to indicate that she should lead the way.

  They followed the sound of the music to the mezzanine entrance of the ballroom, a narrow balcony that ringed the dance floor below on three sides. Inside, the glittering chandeliers were dimly lit, giving the ballroom a soft glow. On one end, a stage held a small orchestra that was playing a waltz, but no one on the dance floor below was dancing. Probably, Esta realized, because the room was filled with men. Even the servers, all dressed in white jackets and dark pants, were men. There wasn’t a woman in sight.

  Esta leaned close to Harte so she could speak in a low voice. “Feel free to admit I was right any time you’d like.”

  THE HANDS OF JUSTICE

  1904—St. Louis

  Thunder crackled in the sky as Jack Grew’s carriage made its way through the streets of St. Louis. He’d come to this shithole of a city as part of the president’s entourage to visit the world’s fair, and also as the Order’s representative for the meeting of the Brotherhoods that the Society was hosting in a couple of weeks. For the past two days, he’d been annoyed at being away from New York for so long, but now it seemed the trip had suddenly become more promising. Word had come only moments before. They found her.

  Two years. Two years without a trace of her, and now Esta Filosik would be his.

  Jack had been waiting for this moment long enough that he’d already run through many possibilities for their first reunion. He’d considered a quick sneer and a cold laugh as he watched her dragged away to rot in prison. But he’d also considered doing something she wouldn’t expect—perhaps he would thank her for what she’d done, for what he’d become.

  Of course, she hadn’t been the one to give him the Book—Darrigan had done that. But the train accident that had left his arm broken had, ironically enough, created a new future for him. The girl had been a very convenient scapegoat, a target for the public’s anger and evidence of the continued need for the Order and their like.

  Once, the Order had been seen as a curiosity, unimportant to the average person. Since the day on the train, though, the tide had turned. If magic had once been a distant fairy tale, the train accident and all the attacks that followed had made it an immediate danger. The entire country was afraid, which worked just fine for Jack. With every new Antistasi attack, with every new tragedy committed in the name of the Devil’s Thief, the Order’s power—and Jack’s along with it—had grown.

  As the carriage rumbled along the final few blocks to the hotel, Jack couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Yes. When he finally came face-to-face with her, she would be in handcuffs, and he would thank her. In his mind’s eye, he imagined her full mouth parting in confusion. She would, most likely, plead with him. Miss Filosik—if that was even her name—wasn’t stupid. She would understand immediately that her life was, for all intents and purposes, finished. Over. But before she met with some untimely accident in the women’s prison, Jack would take the opportunity to thank her for all her treachery. It had, after all, made him a star.

  How could his family send him away when he was a hero who had tried to stop a madwoman? They couldn’t. So they had publicly lauded his bravery, the whole lot of them. But despite all his success—all the power he’d attained and all he’d done to ensure the Order remained relevant enough that he could use it to his own ends—they whispered to one another about him. They still wondered if he’d imagined the events on the train or made them up.

  But Jack had known he wasn’t mad. He’d known that not only had Esta been on the train, but that she had survived.

  He reached into his vest and let his fingers brush against the Book that he carried with him everywhere. He’d had all his clothes altered to conceal it, and he kept it on his person at all times. He would not leave it behind, no matter the event. Nor would he trust servants or safes, not when the Book had opened doors to a consciousness he had only dreamed of.

  Unable to resist its call, he took the Book from its home close to his chest and thumbed through the pages. Greek and Latin he could read, thanks to the interminable schooling he’d had as a boy, but there were other, less comprehensible languages mixed with strange symbols that graced many of the pages. Those pages should have been impossible for him to understand, and yet he’d woken in his mother’s house after being dosed with morphine that first time to discover that he’d somehow translated them just the same.

  Now his own small, neat hand filled the pages with notes and translations, but looking at the writing in the jarring carriage caused his head to ache. He took a small vial from his waistcoat pocket and placed one of the cubes it contained on his tongue. It took only a moment for the bitterness to erupt, familiar and satisfying, in his mouth, and then only a few moments more before he felt the tension behind his eyes ease.

  The notations came into focus as he searched for the page he wanted. A protection charm of sorts, or so he believed it to be. Alone in the carriage, he let the strange words roll from his mouth, filling the cramped space with the cool resonance of the power that would forevermore be his.

  He had known the girl was alive all along. And now he would prove it to everyone else.

  The carriage pulled up in front of the Jefferson, and Jack tucked the Book back into the safety of his waistcoat as he prepared himself. He would thank Miss Filosik, and if she wanted to beg for her life, he would accept whatever she offered. Then he would toss her back to the hands of justice—hands that were controlled, of course, by his family and others like them.

  Jack’s personal servant and bodyguard, Miles, opened the d
oor for him and waited silently with an umbrella in hand. When he stepped from the carriage, Jack noticed the line of dark wagons manned by uniformed officers and smiled. There will be no getting away this time.

  “Wait here,” he commanded, brushing past Miles without bothering with the umbrella. What did a bit of dampness matter when Jack was so close to victory? He would have satisfaction. He knew it as surely as he felt the Book in his jacket, its familiar weight reminding him that he held all the cards.

  THE TRAITOR

  1902—New York

  Jianyu did not fight Mooch as he was led up the familiar steps of the Strega.

  “I am not a traitor,” he said softly as he forced his legs to move through the pain of lifting himself one step at a time.

  But if Mooch heard what Jianyu said, he didn’t respond.

  When they reached the second floor, Mooch opened a familiar door and pushed Jianyu through. Then he shoved him into one of the chairs Jianyu had sat in countless times before during conversations with Dolph.

  “I am not a traitor,” he repeated as Mooch tied Jianyu’s arms behind him and his ankles to the chair legs. “The traitor is the one who has taken a fallen man’s home, just as he took his life. The traitor is the one who carries Dolph’s cane and commands his holdings as though he has any right.”

  Mooch eyed him. “You can’t really expect me to believe that little Nibsy was the one to put a bullet in Dolph’s back? He don’t have it in him.”

  “Then why do you follow his orders?” Jianyu asked softly.

  “Maybe Nibs ain’t tough, but he’s smart,” Mooch said after a minute. “And anyway, who else am I gonna follow, you?”

  “He will discard you the moment you’re not of use to him,” Jianyu said. “Look at what is already happening.”

  “Nothing is happening,” Mooch said.

  “Then why are there Five Pointers in the Strega?” Jianyu asked. When Dolph was alive, it would have never happened. Every one of the Devil’s Own knew what Paul Kelly’s men were capable of. Every one of them had been furious when the Five Pointers attacked two of the Devil’s Own not even a week before.

  “We have an understanding now,” Mooch said, but the edge in his tone told Jianyu that not everyone was happy with this understanding.

  “Do you?” he asked softly. Every breath he took was a pain, but he continued. “Because Nibsy trusts Kelly?”

  “Don’t nobody here trust Kelly. We all know he’s a snake, but Nibsy’s explained it—Kelly’s got connections we need. He’s kept the Strega from burning, hasn’t he?”

  “So he has.” Jianyu kept his voice low and as steady as he could. “But catching a snake by the tail will not keep him from striking you.”

  “You know what? Just shut your yap, okay?” Mooch told him, more agitated now. “If you didn’t betray us, where was you on the bridge while we was getting our asses handed to us?”

  “I was following Dolph’s orders,” Jianyu told him. It was nothing more or less than the truth.

  “Dolph Saunders is dead,” Mooch said, his voice breaking with something that sounded like pain and frustration all rolled into a single emotion. “He was already laid out and cold before we went to the bridge.”

  “His death did not invalidate the task he gave me,” Jianyu said carefully. “Me. Not the traitor you follow now.”

  Mooch took a step back and began pacing. He wasn’t the smartest of the Devil’s Own, and what Jianyu had said was clearly having an effect on him.

  Mooch was shaking his head as though the action might jar loose an errant thought. Then he stopped and glared at Jianyu. “No. I’m done listening to you and your lies right now. Just . . . You just keep your damned ugly mouth shut, you hear me?”

  Jianyu didn’t respond to the slur. He watched the boy who had once been loyal to Dolph pace with a nervous energy that told Jianyu that his words had struck a nerve. The boy’s cheeks had gone blotchy with his consternation. If Jianyu could just keep himself upright and conscious for long enough, perhaps he could continue to pick at Mooch’s doubt.

  But there wasn’t time. Before he could say anything else, Werner burst through the door.

  Mooch turned in surprise, his fists already up like he was expecting an attack.

  “You gotta come—”

  “What the hell are you doing, bursting in here like—”

  “The Strega’s on fire.” The other boy grabbed Mooch by the sleeve. “We gotta help.”

  The color drained from Mooch’s face, but he didn’t hesitate to follow Werner.

  “You cannot leave me here!” Jianyu called, but they were already gone.

  The Strega took up the first floor of the building. If the saloon was on fire, the building could go quickly, and Jianyu was stuck two stories above and tied to a chair. He jerked at the ropes binding his wrists and found that they were too tight to slip free of. The same with his feet.

  Faintly, he could smell the evidence of the fire as the breeze blew in through the opened window. Perhaps if he could scoot the chair close enough, he could call for help.

  With all the strength he had left, he swung his body forward, moving the chair inches in the direction he wanted to go. The motion made his head swirl again, and his stomach threatened to expel its contents, but he tried again. His skin felt clammy, damp with the exertion as he struggled to move the chair closer to the window, but when the door behind him swung open, Jianyu went still.

  “There you are.”

  He turned to see a girl entering the room. She was about his age—perhaps seventeen—and of average height. Though her figure was trim, there was a softness in the curve of her hips and the swell of her bosom. Her heart-shaped face held expressive, deep-set eyes that were upturned at the corners, and her thick, dark hair had been parted in the middle and smoothed back into a chignon at the nape of her neck, a style recently fashionable in the city. But around her temples, fine wisps of hair had started to curl out of their style. The dress she was wearing was a sage green that complemented the deep burnt umber of her skin. Even as rumpled as it was and as dirty as the hem had become, the gown was so perfectly tailored that it might have come from the finest dressmaker’s shop on Fifth Avenue, which told him who this must be.

  “Cela Johnson?” he asked, sure that he could not be right. It was not possible that the girl he had been searching for was here, in the Strega.

  Cela gave him a small nod, the only affirmation he would have for now, it seemed.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to focus on her. His head ached so badly that it looked as though there were two of her.

  “Saving you,” she said with a tone that told him he should have figured that much out on his own. “Or can’t you tell?” She was already working at the ropes around his wrist with her nimble fingers.

  “But how did you find me?” he asked, wincing at the way she tugged at the ropes, jarring him.

  “I followed you from the theater.”

  His wrists were free and she started on the ropes at his ankles. He should have helped her, but the very thought of movement made the room spin.

  “But why—”

  “Look, Mr. Lee—”

  “Jianyu,” he said, not wanting her to use a name that wasn’t truly his.

  “Mr. Jianyu—”

  “Simply Jianyu. No mister.”

  She made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “We don’t have time for this. They’re going to figure out pretty quick that the fire I started isn’t any real threat. We need to be gone by then.”

  Even through his pain, that surprised him. “You started the fire?”

  “You have a lot of questions,” she muttered as the last of the ropes came untied. “That’s fine, because I have some of my own. But all that is gonna have to wait. We need to move. Can you walk okay?”

  Jianyu gave her a sure nod, hoping it was not a lie as he got to his feet, using the table to steady himself. His eyes caught on a piece of newsprint s
itting there. It had been cut unevenly, and when his eyes caught on the headline, he understood why. Crumpling the paper, he stuffed it into his tunic pockets.

  “Come on,” Cela urged, already at the door.

  On unsteady feet, he followed, but the specter of smoke that signaled the burning of the Strega hung heavy in the air.

  INTO THE FIRE

  1902—New York

  The moment Jianyu Lee told Cela that Harte Darrigan had sent him, she’d had a feeling that he would be trouble. Watching him try to keep himself upright as they made their escape from the building, she knew she’d been right.

  She never should have followed him. Once she was freed from her workroom, she should have turned north and gone straight to her family, but curiosity had gotten the better of her when she’d watched him walking away from the theater late the night before, his long braid swinging down his back.

  She hadn’t known that Darrigan was friends with any Chinese men. She didn’t know anyone who even knew any of the Chinese people, who mostly kept to themselves as they held on to their strange dress and stranger customs. So she couldn’t help but wonder if Darrigan really had sent the man to help her, and if he had, why? Did he know who was responsible for her brother’s murder?

  If he knew anything about what had happened to Abe, it seemed worth the risk, so she’d followed him, keeping herself back a ways as he headed first to a Chinese laundry on Twenty-Fourth Street, at the southern edge of the area some called the Tenderloin and others called Satan’s Circus. She probably should have left him there, but she’d felt almost safe hiding in the quiet side alley near the laundry. She’d only meant to rest for a little while, but she’d fallen asleep without meaning to and only woke when she heard the door of the laundry close sometime around dawn. Rousing herself, she’d followed him as he walked south, toward the Bowery.

  She had seen the boys following before he did—stupid, rangy things who barely had hair sprouting on their pale, pimpled chins, and mean as rats. There wasn’t even time to warn him before they had him cornered and on the ground, and she wasn’t big enough or strong enough—or stupid enough—to jump into a fight she couldn’t win. She’d thought to wait until they’d left to help him, but then that other one came.