The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  Esta’s expression hardened. “It’s too late to back out now.”

  He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

  She met his gaze and lifted her chin, stubborn as she ever was. “I already volunteered our connection with Julien.”

  Harte’s stomach twisted. “You didn’t . . .” They’d done enough to his old friend, mixing him up in this mess to start with.

  “You already told Ruth we had a way into the Society,” she pointed out.

  “I didn’t give her Julien.”

  “I know, but . . .” She let out a sigh, and when she glanced over at him, he could see the regret in her expression, but it wasn’t as bright as the hope. “He could get us in, Harte.”

  “And then what?” He felt his temper spiking and the power growing alongside it. “We leave, and Julien has a target on his back. I can’t do that to him.”

  “We won’t be doing anything to him. Once the Antistasi release the serum, everything will be different. Think about it, Harte. The ball will be filled with dignitaries—representatives from all the Occult Brotherhoods. Anyone with any power at all will be there,” she explained. “After the Antistasi set off the serum, the people who make the laws won’t be interested in prosecuting magic if they have it themselves. And this year, the ball has a very special guest—one that Ruth is specifically interested in. . . .”

  “They’re going to attack the president,” he realized, his stomach twisting.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “It’s a terrible plan, Esta. Can’t you see that?”

  The spark of defiance was back in her expression. “It might just work, Harte. People love Roosevelt. Someday they’re going to carve his face into a mountain.”

  A mountain? He blinked. “How is that even—” He was getting sidetracked.

  But Esta was determined. “No one is going to turn on Roosevelt, even if his affinity is awoken. He could be the solution—”

  She’d lost her mind. She was so blinded by the fantasy that she was forgetting the possible cost. “No, Esta. We cannot let this happen.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “It’s what Dolph would have wanted. For us to keep fighting. For us to try to actually change things.”

  “You don’t know what Dolph wanted,” Harte exclaimed. “I don’t know what he wanted. No one did. He played everything too close to the vest. Look what he did to Leena.”

  She was shaking her head. “Maybe I don’t know what all of his plans were, but I owe it to him to try to finish what he started.”

  “You’re not Dolph, Esta.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. But she was trembling with emotion.

  “And you don’t owe him anything,” he said, more gently. “You can choose your own path, a different path.”

  “You just want me to run.”

  “I want us to survive,” he corrected. “I want you to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and not loathe the reflection staring back,” he told her. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe there was a reason your mother hid you from Dolph? I knew your mother. Leena wasn’t okay with some of the things Dolph did. She wouldn’t have hidden you from him otherwise. She must have wanted something more for you than the endless fighting and violence and death that he would have insisted you be part of.”

  “He wanted to change things—”

  “Dolph might have been my friend once, but he wasn’t the saint you’re making him out to be. He hurt Leena because it was what he thought was best for her. For magic. For everyone. After he took her power, she never completely forgave him. How is what the Antistasi are doing any different?”

  She was looking at him with an expression he’d never seen on her before, an expression that worried him, because he didn’t know what it meant.

  “We have a long road ahead of us,” he said, more gently now. “Or have you forgotten what we’re supposed to be doing? Nibsy is still out there somewhere, waiting.”

  “I know,” she told him, pulling back the sleeve of her shirt.

  “What is that?” On her arm were a series of scars that looked like letters. But she pulled away before he could make them out.

  “I didn’t have it before. We’re changing things, and I’m well aware that Nibsy’s still out there, waiting. But he’s waiting for me, Harte.”

  He hated the sound of pain and worry in her voice, but it wasn’t a good enough reason to do the Antistasi’s bidding. “We need to get out of this town alive. If we do that, we can go back and fix things. We can make it so none of this—the Act, the Antistasi, none of it—ever happened. We can save people that way.”

  “And what if we can’t?” she asked, her voice dark. “What if I can’t get us back to 1902? What if I can’t make any of this right?”

  “You will—”

  “You don’t know that,” she snapped. “And neither do I. I need to do this. In case . . .” But she didn’t finish.

  He started to reach for her. “Esta—”

  “No, Harte,” she said, standing and taking a step back from him. “I won’t force you to help me, but I won’t let you stop me either. You’re either with me, or I do this alone.”

  He let out a tired breath. “You know I’m with you,” he said.

  His words seemed to relax something in her. She gave him a small smile and a satisfied nod before she went off to tell Ruth the news. He watched her as she left, her straight back and her arms swinging as she walked. Strong. Confident. So completely herself. “Until the end,” he murmured, but he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to as the wind carried away his words.

  TABLEAUX VIVANTS

  1902—New York

  As the carriage rattled onward, Jack crunched two more cubes of morphine between his molars to deaden the pain throbbing in his head and to clear his mind. With the drug coursing through him, he felt like he could breathe again, and as the world came into sharper focus, he took the Book from the inside of his jacket. He used those final few minutes before he arrived at the Morgan mansion to pore over its pages—especially the notations that were in his hand, despite his having no memory of making them. He’d stopped worrying about that particular issue, though, and had decided to take it as a sign that the Book had chosen to reveal itself to him. A sign that he was not only worthy, but destined.

  That knowledge had buoyed his confidence and made him that much surer of his path. He wasn’t meant to be meek and obedient. With some help from the Book, he’d managed to take control of planning the Order’s little gala so that he could direct the drama of the evening. But with the event only days away, Jack still had one aggravation that he hadn’t quite managed to deal with, and her name was Evelyn DeMure.

  He knew that the ring the actress wore was something more than it appeared. With the smooth perfection of the stone and the sizzle of power that he swore filled the air when it was near, he would have realized as much even without the details that the Book had revealed to him. The Inner Circle had always kept the contents of the Mysterium a closely guarded secret, known only to the very highest levels of the Order, but during his nights of study, the Book had handed those secrets over to Jack. So he knew that the ring must be the Delphi’s Tear, a stone created by Newton himself. He knew, too, how it had been created—by sacrifice—and what he could do with its power.

  That night at the theater, he’d realized what Evelyn was and why she’d been able to defend herself—and the ring—from his advances. But now he had the answer to the problem she posed. The pieces were all coming together, and everything would be revealed at the gala, where Jack would take the ring and deal with Evelyn once and for all.

  When the carriage finally stopped at the front door of his uncle’s house on Madison Avenue, Jack tucked the Book back into his jacket. There, close to his chest, he could practically feel the power in it, a twin heartbeat pulsing in time with his own. He alighted from the carriage, ignoring the faint throbbing in his head. The morphine had helped with that. So did the knowledge that soon
he would have everything he needed—everything he’d ever wanted. He directed the driver to bring in the crate that was strapped to the back of the carriage, a piece Jack had prepared himself for the spectacle of the gala.

  He watched as one of his uncle’s servants helped the driver carry the crate into the house, and then he followed, feeling more and more sure about what was to come. There was a new maid at the door waiting, a brown-skinned girl who wasn’t to Jack’s tastes at all. He gave her his coat and hat without a second thought and went to find out how the preparations were going.

  In the ballroom, things had progressed nicely from two days before. Curtains of wine-colored velvet cascaded around the large pillars that skirted the room, transforming the open dance floor into four distinct stages, where the tableaux would be displayed.

  Tableaux vivants were all the rage in the city. All the most exclusive events seemed to be featuring the often-scintillating displays of art come to life. Even the stuffiest members of society were drawn to the voyeurism of gazing upon their peers in any number of poses reproducing the scenes of classical art. Rumors were already scuttling through the city about which artworks the participants might be creating at the gala. To his aunt’s infinite delight, the papers were abuzz about which of the year’s debutantes would be involved, and what they might—or might not—be wearing. Reporters at every paper were practically frothing at the mouth for an invite. Just as the Order had hoped.

  The Order might have planned the event to consolidate their standing in the city, but Jack would use it to his advantage. He would demonstrate his importance, his consequence, once and for all—not only to his family, but to the Order. To the entire city as well.

  Evelyn was already there. She was standing on a small stool surrounded by seamstresses who were fitting her in the diaphanous bit of chiffon that she would be wearing in the tableau he had planned for her. She waved at him, and he felt the usual answering burst of lust deep in his gut that he now knew for the feral power that it was. Thanks to a talisman he’d inscribed on his chest that morning, a secret he’d found in the Book, her influence no longer had the effect on him that it had before. At least not from a distance—he still didn’t trust her to get close.

  He waved back, feigning more interest than he felt as he examined the costume. It was nearly perfect—Evelyn would be portraying the unconscious beauty in Henry Fuseli’s enigmatic painting The Nightmare. By the end of the gala, Jack had the suspicion that she would find the image she portrayed more than apt.

  He turned his attention to the other stages and preparations. He was discussing the best positioning for the Circe tableau with one of the other Order members when he was summoned into his uncle’s office.

  Jack had only once before visited Morgan’s private study, when he’d returned from Greece, weak and broken and an embarrassment to himself and his family. He didn’t relish being called back there, but he kept his head high as he entered, remembering that he had the Book and the favor it had conferred upon him.

  Morgan’s office was an ostentatious place, with burnished wood and vaulted ceilings barreling overhead. It was the sort of place meant for a prince of business, an emperor of commerce, but with the Book’s warmth radiating against his chest, Jack barely noticed the grandeur.

  Morgan turned when he entered, a look of disgust clear on the old man’s face. “How are the preparations?”

  “Nearly there,” Jack said, confident.

  “They should be finished,” Morgan told him. “We’re only two days away.”

  He allowed the sneering quality of Morgan’s tone to roll off his back. In a matter of days, his uncle would be eating those words and begging Jack to share the knowledge and power he had with the rest of them. And Jack would happily laugh in his face.

  He shrugged, hiding his true emotions. “They’ll be done in plenty of time.”

  Morgan’s bulbous nose twitched a bit. “They’d better be perfect,” he demanded. “Have you seen this?” He thrust a newspaper at Jack.

  “Seen what?” Jack asked, trying to discover the source of his uncle’s agitation in the equally titillating headlines.

  “The one about the fire,” Morgan said, leaning over the desk to jab his thick finger at the newsprint. “The damn animals burned one of the stations down on Great Jones Street. That’s Charlie Murphy’s district—Tammany Hall’s territory.”

  “I don’t see how this matters to you—or to me, for that matter,” Jack said. Tammany Hall was filled with upstarts, crooked Irish politicians who thought they had a chance at becoming something more than they were destined to be.

  “It matters because we have an understanding with Tammany. They’ve been helping us put pressure on the maggots downtown.”

  “It’s just a fire—”

  “It’s not just a fire,” Morgan said, his voice dangerous. “It was intentional arson, and the flames weren’t normal flames. For more than an hour, the hoses didn’t touch them. The whole thing stank of feral magic.”

  “So?” Jack asked, not seeing how some decrepit engine company had any impact on him whatsoever. The whole Bowery could burn for all he cared.

  “Do you know how bad this makes us look?” Morgan demanded, thumping at his desk. “How ineffective?”

  Jack wondered how he’d ever been afraid of the old man. With all his bluster, it was clear how weak he was. True power didn’t need to rage. It could quietly burn, consuming a place from the inside out.

  “It only makes the Order look weak if you and the rest of the Inner Circle fail to answer it,” he said. With the morphine in his veins, he was relaxed, his brain clear and sure. “If anything, this only helps our cause. It gives the Order the ammunition it needs to move against the maggots once and for all.”

  “Maybe, but if Tammany starts making trouble, it could mean problems for the Conclave. They’re already starting to make overtures about how powerful they’ve become in the city,” Morgan said. “The other day, Barclay said he heard one of them bragging about how, by the end of the year, the Order would be a nonentity.”

  “Who cares what one of them said—”

  “I care,” Morgan roared. “The Inner Circle cares. We have three other Brotherhoods coming into the city later this year for the Conclave, and I will not allow the Order to be seen as weak. The Conclave is just the beginning. It will determine who has power in the century to come—and who doesn’t. It’s bad enough that those damn thieves took the artifacts and the Ars Arcana. It’s worse that because of you, others suspect that we’ve been weakened. If the Order doesn’t claim our spot at the head of the united Brotherhoods now, New York will lose in stature and in power. Right now we have the president’s ear. If we master the Conclave, we could have the entire country in the palm of our hands.”

  “I understand,” Jack said. Because he did understand. He simply didn’t have any intention of allowing the old farts that ruled the Inner Circle to be the ones who held that power.

  “I doubt you do,” Morgan snapped, “but if you screw this up, you will. Some of Tammany’s people are coming to this gala, so it’s essential that we show them exactly how powerful we are.”

  “We will,” Jack told him, suppressing the amusement that he felt stirring inside of him. At the gala, the entire city would know exactly how powerful each of them was, and Jack would be the one on top.

  ONCE MORE

  1902—New York

  With a knife in her hand, Viola could pierce a man’s heart from forty paces. Because he wasn’t an idiot, Paul didn’t often allow her to have knives. Still, as she listened to her brother drone on about her most recent failings, she wondered what damage she would be able to do with the wooden spoon she was currently holding. Certainly, she should be able to do something to shut him up.

  “I know, Paolo,” she said, her hands on her hips. “But I don’t want to go with John Torrio.”

  “Why not?” Paul asked, his brows bunching. “You think you’re too good for him? Or is there some
other reason, some other person I should know about?”

  “I don’t like him, that’s why,” she said, practically spitting the words.

  He lifted his hand to slap her, but she only smiled. “No,” he said, gritting his teeth as he lowered his hand. “We can’t have you bruised for the gala.”

  “I still don’t see why I should get trussed up for that maiale to drool over. I don’t trust him, Paolo, and neither should you. He’ll cut you in the back the second he can.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” her brother asked. “Why do you think I want you to go with him?”

  “I know why you want me to go with him. You don’t trust me still.”

  “I don’t trust anyone, including Torrio. I need my blade at my side walking into that gala, looking polished and sharp. You’ll go with the Fox, and you’ll do your duty to me and to the family, or you won’t have a place here anymore.” His mouth drew up on one side, exposing his crooked eyetooth. “But don’t forget, it’s not just Tammany’s patrols or the boys in the neighborhood you have to watch your back for. I have friends in higher places now too. I’m sure my friend Mr. Grew would like to know where one of the thieves who stole the Order’s treasures could be found. I’m sure they’d be even more grateful if I handed her over myself.”

  She spit on the floor at his feet. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said. “You’d be dead before you could open your mouth.”

  “So many threats, sister. And yet here I stand. Still holding your life in my hands.” He stalked toward her. “I took you back into the protection of the family because Mamma asked me. Because she doesn’t see you for what you are. She never did. You don’t think I remember the way she and Papà used to coddle you, leaving me to clean up your messes? All because you were born a monster—a freak. You always thought you were better than the rest of us, as though the rules of this world didn’t matter to you. But now you see. Now the rules are my rules. The city is my city.”