by J. I. Radke
Rodney shook his head, eyes narrowed. “The names of these former gang members can be traced to St. Mikael’s, and if what you suspect is true, then—”
“Fuck!” Cain hissed, and the meeting on the go drew to a temporary close as they emerged onto Dmitri’s Pavilion.
What a shoddy thoroughfare the brawl had taken place in. Cain’s men circled tighter around him until he had to elbow them aside to survey the carnage. The sunlight was hot and bright on his eyes. Officers and volunteers held the hysterical throngs back, and the air was a cacophony of wails and shouts—demands for answers, demands for peace, threats and promises and shrieks alike.
The bodies still lay on the street, blood drying on the cobbles, and the scent of death and hysteria bloomed in the air.
Where was Levi?
The Rue wasn’t far from Dmitri’s Pavilion. Surely Levi, the Dietrich street spy, would catch wind of the news as it spread like wildfire through the city and appear on the scene. Surely he’d be worried. Surely he would understand the sense of crisis and show up, like a thief in the night, like the shadow in the crowd that he was, ready for any and all of Cain’s commands—
Her Majesty’s right-hand man stood with his blades and guns obvious on his sides. The Ruslaniv responders crowded around him as they spoke. Cain scoffed. He couldn’t quell the rage that smoldered in him at so much as having to be in the same proximity as those dogs.
Emily had looked at him with such fear in her eyes when Security had barged in to luncheon and announced there’d been another big fight. Cain hadn’t wanted to appear for it, but they’d insisted.
“Dietrichs and Ruslanivs have been killed,” Graham and Uncle Bradley had urged. “It was a pointless slaughter of almost military caliber. Lord Dietrich, you must make an appearance. The Queen’s agent is there and requests all Lords of the House.”
Infuriated as he was that whatever fight had gone down had been savage enough to summon Her Majesty’s agent and forced him to be face-to-face with Ruslaniv nobility, Cain managed to sustain a shred of civility as, followed by his men, he made his way forth to speak to the Queen’s officer. He stepped over bodies, avoiding dark splashes of blood and ignoring the general roar of the public. The sun was blinding in the pale sky. The air was brisk and refreshing until one gave it a sniff. It was a typical December day, and Her Majesty’s public agent, in the midst of the Ruslaniv responders, caught sight of Cain and curled into a disparaging smile.
“Oh, the Dietrichs have decided to join us!” he cried, clapping his hands together. Cain’s scowl pinched tighter in distaste.
“Sir Graye,” he returned the condemnation-coated greeting. “It’s a pleasure. My apologies for being late. I was at luncheon with a lady.”
He could feel glances thrown from the Ruslaniv family, but he refused to acknowledge them beyond the mutual struggle to remain well mannered in front of the Queen’s envoy. He pushed through his men and circled around Sir Graye, measuring the bloodshed.
Three young men, slicked-back hair and jackets lined with red braid—a Ruslaniv gang. Two others, in navy blue with silver buttons—Dietrich citizens. Quite a few uninvolved citizens lay scattered about, and one authority caught in the crossfire, dead hands limp on the street. There was a little girl, brilliant red staining her dress. Her soiled doll lay a few feet from her motionless fingertips, and Cain swallowed a sickened thought of gratitude that she had fallen facedown, because, imagine, her eyes probably weren’t even closed.
“This is disgraceful!” someone spat from their place inside the noble crowd. Cain glanced up with a vicious scowl, searching out and finding the eyes of Lord Ruslaniv before just panning the lot of them and hoping to frighten the one who’d complained. The four other Lords of the House and all their defensive men—Ruslanivs, Desrosiers, Gotthards, Arnaudets. In his periphery, the Dietrich protective services lingered attentively, observing the grisly scene.
“Do we know who opened fire?” Cain hissed. “Ruslaniv, or Dietrich?”
“It was a Dietrich gang,” Sir Graye declared with a judgmental sniff, adjusting the lapels of his white suit. “What we’ve gathered is that it was a dispute within the rally, which turned to gunfire, and innocent civilians were caught between. When more officials arrived, the gangs had already dispersed. The injured have been collected and taken for medical care. What remains now is just the consequence of such ill morality.”
Sir Graye paused briefly, and it was tacit between them all, between any who had eyes to see, that it was only the dead who remained, littered so carelessly on the street.
“So,” Sir Graye sighed, “noble families, what do you suggest we do about this, here?”
“What do you mean, what do we do about this?” Lord Ruslaniv sputtered. “What are we supposed to do, patrol the streets for you? That’s what officers are for!”
“Agreed,” Cain said over the roar of the public. He met Lord Ruslaniv’s eyes for a moment of brief, arbitrary understanding. “He has a point, Sir Graye. What the hell can we do? We can’t control the gangs.”
“Lead by example,” Sir Graye announced with an offhanded shrug. He had always been far too complacent, too high above society to fully care. Cain despised it. It was the reason he always hated inviting Her Majesty to certain balls; Graye was always with her, and always sneering.
“We already lead by example!” Lord Ruslaniv cried in positive outrage. Some of the surrounding civilians uttered murmurs of alarm and shouts of disagreement.
“Sign another peace treaty, for Christ’s sake,” the Viscount Arnaudet spat, mousy mustachio twitching over a scowl of contempt.
“Just arrest any man not of high birth who keeps a weapon!” Lord Desrosiers shook his head as if exasperated. “I’ve petitioned for this before. We shouldn’t put weapons in people’s hands unless they have some warrant of sorts.”
It was like an argument between brothers, and Cain was the spoiled rotten baby while Lord Ruslaniv was the exhausted first in line. All the others were the fired-up boys in between with nothing to lose and nothing to prove, and Sir Graye was the tutor who had to talk them all down or throw them in time-out. It was always like this, grumpy old men in fine suits and house jewels shuffling around, secretly envying the only House Lord under twenty-five, while that young House Lord disdained them all.
Cain tried not to feel sympathy when he noticed how weary and bruised by the weight of it all Lord Ruslaniv looked.
“What about another set of peace laws? The last was in 1881, but they’ve fallen to pieces now.”
“Those never work, anyway,” Cain reminded him curtly. The not so jolly old man squinted over at him in scrutiny. Cain returned the stare, mouth in a thin line. His eyes travelled the ranks behind Lord Ruslaniv again as his thoughts ran. What exactly did the Queen think they could do? There was no possible way to control the gangs in the city, and there was absolutely no way he’d agree to leading by example. How could one possibly carry out revenge as a role model?
Perhaps he could ask Levi what he thought about it, once the son of a bitch arrived. He could ask him his point of view, being a relatively neutral citizen and all. He could see what Levi thought was the best way to communicate with the gangs. Perhaps if he could create a solid line of communication to the citizens, with Levi as their bridge, they could work together as one united force against the Ruslaniv family instead of inconsistent, scattered ideas and savage loyalty, and then he could—
Ah, there was Levi. He stood behind the Ruslanivs, hunched deep in a fur-collared coat, speaking in a low and furtive way with some of the men and women in the Ruslaniv party as if he knew them.
Actually, Cain knew the men and women he spoke with too.
A conscious and dramatic anguish brimmed within him, evident in the sick flutter of his heart and his gut. His fingers almost slipped on his gun. His stomach dropped, and for just a moment or two, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
Black, fur-collared militia jackets, and a little Blond One, and one with thick
red hair, unique enough that Cain recognized it. He recognized it from the roof of the Dietrich manor the night of the All Hallows’ masquerade.
Either Levi was a flawless spy, or—
Confirming what Cain already dreaded was true, Levi turned to cast a stormy glance back at the Lords of the House and the Queen’s agent, and as subtle as it was, it was also unfortunate enough to be perfectly aligned with Cain’s disbelieving stare.
Cain noticed the way the shadows of Levi’s eyes were copper brown in the sunlight, and he thought it was very attractive. But they weren’t the same eyes Levi had ever turned on Cain before. They widened, if ever so slightly, with subdued recognition, and then Levi looked away again, just as smoothly, as if nothing had happened, no contact made, no realizations exchanged.
Cain went rigid with a sharp stab of shock.
His ears rang. All the world seemed to quiet, to retreat from the thunder of his pulse in his ears.
A sick, rotten fury bubbled up from deep within, a harrowing sense of betrayal, of lies and deceit, and the arguments between Sir Graye and the incensed lords didn’t matter to him anymore. The solution to this mess didn’t matter to him anymore. He withdrew from it. He could only stare, feeling the shock make its way down his body like poison, icy and sickening.
Was Levi a spy acting as a spy?
Was he really that capable of deceit and manipulation? Surely, God damn it, and Cain had been stupid enough to fall fast and hard for it! Good God, what if Levi had been a distraction for the attackers at the ball? Worse yet, what if his connection to Cain was part of some dark collusion?
But the worst by far was—Christ Almighty, it’s a gang organized by the Ruslaniv house itself, not mere civilians—what if it was BLACK over there?
Cain wanted to vomit.
He felt little again. Little, and senseless, and naive, and abused.
Sir Graye’s suit was too white, blinding in the sunlight. Cain squinted against it as Sir Graye spoke, and he and the Ruslaniv dogs and the other selfish lords stared at Cain like they waited for him to say something, but Cain hadn’t heard a single word. The howl of the world was drowned out by the lurching thud of his heart, a steady bass chord of panic. The crowd around the scene pulsed. The air bit his skin, already so cold. Everyone looked at him, waiting, waiting.
His knees shook, and the dead little girl on the street wouldn’t stop reaching for her bloody doll.
Cain turned with a scuff of the heel. He almost tripped over a fallen Dietrich supporter. Rodney reached for him, but Cain shook him off. Aunt Ophelia looked at him, distraught, but she knew far better and hurried forward to take his place, talking to Sir Graye and Lord Ruslaniv. Uncle Bradley stepped up beside her, well aware of a woman’s standing in politics, even if she wore breeches better than a man could.
Cain found himself back in the alleys, the rumble of the distressed public deafening even between the buildings.
But he was alone, and grateful to be alone, amid cracked walls and dripping pipes and uneven paths.
And this, this was far too close to the bad part of town for his comfort. This was where rats scurried and dead dogs floated in the mire and scabby little children begged for food while their mothers bedded for money. This was where gangs of poor men killed for more, and there was filth and disease and desperate, impoverished, broken souls.
He found himself in Lovers’ Lane. What a sick tribute to the tortured soul. This was where the bodies would have been dumped, had the officials not interrupted when they had. He knew that. Everyone knew that. And on that crack, there, his mother had been thrown. He would never forget it, every time he saw that particular jut of broken concrete.
Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.
The undertaker was there. He waddled around with his cart, and he stopped just to watch the way the head of the Dietrichs staggered through the alley, dazed and detached. The way he stopped at the crack in the ground that haunted him, and squatted down on shaking legs and held his mouth, trying to muffle the cries he could no longer restrain.
Sounds of bitter agony, somewhere raw between despair and rage, nothing more than a little man with guns on his back huddled in Lovers’ Lane, sobbing from the memories and the betrayal.
The undertaker lifted a hand to his mouth and chuckled.
ACT THREE
REMINISCE, REGRET
O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies in the small orb of one particular tear.
William Shakespeare, A Lover’s Complaint
SCENE ONE
THE ONLY child of the former Earl Dietrich was a pampered boy.
He was a beautiful baby, for one, and when he was christened, he drowned in more oohs and aahs than holy water. He grew up among butlers and maids who liked to wink at him and ruffle his hair in the hallways, and a governess who somehow caught up with him whenever he wandered off, and tutors who reveled in how he soaked up his lessons just in time for playtime yet the next day always remembered what he’d learned. The gossiping public outside the gates of the manor or flooding the halls during banquets and parties were as much part of the house as the uncles and agents who smoked in the library and called him Liebling. His mother and father held their chins high and wore expensive fashion and sat to either side of him at the long walnut dining table.
Cain’s father was quiet in an intelligent way. He always smiled, but behind every smile there seemed deep and relentless contemplation. Dietrich business kept his schedule near to unmanageable, and yet when Cain passed him in the halls his father had always had time to swing him up onto his shoulders for a moment or two of How are you, love? and I hope you’re being a good boy before returning him to Maggie the governess and hurrying on to his office again.
Cain watched him with a shy little understanding that his father was important, and that made him important too. That made him proud.
Cain’s mother was beautiful and soft in every way, and sometimes she’d joined him in his nursery and made voices for his painted soldiers and wooden marionettes while Maggie sat blushing in the corner. Sometimes his mother had joined him outside, in the garden, and she’d named off different flowers and what they symbolized. Sometimes she’d just sat in her boudoir and brushed her long hair, staring out the window, and Cain had liked to sit on her lap while she did that because it made him feel like he was part of her listlessness, the private thoughts that took her away from the world for long periods of time. He liked the way her skin smelled, sweet like powder and perfumes. The way her pretty gowns with the blue buttons and the Dietrich crest felt, the cameo at her throat, and all the taffeta and brocade and folds of a perfectly white blouse. She had thin hands with clean nails and jutting wrist bones, and Cain had liked the way they felt when they ran through his hair.
Cain had wanted for nothing. He’d gotten every snack he’d asked for, sneaking around the kitchen. The manor had been a vast kingdom to explore and the big German wolf of a dog like a living stuffed animal to cuddle with. When he was scared at night, his mother and father had let him tiptoe into their room and join them in their massive bed, his father a wall of security on one side and his mother a blonde, blue-eyed guardian angel on the other, running her fingers through his hair. The dog would follow him and sleep at their feet.
They went to the church in Molching Court on holidays and feast days, with the other highborn. When they walked on the streets, the Dietrich protective services had been like a moving wall around them. Cain had sometimes liked to peek between their legs, out at the regular people on the streets, and his Uncle Bradley had laughed and patted his head and pushed him back between his mother and father.
He’d had one friend to play with, a boy with the last name Byron. But when he was almost eight, the Byron family stopped coming for tea every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and Cain had heard his mother and father fighting in his father’s office, and he’d wondered if anybody knew that he saw the way his mother was crying as she stormed back to her boudoir and slammed the d
oors shut.
His father hired the Persians on his eighth birthday, and they were entertainers. Cain had been caught so rapt in their antics and the look of foreign culture about them that he’d forgotten about his crème caramel and just stared. The one with thick black curls was just a little bit older than him, and although many of his father’s friends and members of the house had whispered in disapproval of the Persians replacing the Byron boy as Cain’s friends, his father had smiled and held Cain up on his shoulder and declared that the Persian entertainers would get a room on the second floor, by the servants’ quarters, like proper Dietrich men.
By the time he was ten, Cain was well versed in the history of the feud between the Dietrichs and Ruslanivs, the current (albeit precarious) peace laws, and the devilry of the filthy Ruslaniv family. The tutor, Mr. Quinn, cracked out the texts on sciences and theology. Mrs. Colvender moved Cain from German to Latin to French. Miss Willford had announced her little pupil was almost a prodigy in the elementary lessons of violin and piano, but that his painting could use a little practice, and Mr. Ashleigh mentioned a junior fencing competition coming up in the winter.
Cain spent his afternoons in the garden with the Persians, or practicing his schoolwork, or playing in the billiards room while the men talked politics. He joined his mother in her boudoir with a book after dinner, and he liked eavesdropping on his father’s meetings, curled up before the fire, pretending to read the weekly comic magazines. Sometimes he accompanied Aunt Ophelia and the others of the Dietrich protective services on an excursion to start exposing him to the grave reality of the world outside the manor. His father taught him to work with a revolver and pistol. All his father’s associates laughed in proud surprise at Cain’s adolescent success with a gun, blowing through target practices during hunt weekends. But that world of Dietrich business was still far away, like a fairy tale. He went out with his aunt and the protective services, but he was back in time for dinner and a bath before bed. He never shot a gun at anyone. He couldn’t imagine doing so.
