Iron and Blood

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Thank you,” Jake said, extending his hand. Doheimer’s roughened fingers closed around his in a bone-crushing shake. “You took a big risk.”

  “Sorry about your man,” Doheimer said. “Don’t know how he managed to do it, welded solid it was, but if he hadn’t, we’d have all gone up along with the building.”

  Jake nodded. “We’ll see to him.” He looked up at the crowd of plumbers. “We’re all right, then—misunderstanding straightened out, no boycott?”

  Doheimer grinned. “Right as rain, son. Got no patience with anarchists. You want my boys to work them over, find out what they know?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Rick said. “But thank you.”

  “You sure?” Doheimer said, giving One-Eye a look that made the three saboteurs shrink back against the wall. “Stuff like this makes my guys real mad. Leaving those three in a bloody heap might send their bosses a message.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Jake said. “We’ll handle them.”

  “All right then, let’s clear out!” Doheimer shouted to his plumbers. “‘I’ll be back first thing Monday morning and see what it’ll take to replace that boiler and get things set right. I’ll get you a good price.” And with that, Doheimer and his men strode off down Smallman Street.

  “What do you intend to do with them?” Kovach asked, raking the prisoners with a glare that made it clear he would not have minded taking Doheimer up on his offer.

  “A slightly more elegant version of the same thing,” Jake said, feeling all the night’s danger, tension and loss turning into cold resolve. “I thought we’d take them to Andreas, let him find out what they know and make them forget it all.”

  Kovach turned back to the prisoners. “You might want to beg those plumbers to come back and work you over,” he said with a nasty smile. “Because he’s going to turn you over to a vampire-witch.”

  “And then what?” Rick asked quietly.

  “Then we take what we find out, and figure out if the same people trying to kill Adam—and me—are the ones who killed my father,” Jake replied. “It’s time to settle the score.”

  “FOR SOMEONE WHO’S supposed to be in mourning, you get around,” Cady McDaniel said as Nicki slipped into the carriage a few blocks from the Desmet home.

  “Extraordinary circumstances require a little rule bending, and besides, except for church, we spent all of yesterday cooped up,” Nicki said offhandedly. While she was not wearing black or gray, her navy blue dress was suitably dark, and a conservative hat was strategically positioned to partially shadow her face.

  “There are worse things than offending the guardians of fashion,” Renate Thalberg observed, and knocked on the glass panel at the front of the carriage, signaling the driver to go.

  “If he’s gone missing, surely the police have been to Jasinski’s apartment,” Cady said.

  “Doubtful,” Renate said. “Folks on Polish Hill don’t trust the cops much. And even if they did, why would the police bother? Karl was no one important to them.”

  The carriage jostled along the streets of New Pittsburgh, winding from the broad boulevards of Shadyside toward the more modest accommodations of Polish Hill. At Catherine’s behest, the driver and his assistant were two of Miska Kovach’s security men. Both were armed, as were the passengers in the carriage. Nicki had her derringer, Cady had a Colt Peacemaker tucked into her large purse, and Renate’s protections were of an entirely different and magical sort.

  “You still haven’t explained how Cady and I are going to be able to recognize anything witchy on our own.” Nicki tucked her hat pin back into place, trying to keep the large hat from listing as the carriage bumped over the cobblestone road.

  Renate reached into a velvet bag that hung from her belt and withdrew a glass orb the size of an apple. “This is an oculus,” she said, looking from Nicki to Cady. “When I activate it, I will see whatever is in front of the oculus. I’ll see what you see.”

  “Great,” said Cady. “But how will we know if we’re looking at something important?”

  Renate grinned. “Because I can send a flicker of magic through the oculus to signal you. Yellow means something is important enough to take with you. Red means danger—don’t touch.”

  Nicki shrugged. “That seems simple enough.”

  Renate replaced the oculus in its pouch and handed the velvet bag to Cady. “Hopefully, it will be that simple.”

  “On the other hand, we have no idea who else might have been there ahead of us,” Nicki said. “Including those two government agents.”

  “True,” Renate conceded. “But they’re not witches. And a lot of powerful magical items appear quite normal and unimportant to someone without magic.”

  “Hiding in plain sight,” Cady said.

  “Exactly,” Renate said.

  “How do we know Drogo Veles or some of his henchmen haven’t beaten us to it?” Nicki asked.

  Renate sighed. “We don’t. But Karl knew Andreas and me. We were part of his coven. I thought he trusted us. I’m betting that if Karl spelled his place against witches, I might be able to bend his wardings a bit to allow you to enter.” She smiled. “I have an amulet he made. It may have enough resonance of his power to do the trick.” She paused. “Or he may have set his wardings so that his landlady’s willing permission will allow a visitor to pass. There are a lot of ways to set a spell like this, if you expect the other side to use force.”

  “Mrs. Zukowski gave me a note for Karl Jasinski’s landlady,” Cady said, withdrawing a folded piece of paper. “It’s in Polish. But Mrs. Zukowski says the landlady is a friend of hers, and if she vouches for us, the landlady will let us into Karl’s shop.”

  “Let’s hope the note doesn’t say ‘Call the police right now’, in Polish,” Nicki muttered. “You trust people more than I do.”

  Cady chuckled. “Not so much. I looked it up one word at a time in a Polish dictionary before I came.”

  “Suppose Karl was trying to stop the Night Hag,” Nicki said. “What kind of things would he need? Other than whatever he was trying to ship to Brand and Desmet that never arrived.”

  “Notes—very possibly not in English,” Renate replied. “Diagrams. Symbols or runes. Maps. Maybe some type of relic. Eastern Europe is very big on sacred objects of all kinds. Belief invests a lot of power into something like a relic. If you see items you think are odd, hold up the oculus, and I can tell you whether it’s worth taking.”

  “You want us to steal things from Jasinski’s shop?” Nicki asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Renate met her gaze. “I don’t think Karl abandoned his mission,” she replied. “Either someone took him, or he’s dead. In either case, nothing would please him more than for his work to go on, to succeed.”

  “Let’s hope he was on the right track,” Cady said. “Or we’ve got even bigger problems.”

  The late afternoon sun cast long shadows from the buildings on Pulawski Way. Rooming houses, homes, and shops with signs in both English and Polish lined the narrow streets. Washing hung from laundry lines and fire escape railings. Boys played marbles in the street and old men lounged on front stoops, talking in Polish and watching people pass by. Old women in head scarves and long black dresses, tired-looking women with babies on their hips, and workmen coming back from their shifts jostled for space on the cracked sidewalks. The smell of sausage and cabbage, tripe, and freshly baked bread wafted from open windows.

  The carriage that Renate had acquired was plain, of a kind often hired by the hour; something no one would look twice at. The driver and his assistant were dressed plainly, and all three of the women had taken pains to choose clothing that would not stand out in this neighborhood of mill workers, tradesmen, and recent immigrants. Nicki had somehow acquired a half-mourning gown made of affordable bombazine, and her hat, while it had a veil that partially obscured her features, was far below Nicki’s usual sartorial standards.

  Their carriage parked around the corner from the address written o
n Cady’s scrap of paper. “Time to activate the oculus,” Renate said.

  Renate took a silver cup from the small carpetbag on the seat next to her, and handed the cup to Cady. She handed a silver bowl to Nicki. Then Renate took out a silver absinthe spoon, the handle of which was in the shape of a pentacle, and a vial of green absinthe.

  “Hold the cup still,” Renate instructed. She placed the pentacle-spoon across the top and dripped thirteen drops of absinthe through its silver lattice. She stoppered the absinthe vial and withdrew another vial of water, adding a couple more drops into the silver cup and clouding the drink.

  Renate cradled the oculus in her hands for a moment, then held it out over the bowl.

  “Pour it over the orb,” Renate said. Cady removed the pentacle-spoon and carefully poured most of the small amount of liquid over the orb as Renate began to chant. The globe went from translucent to a milky white glow. Renate lifted the bowl to her lips and drank the remaining liquid. She dried the orb with its velvet bag, then handed it to Nicki.

  “As soon as you can, when you’re in Karl’s shop, take out the oculus,” Renate instructed. “I will go into a trance here in the carriage, so I can see through the device. Move it slowly, and if you think something’s important, bring the oculus as close to it as you can without touching it.” She looked from Nicki to Cady. “That’s very important. Don’t touch anything unless I give you the signal. Karl is a powerful witch. The same wardings that keep me out might protect his most valuable treasures.”

  “So how do we steal things, if they’re warded?” Nicki asked, matter-of-factly.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Renate replied.

  Nicki and Cady got out of the carriage. The driver’s assistant followed like a loyal servant, if a very well-armed servant. They stopped at the door to the duplex where Jasinski had his shop.

  “Mr. Kovach chose me for the trip because I speak Polish,” the driver’s assistant said. “I’m Tomasz. I can handle the introduction to the landlady, and fend off questions while you ladies do what you need to do.”

  Nicki grinned. “I think you’ll work out perfectly, Tomasz.”

  Tomasz knocked at the door to the landlady’s side of the duplex. A worn-looking woman answered, wearing a faded dress, her gray hair tied up in a scarf. Tomasz offered a polite greeting in Polish, and made what Nicki guessed was a request to access Karl’s shop. After what sounded like a heated back-and-forth, Tomasz presented the note from Mrs. Kozinski, and the landlady read it over, then nodded grudgingly and produced a key, which she tucked into Tomasz’s hand, followed by a stern warning. Then she shut the door and Tomasz returned to where Nicki and Cady were standing.

  “What was all that about?” Cady asked.

  “Just convincing the landlady that we weren’t with the police, and we didn’t want to cause trouble,” Tomasz replied. “She’s worried about Jasinski, and even more worried about who is going to pay for his shop and apartment rental if he doesn’t show up soon.”

  “If you’ve got the key, let’s get going,” Nicki said. “I don’t like standing around where people can see.”

  Tomasz led the way to the shop door and slid the iron key into the lock. Karl Jasinski’s shop had a small storefront with a grimy window and a sign that read ‘Fortunes told, problems solved’ in both English and Polish.

  Inside, the small shop smelled of dust and stale air. In the front room, Jasinski sold candles of all colors, amulets of the saints, and bunches of dried herbs. Bottles of powders and vials of elixirs sat on shelves, gathering dust. In the back of the shop was a table covered with a cheap red cloth where Jasinski must have done his readings for clients. A tarot deck lay to one side. Adorning the walls were paintings of crowns, a large tree, a single eye, and an elaborately decorated egg. Blown eggs of every size, covered with symbols, filled one glass case.

  “Why all the eggs?” Nicki asked, bending to peer into the case.

  “They’re pisanka,” Tomasz replied. “Traditional Polish art. Also, powerful magical symbols, but most people just think they’re pretty.”

  Nicki withdrew the oculus from its bag and cradled it in her hand. Slowly, she made a full circle, holding the orb out in front of her to give Renate as good a view as possible.

  Cady moved in the opposite direction, peering through the glass cases, squinting at the writing on the labels for the vials and powders, and eyeing the papers that had been left on the counter.

  “I can’t make out anything from the books,” Cady said, staring at a shelf containing close to a dozen old volumes. “They’re all in Polish.”

  “The Way of the Left Hand,” Tomasz translated one title. “Path of Mists.” He paled and crossed himself. “Holy Mother protect us. This man was not just a fortune-teller. He was koldun.”

  “What does that mean?” Nicki asked. She moved to see better, bringing the oculus closer, and the orb glowed a golden yellow as she held it up to each of the books.

  “Koldun have bad magic,” Tomasz said, and his accent grew a little thicker with the telling. “They set curses, cause bad luck. Spoil things. Bad people.”

  “Koldun sounds like a Russian word,” Nicki mused, having given the orb a look at the books, moving on when the golden light faded.

  “Fine,” Tomasz said nervously. “Czarodziej. Russian, Polish—bad news is bad news. For a Pole, he had a lot of Russian books. Do you think they’re important?”

  “Renate seemed to think so. What topics do they cover?” Cady asked.

  “Mostly burial customs, from what I can make out,” Tomasz replied.

  “Thomasz, why don’t you take the books out to the carriage and then come right back?” Nicki suggested.

  Cady was down on her hands and knees, examining papers on the floor. “Hey Nicki—come over here!” Nicki followed the sound of her voice and found Cady teasing out some fallen papers from beneath the desk.

  “Renate told us not to touch anything,” Nicki warned.

  Cady quirked an eyebrow. “That’s rich, coming from you.” She waved at the papers scattered across the floor. “If we can walk on them, they shouldn’t kill us to touch them.”

  Nicki brought the oculus closer so that Renate could see the papers. Some were in English, others in Polish. About half of the papers were typewritten, and the others were filled with cramped, Cyrillic letters. The oculus began to glow again.

  “Renate thinks you’ve found something,” Nicki said. “Go ahead and gather those up. We need to move along.”

  Nicki moved past the desk to a shelf cluttered with objects, both practical and arcane. Candles and crystals, and a carved pointing stick that looked suspiciously like old bone—the jumble of objects looked like Jasinski had dumped out his valise, and maybe his pockets for good measure.

  She muttered to herself as she tried to angle the oculus for a good view. When the orb began to glow once more, Nicki cursed under her breath in French.

  “How am I supposed to know which one is important?” she asked the orb. Annoyed, she swept all of the knick-knacks into a cloth sack.

  Tomasz had returned, and he was studying a cluster of family photographs. “See, he wasn’t all bad,” Nicki quipped. “He had a family.”

  Tomasz leaned forward for a better look, then took a step back as he drew in his breath sharply, cursing in Polish. “They’re dead! All of them. Damn him! These are death photographs.”

  “Maybe he’s just sentimental,” Cady replied, making a pile of the spilled papers. “My aunt had pictures like that made when my cousin died.” She shuddered. “Horrible custom, but it matters to some people.”

  Nicki had made a full circle around the shop’s main room. The oculus had glowed golden on at least a dozen objects, but for the most part remained dull, even when Nicki ran it past the conjuring items Jasinski had obviously used when he gave readings for clients. She swept back the curtain that separated the front room of the shop from the small, cramped back office. A narrow, twisting set of st
eps led up to what she guessed was Jasinski’s rented room above the shop. The late afternoon light was fading, but still sufficient to reveal most of the room’s content. A desk took up most of the space. More papers and ledgers were piled on every flat surface.

  “I’m going upstairs,” Nicki called out, gathering her skirts with one hand while she held the oculus aloft with the other. The stairway was not much wider than her shoulders, and it turned twice before it got to the top, making the treads narrow and dangerous. Curiosity led her onwards; that and the hunch that whatever Jasinski prized, he would not keep it in such a public space as his shop.

  “Nicki? Wait up!” she heard Cady call from behind her, but she kept climbing, drawn forward by the tingle of intuition.

  The air grew stale as she climbed, with remnants of old cooking odors and cheap cigarettes. The room above Jasinski’s shop was barely adequate. Faded chintz curtains screened the single, dirty window. Half-empty bottles of vodka and gin lined one windowsill. An ashtray filled with stubs sat on a scarred, cheap coffee table next to a threadbare chair and equally hard-used footstool. On the other side of the room, a metal-frame single bed was covered with a worn, stained quilt.

  Nicki looked around with a mixture of pity and barely-contained curiosity. It was obvious that Jasinski had not been home for quite a while, as evidenced by the half-eaten, moldering remnants of food left on a plate.

  “Nicki?” Cady’s voice called again reaching the top of the steps as Nicki moved farther into the room for a better look. Books were stacked everywhere and Nicki took a step toward the rumpled bed, peering at the piles stacked on the floor beside it. A flannel nightshirt was thrown over the piles, and the unmade bed covers spilled across the bedframe, but as Nicki got closer, she realized the mess hid a square trunk.

  Nicki grabbed a broomstick from the corner and used the handle to lift the bedclothes away from the books. As she did so, a small, leather-bound book and a drawstring pouch fell to the floor. When the pouch landed, a few carved stones spilled to the floor. The oculus glowed brightly and Nicki carefully scooped up the pouch, stones, and book and slid them into her bag.