Black City Saint

by Richard A. Knaak

  Fetch had backed away when I’d moved to the fire escape, and now he growled low behind us. I didn’t need to be told what he was growling at.

  The first shadow entered the suite.

  For a moment, the silhouette of the tommy gun sharpened greatly. I knew something was going to happen. I doubted that the shadow gun would be firing anything as simple as bullets and threw both Claryce and myself behind the bed.

  An unsettling phut-phut-phut noise repeated itself over and over. Fetch crouched down near us. I looked up and saw black splotches in the wall near where we’d been standing. They weren’t bullet holes but inky dots that caused the areas they touched to decay. I didn’t want to think what they would’ve done to flesh.

  The noise ceased. It would’ve been nice to think that the shadows had left. I didn’t hold my breath.

  I tapped the floor once. Fetch, who had a better view of the room, peered at me. I gestured toward the door. He looked that way, then let his tail sweep once to the right.

  With care, I drew the sword. Claryce shook her head. I ignored her.

  Fetch let out a low grunt, the signal I’d been waiting for.

  I leaped up over the bed, slashing hard as I did. On the surface, my act appeared a suicidal one, the sword not possibly long enough to reach a target on the other side. Her Lady’s gift was no ordinary blade, though. Its slash stretched far beyond its mundane length, the only reason I could attempt what still might mean my doom.

  Fetch had pointed me true. The shadow of the gunman pressed against the wall nearest to the headboard, the outline of the tommy stretched forward.

  The blade cut a swathe across the silhouette of the barrel. I’d hoped for better, but was happy to watch the bit of shadow fall away and fade to nothing.

  The shadow figure peered down at the ruined weapon, then at me as I raised the sword for another cut. Ghostly fingers let the rest of the tommy fall, then brought both hands together. One hand moved as if removing something from the fingers of the other.

  The silhouette vanished.

  Fetch jumped past me. The second shadow stood by the door, the gun raised. The shapeshifter snapped at the second intruder, only to fall past the silhouette. Still, the shadow reacted like a living man, pulling back in surprise at the unexpected attack. The shadow turned to fire at Fetch.

  This time, I struck true. The edge of the blade cut through the wrist of the hand holding the gun.

  The outline of the hand and the weapon dropped away, fading as had the barrel of the tommy.

  Somewhere outside, a man screamed.

  I had barely cut off the hand when the rest of the shadow dis­appeared as well. I could only surmise that the severed hand wore whatever enabled the gunmen to cast their shadows separate from their bodies.

  “Billy’s mitt!” a raspy voice blurted from the downstairs hall. “Lookit Billy’s mitt!”

  “Pipe down and snatch that thing—”

  A car horn blared. The goons shut up. Footsteps receded into the distance. With them went the moans of the one gunman.

  Sirens rose in the distance. Someone had alerted the police. Before they could arrive, I raced down the steps to the front entrance. Just outside, I came to a halt. An oddly small pool of blood dripped down the front step, but there was no sign of any severed hand.

  The black bird alighted on my shoulder. “Follow? Follow?”

  “If you wish.”

  The avian took off after the car. I quickly returned to Claryce, who had just reached the bottom. Her expression made me halt; the fear in her face was all for me.

  The sirens grew louder. I hid the sword in my coat and joined her as we both waited for the police.

  But to our surprise, the sirens continued past. Their wail died shortly after, as if the emergency was over.

  Fetch gazed up at me in bewilderment. I couldn’t blame him.

  “One of the neighbors must’ve told them where the shot came from!” Claryce insisted. “Why didn’t the police stop here? They had to have known where to go!”

  There was only one answer that made sense to me. I gritted my teeth. “Your employer has pull. Someone ordered the officers to leave it be.”

  “The police wouldn’t listen to an order like that . . . would they?” She shut her mouth at my look. This was Chicago, after all, even with William “Decent Dever” Dever mayor for two years after the nod-and-wink reign of “Big Bill” Thompson. Corruption was rife, with both Capone and the North Siders greasing many uniformed pockets.

  Chicago had many names, some good, some not good, some not repeatable in public. One of those, just roughly twenty years past the Fire, had been meant as a sneering critique of a grand lily white display at the Columbian Exposition. The clever writers who had come up with the Black City had, at the time, no idea just how accurate that name actually was. Not just because of the likes of Capone or Moran in this generation, but especially because of the shadow folk. And, of course, because of men like William Delke, whose lives and ambitions affected both sides of the Gate.

  We evidently weren’t about to be interrupted by the police, but I didn’t want to wait and see if my unknown foe had something else in mind here. “Is there anywhere safe you can go?”

  “‘Safe’?” A number of emotions crossed her face. Here was a woman who had lived a fairly secure life, had made a good career for herself, only to find everything turned upside down in an instant. She had just discovered that she could not even trust her own boss . . . or whoever controlled him, whatever the case might have been. “I don’t know . . .”

  I thought quickly. “There’s somewhere I can take you. You should be secure there.”

  “Can’t I just go to my own home?”

  “You know better than that—”

  The phone rang. The phone so conveniently dead minutes ago.

  Fetch growled at the one nearest us. Claryce and I studied one another, then, before I could stop her, she took up the handset.

  “Hello?” To her credit, she kept her tone even.

  I watched as she listened for a few moments. With a nod, Claryce then answered, “Yes . . . yes, of course. I’ll certainly be there.”

  She listened again. With a last nod, she added, “I’ll see you then.”

  With some hesitation, she hung up. “That was William.”

  My brow arched. “What did he want?”

  “He reminded me—he reminded me—” Claryce put a hand to her head in exhaustion. “Excuse me . . .”

  I was at her side in a breath. “Let me help you.”

  She gratefully accepted my arm around her. I tried to hide how uncomfortable I felt doing it. This close, there were too many reminders of what I had lost the previous times I’d failed to protect Cleolinda’s incarnations.

  Steadying herself, Claryce went on. “William reminded me that there’s a gathering tomorrow. He needs me to deliver some papers I’ve been working on to him there. That’s all. He also apologized for not calling me sooner, but he’s been—been under the weather.”

  Or setting all this up, I thought. “Where is this gathering?”

  She swallowed. “The Tribune Tower. The company has a major office there.”

  A very public place. I couldn’t see the danger in her being there, but neither did I trust that all would be as simple as it sounded. “You needn’t go.”

  “No. I think I will. I have to—I have to make sense of all of this.”

  Claryce was strong, just as I always knew every incarnation to be, but there was something different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, except to say there was a resiliency that seemed stronger. I wondered if I hadn’t noticed it in the previous variations, but I doubted that.

  It doesn’t matter! I reprimanded myself. Get her away from all this. That’s all that’s important at the moment . . .

  There was only one place I could think of for tonight, a place I trusted and that the Wyld could not enter.

  I only hoped Father Jonathan wouldn’t mind.
r />   “I’m not certain I can do this, Nick,” the priest replied.

  “You’ve got those two extra rooms in the back where Father Peter’s sister stayed for her convalescence during the Spanish Influenza epidemic. You’re not using them, are you?”

  He pondered. “No. Not at all. And it’s not that I don’t want to help a woman in need—”

  “This isn’t necessary,” insisted Claryce. “Nick, William wouldn’t—”

  “William might be unaware of the North Side’s kidnap plot,” I interjected, before she could say too much. “Until we’re sure they’ve given up on you, you need a place they’d never look.”

  “Illicit booze, illegal gambling, murder, and kidnapping!” Father Jonathan looked aghast. “What a terrible and bloody century this has been so far! I pray that peace prevails over the rest of it! At least we shall never see anything as monstrous as the Great War . . .”

  I cleared my throat. “Father . . . can you house her here or not?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, but there’s only myself here at the moment. It might not look proper, you see.”

  “What about Mrs. Gelb? Could you ask her to stay for a few extra days?” The widow acted as Father Jonathan’s housekeeper, staying a few days at a time every couple weeks. No one would ever think anything improper between the young priest and the gray-haired matron. Mrs. Gelb carried a candle for her late husband, a major lost in the Great War.

  Giving Claryce another glance, the priest pondered more. With reluctance, Father Jonathan finally acquiesced. “I’ll give her a call.” To Claryce, he added, “In the meantime, let me make sure the eastern room can be used tonight. That would be the best for you.”

  The eastern room was also the farthest of the two from the good father’s own chambers. Father Jonathan was a very devout man—perhaps even more so than his predecessor—but there were always those who might gossip nonetheless.

  I was grateful for his help. There are places that the Wyld cannot touch or enter, churches among them. All creatures of Feirie have the Old Magic flowing through their veins—even if technically some didn’t have veins—and as such they were affected by blessed places. They were also affected to a lesser degree by any structure with sufficient iron in it, but the only place with enough iron would’ve been a jail cell.

  That made me think of Cortez. Considering the sudden disinterest by the police in the happenings at Delke’s house, I think I understood the inspector’s special assignment. Mayor Dever had sworn to clean up a lot of the corruption ignored by the previous administration, and with so many untrustworthy officers he would’ve been desperate enough to even turn to an outsider like Cortez. If the inspector was looking into corruption on the South Side and neighboring regions, he might just hear about the questionable decision by someone to avoid the Delke situation.

  I pushed aside the potential trouble with Cortez for the moment. Claryce would be safe, providing she stayed here as I asked. She’d agreed reluctantly earlier and that reluctance was growing before my eyes.

  With the priest momentarily gone, Claryce sat down in the front pew while I peered past her, supposedly watching the front entrance. Instead, I glared at Diocles, who was staring at her back with a brooding expression. I could imagine some of the things he was thinking.

  Claryce abruptly looked back. Even though he was invisible to ordinary people, Diocles instinctively vanished.

  “Who was that?”

  Ordinary people. “Who was who?”

  She looked up at me. “I thought I saw—never mind. I guess this has been just too mad a day for me.”

  “You’ll be able to rest here. I’ll come for you tomorrow. We’ll get the papers Delke asked for and take it from there.”

  “I just can’t believe that William would be involved in something so—so impossible!”

  There was nothing I could say.

  Father Jonathan came back. “The room is usable. I also gave Mrs. Gelb a call. The dear lady says that she can stay as long as needed. She’ll be over shortly. She can help the young lady better arrange the room, and maybe clean it up a bit.”

  “Thank you, father.” Claryce rose and turned back to me. “Thank you, too, Nick. I—I’ll see you in the morning, I guess.”

  Before I could stop her, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I stood there wordlessly as Claryce followed the good father away.

  “Once more caught in the web, Georgius?” murmured Diocles from behind me.

  “Nick,” I reminded him almost absently. For a moment, I relived the kiss on the cheek. A simple act, more grateful than passionate, but it remained with me.

  “She will perish again, and you may do so, too, while futilely trying to prevent her end.”

  I turned on the ghost. “Be quiet, Diocles.”

  “Nick—”

  This time, I walked right through him. He said nothing more as I left the church.

  Fetch awaited me outside. “She’ll be all right, Master Nicholas?”

  “She should be.”

  “What if it sends more muscle? Mortals, I mean.”

  He chose to use the word “it” since we weren’t yet sure exactly who or what was ultimately responsible, but I had been contemplating the same question. I hadn’t dared mention the obvious to Claryce or else she might have refused even staying on the church grounds and followed me instead. While the Wyld could not enter a blessed area, their mortal servants generally could.

  “They don’t know where she’s staying. We’ll settle this before they find out.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Maybe. If all goes well.”

  The dragon chuckled at my desperate optimism. I said nothing to him.

  We were halfway to the house when fluttering above warned me of the black bird’s return. The avian materialized out of the night sky, alighting on my arm.

  “Did you trail them?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Can you lead me there?” I lost all interest in rest. Perhaps I could end this tonight.

  “No, no. The way is lost, the way is lost.”

  Fetch snorted. “Lost them, did ye?” He sniffed both in disdain and to show off his muzzle. “Next time, best leave tracking to those of us with a beezer, not a beak!”

  The black bird snapped at him. “Shunned, fool! Shunned!”

  Shunned. I understood better now. The gunmen had carried some sort of talisman to keep anyone from following them. The artifact would’ve eventually made any pursuer inadvertently turn the wrong way and thus lose the trail.

  “Thank you for trying. Will you help me tomorrow?” I quickly told it what I needed.

  “Yes, yes,” it answered confidently.

  “Appreciate that.”

  The avian cawed once, then took to the black sky. Fetch and I continued on. I hadn’t expected much from the bird’s attempt, but I was still disappointed.

  The neighborhood was quiet when we arrived there, most good folk long asleep. I was glad for the silence, my mind on what tomorrow might entail. The question still remained as to Delke’s part in this. Claryce saw him as a victim; I had seen too many greedy mortals to believe him to be innocent. There was still that chance that she was right, though, and tomorrow would tell.

  I hoped.

  Fetch growled.

  An engine revved. I summoned the dragon’s eyes in the hopes of seeing better in the dark, but only caught sight of a dark auto vanishing in the distance ahead. Fetch started after it, but I whistled the shapeshifter back.

  “It was parked in front of your place, Master Nicholas,” he muttered.

  That was something I had seen. I picked up my pace. Through the dragon’s eyes, I surveyed the area.

  And there it was, on the front step.

  A hand.

  A hand, on closer inspection, that had been neatly cauterized at the end.

  The hand, I knew, of the hood whose shadow I’d severed.

  CHAPTER 6

  I burned the hand
in the old furnace in the cellar, not to hide any evidence but because there was always the chance that the severed appendage might have some spell attached to it. Neither the dragon nor I could sense anything, but it was better not to take a chance.

  It was possible that the hand had simply been left as a message. Certainly, it was proof again that whoever was behind this knew me so well he could even penetrate the protections surrounding the house. I was glad that I hadn’t fallen victim to my first impulse, which would’ve been to hide Claryce here.

  When the last ashes had cooled, I went upstairs and took a brief nap. The next thing I knew, the phone rang. The sun hadn’t come up yet. Fetch, who had stayed for once, looked up alertly, but I waved a calming hand. This was a phone call I’d been expecting.

  “Kravayik?”

  “As you have asked, I make my weekly call. I know we spoke this week already, but—”

  “But you did the right thing.” When first he’d taken his post, I’d asked Kravayik to contact me once a week and report anything, however minute, that seemed out of the ordinary.

  “I thank you for saying so. I must report, though, that nothing is amiss.”

  “You’re absolutely certain?” With all going on, I was warier than ever.

  “I have kept my eyes watching all, Master Nicholas. I will swear on my lowly life, if that is enough.”

  “There’s no need for that.” Kravayik took his task with deathly seriousness.

  “You are so very kind, so very kind.”

  I grimaced. “You’re doing me a great favor. You’re the one being kind.” Before he could argue that, I added, “Best to keep a really good eye on it until I tell you otherwise. Something’s up. Understand?”

  “Yes, very much, I do, Master Nicholas! I will double—no, triple—my most best efforts! I swear upon my—”

  “I believe you. That’s good enough. Thank you again, Kravayik.”

  He thanked me in turn three more times before I was able to get off the phone. I turned on the radio and let the news blare as I readied myself. However, other than a brief comment on John Scopes’s appeal against his guilty verdict for teaching evolution in Tennessee despite the Butler Act, nothing attracted my attention. Even the so-called “Monkey Trial” wouldn’t have been of interest to me save for one of Scopes’s attorneys, Clarence Darrow. I had no doubt that he in turn still recalled me from our run-in during the Leopold and Loeb case last year, a dark case with touches of Feirie to it. Darrow knew some of the truth, enough to despise me even though he had managed to get his clients off with life plus ninety-nine years.