Phantoms
IN PHILADELPHIA
Phantom Knights
Book 1
AMALIE VANTANA
Phantoms IN PHILADELPHIA
By Amalie Vantana
Copyright 2013 by Amalie Vantana
Smashwords Edition
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains in the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this this ebook, please encourage your friends to download their own copy.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/.
For John,
the very best part of my heart
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Read on for a Sneak Peek at the next adventure in the Phantom Knights series
Chapter 1
Acknowledgements
Author’s Historical Note
About the Author
Prologue
Bess
20 May 1814
Baltimore
My father once said that to have a truly successful spy organization you must have the presence of mind always to be seven steps ahead of everyone else. My father’s seven steps had been between the ages of eight and seventeen. He claimed that no one would ever suspect children of being spies. He was right. I was twelve when four men, my father included, formed a secret spy ring—to protect the good on which this nation was founded. Five years later and I am wondering if there was more to it than that. When you live a life of secrets, you trust no one and question everything.
“Lucy!”
It was well past ten in the evening when I stepped away from the brick wall that I was leaning against. A dark haired man in a red regimental coat came striding toward me holding a lantern that illuminated the darkened alley. When he reached me, he set the lantern on the ground, then his arms wrapped around my waist. He pulled me against him, his wet lips smacking on my mouth. I hated when he did that.
Be convincing.
I let him kiss me for a moment, then I pushed him back, casting down my eyes. “Willy, you are a rogue.”
He did not laugh as he usually did, and when I glanced up at him, his eyes were focused on mine, or rather my black mask.
“We have been meeting in secret for three months, Lucy. When will you cease to wear a mask?” His voice was cool, and I thought I detected a hint of suspicion.
I flashed him my most enticing smile and laid my hand against his cheek. “I thought you liked a mystery, Willy.”
His eyes hardened for an instant as his brows snapped together, but then his face cleared, and he laughed, unconvincingly. He was uncomfortable; something was not right.
“You know that I adore you, Lucy.” He kissed my neck, and I fought the urge to run him through with a small ornamental knife that was in my hair. He stepped around me laying his cool hands against the bare skin of my shoulders. One of his fingers stroked the black beaded necklace I was wearing. “It is only that they offered me more than you; you understand.”
At the entrance to the alley, three men appeared, and as they walked toward me, everything inside me went wild. My shaking hands twisted in the folds of my red dress. The men before me were wearing plain brown clothing, nothing remarkable, but it was the rings they all wore on their right hands that relayed their identities.
“At last we find you, Ma belle,” one of the men said in a thick accent.
“Willy?” I pressed against him, my voice sounding small, frightened.
His hands tightened on my shoulders for a moment before he released me, stepping toward the very men I had been hunting for two years ever since they murdered the man I was going to marry.
“My payment,” Willy demanded, holding his hand out to the evident leader of the men.
“Ah, yes, your payment, Lieutenant Standen.” The leader snapped his fingers, and the man to his right pulled a pistol so fast that Willy had no chance of escape. As he fired, I dropped down, covering my ears with my hands. Willy stumbled back clutching his chest before dropping like a fallen tree. Willy was a fool to believe that those men would be fair. I stayed cowering on the ground until the leader stomped toward me and grabbed my arm. My eyes rose to his. He smirked.
“You do not much resemble your mother, Ma belle,” the greasy-haired leader remarked.
“No, I take after my father,” I replied, keeping him talking as my hand slid beneath my skirts and gripped a handle strapped to my leg.
“Your father?” he asked sharply. When his eyes widened in recognition, I smiled. He turned his head to yell at his men, but I was upon him before the words passed his lips. My arm wrapped around his throat, and I placed the tip of my dagger against his skin beside his eye.
He called in his native tongue for his men to halt when they stepped forward.
“Now, you will tell me what you want with Ma belle, or I will stick you like a pincushion.”
The man choked out a laugh. “I remember you. You were there the night we killed that masked spy.”
Do it! End him! Every thought was screaming for me to have my vengeance, but the tighter I held him and thought about stabbing him with my dagger, the more I knew I could not. I was not a murderer.
The largest of the men pulled a pistol, and I released the leader, shoving him toward his men. I reached into my coiffure of hair and pulled out a small knife. I threw it with a strong flip of my wrist. It struck its target, lodging in the big man’s shoulder.
The second man, a wiry, foolish looking individual, charged me, knocking me to the ground. My breath left me in a rush, but I raised my hand with the dagger. He wrestled it away from me and stood, placing his boot against my stomach, pinning me to the ground. For someone appearing small, he sure held some force. The leader came up beside him.
“Tell me your name, little spy.”
“Spy is such an ugly word,” I retorted, the boot pushed harder against my stomach.
“What would you prefer?”
“Master investigator or skilled assassin, it makes no odds to me,” I replied in a breathy, strained voice.
He chuckled, then laughed loud clutching his middle. My mind was trying to work out a plan. There were only two of them, and if I could get his boot off me...
Explosions roared in the small alley. I threw my hands up to shield my face. There were at least four shots fired, and as the heavy boot on my stomach fell away, I sat up staring through the cloud of smoke to where four masked men were standing. Their masks were all different, but t
heir clothing was the same. Black breeches, black boots, black coats over black shirts. They were made to blend in with the shadows; to match the night. The first man wore a black mask with two horns sticking up above his head; we call him Hades. The second man wore a mask that was half brown, and the other half had four green leather leaves—Junto. Fenrir was the third man, and his mask was the face of a wolf. The fourth I knew was not a man at all. Her mask was plain black.
She came over to help me up while the others checked the bodies. Willy and the two they had shot were dead, but the big man I had stabbed was alive. His eyes were closed; the fool was feigning death.
“That one is not dead,” I said, pointing to his still form.
He growled as his eyes opened, but Hades was there to restrain the man from standing.
Fenrir, the man in the wolf mask, came up to me. “We must make haste. Many will have heard our shots fired.”
I nodded, but went over to where the leader was sprawled on the ground. I pulled the ring from his finger. It was pure gold, forged to resemble a snake, its body wrapped around his finger twice. When I turned back toward my team, Fenrir handed me my dagger and my hair knife.
“Artemis and I will go to the tree. After you have disposed of the bodies, meet us there,” I said.
They agreed, and Artemis, whose name was given because of her adept ability with a bow and arrow, and I ran from the alley into the dark night. We knew our way around the city—how to stay to the shadows; how not to be seen.
The ‘tree’ was code for the house we lived in, a plain, unobtrusive building in a set of row houses. Our neighbors were merchants whose lives were too full to allow them to be inquisitive. By the time we went to work at night, they were abed for an early morning of work. When Artemis and I reached the house, we went in through the rear door. The night had not gone as planned, but we all were safe.
“Raven!” a sharp voice boomed from down the hall.
Standing at the door to the front parlor was a shorter man dressed in the blue regimentals of an American soldier—captain to be precise. A feat indeed for a young man of sixteen, but then, he was not like others his age. I walked toward him slowly as his eyes were piercing me with each step I took.
“How do you come to be here, Jack?” I asked as I reached him.
The top of his head came to my forehead, but he always appeared larger when in his uniform. At the moment, he was daunting with his light blue eyes narrowed and his angular jaw firm.
“What were you thinking? Keeping company with the enemy?” He bit out each word, over annunciating.
I pushed past him, walking into the parlor, tripping over the skirt of my red dress. The events of the night were weighing heavily on me; I had lost a valuable, yet unsuspecting, informant, and I was in no fit mood to listen to my little brother berate me. I pulled off my mask as I turned to face him.
“I was doing my job of extracting information, and before Willy betrayed me tonight, I compiled a list of names from him that will make Papa proud.”
Jack ran a hand through his short black hair, and I knew something was not right. He only did that when he was agitated. I walked toward him taking his hand. I was not only the elder by eleven months but also the taller between us by three inches, a sore spot with my little brother, and I was the calmer sibling.
“What is amiss, Jack? Why are you here?”
Jack pressed my hand for a moment, then pulled a note from his pocket. “I received this. I regret to have to tell you this, Bess, on your birthday of all days, but Father is dead.”
“No!” I took a step back, gripping my mask in my hand.
Jack unfolded the note, holding it out to me. I snatched it and read over the words, but did not believe it. My father had been found dead early this morning. I dropped the letter, sinking down onto the sofa.
“You understand what this means, Bess,” Jack said softly.
Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment as my heart and mind were begging him not to say it. Please do not say it. Please...
“You are the new leader of the Phantoms.”
Chapter 1
Bess
20 May 1816
Washington
Seven years to the day it has been since the forming of the Phantoms. As I sat on my bed in the house that our team always occupied, while on a mission in Washington, I thought back to the night my father William had come home to our cabin in North Carolina. I remember it so well, because it was the day of my twelfth birthday.
My father had been a spy in England until his identity was discovered, forcing us to flee. When we arrived in America, smuggled in during the night when I was nine, my father was determined to begin anew. He would disappear for months at a time searching for the perfect men to join him in a venture. In the end, he found three men, and together they formed the Phantoms.
I was not surprised when I learned that I had been named the new leader; but neither did I wish for the charge. There were those who thought that Jack should have been named the leader, being the only son, but they did not know what we knew. My father named me his successor, because I was the most like him.
The five members of my team accepted me without question, following my lead for the last two years without complaint, but I knew their faith in me would be shaken if they knew my deepest desire. To find a way out. To have the one thing that we fight so hard to protect. Freedom.
A knock fell on my door, and when it opened, it was Jack. Seeing him never failed to bring me a moment of comfort. He had come through the war with nothing more serious than a graze to his arm. There was much to be thankful for that he was still with me. So many people had lost their loved ones to the ravages of the war that had lasted over two years. The war had ended over a year past, and we had entered into a time of regrowth and by the end of the year, new leadership, but we would never forget all that we had lost.
“Many happy returns,” Jack said cheerfully.
My teeth clenched together. His words were not meant to upset me, but my birthday was not something I wanted to remember—ever. It meant that I had been the leader for two years, but also that my father had been gone that long. It also meant that I was nineteen, considered by society to be an old maid with no marriage prospects; no way out.
“What are you thinking, Bess?” Jack nudged my arm with his.
I did not want him to know my dark thoughts, so I lied. “I wish that we were home with Mama. I have spent far too many birthdays away from her.”
Over the last seven years, I had only been with my mother for two of the last seven birthdays, my being leader keeping me away for months at a time.
“We will soon be home. When she returns from Savannah, I am sure that she will host you a large celebration. You are about to come out after all.”
Groaning, I leaned my head against the bed post. I did not know why our mother insisted that I come home and play the demure daughter, about to make her debut in society.
“It is useless for what I want I will not find,” I said seriously.
“Someone to match yourself in strength and stamina?”
“Yes, for I cannot give my hand and heart to a fool.”
“Is it so important that you do find someone?” Jack asked quietly.
“I am nineteen, Jack,” I retorted indignantly.
“Undoubtedly an old maid,” he said with amusement evident in his tone.
He was funning, but he knew not how true his words were. I was nineteen, three years older than what most of the other girls entering society would be. The war and then my father’s death offered me excuses for why I had not yet taken my turn being placed on display for all of the Philadelphia bucks to ogle me, but that could not change the fact that I was an old maid.
Blowing out an exasperated breath, I frowned at my brother. “Be serious, Jack.”
The light in his eyes faded. “If you want a man of strength and stamina, you must first be willing to let a man come close enough to show you his heart. You a
re so guarded that no man can scale the walls you have built.” He took my hand in his. “You will not allow the men who have shown interest to take Ben’s place.”
Both surprise and alarm struck me a fierce blow to the gut. “Are you saying that I should trust some man with our secret?” It had been different with Ben. He had been one of us. A spy. A Phantom. It had gotten him killed.
“Not some man, but the right man, perhaps. First, you must open your eyes to look about you, and when you see him, grant him a rope.”
“To hang himself?” I quipped.
“To scale the wall,” Jack said, nudging me with his arm again.
My fingers twisted the ring on my right hand. Jack had a way with words; he always knew what to say to make me think. Jack touched his own ring, identical to mine. They were gold with ornate scrolls on the sides and a round sapphire stone raised in the center; the rings of our family. Our father had given them to us the night that he told us we were to become spies. I was twelve, and Jack was eleven.
Jack rose and held out his hand. “Enough of the gloom. Come, I have a surprise for you.”
He escorted me down the stairs and in to the dining parlor, where each member of my team was present to celebrate my birthday with a special dinner. Jack led me to a chair at the head of the table and sat beside me.
Junto, whose real name was Leo and the only one of us with culinary skills, had cooked a wild turkey that Fenrir had killed during his morning hunting trip. As Leo bent over the table to place the turkey in the center, his dark brown hair fell across his square forehead. As he straightened; one of his eyelids dipped over his blue eye in a wink.
Each mask that was worn by the Phantoms coincided with the wearer’s deputy name and the personality they would take on when wearing the mask. Such as the green leaves on Leo’s mask representing strength.
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