Crane bit back his urge to insist, took a breath, felt his way carefully. “It occurs to me that I have never fully appreciated my good fortune that you were the shaman that came to help me. Not only that I got my hands on your delectable arse, but that apparently most of your colleagues would have turned into power-mad lunatics through my malign influence, whereas you remain the strongest and the best man I know. I’d thank Rackham again for introducing us, were he not dead, and had I not planned to kill him myself.” He heard Stephen’s snort, felt a wave of relief at an obstacle negotiated. “Why do you think the Chinese shamans went bad?”
Stephen sighed. “We’re precariously balanced people, you know. Having too much power drives you mad and so does having too little. Using it too much can be very, very bad; not using it is worse. Perhaps there’s something in the system you described, bodily asceticism, self-denial. Maybe that helps them control it. I don’t know. We don’t act like monks here, the Church doesn’t love us, so nobody feels any great urge to ape its ways. Anyway, to answer your question, it sounds like Pa and Lo relied on their physical discipline for mental control. When one went, so did the other.”
“And thus they were corrupted. Tom corrupted them,” Crane said. “God, I find that deeply disheartening. That Tom could do that.”
“It wasn’t an inspiring story. But…well, were you really surprised by it?”
“Yes, actually. I was. Not that he covered up murder. He would, if they were his men.” Crane caught the other’s look. “Oh, please, Stephen, what do you imagine happens to men who die in pub fights or street brawls down in Limehouse? A coroner’s inquest and a decent burial?”
“I know that, but—”
“A rival sends a few thugs to your house to break your kneecaps. Pitched battle, two of them get killed. You call the law, get thrown in jail as a matter of course, spend half your fortune on bribes to get out, and the other half on lawyers for the next two years. Or you dump the bodies in Shanghai harbour and have done. It amazes me they can get ships through it for the corpses.”
Stephen grimaced. “If the law isn’t just, I see your point. But that’s not what happened here.”
“No. It’s not. But I’m sure Tom didn’t order the killing of a girl who posed no threat, and I don’t…want to believe he ordered Xan’s death. I prefer to believe it happened as Leo told it.” He felt Stephen’s fingers tighten. “Tom was a hard man, but he wasn’t a bad one. He never corrupted innocents.”
“No? How old were you when he turned you into a smuggler?” Stephen asked. “Come to that, how old was Mrs. Hart when he married her?”
“Leo was eighteen when they married, and knowing what she knows now, she’d do it again in a heartbeat. I was nineteen when I started working for him, and as for innocent… I’d been selling my arse for months by then in an effort not to starve. Merrick was getting shit beaten out of him in the fight cages every few days, because a white man was enough of a novelty to bring in a few cash even if he lost. We had the corner of a filthy room in the worst of the slums, living on dishwater congee and cheap baijiu, the stuff that can send you blind. We were royally fucked, Stephen. We would not have made it through one more winter. Then we met Tom in a drinking den, we talked, and that evening he paid off our debts and gave us work, money upfront. He hauled us out of the gutter and saved our lives, for no more reason than he thought we might be worth it.”
Stephen’s fingers were clenched on his, painfully hard, eyes wide and appalled. “You never told me this. You said you were poor, but—I had no idea—”
“Don’t look like that, sweet boy. It doesn’t matter. It’s been over for a very long time. I’m just trying to explain Tom. He wasn’t moral, by any standards, but he wasn’t a bad man, and I’m surprised that he crossed that line. Corrupting shamans is wrong. Grotesque.” Crane searched for words, struggling to convey the visceral revulsion any Shanghai-dweller would feel. “They’re better than the rest of us. Encouraging them to drink and whore and dice is like—I don’t know, pissing on a church altar.” He thought about it. “And Tom would probably have done that too, if he needed a piss and the church was convenient. Oh, maybe I’m not so surprised, after all. He had the devil of a strong personality, it was hard not to be carried away, to make him into more than he was.”
“It doesn’t sound as though Pa and Lo were particularly unwilling to be carried,” Stephen said. “We’re all responsible for ourselves. They made their choices to fall, even if Hart helped them down. And they were shamans, after all. Not powerless.”
“Maybe. But you could follow Tom to hell and not notice where you were going till your shoes caught fire.”
“Charm’s a very dangerous thing. Lucien, tell me,” Stephen said thoughtfully. “This respect for shamans, this inviolability…”
“Mmm?”
“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but some three weeks ago, you tied me to your bedposts and spent two hours subjecting me to acts of unimaginable depravity. And considering you call me a shaman—”
“I take issue with ‘unimaginable’,” Crane interrupted, sudden heat and light rushing through him. “I imagine those acts in detail every night you’re not there. In fact, I’ve imagined quite a few more that I have every intention of subjecting you to when I get a chance.”