There would be no more hiding—for any of them.
She took the cuff. The silver was still cold from being in the vault, but she slid it onto her arm without so much as a shiver. Again, she felt the pull of the stone, like something was warming her from within. Something that felt like possibility . . . and the promise of power. “Tell me who betrayed them,” she said, determined. “Who is it I need to stop?”
Professor Lachlan’s mouth curved into a smile, but his eyes held nothing but cold hate. “Find the Magician,” he told her. “And stop him before he destroys our future.”
THE DEVIL’S OWN
August 1901—The Bowery
Harte Darrigan cursed himself ten times over as he pushed his way through the crowd of The Devil’s Own, a smoke-filled boxing saloon on the Lower East Side named for the gang that ran it. The sound of bones crunching as fist met face caused the crowd to surge with an eagerness that made Harte’s pulse race and turned his resolve to mush.
The dive was filled with the type of people Harte had done everything he could to avoid becoming. They represented the most dangerous parts of humanity—if you could even call it that—south of Houston Street, the wide avenue that divided the haves from the have-nots and probably-never-wills. Harte himself might have been a liar and a con man, but at least he was an honest one. Or so he told himself. He’d risked everything to get out of Paul Kelly’s gang three years ago, and he didn’t want the life he’d managed to build for himself since then to get muddied by the never-ending war between the different factions that ruled lower Manhattan.
Yet there he was.
He shouldn’t have come. He was an idiot for agreeing to this meeting, a complete idiot to let Dolph Saunders goad him into being drawn back into this world with an impossible promise—freedom. A way out of the city. It was fool’s dream.
Harte must be a fool, because he knew what Dolph Saunders was capable of and, still, he had agreed to meet him. He’d seen Dolph’s cruelty with his own eyes, and if Harte were smarter, he’d turn tail and leave before it was too late. . . .
But then a familiar voice was calling his name over the crowd, and he knew his chance had passed.
The kid approaching him was probably the skinniest, shortest guy in the room. He wore a pair of spectacles on the tip of his straight nose, and unlike most of the crowd that populated The Devil’s Own, he wasn’t dressed in the bright colors or flamboyant style that characterized the swells of the Bowery. Instead, the kid wore suspenders over a simple collarless shirt, which made him look like an overgrown newsboy. Unlike the barrel-chested men curled around their drinks after a long day of hard labor, Nibsy Lorcan had the air of someone who spent most of his time indoors poring over books.
“Harte Darrigan,” Nibsy said, giving a sharp nod of his head in greeting. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same, Nibs.”
The kid tucked his hands into his pockets. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”
“Your boss made it sound like I’d be an idiot not to come and at least listen to what he had to say.”
Nibsy smiled genially. ?“No one could take you for an idiot, Darrigan.”
“Not sure I agree with you, Nibs, seeing as I’m here and all. Where’s Dolph anyway? Or did he send you to do his dirty work for him like usual?”
“He’s in back, waiting.” Nibsy’s eyes flickered over the barroom. “You know how he is.”
“Yeah,” Harte said. “I know exactly how he is. Just like I should have known better than to come here.”
He turned to go, but Nibs caught him by the arm. “You’re already here. Might as well listen to what he has to say.” He gave an aw-shucks shrug that Harte didn’t buy. ?“At least have a drink. Can’t argue with a free drink, now, can you?”
He glanced at the doors at the back of the barroom.
Harte might have been an idiot, but he was a curious idiot. He couldn’t imagine what would have made Dolph desperate enough to ask for his help after the falling-out they’d had. And he wanted to know what would possess Dolph—a man much more likely to hold his secrets close—to make such wild promises.
“I’ll listen to what he has to say, but I don’t want any drink.”
Nibs shifted uneasily before recovering his affable-looking smile. “This way,” he said, leading Harte toward the back of the bar and through double saloon doors to a quieter private room.
It might have been years since Harte had seen him, but Dolph didn’t look all that different. Same lean, hard face anchored by a nose as sharp as a knife. Same shock of white in the front of his hair that he’d had since they were kids. Same calculating gleam in his icy eyes. Or at least in the eye Harte could see—the other was capped by a leather patch.
There were four others in the room. Harte recognized Viola Vaccarelli and Jianyu Lee, Dolph’s assassin and spy, respectively. The other two guys were unknowns. From their loud pants and tipped bowler hats, Harte guessed they were hired muscle, there in case things went south. Which meant that Dolph trusted Harte about as much as Harte trusted Dolph.
Fine. Maybe they’d been friends once, but it was better this way.
“Good to see you again, Dare,” Dolph said, using an old nickname Harte had long since given up. Harte didn’t miss that Dolph hadn’t offered his hand in greeting, only gripped the silver gorgon head on the top of his cane more tightly.
“Can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”
The two peacocks in the corner scowled, but Viola’s mouth only twitched. She didn’t reach for her knives and he wasn’t dead yet, so he must be safe for the moment.
“You want something to drink?” Dolph asked, settling himself back in his chair but not offering a seat to Harte.
“Let’s cut the bullshit, Dolph. Why’d you want to see me? You know I’m out of the game.”
“Not from what I’ve heard. Whatever freedom you pretend, Paul Kelly’s still got you on a leash, doesn’t he?”
“I’m not on anybody’s leash,” Harte said, his voice a warning. But he wasn’t surprised that Dolph knew the truth. He always did manage to find out the very things a person wanted to keep hidden. “And I know there’s no way you can do what you hinted at. Getting out of the city? I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Then why did you come?” Dolph asked.
“Hell if I know,” Harte said. He realized he was crushing the brim of his hat and forced himself to relax his fist.
Dolph’s eye gleamed. “You never could resist a challenge, could you?”
“Maybe I wanted to see if the rumors about you were true,” he said coldly. “If you’d really lost it after Leena, like everybody said.”
“I don’t talk about that.” Dolph’s expression went fierce, even as his face went a little gray. “Nobody talks about that if they want to keep breathing.”