“I think she was with everyone else they took off to the Tombs.” The boy pulled the money from Harte’s grip. “But they all looked the same, so maybe it wasn’t her.” He tucked the money into his shirt and turned back over.
The Tombs? A memory of a damp floor and a crowded room filled with rough hands rose to strangle him. It was his fault. He’d been so angry with her after her little stunt onstage that he’d purposely pushed her. He’d let her wander off. Then he’d left her behind.
He had to tell Dolph. They had to get Esta out before something happened to her. Because there were plenty of ways to die that didn’t require being put six feet under. He should know.
? ? ?
The Strega was nearly empty by the time Harte got to the Bowery. ?Viola was wiping down the bar top when Harte walked in.
“We’re closing,” she said as he came through the door. When she recognized him, “Oh, it’s you.” She gave him a stern look. “Where’s Esta?”
He looked around the barroom before waving her over. “I need to see Dolph,” he said.
“He’s not here.”
“Where the hell is he?”
Viola shrugged. “He sometimes gets restless this time of night. He went out.”
“Well, when will he be back? I need to talk to him.”
“Who knows? He’s been in a mood lately.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Where is our girl?”
Harte frowned. “That’s what I need to talk with Dolph about.”
In a flash, her knife was out and at his throat. He could feel the sharp bite of its tip pressing against his neck.
“What have you done with her?” Viola demanded.
“I haven’t done anything with her,” he said keeping his eyes steady on her, so she would know he wasn’t lying. “But there was a raid on the Haymarket tonight. She might have been taken.”
The tip of the knife pressed more firmly against his skin. “What do you mean, taken?”
“We were separated in the confusion, and she didn’t come back to my apartment. She might have been taken to the Tombs. I need help to find out for sure, and to get her out if that’s what happened.”
“I knew I didn’t like your too-pretty face.” He felt the prick of the knife and then the heat of his own blood as a drop trickled down his neck.
Harte remained motionless, because he didn’t want Viola to know exactly how nervous he was. Or for her knife to slice any deeper. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with already,” he told her, all false bravado. “Otherwise, tell me where Dolph went so I can get her back.”
She scowled at him a moment longer. “I really don’t know,” she said, pulling the knife back and wiping its bloody tip on her skirt. “The boy might. Dolph tells him things sometimes.” She frowned as she glanced in Nibsy’s direction. Then she eyed Harte. “You will get her back.” It wasn’t a question.
“That’s the plan,” he said, moving toward the place where Nibs sat, working out something in a notebook at one of the back tables.
“I need to find Dolph,” he said, without any other greeting. “Now.”
“He’s out.” The boy didn’t bother to look up. “Should be back in a few hours.”
“I don’t have a few hours.”
Nibs looked up then, but there wasn’t any concern on his face. Only curiosity.
“It’s Esta,” Harte explained. “She got caught up in a raid. I think she’s been taken to the Tombs.”
The boy cocked his head to the side and peered through the thick lenses of his glasses. “Dolph did say you were meeting with Jack Grew tonight. Did you manage to hook him?”
Harte ran his fingers through his hair, frustration spiking in him. “Yeah, nearly.”
“Nearly? Or for sure?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harte snapped. “Jack can wait.”
“Got under your skin, did she?” Nibs looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I thought she might.”
“It’s not that,” he denied. But even as he said the words, he knew they were a lie.
“No?” Nibs asked, curious.
“No,” Harte said, refusing to admit that Nibs was right. “We need her is all. We can’t get the Book without her.”
“Sure we can,” Nibs told him with a shrug. “Pickpockets and thieves are a dime a dozen.”
“Not like her they’re not,” he said, not realizing until the words were out that he actually meant them. “We have to get her out of there before something happens to her.” Because he needed her, he told himself. Not for any other reason.
“Playing the white knight now, Darrigan? The role doesn’t exactly suit you,” he mocked. “Forget about the girl. Right now your job is to focus on Jack Grew. Esta will get out when she gets out. Or she won’t. It doesn’t really matter now.”
“Of course it matters,” Harte growled.
Nibs shook his head. “She already did what we needed her to do,” he said. A taunting smile erased the innocent, guileless expression he usually wore as something shifted in his eyes. “She hooked you, didn’t she?”
He had known all along that he’d been played, but somehow hearing it straight from Nibs, understanding that Esta was nothing more than a pawn for Dolph, had Harte’s temper snapping. In an instant he had the boy out of his chair, pinned against the wall. He sensed Viola’s watchfulness from across the room, but he didn’t care.
Nibs didn’t even blink.
“I’m not some stupid mark,” Harte growled.
“That right there is your biggest weakness, Darrigan. You think you can’t be played. But Esta proved you wrong, didn’t she? I knew she would, almost from the second I saw her. She played you beautifully.”
In that moment Harte didn’t want anything but to make the boy pay for his words. All he saw was fire and blood and anger as he drove his fist into Nibsy’s face. He heard the crack of bone and felt the sickening crunch. At the same time his magic flared, and he pushed every bit of his affinity at Nibs, digging deep below the boy’s innocent-looking surface.
The shock of what he saw plowed into him like a prizefighter’s fist. Harte had always known there had to be something more to the boy than his innocent-looking smile and soft-spoken temperament, but he’d never expected this. Dolph was too smart, too powerful—how had the boy tricked him? Tricked them all?
Shaken by what he’d seen, Harte released Nibsy’s collar and let the boy fall to the floor. A moment later, though, he felt another jolt—the shocking impact of Viola’s magic slamming against him. Gasping, he stumbled toward the wall, barely able to keep himself upright.
“We’re fine,” Nibs called, as he pulled himself to his feet. “Let him go, Vi. It was a simple misunderstanding.”
Harte couldn’t focus enough to see Viola’s reaction, but a second later the hot power she’d shoved toward him dissipated, and he could breathe again. He kept one hand on the wall at first, because his legs were still shaking. Across the room, Viola was watching him with careful eyes.
“I would have let Viola kill you if I didn’t still need you,” Nibs said. “Don’t ever forget that. When you stop being of use to me, you’re a dead man.”
Harte ignored the threat and lowered his voice so Viola couldn’t hear. “You can’t actually think what you’re planning will work?”