Chapter Four

The Agent

The moment I saw the girl behind the bar in The Blind Dragon, I’d had my doubts. She was the lost siren?

The most dangerous threat to our country since trench warfare?

It was hard to believe.

She was a looker, to be sure. Sawyer hadn’t been exaggerating about that, but what he hadn’t mentioned was that she seemed more like a girl from another era. Her eyes were big and blue and she had chestnut hair with tones of auburn in thick curls, done in the style of a woman before the turn of the century. The dress she wore was typical flapper design—loose—falling past her curves, but no hint of makeup. Not even painted lips. If it hadn’t been for the dress, she looked like she might belong at a farmhouse, milking cows, not nursing drunks on a binge.

When I’d first heard of the monster who’d escaped the detection of the BOI twelve years ago, I’d imagined a sensual, enigmatic vixen with bobbed hair, kohl-lined lashes, a string of pearls, ruby lips, and an aura of vibrant charm.

Not this small, timid doe.

Could Sawyer have been wrong?

And yet she was exactly as he’d described her. From the hair color and the eyes to the fact that she really was mute. Apparently Sawyer had inquired about her to some of the regulars before he’d left. None of them knew her name, only that she was the canary at The Blind Dragon who sang but never spoke.

It was actually smart as hell. But irritating that we were only now realizing how she’d stayed hidden for so long. If she didn’t speak, then she couldn’t use her powers. If she didn’t use her powers, then how could she ever be found?

Smart.

But even so…what if it really had been a gun misfiring? What if she really was mute? What if I took in an innocent citizen and the BOI did…well, I didn’t know what they’d do exactly.

But I could guess. And it likely wouldn’t be pretty.

So I wasn’t bringing her in until I was one hundred percent sure. And because she hadn’t sung last night, because she hadn’t talked to me while trying to take my order, I had to be patient.

McCarney had taught me the mark of a good agent was patience. Follow every lead, no matter how exhausting. Stay awake on every stakeout, no matter how boring. And don’t rush to make an arrest when you don’t have enough evidence.

Well, her voice would be my evidence. I’d been trained for years to listen for a siren’s magic. I would know it when I heard it. I just had to get her to talk to me, and the only way I could think of doing that was to charm her. But charming took time.

Brute force might be faster, but that wasn’t an option. I tried not to be a monster, I just hunted them.

…

The second night I came back, I could feel her eyes on me almost immediately. As if she’d been waiting for me to walk back into her speakeasy. Good.

Taking a seat at the same small table in the corner, I waited. She didn’t come to me. She poured drinks, she smiled at customers, she wiped down tables, she lingered next to the bartender—one of the biggest men I’d ever seen in my life.

She avoided me.

That’s going to be a problem.

If she was already wary of me, how was I going to get her comfortable enough to speak? While the back of my mind played out possible scenarios of engaging her, I listened to the jazz band. The chaps were talented. Their improvisation and the way they played off one another was at a professional level—good enough to play in the big leagues up in New York or Chicago.

But they seemed content to be here, in this tiny speakeasy just like a thousand others. They knew the people. Laughed and talked and joked with the regulars.

For the second night in a row, the siren did not sing. Instead, she merely looked out at the band longingly as she wiped down the glasses.

Not too long before closing time, I left my table and approached her. I’d waited until the giant bartender was in the back and the siren was the only one pouring drinks. There were few people left anyway, and those that had lingered were all half-seas over.

As I sat on an empty stool, she paused her wiping, looking up at me under her eyelashes.

“Evening, Miss Adele,” I said.

For the first time, the smallest smile touched her lips. It was barely there, but I counted it as one. Then, slowly, subtly, she shook her head.

“No dice, eh? And I really thought I had it with that one.”

She set down the glass she’d been cleaning, fixed me with those big blues, and waited, still not saying a word.

“Delta? Clarice? Millie? Dorothy?” I fired off in rapid succession.

Four shakes of her head, but she was smiling fully now. That’s good, I thought, then, she has a beautiful smile.

I leaned forward, dropping my voice a tad lower and said, “You can’t give me a hint, Harriet?”

While her blue eyes locked with mine, her lips peeled back to show her straight white teeth in a smile. Again, she shook her head.

“No to the hint? Or no to Harriet?”

She covered her mouth to mask what I suspected was a giggle. I felt hope stir in my chest. Come on, siren, talk to me.

Then she gestured to the rows of bottles behind her, still silent as the grave.

Disappointed, I glanced up at the liquor on thin wood shelves, then met her eyes once more. “No, thank you, I don’t drink.”

She frowned deeply and tilted her head, looking at me in utter perplexity.

C’mon, just ask me.

When I knew she wasn’t going to, I asked for her. “What am I doing in a drum, then?”

She nodded.

Placing my elbow on the shiny red wood surface, I leaned forward just a smidge more—close enough that I could see the few light moles across her clavicle and trailing up her neck. “I heard news of a canary singing in this speakeasy that I just had to hear. You heard tell of such a creature?”

Her big eyes widened and her hands twitched on the edge of the bar.

Great. That probably scared her. Good going, Clemmons.

I needed to take off before she got too skittish. With a rap of my knuckles on the wood, I gave her a smile. “Well, if you know of her, will you tell her this cat would dearly love to hear her sing?” Then I reached into my pocket and dropped a quarter onto the bar. The coin spun, whirring round and round until it finally rested. Heads up.

Tipping my hat to her, I grabbed my jacket and flipped it over my shoulder, heading out into the crisp fall air.

I let the chill ripple over the exposed skin of my neck and forearms. My skin was always hot to the touch so autumn and winter were my favorite times of the year. The cold chased out the muddy scents of summer in the city and left a sort of freshness—for at least a brief time— before smoke from chimneys and fires would thicken the air.

Agitation stirred in my chest like I’d swallowed three shots of burning fire whiskey. I was leaving empty-handed yet again. But the girl was good. It would take more than a few suave smiles and charming words to get anything out of her.

For a moment, I considered going back inside. Just taking my chances and grabbing her then and there. But…I remembered the serene look on her face as she listened to the jazz, and her full smile and rosy cheeks.

The spots between my shoulder blades ached and my throat seared with a burning itch.

Don’t bring her into this world if you don’t have to.

Be sure. Be one hundred percent. Find proof.

McCarney would want that, I told myself.

I moved away from The Blind Dragon’s door and kept walking.

The street that the speakeasy resided on was nondescript, as were the streets of most. Under an unmarked door, to the left of the fire escape and to the right of the tall pile of crates that never moved. The entrance was a storage room of the pharmacy storefront off the main thoroughfare, but a hidden lever opened the narrow wall, allowing passage to the land of gin and rebellion.

There were a hundred more like it. The fact that Sawyer had found this one, had chosen to wander into this drum where the lost siren worked, was nothing short of a God-ordained miracle.

Or it would be, if I believed in Him.

Strolling down the street, two blocks over, I stopped. The sound of my footsteps halted, but the whisper of leaves on the pavement traveled on in a continuous shuffle.

Turning my head to the side, my chin brushing my shirt collar, I asked the empty street, “You going to just follow me all night, Sawyer?”

A sharp-dressed man in a navy-blue suit, trench coat, and fedora stepped out from the alley behind me, his gloved hands in his pockets.

“If you knew I was here you could’ve mentioned something earlier and saved me the trouble of tryin’ to be discreet.”

“Maybe I just realized you was there.” I tried mocking his Brooklyn accent to make me sound more confident than I was. The truth was I hadn’t noticed he was there until half a block ago.

Sawyer closed the distance between us, his green eyes boring into mine. “Cut the shite, Colt.” His fury was evident, punctuated by the way his black pupils narrowed to slits. “Let’sss just get to your hotel. I’m freezing out here.”

The hiss in his words was just barely detectable. He hid it less when he was cold. Basilisks, like any other snake, hated the cold—even though locals would call the night warm for an October in Massachusetts.

We walked in silence for the next few blocks. The hotel I’d chosen the day before wasn’t as bad as a flophouse, where transient men stayed and fleas permanently took up residence, but it wasn’t the Ritz Carlton, neither. The hotel was three stories, wedged on the outskirts of the financial district, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cambridge and Harvard. It was all red brick, so indicative of Boston.

We passed the sleeping doorman and crossed the oak wood floors, recently waxed and shined from a cleaning company I’d seen the day I’d checked in. The color palette of the interior was dark hues—crimson and plum—highlighted only by gilded gold handrails up the banister. The chandelier hung to the right of the staircase—glass, not crystal. Pretty, but cheap.

My room was at the end of a red-carpeted hall with the brass number 207 affixed to the door. I withdrew my key from my pocket and unlocked the door while Sawyer hung back. The door swung open with a click. The scent of freshly washed sheets, must, and coal hung thick in the air, and I was tempted to open the window. But Sawyer would snap at me if I did.

As I tossed my coat onto the one empty chair, I turned around to find Sawyer already pulling off his gloves, flexing his hands. The scales on the back of his hands shone in the dim light of the ceiling fixture. Golden glimmer on green and blue tones made his skin look like an evening gown.

He would slug me if he knew I often compared his scales to sequins on a woman’s dress.

Even more, I couldn’t imagine the discomfort he had, wearing those gloves day in and day out, having the leather or cotton rub against his scales. But he kept his coat and hat on. Clearly the stuffy room was still too cold for his reptilian body.

“What’s taking ya so long?” Sawyer asked, his eyes back to their normal round pupils as he rubbed his hands together and blew on his aquamarine fingers. “Don’t tell me just because this kitten is a choice bit of calico that you’re hesitating—”

“Take it easy,” I said, throwing myself down on the bed and stretching out my muscles. I ached from sitting in the small, rickety chair all night. “I don’t care what her face looks like. She could be Clara Bow herself and I’d still haul her in. I’ve gotta confirm it’s really her.”

“It’s her.” He tsked, forked tongue flickering behind sharp teeth. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you saw something,” I said quietly, staring up at the water-stained ceiling, “but I’m not taking her in until I’ve seen for myself what she can do.”

“Dammit, Colt,” Sawyer growled. “This isn’t some werewolf or manticore you can fill with a bunch of lead and call it a day, this is the siren. The only creature capable of—”

“You don’t have to tell me what monsters are capable of.” I glared across the room at the snake leaning against the wall, fedora tipped back to reveal his pale face. “Now, if all you’re gonna do is stand there and nag me, go chase yourself. I’m tired.”

“I thought you don’t sleep.”

“There’s a difference between needing sleep and needing rest. Get out.” When Sawyer still didn’t move, I sat up on my bed and sighed. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t tell me you’re ignoring an assignment from McCarney to follow me?”

“It just so happensss I had a job here in Boston before I found the siren.” Sawyer’s pupils narrowed to slits again. “And I’m back to finish it.”

“What job?” I asked, curious despite myself. It could’ve been literally anything for an SOCD agent, but tracking down another monster was the most likely.

The world of underground, organized crime was filled with more than just tommy guns, dope peddlers, and booze. It had real, honest-to-God monsters.

It all started nine years ago with the Ninth Amendment. Prohibition had given birth to mob bosses. Mob bosses wanted hatchet men—their own personal armies to protect territories and neighborhoods—but somewhere down the line they decided that wasn’t enough.

It was hard to pinpoint the origin of the monster trade. Where it started, who had started it, and how it started was all a mystery.

Oh, there were rumors, of course. The BOI had spent a lot of cash and manpower to try to locate the origin and stop the monster trade at its source. Some claimed it started overseas, smuggled in through the docks, in the birthplace of the myths themselves. Greece, Transylvania, England…but the countries were too old, too vast, too ancient to follow any solid leads.

All we could do was hunt the ones we knew existed. The ones that went bump, chomp, roar in the night.

Shortly after J. Edgar Hoover took over the Bureau, the SOCD was set up to specifically hunt these monsters. But many—too many—stiffs washed up on the shores of the Potomac, the Hudson, and Lake Michigan, all with special kinds of markings—the supernatural kind.

Soon, the Bureau found that the best way to hunt monsters was with monsters.

Sawyer was one such hunter. A monster himself, burdened with the scales of a basilisk, he was able to kill a person with a single gaze, if he held it long enough.

Sawyer nudged his hat up, fixing me with those deadly eyes, and answered in a low tone, “A bootlegger I’m after is smuggling vamp fangs into the docks, unloading them in some speakeasy. Just have to find out which one. Then I’m off to New York.”

I perked up. “What for?”

“Apparently kids are disappearing off the streets and from orphanages. The BOI doesn’t know if it’s monster-related, but they need some extra eyes and ears to keep low to the ground.”

Kids missing? That wasn’t abnormal. So it had to be a lot of kids to get the BOI’s attention. “Sounds important,” I muttered.

“It is,” he snapped.

“Then I won’t keep you,” I said drily. Sawyer acted tough, but in reality he was one of the softer agents. He’d escaped a mob boss in Brooklyn at twelve because he hadn’t had the stomach or desire to use his curse. He didn’t want to kill anyone.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one—the bastard that buried the basilisk’s scales into his arms at the age of seventeen. Jimmy Sawyer’s only goal in life was to find the mob boss that turned him. Find him and stare him in the eyes.

Sawyer crossed to the bed and used his scaly hand to grip my collar, forcing my face to meet his. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard. And felt. She stopped that bullet. She stopped everything. All at once. Don’t wait for her to speak, Colt, because if she does, it may be the last thing you ever hear.”