XIV

February 25, 1882

We reached the Sausage & Clam at noon.

“Why do I have to be the lure?” I asked Gunner.

He leaned casually against a lamppost, several feet from the bar, and popped a stick of Black Jack in his mouth as he considered me. “Because you haven’t yet realized the suggestion behind the name.”

I furrowed my brow, glanced at the sign above the front door, and then it hit me. I felt a rush of blood go straight to my face. “Oh. That’s extremely lewd.” I looked toward Gunner again, and from the glint in his eyes, I knew I was being laughed at. “But I—flirting with women is not—you’re much better at talking with them than I am.”

“That’s exactly why I won’t be targeted. Shy Phoebe is going to be looking for, as her name implies, a shy man. And you have a sort of helpless yet endearing charm about you, as far as when the opposite gender is involved.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate that description,” I muttered.

“I’ll follow in a few minutes,” Gunner promised.

I huffed and stamped a bit of dirty snow from the toes of my shoes before squaring my shoulders and starting for the door.

“And Hamilton?”

I turned.

“Don’t drink the beer.”

I snorted. “No kidding.” I grabbed the handle and stepped inside.

The Sausage & Clam was dimly lit and the steam lighting flickered now and then, suggesting they were illegally syphoning power from the city’s grid. The floor was covered in sawdust, and the tables and bar had a decidedly greasy film to them that was visible when the yellow glow caught the wood just right. The establishment smelled like how most of these Lower East Side businesses did: of sweat, raw whiskey and hops, and a hint of copper I could practically taste—recent blood. The clientele was still light, given the time of day, but there were a few older and ragged men scattered among the tables, two women sitting at the far end of the bar, and one man tending.

I removed my cap and cautiously approached the bar. I didn’t even need to act the part of timid, because that’s exactly how I felt when I caught the interested stares of the two women. It’s not that I was uncomfortable around women, but that I’d always struggled with how to interact with them. I supposed that innate understanding of how to speak and flirt and conduct myself was the equivalent of Gunner’s survival instincts when it came to picking out the man in the crowd who’d be willing to entertain your interests. But because I was hardly experienced or shrewd even when it came to men, there was a sort of… loss in translation when I attempted to apply that same interaction to the opposite gender. All I could think about whenever I dealt with a woman was: What can I say that won’t make her uncomfortable or suggest I was… one of those men? And that’s why, for years, I’d bought and read editions of The Delineator—a woman’s magazine—simply as a way of grounding myself in subjects that were of interest to them, so that if they spoke about it, I could react accordingly.

One of the women was already on her feet and rounding the bar. She was my height, the same brown hair, sans my gray, with big brown eyes like a doe. She smiled coyly at me and asked, “Thomas?”

“Pardon?”

“Oh. Sorry, sir. I thought you might’ve been the gentleman I’ve been waiting on.” She had a rough, lower-class inflection to her words that she was trying to hide. “I suppose I’ve been stood up.”

“You were meeting a man for a date… here?”

She looked chagrined. “Men have no class or character these days.”

“I suppose not.”

She blushed prettily and put a hand to her mouth as she laughed. “My goodness! Present company excluded, of course.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” She was lingering, and it took another half a second for me to realize that this was Phoebe, she was probably used to already being offered a free drink at this point in the conversation, and I was missing all the expected cues. “Ah, would you—?” I was still standing, but pointed to the stool beside me.

“That’s mighty kind of you.” She tugged up her skirts and climbed into the seat. “My name’s Phoebe.”

“Malcom,” I answered, taking the next stool. “Would you allow me to buy you a drink?”

“Certainly.”

I made a gesture to the bartender, and Phoebe gasped. I looked at her. “Is something the matter?”

She quickly reached for my hand and clasped it in both of hers, and I completely froze at the touch. “What on Earth happened?” Phoebe asked, stroking my scarred palm. “You poor dear!”

I tried to tug my hand free without coming across like a panicked animal, but the stammer in my voice did not go unnoticed. “I-I—it’s nothing. An old accident.”

Phoebe made a sympathetic sound as she pursed her lips.

The bartender set a large brown bottle and two relatively clean glasses in front of us before leaving Phoebe to her task of drugging and robbing me. I picked up the bottle and poured us each a drink. When a hand slid between my legs, I startled so violently that I spilled what was left from the bottle across the bar top.

Phoebe giggled and whispered, “Aren’t you delightful, Malcom.”

My face felt as if it were about to spontaneously combust. I tugged her hand free, but not before she managed to get a decent fondle. “M-Miss Phoebe—”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked, leaning too close.

“I—yes, but—” Where the hell are you, Gunner?

“But what?” Phoebe purred.

“But I’m not interested in that,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

Phoebe narrowed her eyes, studied me a moment, then said, “You’re one of those fairies, ain’t you?” I bristled, but didn’t have the chance to reply before she smiled, leaned in again, and whispered in my ear, “You’ll forget the taste of cock when I’m done with you.”

The door opened at my back and Phoebe’s attention shifted minutely to the new customer. I glanced in the opposite direction in time to catch Phoebe pouring granular contents into my beer from a glass vial she’d likely kept tucked up one sleeve. I grabbed her wrist and said, “Tell me who—”

Phoebe reactively seized the empty beer bottle from the counter with her free hand and whacked me upside the head.

“Jesus fuck!” I let go of her in reflex and fell off the stool. I crashed to the floor as Phoebe’s feet hit the sawdust and she turned to run for what I assumed was a back exit. I raised a hand, cast a wind spell, and knocked her sideways into one of the tables. Her skirts flipped up like a cheap cancan performance, and Phoebe went head over heels across the nearest tabletop. I heard the bartender cock a rifle; then aether ammunition activated at my back in response.

“Drop it,” the bartender ordered.

“Try me,” Gunner replied calmly.

I scrambled to my feet to see both men holding each other at gunpoint. I rolled my eyes and snapped my fingers, setting the sawdust under the bartender’s feet on fire. He was yelping and swearing up a storm as I maneuvered around a few tables and approached Phoebe, still sprawled on the floor. I crouched beside her, patted the sleeves of her dress, and pulled free a second poison vial. “Who’d you purchase this from?”

She groaned.

I tugged her into a sitting position, gripped the back of her neck, and put the vial in front of her face. “Who. Is this. From?” I reiterated.

“I don’t like the way you’re touchin’ me,” she spat, no longer trying to mask that coarse and brutal inflection I, too, had grown up with in Gotham Court.

“Miss Phoebe, you grabbed my prick, then hit me over the head with a bottle. You’re quite lucky I’m a gentleman about the whole matter.” I glanced over my shoulder. Whisps of smoke curled around where the bartender stood. He had both hands raised. Gunner kept his Waterbury aimed in one hand, the other holding the confiscated rifle. I noted that the second woman who’d been sitting with Phoebe upon my entering was gone, but the haggard older men were still nursing beers and watching us like we were some much-needed entertainment in their lives.

“You got thirty seconds before Mary comes back through that door with a score of Whyos,” the bartender told Gunner. “I’ll be cleaning your blood off my floor for a week.”

I could only imagine the wicked, dangerous smile Gunner gave him—like, finally, there was some real fun to be had—because I heard the man choke and swallow from where I stood.

“Hear that?” Phoebe said, glaring sideways at me. “Them Whyos are—”

“I certainly hope they try,” I replied. “Because I’ve had a hell of a week, and I wouldn’t mind taking some frustration out on a handful of two-bit, Five Points thieves. This is your last chance to tell me who sold you this poison.” I gripped her neck hard enough for her to wince and hiss.

“It were free! I didn’t pay a damn penny.”

“And what sort of enterprising man gave you his wares for free?”

She cocked her head just enough to eye me through a bit of hair that’d fallen free from its do. Phoebe’s stare was dubious as she said, “You ain’t slummin’. I can tell—you too comfortable in these parts. I bet you’re a canary bird. How much can I make by turnin’ you in to the pigs? A century? Maybe more?”

A spark of fury lit my belly afire, and I leaned close, hissing through clenched teeth in a dialect and accent I had worked so hard to hide my entire adult life, “You nothin’ but a diver mab with Venus’s curse. Tell me now, and I won’t string you upside down to a fuckin’ lamppost where the whole Bend gets a sight of your crotchless drawers.”

Phoebe’s eyes glinted with unbridled rage and her face flushed at the insult, but she snapped out, “I ain’t got a name.”

“What’s he look like?” I asked, giving her a shake.

“Hamilton?” Gunner called.

“A moment,” I replied, losing the street-rat cadence for those two words.

Phoebe sniggered. “Aye, that’s what I thought.”

“I’m done bein’ gentlemanly.” I stood and hoisted Phoebe up with me. I began dragging her toward the door.

“Wait, wait!” She flailed wildly. “Fairley! Said his name was Fairley Holloway.”

“Fairley?” I repeated, trying the name out, but it felt foreign to my tongue. I glanced toward Gunner, and sure enough, he’d heard the exclamation. To Phoebe, I kicked the Gotham Court accent a second time and asked, “Auburn hair? Soft-spoken?”

She twisted unsuccessfully in my hold and, chest heaving, said, “No. He were tall—rich and proper-looking. Gray hair and a busted eye.”

I felt the aether in the Waterbury ammunition diminish, and when I looked to Gunner again, he’d lowered his pistol and was staring at Phoebe.

“Busted eye, like, how?” he asked.

Phoebe glanced in Gunner’s direction. “It were milky.” She tapped under her own left eye in emphasis.

Gunner met my gaze, holstered his Waterbury, and said, “Let her go.” He made quick work of disassembling the bartender’s rifle, tossed one piece at the man, the other in the opposite direction, and headed out the front door.

I gave Phoebe a shove, and she fell into the seat of the nearest chair. I had reached the door by the time she called after me, “Come back home sometime, ya coward!”

I ignored her and slipped outside. Gunner was already half a block uptown on Mulberry and I had to run to catch up. When I reached his side, he immediately took me by the sleeve of my coat and hustled me down an alley packed with broken, warped, and rotten wooden crates and barrels. Patches of frozen dirty snow pockmarked the cobblestones, and overhead, two old women called to each other from the respective windows of their listing tenement homes. Gunner backed me into the outer wall of the closest building, a few feet from the rickety wooden steps leading to a back door.

“You recognized that name, didn’t you?” I asked, pushing back the brim of my cap. “Who’s—”

“Listen to me for a moment,” Gunner interrupted, quiet but resolute.

I hesitated, nodded, and waited, but Gunner remained silent. Picking his words, I thought.

“Why-o!” came a sharp cry from somewhere on the block. The pseudobird call was the warning of nearby Whyo gangsters—no doubt those answering Miss Mary’s call for necessary backup at the Sausage & Clam.

Gunner tsked under his breath. He shifted his stance so that he towered over me, one arm resting on the wall, his back to Mulberry Street. He removed his bowler, leaned down, and kissed me as a second, piercing Why-o cry echoed from somewhere around the Bend.

Distantly, I acknowledged the rising voices drawing close—young men whooping and hollering and cussing—the cracking of thin ice along bluestone sidewalks and slipping of worn soles across cobblestone, and the definite sound of bullets being chambered. But more immediate than my sense of sound was that of touch, of smell, of taste. A single kiss from Gunner was an all-consuming experience: my hands on his slender hips, drawing his warm body closer, the woodsy, neroli scent of Sandringham mingling with fresh sweat and wool, and the bitter, herbal aftertaste of Black Jack on his tongue as it slipped into my mouth.

The clamoring gangsters seemed to have passed the alley without a second look at the two faceless people ignoring the rules of kissing etiquette while in public. After all, it wasn’t exactly the neighborhood that such standards were upheld or consequences were delivered for breaking them. That’s why men and women of our tendencies made their home along the nearby Bowery.

“That’s certainly one way to hide in plain sight,” I whispered as Gunner let up.

The tip of Gunner’s tongue poked out as he licked his lower lip. “Fairley Holloway was my assumed name while working as a Pinkerton. And the man who supplied last night’s poisons—who has a milky eye—his name is Magnus Prince. He was older. We used to call him Boss.”

“Who’s we?” I asked.

Gunner shifted, putting his bowler on.

“Constantine.” But the PDD around my neck began to ping and I swore. “Magnus gave your old name to the knockout gangs because… it was a message?”

“Obviously.”

The PDD continued giving off a set of high and low tones, indicating Moore was on the other end of the call.

“Obvious how?” I countered.

Gunner turned sideways, studying the mouth of the alley. “Barrie recognized me the night aboard the airship. This is a warning for me to back off.”

“And Barrie is working with this—Christ—Magnus, and told him you were… hang on.” I yanked the headset over my ears, flicked my wrist to reveal the transducer kept up my sleeve, and answered, “Sir, I’ll have to—”

“We’ve got a goddamn situation here, Hamilton,” Moore shouted. There was commotion of some sort that distorted over the line, and then he said, “Bert Parker was just escorted out of the office, and now we’ve got three agents acting exactly like those undead you described!”

My heart plummeted to my stomach like I’d jumped off a ledge. “Who escorted Mr. Parker?” I asked over the noise.

“Sonofabitch!” Moore shouted. “Plunket, barricade the door.”

“Sir,” I tried again.

“I could really use your trick for stopping these horrors,” Moore answered curtly.

“Gravity.”

“Gravity,” he echoed sardonically. “That’s an illegal spell I don’t have the skillset to cast.”

“I’m on my way,” I answered.

“Hamilton,” Moore bit out, which was preceded by the sound of something exploding. “It was that new councilman the FBMS hired last year.”

“I’m not familiar with all the councilmen,” I admitted, grabbing Gunner’s arm with my free hand while running out of the alley.

“His name’s Magnus Prince,” Moore answered.