Midnight came and went, but the pace of activities in the main salon of the Assassin’s Club seemed to increase rather than diminish with the passage of time. Jay Gould had long since left Enoch Bale to his own devices, and the dark man moved slowly around the room, joining groups of players for a few hands of poker, a run at one of the three very popular faro tables and even spending some time playing whist, a game he had much enjoyed back in his own land long ago.
As the hours passed, he carefully scanned the large room, assessing the people in it. By his estimation, perhaps a quarter of the men were Damphyr, at least by their dark auras and their quick, furtive glances, but to be a member of that bastard cult didn’t seem to be a requirement for membership in the club; all that was required, it seemed, was wealth and the lust for it.
Initially he’d thought that the approach by Edwin Booth at Barnum’s Museum had been to draw him into some sort of trap, but now he realized they didn’t have the slightest idea that one of the Nine was among them. It seemed that here at least the Damphyrs’ senses had been dulled by luxury and their own excesses.
Soon, just as it had been in Bucharest, Berlin, Paris and finally London, the whispers would begin, their crimes would become obvious and once again the hunt would be on. Centuries ago the Vampyr-vadász, the vampire hunters, were few and poorly organized, but their numbers, and more important, the numbers of those who believed in them, were growing; Van Helsing and his spawn were proof enough of that.
It was past two in the morning when Jay Gould reappeared and invited the Vampyr to join him and a few select friends for a final drink before departing. Gould escorted Bale out of the noisy and brightly lit main salon, then across the ornately tiled hall to the two-storied circular library in the tower. Partway across the large galleried hallway the Vampyr caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and turned, his knees buckling with a sudden surge of nausea.
He was here. The Other.
The sense of him was almost overpowering, like a shudder passing through his very being, one roaming hungry spirit passing through another, terrible memories and times shared for a single instant, then vanishing like a fleeting nightmare. He saw the movement again, a flickering trace of swirling black, like a cloak, and then it was gone for good. The moment passed.
“Something the matter?” Gould asked, gripping Enoch Bale’s arm as the Vampyr briefly staggered. There was concern in his glance, but something else as well: mockery, perhaps?
“I thought I saw someone,” said the Vampyr, staring up at the gallery high above the colorful tiled floor.
“Probably a servant.” Gould smiled.
“This was no servant,” the Vampyr insisted.
“Then it was a guest,” said Gould, an icy tone creeping into his voice. “The rooms upstairs are for their private use.” Gould paused. “My friends are waiting.”
The Vampyr and Gould entered the library. Gould carefully closed the door behind them. The room was large, the curving walls lined with books of suspiciously similar bindings, and like the entry hall it had an upper gallery reached by a winding iron staircase. The room was amply furnished with several sofas and leather club chairs with appropriate side tables and a large fireplace, the hearth dark and cold.
The centerpiece of the room was an immense round table, as black as night, a quarried slab of sparkling granite, polished to a brilliant gloss reflecting the shaded mantles of the gaslights overhead. There were twelve ornate chairs set around the circle, two larger ones with arms facing each other across the great expanse of darkly shining stone. In the center of the table, resting on a bloodred satin pillow, was a huntsman’s arrow from another time, made from solid, buttery gold.
“The Assassin’s symbol,” said Gould, indicating the arrow and whispering to Enoch Bale as they stepped into the room. “And our method: we are hunters of wealth and our weapon is gold.” He gave a conspiratorial wink. “Drew and Jimmy Fisk think it’s railroads, but they’re wrong. In the end it always comes down to the gold.”
There were close to a dozen men about the room, talking in small groups or standing alone, some smoking cigars, some holding glasses, all dressed formally in black. Some, such as the crotchety-looking Daniel Drew, the biblical white-haired Thurlow Weed and the florid-faced Jim Fisk, the Vampyr recognized from his meeting earlier that day; the others Jay Gould introduced one after the other: the immensely fat and red-bearded William Tweed, deputy street commissioner for the city, George Barnard, the red-cheeked and red-eyed New York State Supreme Court judge, the mustachioed Fernando Wood, the previous mayor of New York before being summarily defeated by George Opdyke the Republican abolitionist who’d been responsible for Abraham Lincoln’s presidential nomination, Wood’s brother Benjamin, owner of the fiercely proslavery New York Daily News, Matthew J. Brennan, onetime head of the “Police Ring,” risen from the terrible slums of the Five Points district of the Sixth Ward and now the city comptroller, the still handsome Franklin Pierce, ex-president of the United States, now abandoned and humiliated after a single disastrous term and little more than a desperate, albeit wealthy drunk, and last but not least, resplendent in his robes of office, was “Dagger John” Hughes, the once illiterate gardener’s assistant from County Tyrone, risen by guile and the politics of betrayal to become the immensely powerful archbishop of New York.
Of the ten men, all had great power and most had great wealth. Of the ten, the most interesting to Enoch Bale was the archbishop; somehow it came as no surprise to him that his eminence was the only one of the group who was Damphyr, his cassock, bloody sash, silver crucifix and holy ring an unholy fraud. The Vampyr looked at the man curiously, wondering how he slaked the necessary thirsts and ravenous appetites of his kind. Glancing at the gleaming silver cross and the small figure impaled on it, the Vampyr reminded himself that the archbishop’s professed religion was indeed founded on a bloody act; perhaps in some perverse way the man actually thought he was enacting some hideous version of their holy sacrament. It appeared from his expression that the archbishop had no inkling of the Vampyr’s menace to him.
Gould spoke. “Gentlemen?”
Without further prompting the men in the room made their way to the table, each taking what was clearly his assigned seat. Gould sat in one of the larger, thronelike chairs and indicated that Enoch Bale should take the other. He did so. When everyone was in his place Gould rapped the cold black stone with his knuckles. “We are convened,” he said. He paused for a long moment. From the other side of the mansion the faint sounds of continuing revelry could be heard. Finally Gould spoke again, directly to the Vampyr, facing him across the table’s expanse.
“You come from a foreign land, Lord Bale, and cannot be expected to know about or even sympathize with our situation.” He paused, a small smile appearing. “However,” he continued, “there is no reason why that should stop you from capitalizing on our nation’s present discord.”
Fernando Wood, the recently deposed mayor, picked up the discussion. “Regardless of Mr. Lincoln’s feelings about the plight of the nigger, this country survives on cotton. Our banks finance its growth, our insurance companies provide insurance for its transport, and that very transport is provided by New York’s ships.” The man paused and cleared his throat, his voice taking on the oratorical tone that he’d used so effectively in public office. “Cotton, Lord Bale, gives us sixty percent of our exports, and thirty-eight cents out of every dollar earned in this city comes from that single commodity. The war has slowed that somewhat, and production of war goods and materials has offset it for the moment, but when the war ends, cotton will once again be king. War is killing this city, Lord Bale; it is tearing this city apart. It must end, and it must end soon. There is already talk of the British giving aid to the rebels, and if that happens the Union will be finished and us along with it.”
“His honor makes a dramatic plea,” said Gould. “But dramatics aside, there is truth to what he says, and in that truth there is an opportunity for us all.”
“All?” The Vampyr smiled. “Even someone from a foreign land, as you put it?”
“If he has gold enough,” said Thurlow Weed bluntly, his voice clipped. “Do you have gold enough, Lord Bale?”
“Enough for what?” the Vampyr asked, just as bluntly.
“There is to be a draft on Saturday,” said Gould. “The president intends to bleed New York for even more of its citizenry than he already has.”
“And most of them from among my people, God rot the nigger-loving bastard,” breathed the archbishop, his accent thick and dark with bitterness.
“My people too, your holiness,” cautioned the fat man, Bill Tweed. “My informants tell me that most will be chosen from the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh wards.”
“All Irish,” said Matthew Brennan, the city comptroller and a close ally of Tweed’s.
“All poor’s more to the point,” said Benjamin Wood, the ex-mayor’s brother. “Not one of them able to afford the three-hundred-dollar substitute. Poor bloody Irish going off to fight the nigger’s war while the nigger stays home and steals his job.”
“I still fail to see the opportunity you mentioned,” said Enoch Bale.
“The day for the draft was originally set to be Monday next,” said Tweed, his pudgy hands folded across his enormous belly. “I have since managed to get that changed to Saturday morning.”
“I’m not sure I see what difference it could make,” said Enoch Bale curiously.
“A great deal,” said Gould. “By making the draft on Saturday, the results will be printed in the evening papers.”
“Front page,” said Benjamin Wood, owner of the Daily News. “Guaranteed.”
“Sunday will see the workers on their day of rest. A day spent brooding over the newspaper lists with all those fine Irish names and their sorry fate. Then drowning their sorrows in the city’s saloons and gin joints, commiserating among themselves,” said Gould. “With a little help from Comptroller Brennan and the archbishop, that grumbling can be turned into something else. There’s not a soldier in the city left to give us any trouble; they’ve all been called away.”
“Riot at the very least, perhaps outright rebellion,” said Fernando Wood, a man who’d once expressed the idea that New York City should become a separate city-state and secede from the Union as the Confederate states had done, his pride still stinging from the thrashing he’d taken from the Republican Opdyke at the polls.
“Riot is all we need,” said Gould, raising a placating hand. “Give us three or four days of chaos, and I’ll guarantee us all a fortune.”
“How so?” said the Vampyr.
“With the help of Mr. Drew’s brokerage and seat on the exchange.”
Drew spoke up, his words coming jerkily between puffs on his cigar. “Gold. We buy on margin over the next three days. As much as we can. Spread out the dealings so there’s no appearance of a ring. Do it right, and between us we can corner the market. By Monday, if all goes well, there’ll be a run on gold. Who knows how much the price could rise? The market price as of yesterday was twenty-two dollars per fine ounce.” The heavyset man shrugged his shoulders. “Lincoln’s people might find out eventually, but by then it will be too late.” He smiled across the table at his friend Judge Barnard. “We have the law on our side, after all.” He shrugged again. “We could double our money if things got bad enough.”
“They’ll be bad enough. I’ll see to that,” said Brennan, the onetime police court magistrate. “First we’ll burn down the New York Times and Greeley’s rag, then bust the heads of a few Metropolitans.” He grinned wolfishly. “If Bill could provide us with enough free liquor in the saloons, things’ll be all to the good. Nothing incites the mob better than a blazing fire and a wee dram.”
“Consider it done,” said Tweed. “Give the Big Six a chance to show their stuff.” He puffed out his enormous chest. “Still the best fire brigade this city’s ever seen, or likely to.”
“You condone such actions, your eminence?” Enoch Bale asked.
The archbishop’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. “I’ll suffer the flames of damnation to see my people served and the darkies put in their rightful place. The holy scriptures are quite clear as to what that place is, Lord Bale, or whatever your name is, they are indeed: they are the Children of Ham, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, that’s what the niggers are, and certainly their souls aren’t worth one good Irishman being drafted and dying for.” The thin-faced man clutched at his silver crucifix and stared down the table, a belligerent glare on his angry face. “Does that suit you, your lordship, or do you suffer from the zeal of the abolitionist?”
“Any sufferings I might have are nobody’s business but my own, Archbishop.”
“And what of our business?” Gould asked. “Are you interested in our proposition?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” answered the Vampyr, careful to keep his tone bland. “As you say, I am no more than a visitor to your land, and I came here looking for opportunity, after all. This would appear to be one.” Once again he felt the black, echoing shiver of the Other’s presence. His throat filled with ash and he felt as though he was going to choke. He struggled against the feeling and kept his seat, forcing himself to remain absolutely still.
“The minimum ante into this game is a hundred thousand dollars in specie,” said Thurlow Weed, his tone crisp and to the point. “Can you afford that, sir?”
“And more,” the Vampyr responded. “I’d like some time to consider how much more.”
“The deadline’s tomorrow noon,” said Gould. “A bank draft brought to Drew’s brokerage will suffice.”
“Tomorrow, before noon, then,” said Enoch Bale. He could stand it no longer. He pushed back his chair from the table and stood. “But now I must bid you good night. It is late and I must be gone,” he said abruptly. With that he turned and strode from the room without another word.
Gould frowned. “A strange man, to be sure,” he said.
“How did you come upon him?”
“Booth found him at Barnum’s Museum,” replied Gould.
“A likely spot,” said Franklin Pierce, the onetime president of the nation, speaking for the first time. “He’s quite the specimen.” The still-handsome man looked blearily around the table, his bloodshot eyes out of focus and his words faintly slurred. “Bit sinister, don’t you think? Strange accent too, him?” He sighed heavily, his eyes half closing. He yawned. “I s’pose somebody’s checked the man’s bona fides, hmm? Lineage, Burke’s Peerage, that sort of thing?”
“He was recommended by our young friend Adam,” said Thurlow Weed. “His sources seem to be quite good, high and low. The lad’s bound for better things, mark my words.”
“Worth, was it?” Tweed said, stroking his heavy beard. “Well that’s all right, then.”
“I don’t like the smell of this lord of yours, a foreigner,” said the archbishop, his bony hand still gripping the silver crucifix hanging around his neck. “He stinks of the Devil’s work.”
“Don’t worry,” said Gould, staring thoughtfully across the table at the empty chair. “We’ll know more about him by tomorrow. I’ve put young Lily on to him.” He smiled darkly. “If she can’t winkle out all his secrets, no one can.”