The Daemoniac

by Kat Ross

  And then I saw James Moran. He moved slowly through the crowd, his flat eyes taking everything in with a mixture of contempt and amusement. The women, young and old, whispered behind their fans. Some giggled. Others looked at him in frank appraisal. I suppose he was handsome enough, with his raven hair and lean, wolfish build. He was certainly rich, and the Moran name still held influence in New York politics.

  But as his black eyes locked on mine, I knew I wouldn’t care to be in a room alone with him for all the tea in China.

  “Why do you think he’s here?” John asked.

  He’d stopped dancing, but his arm was still wrapped protectively around my waist. I gently disengaged it and took a step back.

  “Oh, sorry Harry.” He flushed a little. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I don’t know why he’s here,” I said. “I’ve heard he hardly ever accepts party invitations. But he’s coming this way.”

  Moran’s eyes never left mine as he glided across the room, like a barracuda cutting through a school of bright tropical fish. Several men tried to approach him, and even one or two of the bolder women, but he brushed them off.

  Suddenly, my bodice felt very tight. I’d stuffed one of Myrtle’s smallest pistols in there, and had a momentary vision of myself shooting James Moran in the middle of the Kanes’ ballroom, while three hundred party guests looked on in horror.

  Then he was standing in front of us, his snowy white shirt immaculate under an open dress coat with silk lapels. John had a tight rein on himself, but his fists were clenched as though he were having fantasies of his own.

  Moran allowed his gaze to linger on my bosom a fraction of a second too long for propriety, and then he seized my gloved hand and brushed it with his lips before I could snatch it back.

  “Miss Pell,” he said in a surprisingly soft voice. “I was hoping to see you here.”

  “Really?” I said. “Why so?”

  “I was hoping we could talk.”

  “We are talking,” I said with a thin smile.

  “In private.”

  This was too much for John. “If you think she’s going off somewhere with you after—”

  I laid a restraining hand on John’s arm. “You can say whatever it is you came to say right here,” I said.

  Moran looked around and arched a thick eyebrow. He looked as though he was trying not to laugh, and I decided that shooting him on the spot might not be such a bad idea after all.

  “Well, we do seem to have everyone’s rapt attention,” he observed.

  Indeed, the murmur of conversation had dropped several notches, and a few people were actually leaning towards us to listen better. Just at that moment, the band struck up Strauss’s Phenomene waltz.

  “I wish to apologize for last evening,” Moran said. “It was not what I’d intended. I only want to speak with you. Say for the length of one dance?” He held out his hand.

  John said nothing, but I could tell he was furious. He had every right to be.

  “One dance,” I said.

  As distasteful as the prospect was, I needed answers too.

  John looked at me with incredulity. “You can’t be serious,” he said.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I think it’s worth it to hear why Mr. Moran has taken an interest in…certain matters.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to dance with him,” John hissed.

  “Unless we want everyone in this room to know our business, I don’t see any choice,” I said, reaching for his hand. John pulled it away.

  “It’s your decision, of course,” he said stiffly.

  “John…”

  But he was already walking away. I watched as Parthena and Permelia Sloane-Sherman homed in on him, each one taking an arm and leaning in close as they led him to the punchbowl. He didn’t look back.

  “Shall we?” Moran asked.

  I nodded curtly. He placed feather-light fingers on my back and we linked hands. A moment later, James Moran was whisking me into the fray. I could feel curious eyes on us, but between the music and our swift movement, I doubted anyone could eavesdrop on our conversation.

  “So you’re Myrtle’s little sister,” he murmured in my ear. “Does she know what you’re up to, I wonder?”

  I schooled my expression to perfect indifference. He hadn’t a clue if he thought he could bait me so easily. “You’re not as good a dancer as my last partner,” I said.

  “Dancing’s not what I’m skilled at,” Moran responded, a dark mirth in his eyes.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “Do you make it a habit to set your jackals on helpless young ladies?”

  “I’d hardly call you helpless.” Moran laughed. “By God, I thought Declan was ugly before, but you should see him now. And no, it’s not my style. Things got out of hand.”

  “Out of hand? They tried to kill me.”

  The music rose and fell, the faces of the other dancers flashing before me. The barrel of the pistol pressed into my ribcage. I wondered if he knew it was there.

  “Regrettable,” Moran said, although he didn’t look particularly sorry. “I shouldn’t have sent Declan. He has an excitable disposition.”

  “Let’s get to the point,” I said. “What’s your interest in the Jekyll and Hyde case?”

  The tempo suddenly increased, and I realized that he’d just been toying with me. He was every bit as good as John, perhaps even better. Moran’s hand tightened around my waist and I had no choice but to let him guide me through the dizzyingly fast steps.

  “The Forsizi boy,” Moran whispered. “His brother works for me. I want this lunatic off the streets as much as you do, Miss Pell. Besides, it’s bad for business.”

  “And what is it exactly that you want from me?”

  “I want a truce between us until this man Straker is found. And I want to offer my assistance in accomplishing that.”

  I tried not to betray my shock that he knew Straker’s name. From what Myrtle had told me, James Moran sat at the center of a vast criminal web, spinning its threads as it suited him. His family was an old one, and outwardly respectable. He had been a child prodigy in both music and mathematics. Then, at the age of sixteen, he had shot and killed his father and spent eight months in the Tombs. He had claimed self-defense, and his youth—along with the Moran fortune—had bought him an early release. Myrtle believed it was during this time that James Moran had made several key gangland connections.

  There was a minor bloodbath when he got out of prison. None of it was traceable back to Moran, he was far too smart for that. But when the dust settled, he smoothly took control of New York’s criminal underworld.

  I believe I mentioned before that Myrtle’s record was unblemished, except for one man.

  Well, I was dancing with him now.

  “What kind of assistance?” I asked.

  “Whatever you require,” he responded. “I’ve been watching you for some time, Miss Pell. You’ve made impressive strides. But it’s not enough. You’re at the stage where you need raw manpower. The kind the police could easily supply, but you haven’t gone to them yet. I suppose you have your own reasons, and I’ve no desire to pry into those.” He smiled like a lazy, sun-warmed cat, letting me know that he knew precisely what those reasons were. “But I can give you boys. As many as you want.”

  I suddenly realized where he could have learned Straker’s name and my blood ran cold.

  “Did you harm Billy Finn?” I demanded, trying to pull away.

  Moran held me fast. “No, I didn’t harm Billy. I know who he is, but I’ve nothing to do with his disappearance. In fact, I’ve had my own boys looking out for him. But he seems to have vanished.”

  I held his black eyes, trying to gauge whether or not he was telling the truth. It was impossible to tell.

  “So you seek a truce,” I said.

  “Temporary, of course,” he agreed.

  Myrtle would be home in two days. Although Billy appeared to have run away, I couldn’t shake the feeli
ng that he was in terrible danger. And the Hunter. He wouldn’t stop. He had a taste for it now.

  “Tomorrow night,” I said, reaching my decision. “We fan out and ride the elevated lines. That’s where he finds his victims. He dresses as a soldier.”

  “I know.”

  The music died. Moran let go of me and stepped back.

  “Tomorrow then, Miss Pell.” He gave a deep bow. “Thank you for the pleasure of your company. I hope I may enjoy it again someday.”

  “Highly unlikely,” I said. “And by the way, that leaky quill you’ve been using to solve problems is still leaky, though I see you’ve tried to repair it more than once. And you really should hire a professional piano tuner. You may be a brilliant player, but you’re hopeless at adjusting the strings. Good evening, Mr. Moran.”

  I smiled in satisfaction and left him standing in the middle of the ballroom with his jaw hanging open in bafflement.

  So I’d made my own pact with the Devil, I thought as I made my way to the edge of the dance floor. We desperately needed what Moran had to offer, but there was always a price to pay in the end. I tried not to dwell on what that might be.

  After a few minutes of searching, I found John with the Sloane-Shermans and their odious friends, Georgia DeForest and Lulu Rhinelander Jones. They were petting him like a dog, and John didn’t look as displeased as he ought to have. I tried to catch his eye but he studiously ignored me. I stood on the fringes, feeling like an idiot, as the girls shot me poisonous sidelong glances, and finally decided that I deserved a glass of punch.

  I’d more than earned it, having to dance with beastly James Moran and then be shunned by my best friend for what was really an act of self-sacrifice, I thought, taking a gulp of the fruity concoction. A pleasant, loose warmth instantly spread through my chest. It’s funny, because I couldn’t taste any alcohol. But by the time I’d finished my first glass and started on the next, I was feeling both reckless and resentful.

  I wandered aimlessly through the crowd. Several young men approached me to dance, but I turned them down. I’d had enough dancing for the night. Instead, I nibbled on pastries and played a game of scrutinizing my fellow guests. A woman with a tame white dove perched on her wrist was having a torrid affair with her footman. Another dressed as a gold-and-black wasp was blind as a bat without her glasses but too proud to wear them. A man with thick ginger whiskers had colored them so as to appear younger; traces of the dye stained his left earlobe. It was all very mundane.

  I stood up on my toes and peered over their babbling heads. Moran had vanished.

  It was at that moment that I spotted George Kane making for the garden.

  I’d kept half an eye on him all night, and he’d always been surrounded by a group of sycophantic admirers, hangers-on hoping for a bite of the Kane pie. This was the first time I’d seen him alone.

  I handed my punch to a passing waiter and made an unsteady beeline for the door I’d seen him go through. Some fresh air would do me good anyway. It was stuffy in the ballroom, and my ears were buzzing from the din of drunken laughter and loud music.

  I pushed through the crowd and followed the faint breeze down a long hallway to a set of open French doors. A group of men stood just outside, smoking cigars. They leered at me as I passed, despite the fact that most were old enough to be my father. A few stragglers from the party sat (or slumped) on stone benches, but as I moved deeper into the lush gardens, the sounds of revelry faded.

  I wandered down a flagstone path between two tall hedges, looking for George. I thought I’d seen him come this way. But the garden was larger than it appeared, a maze of twisting lanes and dense shrubbery. Fortunately, the sky was clear and the moon bright enough to see by. I took a few steadying breaths. The scent of some night-blooming flower drifted, thick and sweet as syrup, through the air. My head began to clear.

  Then I rounded a corner and nearly tripped over my prey. He was sitting on the grass next to a tinkling marble fountain, a bottle of champagne propped between his knees. His neatly combed hair had fallen into his eyes, and his cravat hung loose across his chest, like bat’s wings.

  “What is this wondrous vision I see before me?” George Kane declared, flashing a smarmy grin. “A naiad of the woodland forest! Or is it a dryad? I always get them confused.” He shrugged and patted the ground next to him. “No matter. Come have a drink with me. Even fairies drink champagne, don’t they?”

  I looked down, trying to imagine this man stabbing and strangling five people. He wasn’t much older than I was, and his features had the softness of someone whose idea of exertion was shooting some poor animal from the back of a horse.

  But then, as John pointed out, the face our killer wore to the world would be very different from the face his victims saw in their final minutes on earth.

  “Why are you out here?” I asked. “The party just got going.”

  George scowled. “Mother says I need to sober up a bit. So that’s what I’m doing!” He held the bottle up in a toast and took a swig. “Do you happen to have a cigarette? I left mine inside.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Well, don’t just stand there looming over me. I’m getting a crick in my neck. Sit down or go away.”

  I sank to the grass across from him, on my knees, which was the only position my dress would allow.

  “Who are you?” George asked. “I thought I knew all the pretty ones.”

  “Harrison Fearing Pell.”

  “Wait, Pell…as in Myrtle Fearing Pell?”

  I sighed. “Yes. She’s my sister.”

  George laughed aloud. “I remember Myrtle from school. Quite the odd duck. We used to call her Myrtle the Misfit. Thought she was smarter than everyone else.”

  I decided it was time to take the wind out of Mr. George X. Kane II’s sails.

  “I’m not here to talk about Myrtle, actually,” I said.

  “Oh? What are you here for then?” He leaned back, a flirtatious grin on his face.

  “I’m here to talk about Becky Rickard,” I said.

  George’s grin slipped several notches.

  “I don’t know that name,” he said.

  “Oh, I think you do. I spoke to a witness who saw Thomas Sweet give her $200. They’re willing to testify in court. And he’s not exactly difficult to identify.” I smiled. “I know that you were lovers. I know you gave her a grimoire. And I know that she tried to blackmail you, and died for it.”

  George’s face had grown paler with each word. “Who are you?” He grabbed the bottle of champagne but didn’t drink from it. “And I had nothing to do with her murder!”

  “But—”

  “You haven’t got your facts straight. Becky would never have tried to blackmail me. She loved me, for God’s sake.” George put his head in his hands. “Becky was…a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.

  “I met her through Mother,” George said tonelessly. “She would come to house to hold séances. We hit it off.”

  “She thought you were going to marry her,” I said coldly.

  “I never said that, not once.”

  “I’m sure you implied it.”

  George was silent.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “I told you, I didn’t kill her. I don’t know who did. Maybe she had another lover.”

  I glared at him until he looked away. “Men like you make themselves feel better thinking everyone’s as rotten as they are, that’s how you justify treating girls like Becky as though they’re trash, but she wasn’t.” The gunmetal felt hot against my breasts. “The grimoire. Was it The Black Pullet?”

  He looked up at me with an unreadable expression. “Yes. I got it from a gentleman at my club.”

  “Why did you give it to Becky?”

  George’s green eyes suddenly chilled. I felt it, as if an icy breeze had swept through the garden.

  “Why the hell should I tell you that?”
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br />   “Because if you don’t, I’m going straight to the police with everything I know. Your family name will be dragged through the mud. Even the Kanes can’t buy their way out of a murder charge.”

  George considered this but said nothing. I decided to give him another little push.

  “Becky wrote a letter to her sister just before she died. She names you, George.”

  “That little…” He swore under his breath.

  “Why did you give Becky the grimoire?”

  “I just wanted to test it out,” he muttered. “See if it actually worked. The man who sold it to me said it was effective, but dangerous. He told me stories of what had happened to others who tried to use it. One threw himself in front of a streetcar. Another massacred his wife, children and servants and ended up in an asylum. He said I must have a medium. Performed incorrectly…well, he claimed it could open a doorway and there’s no telling what might come through. I figured he was just trying to increase the price, but I didn’t care to take a chance. So I paid Becky to try it first.”

  “But what do you need a fortune for anyway? Aren’t you rich enough?”

  George laughed mirthlessly. “My father is rich, Miss Pell. And he’s a hard man.”

  “So he’s threatened to cut you off, is that it?” I shook my head in disgust.

  “He refused to pay my debts,” George said. “I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”

  I remembered Edward saying he’d just spent the day with George at the racetrack, and wondered how vast his debts had become. But there was something wrong with his story.

  “You went there, to Becky’s flat, didn’t you?” I said.

  “What?”

  “The book was never found. Someone took it.”

  George’s eyes glazed over. His fingers loosened around the neck of the bottle. “I keep seeing things. In the mirror. Shapes. My God, there was so much blood. On the walls. The ceiling.” George looked at me, all traces of drunkenness gone. “They did it, didn’t they? They let something through.”

  The moment stretched out, and then I heard the soft crunch of footfalls on gravel.