She agreed without much care at the time. It had been late September and she was certain the letter would arrive soon.
It never did.
Over time the lost letter shuffled into the corner of her mind. In the past winter their lives had been disrupted both by cases and by antics from their friends. With so much excitement going on, it took the idle chatter from the men crowding Darlene’s apartment last night to bring the lost letter back to her attention. Now Hetty couldn’t let it rest until she did something.
Even if it meant breaking a promise.
“No,” Hetty finally said, giving him an answer. “It can wait.”
* * *
Sunday passed quietly. There was church, a few short visits with their friends, and the long walk they took simply because they had time to fill. Hetty knew where the woman with the dodgy potions lived, but she hoped to find the woman out in the streets. However, there were familiar faces selling magic and other charms, but not the face she was looking for.
As evening slipped away into night, they returned home to the boardinghouse and settled in their room.
While Benjy was keen to discuss more about the kidnappers and similar crimes, Hetty sorted and spread the mending on the table, giving only absent answers.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get much conversation out of her, Benjy lay on top of their bed and disappeared behind a book.
Just as Hetty had planned.
New books were rare and precious things in their little room. Even when they were stories he read before, once he picked up a book it often took breaking a glass to get his attention.
Once she was certain any question she would ask would be met with a grunt, Hetty put aside her mending and withdrew her telegram. She filled out the rest and then checked for errors. She tried to keep it simple. Unlike most of the people they met through their travels, this contact had scant knowledge of Hetty’s sister, and little motive to help.
“What are you doing?”
Hetty dropped the mending over the papers, just as Benjy drew near the table. “Just seeing what I need to work on before I go to bed.” Hetty picked up the sleeve of a worn shirt and pretended to examine invisible tears.
Benjy fell into the other chair. His fingers rapped against the cover of his book, and the air around him grew pensive.
“You were pulling this mending out a while ago and it looks like you haven’t even touched a stitch.”
“Only,” Hetty said, grabbing the first thing that came to mind, “because there are no pins.”
Benjy turned to the far wall.
Depicting the city and surrounding areas, the map hung there was prickled with pinholes. Benjy had put the map up after a rather interesting case with some barbershops. Since then, the map became the best way to visualize cases. Using Hetty’s old sewing pins with colored strings looped at the ends, they marked out the places where information had been found. Small cases and incidents were often clustered in pockets on the map, making a patchwork of color.
“I don’t see what the problem is.”
“You used my good sewing pins.” Hetty pounced on the subject, her ready complaint not entirely faked. “You’re supposed to use the old ones I put aside. They’re in separate boxes and you still forget.”
“I didn’t.” Benjy held his hand over the mending, catching her eyes with his. “If you were that upset about them, you would have said something before. You’re trying to distract me.”
“What I’m trying to do is explain—”
Hetty was saved from figuring out how that sentence would end by a knock on their door. A knock that was as fast and erratic as a runaway rabbit.
“Someone’s come to call.” Benjy dramatically lifted his hand away. “How lucky for you.”
“Yes.” Hetty took the mending and scooped it up so she picked up the telegram as well. “Very lucky.”
Benjy answered the door and Hetty scarcely paid attention to the conversation. The knock, the lateness of the hour, even the frantic fear in the man’s voice were all too familiar to her. People who came this late weren’t coming about missing trinkets or stolen treasures. They came about the dead.
“Who died?” Hetty asked, as Benjy grabbed their lantern from atop the wardrobe.
“A drunk, in an alley not far from here.” Benjy tapped Orion onto the metal lid. The sigil flashed red and light bloomed inside the lantern. “The man at the door says the pump near his building was broken so he went to the closest one to get some water. That’s when he stumbled across the body. I told him to go on ahead since I know the place he described. You can stay here. Sounds like the usual sort of thing.”
“I still want to see.” Hetty reached over to the nightstand, running her fingers across an assortment of cotton bands embroidered with star sigils. She sifted through them before selecting one trimmed with ribbons to tie around her neck. “You’re not as observant as you think you are.”
The man, Alain, led Hetty and Benjy toward an alleyway that ran along the rougher edges of the ward, though only a few streets kept it apart from more respectable homes and businesses.
When they neared the alley, Alain Browne stopped at its mouth.
“There.” Alain’s hand trembled as he pointed. “That’s where I found him.”
With the lantern held before him, Benjy led the way. A mixture of old cigars, booze, and sweat that not even the rain could wash away rose up and nearly overwhelmed Hetty before it all faded into the background. Tiny claws scurried as the lantern light bounced off bricks and crates. In the middle of all this was the body.
Benjy whistled a few notes under his breath before handing the lantern to Hetty.
Not expecting it, the lantern slipped in her hands and light scattered before she had a chance to correct her grip. By the time she managed to do so Benjy was already taking measured steps around the body, mumbling disjointed words under his breath.
She’d never understood why he always found the bodies so interesting. The body only held the secret to a person’s death. The surroundings were what told you how it might have happened.
Hetty swung the lantern around and a beam of light passed over Alain. He stood there, his arms wrapped around himself despite the spring night hardly holding a chill.
Up ahead, past Benjy and the dead man, was the water pump, light glinting against the dull metal. All around her was garbage—discarded furniture, matted papers, broken glass shoved hastily in corners, and much more, lost in the shadows at their feet. Not the sort of place one lingered. Not even if you spent all your time staring into the bottom of a bottle.
However, the dead man couldn’t have been a drunk.
If he had been, they would have found him slumped against the wall. Instead, he lay sprawled on the ground like a bag of hay tossed off a wagon.
No wonder Alain had stumbled across the dead man. Anyone crossing through here would have found the body. There wasn’t a single way to avoid it no matter which entrance to the alley was taken.
“He was left here to be found,” Hetty said as she stepped deeper into the alley. “This was planned.”
“Murdered,” Benjy grunted as he kept up his slow pacing. “This might take longer than I thought.”
Hetty lowered the lantern and the motion reflected light off the body. “What was that?”
“It looks like a bottle,” Benjy said. “Hard to tell in this poor light.”
“Let me brighten it.”
Hetty sketched the Aries sigil on the side of the lantern, the magic trailing from her fingers as she drew the long lines and tapped dots onto a single panel. The star sigil burned in the metal until the light brightened and a stream of stars flowed to the ground.
Splotches of garbled spells swirled by her feet, creating a chaotic mosaic of bright colors muddied together in places where the mixed magic was the greatest.
Hetty didn’t see any traces of magic on the body. Just a man in an ill-fitting suit of clothes so threadbare, the patches required p
atches. He lay in an unnatural supine pose, with his fingers clenched around an empty liquor bottle.
Her gaze moved upward. Gashes split the dead man’s face with ribbons of rust. Eyes that would stare out at nothing for the rest of time. Yet there was something familiar about it.
She brought the lantern closer and then saw a face she would have been happy never to see again.
“That’s Charlie!” Hetty dropped the lantern. “Stars above, someone’s killed him!”
“Charlie?” Benjy echoed. He turned Hetty toward him, his fingers pressing into her shoulders. “That’s not Charlie!”
“Look closer.”
Benjy let go of her and knelt. He picked up the lantern and waved it over the body. The light brightened once more, intensifying to the strength of a sunny day. Then it faded and metal met the ground once more.
“Stars, it is Charlie.” Benjy’s voice cracked on the edge of the name. “Why didn’t I notice that first?”
When Charlie had approached her the night before with fear in his eyes, had he sensed this death coming? Or was it something else? Something that surprised him just moments before he took his last breath?
“You know Charlie?” Alain’s tentative voice crept in, welcome and unwanted at the same time.
Hetty’s laugh squeezed itself out, brittle in the night air. “Who doesn’t know Charlie Richardson in this town? Why didn’t you say who it was?”
“He was my landlord. Now he’s dead. Who he was doesn’t matter anymore.”
Benjy’s head turned with such speed, the younger man jumped backwards into the grimy wall. “That’s where you’re wrong. Men like Charlie Richardson don’t just disappear when they die.”
Hetty bent to pick up the lantern but froze as the beams of light revealed something else along Charlie’s chest. Something worse than the sickening mess made of his face.
“Benjy.” Hetty tried to keep her voice steady, but it trembled despite her best efforts. “Tell me you see this too.”
A star sigil was carved into Charlie’s chest. The vertices were coin-size holes and the lines that connected them were as thick as cords, forming a man wrestling with an unruly snake. Any sigil seared into flesh would have been terrible, but this was Ophiuchus—the Serpent Bearer—and the one star sigil so terrible Hetty never used it.
“The cursed sigil,” Alain wailed from behind them. Pressed against the wall, it was hard to say if a single noise would have him sprinting off into the night or collapsing in a dead faint. “I touched him. I was near him. I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“There’s no curse,” Benjy said, though he brushed his hands against his shirt as if to brush the stain away. “Other wounds caused his death. Oliver should be able to tell which one.” He paused then, his gaze moving along the alley for any more signs of trouble. “We shouldn’t linger here. Whoever did this might come back.”
“Go. I’ll be right behind you after I take care of the residue.”
Hetty waited for a protest to pass his lips. While they took equal share in their messy and sometimes dangerous work, Benjy rarely suggested parting ways. When Hetty suggested it, they always wasted time arguing until someone’s hand was forced.
One look into his eyes and she knew tonight there would be no argument.
Magical residue had helped them find murderers many times before, but if they weren’t careful to erase their own, it could lead a murderer straight to them.
Benjy hoisted Charlie’s body into his arms and called for Alain to follow.
“Make sure,” Benjy added, “to come straight to Oliver’s. I don’t want to light up the city looking for you.”
CANIS MINOR
4
HETTY RAISED A HAND to the band of fabric at her neck, tracing a finger along the raised stitches of the star sigils hidden among the floral flourishes. At her touch, the sigils unbound themselves from the fabric, flowing into the form of a woman.
Her eyes were the black of the night sky, and twinkling blue composed her skin, her long braided hair, and the pouches dangling from her waist. At her feet, two hunting dogs strained against their leashes.
Hetty nodded at the Herdsman, and the woman made of stars released the dogs. The beasts ran along the alley. They bounced off walls and stone, erasing all traces of the lingering spells as they made contact. What they didn’t touch the Herdsman cleared away with the sweep of her staff.
In any other situation, Hetty would have directed the Herdsman to define the boundaries of the residue. Then slowly she would slice, crumple, smash, and otherwise destroy the traces remaining of the magic she and Benjy had performed. In alleys such as this, all sorts of enchantments littered the ground. Erasing them all would be as telling as patching a lace dress, but there was no time for the fine work required. This drastic measure was a necessity, especially after what she had just seen.
The Serpent Bearer.
Something like bony fingers glided along her arms.
Benjy might not believe in cursed sigils, but Hetty had seen that sigil with her own eyes many times before, and each time it had been in close quarters with death.
This time would be no different—if they weren’t careful.
With a flick of her hand, Hetty dissipated the spells and a burst of light flooded the alley.
That was a bit dramatic, but it would also blind anyone skulking around.
There was no one about, however. No one rubbing their eyes frantically at the alley’s opening. No one lingering on the street corner with a knife. No one following her along the street as she hurried as quietly as she could to Oliver’s.
Hetty took twists and turns, roundabouts when she could, and even jumped a fence that wouldn’t tangle her skirts. The only time she looked away from the patch of street in front of her was to look upward at the glittering stars to regain her bearings. The pinpricks of light were dimmer in the city, but they gave her guidance all the same.
Only when Hetty caught sight of the abandoned cigar shop that stood on the corner of Oliver’s street did she breathe easily.
Opening the unlocked door and entering, she was greeted by cutlery and dishes left in piles on every available surface in the kitchen. Trousers hung from the ceiling, and one of the lamps flickered like a twitching eye, drawing moths that fluttered inside. Though she wasn’t sure which was the worse sight: a pair of mud-caked shoes sitting on a counter, or the Eventide Observer serving as a tablecloth for a bowl of congealed stew.
Hetty remembered a time when this place didn’t look like a hurricane blew in and parked itself in place for a few days. But that was a time before Thomas left to open a school in Texas for the newly freed.
Thomas left at the top of last fall, and everything about his leaving was a surprise. He wasn’t a teacher, having only recently learned to read. His only talent in carpentry was handing tools to Benjy, and not always the right ones. The day before he told them about Texas, he was making plans to open up a barbershop. And most importantly, Oliver did not go with him.
Thomas and Oliver had been an inseparable pair ever since Hetty matched them up at her wedding. In the years since, they had been a rather steady source of comfort and good sense in their circle of friends. When Hetty first learned of Texas, she assumed they would both be leaving. However, when Thomas carried his bags onto a train headed south, Oliver hadn’t even come to the station to say goodbye.
In fact, Oliver, who freely complained about the slightest upset, had yet to acknowledge Thomas’s departure in any manner. Not by speaking his name, or even cleaning the mess that engulfed the house.
The mess that thankfully hadn’t drifted into his work.
Oliver worked as an embalmer, which made him the perfect person to take in victims of murder and other violence. He always fussed about it, but he never turned them away. Oliver even put on funerals for people who would get pauper’s graves otherwise. Although, that only started because of a few misunderstandings and Hetty spinning a tale about Oliver’s gladly tak
ing on the work.
In the cellar, Benjy peered down at the table with Charlie’s remains.
With a candle floating nearby, it was easier to see the exhaustion that weighed down Benjy’s broad shoulders. A shadow of grief touched his eyes, and perhaps a touch of guilt.
On the opposite side of the table, Oliver sat on a stool, stirring a spoon into a cup of something that was probably too strong to be considered tea. Although the hour was late, he hadn’t changed out of his stained and wrinkled clothes.
But then again, these days he rarely made it to bed at a reasonable hour.
“I’m sure you’re right about that.” Oliver tugged at his beard. “I’m just more concerned that whoever killed him might find their merry way to my home.”
“No need to worry.” Hetty placed the lantern on the bottommost stair. “I took care of it.”
“As I told you she would,” Benjy said, giving her a strained smile. “Hetty is true as the North Star.”
Oliver huffed as he shoved his glasses up his nose. “You mean your wife insisted and you didn’t argue for a change.”
“There wasn’t time.” Hetty approached the table. “Once we saw this.”
Oliver waved a hand over the wounds that the brighter lights only made more grotesque. “You mean this carving on Charlie’s chest?”
“You’ve heard about the cursed sigil, haven’t you?”
“It’s hardly a curse,” Oliver replied, though he absently rapped his knuckles on the table. “Nat Turner used it in his uprising. It was the only sigil he knew, and he burned it into land and flesh alike. What makes it a curse comes from the part of the tale where white folks get their revenge. They don’t know a whit about our magic, or even how the sigils work, but they know enough to memorize that one.”
“And use it to bring destruction,” Hetty said.
“Do you actually think it’s a curse?” Oliver’s smile was bitter and brittle and made him appear even older than what he was. “I can’t believe Benjy hasn’t changed your mind.”
The Conductors Page 5