I checked the clock on the mantle. My meandering had used up a good bit of the afternoon, but I still had a couple of hours to clean up and eat dinner before I went to meet West and then headed back to the speakeasy. Mrs. Kemmner had the radio playing. First a spirited march, then a lively polka. Despite everything, the music made me smile. No matter how the world changed, I knew that polka would never die.
I debated taking a rest and decided against it. Thanks to the Gift, I don’t require much sleep and can go without it longer than if I were mortal. I’ve never tried seeing just how long I could do without, and I hope I never have to find out the hard way.
When I came back downstairs, Mrs. Kemmner had placed a large pot of ham, beans, and potatoes in the middle of the table, along with a loaf of homemade bread, plenty of butter, and bowls, so the lodgers could serve themselves.
Two other men, my fellow lodgers, were already at the table, ladling out ample portions. I found a seat and saw that Mrs. Kemmner was busy in the kitchen. Given the gusto with which my companions attacked the food, I feared she might not get some if she waited.
“Can I make a bowl for you?” I called to her. She turned, startled, and then beamed at me.
“That’s very kind. I would appreciate that. Thank you.”
The other men gave me a look, and I shrugged. I wasn’t trying to win favor. My mother raised me to be polite; God rest her soul.
I filled a bowl for Mrs. Kemmner and grabbed a couple of pieces of bread as well, which I set next to her place, then did the same for myself. It was a good thing that I served her first because the ladle scraped the bottom of the pot by the time I was finished.
“You’re the new guy,” the man across the table and to my left said. He had reddish-blond hair and a square jaw. Broad shoulders and calloused hands told me he had done plenty of hard labor in his life.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I replied, digging in to my food before it cooled.
“Where’re you from?” The man across and to my right spoke through the mouthful of bread that puffed out his cheek like a squirrel. He had short black hair and a dark five o’clock shadow.
“Here and there,” I said off-handedly. “Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Thought I’d come east and see how I liked it.”
“Ain’t never been out west,” the dark-haired man said as if Cleveland was a land of cowboys and tumbleweeds. “Is it different?”
“The buildings are newer,” I replied with a shrug. “People are people wherever they are.”
As the blond ate, the sleeve of his shirt rode up, and I saw a mark like two lightning bolts on the inside of his forearm. The only men I’d met who had tattoos were sailors or criminals. I wondered which he was and decided to keep a close eye on my belongings.
“So where are you really from?” the blond asked. “You know, before America.”
“A little village on the German side of the border with Austria,” I replied. That was part of the cover story West and I had created.
“You don’t sound German.”
I shrugged. “I moved a lot.” I managed a smile that I hoped made me look friendly but a bit dim-witted. “So, how about you?”
“I came from Düsseldorf,” the blond said. He jerked his head toward his companion. “He’s from Berlin.”
“Big cities,” I said. “Must have been interesting.”
“Polluted,” the blond replied. “Full of people who shouldn’t have been there.”
“The same,” the dark-haired man added. “Vagrants and wastrels.”
“That’s too bad.” I tried not to sound interested. These two might be the connection I needed to the groups I’d need to investigate.
“Have you read Der Wehrwolf?” Blondie asked. I remembered West mentioning the book that had caused trouble in Germany.
“What’s that? A potboiler?” I asked, wanting to see what they’d say.
“A cautionary tale,” the dark-haired man said. “A warning about protecting what’s ours from thieves and bandits. In the book, a man builds an army to protect his fortress.” He glanced at his companion. “That’s what we mean to create. An army to protect our folk. The Alliance of the Wehrwolf.”
I understood enough German to realize from the way he said the word that he didn’t mean creatures that changed in the full moon, monsters I knew to be real. He meant war-wolf, defender-wolf. He was a goddamn tree-pisser, marking his territory.
I plastered on a smile that I hope covered my thoughts. These two were dangerously crazy.
“You look like a man who believes in hard work,” Blondie said.
“I do what needs to be done,” I replied.
“If you’re interested in finding people who feel the same way, there’s a meeting tomorrow night at the old Highland House hotel, up on Neversink Mountain,” the blond man added. “I’m Jakob. Just tell the man at the door I invited you. Not everyone is welcome.”
“And I’m Hans,” the dark-haired man said.
“Joe,” I answered. We were busy with food, so we did not shake hands. That was fine with me, because if they were the sort I suspected them to be—the sort I had come to Reading to find—I did not want to be their friend.
“Thanks for the invitation,” I said. “What time?”
“Nine o’clock,” Jakob replied. “You’ll find out what the Free Society is all about, and how you can make a difference. There are a lot of us. You’ll fit right in.”
I smiled, pretending that I didn’t answer because my mouth was full. Mrs. Kemmner had finished her meal and gone to the kitchen. I wondered if she was trying to get the dishes done so she could go back to her knitting, or if perhaps she didn’t like her other two boarders.
Jakob and Hans finished eating and said good night, leaving their dishes on the table. I sopped up bits on my plate with a piece of bread and finished with one of the sugar cookies from a platter in the center of the table. Then I gathered up all of the plates and silverware and carried them out to the kitchen.
“Ach, Joe. You are a good boy.”
It bothered me that she seemed so surprised at such a simple kindness. I wondered how long she had been widowed and whether she was alone in the world. I helped to clear the table when Agata cooked for us, and I made sure our son Patryk helped as well. My mother had always told me that being poor did not excuse a dirty face or bad manners.
“It’s nothing,” I replied. She looked careworn, and I knew that running this house must be hard on her.
“It is something,” She turned and looked at me like a worried mother. “Be careful around those men, Joe. Don’t let them lead you astray.”
My first inclination was to joke about it, but her concern silenced me. “You’re more worried about their folk club than the moonshiners or the gangs?” I asked, genuinely interested in her answer.
She didn’t look at me as she spoke, just kept doing the dishes. “I can’t speak for all the gangs, but the Eighth Streeters aren’t bad boys. They keep the riff-raff out of the neighborhood, and they look out for each other. Not enough jobs for young men these days. As for the moonshiners, there have always been whiskey-makers in these parts, law or no law. It’s an honest profession, even if the government doesn’t agree.”
“But…”
She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but her movements in the dishpan had grown jerky and quick, a sign that something had upset her. “This is a big country. Room enough for everyone. As it should be. My Johan and I, we came here because in Germany, our neighbors said we should not marry. He went to one church; I went to another. Same God, so who cares about the building? He was Polish. I am German. They said, ‘stick to your own kind.’ I asked them, ‘What kind is that? Human?’ But they would not leave us be. So we came here. Where we can all live together. I don’t want that to change.”
I’d already decided that Hans and Jakob were going to have to go. I didn’t want them showing disrespect to Mrs. Kemmner. Now, I suspected that they made her feel unsafe or brought back troubling memor
ies. So they would have to go even sooner, and I would not be gentle.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. I didn’t dare tell her more without the possibility of being overheard. It both bothered me and warmed me that she worried. No one had been concerned like that for me in a long time. West and Sarah had my back, and we were friends. But my mother was many long years in her grave. Despite everything, I had never outgrown liking a bit of mothering, now and then.
“Don’t you have work?” she asked, changing the subject. I took that as my cue to leave.
“Soon. Thank you again for such a good dinner.” Providing a meal was part of my rent. Making it a good meal worth eating was a benefit, not a requirement.
I needed to meet up with West before I went to the speakeasy. Since I’d already changed clothing, I just went back to my room for my gun and knife, and my jacket with a few “extras” in the pockets.
I had plenty to tell West and lots of questions. I only hoped that he and Sarah had discovered some answers because I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were likely to get ugly real soon.
4
West sat on a park bench near the fountain in Penn’s Commons. Instead of his usual suit and hat, West wore a canvas jacket over wool pants and a cabbie hat. I suppose that was so he didn’t look out of place talking to the likes of me. I sat down on the other end of the bench, close enough to hear him but with enough distance that people would not think we were together.
“How are things?” West asked. “You get settled in okay?”
“The rooming house is good. I like the landlady.” I gave him a quick rundown of my conversation with Dr. Ziegler and the unexpected invitation from Jakob and Hans. I left out ditching poor, dead Karl in the outhouse, but I did fill West in on the hexing and what had gone on at the speakeasy.
“Damn, you move fast. Good work,” West replied.
I appreciated the praise, although part of me wanted to remind West that I didn’t work for him. “How about you?”
“Learned a bit more about some of the dangerous Völkisch groups,” West said, staring out at the fountain as if we were discussing the weather. “The Order of the Golden Dawn started at the end of the last century, dedicated to occult practices. Some of its members overlapped with the Thule, another Völkisch occult society, with some troubling political ties.”
“And the Free Society?”
“That would be the Free Society of Teutonia. Started as a drinking club,” West said.
“Really? And they are dangerous, why?”
He shrugged. “I guess they started talking politics with their beer and got taken over by some of the hotheads who don’t like the treaty from the last war, hate the Bolsheviks, and aren’t keen on a lot of other people, either.”
“Sounds like the kind of group that would attract guys like Hans and Jakob,” I said. “But not the sort to win over the swells.”
“No, that’s The Order and for the inner circle, the Thule,” West agreed. “I’m nearly certain that the president of Reading Railroad during the massacre was an Order member. Same with the next railroad president, who cut wages and caused the Great Railroad Strike of 1922.”
“What about the current president?”
“Odds are good he’s also a member. Maybe we’ll find out when we go to the event. If the dark magic we’re looking for goes all the way to the top, then there’s something in it for them, or they wouldn’t bother,” West said. “So if the workingmen think they’re going to throw off the shackles of their oppressors, what are the oppressors expecting?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe someone is playing both ends against the middle,” I mused.
“Almost certainly,” West agreed. “And while you’re cozying up to those two rough chaps, keep your eyes open. There are some symbols to look for. The wolfsangel looks like two lightning bolts or two of the letter ‘S’ drawn with sharp angles.”
“Ah,” I replied. “Hans had that tattooed on his forearm.” Well, that decided my earlier question. Definitely criminal, if he held with the likes of the Free Society.
“There’s also the totenkopf—a skull and crossbones. And the sonnenrad, a wheel within a wheel with wolfsangels as the spokes.”
“The braucher I went to see had a vision with the skull symbol and the wheel,” I told him. “He didn’t know what they meant, but he was frightened of them.”
“Interesting. Keep your eyes open when you go to that gathering they invited you to—and for god’s sake, Joe, watch your back.”
“What are you and Sarah doing?” I asked.
“Hobnobbing with people we have reason to think are part of The Order. A mesmerist by the name of Erik Jan Hanussen has been taking Washington D.C. and Harrisburg by storm with his performances, and he came to Reading for a special event. We managed to finagle an invitation. Hanussen is hip-deep in dark magic, and he’s got dodgy friends back in Germany. I’m nearly certain he’s hexerei.”
“So what do you need from me?” I asked. A glance at my watch told me I’d need to head to the speakeasy soon for my night as a bouncer.
“Sarah and I are going to a fancy reception up at the Pagoda on Mount Penn day after tomorrow. Hanussen is going to be the guest of honor. Sarah’s already put the touch on her Harringworth Coal friends for the inside dirt on the railroad presidents.”
“Dr. Ziegler told me that some of the Völkisch groups with all of their ritual and falderal also gave honor to the old gods. The really old gods,” I added. “Veles’s name came up. One of his many titles is God of the Underworld. And in case you were wondering, he and Krukis, my patron, don’t get along.”
West rolled his eyes. “It figures. How much of a problem is this going to be?”
“I’d say if anything, it makes Krukis more invested in our outcome since I imagine he’d enjoy thwarting whatever Veles is doing,” I said. I didn’t mention my vision on the train. As much as I valued my connection to Krukis, I didn’t enjoy feeling like a freak around other humans.
“Pissing matches between ancient gods isn’t in my field manual,” West replied. “So that’s for you to deal with.”
“Thanks.”
“There’s another piece to this,” West continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “At the top of the Pagoda is a bell the builder brought over from Japan. And etched onto the bell is a prophecy, supposedly about the end times.”
“Sarah’s going after the bell, isn’t she?”
West grinned. “Got it in one. I was hoping you’d be our driver if you can get off from the bar. That way we have backup, and you’ve got a chance to observe without being seen.”
“Because I’ll be part of the help, and the help are invisible.”
West had the good grace to at least look chagrined. “Yeah.”
We’d used that unpleasant truth to our advantage before. Rich people didn’t look at the servants, didn’t deal with them as individuals aside from the head butler or housekeeper. That made it easy to infiltrate a household or an event. And since they tended to forget the help were around, conversations took place that shouldn’t have, making information easy to glean.
“All right. I assume you and Sarah will see to getting me proper clothes?” Sarah especially enjoyed dressing me up.
She kept a tux that was custom made for me at her townhouse, for times when she needed a bodyguard. If I remembered right, she also had a black suit that cost more than I was likely to earn in a year, and a chauffeur’s livery, complete with cap. West spent his salary on his flashy Buick and natty clothes. That was out of my league, but I had to admit to preening a bit when Sarah kitted me out like an organ grinder’s monkey.
“I think she brought a trunk just for you,” West observed drily. “It’s a good thing she’s a heavy tipper because that poor bellman earned his pay just bringing all her bags from the train station.”
I knew for a fact that West didn’t travel light unless he was undercover as a blue-collar sort. I’d seen his steamer trunk, although h
e’d had the good sense not to ask me to carry it for him.
I glanced over at West and realized he had a book next to him. “What are you pretending to read?”
He rolled his eyes. “Not pretending. I had time to kill before you got here. HP Lovecraft. An odd, fabulistic horror tale, with creatures from the depths.”
“From the depths, huh? That’s Veles’s realm, you know. And the mines in these parts go very deep,” I replied.
West looked startled. “You think there’s a grain of truth to the stories?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t read them. It just seems like an odd coincidence with everything we’re dealing with. How did you pick that book to read now?”
West regarded the novel warily. “Someone left it behind in my train car. I wasn’t tired and found it. After I started reading, I couldn’t sleep for a whole different set of reasons.”
“That good, huh?” It took a lot for a mere book to spook a guy like West. “It is horror,” I added, letting him off the hook, just a little. Nightmares were nothing to trifle with. I didn’t know much about West’s history, other than that he’d been in the War, and seen some bloody shootouts against the Mob. We all had our ghosts.
“You think someone left it there for me?” he asked. “That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”
“I told you what I heard the ghosts say, at the underpass. Monsters from the mines. Hell spawn from the depths. Vril-ya.”
“I have no idea what that last word even means.”
“Neither do I, but it must mean something,” I countered.
“All right,” West relented. “I’ll see if I can read through to the end tonight. It counts as work if it’s for a case, right?” he added with a lopsided grin.
“I’ll see you in the alley behind the Hotel Berkshire Saturday night. Right now, I need to get to work. Wouldn’t want to lose my job when I just started.”
The night at the speakeasy under Izzy’s Market proved quiet. Maybe talk had spread about poor Karl dropping over dead, but since it wasn’t the first hex in the neighborhood, I doubted that would slow down the regulars’ thirst for beer, camaraderie, and illegal betting.
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