Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1)

by Nick Wisseman

  Neva opened her eyes. “You’re going through with it?”

  The Irishwoman nodded grimly. “After his service.”

  Service—a word that conjured the image of Wiley lying in a casket, cold and morbidly composed. Picturing that was almost as bad as seeing him fall in the Administration Building. “Why? You heard him. It’s not at all what he would have wanted.”

  “It’s what’s needed.” Brin looked at a crate labeled “Pulleys,” but the lack of focus in her eyes suggested she saw something else. “My da worked at the Yards for ten years. Packing meat twelve hours a day to provide for us ... Until his hand got caught in a grinder, and the bosses tossed him without a second thought.”

  She hunched slightly. “We’ve been struggling to make ends meet ever since. I’m out of the house now, but I send what I can spare from shifts at the Palace and molding metal trinkets when I have the chance ... It’s not enough. I’m a poor artist; they don’t fetch much.”

  She straightened. “And it’s not right. We’re just cogs in the capitalists’ machines. Parts they can replace when we get old and broken. It shouldn’t be that way. It can’t—not with the bust that’s coming and so many more families about to be ruined.”

  Neva tried to summon a counterargument and found she didn’t care. All she could think of was Copeland shooting Mr. DeBell, then Wiley, then Mr. DeBell again ... as her father welcomed each bullet into his body. “Where are they burying Wiley?”

  “Havenwood’s cemetery, but you can’t come.” Brin motioned to Neva’s heavily bandaged leg. “For one thing, you’ve no business putting weight on that yet. For another, Copeland’s looking for you: I’ve heard guards asking after ‘Neva Freeman’ on the grounds. Why is that, by the way?”

  She shrugged.

  Brin wouldn’t let it go. “What happened in there? No one’s saying much, but Copeland’s claiming Mr. DeBell wrested a pistol free and shot Wiley and the other guard. How do you figure in that? Who shot you?”

  No help for it; she might as well tell someone. “Bog—the other guard. He and Copeland came in to kill Mr. DeBell. I think his whistling unsettled them.” She summarized the rest as quickly as possible: how she’d bent her way in and what had happened after.

  It still hurt. Still dredged up the image of Wiley falling again. Which conjured Augie’s fall. Which left her breathless with pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” Brin said quietly when Neva finished. “But it’s not your fault.”

  She shook her head, hoping the motion would toss off her tears—dear God, she was sick of crying. “Why was Wiley there?”

  It was the Irishwoman’s turn to shrug noncommittally.

  “Please: why was he there? Why did he go to the Administration Building so late?”

  “Neva ...”

  “Just tell me!”

  Brin stared up at the ceiling. “I think he was trying to find you.”

  Neva slumped back into the improvised bed. “So it is my fault.”

  “You didn’t know Copeland and Bog would do what they did. And Wiley certainly couldn’t have predicted—”

  “No, it’s fine. Just ... say something at the service. For me.”

  Brin gave her a long look, then stood to leave. “I will.” She tapped a basket that smelled faintly of apples. “When you’re ready to eat, there are some morsels here, along with the necklace and that pretty doodle you were clutching when we found you.”

  “Thank you,” Neva murmured, as much for Mr. DeBell’s drawing as the necklace and the food. She wondered briefly if Brin had felt—and overcome—the shells’ pull. Or maybe one of the other anarchists had handled the cowries, and the Irishwoman had never been tempted? ... It didn’t matter.

  “There’s a pot there,” Brin said, gesturing at a bedpan that didn’t smell of apples. “I’ll try to duck in before we deal with the Wheel. If I can’t, well—you’ll hear it. Even in here.”

  “I’m not sure I want to, but ... I appreciate the rest.”

  Brin squeezed her shoulder and headed for the front. “Oh,” she said, turning back. “A man’s been looking for you: Derek DeBell. Would he be Mr. DeBell’s son?”

  “One of them. Did you tell him I’m all right?”

  “No, but I will. He’s been in the Machinery Hall twice, hovering near the door to this storage room. Asked for you at the Algerian and Tunisian Village too.”

  “Tell him I’m fine. You can trust him. He’s like us.”

  Brin raised her eyebrows. “Well, then. I’ll seek him out when I have the chance.”

  “Can you ask him about Mr. DeBell’s service? I don’t know what Mrs. DeBell’s been told, but she already thought he was dead ...”

  “I’ll ask. You: rest.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Neva found she didn’t have to make much of an effort: once she was alone, exhaustion claimed her and dragged her into dark dreams again.

  BUT FOR THE FIRST TIME since she’d been bitten, she saw more than just memories in her sleep—swirls of vivid images filled her mind, dizzying her thoughts with a kaleidoscope of people and places. Some she recognized; some she didn’t:

  A dark-haired beauty grimaced at the mirror, brushed the cold sore above her lip, and smoothed the blemish away ...

  A grizzled, one-legged man set his crutches on the side of a picturesque creek, pulled his sketchbook out, and drew the scene in perfect detail ...

  An adolescent shouted in anger, toppled a tree as if it were nothing more than a broomstick, and broke into tears as the tree buried another boy and the girl he’d been kissing ...

  A salesman shrugged at a prospect’s refusal, whistled, and grinned as the prospect changed his mind and reached for his wallet ...

  An old woman fed her hair into a loom, teasing gossamer threads out of her head to weave a shimmering tapestry ...

  A grubby toddler clapped her hands in delight, and the swirl of ants at her feet rippled like a wave ...

  A boy flicked a spark from his finger ...

  A second boy echoed a train’s screeching brakes ...

  A girl bent her bones.

  NEVA DIDN’T WAKE UNTIL the Machinery Hall went quiet.

  Its thrums and bangs had helped her sleep after the dreams passed, and the clatter’s absence had called her back to consciousness—it must be late. Unless the surviving anarchists had dynamited the Wheel and caused the Fair to shut down early? But surely she would have heard the explosion. And even without a window to look out, she sensed it was well into the evening, probably eleven; regular closing time.

  Had Brin and the rest failed, then? The storage room was empty, and the basket still where the Irishwoman had left it. No one looked to have visited since.

  Neva touched her forehead: warm, but not terrible. Her fever seemed of the normal variety. That was concerning enough on its own—was her wound infected?—but she felt in control of herself. A quick peek outside would probably be manageable.

  Her leg disagreed: she’d underestimated how much it would throb when she put weight on it.

  Neva grimaced as she collapsed back in the blankets. She needed crutches or something similar. But the crates she could see into were filled with gears, bolts, and wires—nothing useful. Maybe she should wait.

  Except something had happened; something had gone wrong. It was probably best if the anarchists had failed, but she didn’t want them to have been hurt or imprisoned. If she could just find a broomstick or even a spare board ...

  Or her arms. She could use her arms.

  The Barnum & Bailey Circus included a menagerie, and Neva had spent more than a few hours watching the chimpanzee walk on its knuckles, using his long arms to provide added support as he negotiated his pen. Could she mimic him? She probably couldn’t stretch her arms that far without tearing skin, but she could extend them a bit and truncate her legs a similar amount ... There.

  The result must have looked grotesque: her bending over, putting most of her weight on elongated arms while her good leg
steadied her in back and her bad leg dragged on a blanket. The awkward locomotion hurt too—there was no way to avoid a certain amount of agony—but it was feasible. She made it to the front of the storage room without falling

  She couldn’t risk anyone seeing her like this in the main hall, though. So after she’d pulled herself up by the handle of the storage room’s door, she restored herself to normal proportions and opened the door, prepared to lean against the wall and limp out to the Court of Honor.

  But Neva didn’t take the first step—a man was blocking the main entrance.

  He hadn’t seen her yet; he was scanning the rest of the Hall, which was only dimly illuminated now that most of the lights had been shut off. But the Court’s still-blazing lamps backlit his profile, and his form seemed ... familiar.

  “Derek?” she called uncertainly. It looked like him, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

  “Neva?” the man called back. But not in Derek’s voice; this wasn’t her brother.

  This was Wiley.

  “You’re alive,” she breathed, finally taking that first step—and promptly stumbling as her leg buckled.

  “Neva! Stay there! I’ll come to you!” He did so quickly, sprinting around the various exhibits that blocked the most direct path. When he reached her, he offered his shoulder to lean on. “Are you all right?”

  She couldn’t believe how good he looked—and felt. “I’m well enough, but what about you? Your side ... Brin said you were dead.”

  He glanced down at himself and shrugged. “That might explain why I woke in a casket.”

  “What?” Neva pulled away enough that she could take him in. He seemed ... hale. But oddly dressed. He was out of uniform, clothed in an older style: his tweed jacket smacked of the previous generation’s sensibilities. Maybe they were the only fresh garments the hospital had on hand to bury him in? But how could they have mistaken him for a corpse? “Did you wake during the service?”

  “Before it, I think. No one was in the backroom, so I just ... left.”

  Gently, she put her hand over his side. Beneath his jacket, she could feel a heavy bandage wrapped around his chest. “How are you walking—running? How are you still here?”

  His eyes clouded. “I don’t know. I don’t remember yesterday at all; I think I slept through it. Maybe I stopped breathing at one point, and they thought ... well, what anyone would think.”

  “What I thought.” Neva glided her hand up to his other shoulder, squeezing it to make sure he was real, her hand brushing his neck in the process. “I still don’t believe it ... The others—have you told them?”

  Wiley’s gaze grew even murkier. “The Guard?”

  “No—Brin, and Roland, and Pieter, and Quill. Have you seen them? Did they ... Oh, not now.” She’d been wrong: her fever hadn’t been the ordinary sort. Fueled by the insects’ venom, the heat was rising in her again, enflaming her body and her mind. It was bad this time, almost as bad as that first night. But she’d been getting better ... hadn’t she?

  “Neva?” asked Wiley.

  “Inside,” she panted. “Help me inside.” She needed to contain the fever, needed to be contained. The storage room would do for both.

  Neva tried to lean on Wiley’s proffered arm, but her leg chose that moment to give out again, and she fell against his injured side. She gasped louder than he did—with barely a wince, he bent and scooped her up in his arms.

  A few sturdy strides saw them inside the storage room. “The back,” Neva murmured when Wiley seemed unsure where to set her. She was burning up now; it wouldn’t have surprised her to see the Boer’s clothing smoldering where it touched her skin. He even felt hot himself.

  As he navigated the corridor of crates, she tried to summon the chill that normally signaled the fever’s abatement. She needed the cold, needed frost in her veins.

  But as Wiley laid her atop the back area's blankets and folded his coat into a pillow, the warmth within her only increased, scalding the undersides of her skin. The cold wasn’t coming. She was going to roast from the inside out, a stopped-up geyser accumulating steam and pressure that couldn’t—but had to—be released. If she didn’t find a way to let the heat go, to channel it, she was, quite literally, going to burn to death.

  So she kissed Wiley.

  She hadn’t planned to, but he’d been leaning over her, trying to arrange the makeshift mattress into something more comfortable. And as his mouth parted to ask a question, she pressed her lips to his.

  Yet this was no tentative peck.

  Her flesh was aflame, and the kiss reflected that fire, her mouth opening and closing, tongue darting and caressing. Wiley was stunned into passivity for a moment. Yet it wasn’t long before he matched her heat, returning the kiss and running his hands up and down her near-naked body; she was wearing clean smallclothes, but that was it—that was all he had to remove while she unbuttoned his old-fashioned trousers.

  Then he was inside her.

  Their lovemaking was at once wild and tender. Wild, because Neva translated her fever into a passion Wiley eagerly returned. Tender, because even in the throes, they were careful to avoid each other’s injuries, he putting no weight on her thigh and she none on his torso.

  Her bandage was spotted red when they finished, though; there had been too much motion, too much energy for it to be otherwise. But it was a fair trade. The fever was spent—just as they were—and Neva only slightly chilled. Nothing burrowing into Wiley’s arms couldn’t fix.

  “Are you ... all right now?” he asked haltingly, as if he were having trouble believing what had just happened.

  She folded herself further into his warmth, his chest hair surprisingly soft. “Yes. I’m better.”

  “Your leg—did I hurt it? You’re bleeding again.”

  “It’s fine. I probably just tugged the stitches a bit. And your side?”

  “Right this second, I feel good as new.” He tightened his arm around her protectively.

  They lay like that for some minutes: comfortable, happy, safe ... Until Neva remembered what Wiley’s fellow Boer had revealed before she’d blacked out two nights ago. “Pieter said there was a girl in South Africa: Anele. Did you—”

  “What is this?” His healing embrace loosened, then deserted her as he wriggled free.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, craning her neck to look at him. But he didn’t appear hurt or angry that she’d overstepped. He was reaching for the basket Brin had left behind that morning—it smelled even more of apples when Wiley opened it. “Oh, that’s just breakfast ... Dinner now, I suppose. Help yourself.”

  Yet he withdrew not an apple, or the cheese Neva could smell now too, but the cowry shell necklace.

  “What is this?” he repeated, holding it by the leather cord, his eyes alight.

  What was this indeed? Had the artifact called to Wiley? Sung out to him even though he had no ability Neva knew of? And no bite marks or rashes on his body—she could see all of it, and there were none.

  “Wiley,” she said, shivering from more than just chills, “don’t.”

  He put the necklace on anyway.

  And as his skin spasmed and discolored, curdling like multicolored milk, the fever roared back in Neva, fanning the flames of her horror and compelling her to roll over, lower her head, and project her spine into Wiley’s throat, her vertebrae acting like barbs as she retracted the jagged bone spear and tore out his Adam’s apple.

  Part II

  Chicago: July 1894

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WILEY COLLAPSED TO the floor, blood gushing from his throat and sluicing down Neva’s back. When her spine returned to its proper alignment, bits of windpipe spattered the floor.

  She shook her head. Now wasn’t the time for flagellating herself with memories—not with federal soldiers marching into the Court of Honor. And yet ...

  The cowry shells slid from Wiley’s limp grasp, and his skin calmed immediately. She tried to take his hand, but the strengt
h drained out of her as suddenly as the fever.

  She pulled back from the railing she’d been leaning against on Manufactures and Liberal Arts’ southern rooftop promenade. But the soldiers weren’t here for her: they broke cadence within a few strides, their precise motions devolving into the shambolic, uncoordinated steps of eager tourists. Today, the third morning of July, they were here to see the White City.

  Not that it was very white anymore.

  There was so much blood, blood she’d caused. And Wiley was ... Wiley was ... Oh, GOD.

  The Fair had been shuttered for eight months, its closing ceremonies at the end of October marred by a somber remembrance for the mayor of Chicago, shot to death in his home a few days prior by a “crazed” anarchist—Roland. He’d been trying to make up for the failure on Chicago Day, when Pieter had been apprehended before he could light the fuse and Brin had disappeared entirely.

  But Neva couldn’t rise, couldn’t move, couldn’t do ANYTHING but hold on to the feeling—the desperate, tiny hope—that something wasn’t right. Something about Wiley hadn’t been right.

  His skin had curdled, and something about him hadn’t been ... him.

  “Look,” Dob said, pointing at the soldiers. “They’re skipping!”

  Neva followed the young white boy’s arm. A few of the men had splintered off from the main group, prancing northwards and laughing as they drove a confused hobo before them. Two of the soldiers began moving their hands in lazy circles, possibly miming the turning of the Wheel, which still stood to the west, partially dismantled but otherwise undamaged.

  Not a bad state, compared to the rest of the Fair.

  Fires had claimed several structures in January, including the Casino and the Peristyle. Arsonists might have started the blazes. But it was just as likely that one of the thousands of homeless squatting in the fairgrounds during the terrible winter had simply failed to contain a cooking fire. The remaining buildings were decaying, their staff-coated walls wearing fast now that no maintenance crews touched them up at night.