The Last Magician

by Lisa Maxwell

  He huffed out a breath, amused. She must have known that he could take everything she held dear and twist it to breaking, but still she wasn’t afraid. It took quite a bit to impress him, but Dolph Saunders thought this girl might have enough backbone to do just that. Maybe if things weren’t so precarious.

  Nibs cleared his throat.

  Dolph frowned at the interruption. He would have made an example of anyone else, but Nibsy was rarely wrong about his impulses.  And at the moment Nibs was eyeing the girl thoughtfully.

  “You think we should keep her?” Dolph asked.

  “What could it hurt to see what she can do?” He glanced over at Dolph. “She might have her uses.”

  Dolph turned to the girl. “I doubt you’re anything special,” he said, a bold-faced lie. But best make sure the girl didn’t know he was too interested. “Still . . . if Bridget thinks you might be of help—”

  Before he could finish speaking, the lights in the barroom surged, glowing so brightly that many of those drinking at the bar and at tables around the room squinted, raising their arms to shield themselves from the glow. The lights pulsed twice, the energy in the room flickering and crackling, and then the electric in the barroom went out completely.

  The city was used to the power surges and outages that came with the ever-growing expansion of the electrical grid, but this had been something more. The second the room had plunged into darkness, he felt like what little remaining magic he had was gone.

  For a moment he felt the shock of being hollowed out. Empty. Like a living death.

  It had lasted less than a minute, but the stark terror he’d experienced when his magic was briefly torn from him left a coldness behind that went clear to the bone. Even after the lamps were lit and the room was aglow, his skin still felt chilled despite the stuffy warmth of the saloon.

  A BAD BUSINESS

  Viola Vaccarelli watched as the lamps around the edges of the saloon were lit, illuminating the apprehensive expressions of the patrons. She understood the nervous glances they traded with one another, because she’d felt it too. The blackout had been something more than the usual inconvenience.

  Dolph caught her eye from across the room. He was already making his way through the uneasy crowd to where she stood behind the bar.

  Leaning on the bar for support, he spoke in low tones, as though he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “You felt that?”

  Viola made a pretense of polishing a glass, but gave him a subtle nod as she kept her attention on the room, alert for any sign of attack. “What was it?” she murmured low enough so the patrons at the bar couldn’t hear.

  Behind her, a man called for another drink, but she ignored him and set a glass in front of Dolph instead.

  “No idea.”

  But she didn’t miss the way his hand tightened on the cane. Ever since the night on the bridge, the night they lost Leena, Dolph had been changed. She knew the loss had been a blow, but there had to be something more to have made him so different. Where once he never betrayed his worries, now he was often on edge.

  The customer down the bar was whistling now, hooting to get Viola’s attention as he thumped his glass on the counter. “Hey! You hear me or what, puttana?” the man called.

  Dolph glanced over and began to push himself away from the bar, but Viola tapped his arm and shook her head slightly. She didn’t need protection, at least not from some drunken stronzo making a nuisance of himself.

  “Scusa,” she said, her other hand already finding the familiar cool weight of the knife she had tucked into her skirts. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Try not to kill him too badly,” Dolph said, pulling away from her and smiling softly into his glass.

  Viola made sure she had the man’s attention before she gave him a slow, warm smile. He elbowed the customer sitting next to him, gloating at his success, as she began to approach him. She let him think she was interested, amused even at his antics, and with the smile still on her face, she drew the knife and with a flick of her wrist sent it sailing through the air.

  The satisfying thunk of it finding a sheath in the cast zinc vibrated down the length of the bar, and she didn’t hide her laugh at the look of surprised horror that flashed across the man’s face. She took her time closing the distance between them to retrieve her blade, and when she finally made it to the end of the bar, she leaned across to whisper a warning into his ear.

  When she pulled back, away from the rank stink of his body and the beer on his breath, she saw that the man’s face had all but drained of color. Va bene. Good.

  “Thank you for not skewering him,” Dolph said with a hint of humor when she returned.

  Viola made a throaty sound of disapproval under her breath. “You’ve told me it’s a bad business to kill the customers, no?” she said tartly. She had trouble controlling her accent when she was angry, and for a moment she heard her mother in her own voice and felt a fierce pang of longing.

  “I appreciate you watching out for my bottom line,” Dolph mused. “Perhaps you could also watch out for my property? I’ll have to pay to repair what you’ve done to my bar.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not even sure I can repair the mark that knife of yours left.”

  Viola shrugged off his concern. “Leave it as a warning,” she said, picking up another glass to distract herself.

  “I might,” he said after a second.

  She could practically feel him watching her, as he often did when he was trying to press her into opening up to him. But she didn’t have anything to say.  What was done was done. She’d made her choices, and if she had regrets, she’d save them for Father McGean.

  “What sort of game was that trick with the lights?” At first the voice seemed to come out of nowhere, but then Jianyu materialized next to Dolph, his elbows resting on the bar as though he’d been there all along.

  He probably had been, Viola thought with some irritation. Jianyu’s ability to disappear was a skill that came in handy when Dolph needed to know things, but it was less opportune for the rest of them. In Dolph’s crew, it was nearly impossible to keep secrets—no matter how personal they might be.

  Jianyu had been with them only a little over a year. Maybe Dolph trusted the boy after so short a time, but Viola was still uneasy around him. Especially when he looked as humorless as he did then.

  Dolph lowered his voice and slipped into Cantonese, and the two went back and forth for a moment in tense, low tones, effectively keeping Viola from their conversation. As her frustration—and temper—began to grow, she thumped the glass down to get their attention, but they were too engrossed in their argument to notice.

  Just as she’d finally had enough and was about to say something, Jianyu’s posture changed. “You really think it could have been the Order?” he asked, doubt thick in his voice. “It doesn’t seem their style to strike so broadly.  Too much risk that it would affect more than our kind.”

  Viola hated to admit it, but . . . “He’s right. The Order usually prefers to strike in secret.”

  “I don’t know what else it could have been,” Dolph admitted. “There’s been no word on the streets?”

  Jianyu shook his head. “Not even a whisper.”

  “I don’t like it,” Viola said. “Nothing good happens when the rats all go to ground.”

  “I agree,” Jianyu said, giving Viola an appreciative glance. Then he tilted his head to gesture across the room. “Who’s the girl? I saw her come in with Werner. She moves like a cat about to pounce.”

  Viola couldn’t keep herself from smiling at the aptness of the description.

  “Bridget sent her.” Dolph downed the rest of the ale and passed the glass back to Viola. “Tells me she’s a thief.”

  “You have enough of those already,”  Viola said, dismissing the idea as easily as Dolph had.

  “Bridget doesn’t usually waste my time. Nibs thinks she might be of use.”

  “You will try her?” Jianyu asked.

&nb
sp; Dolph squinted across the room to where Werner and the girl stood. “Yes. I think I will,” he said. “Profits have been down lately, especially with the last raid. If she can work the Dead Line undetected, she could be an asset.”

  The girl didn’t look like much. She was tall, yes, and she held herself with a calmness that Werner certainly didn’t have. But her clothes were too fine, her skin too fresh and soft. It took strength to last in Dolph Saunders’ world, and from across the room, Viola wasn’t sure the girl had it.

  “And if she can’t?” Viola asked, almost feeling sorry for her.

  “It won’t be my loss, now, will it?”

  No, it wouldn’t be, Viola thought. Dolph was good to his people and did what he could to protect them. Certainly he’d feel regret about her loss, as he did about Spot and Appo . . . and certainly he mourned Leena still. But he valued those who could take care of themselves.

  In that way he wasn’t that different from the other bosses. In the Bowery it wasn’t always a matter of good and evil. Often it was a matter of what you could live with. What—or who—you were willing to sacrifice to survive. It was a lesson she’d learned well enough herself.

  Dolph clapped Jianyu on the shoulder. “I need information. If it was the Order, they’ll be celebrating. Someone will slip up.”

  Jianyu finished his drink. “I will look into it myself.”

  Dolph tilted his head toward Viola, who came closer. “That girl—I want you to keep an eye on her for me tonight, eh? She’ll have no second chance here.”

  TO STEAL THE NIGHT

  Esta watched Dolph Saunders make his way back across the sawdust-covered floor of the saloon to where she and Werner waited. He walked unevenly, putting his weight on the cane he held in his left hand, but Esta didn’t mistake that for a weakness. Not with the way patrons parted for him without a word as he passed.

  And not with the way the two at the bar had followed his every move, like he was the center of their universe. The girl behind the bar didn’t look much older than Esta herself, maybe seventeen. Then there was the boy who had appeared, it seemed, out of nowhere. One minute the space next to Dolph had been empty, and then in a blink, the boy had materialized.

  He wore his black hair in a long braid down his back in an older style she’d seen in Chinatown when she’d stolen the Dragon’s Eye. He was dressed in the style of the day: close-fitting vest and trim pants, but his black shirt was made of silk and had a mandarin collar. Like the girl, he clearly had talents of his own, but even from across the barroom, Esta could tell from his posture that he held a wary respect for Dolph.

  “My apologies,” Dolph said, taking his seat at the small round table once more and pinning them with his one-eyed stare.

  “The lights—” Werner shifted into anxious German, as though to keep Esta from understanding.

  “It happens,” Dolph said, cutting him off.

  But Esta understood it was a lie. The flare of the lights had been something more than an outage. It wasn’t that Dolph Saunders had any visible tell—he kept his voice calm, his posture easy and still—but with the unease permeating the barroom, the man’s stillness spoke volumes.

  He turned to Esta and shifted back into the unaccented English he’d originally spoken in. “I’ve decided to give you a trial.”

  She bobbed her head in acknowledgment and thanks, keeping all trace of the victory she was feeling from her expression. She was one step closer to her goal.

  “Don’t be so pleased with yourself. Not yet, at least,” he growled. “It’s been a slow night, and I’ve seen at least fifteen leave already because of that trick of the lights. Nobody else is going to come in this late, especially with the power still out. If you’re going to work for me, the thing you need to know before we begin is that I hate to lose and I can’t stand waste.  Tonight will be both—a loss of profit and a waste of my employees’ talents. Rectify that.  You’ve got twenty minutes to turn me a profit for this evening.” He leaned forward, a gleam in his eye. “Steal me the night, girl.”

  Esta couldn’t help but smile. Steal me the night, like it was an impossible task. Like she hadn’t been born to do exactly that.

  Her limbs might have still felt drained, and the back of her head still ached from whatever they’d hit her with earlier, but her blood was free of the opium’s effects now, so without a word she turned and lost herself in the crowd. Even with the electric lights still out, there was barely room to step between the bleary-eyed men and women who stared morosely into their cups. Easy pickings, really.

  But these weren’t the sort of marks Esta usually gravitated to. They had a desperation hanging about them, an air of exhaustion and hope and regret all mingled with the warmth of their magic.  They probably worked long hours to afford what little relaxation an evening at the Strega could give them. She wouldn’t steal from them. Not even for Dolph Saunders.

  Besides, she had the sense it wouldn’t be enough to bring him a pile of their coins. To earn his respect and a place in his world, it would take more than money.

  From behind the bar, the girl watched, tracking her through the barroom with subtle adjustments but never actually looking in Esta’s direction. No doubt Dolph had instructed her to keep an eye on her . . . which gave Esta an idea.

  • • •

  It didn’t take her twenty minutes, but the opium had drained her more than she’d expected, and it took every bit of her energy to slip through time undetected as she made her way around the saloon, selecting her prizes. It was barely twelve minutes later when she faced Dolph Saunders once again.

  “You’ve got more time,” he said, barely glancing up at her. “I told you, I can’t abide waste.”

  In reply, she tossed a fat leather wallet onto the table, the money within spilling out of the unlocked clasp. The eyes of the man standing behind Dolph went wide in recognition, and he reached into his coat, searching for the wallet that was sitting in front of him.

  Dolph watched as the man picked up the wallet and counted the bills inside. Then he turned back to Esta, unimpressed. “With more time, you could have brought me twice as much.”

  “I can only bring you what they’re carrying, and in this crowd, that isn’t much,” she told him easily. “If I take all of it, what will they have left to buy your drinks with?”

  Dolph Saunders frowned before glancing up at Werner. “Tell Bridget I can’t use her.”

  Esta ignored him. She pulled out a brightly polished brass disk she’d taken from the guy who’d appeared at the bar and set it on the table. It turned out he wasn’t actually invisible. When she slowed time, she could see that he’d simply been manipulating the light and shadows of the room, bending them around him to make it seem like he’d disappeared.

  Dolph Saunders stared at the disk. “Impressive. Though you can buy these anywhere over on Mott Street these days.”

  “I haven’t been to Mott Street today. Do they sell these there as well?” She tossed a gleaming silver knife with a thin stiletto blade onto the table before he could finish. It slid across the scarred wooden surface and came to a rest in front of him, the sharp point aimed directly at him. The bare tang of the knife had a series of arrowlike marks like the letter V cut into the metal.

  Dolph Saunders looked up at Esta then, piercing her with that too-steady gaze of his. “You must not value your life to steal from Viola.”

  “On the contrary—I value myself too much to do anything less.” She leaned forward, propping herself on the table so they were eye to eye. “I can steal you all the coins you want. Even if I’d taken every penny from every pocket here tonight, there would have still been room for you to doubt my value. But I can do more for you than steal a few dollars. Like I said . . .” She pulled out her final coup and held it up so the entire table could see. “I can steal anything. No one can catch me. Not your crew . . .”  With that, she gently set the silver gorgon head in front of Dolph. “Not even you.”

  Dolph Saunders picked up
the piece that had, moments before, been securely attached to the top of his cane. His features were unreadable as he examined it and confirmed that, indeed, she’d managed to steal the carved silver face from right under his nose. Right out from his hands, to be exact. Then he looked up at her with that cold, single-eyed stare.

  Esta shifted uneasily. For the first time all evening, she thought maybe she had gone too far. Maybe she should have stopped with the barmaid’s knife. A strange circle of silence surrounded Dolph Saunders’ table, as though everyone who’d remained could sense that something in the air had changed—and not for the better.

  But then Dolph huffed out an almost amused breath, and his hard mouth turned up slightly into what might have been a smile. It changed something in his face—not that it made him look less intimidating. A smile on Dolph Saunders was like one on a tiger: surprising, unsettling, and most of all, a reminder that the cat had teeth.

  He took his time refitting the knob onto his case, shaking his head again as he examined the completed piece. Then he glanced over at the boy next to him, who gave a barely perceptive nod. “Thank Bridget for me,” Dolph said finally. “I’ll take the girl on. For now, at least.”

  Werner backed away from the table, but any relief she might have felt was quickly erased by the realization that she was now alone with Dolph Saunders and the rough-looking boys standing behind his table. They were all built like boxers, and their tailored vests were cut to emphasize their trim waists and wide shoulders. Each boy wore a common uniform of an outlandishly bright shirt and a derby hat cocked to the left over his slicked-back hair.

  Not boys, Esta reminded herself. In this city, even boys no older than fifteen would have been men for years. Each would have earned their swagger by surviving childhood, and then by finding and keeping a place in an organization like the Devil’s Own. She’d be an idiot to mistake their youth for innocence. Or to forget how dangerous their world had made them.

  “What’s your name, girl?” Dolph said, peering up at her.