The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  The noise of the bar continued unabated. Someone was laughing, and it seemed impossible to Irene that someone would be laughing today with Sally dead. Irene wished the gun were a spear, and she ground it against the man’s ribs, wanting him to move or resist. Wanting to pull that trigger, because of this man, and Charlie Adair, and all the rest of them down the line to Francis Derby.

  It took a moment to realize that Patrick was talking to her.

  “Miss, just put that away for a minute. No need to do anything mad. Put that away and we’ll have a nice talk.”

  He was repeating the words, his tone as even as the Mississippi in summer, talking the way a man might talk to a rabid dog. The way Papa talked to Mama, sometimes. Or to Irene.

  The red-haired man, on the other hand, was just staring at her. His eyes weren’t so pretty up close, Irene decided. They were blue-green glass, like street jewelry, and had something dark and empty falling down behind them. Looking into them, Irene felt a wave of vertigo, as though she too were about to fall, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Be quiet, Patrick,” the red-haired man said.

  Patrick went silent.

  “You,” Irene said.

  “You’re the girl from the house,” the red-haired man said.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

  This time, confusion in those blue-green eyes. Irene felt a moment of doubt and covered it by jabbing him with the revolver again.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean, but I haven’t gotten away with much. Why would this be different?”

  “Come on,” Irene said. “Let’s go.”

  “Cian,” Patrick said.

  The red-headed man—Cian, Irene supposed—shook his head. “Thanks for the help, Patrick. I’ll let you know when I’m settled. And I’ll get you your money.”

  Patrick frowned, but he spoke to Irene. “Miss, this is a big misunderstanding. Let me—”

  Irene grabbed Cian’s arm, turned him towards the door, and set the barrel of the gun to his back. She stayed close, using the heavy fur coat to hide the revolver. At her prodding, Cian started moving. He was a big man, even for the Patch, and he left a nice, clear path in his wake. Within moments, they emerged from the bar. Dark and cold clamped down around them like a vise. The sudden silence left Irene lightheaded.

  Cian turned around, keeping his arms raised slightly, like an ungainly bird about to take flight. There wasn’t any fear in his face. Something about him—his eyes, Irene thought—made her angry. It was the emptiness behind those blue-green flecks. His offered a small, quiet smile that eased the roughness of his face.

  “Are you going to keep that on me the whole way? Your hand will freeze.”

  “I’ll keep it on you until you’re locked up.”

  “Mind telling me why?”

  “What?”

  “Why all this? You’re pretty enough that I don’t think you need a gun to get men to follow you around.”

  “You think you’re funny.”

  “I think a pretty woman has a gun on me and I don’t even know her name. I’m Cian.”

  “You killed her. You killed her, and you stole, and you stand there making jokes and smiling.” Irene shook her head. The cold had settled into her hand, and she wanted to stretch frozen fingers, work warmth back into them. The temptation to flex one finger, to feel the give of the trigger, settled over her like a heavy coat.

  He had killed Sally.

  Cian’s smile faded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you that before.”

  “We’ll see what the police think,” Irene said. But she wasn’t thinking about the police. She was thinking about Papa. “I don’t understand. Was the delivery all just a ruse? A way to get inside the house? If not, why deliver the box at all? Why not just keep it?”

  “Wait. The box. Someone took it?”

  “Enough games. Let’s go.”

  But he didn’t move. He was staring at her, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. In the weak light of the lamp, Irene was suddenly aware of how much bigger than her he truly was, and she fought the urge to take a step back. The voices from the bar seemed far away, as though she and Cian stood in a tiny island of light, adrift on an unknown sea.

  And then she heard the steps. Slurping, dragging steps, like a man hauling himself through thick mud.

  Cian turned towards the sound, and then back to her. “Who else did you bring with you?”

  “No one,” Irene said. The foolishness of her answer struck her a moment later, but it was too late.

  Cian scarcely seemed to hear her. He searched the darkness. A second sound of steps joined the first. Cian propelled her towards the door and said, “Get inside. Now.”

  Irene swatted his hand away. “No more tricks. This is—”

  He shoved her towards the door as the first man came into view. “Now,” he shouted. He pulled a pistol from under his coat.

  Nervous laughter swelled in Irene’s mouth. She bit it back.

  He was defending her.

  The first man was nothing more than a shambling shadow: a dark trench coat with the collar pulled up, a wide-brimmed hat tilted low over his face, and gloved hands. A second, wearing identical clothes, emerged from the street, and then a third. They formed a loose arc, closing on Cian and Irene.

  “Stop right there,” Cian said. The gun was steadier than his voice. “I’ll shoot.”

  No sound from the men except the squelch of their boots in the mud. Something was tickling the back of Irene’s brain, something desperate for her attention, but she was too busy with the men in front of her. They were big, bigger even than Cian. The one in the lead had almost reached Cian.

  “Not another foot,” Cian said.

  One heavy hand came up and latched onto Cian’s shirt. Cian fired. The sound of the shot ricocheted through the darkness. The force of the bullet rocked the trench-coat man back on his heels. Then, as though undisturbed by the bullet lodged in his gut, the man lifted Cian into the air.

  From somewhere else in the world, a thousand miles away, Irene heard screams.

  Irene fired without thinking. The revolver snapped in her hand like a dragon. Over the crash of the gun shot, she heard a crack. And then the man’s hand parted at the wrist, and Cian landed hard on the ground. A black-gloved hand still clung to the front of his shirt.

  In the weak light of the lantern, Irene caught sight of the face hidden by the hat. It was a featureless mass, shiny like wet clay. Her first thought was that the man had been terribly burned, and she felt a moment of pity.

  And then the back of her brain perked up and told her that this section of the street was brick, and that there was no mud to make the squelching noise she had thought came from booted feet.

  Cian was staring at the men in the trench coats. Irene knew the look on his face, because it was the same thing she was feeling. Terror that was one step short of madness.

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him into Patrick’s.

  The bar had turned to chaos at the sound of gunfire. Many of the patrons were jammed together in frantic queues for the back door. A few, more enterprising souls had started climbing through windows.

  At least a dozen men still sat at tables, drinking, and trying to look undisturbed by the mess. One of them glanced up at Cian and Irene, and recognition lit up his face.

  He drew and fired.

  Irene had already shoved Cian to the right. It felt like shoving a mountain. He stumbled, teetered, and then went over like Babel. They hit the ground together, a tangle of arms and legs, one of Cian’s arms encircling Irene as he rolled to put himself between her and the gunmen. Cian shook one leg free of her, kicked, and overturned one of the heavy tables. It crashed against the floor.

  Bullets whimpered and cracked against the wood.

  “All right?” Cian asked.

  Irene shoved him off. “I sa
ved you, you fool. Now do something useful.”

  “Cian Shea, you’ve got piss-ant brains. What are you doing in Kerry Patch? You’re a dead man.”

  The voice was almost friendly, but it was followed by another storm of gunfire. Irene’s ears rang like the bells on St. Patrick’s Day.

  Cian had put his back to one of the wooden pillars, and he kept an eye on the open door. Irene could practically hear his thoughts. Would those men—she had to think of them as men, no matter how deformed, because to do otherwise was to risk madness—would they come into Patrick’s?

  So far, the answered seemed to be no.

  Patrick’s voice cut through the silence. “Boys, I don’t want trouble indoors. Take it outside.”

  “Shut your mouth, Patty,” one of their attackers said.

  “He killed Seamus. This is justice,” another said.

  From what Irene could see, the bar had almost finished emptying. The windows along the closest wall were open, and the back door revealed a glimpse of darkened alley. If they could get outside, into the warren of the Patch, they might have a chance.

  And if she abandoned Cian, would the other men let her leave?

  It didn’t matter. She needed Cian. Needed him to make Papa face the truth.

  Besides, Cian had tried to protect her.

  She crushed that last thought and checked her revolver. Three rounds left. Firing blindly wouldn’t do anyone any good. Irene risked a look at Cian. He had his eyes on the door still. He’d knocked the black-gloved hand from his shirt, and now it lay a few feet away, the fingers frozen in their grip.

  It wasn’t bleeding.

  Irene pushed that detail away too.

  “We already sent one of the boys out the back, Cian,” the first man said. “Another ten minutes and you’ll have half of Kerry Patch trying to put a piece of lead in you. Might want to think about making a run for it. You could even have a chance.”

  “Bobby Floyd’s dead,” Cian shouted back. “He died bad. Begging. I took my time with him. I’ll do the same with you boys, unless you clear on out fast.”

  “You piece of—” one of the men shouted.

  Cian spun, fired, and pulled back to his position.

  The thud of the falling body was the only sound. Then another series of shots, tearing through the flimsy barrier in front of Irene and Cian. A bullet snagged Irene’s sleeve, and another whizzed past her ear like an angry bee, and then silence.

  Cian let out a muffled oath. Irene looked over.

  For a moment, she had to squeeze her eyes shuts.

  The hand was clutching his leg. Just a hand. No arm. The severed hand was tight around Cian’s muscular calf, clamped down like a tourniquet, and when Irene opened her eyes, the hand was still there. Pain and fear wrote themselves large on Cian’s face as he pried at the fingers. He couldn’t seem to get them loose.

  Irene crawled over to him, pulling and clawing at the hand, but the fingers were like iron. The hand flexed, tightened, and Cian’s gave a quiet gasp. Irene set her revolver against the back of the hand. Cian shook his head, but she couldn’t tell if it was the pain or an attempt to tell her no. The bullet might pass through the hand and into his leg.

  Sloshing steps came from the doorway.

  The hand on Cian’s leg tightened, and this time Cian grunted. Irene shifted the angle of the gun, setting the barrel against the base of the index finger, lining the shot up so that the bullet would tear through the fingers and strike the floor.

  Cian nodded.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Severed fingers toppled to the ground. With a shaky hand, Cian brushed off the rest of the hand. Dark stains—mud, Irene thought, before blocking the word—marred his trousers. Irene raised herself on her knees.

  And then she heard the scream.

  The first note was pure surprise, before it deepened and widened into true terror. There was a flurry of gunfire. Cian grabbed Irene’s hand and hauled her towards the back of the bar. She glanced over her shoulder. She knew she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

  A scruffy little bird of a man was suspended in the air by one of the men in trench coats. The scruffy man struck twice with his empty gun. The other men had pulled back, holding their fire and waiting for a clean shot. One of them noticed Irene and Cian and fired once.

  Irene barely heard the shot. What she saw, instead, was the trench-coat man grip the scruffy man by one arm and one leg and then rip him in half. There was a spray of red mist, wet, glistening coils falling to splatter against the floor, and a flash like sheet lightning inside Irene’s head as the world went white.

  The cold air revived her. She found herself in a dark alley, ice crackling under her feet as Cian held her around the waist and dragged her around a pile of rotting garbage. Irene fumbled at his hand, and Cian stopped and let her go. She braced herself against the wall. The brick clung to her hands like two icy kisses.

  She vomited, wiped her mouth, and vomited again.

  Cian waited.

  Irene wiped her mouth again, then pulled a handkerchief from her clutch, cleaned her fingers, and dried her eyes. She put the revolver away along with the handkerchief. And then she turned to look at Cian.

  Those pretty, blue-green glass eyes were calm. Almost understanding.

  “Whatever are you waiting for?” Irene said. “Don’t you have another crime to flee?”

  “I thought I was your prisoner,” he said, risking an almost smile.

  “I think there are other people more interested in you. You’d better hurry.”

  He didn’t move though. He just stood there.

  “Go on. Go.”

  “Are you ok?” he asked. “You don’t look ok.”

  Irene realized her eyes were watering in the cold. Or she was crying. Her brain couldn’t seem to tell which. She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief again. “What a thing to say.”

  This time he did smile, and it was the same small, quiet smile. The smile of a man who’d been beaten for smiling too often. The smile of a man who had only ever stumbled across smiles in refuse bins. It broke something in Irene’s heart and kept on breaking it.

  “That—what he did—he tore that man in half,” Irene said.

  “I know. I saw. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t do it, did you? Kill Sally, I mean.”

  He shook his head.

  Irene folded the handkerchief and put it away. She wouldn’t need it again. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. The cold was settling into her, as though she’d drunk from Lethe. The only problem was the shivers.

  Cian had one arm around her again, and he led her down the alley.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Irene said through chattering teeth. “Just a case of the jitters.”

  “Of course,” Cian murmured, helping her into the street beyond. “You won’t mind if I stay close, though. Just for warmth.”

  Another flash of the smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

  “Just for warmth,” she agreed.

  And then her brain said good night, and dimmed the lights, and Irene let herself stumble along through the slush and snow, worrying about the stains to her shoes.

  Irene blinked winter-dry eyes. Ahead of them, for the third time tonight, the street began to widen. Street lamps made firefly lights a few blocks ahead, marking the end of Kerry Patch and the beginning of civilization. Cian paused, though, stopping her at the edge of another alley as he studied the street. He had been true to his word, sticking to her side, helping her keep her feet as he guided her through the nightmare twists of the Patch. For what seemed like a long time, Irene’s thoughts had been a fuzzy patchwork. Now the night seemed clear again. More than anything, she was aware of Cian’s presence. Irene liked the feel of him next to her, warm and solid, and she didn’t like that she liked it.

  “What are we waiting for?” she asked. “We’ve been wandering forever.”

  “We’ve been wandering, as you call it, for a little over an hour,” Cian sa
id. “And only that long because Seamus’s men have ringed Kerry Patch and I can’t find a way out.”

  “My feet are freezing. This street looks clear enough. Let’s go, before they find us.”

  “Look over there,” Cian said. He reached over her shoulder to point, and she caught of a whiff of his scent, masculine and the slight heat of whiskey. Irritating and pleasant at the same time. Rather like man himself.

  A thought that needed to be trampled.

  Irene focused on Cian’s gesture. He indicated a rooftop on the next block. The building sagged towards the street, outlined only by the wavering streetlights, and its roof had the sagging lumps of an old quilt. No different, really, from any of the other shanties that comprised the Patch, and Irene couldn’t understand why Cian was being so insistent—

  One of the roof’s lumps skittered forward, forming a black bulk against the sky.

  It wasn’t a person.

  “What is that?”

  “God knows,” Cian said. He had the pistol in his hand again. “We’ll find a different route.” He motioned her back into Kerry Patch.

  As Irene turned around, though, lights appeared at the far end of the alley. Men began to move into the alley, carrying flashlights and guns, and Irene took a step back.

  “Seamus’s men,” she said.

  Cian shook his head.

  “Hold right there,” a voice called from the end of the alley. “Federal agents. Stop where you are.”

  “Federal agents,” Irene said. She laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Cian, I’ve been drinking.”

  “I don’t think they’re worried about a bit of whiskey,” he said.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the street. A stiff breeze pushed away coal-smoke and cut through Irene’s coat, carrying the smell of mud and water from the river. Her thin shoes slipped and turned in the slush, and more than once Cian’s grip kept her upright. As they ran, Cian traded glances between the street and the rooftops. Irene pulled the revolver from her clutch.

  Two shots left.

  Behind her, she heard another shout, “Federal agents of the Bureau of Prohibition. Stop!”