by Kat Ross
Water crept across the floor.
“Get away from it, Pell,” Moran whispered. He climbed up on the piano bench, the gun clasped loosely in one hand.
I backed up just before the water touched my boots.
Ice trickled down my spine. Small details acquired ominous importance.
The red tulips littering the floor. That spreading pool of water. The flickering gas jets. The shutter, still banging and banging against the wall outside. The black dog that now stood in the doorway, growling low in its throat.
A diabolical mousetrap.
But who was nibbling the cheese this time?
“You clumsy cow.”
Emma glared at me. Her face was red and puffy but composed. She bent down to retrieve the vase, which was slowly rolling toward the fireplace. At that moment, the dog trotted forward and nudged her hip. Emma slipped in the puddle of water. On her way down, she struck her temple against the corner of the mantle.
“Damn!” she exclaimed, rubbing her head. “That hurt.”
It was only a glancing blow. I saw no blood.
But when Emma straightened, her face had the blank countenance of a doll. The vase slipped from her fingers and this time it did break, shattering into pieces on the marble hearth. She tilted her head at Moran. “Declan?” she murmured.
The dog whimpered and slunk backwards, tail between its legs.
From his perch on the piano bench, Moran stared at her with a frozen expression.
“Declan?” she said again.
Her eyes appeared oddly mismatched and I realized that Emma’s left pupil was dilated but not the right. The previous spring I had helped John study for a test on brain disorders and recalled what the symptom meant. I went to Moran, moving slowly and quietly. Emma’s brow furrowed and the fingers of one hand twitched spasmodically.
“She’s had a cerebral aneurism,” I whispered in his ear. “She’s bleeding in her brain and she’ll lose consciousness soon. Right now she’s confused enough to think you’re her dead lover. You must play along.”
Moran shot me a look of profound revulsion.
“Just do it,” I hissed. “While she’s still able to speak. She won’t tell you where the charter is, but she’d tell him.”
He gave a reluctant nod and approached her, taking care not to step in the puddle of water. Emma looked up at him with a slavish devotion that made my skin crawl. I could tell Moran felt the same, but he mastered himself and reached for her hand.
“Darling Emmeline.” The voice was deeper than Moran’s own, and harshly commanding, yet with a musical cadence. “My bonny girl.”
“Declan,” she whispered, raising her other hand to stroke his cheek. Moran’s jaw clenched but he tolerated the caress. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
She tried to kiss him and he took her firmly by the shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. Moran’s face was not what I would ever call soft, but now it settled into lines of unyielding cruelty. The transformation was eerie to behold. It was him, yet not – just like the doppelgänger.
“Where is the charter?” he demanded. “Give it to me so I can make sure James never finds it. Then you and I can be together forever.”
Her hungry gaze devoured him. “Why are you angry with me, Declan? I did all you asked.”
He shook his head in denial. Emma’s right eyelid began to sag down her face. She raised a trembling hand. “My head . . . .”
“Where is it?” His fingers sank into her arms and she gave a little cry.
“Don’t hurt her,” I hissed.
“Hurt her,” Emma echoed in a childish voice that rose with each word. “Hurt her, hurt her. Don’t, don’t, don’t!” Moran blinked in surprise as she threw herself at him, hands tangling in his hair as she kissed him with desperate abandon.
He stepped back, the mask slipping so I could see his confusion and disgust. But then he mastered himself and his voice rang with cold authority. “Where is the charter, Emma?”
Her mouth worked but no sound came out.
“Where is it?” he grated.
She glanced at the piano, a mute plea in her eyes. Moran dashed over and lifted the lid, jamming the prop into place. He groped inside and gave a cry of triumph.
“You’re a genius, Pell!” he crowed, brandishing a folded square of paper.
Emma had gone vacant again. A thin line of blood ran from one nostril, dripping from her chin and staining her green dress. She looked pitiful standing there forgotten, so I took her by the arm and led her to the loveseat. She didn’t resist when I gently pressed her down to sit.
“Black spells can rebound on the summoner,” Moran muttered, grabbing a box of matches from the mantle. “That’s what the witch said. What are the odds of a healthy young woman having a sudden stroke?”
“I don’t know. Long, I’d reckon.”
“Very long,” he agreed with a dark chuckle. Moran struck a match and lit the pile of kindling one of the scullery maids had left ready in the hearth. It blazed to life, the flames crackling. He held up the charter and studied it for a moment, his face grim. “Remind me never to sign a contract in blood again, Pell.”
With those words, Moran hurled the founding charter of the Pythagoras Society into the fireplace. We watched in silence as the edge caught and the parchment curled and turned black. The wind sucked the ash up the chimney and Moran stirred it with the poker until every scrap was devoured.
“I wonder how Emma learned about it,” he said. “I never told a soul. Only the ones who signed it knew it even existed.”
She still sat on the loveseat where I had put her, docile as a child. He stared at her, a suspicious look on his face.
“Maybe she searched your rooms and got lucky.”
Moran frowned. “Nothing else was disturbed and I’m sure I would have noticed, no matter how careful she tried to be. I keep that room under lock and key at all times. You say she broke in with a hairpin?”
I nodded. “A few months ago, after she learned the spell from Hannah Ferber.”
“One of us had to have told her it was there,” he muttered. “It’s too much of a coincidence!”
“We’ll sort that later,” I said wearily. “But your aunt needs a doctor. We can’t wait for John—”
“The hell with her.”
“Surely you can see how she was used,” I exclaimed. “She’s a disturbed woman who has suffered brain damage.”
Moran found the whiskey bottle on the sideboard. “I’m not saying my father wasn’t a bastard, and I could almost forgive her for what she did to me. But Cash? Danny and Francis?” He gulped down a shot and gave the fire a violent poke. “Never.” He stared into the flames. “Christ, what will I tell Mother?”
“She’s not a child. Don’t you think she deserves the truth?”
He turned to me. “Thank you for all you’ve done, Pell. I do appreciate it and I’m more than willing to pay a bonus fee on top of our other deal. You’ve earned it.” Moran leaned forward, a belligerent look in his eye. “But stay out of my affairs.”
I rose to my feet. “Gladly! This case has been the most miserable, demoralizing experience of my entire—”
Above the wind, I heard the faint sound of the front door opening and felt a surge of relief. Moran stalked to the window and yanked the curtain aside. The wind must have shifted for the shutter had finally stopped banging.
“The Night Squad is here,” I said in a cool tone. “I would strongly recommend being honest with Sergeant Mallory in all respects. If you cooperate, I’m sure he’ll keep the matter quiet. I’m not sure what your aunt will be charged with, but she’s incapable of harming anyone in her current state. They can take her into custody and arrange for a sanity hearing—”
“Would you be quiet for a minute?” Moran was peering out the window. When he turned back to me, the blood had drained from his face. “There’s no police wagon down there,” he said softly.
Emma started laughing like a hyena, insane barks that
swelled in volume until I had to cover my ears. Moran gave her a savage shake and she cut off abruptly. In the silence that followed, I heard a single set of footsteps ascending the staircase.
17
I ran out to the landing and looked down the curving staircase.
A figure ascended the steps, dark head bowed. It moved at an unhurried yet inexorable pace, one hand trailing along the polished banister. Halfway up, it passed through a pool of light cast by one of the gas jets and I saw that the fingers of the hand were strong and elegantly formed. It did not look up, but I didn’t need to see the face.
I ran back into the music room, slammed the door and threw the bolt.
Moran stood over Emma, his fists balled. His aunt wasn’t laughing anymore. She stared at the door in mute terror.
“It doesn’t have a key.” I chewed my lip. “Does it? Do you have one in your pocket?”
“The witch lied,” Moran said softly. He began to laugh. “Of course she did.”
I crossed the room, my heart beating fast. “Give me the key, James. We’ll throw it out the window. If it can’t get inside—”
He stood very near me and now he pressed his thumb against my lips. The gesture was shockingly intimate, but I think he only wanted me to stop talking. His face was serene.
“You asked me why I do it. Do you still care to hear the answer? I’ll give it to you true this time.”
I fell silent, my skin crawling. The footsteps halted just outside the door.
“Because I’m a god of the night.” His black eyes held me fast, his voice so quiet I strained to hear it. “Of the drunks and the marks and the brawlers and the thieves. The cripples and pimps and crooked cops.” His mouth twisted. “The suicidal widows and murderous orphans. I’m a god of the damned, Harrison. Of the needled dregs. The dose of chloral hydrate. The long drop into the coal chute.”
“Don’t,” I said shakily. “Help is coming—”
“They’ll remember me. Their native son. They’ll remember me with bonfires and riots and blood in the streets.” James Moran smiled and there was something so oddly fragile in his expression, it broke me a little. “I never expected to see twenty anyway. New York hates its young.”
On the loveseat, Emma stared at him with glassy eyes. Despite her silk dress and strong white teeth, she had the look of the lost women of the Bowery.
“You have to leave, James,” I whispered. “This instant.”
Suddenly, the gun was in his hand. He pointed it at me.
“No, Harrison,” he said calmly. “You do.”
“Don’t be an ass—”
Moran closed the distance between us in one swift stride.
“Take care of your sister,” he said.
Before I could reply, he kissed me, a fleeting brush of the lips. Then he tore the door open and pushed me into the hall. I tripped over my bootlace (oh, the delicious irony of that since I’d pretended to tie it for his mother in this very same spot!) and sat down hard. In the shadows, his doppelgänger leaned casually against the wall. Its attire – a grey frock coat and trousers, a starched linen shirt and gold cufflinks — mirrored Moran’s, though the black hair was windblown.
The two of them locked eyes as if no one else existed in the world. Moran stepped back. His Other pushed off the wall, stalked past me with that familiar lithe gait, and entered the music room. The door closed and I heard the metallic thunk of the bolt shooting home.
I threw myself at the door and pounded on it, but there was no reply. I felt like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, only the rabbit hole I had tumbled into did not lead to Wonderland.
No, we had been marooned somewhere else entirely.
“James!” I yelled, slapping my palm against the heavy door. “Open up right now!”
I pressed my ear to the wood. I thought I heard the faint murmur of voices inside.
“Moran! Miss Bayard! Someone open this door!”
I pulled a hairpin from my French twist, bent it and inserted it into the lock. Long minutes later, I had only managed to add fresh scratches alongside Emma’s. Sweating and flustered, I leaned in closer until my nose was inches from the lock.
It was odd, there seemed to be three distinct types of scratches in the wood. Emma’s, my own fresh gouges, and several from an unknown source.
Oh, what did it matter now? She had probably tried again with some other type of tool.
Frustrated, I gave the hairpin a vicious twist and it broke off in the lock. I swore an oath that would have made Moran’s toes curl.
I sat for a minute with my back against the door, foolishly imagining things couldn’t get worse.
Then I smelled fire.
I jumped to my feet. Black smoke drifted under the doorjamb into the hall. I laid my palm against the wood and it was hot to the touch.
Frenzied barking made my heart nearly stop. Both dogs had materialized in the hall; they must have run out when I first looked down the stairs. I dropped my hand to Blue’s head to calm him when I saw the gun where Moran had dropped it on the carpet. It had been hiding in the shadows.
“Get back!” I yelled. “I’ve got the gun!”
Then I stepped back and fired at the lock. It took three bullets but the heavy oaken slab finally gave. The door swung open.
A cloud of acrid smoke poured into the hall. The fire burned hottest in front of the door, whether by accident or design I couldn’t say. Emma lay on the loveseat in a trance, her face a ghoulish mask from the nosebleed. Someone had thrown the windows wide and the gusts were whipping the flames inside to a pyre. I threw my arm up like a shield and took a step toward Emma, but the fire suddenly leapt and drove me back as if it were a sentient thing and it wouldn’t give her up.
It wouldn’t give any of them up.
Moran and his twin sat shoulder to shoulder on the piano bench, their dark heads nearly touching. One whispered into the other’s ear. They seemed oblivious to the inferno raging around them, as though they were utterly separate from the rest of the room.
I raised the gun, pointing it at one and then the other, but I couldn’t tell them apart. I was about to scream his name when I glanced at the gilt mirror hanging over the fireplace. It reflected a single man and I understood that James was the one listening, his expression captivated.
I thought I heard strains of music over the crackle of the flames, something haunting and elusive like a dream that fades the very instant you wake. One of them was playing the piano, or perhaps both together.
The notes twined around me like tendrils of smoke. They insinuated themselves under my skin and made my chest ache. Never in my life, before or since, have I heard such music.
I lowered the revolver.
Time slowed and then stopped, although part of me knew it hadn’t, not really, because the fire was steadily consuming the room, the flames flowing up the walls like water. The drapes blackened to husks. The papers on the desk caught and went up like a torch soaked in pitch.
I’m not certain how long I stood there. Smoke stung my eyes until the two Morans blurred into one. They were never destined to meet, but now that they had, something was happening. Something that felt momentous, although I didn’t understand how or why.
“Harry!”
The doorframe next to me caught and the wallpaper in the hall went up with a roar.
“Harry!”
A hand yanked me backwards as part of the ceiling in the music room collapsed. I doubled over coughing and John threw an arm around my waist, half carrying me down to the ground floor.
“Where’s Moran?” he demanded.
“In the music room with Emma,” I gasped. “It came, John. It’s in there, too. I tried to get to them but Moran locked me out. It was already burning by the time I got the door open . . . .” I succumbed to another coughing fit.
John bravely turned back for the staircase, but the whole second landing was alight now and I feared it wouldn’t be long before the roof came down. I grabbed his arm. “Don’t! You’ll never m
ake it back down. Have you seen the dogs?”
“They bolted straight out the door when I opened it.”
A section of the banister collapsed outward, trailing flames that set the carpet in the foyer alight. The smoke was thick and choking as we stumbled to the front door.
“Someone already sounded the alarm, there’s a pumper truck outside,” John said hoarsely.
I sucked in a deep breath of fresh air as we emerged into the blustery night. Firemen in heavy coats from Hook & Ladder Company No. 16 were aiming cannon-like hoses at the flames leaping from the upper story windows. John ran over and told their captain that two people were trapped on the second floor. I watched with sick dread as they tried and failed to mount a rescue with ladders.
“It’s too far gone,” one of the firemen muttered, his face grim. “Never seen a building go up so fast. The wind’s making it twenty times worse.”
Within minutes, Fifth Avenue was closed off for ten blocks along the park. The street filled with police and firemen frantically pumping water at the inferno. John wrapped his coat around me and joined a bucket brigade that was soaking down adjacent houses to prevent the blaze from spreading.
I scrubbed at my eyes. If I had gotten inside the music room earlier, would it have made any difference? Or was James Moran fated to die tonight no matter what I did?
I remembered him standing by the window of the drawing room. It was only yesterday, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.
What would you say the number one accidental death is? Take a guess, Pell.
The answer, of course, was fire.
“I know you.”
I turned to find Quincy Hughes standing next to me. He wore gloves and an overcoat with the collar turned up against the cutting wind. His bright blue eyes gave me a penetrating look.
“You’re Edward Dovington’s friend, aren’t you?”
In the hellish orange light, the acne pits on his face looked like burns.