The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  But there was a warmth in the way he was looking at her that made her hesitate.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, and his expression didn’t at all have the cool disinterest that most of his class carried.

  “I come with a message,” she said, stalking toward him.

  “I see,” he said, eyeing her as she approached. If he sensed the danger she posed to him, he didn’t show it. “And who, exactly, is this message from?”

  “Unimportant.” She reached for the knife tucked into the folds of her gown even as she moved closer to him. “But he’s a dangerous man. An important man in this city.”

  “Ah,” the man said, and now a spark of humor glinted in his eyes. “I suppose you’ve come to warn me off.”

  Viola frowned, thrown by his response. He was not reacting the way he should. Perhaps because he didn’t realize that Death could wear a woman’s skirts.

  “I imagine this is about the column in the Herald,” he said, sounding more bored than concerned. “Let me guess. If I don’t stop looking for trouble, trouble will find me, or some such thing?” He smiled at her, and she knew she had been right. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the dimple that softened his left cheek—as an old man, he would wear the traces of his happiness.

  But he would not make it that far.

  In a flash, Viola closed the distance between them and had her blade out at his throat. But he didn’t so much as flinch. “I don’t think you understand,” she told him.

  “Oh, I understand perfectly.” The man’s eyes met hers calmly. He was pazzo, this one, with a knife to his throat and not a worry on his face. “You intend to kill me to keep me from writing more columns that anger your employer, whoever that may be.”

  “You don’t believe I’ll kill you right here and now?” She pressed the tip of the knife in until it dented the skin just above the large vein that runs down the neck. Any more pressure and he’d be dead before anyone could help him.

  He glanced at the blade poised at his throat and then back at her. “On the contrary,” he said softly, “I’m quite convinced you could kill me. Though I’m a little surprised at the knife, to be honest. A gun would do the job just as easily, and there would be less chance of a mistake.”

  Viola glared at him. “With a knife, I never make a mistake.”

  The man seemed even more amused at this. “Still, I would advise against killing me right now. It wouldn’t have the effect you’re intending.”

  Confused, Viola pulled back. “And why is that?”

  She heard the click of a pistol’s hammer at the same time a woman’s voice spoke: “Because he’s not R. A. Reynolds.”

  Viola drew in a sharp breath and, keeping her knife pointed at the man’s throat, she turned to find the girl in pink leveling a pistol steadily at her. The way the girl stood, confident and sure of the weapon in her hand, Viola knew she wasn’t bluffing.

  “I suppose that’s who you’ve come looking for?” the girl asked, keeping the gun trained on Viola as she stepped closer.

  “Yes,” Viola said, considering her options. With the gun aimed at her, the hammer already back and ready to fire, she was trapped. She was accurate and deadly with a knife, but she wasn’t faster than the bullet would be.

  She could still kill them. A flare of magic and her affinity could snuff their lives as easily as a candle. “I have a message for R. A. Reynolds.”

  “They always do,” the girl said, her airy tone more bored than truly annoyed. “I’m surprised your employer didn’t do his homework—I’m assuming it’s a him. Men with fewer brains than balls usually do underestimate me.”

  The girl’s brash words didn’t match the flounce of silk or delicate air she had about her. “You?” Viola asked, trying to make sense of the girl’s meaning as she let her affinity flare out into the room. She found the man easily, his familiar heartbeat steady and slow, and then the girl’s, which was just as steady. But even as steady as it was, Viola could sense the satisfaction—and excitement—coursing through the girl’s blood.

  She’d assumed that the girl was nothing more than a bit of fluff, a pretty thing to amuse Reynolds, but she’d been wrong. This one, she’s more than she seems.

  “Yes,” the girl said. “You see, he’s not R. A. Reynolds. I am.”

  “You are the newspaperman?” Viola asked, forgetting her focus and letting her affinity go cold again.

  “Do I look like a man?” the girl asked, her pink lips curving into a mocking smile.

  Viola glanced between the man and the girl in frustration.

  “I’m afraid she’s telling the truth,” the man said cheerfully, the point of the knife still pressed against his throat.

  “Who are you?” the girl asked, leveling the gun in Viola’s direction. “Who sent you?”

  Viola could only stare, awed at the girl’s confidence and shamed by her own shortsightedness. She had assumed that R. A. Reynolds was a man. She who knew well enough what it meant to do a man’s work in a man’s world, and all the while to do it better than most. She’d been a fool. And now she was trapped, because she knew then that she would never be able to take this particular girl’s life.

  “I asked you a question,” the girl said, her eyes steady and her expression serious. “Let’s see. It’s usually Tammany and their goons making threats, but with my most recent column, I suspect it might be someone from the Order. I can’t imagine they would have enjoyed that piece, and I can’t see why anyone from Tammany would care about the train.”

  “The Order?” Viola spoke before she could stop herself. She wanted to destroy the Order, not to do its dirty work.

  “You don’t even know why you’re here, do you?” the girl asked.

  “I know enough,” Viola said. “I know you should stop before something happens. Before you can’t take it back.”

  “The one thing you should know about me, especially if you’re so set on doing me harm, is that I never take anything back,” the girl said, stepping forward. “Do I, darling?” she asked the man.

  “Unfortunately for the rest of us, no, you never do. Even when you’re wrong.”

  “Which is why I try never to be wrong.” The girl took another step toward Viola. “I must not have been wrong about the train for your employer, whoever it is, to send you after me. The Order knows it was magic that destroyed those tracks, don’t they? They’re well aware that the people who stole their treasures are still out there, and they don’t want anyone else to know. They’re afraid of being seen as weak and ineffective. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  This one, she knew too much, but not so much as she thought. She didn’t know that one of the people who stole the Order’s treasures was standing in front of her. “Enough with the talking,” Viola said.

  “But you haven’t answered my question.” The girl’s aim was as steady as her gaze. “And considering that you are currently threatening the life of my fiancé, I think the least you could do is provide me with some answers.”

  Her fiancé?

  Before Viola could begin to think about why her chest had gone tight at the girl’s words, there was a rustling of the curtains, and a moment later, Torrio appeared.

  “Ah, more guests, darling,” the still-seated man said lazily as Torrio took aim.

  He definitely was pazzo, that one, acting as though her knife couldn’t spill his blood before he could blink and as though Torrio’s gun wasn’t a threat at all.

  But the girl—Reynolds—seemed to realize what her escort hadn’t about the danger Torrio posed them. She took an instinctive step back. Her small silver pistol was still raised, but now she swiveled it to aim toward the newcomer.

  “I know who you are,” the girl said, her expression lighting with something suspiciously close to excitement. “John Torrio. You work for Kelly’s gang.”

  They were both pazza, and the girl’s mouth was going to get her killed.

  Torrio’s dark eyes met Viola’s with a sile
nt threat that was unmistakable—her way or his. It didn’t matter that Torrio would assume that the guy at the tip of her blade was Reynolds; he would kill the girl in pink just for being there. One way or another, the couple would die.

  So Viola did the only thing she could do. Allowing her affinity to unfurl, she found the now-familiar heartbeats of the man with a face that could have aged into kindness and the girl who looked no older or more serious than a debutante until she opened her smart mouth. Viola let her magic flare, pulling at the blood in their veins until the girl’s eyes went wide a heartbeat before she crumpled to the floor. The man gasped, grabbing his chest before slumping over into his soup.

  But even after the two were completely still, Torrio didn’t lower his gun. Instead, he took a step forward and nudged the girl’s body with his toe. His finger was still on the trigger of his revolver.

  “Leave it,” Viola hissed, putting her knife back in its sheath beneath her skirts.

  “Just to be sure,” Torrio said flatly as he took aim.

  Viola came around the table and stepped between Torrio’s gun and the girl’s body. “If you shoot their bodies now, it can be traced back to you—and then back to Paul. Leave them be, and no one can prove anything,” she said.

  Torrio considered the two bodies, as though trying to decide if it was worth the risk.

  “Let’s just go before someone comes,” Viola pleaded, taking a step closer to Torrio. “Before we’re found.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, probably just to make it clear that he was the one in charge of the situation. “Fine,” he said as he eased the hammer back down and tucked the gun into the holster he wore beneath his jacket.

  Viola didn’t look back as Torrio dragged her from the privacy of the curtained booth. The dining room was still in chaos. The whole restaurant had erupted into a near brawl. Those who hadn’t already fled were huddled in the corners of the restaurant, trapped by men in once-crisply pressed tuxedos who had turned the palatial dining room into a bare-knuckled ring.

  “What did you do?” Viola asked. She pulled away from him as he headed toward the back of the room.

  He didn’t answer.

  In the kitchens, the white-coated staff watched them silently pass into the alley behind the restaurant. It smelled of rotting trash, and the ground was coated with a layer of grease that had Viola slipping in her ridiculous heeled shoes, but Torrio held her firmly by the hand and practically shoved her into the carriage waiting at the end of the alleyway.

  They were moving before Torrio had even latched the door, but he settled into the seat across from her with an unreadable look on his face.

  “You weren’t going to do it,” he accused.

  She met his dark, emotionless eyes and lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you mean. They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “You hesitated,” he told her flatly. “I could see it in your eyes. You were going soft.”

  “And you were going to make a mess of things,” she told him, putting as much scorn into her tone as she could muster. “Men.” She gave a disgusted harrumph. “Always thinking their leetle guns are the answer to everything. Going off half-cocked without thinking. Too early.” She held his gaze a moment longer to be sure he understood her meaning, and just as his cheeks started to turn red, she dismissed him by turning to look out the window of the carriage.

  But Viola couldn’t dismiss the memory of the girl—Reynolds—or how she’d had so much fire in her eyes . . . until Viola had snuffed it out.

  A FINE SPECIMEN OF MANHOOD

  1904—St. Louis

  Esta looked down at Harte, savoring the way his eyes had gone wide and the color had drained from his cheeks. “Is that what he told you?” she asked, giving the two boys a smile that was all teeth. “That I was supposed to stay put?”

  Harte’s mouth was still hanging open in shock, and he had “guilty” written all over him. But really, it served him right, leaving her like he had.

  Julien, on the other hand, didn’t looked surprised at all by her appearance. Instead, there was the glint of appreciation in his expression. “He might have said something to that effect.” He nodded in her direction. “This getup—it’s a good look on you. Join us?” he said, gesturing to the empty chair at the table.

  Esta sent one more glare in Harte’s direction before taking the offered seat. She removed her hat and faced him straight on, daring him to speak.

  He closed his gaping mouth and then opened it again, as though he wanted to say something, but all he did was sputter.

  “What is it, Harte?” she asked in a dangerously sweet voice. “You’re not choking on your drink, are you?” She batted her eyes coyly. “Such a shame,” she drawled, pausing for a beat. “Maybe next time.”

  Finally, he seemed to find his voice.

  He could have asked any number of things—how she’d managed to get clothes when he’d left her half-naked in the room, or how she’d found King’s on her own, for starters—but the first question he asked was the one that probably mattered least of all:

  “What did you do to your hair?”

  “Do you like it?” Esta asked, blinking mildly at him as she ran her hand down the nape of her bare neck.

  “I . . .” Harte was trying to speak, but while his mouth was moving, no words were coming out.

  She decided to take that maybe not as approval but as a success. Anyway, she didn’t care much whether he approved or not—it was her head, her hair.

  Maybe it had been a moment of madness on her part. At least, that was certainly how it started. When Harte had walked out on her—like he had any right to tell her what to do—weak as she’d felt, all she could do was rage. She might have knocked over the chair, and she’d definitely slammed her fist against the scarred surface of the desk . . . which had hurt more than she’d predicted. It had also jarred the drawer open and revealed a pair of old, rusted shears.

  Maybe she hadn’t really been thinking, and maybe she hadn’t really considered the permanence of her actions when she took that first fistful of her hair and hacked through it with the dull blades. But she certainly didn’t regret it.

  She’d stood there for a moment with a handful of hair, shocked by her own impulsiveness. In a daze, she’d let the severed strands fall to the floor, and her stomach had fallen right along with them. But then she’d pulled herself together and finished the job—because, really, what else was there to do? She had resolutely ignored the twinge of fear that maybe she was making a mistake. Instead, she’d embraced the racing bite of adrenaline every time another clump of her dark hair fell at her feet.

  It was a terrible haircut, ragged and uneven and slightly shorter than a bob, but the more hair that fell, the more weight she felt lifting from her and the more she’d hacked away. After all, it had been the Professor who’d made her keep it long. Growing up, it would have been so much easier to deal with a shorter style on a daily basis as she trained with Dakari or learned her way around the city. But Professor Lachlan didn’t want her in wigs when she slipped through time. Too much of a risk, he’d said. Not authentic enough.

  But there wasn’t any Professor Lachlan. There was only Nibsy and the lies he’d built up like a prison around her childhood, hiding the truth of what he was. Of who she was. With every lock she snipped, she’d cut away the weight of her past, freeing herself more and more from those lies.

  Then she’d found herself some clothes.

  It had been a risk to use her affinity after all that had happened that night, but Harte had left her trapped in the room with nothing but a corset and a pair of lacy drawers. It was either take the risk to venture out or admit that he’d won. She’d been too livid to allow him to win, so she’d used her affinity to sneak out to a neighboring room. She’d waited for the blackness to appear again, but it never did. Which meant that it wasn’t her who was the problem—it was Harte. Or maybe it was the power of the Book, but considering how irritated she was with him, it amounted to the
same thing.

  “How about you, Julien? Do you like it? I think it suits me.” Esta raised her chin and dared Julien to disagree as the piano player in the corner crescendoed into a run of notes that filled the air with a feverish emotion. The song he was playing sounded the way wanting felt, and it stroked something inside of her, something dark and secret that had yearned for freedom without knowing what freedom truly was.

  “It’s a daring choice,” Julien said, smiling into his glass as he took a drink and watching the two of them with obvious amusement.

  In reply, Esta shot him a scathing look. She hadn’t cut her hair and bound her breasts and found her own way to King’s for Julien’s entertainment. She was there because she was supposed to be there. Because it was her right to be there. She wasn’t about to allow Harte to discard her like some kind of helpless damsel while he took care of the business that they were supposed to be attending to together. After all, it wasn’t Harte who’d recognized the danger at the hotel earlier. It wasn’t Harte who’d thought fast enough to evade the police waiting for them.

  So what if she’d fainted a little after? She’d gotten them out of the Jefferson when Harte had miscalculated in the laundry room. Even with whatever was happening to her affinity, she wasn’t weak. Harte should know that much about her by now. And she shouldn’t have to prove herself—especially not to him.

  Yet there she was, sitting in some run-down saloon doing just that. Because she had to send Harte—both of them, really—the message that she wasn’t someone they could just push aside when the boys wanted to play.

  Harte leaned over the table toward her and lowered his voice to where she could just barely hear it over the notes of the piano. “You can’t really think this is going to work.”

  “I’m fairly certain it already has,” she told him, reaching across to take the glass of amber liquid sitting in front of him. “You’re the only one who seems to be bothered.” Leaning back in her chair, she brought the glass to her lips, satisfied with the flash of irritation that crossed Harte’s face. She took a sip of the tepid liquor, trying not to react as it burned down her throat, searing her resolve.