The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  Theo patted Ruby on the knee, making her realize just how animated she’d become.

  “She gets a bit overwrought sometimes,” he told Viola.

  “I am not overwrought,” Ruby said tartly, pushing his hand away. She felt her cheeks flame and cursed her mother for giving her skin so fair it showed every emotion in the same color—pink.

  “Of course you’re not,” he told her, but she knew that tone of voice. As much as she adored Theo, she couldn’t stand it when he got all paternal.

  Ruby cut him a sharp look, and he was smart enough to raise his hands in mock surrender. She turned back to Viola. “I’m not overwrought,” she repeated. “I’m simply passionate about the causes I believe in. You see, I’m a journalist.”

  “This one, he’s your fiancé?” Viola asked.

  “Guilty, I’m afraid,” Theo said with his usual lopsided smile.

  “And you allow her to do this?” Viola asked, her expression incredulous. “You’re an idiot too.”

  He laughed as the carriage bumped along.

  “He doesn’t let me do anything,” Ruby cut in, her cheeks feeling even warmer than before.

  “True,” Theo agreed. “I merely follow along, cleaning up the chaos that ensues in her wake,” he said cheerfully. “The things we do for love.”

  Enough. She tried to give him what she hoped was a scathing glare, but he just continued to grin at her. Probably because he knew exactly how much it would annoy her.

  “I’d prefer not to be caught up in anybody’s wake,” Viola said. “I have troubles enough of my own. I don’t need any of yours. If you could just let me out—”

  “But we haven’t even had a chance to talk,” Ruby said with a sudden burst of panic. She reached over and clasped Viola’s bare hand.

  It didn’t matter that she was wearing gloves—Ruby felt the warmth of Viola’s skin even through the delicate leather. She wondered if Viola felt that same jolt of energy, because the moment after their hands met, Viola pulled away like she’d been burned.

  “So talk,” Viola said, her voice rougher than it had been a moment before. Her violet eyes seemed darker somehow.

  “Talk . . .” It took Ruby a second to remember what she’d wanted to talk about. “Right.” She pulled her small notebook and pencil from inside of her handbag to allow herself a moment to gather her wits again.

  She flipped through the pages, each filled with her own familiar looping scrawl. Glancing over them, she focused, centering herself on the job at hand. Viola Vaccarelli was not some silly missish debutante, like most of the girls Ruby had grown up around. Her spine was too straight, her gaze too direct. It was as though she could see through all Ruby’s posturing to every one of the doubts that lurked beneath.

  Taking a steadying breath, Ruby set her own shoulders and began. “I’m working on a story about the corruption at the very heart of the city. I know the Five Pointers are in league with Tammany—”

  “Everybody knows that,” Viola said, crossing her arms over the fullness of her bosom.

  She isn’t wearing stays. It was an absurd thought, but the moment it occurred to Ruby, she couldn’t dismiss it. There was nothing lascivious about Viola’s dress, though. Nothing at all provocative. She simply looked . . . comfortable. Free.

  Focus, Reynolds.

  “As I was saying, people know about their connection to Tammany, but after our encounter at Delmonico’s, I realized that your brother must also be working with the Order of Ortus Aurea.”

  “Why would anyone care about that?” Viola challenged, but her expression closed up so tightly that Ruby knew she was onto something.

  “People might care that the organization that claims to be protecting the city is working with violent gang leaders like Paul Kelly, but I think they would care even more if they knew the Order was working with the very people they were trying to protect us from. I want to expose them, Miss Vaccarelli. I want everyone in the city to know that the Order isn’t the benevolent force they believe but are instead harboring dangerous criminals.”

  “You can’t,” Viola said, shaking her head.

  “Of course I can,” Ruby said. “It’s what I do.”

  “Not if you want to make it to your wedding day,” Viola told her, and there was an odd tremor to her voice. “My brother and the Five Pointers, they won’t want you messing in their business. That’s what I was trying to tell you at the restaurant. You need to stop before they stop you.”

  “They can try, but it won’t matter if I can expose them first,” Ruby said, trying to imbue her words with the conviction that she felt so firmly. “But I need your help.”

  “What could you possibly think I can do for you?”

  “Don’t pretend that you don’t know Paul Kelly has Mageus in his ranks.”

  Viola’s face had gone pale, and she looked as though she wanted to leap from the rolling carriage. Maybe she doesn’t know.

  “John Torrio is Mageus,” Ruby said in a hushed voice. Although why she bothered to lower her voice, she couldn’t have said. It was only the three of them in the carriage.

  “Torrio?” Viola’s expression bunched in confusion.

  “You must have known,” Ruby insisted. “I knew it the second I woke up from whatever that was he did to us back at Delmonico’s. For both of us to faint with no provocation whatever? And . . .” She lowered her voice. “It felt like magic, didn’t it, Theo?”

  Theo gave Ruby a long-suffering expression. “It felt like my head hit the table, darling.”

  Ruby shot him another annoyed look before she went back to ignoring him. “It felt positively electric.”

  “You think John Torrio has the old magic?” Viola said, her voice hollow with what could only be disbelief.

  She didn’t know, the poor dear.

  “Yes. Oh, I realize this is all coming as a shock to you, but you see now why the story I’m working on is so important. If I can prove that Kelly’s gang uses Mageus and that the Order is protecting the Five Pointers, then I can prove the Order is protecting the very thing they say they want to destroy. Can’t you see?” She leaned forward and, without meaning to, took Viola’s hand again. This time she ignored the bolt of heat she felt. It was adrenaline. Excitement. Surely Viola felt that as well. “With your help, I could end the Order.”

  UNEXPECTED BENEFITS

  1902—New York

  Viola was speechless. She took in the girl, this Ruby Reynolds, with her expression expectant and her eyes shining, and all Viola could do was gape. The girl thought Torrio was the Mageus?

  “You understand how important this is, don’t you?” Ruby asked. “You’ll help me?”

  “Why?” was all Viola could manage at first.

  Ruby frowned. “Why what?”

  “Why would you want to destroy the Order?” Viola asked. “They’re like you—rich and white, native born. You have the world at your feet. Why do this?”

  Ruby looked as though someone had struck her. “Maybe I don’t want to be like them, Miss Vaccarelli.”

  Viola had not known that an expression could go quiet until that moment, but it wasn’t an easy silence brought on by fear. It was a fierce stillness that she understood too well. In that instant, the painted bird turned into a tiger, silent and deadly.

  “Yes,” Ruby told her in a voice that was as brittle as broken glass, “I do have the world at my feet. I have a wonderful life filled with all the best people at all the best parties in the best city in the world.” She leaned forward, her expression serious. “But I’m tired of pretending that everything about my life is as it should be. I’d rather be dead.”

  Viola refused to let herself be moved by the rich girl’s pretty words. “You poke around Paul Kelly and you will be.”

  “Then at least I’ll know I’ve lived well, won’t I?”

  The man, Theo, patted Ruby’s leg gently, as though to comfort her, but even Viola could see that Ruby didn’t need comfort. Her skin was flushed and her eyes were clear
and determined. She was a strange creature—not half so fragile as Viola had first suspected. But perhaps every bit as spoiled if her people allowed her to flit about the city, chasing after every idea that entered her head.

  “The Order is a menace to the city,” Ruby said, her voice softer now, grave and serious. “They’ve grown weak, and they’re afraid of that weakness. They’re afraid of their own irrelevance in this new, modern age, so they’ve turned to Tammany to help shore up the power they’ve lost, and now they’ve turned to your brother. They’ve become the very thing they’re supposed to be protecting the city from. Look at what they did, sending you and Torrio to scare me, all because I wrote a story. A story that was the truth. But it was a story that showed them to be weak and ineffective. They don’t want anyone to know about what really happened at Khafre Hall. They don’t want anyone to understand how pointless they are, so they will use any means—corrupt politicians and criminals, even Mageus—to protect themselves. To prop up their dying institution. And people will die.”

  “People already have,” Viola said darkly.

  “Then you understand?” Ruby asked, her voice tinged with hope.

  The three of them sat in an uneasy silence for a long while before Theo finally spoke. “We can provide you with compensation for your testimony, of course. We can get you out of the city, if you’re worried about your safety.”

  We. Because they were together. Because they would be married. And once they were, the girl would be like every other girl who gathered a bouquet and pledged herself to a man. Viola wondered what would happen to the girl’s fire then. Would it sputter out, or would it explode, destroying the pretty picture of their lives together?

  “I don’t worry about my safety,” Viola said, shaking her head. The girl was a menace to herself, to Mageus everywhere, and now, to Viola. And there was only one way to make sure that danger didn’t go unchecked. And if it also helped Viola chip away at the Order’s power? Then that was an unexpected benefit. They would make strange allies, these two. But they seemed sincere. “Fine,” Viola told Ruby. “I’ll help you.”

  “Thank you—” Ruby started to say, but Viola held up a hand to silence her.

  “I have a condition.”

  “What type of condition?” Theo asked, looking at her now as though she were a roach that had just crawled out of the cupboard.

  “You don’t write no more articles until our arrangement is done. Not a one,” she said, when the girl was about to argue.

  “But I have to write,” Ruby said. “It’s my profession.”

  Viola shook her head. If the girl published anything else, everyone would know that Viola hadn’t actually killed Reynolds.

  “Can she write under a different name?” Theo asked.

  “But, Theo—”

  “It’s only until you get the information you need,” he said, and then glanced at Viola. “How long will that take?”

  “It depends on what she wants from me.”

  “I need information,” Ruby said. “From what I can tell, the Order is looking for the people who destroyed Khafre Hall. I need to know what they took. I need names, evidence of the Order’s connection to your brother and the Five Pointers. I need incontrovertible proof that the Order isn’t what it appears to be. That it is a danger to the city.”

  “You ask for a lot—too much maybe. It will take time,” Viola said before Ruby could even open her smart mouth. “Paul, he doesn’t trust me. To get the information will be a delicate thing.” But it wouldn’t be impossible. And if Viola could implicate Nibsy as well? She could take out two birds at once. “If you write more of your stories, it will make it harder for me to find what you’re asking for. It will make it dangerous for me, too,” she finished, playing on the girl’s emotions.

  “Well, she can’t go on without writing indefinitely,” Theo said. “There has to be some sort of limitation.”

  Until Libitina is in my hands again, Viola thought, but that wasn’t anything she could say out loud. “Until I say so. That’s my offer. Take it or figure out how to get access to the Five Pointers some other way.”

  Viola waited, half-convinced that her bluff would be called and that Ruby would reject the offer and continue on her reckless course alone and half hoping she wouldn’t.

  Finally, Ruby nodded. “Deal,” she said, extending her hand.

  Viola examined it for a moment, cursing herself for getting mixed up in all of this. She should walk away and wash her hands of everything. But if the girl helped her to destroy the Order and put her brother in his place all while making Nibsy a target? It was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.

  She didn’t like this Ruby Reynolds. She didn’t like her perfectly white teeth or her pert nose or the way her cheeks turned pink every time someone spoke to her. Maybe Ruby wasn’t so fragile as Viola had expected, but the girl was still too delicate for Viola’s world. Whatever happened, Viola had tried to warn her.

  Viola took Ruby’s hand and shook, ignoring the warmth that washed through her body when her skin slid against the smooth, soft leather of Ruby’s gloves. Their eyes met, and for some reason, Viola could only see Tilly looking back at her. And she hated Ruby Reynolds that much more.

  The carriage had come to a stop without Viola even noticing it. Once she finally did, she pulled her hand away.

  “When should we meet next?” Theo asked, breaking the silence.

  Viola shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

  “That won’t do—” he started, but Ruby stopped him.

  “I’m sure she has responsibilities to tend to,” Ruby told him, but her eyes didn’t leave Viola’s. “She’ll send word when she has something. . . . Won’t you?”

  Just days ago she’d been stuck in the Bowery, where she would live and die. She’d been mourning Tilly, but she’d been content with her lot in life, with knowing what it was—what it would be. Now everything was uncertain. Now she didn’t know where she would land. But she was determined that it would be on her feet. “I’ll send word when I can.”

  Theo pulled a creamy white card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “You can contact us here,” he said.

  As she took it from him, she noticed his perfectly manicured nails, the smooth skin of his fingertips, and the Madison Avenue address. She had killed men far more dangerous than Theo Barclay, but for the first time in a long time, Viola felt the uneasy stirrings of a different type of fear.

  Theo opened the door and let her alight from the carriage. She realized she was back where she’d started—all that had just happened, and they’d only circled a couple of blocks.

  “We’ll talk again soon,” Ruby told her before the carriage door closed.

  Viola watched the carriage drive away until it turned the corner, leaving the filth and the poverty of the Bowery behind without any evidence that it had ever been there.

  Shaking off her foul mood, Viola started back toward Paul’s building. Whatever she pretended to be, Ruby Reynolds was nothing but a poor little rich girl, having a good time as she played her little games. She was everything that Viola had grown to hate—privileged, careless, and ignorant of the realities of the world.

  Or she was supposed to be. But Viola had seen the way her expression changed when she spoke of a different sort of life. Yes, Ruby Reynolds was everything that Viola was supposed to hate, but Viola knew without a doubt that she would do whatever she must to make sure that pretty, delicate Ruby Reynolds survived long enough to see the error of her ways.

  FURIOUS

  1904—St. Louis

  Outside King’s, the night air was damp and still held the coolness of the storm that had passed earlier. Esta pulled her cap down low over her eyes, but she kept her shoulders squared and her strides purposeful, remembering what Julien had told her. She was still annoyed with Harte, still thinking about the train and the Antistasi and about what all of it might mean, but as they walked, her annoyance eased.

  Around her, the unfamiliar cit
y felt strangely comfortable. Maybe it was that the energy of the city—the feeling of so many people living and breathing and fighting and loving all in a small parcel of land—was the same. Crowded. Eminently alive, even in the dead of night.

  When they reached the boardinghouse, Harte hesitated. The sky had cleared and now moonlight cast its pall over his features.

  “What is it?” Esta asked.

  “Nothing. I just . . .” But he shook his head instead of finishing the sentence and led the way up the front porch steps and then up the narrow staircase to the room they’d rented a few hours before.

  Once she’d unlocked their door, all she could think about was getting out of the stale-smelling clothes she was wearing. Everything reeked of the cigars Julien insisted on constantly smoking and the body odor of the clothes’ previous owner. She stripped off the jacket and tossed it aside, then started unbuttoning the shirt before she realized that Harte still hadn’t moved any farther into the room than just inside the doorway. He had his hands tucked into his pockets and a look on his face that made her pause.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” she asked, shrugging off the shirt.

  His eyes drifted down to the strips of bedsheet that she’d torn to wrap around her torso, binding down her breasts to better hide her natural shape. “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

  Not this again. “Julien thinks it’ll work just fine. No one in that saloon even looked twice at me, and you know it.” But he was shaking his head, disagreeing with her. He was always disagreeing with her. “You’re just angry you didn’t think of it first,” she told him.

  “You think I’m angry?” he said as he took a step toward her. There was something oddly hollow in his voice, something unreadable in his eyes.

  “Aren’t you?”

  He took another step, then another, until he was close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin. “Furious.” But he didn’t sound it, not even a little.

  There was an odd light in his eyes, but it wasn’t the strange colors she’d seen in them before. Instead, it was a question, a spark of wanting and hope and need so fierce that she couldn’t do more than simply tilt her chin up in an answer and invitation all at once.