The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  A shadow on the other side of the street moved, drawing Jianyu’s attention. As he turned, a man stepped from the darkness into the gloom of the lamplight.

  Mock Duck. The silver buttons of his waistcoat glinted like eyes in the night.

  Jianyu kept his head down and picked up his pace. He reached for his bronze mirrors but found his pockets empty. No matter. He called to his affinity and opened the light around him as he began to run, cutting down an alley to the next block. He did not turn to see if Mock’s highbinders were following. Instead, he focused on avoiding the puddles that would expose his exact path.

  Two more blocks and then another half a block west, and he would be where Esta said the boy would arrive . . . if he had not already missed him.

  He turned onto Essex Street and pulled up short. Ahead, a group of men were surrounding another.

  Too late.

  Jianyu kept the light close to him as he edged nearer, careful to avoid the telltale ripples his shoes would cause in the puddles at his feet. When he was close enough to see, his stomach tightened. Tom Lee and a trio of On Leongs were standing over someone—a man or a boy—and the person on the ground was deathly still.

  He should go. Tom Lee would not forgive Jianyu for abandoning his oath to the On Leongs. Perhaps Lee was not as violent as Mock Duck, but Jianyu knew that if Lee found him there, Lee would not hesitate to attack. But Jianyu needed to know—was the man they stood over the boy he was looking for? He edged closer, keeping his affinity tightly around him.

  One of the On Leongs kicked the man with such violence that Jianyu felt an answering ache in his own gut. The man moaned in pain and rolled onto his back.

  Jianyu’s blood ran cold.

  The person on the ground was not the blond boy Esta had described on the bridge. In the wan glow of the lamplight, Jianyu saw himself on the ground—it was not the boy’s face but his own contorted in agony as Tom Lee’s men prepared to attack again.

  He stumbled back in stunned disbelief, splashing into stagnant water. In the shock of the moment, his affinity slipped.

  Tom Lee and his men turned at the noise, and their eyes widened to see him there. Their expressions were a mixture of surprise and horror as they looked between Jianyu, standing as he was in the weak, flickering lamplight, and the body on the ground, barely moving. But Tom Lee showed no such fear. He stepped toward Jianyu, a gleam of anticipation in his expression as he pulled a pistol from inside his coat and raised it.

  Jianyu turned to run, but the echo of the gun’s explosion drowned out his footsteps. He felt the pain of the bullet tear through him, and then he was falling.

  Falling toward the muck and wetness of the rain-slicked streets. Falling through them—on and on—as though death were nothing but a constant descent. Falling as though he would never stop, as though he would never land.

  Until his body hit hard, and he jolted upright, struggling to get to his feet. He had to run—

  “Just settle down there,” a voice said, and it was not the Cantonese that he expected. It was in English, soft and rolling like none he had heard before. “Cela! Get in here, girl.”

  Jianyu’s eyes opened, and the street melted away, leaving a small but comfortable room. The glow of a small lamp lit the space, and the air felt close and warm, smelling of sweat and stale bodies.

  No, not the room. It was he who smelled of stale sweat. His clothes were damp with it, and he suddenly felt unbearably hot and cold all at once.

  “What is it?” Cela was there in the doorway.

  “He’s waking up,” a male voice said. It was the person holding him down, an older man with tawny-brown skin, his hair gray at the temples of his broad forehead. “Deal with him.”

  The hands were gone, and a moment later the bed dipped and Cela sat next to him. Her graceful hands felt cool against the skin of his forehead when she touched him.

  “How long?” he asked, his voice coming out as a dry rasp as he struggled to sit up. His side still ached and his head pounded.

  “Hold on,” Cela said, reaching for a cup of water. She tried to put it in his hands, but he pushed it away.

  “How long have I been here?” he asked again, his heart still racing from the dream of death.

  “You’ve been in and out for nearly five days,” Cela said.

  No. He was late. Too late. He tried to swing his legs off the bed, but the motion made him dizzy.

  “You have to sit down,” Cela told him, holding him by the arm as he swayed.

  “I have to go,” he said, shaking her off.

  “Go?” Vaguely he realized that her voice sounded very far away. “You can barely sit up. Where do you think you’re going?”

  He struggled to his feet. Too late. But his vision swam, and he stumbled backward.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Cela said. She pushed him gently back into bed, and his limbs felt so weak that he could not fight her. “You’re going to drink this water, and if you keep that down, you can have some broth.”

  “I am too late,” he told her, taking the cup. His hands were trembling from the weight of the water, and he could not seem to make them stop.

  “You had the life half beaten out of you. Whatever it is can wait,” she said, indicating that he should drink.

  She was wrong. The boy would not wait to arrive, would not wait to find Nibsy. Jianyu drank the water reluctantly, but he was surprised at the coolness of it, at how parched he suddenly felt. It was gone before it even began to touch his thirst. “More,” he asked, his voice a plea more than a command. Five days.

  He took the second glass and drank, as much to prove that he could as for his thirst. Five days. He had lost five days. Which meant that he was already too late.

  DISCARDED

  1902—New York

  For Logan Sullivan, traveling through time wasn’t the romantic adventure the movies made it out to be. For one thing, he didn’t get to sail along in a floating car or a magical police box. It wasn’t an easy jump. It hurt. And another thing—it made his head spin, his guts feel like they were about to fall out, and his very self feel like it was about to shatter. There was always a moment just as Esta dragged Logan from one time to another when he swore that there was a chance they wouldn’t make it at all, a point where it felt like he didn’t even exist. In short, time travel was a difficult, dangerous, and frustrating pain in the ass.

  But then again, so was Esta.

  She was the one who had always been able to see right through him, and that was damn inconvenient for Logan Sullivan, considering he’d discovered a long time ago that it was easier to move through the world if you let your pretty face do the talking.

  Still, pain in the ass or not, he’d felt bad about the gun he’d pressed to her side and even worse about the bullets Professor Lachlan had loaded into it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the Professor when he’d told Logan that Esta had turned on them and couldn’t be trusted. It was that Logan might have been a lot of things, but he’d never thought of himself as a murderer. He didn’t like the idea of having to put a bullet in her back. Even if she had done the same to Dakari.

  So he’d been glad when she hadn’t fought him as they’d walked to the departure point. He’d been relieved when he’d had to nudge her only once to get her moving, but he should have known it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing with her ever was. One minute he felt like the whole world was being ripped apart, like his very soul was collapsing in on itself, and then he felt the solidness of the pavement beneath him again.

  Before he could even pull himself upright, he’d felt a pain tear through his shoulder joint, and his hand had gone numb as Esta slid away from him. He’d stumbled, trying to get to his feet, but his vision was only just clear enough to see Esta scoop up the bag he’d been carrying and disappear.

  Logan was trying to get his eyes to focus, when the reality of his situation hit him. The dampness of the cobbled street, the smell of coal smoke and soot in the air. The strange slant of lig
ht coming down through the overcast day, and the bustle of voices around him in languages he didn’t understand. Professor Lachlan had tried to teach him, but he never had the head for words the way Esta had.

  Esta. Who was always good at everything. Esta, who had definitely abandoned him.

  In the past.

  There was a scent in the air with the sootiness—a ripeness that indicated something alive. Or something that had once been alive. Animals or rotten food or shit. Yeah, definitely shit. In the cool morning air, the stench was muted, but Logan could imagine the smell would be thick enough to choke when the heat of the summer swept over the city.

  He wasn’t supposed to be there during the summer. Professor Lachlan had promised. Once Logan had delivered the bag and the notes, Esta was supposed to bring him back to his own time—their own time.

  Where. He. Belonged.

  The bag he’d been carrying was long gone, but at least he still had the notes, he thought as he patted the pocket of his jacket. Yeah. Still there.

  Logan finally managed to sit up. His pants were damp from the puddle he’d landed in. Rainwater . . . Let it be rainwater. . . . Rubbing at his head where it had hit the concrete, he realized he was being watched. Two broad-shouldered guys with dark coats and hats tipped low over their eyes were stalking toward him. One had a stick of some sort—a club, but with a wicked spike at the end.

  Scrambling to his feet, Logan put his hands up as he tried to back away, but he backed up instead into someone else.

  “Whoa,” he said, his head still swirling as he struggled to stay up.

  “What do we have here?” the largest of the guys asked, taking another step toward Logan and penning him in. The guy smiled, a ruthless sort of grin that made Logan feel like he’d just swallowed a stone. He wasn’t the fighter—that was Esta. He was more of a talk-your-way-out-of-the-situation type. But these guys didn’t look like they were interested in listening.

  “Where’d the girl go?” the other one said, his expression as flat as his broken nose. “She was just here and then—”

  “Stuff it,” the larger one said, jabbing at Logan with his stick. “She’s one of them.” He pinned Logan with a look. “Wasn’t she? Does that mean you’re one of them too?”

  “Look, I don’t want any problems,” Logan told them.

  “Too late for that now, ain’t it?” the large one said as the man Logan had backed into took him by the arms. The other one picked up the gun Logan had been holding just moments earlier, his insurance against Esta’s probable attempt at escape, and pocketed it. “I think you’d better come with us. The boss is going to want to see you.”

  Jerked and pressed along, there was no choice but to walk—walk and curse Esta and her damn treachery the whole way.

  THE SIREN

  1902—New York

  Jack Grew had had enough of the constant coddling and fussing of his mother after two days. After five, he was finished completely, so he moved himself back into his own set of rooms. It had given him some peace, not having a constant parade of maids and doctors checking on him, and also some space from the rest of his family, who seemed always to be showing up to remind him about the next interview or appointment they’d arranged.

  They were always doing the arranging. Never asking. Never consulting. Only demanding, and he was damn well sick of it. Now, at least, he had time to pour himself into deciphering the Ars Arcana.

  When the clock struck eight, its long, sonorous chimes dragged Jack from his stupor. He blinked a few times, trying to remember where he was or what he had been doing. On the table in front of him, the Book was lying open, the page filled with symbols and markings in a language he didn’t recognize.

  Right. He’d been reading. Or he’d been trying to.

  He rubbed at his eyes. He’d sat down not long after five to wade through a page of Greek and must have fallen asleep at some point. That was the thing he’d discovered about the Book—when he was studying it, time seemed to have no real meaning. He’d often wake in the morning, still dressed in the clothes he had been wearing the night before, his neck aching from sleeping upright in a chair, and the Book open in front of him.

  Or perhaps that was simply an effect of the morphine, he thought dully, even as the ache in his head made him grimace. Taking the vial from his pocket, he removed a cube of the morphine and popped it into his mouth, cringing at the bitterness of it. But a few moments later the pain started to fade.

  Not quickly enough, he thought, placing two more of the bitter cubes into his mouth. A little while longer, maybe, and he’d stop using the painkiller. He wasn’t some damn soldier who couldn’t give it up. It hadn’t been that long, he thought, his mind already softening and growing clearer. It simply took time, he told himself as he turned back to the Book.

  It wasn’t the ringing of the clock that brought him out of his stupor the second time. No. That was a different bell altogether.

  He blinked, his head still swirling pleasantly and the pain in his head feeling very far away. He went to rub his eyes only to discover that his hand held a pen. The Book was still open, but now the page that had been completely incomprehensible before was filled with notations . . . and they were in his own hand.

  Not just notations. Translations. And he didn’t recall writing any of it.

  The bell was still ringing.

  The doorbell. Sam Watson. He’d almost completely forgotten about the appointment his uncle had made for another interview. The first one had been a complete waste of time, but apparently the Order felt that they needed to put a word in the ear of the press about the gala, and they were using Sam—and Jack—to do it.

  Jack groaned as he closed the Book with a violent snap. The pages rippled, bouncing with the force of it. The bell—and Watson—could damned well wait, he thought as he took the Book into his bedroom and secured it in the safe. He took two more cubes of morphine to dampen the pain that was already shooting through his head from the incessant ringing of the bell. Then he went to the door.

  It wasn’t Watson.

  “Miss DeMure,” Jack said, surprised to see her standing in his doorway. She was wearing a silk gown of the deepest emerald green, which contrasted with the red of her hair and lips.

  She’d come with Sam before, to the first interview he’d had with the reporter. From the looks she’d given Jack during that interview, she’d been interested in Jack—more than interested. He’d hoped to see her again, but he hadn’t expected her to arrive at his town house, unannounced and alone.

  He looked past her, for some sign that Sam Watson was with her.

  “Sam couldn’t come,” she said, stepping past him. “Regrettably, he was detained by something at the office. I thought you might enjoy my company instead.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder, and Jack, who was not one to overlook a gift like this, shut the door behind her.

  “Your company?” he asked expectantly, turning back to her.

  She was running her gloved fingertips over the smooth, dark wood of the entry table. “Was I wrong?”

  “No,” he said, feeling a flush of warmth and satisfaction. “Not at all. Please, come in. Something to drink?”

  The went into the parlor, and he poured them both glasses of sherry. She took the offered drink with a coy smile, but then she turned from him to examine one of the figurines on the sideboard.

  He understood immediately the dance that she’d just started, and his gut went tight at the thought of what was to come—the give and take as they circled each other. The tease and the promise of it. And the moment he would triumph.

  After a moment Evelyn turned to him, her eyes glittering in the soft light. “I knew Harte Darrigan, you know. . . .”

  “Darrigan?” Irritation coursed through Jack as his mood went icy. The last thing he wanted to think about when he was entertaining a willing woman was that damned magician.

  Evelyn nodded. “Some might say that I knew him intimately.”

  “Did you?” he
asked, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice.

  “Oh, don’t be jealous, Jack,” she said, and then she laughed, deep and throaty.

  Despite his irritation, the sound tugged at his gut again, but the morphine was still in his blood, making his mind clear and his thoughts direct. She was toying with him.

  But he was no mouse.

  He stalked over to her slowly, so she wouldn’t be afraid. So she wouldn’t realize that it wasn’t he who was the prey. “I wouldn’t waste my time being jealous of trash like Darrigan,” he told her.

  Her red mouth drew up into a smile. “I didn’t think you would. I knew from the moment I heard you speak to Sam the other day that you were too smart, too shrewd for an emotion as petty as jealousy. Which is why I thought you might be interested in information I have about him.”

  He took another step closer, until he could smell the cloying perfume that hung around her like a cloud, brash and loud—just like she was. “What information?”

  “I was there that night, you know,” she told him, sipping her sherry and never once breaking eye contact. A challenge if ever there was one. “I was at Khafre Hall the night everything happened. I know the Order is trying to cover the truth, that they’re using you to distract the public from what actually happened. If you say Darrigan was on the train, I believe you.”

  “You do?” Jack asked, coming closer yet and placing his glass on the sideboard.

  “Of course, Jack. I knew Darrigan, and I knew that bitch of an assistant he found. She’s the one to blame for all of this, you know.”

  He took her by the arm and was gratified to see the flash of fear in her eyes. “I’m not interested in games. If you know where Darrigan or the girl are, you will tell me.”

  “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he even made it off the train—” He tightened his grip on her arm, and her eyes went wide. “But I do know that he might have left something behind . . . something that might interest you.”