The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

“Because she hates me,” Ruby said, soft enough that Viola couldn’t hear.

  “She’s a source, Ruby. Treat her like any other source. She doesn’t need to like you. She needs to help you.”

  He was right, of course, but it certainly didn’t feel that way.

  Things didn’t improve when the attendant who prepared the rowboat for them suggested that their servant could wait on the bench near the boat shed.

  “No,” Ruby said, her cheeks heating with absolute mortification. “She’s coming with us.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Viola’s head whip around at her. “I mean to say, she’s not my servant—our servant. She’s our . . .” What, exactly, was Viola?

  “Our friend will be coming along,” Theo said, breaking in to rescue her.

  Not that it stopped the heat that had already climbed up Ruby’s neck and into her cheeks. Her skin would be blotchy and red. It was mortifying. Really, it was.

  Viola was silent as they clambered into the boat and the attendant pushed them off into the water. Theo began rowing in long, slow pulls, causing the boat to glide away from the shore and into the center of the lake.

  It was a beautiful day, just as Theo had said. Any other time, Ruby might have enjoyed the outing, floating on the water far from the worries and responsibilities that she usually carried with her. Weightless and serene. When she was just a girl, she had positively loved it when her father would bring her and her sisters down to the park, especially on early spring days like this one, when it seemed like the city would be in bloom at any moment.

  But that was before everything happened. Theo had brought her a couple of times last summer, trying to cheer her up, but nothing worked for that better than work itself.

  This was work, she reminded herself. But with Viola glaring at her, Ruby found it decidedly uncomfortable.

  Viola was just so . . . much. It wasn’t that she was large. She was even shorter than Ruby herself, and she certainly wasn’t fat or even plump. But Viola’s body had the curves and softness that Ruby’s did not. She wasn’t any older than Ruby, but somehow she looked like a woman rather than a girl. There was experience in her eyes. Knowledge.

  Oh, but her poor face.

  Viola noticed Ruby staring again and hitched her shawl up farther to cover her bruise.

  Someone had hit her. Someone had hurt her, and it made Ruby want to destroy them in return.

  Theo was whistling some unnameable melody as he moved them in slow, looping circles around the lake.

  “Yes, well . . .” It was an inane thing to say. “We should talk.”

  Viola didn’t reply. She simply waited expectantly, and Ruby, who always knew what to say, didn’t know where to begin. It was vexing the way Viola stared at her as though she could see right through her, down to the parts that she hid from everyone except Theo—to the parts she hid even from Theo. In all the ballrooms she’d been in, swirled about in the arms of countless beaus, Ruby had never felt half as unsure of herself as she did with Viola’s eyes on her.

  Ruby took out her small tablet and pencil. It was a simple enough action, but it helped to center her a bit. “What do you know of your brother’s association with John Torrio, Miss Vaccarelli?”

  “Torrio is one of his guys,” Viola said. “Paolo, he’s grooming Torrio to take a stake in his businesses. He likes him,” she said with no little disgust. Her nose wrinkled, a clear indication that she thought differently.

  “And your brother,” Ruby said, focusing the notes she was writing so she wouldn’t have to look into Viola’s eyes again. “What can you tell me about his businesses?”

  “He has the New Brighton and the Little Naples Cafe, which are the ones our mother knows of, and then he has the Five Pointers.” She listed out a few more things, a couple of brothels and other connections that Paul Kelly had, but they weren’t anything Ruby didn’t already know. “My brother is un coglione . . . how do you say? He’s not a nice man. A bastard not by birth, but by choice.”

  Ruby believed every word of what Viola was telling her, but other newspapers had already dealt with Paul Kelly’s connections to the underbelly of the city. It wasn’t what Ruby was interested in.

  “He sent John Torrio to kill me, didn’t he?” Ruby asked, finally looking up from her paper. But this time it was Viola who wouldn’t look at her. “It’s okay,” she told Viola. “I know you were there, but I know you didn’t want to hurt me.” She laid her hand on the other girl’s knee.

  Viola’s eyes flashed up to meet hers, and, embarrassed and suddenly too warm, Ruby drew her hand away.

  “Do you know why Torrio was sent to kill me, Miss Vaccarelli?”

  Viola shook her head. “You wrote something they didn’t like so much.”

  “Exactly. I wrote a story about a train accident, and it had nothing at all to do with Paul Kelly or any of his Five Pointers.” Viola’s brows had drawn together, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes instead seemed to urge Ruby on. “The story was about a derailment outside the city, nine days ago. There was a man on that train, a friend of Theo’s from school—”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend,” Theo said dryly. “Especially not now . . .”

  “They were acquaintances,” Ruby corrected, trying to keep her own temper from erupting. “He told the medics who rescued him that he saw a man on the train who should have already been dead. When they pulled him out, he’d hit his head pretty badly, but he was talking about Mageus—about a magician named Harte Darrigan and a girl.”

  Viola’s eyes widened slightly. “Harte Darrigan?”

  Viola knows that name. But Ruby didn’t know what that meant. “And a girl,” she repeated. “I talked Theo into getting me access to this man, Jack Grew. He either didn’t know who I was or he didn’t care, because he told me everything that happened. It was a monumental scoop. And the Order did everything they could to kill it, up to and including trying to have me killed. So you see, I have a very personal stake in all of this. I will not be silenced, Miss Vaccarelli. I will not go be the good, biddable girl that they want me to be. I will expose them, and I will do everything I can to destroy the Order’s power in this city.” She paused, forcing her anger and impatience back down. “But this is bigger than the Order.”

  “It is?” Viola asked, her expression thoughtful and serious.

  Ruby nodded. “If Jack Grew was right—and I think he was, considering the lengths the Order has gone to, all to shut me up—that train derailment wasn’t an accident. It was an attack. And it was done with magic.”

  THE SWP

  1904—St. Louis

  When Esta went inside the building, it was dark, but she could see a light coming from a hallway to the right. In the distance she heard something like the murmuring of a crowd. Because Harte wasn’t there, she took the risk of pulling her affinity around her and followed the source of the light until she found that it was coming from a set of stairs.

  Keeping her hold on time, she went up the steps slowly, careful to keep the notebook balanced under her arm. At the top, there was another hallway, but at the far end of it, she saw a glow coming from beneath a door. As she walked toward it, the sound of her footsteps echoed into the silence that had been created by her magic. She found it unlocked, and with time still motionless, she slipped through.

  On the other side was a large room filled with people. The high-ceilinged space stretched the entire width of the building, and the men and women within it were caught in the web of time gone slow, their mouths open and their expressions rapt as they listened to a speaker standing in the center. Though some sat on benches at the edges of the room, most were on their feet, crowded around the man elevated on the small platform of a stage. The speaker was dressed in shirtsleeves, which had been pulled back to reveal the broad forearms of a workman, but it was clear that his working days were behind him. His balding hair was nearly white, and his face was partially obscured by a full beard. His hand was raised, and his face was rapturous, his mouth opened and h
is eyes wild.

  Esta had a sense that this man in the middle of the crowd was Lipscomb. She could leave the device here and go, but if she was wrong, it could mean trouble. She needed to make sure she had the right target.

  Making her way through the crowd, Esta was careful not to touch anyone or bobble the parcel under her arm. She found a spot in the back corner, far from anyone who might notice her sudden appearance, and then she let go of her hold on time. The room spun back into life. The noise of the crowd was deafening, and the air suddenly held an electricity that had nothing to do with magic.

  In the center of the room, the man’s voice boomed over the crowd. “The bourgeois care nothing for the workers,” he shouted. “They would print their money with the blood of our children. While our families work themselves to death in factories, the rich men of this city plan parties and balls. They feast while we starve! Look at the excesses of the Exposition,” he shouted, pounding his fist against his hand to punctuate his words. “Instead of celebrating the worker—the true spirit of this country—the Exposition celebrates a feudal past that cannot be allowed to rise again. They’ve built palaces and temples in our city, a city where native-born sons die without a roof over their heads.

  “Look at the Society, with its heathenish ways. They look to magic, to the occult, because they understand that the workers of this country will not be silenced. They know that only the heathen power can subdue the power of the workers when they unite. But we will show them that not even their sorcery will be enough to extinguish the fire lit here, in this place, tonight.” He paused, looking around the room with satisfaction. “The Society has planned a parade—”

  The room rumbled with disgusted murmurs, punctuated by low boos. The man’s voice didn’t carry with it any hint of magic, but there was power there nonetheless. Esta could feel him stirring the souls in the room all around her with nothing more than his words. The people around him were leaning in toward the platform on which he stood, their minds open and willing to accept what he was saying.

  “Yes. Their parade is an abomination. Their prophet is a false one, an idol of profit and power created to suppress the voice of the proletariat. You all know this. You have seen it for yourselves every year since the brave porters stood up and demanded a living wage and were crushed by the powers of the bourgeois pigs. Every year the bourgeoisie remind us that they hold our lives in their hands—hands that have never known the weight of a hammer or the sting of labor—but not this year.

  “This year we will rise up. This year, with the world watching, with the president himself viewing the spectacle, we must rise up and say enough. We must demand what is ours—with force, if necessary.”

  The crowd erupted around Esta, and she lifted her hands in half-hearted applause, so she wouldn’t be noticed. But his words, along with the anger and hatred in his tone, made her uneasy. The room felt like a powder keg about to ignite.

  “This your first meeting?” A girl had come up next to her and was examining her with an appraising look in her eyes.

  “What?” Esta asked, unnerved at how easily she’d missed the girl’s approach. She was wearing a dress of slate gray that was buttoned up to her chin. The color seemed too severe for how young she was, but the plain cut of it seemed to suit the girl’s stern expression.

  “You’re a new face,” the girl said, a question in her eyes.

  Esta’s mind raced. “I heard about this . . . this meeting,” she said, improvising as she went. “And thought I’d see for myself what it was all about.”

  “Who’d you hear from?” the girl asked. Her voice was soft but determined. And her eyes were suspicious.

  “Oh, one of the guys at the brewery told me. Said I might find it interesting.”

  The girl studied Esta a long moment more, like she wasn’t sure if she believed the story, but then she relented. “I’m Greta, and you are?”

  “John,” Esta said, picking the plainest, most forgettable name she could think of.

  “We’re glad to have you, John,” Greta told her as she handed Esta a sheet of paper. “Our movement needs more able bodies willing to stand firm.”

  Keeping the notebook clamped steadily beneath her arm, she accepted it without reading it. “Thanks,” she said. “Who’s that speaking now?”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed a little. “Your friend, the one at the brewery, he didn’t tell you?”

  Esta’s throat felt tight. “He just said I’d be interested . . . didn’t say much else.”

  “Where is he?” the girl asked. “This friend of yours?”

  “Who knows?” Esta said, and when she sensed that it wasn’t the right answer, she added, “Probably working overtime.” She gave a shrug that she hoped looked tired and frustrated. “You know how it is—when the foreman says stay, you stay.”

  The girl’s expression relaxed slightly. “Yes. We all know how it is.” She looked to the speaker and then back at Esta. “That’s Caleb Lipscomb. He’s the current secretary of the SWP. He’s brilliant.”

  “What’s this parade he’s talking about?”

  “The Veiled Prophet Parade?” the girl asked, and the suspicion was back in her eyes. “They have it every year. . . .” Her voice trailed off like this was something Esta should have known.

  “I’m new in town,” Esta told her. “Came because my cousin said there was work, what with the Exposition and all. Only been here about two months.”

  The girl’s expression didn’t relax. “Where did you say you worked again?”

  Esta felt as though the stiff collar of her shirt were strangling her, but she’d been in tighter situations than this. “The Feltz Brewery,” she said, giving the name of Ruth’s place, since it was the only place she knew of.

  The girl made a sound in the back of her throat. “He’s talking about the Veiled Prophet Parade that’s set for Independence Day.”

  “This parade . . . It’s a big deal?” Esta asked, trying to get a sense of what the girl thought of it.

  “That depends on who you are. A lot of people in town like the spectacle of it, but there’s plenty of us who know the truth.” Greta shrugged. “It’s just a show of power. The Society started the parade back in seventy-eight, after a railroad strike threatened to shut down the city. They couldn’t let a bunch of simple workmen get away with an action like that, especially not ones with skin darker than their own, so they invented the Prophet and the Parade. They use the threat of magic to keep the workers in their places all the year through, and the parade is a reminder of their power—a reminder of who is truly free in this country.” The girl’s expression lit with determination. “We never make it easy for them, and this year’s parade won’t be any exception.”

  “I see,” Esta said, glancing at the sheet in her hand. The bold, dark type only accented the anger in the words printed on the page.

  “Well, enjoy the rest of the evening,” the girl said. “If you have any questions at all, any of us with the broadsheets can answer them.”

  “Thanks,” Esta told her, and turned her eyes back to the man speaking in the center of the room.

  Go away, she thought as she felt the girl’s eyes on her.

  She pretended to pay attention to what Lipscomb was saying. After a few minutes, she glanced over her shoulder to find the girl still watching her. Inwardly she cursed. As long as the girl was there, Esta was stuck—she couldn’t disappear, and she couldn’t drop the package, not without giving away either what she was or what she was doing. Magic would make what she had to do easier, but with the girl, she couldn’t risk it.

  An opening parted in the crowd in front of her, and Esta took the opportunity it presented to slip through, little by little making her way closer to the small platform that Caleb Lipscomb was standing on. Every so often she paused, as though considering his words, and then would take the opportunity some shifting in the crowd offered to slip closer yet. She didn’t doubt that the girl was still watching her, but there wasn’t anything
she could do about that.

  When she was standing right in front of him, she stopped, keeping the notebook in her hands secure. She’d give it a minute or two before she made her move.

  “But we must be vigilant,” Lipscomb was bellowing. “We know there are those who would corrupt our purpose. Undesirable elements that bring with them the feudal superstitions of the old countries: the Catholics with their papist loyalty and those who refuse to set aside their feral magic to join the true proletariat. You know what I speak of,” he shouted, his voice rising in a feverish pitch.

  “Maggots!” shouted someone deep in the crowd.

  Esta saw the curve of Lipscomb’s mouth at the sound of the slur. “Yes. Why do they come here? Why do they seek to take the jobs we’ve worked so hard for? To disrupt the country we are trying to build with their dangerous ways?” Lipscomb shook his head dramatically. “We must guard against those who would pervert the true proletariat with their shadowy powers.”

  She pretended interest, hiding her disgust beneath a placid expression. No honor among thieves, and no solidarity among the downtrodden, apparently. Maybe she didn’t know this Caleb Lipscomb, but she knew those like him and felt some of the guilt she’d been carrying about what she was supposed to do lift from her.

  He would do the same to me, she thought as she pressed even closer to the platform. He would do worse.

  When someone bumped into her, Esta let the sheet of paper the girl had given her drop to the floor. She waited until it landed at her feet before she stooped to retrieve it, and in a subtle movement perfected during her years of training, she placed the parcel on the floor and held on to the edge of the loose sheet within it. Then she slid the notebook forward, until the loose sheet came free and the device was directly under the platform.

  The Antistasi had explained that she had less than five minutes once she removed the fuse, but when she got back up to her feet, she realized that she was penned in, trapped by the crowd that was on its feet, shouting with the fervor of true converts. There was no opening, so Esta made one, throwing an elbow sharply into the stomach of the man behind her. The man groaned and tumbled backward into the people behind him, and the crowd, already whipped into an excited frenzy, responded by pushing him back. In a matter of seconds, someone threw a punch, and the room erupted into chaos.