Iron and Blood

by Gail Z. Martin

  “How is it they all came in at once?”

  The guard looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “What, you don’t read the newspaper? Buncha miners died down in the deep shafts, musta been the blackdamp that took them.” He shrugged. “It happens.” Then the guard paused, frowning. “Only—”

  “What?”

  Again, the guard looked from side to side, and his voice fell to a whisper. “Usually, when they open up a shaft after there’s blackdamp—bad air—they find the bodies. This time I hear they only found pieces, and not enough pieces at that.”

  They reached the foyer, and the guard opened the door. His expression hardened as the secretary looked up. “Probably good if you don’t come back for a while,” he said loudly for her benefit. “Let the old guy cool off.”

  Drostan nodded his goodbye to the receptionist and hurried down the steps, deep in thought as he headed for the end of the carriageway. He hoped the wagon driver would show up to take him back to the trolley.

  “Have you talked to the witch?”

  The voice made Drostan stop dead in his tracks. He looked around, but he saw no one nearby. Then the air shimmered, and he could make out the gray form of a stooped old lady, clad in a hospital gown with a scarf tied over her head like a babushka. “What did you say?” Drostan whispered, afraid someone might overhear.

  Have you talked to the witch? This time, he heard the voice only in his mind.

  Witch?

  The old woman cursed in Polish. He caught only a few words of it, enough to know she had insulted both his hearing and his intelligence. You want to know what killed those men? Ask the witch.

  I don’t know any witches.

  More cursing. The witch of Pulawski Way. Tell him Irena Sokolowski sent you to him.

  What’s his name? Who is he?

  She looked at him as if he were stupid. They call him the czarodziej. Ask. You’ll find him.

  And with that, the old woman’s ghost faded from his sight.

  “Hey bub! You want a ride or not?” The wagon driver looked at him impatiently, and Drostan hurried toward the end of the driveway.

  “You always stare into space like that?” the driver asked as Drostan climbed into the wagon. He shook his head. “Do that too much in a place like this, they don’t let you leave.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Drostan replied distractedly. He glanced at the driver. “Did you hear anything about problems at the Vesta mine?”

  The driver gave a harsh laugh. “Which one? There’re nine of them.”

  “Vesta Nine.”

  He shrugged. “Always problems with mines. That’s why I won’t have nothin’ to do with them. My granddaddy and my daddy were miners, but I ran off when I was old enough and started working on the docks. Done all right for myself.” He eyed Drostan. “Why?”

  Drostan looked away. “Heard some men died. Wondered what happened.”

  “Men die in mines. If the blackdamp don’t get you, the firedamp will, either suffocate you or blow you to bits,” he said. “And that’s if you don’t get crushed or trampled or skin yourself up and get blood poison.” He shook his head. “Bad places. Worse lately.”

  “Oh?”

  Another shrug. “The babas say it’s because the mines go too deep. Vesta Nine is the deepest of all their mines. The babas say the miners are disturbing things that shouldn’t be woken.” He gave a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Women. You know how they talk nonsense.”

  “Yeah,” Drostan said. “Nonsense.” He was quiet for a moment. “You ever hear the word gessyan?”

  The wagon driver’s face shut down. “I ain’t got no more to say,” he snapped. “And if you come back this way, I’m not your man. Keep your nose outta things ain’t your concern.”

  Spooked him good, Drostan thought. That’s all right. He might not want to tell me, but I think I know someone who will.

  THE WAGON MASTER said nothing more the rest of the way to the station. Drostan rode the trolley back to New Pittsburgh deep in thought. The platform was nearly empty when he arrived, and he walked another two blocks to the dispatcher’s station, stopping to pick up a bucket of beer on the way.

  “You’re out late, Drostan,” the telegraph operator at the trolley dispatch office said as Drostan walked in.

  “Business. You know how it is, Sam,” Drostan replied. He hefted the bucket of beer. “Brought you something for after work.”

  Sam grinned. “Now that’s something to look forward to.” He leveled a glance at Drostan. “Guess this means you want me to send another telegraph for you?”

  Drostan put the beer down in a safe, out of the way spot and nodded. “I’d be much obliged.”

  “You know the post offices are all closed. Whoever you’re sending it to won’t get it before tomorrow morning, probably later.”

  “Send it just like this—with this code at the beginning. It’s a private receiver.” Drostan said, writing out his note. Just a few words, ‘gessyan in deep mines.’ Nothing that would make sense to anyone else. Drostan wasn’t sure it made sense to him, either. But it was the most likely clue the night’s work had turned up, and Jake Desmet had said he wanted to hear about anything and everything Drostan turned up.

  Sam read it over and looked up. “Got a new case?”

  “Keeping body and soul together.”

  “If you say so.” The brass key flashed and blurred as Sam sent the telegraph.

  “Thanks,” Drostan said, taking the note back and holding it over the lamp flame, watching the paper burn to ashes.

  “That’s it? You’re not going to wait around for a reply?”

  Drostan shook his head. “None needed. Just checking in. Thanks, Sam. Enjoy the beer.”

  With that, he sauntered off, heading for Ohio Street and the room he rented at the boarding house. The ride back from the asylum had been a long one, and it was late. Mrs. Mueller would have left him a sandwich in the ice box, and if he was lucky, some ale to go with it. Even so, the smell of beer and bratwurst wafting from the taverns he passed made his stomach rumble.

  The rush of workers heading home after a long day in the factories was over. Here and there, Drostan saw the glow of cigarettes where men sat on front stoops or leaned against walls, enjoying a smoke and watching the world go by.

  Up ahead, a drunk lolled near the gutter, stinking of stale beer and old urine. Drostan gave him space, having no desire to show up at the boarding house with vomit on his shoes. He had just passed the drunk when the man spun suddenly, scissoring his legs, catching Drostan behind the knees and sending him to the pavement. A second blow caught Drostan in the jaw, making him see stars.

  Moving far too quickly for a drunkard, the man sucker-punched Drostan in the side and got to his feet.

  “Take my wallet!” Drostan gasped, but his right hand was already going for his shoulder holster.

  “Don’t want your money,” a voice rasped as the vagrant pulled back hard on Drostan’s collar. “Quit sticking your nose where it don’t belong. Forget what you heard at the nut house. You might live longer.”

  Drostan kicked up sharply with his left foot, catching the vagrant in the shin. He rolled, and came up with his gun trained on the drunk’s forehead. “And you might not live long at all unless you tell me who sent you.”

  Drostan saw the tip of a sawed-off shotgun start to rise from beneath the vagrant’s tattered duster. He threw himself to one side as the blast kicked up concrete and filled the air with smoke. Buckshot peppered his shoulder, but he squeezed off a shot at the fleeing assailant, scrambling to his feet as the man turned around a corner and disappeared into an alley. Drostan had no desire to be around when—if—the police investigated. He ran into the alley, but the vagrant had disappeared.

  Wary, gun still drawn, Drostan made his way down the alley to the next street and walked a couple of blocks out of his way before returning to Ohio Street. His jaw ached, his shoulder was bleeding, and he had a stitch in his side from where he
had been punched. Drostan kept his gun in hand, hidden beneath his coat, but to his relief, no one approached him and the way to the boarding house was clear.

  Mrs. Mueller had already gone to bed; the kitchen was dark when he let himself in. Drostan grabbed the sandwich out of the ice box and made his way upstairs, gun still in his hand, just in case.

  The door to his room was ajar.

  Drostan kicked the door fully open and dropped to a crouch, gun ready. Two figures waited for him, one in a chair in the center of the room, the other by the window.

  “Put that down. It’s not nice to shoot us.”

  Drostan recognized the voice. He swore and lowered the gun, pushing the door shut behind him and turning on the gas light. “What are you two doing here?”

  Mitch Storm grinned. “We’re the Department. We can do anything.” A former Army sharpshooter, Mitch was a decade younger than Drostan, with short dark hair, an athlete’s build and a permanent five o’clock shadow. He was every penny dreadful writer’s cliché of a government agent.

  The second man gave a loud harrumph. “He means we heard some chatter and happened to be in the neighborhood, so we caught a streetcar over,” Jacob Drangosavich added. He was a big man with dark blond hair, a thin face and pale blue eyes, and he looked like he could fit right in with the Eastern European men who filed down to the mills and mines, day-in and day-out.

  Drostan had crossed paths with Storm and Drangosavich more times than he wanted to remember. Sometimes, they were racing for the same prize. More often, they were at cross-purposes. And while Drostan grudgingly admitted that the two men were mostly trustworthy, his dislike of shadowy government organizations made him wary of them and of their employer.

  Drostan put his sandwich down on the desk, holstered his gun, and gingerly shrugged off his ruined coat, then lit the other gas light. “No point sitting in the dark,” he said.

  “Who shot you?” Mitch asked, rising from the room’s only chair as Drostan poured water from the pitcher into the wash basin and gingerly daubed the wound, grimacing at the red stain that quickly tinged the water.

  “That’s the question now, isn’t it?” Drostan replied. “But since whoever-it-was warned me away from sticking my nose in places it doesn’t belong, I’ve got to figure getting jumped had something to do with the case I’m working on.” He glared at the two men. “Which has nothing to do with you, so you can go right back to where you came from.”

  “Sit down,” Jacob said, pulling out a pocket knife and opening it to a slender blade, which he ran back and forth through the lamp’s flame to sterilize it. “I’ve dug these out of Mitch’s hide enough times, I should just pack it all in and become a sawbones.”

  Drostan glared at him, and Jacob sighed. “You want to explain a gunshot to the doctor at the hospital?” After a moment’s resistance, Drostan nodded, although he didn’t look happy about it.

  Mitch slid the chair over, and Drostan sat down, pointedly looking away as Jacob began poking at his injured shoulder. He gritted his teeth, and a moment later a piece of lead shot hit the floor.

  “What do you know about Vesta Nine?” Drostan said, trying to keep his mind off what Jacob was doing.

  “Not much. Just that it’s one of the biggest mines in the world and it’s owned by Richard Thwaites and Drogo Veles,” Mitch replied. “Between them, they’re major investors in Carnegie Steel, Jones and Laughlin, H. C. Frick and Company—I could go on, but you get the gist.” There was an edge to the agent’s voice.

  “So definite Oligarchy ties, at least for Thwaites,” Drostan replied, trying to hide the strain in his voice as Jacob pried another couple of pieces of buckshot loose.

  Mitch let out a harsh laugh. “Oligarchy ties? Thwaites’s father formed the Oligarchy.”

  “I talked to Eli Carmody. Thought he’d remember bits of the old Tumblety case, see if that’s who’s behind the Ripper-style killings along the rivers,” Drostan replied. “He didn’t say much about Tumblety, but he got strange at the end, warned me about something he called gessyan, and told me to look for a witch.” He had no intention of reporting his conversation with the ghost. Brand and Desmet knew about his abilities, and paid him a premium for his services because of it. Drostan suspected that the two Department agents knew that part of his record as well, but he had no intention of attracting government scrutiny by confirming rumors.

  Mitch and Jacob exchanged a glance. “He said ‘gessyan’?” Mitch repeated.

  Drostan nodded, then swore under his breath as Jacob dug the last of the shot out of his shoulder. “Aye. And when I mentioned the word to my wagon driver, he shut up tighter than a nun’s knees.”

  “Carmody say anything else?” Mitch asked. “In his day, he was a good detective.”

  “He was the best, before something sent him round the bend,” Drostan countered testily.

  “Where do you keep your liquor?” Jacob asked.

  “In the trunk at the foot of the bed,” Drostan replied.

  Jacob fetched the bottle of whiskey and a rag. “This is going to sting,” he said bluntly, and proceeded to splash some of the dark liquid onto the rag and press it to Drostan’s wounded arm.

  “Son of a bitch!” Drostan yelped.

  “Better than having it go sour,” Mitch said as Jacob ignored Drostan’s outburst and began to bind up his arm with strips of cloth from Drostan’s ruined shirt.

  “Gessyan,” Drostan grated, his temper growing shorter as pain, hunger and tiredness took their toll. “What do you know?”

  “Not as much as we’d like to,” Mitch admitted, standing to pace the small room. “Gessyan are supernatural, live in deep dark places, and they’re nasty predators. It’s a blanket term for a bunch of spooky stuff—hell hounds, malicious ghosts, wraiths, and other things that prowl the shadows.” He met Drostan’s gaze. “Things like your Night Hag. Legends say the gessyan were all bound a long time ago so they couldn’t come out to play.”

  “Bound how?” Drostan asked.

  “Magic, if you believe in that sort of thing,” Mitch replied off-handedly.

  Drostan knew damn well that both Storm and Drangosavich—‘Sturm und Drang’ as they were known in the field—believed in the unbelievable. That was the whole point behind the Department, a secret organization that existed to find things that went bump in the night and make them disappear.

  “Witches?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Maybe. There are more witches than you can shake a stick at in New Pittsburgh—every baba and nona thinks she’s got the Power. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “The Witch of Pulawski Way,” Drostan snapped. He was growing tired of playing games, and his shoulder ached. He reached over and grabbed his sandwich, then poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a glass before downing it in a gulp.

  Again Mitch and Jacob exchanged a glance, and by now, Drostan had enough. “Say something useful or get the hell out,” he muttered. “I gave you some information. Now it’s your turn—and you haven’t told me yet why you’re here.”

  Mitch met his gaze. “We know who the Witch of Pulawski Way is. Guy name of Karl Jasinski. A Polish witch.”

  “Czarodziej,” Drostan muttered.

  Jacob winced. “Please,” he said with a grimace, before correcting Drostan’s pronunciation.

  “What’s so special about Jasinski?” Drostan asked. “And what does he have to do with coal mines and monsters in the dark?”

  Mitch shrugged. “We don’t know. That’s the hell of it. But what we do know is that Jasinski seems to be nervous about something, and has gotten interested in those same killings you’re investigating.”

  “Did he find anything?” Drostan pressed.

  “Don’t know,” Jacob replied. “We haven’t been able to contact him.”

  Drostan glared at the two men. “All right,” he said, then gritted his teeth against the pain as he moved. “Now why are you here?”

  Mitch clucked his tongue. “Really, Drostan. You sound
bitter. We heard you were sniffing around, asking questions, and we thought we should drop in before you get yourself hurt.”

  “You’re a little late for that.”

  “We also heard you were working for Brand and Desmet, and showing up in all the wrong places when it comes to inconvenient dead bodies by the river,” Jacob added. “We wanted to have a chat before you become one of those bodies yourself.”

  “Is that a threat?” Drostan asked levelly.

  Mitch shrugged and lit a cigarette. “Not from us. But the Department’s interested in what’s going on at the Vesta Nine for a lot of other reasons, and you’re the mouse running through the elephant stampede. You could get squashed without anyone even noticing.”

  “Someone murdered Thomas Desmet using magic,” Drostan replied. “I aim to find out who it was and why they did it.”

  Mitch and Jacob exchanged a glance. “Mitch and I are here looking into the river murders,” Jacob said. “We also think Francis Tumblety might be involved—maybe Adolph Brunrichter too. Like a bad penny, those two just keep showing up.”

  Drostan remembered the names. He had helped Mitch and Jacob bust a bodysnatching and vivisection racket run by the two charlatan doctors, who’d escaped in the disastrous fire that destroyed their lab. Having them back in town made bad business worse. “Who are they working for?” Drostan asked.

  Mitch shrugged. “We’re not sure.” He leaned forward. “But if it turns out that Carmody is right and there’s some connection between the river murders and Vesta Nine, then my advice is for you to stay out of this. It’s bigger than you realize.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Drostan replied, meeting Mitch’s gaze.

  “Veles and Thwaites have something big and illegal going on over at the mine, and they will get rid of anyone—anyone—who gets in their way. You’re outgunned.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Drostan replied with a shrug. “Do you know what the prize is?”

  “We suspect,” Jacob said. “Remember, Mitch and I aren’t working on the Vesta Nine case. We just hear things. Something else to chew on: shipments from Tesla-Westinghouse have gone missing—shipments that were supposed to go to the Department. Find those shipments, and you might find the key to this whole mess.”