Roaring

by Lindsey Duga

  My emotions. My fault.

  After that, Madame never had to remind me not to speak.

  “Eris, what’s got you so distracted, hon?” Madame Maldu asked as I squeezed behind her to get into the back corner of the bar. “I’ve watched you remake drinks twice, and you’re moving slower than molasses tonight.”

  Stanley and I had both agreed not to tell Madame about the incident with the Harvard boys. If she’d known I’d opened my mouth, she’d have a conniption. And since people were blaming it on a gun misfiring, she thought it was as simple as that. While saving Stanley’s life had been a noble cause, Madame wasn’t known to be very reasonable, especially when it came to keeping my secret.

  Besides, I had the feeling that Madame had other reasons to hide me away in this tiny bar tucked into the middle of this growing, bustling metropolis. When we left New York—the night itself fuzzy from my young, childish memories—we’d gone to several tiny townships and small cities. But then I’d have one of my “slips,” like asking the store clerk for candy and he’d give me ten pieces, and then more. Every time something like that happened, Madame would purchase two tickets for the next train out of town. She was always looking over her shoulder.

  As if we were running from something or someone.

  I got hints from time to time. Madame would often say things like, “There are greedy, fearful people in this world. People that want to use your power for themselves. Or people that would be so scared of you that they would loop a rope around your neck and watch you hang. You mustn’t speak, Eris. Don’t ever let them know what you can do.”

  But any time I got close to asking who might be after us, Madame would place her fingers over my lips and say to me, “Please don’t make me say his name, little angel. He’s a powerful man and he has ears everywhere. Let him stay in the past.”

  It was those words—don’t make me—that clamped my jaw shut. Just because I had the power to get what I wanted didn’t mean I should. I had seen enough people bend to my will to be truly frightened of what I could do.

  I didn’t like looking into Madame’s eyes and not telling her the truth of what happened last night. And I certainly didn’t like betraying the trust of someone who worked so hard to protect me, but if I did tell her the truth, wouldn’t she just pick us up and leave the Dragon? Just like all those other towns, we’d have to disappear and start over.

  Though I wasn’t partial to the city itself, we’d made a home in Boston. Madame loved this little drum and worked so hard at it. Stan was practically an uncle to me. And Marv, David, and Francis? They were my silly older brothers. We were like a little family. I didn’t want to see Madame have to leave a place she’d come to love.

  Even if I wanted to most nights. Even if I wanted to run away from the booze, the smoke, and the drunks…

  Brushing a strand of hair from my face, I took a deep breath as I swiped two glasses from the top shelf. Madame had already moved on to pour another drink, not bothering to wait for an answer she didn’t expect to get. Sometimes I wondered why she bothered asking. Probably just her way of telling me I needed to pick up the pace.

  I lifted my gaze to the two gentlemen waiting to be served and gave them a smile. They were older fellas with beards and stained work shirts. Probably worked in the docks—they reeked of fish.

  “Panther piss, ma’am. The cheap stuff, if you don’t mind.”

  Nodding, I ducked down, pulled out the brown glass jug, and poured the homemade whiskey into the two glasses. While Madame stocked the real, expensive liquor, some men just wanted to get drunk. The cheapest homemade hooch would do. As long as it tasted a little like whiskey going down.

  “Thank ya, babe. You have a nice night.” The fella who ordered winked at me and tipped his glass in my direction.

  Again, I smiled in response and went on to the next patron. Meanwhile, Marvin, Francis, and David played in their little corner, their jazz stylings weaving through the bar in a soft, smooth melody coupled with a light but spicy harmony. None of them had a particular song they were playing, they just…played. Listening to them improvise, to hear the time changes and the movements up and down the scale, was magical. And it was all because they let the music move them.

  “Are you not going to sing tonight?” Madame asked me as she leaned her hip against the bar and folded her arms, fixing me with her knowing, piercing gaze.

  No, maybe never again, I wanted to say. My singing almost got Stan killed.

  I continued cleaning, avoiding her question. The midnight rush had died down and it was coming up on one o’clock in the morning.

  I could picture Madame standing before me while I focused on a glass that was already smudge free. Her auburn hair, streaks of gray woven in, pulled up in a colorful wrap, a dress of geometric design that fell down her body attempting, but failing, to hide hourglass curves underneath. Those green eyes lined with black coal—like a chorus girl’s—searching my silence for the answer she wanted.

  She was a beauty, even at an older age, but it wasn’t her physicality that made her a looker. It was her air of mystery. Painted eyes and lips, long curls bound up, big costume jewelry, a shawl hanging around her elbows. She looked like a fortune teller.

  “Eris?” she asked again, softer this time.

  I shook my head. I was not going to sing tonight. Nor tomorrow night, or maybe even the night after. Last night had not been the first incident. But it had been the first one with a gun.

  Madame wouldn’t force me to sing. The speakeasy did well enough without my songs, but she also knew how much I loved it up there. Even if it was for a bunch of drunkards, I still loved the music. Still loved the thrill that a perfect melody brought. So she probably thought my sudden stage fright was odd at the very least.

  “Hmm. Well, all right.” She took the glass from my hands and tipped her chin toward a lone man in a corner. “Go get his order. He came in thirty minutes ago but hasn’t ordered a damn thing. My drum is not for dewdroppers.”

  Still with Madame Maldu’s gaze at my back, I slipped around the bar and headed for the young man sitting by himself, his fedora pulled low over his eyes. His sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, showing off pale but muscular hands, wrists, and arms. It was a warm autumn for Boston, so his lack of coat wasn’t odd, but it stood out. In fact, he was the kind of fella who seemed like he could do whatever he wanted. If his goal was to blend in and not be seen, he could throw on his coat and sit with a drink and not talk to anyone, becoming one with the furniture. If he preferred to stand out, he could tip his hat back and lift his face and smile, but if he wanted just the right kind of attention, all he needed to do was roll up his sleeves.

  Walking up to his table, I pulled out my waitressing tools and poised my pencil on my pad of paper, awaiting his order.

  It was then that he looked up and I got a peek at the face below the hat.

  His eyes were dark. It was the first thing I noticed. Eyes where you could barely tell if there were pupils at all.

  He was attractive, but not in a pretty, hotsy-totsy sort of way. His face was geometric. Perfect square jaw, a straight nose, high, triangular cheekbones, and a rectangular forehead. His light brown hair, practically blond, was mostly hidden under his hat. But, like Madame Maldu, he was not handsome solely because of his looks. It was his air. His…competence.

  A strange way to describe a stranger, perhaps, but it seemed to me that this was a fella who knew his place in life. His past. His present. Maybe even his future.

  It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that I realized I was staring. Redirecting my gaze to the pad of paper, I waited for his order, heat creeping up my neck and into my cheeks, and a small shiver going down my spine.

  He said nothing.

  Glancing up from my pad, I caught him staring as well.

  Oh. He’s waiting for me. Now, with even my ears growing hot, I tapped
my pad with my pencil and gestured it toward him, showing him what I couldn’t say in words.

  His brow furrowed, and for a moment I worried that he didn’t talk, either.

  After a few long, silent, and awkward seconds, he asked, “You want to take my order?”

  Relieved, I nodded vigorously.

  His brow dented deeper, more into a right angle. “Do you not speak?”

  I couldn’t help but admire the quality of his voice. It was a low timbre, a combination of the strings of a cello, the pluck of a bass, and the lingering bottom note of a sax.

  Again, I nodded.

  The stranger’s brow was now a straight V, as if this angered or frustrated him somehow. An aura of hostility exuded from him.

  Tentatively, I took a step back.

  At my retreat, his face cleared and he gave me an easy smile, completely changing the lines of his face into something real handsome.

  I’d been right. This man was a chameleon. He wore a rugged grin that would make most gals swoon. Maybe me included, if I hadn’t felt that anger coming off him like heat from a radiator in the dead of winter.

  “Not a chatter, eh? That’s all right. I can talk enough for the two of us.” He leaned forward, folding his arms and resting his elbows on the table as his grin widened. I noticed his feet shift, hooking his ankles around the legs of the spindle chair.

  With this small movement, I caught a whiff of his scent. It was not thick, musky cologne like most gentlemen wore. It was the smell of smoke. Not gasper smoke that made my throat burn and my lungs shrivel if I inhaled too much of it. It was that of a hearth. Of coals and burning wood.

  Growing hotter still, I cast a furtive glance back at the bar. Stanley was watching me—he’d kept a close eye on me since last night—and I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. Madame Maldu and Stan were the only ones who knew my secret. While I was relieved to have someone watch over me, I hated that I made him worry so much.

  The night Stan learned my secret, I was fourteen—almost four full years ago. Some gentlemen had cornered me in an alley, tried to hold me down and unbutton my dress. For the first time in three years, I spoke. Told them to let me go and leave. They did, but not after falling over themselves to get away, scrambling like a bunch of raccoons caught going through the trash. Stan had witnessed the last few seconds of the attack.

  Instead of being scared or confused, he’d wrapped me up—while I was trembling and weeping—in a big hug and told me, “You should’ve made them do worse.”

  I looked back at the stranger now, and his gaze kept to my face. Straight into my eyes like he was searching for something.

  “If you don’t speak, I guess you can’t tell me your name,” he said, his head cocking. “Which is a pity. Lovely dame like you, I bet you’ve got a name to match. Do you mind if I take a few guesses?”

  He wanted to guess my name? I merely stared at him, not sure how to handle this one. Maybe I should back away and let Stanley take his order.

  But I had to admit, the stranger intrigued me. It was a thrilling sort of intrigue. Like hearing a scary story. Nerves heightened, bated breath, terrified and yet captivated, thrilled and yet wary.

  He was the kind of thrill a person would want to be brave for.

  I gave him a subtle nod. Rather, my chin jerked downward in a stiff, awkward motion.

  “Let’s see…what about…” He pretended to think, his lips twisted to the side as he stared up at me. “Helen?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mary?”

  Again, I shook my head.

  “Hmm, those are too common. You seem like a unique creature. Am I right about that?” He tilted his head again, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  Perceptive fella.

  I tapped my pencil on my pad of paper, and he chuckled at the impatient gesture. “You have to get back to work?”

  I nodded.

  “I s’pose I’ll get it another night, then.”

  To my surprise, he stood. Grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, he hooked it on the index finger of his left hand and tossed it over his shoulder. Then he dipped his fedora at me, that cheeky smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “Goodnight to you, miss.”

  And he left, leaving me with an empty order ticket, the smell of fire smoke, and a lingering feeling of desperate curiosity. Out of my sight, but not out of my thoughts.

  Chapter Four

  The Agent

  The moment I saw the girl behind the bar in The Blind Dragon, I’d had my doubts. She was the lost siren?

  The most dangerous threat to our country since trench warfare?

  It was hard to believe.

  She was a looker, to be sure. Sawyer hadn’t been exaggerating about that, but what he hadn’t mentioned was that she seemed more like a girl from another era. Her eyes were big and blue and she had chestnut hair with tones of auburn in thick curls, done in the style of a woman before the turn of the century. The dress she wore was typical flapper design—loose—falling past her curves, but no hint of makeup. Not even painted lips. If it hadn’t been for the dress, she looked like she might belong at a farmhouse, milking cows, not nursing drunks on a binge.

  When I’d first heard of the monster who’d escaped the detection of the BOI twelve years ago, I’d imagined a sensual, enigmatic vixen with bobbed hair, kohl-lined lashes, a string of pearls, ruby lips, and an aura of vibrant charm.

  Not this small, timid doe.

  Could Sawyer have been wrong?

  And yet she was exactly as he’d described her. From the hair color and the eyes to the fact that she really was mute. Apparently Sawyer had inquired about her to some of the regulars before he’d left. None of them knew her name, only that she was the canary at The Blind Dragon who sang but never spoke.

  It was actually smart as hell. But irritating that we were only now realizing how she’d stayed hidden for so long. If she didn’t speak, then she couldn’t use her powers. If she didn’t use her powers, then how could she ever be found?

  Smart.

  But even so…what if it really had been a gun misfiring? What if she really was mute? What if I took in an innocent citizen and the BOI did…well, I didn’t know what they’d do exactly.

  But I could guess. And it likely wouldn’t be pretty.

  So I wasn’t bringing her in until I was one hundred percent sure. And because she hadn’t sung last night, because she hadn’t talked to me while trying to take my order, I had to be patient.

  McCarney had taught me the mark of a good agent was patience. Follow every lead, no matter how exhausting. Stay awake on every stakeout, no matter how boring. And don’t rush to make an arrest when you don’t have enough evidence.

  Well, her voice would be my evidence. I’d been trained for years to listen for a siren’s magic. I would know it when I heard it. I just had to get her to talk to me, and the only way I could think of doing that was to charm her. But charming took time.

  Brute force might be faster, but that wasn’t an option. I tried not to be a monster, I just hunted them.

  …

  The second night I came back, I could feel her eyes on me almost immediately. As if she’d been waiting for me to walk back into her speakeasy. Good.

  Taking a seat at the same small table in the corner, I waited. She didn’t come to me. She poured drinks, she smiled at customers, she wiped down tables, she lingered next to the bartender—one of the biggest men I’d ever seen in my life.

  She avoided me.

  That’s going to be a problem.

  If she was already wary of me, how was I going to get her comfortable enough to speak? While the back of my mind played out possible scenarios of engaging her, I listened to the jazz band. The chaps were talented. Their improvisation and the way they played off one anot
her was at a professional level—good enough to play in the big leagues up in New York or Chicago.

  But they seemed content to be here, in this tiny speakeasy just like a thousand others. They knew the people. Laughed and talked and joked with the regulars.

  For the second night in a row, the siren did not sing. Instead, she merely looked out at the band longingly as she wiped down the glasses.

  Not too long before closing time, I left my table and approached her. I’d waited until the giant bartender was in the back and the siren was the only one pouring drinks. There were few people left anyway, and those that had lingered were all half-seas over.

  As I sat on an empty stool, she paused her wiping, looking up at me under her eyelashes.

  “Evening, Miss Adele,” I said.

  For the first time, the smallest smile touched her lips. It was barely there, but I counted it as one. Then, slowly, subtly, she shook her head.

  “No dice, eh? And I really thought I had it with that one.”

  She set down the glass she’d been cleaning, fixed me with those big blues, and waited, still not saying a word.

  “Delta? Clarice? Millie? Dorothy?” I fired off in rapid succession.

  Four shakes of her head, but she was smiling fully now. That’s good, I thought, then, she has a beautiful smile.

  I leaned forward, dropping my voice a tad lower and said, “You can’t give me a hint, Harriet?”

  While her blue eyes locked with mine, her lips peeled back to show her straight white teeth in a smile. Again, she shook her head.

  “No to the hint? Or no to Harriet?”

  She covered her mouth to mask what I suspected was a giggle. I felt hope stir in my chest. Come on, siren, talk to me.

  Then she gestured to the rows of bottles behind her, still silent as the grave.

  Disappointed, I glanced up at the liquor on thin wood shelves, then met her eyes once more. “No, thank you, I don’t drink.”

  She frowned deeply and tilted her head, looking at me in utter perplexity.

  C’mon, just ask me.