by Lindsey Duga
I joined her, watching how her gaze jumped from one meat to the next, her excited breath fogging up the clean glass.
Behind the counter stood a burly man with a thick black beard, who seemed absolutely delighted at Eris’s entranced look. “Look and drool as much as you want, miss. More drooling tends to mean more cabbage in the register. Right, my young man?” he said, giving me a wink.
“Absolutely,” I said.
“You two take your time,” the man said as he went to help an older woman with her order.
“Have you never been to a deli before?” I asked Eris as she turned to the row of cheeses, her silky hair slipping over her shoulders.
She shook her head. “No, Stanley or Madame were the ones who ran errands most of the time. I wasn’t allowed out too much.”
Another dull ache traveled down my back, but I only shifted my stance and said nothing. What could I say? So I stayed silent as we looked at the menu, pretending to read the words in chalk.
“Settled on anything?”
The owner’s voice made us both flinch—Eris more so than I. Seeming to understand Eris’s timid nature, he leaned forward, his elbow on the counter, and started to weave a tale about his honey hams and smoked turkeys, describing each one like he would an old friend. Enthralled, Eris listened, her eyes widening as each sandwich was illustrated in delectable detail.
With her distracted, I decided now was a good time to plan our next move. Besides, I had to report to McCarney. The man was probably pulling his salt-and-pepper hair out. “Excuse me, sir? Might I be able to use your phone? I’ll tip extra,” I offered.
The owner waved his assent without even breaking stride in his storytelling.
Quickly, I looped around his counter and into the back where a phone hung on the wall next to a washroom. I waited impatiently for the operator.
“Hello, operator, how may I direct your call?” a smooth female voice said.
“Andromache epsilon five-zero-twenty-two,” I said.
A pause, then, “One moment please.”
“McCarney.”
The man’s voice was as close as I’d ever heard it to hysterics. He sounded breathless, wounded.
“Sir, it’s Colt.”
“Colt. Jesus. Where in the Jersey Devil have you been?” he hissed through the phone. “I’ve got half the team in Boston scouring the city.”
“It would take too long to debrief you, sir, but I’m in Philly now.”
“Philadelphia? The hell are you doing there?”
“Long story, sir. But I’m with the siren. She’s agreed to come in.” The words tasted like an ashtray for some reason.
“Has she now?” I heard a chair creak and pictured him leaning back in his dull gray desk chair. Pictured Barb clacking away on her typewriter. It felt like a lifetime ago and three continents away.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’m sending backup to you. And, Colt? This is not up for debate. The last time you said you didn’t need backup a goddamn hotel got shot up and I’ve had to clean up your mess all over Boston.”
With all the other attempted kidnappings of Eris, I’d almost written off the shootout as the same as the rest. But the MO didn’t match. For one, the shootout had intended to kill her, not kidnap her.
Something didn’t sit right, but I didn’t have enough evidence to tell McCarney that we might be dealing with two different groups after the siren. One who wanted her dead, and one who wanted her alive.
“Now,” McCarney continued, “I can have two agents meet you within the hour. Where are you?”
I glanced out the window of the deli, saw the massive structure loom not so far in the distance. “Tell them to meet us under the Delaware Bridge.”
“You got it. Be careful, Clemmons.”
“Sir.” I hung up and found Eris where I’d left her. She was laughing at a joke the owner must’ve told, her fingers gripping a toothpick with a sample of pastrami.
She looked happy. Carefree.
My chest burned hotter, so much that sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
I didn’t want to do this.
But I have to.
Twenty minutes later and Eris had finished her whole sandwich—pastrami on rye—and was licking her fingertips of any rogue mustard.
I’d forced myself to eat half of mine and left the rest to the pigeons. Knowing what was to come, I’d lost my appetite, even as hungry as I’d been.
Now, we were on the side of the street, hailing a taxi to take us to Camden where we could wait under the Delaware River Bridge.
“Is your back all right? Did you hit it on the train?” she asked out of the blue.
I glanced away from the taxi emerging from the line of traffic and looked back at her, my pulse jumping. “It’s fine. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “You just keep shifting your weight. Like it’s bothering you or something.”
“It’s fine,” I said shortly.
“If you say so. You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” she said as the taxi rolled to a stop, brakes squealing loudly. “DC?”
“We’re meeting with some other agents. They’ll help us get back to DC,” I answered with a hard swallow as I pulled the door open for her.
She slipped inside and I followed, instructing the driver to take us to Fourth and Pearl Streets in Camden.
“Do you think once we get there I can call Madame?” she asked as the taxi turned down a congested street. “Just to tell her I’m okay?”
My throat scorched as I replied, “I’m sure that’s possible.”
The taxi continued its journey through the streets of Philly while Eris stared out the window. Sometimes, she leaned forward to look up at the three-story buildings—nothing she hadn’t encountered in Boston—but when we got to the Delaware River Bridge, she bounced a little in her seat.
“That’s the biggest bridge I’ve ever seen,” she said with a whoosh of breath.
I gave a short laugh. “You should see the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Where’s that?”
“New York City.”
Eris scooted away from the window, back into the cushion of her seat.
I frowned. “You don’t remember what happened to you in New York, do you?”
She shrugged. “Bits and pieces. I remember staying at this Catholic orphanage. The nuns took good care of us. I remember singing in a choir. But then this man…” She furrowed her brow, scowling out at the bridge as it loomed closer. “He was a benefactor of the orphanage. He came and took me away and then…then I really don’t remember much…at least not until Madame Maldu took me into hiding.” She shivered.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to try,” I said quickly, not surprised at her discomfort, but shaken by it. It sounded so similar to my own experience.
An orphanage…then McCarney arriving and telling me that my country needed me. That I could be a soldier…
I hunched forward, resting my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees.
Then, a tentative hand on my back. Delicate fingers through the fabric of my jacket. “What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you ever want to go back there?” I asked. My breath was like steam coming out, every word coated in smoke.
“Go back where?”
“New York. Find out who did this to you?”
She was quiet for so long that I finally turned to look at her. She’d pressed herself against the corner, her face half hidden in the shadow of the cab and her gaze fixed out the window.
“I don’t like big cities.”
“Why? All the flappers want to go there.”
Eris hugged her arms, her hands rubbing up and down her skin and trailing over the sleeves of her maid’s uniform. “Do I look like a flapper to you?”
No, she didn’t.
I’d thought that of her the first time I saw her. That she belonged in a different era. Maybe I’d seen her exactly how she wanted me to.
“I want to live in the country. In a small town where you know everyone’s name and you bring soup to people when they’re sick and pies to picnics.” She gazed longingly outside as if she could see this little town of her dreams. “It’s odd, I know. And I seem a bit of a bluenose but I’ve lived my whole life in cities. Speakeasies and high-rises and giggle water every night. For so long, I feel like I’ve lived in the night. I just want to live in the sun.”
She hadn’t meant it to, but I felt her magic weave through the air of the cab. Felt the desire in her voice like a tangible thing.
Then she turned away from the window and fixed me with her blue-eyed stare. “All right, Mr. Agent. I’ve answered all your questions. It’s time to be honest with me now. When I get to the capital, what are they going to do to me?”
I stared back at her, lost for words. I wanted to say that McCarney would take her in and we’d train her—for good. To work for the United States of America. To help her country. But now we knew for sure that there were people after her who knew her power. Was it safer for the country to kill her? Was it possible I’d been told to bring her in only to have her executed in the name of freedom?
And then…what if they experimented on her like they did on me for two years? Needles and tests and gallons of blood drawn…
Clasping my hands tight together, I opened my mouth to respond when the taxi came to a stop. “We’re here, sir.”
“Thank you,” I said, dropping a fair amount of coins into the driver’s outstretched palm.
I was turning to open my door when I noticed Eris thread her handkerchief between her teeth and tie it behind her head. Her movements were fluid and calm. Resolved.
Beyond the glass, under the massive concrete columns of the Delaware River Bridge I could see the two BOI agents we were to meet, standing outside their jalopy.
My stomach twisted and another puff of smoke came out through my labored breath.
Eris was gagging herself. She knew they wouldn’t let her speak, knew they wouldn’t trust her not to use her voice against them.
She shifted in her seat and held out her wrists.
Mechanically, like I wasn’t in operation of my own limbs, I threaded the rope I’d taken from the manticore around her wrists and helped her out of the car, taking the briefcase with me.
As soon as we were out of the cab, the taxi driver peeled away, leaving a puff of smoke in his wake. Naturally, once he saw a girl gag herself, he knew something had to be amiss. Likely some kind of mob warfare he didn’t want to be a part of.
Eris walked forward. She reminded me of a damsel walking the plank in a pirate story I’d heard once.
I followed, every step feeling like I was walking through once wet and now drying concrete. Pulling at my shoes and pants legs and yanking me down, and down, and down into the depths of hell itself.
“You got her!” a rough Brooklyn accent called from the jalopy. “Ace work, Clemmons!”
On the right was an Irish man with the signature red hair and pale skin—an agent named O’Connor. He was well known for his work as a yegg. He broke into mob dens and took everything from their safes then was gone in three minutes flat. On one occasion he used nitroglycerin and the ensuing mess almost got him chucked out of the BOI. The man on the left was a fella from Brooklyn, Frank Foster, once a gumshoe, now a recruited agent.
Neither of them were monsters. That I was aware of.
Foster let out a low whistle, bending slightly at the waist to peer beyond the curtains of chestnut and auburn waves to get a look at the lost siren’s face. “Hoo boy. She’s quite the dish, ain’t she?”
“Did she give you a lot of trouble, Clemmons? What put you in Philly?” O’Connor asked in his thick Irish brogue.
I was too busy watching Eris. She was completely still. Frozen like a statue with…fear? Resolve? I ached to know.
“Clemmons?”
“She came willingly,” I finally choked out. It was hard to breathe through the inferno in my chest.
Foster’s thick brows rose clear into his forehead, almost touching his hairline. “Did she? Not according to some copper reports from Boston.”
“We ran into some trouble. Her creator is trying to get her back.”
O’Connor scratched his chin. “How’d he find her?”
“Don’t know yet,” I grumbled, my gaze shooting to the briefcase in my hand. BKH was my only clue right now.
“Well, doesn’t matter now. We’ll get her to the Bureau.” Foster grabbed Eris’s arm, but she went without any encouragement, her short heels clicking and shuffling over the concrete.
O’Connor opened the back door of their jalopy. I was staring, while my whole body remained stiff. The heat still burned inside, relentless.
As Eris slid into the back, I noticed a violin case tucked halfway under the seats.
The rat-a-tat-tat sound of the tommy guns clicking and lead firing through the walls of the hotel echoed through my head.
We fought gangsters to make America a better, safer place.
But tainting another innocent soul with blood…was that truly doing good?
It felt wrong. Turning her in felt wrong.
My mind flashed with old memories. Of my time at the BOI. Those years of “training.” I’d committed my first murders there. Learned to kill or be killed.
How could I bring Eris into this?
She was a girl whose dream was bringing pies to a neighborly picnic out in the country, under the shade of sassafras trees.
Before the door could close on her, I caught the edge with my left hand.
“Clemmons?” Foster’s voice came from far, far away.
Eris stared up at me, the handkerchief still between her lips and her brow furrowed in confusion. Her eyes searched mine, and I could see her trying to understand who I was. I’d tricked her before, then showed her my real self. And now…now what was I doing?
“Clemmons, what’s wrong? Speak up, man.” O’Connor’s strong hand came down on my shoulder.
My grip tightened on the briefcase I still held.
Behind me, I heard O’Connor thread his other hand into his jacket. I knew he was reaching for his BOI-issued Savage.
I closed my eyes and took one long, cool breath. The heat in my chest…gone.
I’d made my choice.
Then I twisted, the briefcase following, its gold-plated corner smashing into the cheek of my fellow BOI agent.
Chapter Fifteen
The Siren
I winced as the briefcase made contact with the agent’s face and an awful cracking sound ensued. Something heavy dropped to the ground as a nasty curse word rang through the air.
The wind whistled under the gargantuan bridge as two men grappled against the car’s side, their movements shaking its interior. A gun fired once—twice. Three times.
A body slid against the window with a soft squealing sound. And a groan.
When I opened my eyes again, Colt was kneeling on the ground in the doorway of the jalopy, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
After catching his breath, he finally moved in to untie the gag around my mouth. It loosened and fell to my lap.
“Are you ready, Eris?” he asked, still breathless from the fight he’d just initiated.
My hands shook. “Ready for what?”
“To fight for your freedom.”
As I stared at him, attempting to process each word, he pulled out a switchblade he must’ve stolen from one of the agents and quickly cut through the ropes around my wrists. They slid from my hands like snakes and dropped to the floor of the jalopy.
“But you said I was too dangerous,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“You are,
” Colt said with a jerky nod, his expression more troubled than I’d ever seen it—even when he’d been shot and was bleeding out on the veterinarian’s steel table.
I didn’t understand. “Then…why?”
He gripped my hands, pulling me near, gently. The pebbles under his knee crunched as he shifted closer. The rim of his hat nudged my forehead and pushed the fedora up slightly so I could see more of his dark brown irises.
“When I went to The Blind Dragon, I was expecting to find a monster. What I found…was you.”
Without a second thought, I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face in his good shoulder. Tears leaked out and dampened his soft collar. They’d been threatening to fall for some time. Through everything, I’d held them back, but now I no longer could.
Surprisingly, he was incredibly stiff under my arms. With his handsome face, I would’ve taken him as used to having women throw themselves at him.
Embarrassed, I drew back, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. With a soft chuckle, he picked up the handkerchief that had been looped around my neck.
“Here, doll.”
I took the cloth and wiped at my eyes and runny nose. My neck flushed from the affectionate tone. Had he even noticed it himself?
“We should get going,” he said, turning businesslike once more. “Before they wake up.”
One of the reasons I’d decided to go along with the BOI was because I had agreed with them. I was dangerous to the people around me. But…but I didn’t want to be. Didn’t that count for something?
And maybe I could change. Maybe I could finally learn how to control this power in a way I’d never dreamed.
Obviously Colt had to believe it was possible, otherwise he wouldn’t be helping me.
I owed it to myself to at least try.
“I’m ready,” I said, my voice muffled behind the handkerchief. Then I lifted my puffy eyes up to Colt’s and lowered the cloth. “To fight.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Let’s hit the road, then.”