“Guess so,” the Geek agreed.
“Maybe he’ll do us a favor and die before we get there.”
The wagon slowed and turned a corner, its springs squeaking as it bounced onto a rougher surface and came to a clattering halt. Not waiting for a command, Royce hauled Archie to the back of the wagon and out onto the street. The Geek hopped down beside them.
They had stopped in a narrow dirt alley behind the Brewery. Archie could see the building itself looming over them, fires flickering behind its rows of grimed windows. A smokestack caught moonlight, throwing a long shadow into the alley where they stood. His head was still reeling from the blow he’d taken; something was funny about the moonlight. He squinted upward, trying to figure out what it was.
Steen said something, Archie couldn’t hear what. In response, Royce turned suddenly and drove his fist into the pit of Archie’s stomach. Archie whuffed, and his knees hit the ground as Royce sapped him across the bridge of his nose.
He tried to vomit up the crippling pain in his gut, choked instead on the blood flooding from his sinuses into the back of his throat. Bloody vomit sprayed from his mouth and nose. Royce stepped to one side and let go of Archie’s collar as he brought the sap down again. A vast distant bell rang in Archie’s head; he pitched over onto his side, his stomach heaving again—
looking for the stars, but they too were obscured by fires floating over the street, casting strange shadows that merged and split as it ran. Surely it had run afoul of the tzitzimeme, the spirits of darkness; surely they had built this insane city of tall buildings like teeth to bite down on it as it ran, feeling the blood cool on its mouth, the heart, yollotl, beat out the last of its strength to feed limbs that at last were free. Its breath steamed and the air bit at its lungs, stealing already the warm life of the heart within—Toniatuh, the Sun, was very far away, and the rains too. He Who Makes Things Grow was silent, resting, giving his avatar only a few hours’ strength; it had to get away from the people staring wide-eyed like pipil turkeys. It stumbled down a narrow alley, seeking the ground, the earth that gave life, searching among mounds of garbage and filthy snow.
Snow, so close to the sea—
“Ahoy, Archie Prescott.” The sap tapped briskly on Archie’s forehead. “Look sharp. We’ve not finished here yet.”
Archie opened one eye. The other was stuck shut, whether by mud or blood he didn’t know. He saw Royce’s boots, the red piping on his trousers. Beyond Royce he could see Riley Steen shrouded in long coat and wide hat, the fresh rose pinned carefully to his lapel. Archie clenched his teeth and tried not to vomit again.
“What’s with the crowd, Steen?” said the Geek, from outside Archie’s limited field of vision. “You ain’t putting on a puppet show, here.” Raggedly dressed clusters of people had begun to appear in doorways and windows that opened onto the alley. Other shadows blocked much of the light leaking from the Old Brewery. One group of young men stood close together between the wagon and the rear wall of the Brewery. In front of them stood a young guttersnipe cradling a rabbit in his arms. I’ve seen him before, Archie thought. God, does he live in the Brewery? Poor little arab; no wonder he never lets that rabbit out of his sight.
“Point well taken, Mr. Charles,” Steen said to the Geek. “At times people need to be reminded that cerrain transactions should be accorded a measure of privacy.”
Steen noticed the boy clutching the rabbit, and Archie saw his composure slip a bit. Had he glanced at the moon just then? “Rabbits are filthy, son,” Steen spat. “Misfortune and drunkenness. Let it go.”
The boy shook his head and tried to retreat into the group of men behind him. Archie’s groin began to throb as the strange feather token seemed to amplify his heartbeat. In the small of his back, the knife grew uncomfortably warm, and Archie saw with a dazed shock that one of the young men was Mike Dunn. And was he smiling?
Steen looked into the sky again, and whatever he saw shattered his restraint. “Let it go!” he roared, four fingers of one hand extended toward the boy. The rabbit exploded into flames, its squeal lost in the whoosh of the fire—
and the Eye of the Old One was open now, searching it out in a foreign place to feed its ancient body to the fires. A shock rippled through the night sky, and the winter breeze became more cautious in its flow. In the Moon, the Rabbit was laughing, and the city smelted like the temple atop Mount Tlaloc, when the wind from the sea swirled with smoke rising from the fires waiting to be fed with wailing children—
The boy’s thin screams subsided into a series of whooping sobs. Archie blinked and tried to lift his head. The alley had emptied; light shone again from the Brewery, and the moonlight fell squarely on the charred corpse in the filthy snow. For a moment, Archie was sure that the smoke and steam formed a woman’s face. Helen’s face?
Then the breeze blew it away and the only sounds were the boy’s diminishing sniffles and Mike Dunn’s ghastly chuckle as he walked over to the dead rabbit.
“You’ve certainly woken him now, haven’t you?” Mike said merrily.
“No,” Steen said with difficulty. To Archie he looked terrified, barely able to keep his composure. “No, I believe you did.”
“Fair enough.” Mike smiled a jaunty farewell and walked slowly away toward the Brewery. “But you should have known better than to do that while I was around.”
He strolled around the corner of the building, leaving a clear trail of footprints in the snow.
“God damn it,” Steen said, carefully enunciating each syllable. “Royce, listen to me very carefully. Follow my instructions exactly if you wish to avoid the fate of that damned rabbit.” He covered his right eye and gazed at the moon for a long moment.
“I’m listening, Steen. What do we do?”
“Mr. Prescott, can you walk?”
In spite of himself, Archie laughed, a short bark that became retching. “Shut up,” Royce said, and kicked him in the leg.
All the color bled out of Archie’s vision, and the remaining gray pulsed in rhythm with the throbbing in his hamstring and groin. Through the roaring in his ears, he heard Steen say, “The question was rhetorical, Mr. Prescott. Get up.”
Archie struggled to his hands and knees but could go no farther. “Assist him, Mr. McDougall,” Steen said.
“What?” Royce said. “What did we come down here for?” Even through the aftershocks of the Geek’s blow, Archie noticed the whiny tone that crept into Royce’s voice. Only a boy, Archie thought. A hard, cold boy, true son of the Five Points.
“Do it. I am leaving very shortly, and your survival will be much more probable if you listen to me until then.” Stepping carefully, Steen reached the front of his wagon and climbed into the seat.
“Christ,” Royce said. He slipped the leather sap inside his coat and gripped Archie under the arms, hauling him upright. Archie thought he should resist somehow, but he couldn’t even raise his arms. He slumped in Royce’s grasp like a drunkard.
Steen held up an open palm from the driver’s bench of his nightmare wagon. “When I leave here,” he said, “I will follow Orange Street to Grand and thence to Broadway. Whichever course you choose after your business here is concluded, do not set foot on any of those streets until the sun is well risen. Is that clear?”
“It is,” Royce said.
The Geek gaped silently at the burned rabbit.
“Good. Mr. Prescott is to walk into the Old Brewery unaided. You will follow him single file, stepping exactly in his tracks.”
Even given the night’s events thus far, this last struck Archie as ridiculous. “Why—would you rather I waltzed?” He wheezed a laugh. “I haven’t—I’ve got no reason—”
“You have every reason in the world, Mr. Prescott,” Steen said. “Think of your friend Michael Dunn. He found himself in a similar situation on a night I think we both remember.”
Steen’s words pinched off the last of Archie’s laughter. God, he thought. Was living like Mike Dunn the only alternative to being mur
dered by Irish thugs and dumped in the Old Brewery? If it was … well, in death there would be Helen. And Jane. Maybe I’ll finally see that rabbit in the moon, Archie thought absently. Jane, you can show me.
“I see you take my point,” Steen said. He gathered his horses’ reins. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
“Hold on, Steen. What about in the Brewery? Any instructions there?”
“See that Mr. Prescott remains there.” Steen snapped the reins and his wagon creaked and rattled away down the alley toward Orange Street.
“Charlie, Jesus, let’s go,” Royce said. The hunchback was still staring at the burned carcass lying in the snow. At the sound of his name, he jerked and looked around.
“Where’d Steen go?” he said suspiciously. “And what the hell did he do to this rabbit?”
“Never mind for now, or the same thing’s going to happen to us,” Royce said. “Now pay attention.” He repeated Steen’s instructions.
“What makes you think he won’t run away?” the Geek wanted to know, indicating Archie.
“Jesus’ sake, Charlie, he’s stabbed in one leg and can’t hardly walk from the clout you gave him. That rabbit could catch him if he decided to run. All right? Go on then, Prescott.”
Royce shoved Archie in the back, knocking him off balance. He fell to his hands and knees and remained there, chuckling weakly through the clotted blood in his throat.
“What’s so goddamned funny?” demanded the Geek.
“Nothing,” Archie said, and coughed. Just wondering if you need to follow my handprints as well, he thought. Strange; once death became a foregone conclusion, he could laugh about it. Then he thought of Mike Dunn again, leaving bare footprints in the snow, and stopped laughing.
The nearest door in the Old Brewery’s crumbling brick facade hung open a dozen steps away. Archie stood carefully, the effort setting his groin throbbing and his head spinning with strange images of leaping flames and Helen’s solemn face. He steadied himself and walked through the doorway.
Once inside, he turned to watch first Royce and then the Geek step carefully in his tracks and over the threshold. Bodies shifted in the darkness behind him, and Archie wondered how many witnesses there would be to his murder. He briefly considered running, realized how much easier it was simply to give up.
Better to face it, he decided. Think of Helen and Jane.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” Royce said from the doorway. “Bastard, I warned you—did you a fucking favor—and tonight you nearly get me killed. Twice.”
The blow came from nowhere, splitting Archie’s lips and knocking him over backward. It was funny, really, the way Royce was killing him out of injured pride, to prove he was the meanest b’hoy in Manhattan; preaching to the choir, Archie thought, his broken mouth smiling in the darkness as the two Rabbits methodically kicked him in the back and ribs, grunting with the effort and spitting curses between kicks. You don’t have to convince me that this Royce McDougall is one mean son of a bitch. Seems like the mummy could have saved us all a lot of trouble by just taking my heart for dessert. Archie’s mind emptied and blind instinct took over; he rolled away from the Rabbits, coming up short against a wall where he rested for a moment—
feeling the strange texture of burned timbers, breathing the taste of blood and the dead smell of old fires, hearing dim noisy voices outside and unspoken thoughts, wondering at the strange shape of this sanctuary. Here the Eye could not see. Here it would be safe until He Who Makes Things Grow called again. Here it could rest…
“Hey, friend.” Royce spoke into Archie’s ear, breathing heavily. “You’re a mess, aren’t you? Face is all busted up, you’ve pissed yourself… . God. And that ear is the worst—looks like a bloody carbuncle on your head.”
Royce shifted and Archie felt the Geek move closer. His ear was ruined, he supposed, but he couldn’t feel it; all of the pain had drained into a tiny pool in the bottom of his mind.
“That ear has to come off, boyo; lucky we have the Geek right to hand. He’s been doing this for years, haven’t you, Charlie? He’s just the man for your situation.”
Royce leaned a forearm on Archie’s neck. “Hold still for the doctor, now.”
The Geek grabbed a fistful of Archie’s hair and twisted his head to the right. He clamped his other hand over Archie’s mouth and bent closer, moaning like a hungry animal. The moan opened into a throaty growl as he darted forward and bit into Archie’s crushed ear. Royce pressed down, choking Archie’s scream as the Geek chewed through the cartilage, making noises in his throat like a pig at his trough.
Archie felt his eardrum fill up with blood and saliva; then the Geek whipped his head back and forth three times like a terrier killing rats. After the third jerk, Archie realized that his ear had come free. Like having a tooth extracted, he thought strangely; I should be drunk.
The Geek shook his head back and forth over Archie’s face, scattering droplets of blood and growling deep in his throat. Then he screamed and reeled away as Archie’s ear exploded into flame—
and it flinched away from the dream of the light, wishing for rain to cool the pain in its head, desperate and weak, praying only for the fire to die down so it could rest and heal and grow.
Atlcahualo, 7-Ocelot—December 25, 1842
The bells of Trinity Church rang Christmas good cheer, echoing off Broadway storefronts and lending a bouncy air of purpose to Jane Prescott’s step. She hummed along with the melody as she wove her way through carriages and vendor carts on her way to St. Paul’s.
Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies …
The last two weeks, Trinity had been ringing that tune three or four times a day; Jane didn’t know all the words, but she knew the tune as well as if she’d written the song herself. She’d been dreaming bells.
The past fortnight had also seen the spirit of charity reappear among New York’s gentry. Where a quarter-dollar or even a handful of pennies made up a good day’s take the rest of the year, she’d cadged as much as a dollar four times in the last ten days alone. Her stomach was full, and the roll of silver coin tightly wrapped around her right ankle meant she wouldn’t be hungry again for quite a while. Yuletide was a time of pity for fatherless young girls with scarred faces.
“Merry Christmas, sir and madam!” she cried brightly, swinging up onto the running board of a stopped carriage. Keeping a weather eye out for the coachman’s whip, she pressed her face to the passenger window. “Rejoice at our Savior’s birth! ‘Tis the season, is it not? The season of fellowship and charity?”
The carriage door swung open and a gloved hand appeared, tossing coins onto Broadway’s grimed cobblestones. “Merry Christmas, guttersnipe.” The voice was lofty and English. “Merry Christmas, and be on your way.”
“Bless you, sir!” Jane cried, leaping off the running board and gathering the coins. “Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year!” Clenching the silver, she ran around the back of the carriage and continued up Broadway in the direction of Barnum’s museum. Six pennies and a dime; she had nearly six dollars, and it was time to go home and hide it.
“Jane!” She looked around and saw her friend Mitten calling her, his narrow face drawn and tense beneath an enormous fur hat. He beckoned her into the alley next to Segar’s Exchange.
She stopped reluctantly, feeling the coins in her palm. There was more to be had and she was impatient to have it, but Mitten looked frightened. “What is it?” she said.
Instead of answering, Mitten grabbed her hand and pulled her down the alley, stopping only when they were out of sight of the street. “Little Bree’s been murdered,” he said breathlessly.
“Murdered? Who says?” Street arabs often disappeared, for any number of reasons, but everyone always assumed that they’d been killed in some devilish fashion. All too often, it was true. Or so she’d heard.
Little Bree had been Jane’s first friend in New York; he’d shared his corner of a basement with her when she’d first fled Riley Stee
n’s traveling carnival in Richmond the year before. The trip to New York had left her starving and feverish, and Little Bree had looked after her until she’d been strong enough to go begging on her own.
If he was dead—Jane calmed herself and repeated her question. “Who says, Mitten?”
“Everybody says. There’s a whole lot of children murdered, they say, down under the docks above Battery Place. There’ll be an extra coming out—I’m going to the Herald. You should come, too.”
Jane thought about it. An extra would mean more silver, especially covering a murder. But if Little Bree was really dead …
“No,” she said. “I’ve got to go see.”
“The papers’ll be gone! We have to go to the Herald.”
“You go.” Jane pulled away from Mitten’s grasp. “I have to see.” Crying now, she ran back out onto Broadway and turned south toward Battery Place.
A crowd had gathered, their Christmas finery bringing bright splashes of color to the gritty dockside. Stacked crates and piles of rope and sail canvas provided the more enterprising onlookers with lookouts, while the rest of the crowd pressed closely against a roped-off area guarded by police, recognizable by the brass or copper stars pinned to their lapels. Jane worked her way toward the ropes, making herself small, practicing the art of invisibility she’d learned in her year of living on New York’s streets. She edged her way between two brawny longshoremen and came up short against a policeman, who immediately caught hold of her collar. “Not so fast, missy,” he said.
“I have to see,” she pleaded, putting on her best Scared Little Sister face and letting the tears she’d tried to hide from Mitten flow freely. “Please, I have to see if my brother is there. Mum is so afraid, she can’t bear to come.”
“So she sent you?” The policeman shook his head. “Not too likely, I don’t think. Go on, now. Nothing here a young girl needs to see.” He turned her around and gave her a gentle push back into the crowd. “Get along. I don’t want to run you into the workhouse.”
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