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Benedikt withdrew his knife. He jerked his chin at the Frenchman. “Shoo.”
The Frenchman harrumphed and marched off. Satisfied that there would be no altercation needing intervention, the policeman walked off too. Benedikt was left in the alleyway, bristling in his quiet anger. This would never have happened a few months ago. The settlement officials, the merchants, the foreigners alike—they only grew mighty now because the gangs were weakening. Because the madness was taking their people in droves, collapsing their chains and drilling holes in their structure.
They were vultures, all of them—the British and the French and every other newcomer. Circling above the city and awaiting the carnage so they could gorge themselves until they were full. The Russians had arrived in this country and merged inward, wishing to learn the way of things and do better. These foreigners had sailed in and grinned at the crime. They looked upon the slowly fracturing pieces before them and knew they only needed to wait for the madness to take its victims, wait for the political factions to split this city just enough until it was time to swoop in. They did not even have to make their own kill.… They only had to wait.
Benedikt shook his head and hurried out of the alleyway.
* * *
“Learn anything interesting?” Marshall asked when Benedikt returned.
Benedikt shook his head. He dusted off his damp pants and dropped to a crouch. “See anything interesting?”
“Well,” Marshall remarked, “no monster sightings. But in my dreadful boredom with your absence, I did notice…” He pointed forward, letting Benedikt see for himself.
“What am I looking at?”
Marshall tutted, then reached out to physically turn Benedikt’s head, changing the direction of his gaze. “There, by the lower-left corner of the balcony.”
Benedikt hissed inward.
“You see it?”
“Yes.”
There, by the lower-left corner of the balcony: a series of angry claw marks, trailing down the little ledge.
Twenty-Nine
Of all venues,” Roma exclaimed, craning his neck to squint at the broken neon sign propped against the roof, “this had to be the place our man likes to frequent?”
The sun had set half an hour ago, turning the earlier red-hazed sky into vivid black ink. A light mist was coming down too, though Juliette wasn’t sure when that had started. She simply realized upon staring into the hazy blue iteration of M NTUA that there were little flecks of water coming from the sky, and when she touched her face, her fingers came back slick with moisture.
“Honestly?” Ju
liette said. “I expected more debauchery.”
“I expected more gunfire,” Roma replied.
Mantua was slotted perfectly between Scarlet Gang and White Flower territory, a brothel and bar establishment bursting with the thrill of its own taboo. This was one of the most dangerous places in Shanghai, but in a strange, roundabout way, it was also the safest place for Roma and Juliette to be seen together. At any point, unruly men could get up and kill each other, women could whip out their pistols and shoot, bartenders could smash their glasses and decide to start a war. It was this adrenaline rush, the anticipation, the waiting that the people of Mantua were after. Who would believe the whispers coming from a place like this?
“By my knowledge, there have been at least five disputes here in the past week,” Roma reported, matter-of-fact. They were still standing outside. Neither had made any move to go in. “The municipal police attempt to raid it almost every second week. Why would a Brit come here so often?”
“Why does anybody come here?” Juliette asked in reply. “He likes the excitement.”
It took the same amount of effort as it would if she were wading through tar, but Juliette pulled at the creaky old door and stepped into Mantua, letting her eyes adjust to the dark and dreary interior. Though it was hard to see, certain areas were lit with streams of neon, wires flashing brightly enough to burn her retinas. Looking around, Juliette could almost have convinced herself that she had stepped into a speakeasy in New York, if not for the murkier glow.
Roma closed the door tightly after himself, then waved a hand before his nose, trying to disperse the thick cloud of smoke that wafted his way. “Do you see him?”
Juliette scanned her eyes through the dark shadows and bright spots of neon, squinting past the three American men on the dance floor attempting to teach a prostitute how to do the Charleston. The bar was flocked with customers, an ever-changing crowd of already drunk patrons carelessly tossing different currencies onto the alcohol-sodden floor. As soon as one was drawn away from the bar and up a small staircase nearby, entwined with a stranger and no doubt on their way to further sin, another took their place.
Archibald Welch was seated at the very left of the bar, with a clear bubble of space between him and everybody else. Where others simply hovered around their plump, red velvet seats, Archibald was seated firmly: a hulking mass of a man with ginger hair and a neck thicker than his face. The scar tissue that ran across his face glowed under the bar’s blue light. The picture in his arrest file did not do his size justice.
“Huh,” Roma said upon spotting their target. “I don’t suppose we can try to intimidate him.”
Juliette shrugged. “We may as well try.”
The two surged forward, pushing through the crowds of Mantua and coming to a stop on either side of Archibald, settling themselves onto the velvet stools to the left and right of him. Archibald barely stirred. He didn’t acknowledge their presence, though it was quite clear that Roma and Juliette were here for him.
