AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The serum was a mistake, and you left because you had to. But that doesn’t mean you hate Ruth. It doesn’t mean you can’t forgive her.”
“No,” Maggie said, meaning it. “I could never hate her.” Ruth had been like a mother to her. Whatever mistakes Ruth might have made, she was family, and Maggie would do almost anything to protect her—had done almost anything. Now she worried about the choices she’d made, because Maggie understood that choosing to protect Ruth might very well cost her Jericho in the end.
THE OUROBOROS
1902—New York
It was early afternoon, and the barroom two floors below James Lorcan’s flat was probably already filling with those who needed something to make their day easier. A glass of Nitewein to blunt the edge of unused magic. A few moments of quiet solitude among their own, surrounded by the familiar warmth of power. No doubt the boy, Logan, was waiting uneasily for him to appear, but for now James craved solitude. The Aether had been trembling, anxious and unsteady, ever since Paul Kelly had revealed that the Order had retrieved the ring, but James hadn’t been able to find the solution that would make it stop.
Unlike the saloon, the apartment was quiet. It had once been Dolph Saunders’, and with its damask chaise and lace curtains, the rooms still held the mark of Leena’s more feminine touch, which made it comfortable as well. But the apartment was so much more than a place to lay his head or calm his nerves—it was also the key to his eventual victory. The shelves lining the wall contained all of Dolph’s research—all of his secrets.
It had been those books that had originally drawn James to Dolph a few years before. On the surface, the gang leader had seemed like any of the other players on the deadly game board that was the Bowery, but when James had seen that shelf of books—real books, bound in leather and smelling of the wisdom of centuries—he’d known immediately that Saunders was something different. Perhaps even something useful.
Compared to James’ own father, Dolph Saunders was nothing, of course. A common criminal at best. Yet, unlike Niall Lorcan, Saunders had somehow managed to amass an entire shelf of books. The unfairness of it had almost been too much to bear.
When James was younger, his family had only one book—not the Bible, as so many of his countrymen might have owned, but a well-used volume of Le Morte d’Arthur. Ragged though it was, the volume was a prized enough possession to warrant a spot in his family’s meager luggage when they came to this terrible new world. It was a story of heroes and traitors, of magic and those who would discount its power.
His father had believed in Arthur, the boy king who could unite a country and lead a people, just as he believed in a better world for his family and for all Mageus. Niall Lorcan had brought his family to America so that he could help build such a world. James, on the other hand, had always felt a certain secret kinship with Merlin, the sorcerer who could prophesy the future. Merlin, who should have been the hero all along.
James had been a child when his father had crossed the wrong ward boss. In retaliation, they’d arrested his father and burned his family’s home—his mother and sisters still inside—leaving James orphaned and alone in a city that didn’t care if he ended up dead.
Perhaps if James hadn’t been so tired from his endless hours on the factory floor, his concentration only on the danger the machine press posed to his small fingers, he might have sensed the reason that the Aether had rippled and bunched that day. If he’d been paying more attention, James might have understood the danger that was approaching. Perhaps he would have fought the foreman, who’d held him over that extra hour, and he too would have been in the family’s apartment when it caught fire.
They told James later that the wooden tenement where his family had lived in two cramped rooms had burned like a torch, too hot and too fast for anyone to escape. To his neighbors, it was simply another random tragedy, too common perhaps, but unavoidable in a city that cared little for the lives of the poor. James had known differently, though. With the combination of affinities his family had been keeping secret, they should have been able to get out of the burning building. To die like they had? They must have been trapped somehow, locked in or blocked from escaping. James couldn’t help but think that it would have taken more than locks to hold his family back—possibly even magic.
Not that anyone cared to listen to him. Instead, every one of his neighbors turned away—Mageus and Sundren alike—afraid to see the truth of what was happening all around them. Afraid to disturb the fragile equilibrium that kept their own families safe.
In the end, he’d been left alone to watch the building smolder for days, and as the charred beams turned to ash, James Lorcan had transformed as well. He’d vowed to himself that he would never again be taken off guard. He would never allow himself to be as weak as his father had been, believing in fairy tales and heroes and the lie of righteousness. When he’d walked away from the ashes of his former life, James had promised himself that he would determine his own fate. He’d decided there and then that he would change the world. And he would never again be at someone else’s mercy—neither Mageus nor Sundren.
James had been patient. He’d carefully plotted and planned, and now the shelf of leather and vellum—and all of the wisdom contained in Dolph’s volumes—was his. He ran his fingers over the spines, caressing them with the reverence a lesser man might reserve for gemstones or gold. James understood exactly how precious those books were and what a victory it had been to take them from Dolph, perhaps even a greater victory than taking the Devil’s Own. After all, the riffraff Dolph had surrounded himself with was expendable. The Bowery teemed with other Mageus just like them—desperate and easily led. But these books? The knowledge they contained? Irreplaceable.
Selecting one of the volumes from the shelf, James brought it to the desk and opened it. It was a small ledger, filled with handwritten notes in various languages, sketches of alchemical recipes, and collected scraps from other sources. He turned to one of the inked illustrations. James had been drawn to this particular page again and again over the last few weeks—ever since he’d seen the newspaper accounts of Esta’s and Darrigan’s supposed deaths, ever since he’d realized they were still out there in the world, still within his grasp. The figure on the page was the image of a snake eating its own tail. Wrought in brilliant ink, the gilded highlights made the snake seem like it was moving each time the page shifted.
James could tell that the image was important by the care that had been taken with it. He ran his fingers over the serpent, wondering what, exactly, it had signified for Dolph. In general, the ouroboros was an ancient symbol that represented the beginning and end of time. Chaos and order. Magic and its opposite. But Dolph had placed enormous importance on this ancient symbol. He’d adopted the symbol as the mark for his gang, doubling it to include two interlocking snakes—one living, one no more than a skeleton. Life and death, Dolph used to say. Two sides of the same coin. Inscribed into the skin of any who pledged Dolph Saunders loyalty, the mark stood as a signal to others in the Bowery, but it also served as a guarantee that they would not betray the gang.
No… the marks had been a guarantee that the Devil’s Own would not betray Dolph Saunders.
Dolph had infused the gorgon’s silver head with Leena’s ability to nullify nearby power, and combined with Dolph’s own particular ability to borrow the affinities of any Mageus he touched, the cane had been a uniquely devastating tool. While Dolph had lived, that smiling Medusa had the ability to tear the affinity from any who wore the mark—and in doing so, destroy its bearer. But the power in the cane was larger than Dolph Saunders, and the possibilities it held had not ended with his pathetic life. Like the snake in the image, forever devouring its tail, the magic within the silver gorgon head continued on—infinite. Like all magical objects, that power could be used. James had only to figure out a way to access it completely, and to align its power with his own.
He had been working tirelessly ever since he’d moved into Dolph’s rooms, but the only thing he’d managed was to make his own mark tingle with awareness. Once, he’d managed to make Werner look almost unsettled. But to use the power in the cane? To direct it as easily, as effortlessly as Dolph had? He would need something more to amplify his affinity. He needed the ring.
It wasn’t lost on James that had Logan not failed so spectacularly at the gala, he might already have complete, unbreakable control over the Devil’s Own. As it was, there was still unease within their ranks. Everyone had been nervous since Dolph had been killed. Everyone had been on edge with the constant threat of Tammany’s patrols and the Five Pointers’ presence in the Bowery, but Viola’s appearance the day before had only made things worse. She’d been an unwelcome reminder of the past, and the news she’d brought about Mooch’s imprisonment was still filtering through his ranks.
If she’d only accepted his offer of a new partnership. Instead, she’d told James that she needed time—to consider, to think. She’d walked out that night without any promise to return.
Viola’s departure might have meant that she was plotting against him, but it didn’t matter. The movement of the Aether assured him that whatever Viola might attempt to do, she was only setting her own trap. All he needed to do was watch and wait. The answers would come to him soon enough.
Suddenly James felt the Aether tremble. He paused. Something was happening. Some new part of the game had begun.
He closed the notebook and placed it back on the shelf. It would be best to get back down to the Strega, to make his presence felt before his meeting with Kelly. Best to shore up his authority now, before he went.
At first everything seemed as it should in the saloon. Men and women curled around their drinks, and warm magic filtered through the air. The Aether still trembled uneasily, but it did not immediately reveal the danger.
Then James realized the change—near the bar, a boy with a shock of red hair was talking to Werner. The last he’d seen the boy, Mooch had been unconscious on the street. He should have still been in the Tombs—or better, dead—not here in the Strega where he could tell the others how James had left him behind, ripe for the picking by Tammany’s patrols. Mooch was a problem James would have to consider, but for the moment, the Aether gave him no answers.
Soon that would change, James thought as he gripped the cane’s head and felt the power vibrating within it. Soon his plans would fall into place. He would no longer be forced to feel his way through darkness, and the Devil’s Own—Mooch included—would be his to command. But for that future to arrive, James needed the ring, which meant he needed to keep Paul Kelly on the hook. He glanced at the clock and realized that, for now, the problem of Mooch would have to wait. Paul Kelly would not.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
