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“For now,” Harte said.
“Keep him.” Nibsy shrugged. “He’s too soft to be of much use anyway.”
Harte wasn’t sure he trusted Nibsy’s appraisal of Logan, who had once been loyal enough to the Professor to bring Esta back as his prisoner. But for now, under the thrall of Harte’s affinity, Logan had his uses.
He considered the cane resting beneath Nibsy’s hands, but it would have to wait. He had to get Viola somewhere safe before the uneasy interest in the barroom turned to something else. At that moment, he couldn’t risk anything more than surviving.
Harte nodded to Logan. “Let’s go,” he said, never lowering the gun as they backed out of the Strega.
A dozen or more pairs of eyes watched as they retraced his steps, leaving through the front door of the saloon. No one made any move to stop them, though it would have been easy enough to block their path and make things more difficult. He hadn’t charmed that many people. Maybe it was shock, or maybe it was simply unwillingness to involve themselves in dangers that didn’t directly affect them. Whatever the case, it never would have happened under Dolph. Had someone attacked the Strega as he just had, the Devil’s Own wouldn’t have stood for it.
Whatever the reason for their silence, Harte hoped that it held. There were only a couple of bullets left in the gun, and if the Devil’s Own did decide to attack, he couldn’t shoot them all.
He didn’t want to, either.
Once they were outside, Harte kept the gun firmly in his grasp, but he reached out to grab Viola’s wrist. It took only a second to discover the information he needed.
A block over, they found a covered carriage for hire, and with a quick shake of the driver’s hand, he made sure that the fellow wouldn’t remember them once he dropped them at the address he gave. They didn’t seem to have been followed from the Strega, not that it made Harte relax any. If Nibsy let them go, there was a reason.
Viola was still unconscious when they finally arrived at the address Harte had taken from her memories. It was a brick building, three stories tall, with a large sign that pronounced the offices of the New York Age across the front door.
He alighted from the carriage and then took Viola from Logan before the other boy jumped out as well. She was barely breathing, and her skin was a ghastly gray.
Logan stood there, still half in a daze under the control of Harte’s affinity. “Go knock on the door. See if Jianyu is in there,” he commanded.
But Logan hadn’t even crossed half the distance to the building when the front door of the building flew open and Cela Johnson emerged.
“Harte Darrigan?” she said, her eyes as wide as if she’d seen a ghost. Then she realized who he was holding. “Oh, god. Viola.”
Another woman had emerged from the building as well. Tall and lithe, the blonde took one look at the scene in the street, focused on Viola hanging unconscious and unmoving in Harte’s arms, and shoved past Cela. “No,” she said, brushing the hair back from Viola’s face. “She can’t be—”
With the girl tugging at Viola, Harte could barely keep hold of her.
He struggled to adjust his grip so he didn’t drop Viola. “Cela, if you could—”
Cela was already taking the blond girl by the shoulder and pulling her back.
“She’s not dead,” Cela told the girl.
Harte knew Cela understood. The worry in her eyes spoke more loudly and clearly than even her words could.
At least not yet.
FOR SPORT OR SLAUGHTER
The Docks
Jianyu opened his eyes to darkness. The floor was cold and hard beneath him. It smelled of dirt and dampness, and when he tried to lift himself from it, he found that one of his ankles had been secured. The shackle felt unnaturally smooth—unnaturally cold as well. And though he could not see what held him, he knew it was no simple piece of metal. When he stood, he could take no more than two or three steps in either direction. He had been chained in place, like some kind of animal. But whether he was being kept for sport or for slaughter, he could not tell.
He did not know where he was. In the distance, he could detect a gentle murmuring that he could not quite discern; it was too far off. In the space around him there was only silence. The air was thick and close, choked with dust and the scent of something heavy and metallic—and also with the cloying sweetness of opium. All around him, he felt the cold energy of counterfeit magic. He reached for his affinity, but with the sweetness of the opium, he was not surprised to find a numb hollowness where his connection to the old magic should have been.
Jack Grew knew what Jianyu was, and it seemed that he was taking no chances.
He had been so close to escaping. After Viola had taken Theo’s bride to safety, Jianyu had nearly slipped away himself. But before he could make it to the back of the church, another of the beasts had formed itself from the thick smoke, billowing up as unexpectedly as a nightmare. It happened so quickly—far more quickly than before—and before he could react, Jianyu had been caught up by the throat. He rubbed at the soreness that ringed his neck now, remembering what it had felt like to struggle… and to lose.
He was not sure how long he sat there, waiting for whatever would come, but the darkness was severed suddenly and unexpectedly by a flash of light not so very far away. The block of brightness might well have been a doorway opening to another world. Jianyu’s eyes ached as he squinted against the glare, but he knew immediately who the figure silhouetted against the brightness was.
“I see you’re not dead,” Jack Grew said, lighting a lantern and then another until the space was completely illuminated.
