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He’d known that Cela Johnson’s location would be important—the Aether had pushed him toward her and the objects she was hiding. But James hadn’t imagined how essential the sigils could be.
With them, he could control the Brink.
More importantly, with them, he could control Esta—and with her affinity, he could finally claim the power of the Book for his own.
A knock came at the door, but the clock on the shelf told James that it was far too early for news of the sigils’ location. Tucking the papers back into the leather envelope, he called for whoever it was on the other side to wait. Then, after Morgan’s papers were secured, he opened the door to find Logan on the other side.
“Razor Riley is downstairs in the Strega,” Logan said, looking clearly uncomfortable about this news. “He’s asking for you.”
“Why?” James sensed the Aether bunching somewhere far off, but the vibrations were steadily growing. Something was coming. Something new was happening, and whatever it was, it left him feeling uneasy.
Logan shrugged. “He wouldn’t say. He wants to talk to you.”
“Fine.” He locked up the apartment and led the way down to the saloon.
Just as Logan had said, Razor Riley was waiting near the bar along with one of the other Five Pointers, Itsky Joe. Razor always looked like he was on the edge of exploding, but Joe looked uncomfortable. The shifty way their eyes took in the barroom, the defensive hunch to their shoulders, told him that the premonition he’d felt earlier hadn’t been wrong.
Catching their attention from across the room, James gave a jerk of his head for them to follow him to his usual table. He sat with his back safely against the wall while they stood before him. He didn’t bother to invite them to sit.
“I hope you’re bringing me good news from Atlantic City?” He cocked a brow in their general direction expectantly.
Razor Riley was older than James by at least a decade, probably more. He had an ugly face made worse by a nose that had been broken one too many times. He might have been a large guy, a bruiser as good with a knife as he was with his fists, but he wasn’t all that bright, not like Johnny the Fox. Yet next to Itsky Joe, Riley seemed like an actual genius.
Neither of them spoke at first, and James watched as they exchanged nervous looks. “You were stationed there, weren’t you, Joe? I thought Torrio told me he’d sent you personally to watch the Johnson girl?”
Joe glanced at Razor Riley, but it was Itsky Joe who spoke. “Look, Lorcan, I’m gonna cut to the chase. Joe here’d been watching the girl for the last week, just like he was supposed to, but today she didn’t come out of the hotel after her normal shift. We looked everywhere for her. She’s gone.”
“What do you mean she’s gone?” James demanded, trying to keep his voice cold and level as he stared at the two men across from him.
“He means she’s gone. She wasn’t in the hotel, and she never went back to her rooms. I know because we searched them,” Razor told him. “Somebody got to her before we did.”
“Did you find anything in her rooms?” James demanded.
“No,” Razor said. “All her things were like she’d left them. Seemed like she was planning on coming back. We tore the place apart looking, though. Even cut open the mattress and checked the floorboards. We didn’t find any silver plates.”
The Aether seemed to be laughing at him now.
“Someone has to know where she went,” James said.
“The maids won’t talk,” Joe said. “Razor here spooked them, and now they’re shut up tight as clams.”
James cursed, low and vicious, as the Aether bunched around him again, the uncomfortable murmuring louder now than before.
“Get back to Atlantic City and keep your eyes open,” he told the two of them. “People don’t just disappear.”
“We don’t take orders from you,” Razor told him.
James stood, gripping the silver gorgon and taking comfort in her cool sharpness. “Don’t you?”
“No,” Joe Itsky said with a sneer. “We don’t.”
“It would be a shame if our alliance shattered over something so terribly… stupid.” James glared at them as he grasped the cane topper, as he felt for the link to the marks through the silver Medusa’s coiling hair.
All at once, the entire saloon seemed to change. Like a wind rustling through trees, a tremor of unease rippled through the people in the barroom, causing them to go strangely silent. As one, they turned toward the two men, and the air felt suddenly frantic with magic.
“Find her,” James said once more.
This time the two Five Pointers weren’t idiotic enough to refuse.
