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Then, all at once, the Guard waiting near one of the black vans turned toward them, and when he spoke, a familiar voice, dry as ancient parchment, came out of his mouth.
“I have waited a long time for you, Esta Filosik,” the Guard said, stepping toward them with the jerky motions of a marionette dangling from strings.
“Thoth,” Esta said, her voice barely a whisper. Her hand tightened on Harte’s as she checked her affinity. The entire world stood still and waiting except for this one Guard. Except for Thoth.
Harte tugged at her, but she felt frozen in place. More, she had the sense that it was pointless to run. If Thoth could be anywhere, he could find her again and again.
“How are you here?” she asked. “I killed you back in Chicago.”
The man-thing laughed in Thoth’s eerie voice. “You killed the shell, girl. You freed what was inside.”
“Esta,” Harte said, his voice an admonition as he tried to pull her away. “We have to go.”
The Guard’s impossible eyes, black as an endless night, turned on Harte. “Where will you run?” the man mocked in a voice that was no longer human. “The city is mine.” He spread his arms wide. “The whole world belongs to me.”
“Not for long.”
Before Esta realized what he was doing, Harte had already drawn the snub-nosed pistol he’d taken from the clerk at the pharmacy, aimed it at the man’s chest, and fired.
“Oh god…” She looked at Harte. Then back at the man, who was already slumping to the ground. “Harte—”
The Guard was clutching his wounded stomach, and blood was already dripping from between his fingers. The darkness that had consumed his eyes was receding, and as it did, the man’s face contorted in agony. But when the man looked up at the two of them, Harte saw something ancient shift across the man’s features. “You cannot run,” Thoth said. The Guard’s teeth were red with blood, and when he coughed, more bubbled from his mouth. “You cannot hide.”
“Watch us,” he said.
This time Harte wasn’t gentle. With a vicious jerk of her arm, he pulled Esta away from the dying man and into the crowded city beyond.
THE PRODIGAL
1902—The Docks
Jack Grew shoved his way through the crowd at the ferry docks, his stomach turning at the stink of humanity that surrounded him. He was glad to be back, even if it was without invitation. He’d been born in New York, and now that he’d seen much of the country, he was sure there was no place better. But as much as he’d missed Manhattan’s finer points—the food and fashion and especially the women—he hadn’t forgotten the impoverished urchins that tainted everything. He hadn’t missed that at all.
The docks were littered with ragged, worn-out men and women freshly off the boat from whatever hellhole they’d left. The air stank of garlic and unwashed bodies. It seemed as though a steamer ship had skipped Ellis Island completely. Old women in babushkas and men with beards far too long and bedraggled to be fashionable waited for the next step in their journey. With any luck, they would continue on to some other place, but he wished they would just go back to wherever it was they’d come from.
Jack shoved his way past a group that might have been a family or might have been a pack of vagrants for all he knew. He kept moving until the crowded docks were finally behind him, past the line of dark carriages that waited for hire, and on to the private carriages beyond, where he found his mother’s coachman, Adam—or was it Aaron?—waiting.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Adam—or Aaron—said, taking Jack’s bags and opening the door for him. “Did you have a pleasant holiday?”
“Holiday?” Jack asked. “Is that what the family has been calling my absence?”
Adam—or Aaron—blinked, but he didn’t have a response. He turned to deal with the bags with a mumbled apology.
Jack hadn’t been given a choice when he’d been shipped off to Cleveland to do inventory at one of his uncle’s offices last summer. However his family had explained his absence to the rest of the world, Jack knew the truth: The position had been his uncle’s way of getting him out of the city—and out of the Order’s way.
But those long weeks of exile in the wilds of the Midwest had only served to convince Jack that there was no longer any use in trying to play the Order’s game. Not when he could make plans of his own.
His mood darkened further the second he opened the carriage and saw his cousin J. P. Morgan Jr. waiting inside.
“Hello, Jack,” Junior said without an ounce of warmth in his voice.
“How delightful. A welcoming committee of one,” Jack drolled. There wasn’t much choice but to take his seat on the bench across from Junior. Their knees practically touched in the cramped interior. “I assume your father sent you.” He waved a dismissive hand, unwilling to allow Junior’s unexpected appearance to throw him. “You might as well say whatever it is you’ve come to say, so we can both get on with our lives.”
Junior frowned. “Come now, Jack. Can’t one welcome his cousin home without so much animosity?”
“Perhaps… if the one offering the welcome wasn’t completely full of bullshit.” Jack waited, relaxed and completely at ease. Why shouldn’t he be? He had the Book tucked securely against his chest, and now he had even more.
“I come on behalf of the family, of course,” Junior began.
