Iron Cast (38 page)

There was a knot of grief and guilt and fury balled up so tightly in Ada's chest that she could barely breathe. When she'd shaken hands with Johnny Dervish four years ago, on the day she'd first decided to help Corinne on a con, she had never dreamed it would end like this. All she had wanted was enough money to give her mother a good life, and maybe the chance to take back some of the power that had been stripped from her because of the color of her skin, the affliction in her blood.

Now everything she'd worked for was falling to pieces, and Madeline Gretsky was dead.

Ada jumped when she felt a touch on her arm. It was Charlie. His fingertips were warm.

“Take my coat,” he said.

Ada shook her head, but he had already slid out of it and was dropping it on her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said.

She didn't know what else to say. He was so close to her, the backs of their hands brushing with every step. In the clear sunlight, the bruising around his eye was a myriad of purples and greens, subtle shades in the brown of his skin. She wanted to ask him if it hurt, to caress every inch of his face that wasn't bruised. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, even though she didn't know what she was sorry for, exactly.

All of Boston felt faraway and irrelevant in the face of the night's events. Ada was adrift in a vast ocean, and Charlie was the distant shore. He was so tall and imperturbable, with his horn dangling from his left hand, with a soothing tune in the back of his throat.

“I'm sorry you got caught up in this,” she said.

“I'm not.”

She knew that should make her happy. Instead, her aching chest tightened further. She sucked in a breath of the morning air and swiped the back of her hand across her eyes before the tears could form.

“You remember when you said you felt like there were things I wasn't telling you?” she asked. She kept her voice quiet, so that only Charlie could hear. Saint and Corinne were still half a block behind them.

“Yes.”

“That's because there are,” she said. “If you even knew half of
the things I've done for money—twisting people up inside, stealing their memories, forcing them to remember what they would rather forget—then I'd lose you. I know I would. And I can't stand the thought of it, but it's not fair for you, Charlie. You've never done anything but give people hope and joy, and I don't think I've ever done anything but take it away from them.”

Charlie was quiet for a while, his eyes fixed steadily ahead.

“I think you're being too hard on yourself,” he said at last.

The city was coming to life around them. Ada could hear the revving of cars and the blare of work whistles from the direction of the docks. Even from the narrow side street they were walking, she could smell the bread from a bakery a few blocks over.

Ada's breath escaped her like a sigh. “Tonight I used a man's worst memories to crush him, because I thought he deserved it. And even when I could see that he'd had enough, I kept going.”

She could feel Charlie's gaze on her profile, but she didn't look at him. She didn't want to read his thoughts on his face. From the corner of her eye, she could see him rolling up his sleeve.

“Did I ever tell you why I got this?” he asked.

Ada glanced over to see the leafless tree inked on his forearm, its branches black and twisting. She shook her head.

“When I was a little boy, I used to climb a tree just like this every day of the week.” He rubbed his thumb absently along the trunk. There was a single line etched between his eyebrows at the memory. “Then one morning I went out to climb, and they'd hanged a man from the branches. After that, I never went near it. I started having nightmares so bad that I woke the neighbors. Finally, months later, my mother made me pick a bunch of wildflowers from the yard. Then she took me by the hand and led me straight down the road to that old tree. There were budding leaves on it and a bird's nest
right where the rope had been tied. And my mother said to me, ‘Charles, sometimes there's more bad in this world than good, and sometimes it's the other way round. But nature ain't good or bad, and it can't help that some people get so mixed up that they can't tell one from the other.'”

They passed briefly into the sunlight. Charlie's eyes flashed golden, while the bruising on his face shone in ugly contrast.

“She told me that because of people like that, I wasn't going to have a lot of choices in this life,” he said. “But one thing I could always choose was to do more good than bad. Then she climbed up to sit on the lowest branch, and I sat beside her, and we dropped the flowers one by one in remembrance, until the wind took them all away. The day she got sick, I got this tattoo, so that I would never forget what she told me.”

There was a hitch in his voice at the last, and his Adam's apple lurched with a swallow.

“Ada, there's nothing you can say or do to convince me that you're a bad person,” he said. “I just think you get so caught up in the choices you don't have that you forget the one you do.”

Ada had a memory of her own mother pulling Ada's hair into braids and telling her that if everyone would just give more than they took, then the world would be a better place. Maybe there was still a chance for her to do more good than bad in her life. On impulse, Ada reached out to take Charlie's forearm in her hands. She ran her fingertips along the tree, tracing the branches, then entwined her fingers with his.

If she was honest with herself, she'd known a long time ago that she and Charlie had left “simple” behind. But maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was worth it.

Now that the painful knot in her chest had started to loosen,
Ada realized that she had no idea where they were going right now. They couldn't go back to the Cast Iron, or anyplace else where Johnny might think to look for them. With the HPA on their trail too, there might not be a safe place in all of Boston.

Ada glanced over her shoulder at Corinne, to see if she had shaken off the despondency that had claimed her at the waterfront. In the past, Corinne had always met her gaze with instinctual accuracy, but this morning Corinne's eyes were locked on her feet. Ada looked ahead again with a pang. When she and Corinne weren't in step, the whole world was off balance. Corinne was always the one with the plans and the drive to set them in motion. Ada was more comfortable pointing out the flaws in the plan and then salvaging it whenever Corinne decided to go ahead anyway. But they'd been walking for fifteen minutes now, and she still had not heard a word from Corinne.

What if their escape was just delaying the inevitable? What if Madeline's death was for nothing?

“I don't know what to do next,” Ada said, not loud enough for Corinne or Saint to hear. Barely loud enough for Charlie to hear.

He squeezed her hand a little tighter.

“I think I know where we can go,” he said.

Eva Carson lived above the Red Cat, behind a black door with a permanent sign reading:
PRIVATE
. Charlie didn't seem concerned about it when he knocked, despite the ungodly hour of the morning. The staircase was at the back of the club, blending in with the mahogany-paneled walls. Corinne waited at the bottom of the steps with Ada and Saint, thinking about how eerie the club was in the empty daytime. The tables were all stacked with chairs, and the bar was polished and bare. There was an abandoned mop and bucket onstage.

Eva answered the door in a violet silk robe, her hair a tangled mess around her shoulders. She said something sharp to Charlie, then glared down the stairs at them. Finally she snapped something else and disappeared back inside. The door slammed shut.

“That didn't sound good,” Ada said.

“It's all jake,” Charlie said. “She said we could crash in the wine cellar for a few hours.”

“And then what?” Corinne asked.

They couldn't hide in the Red Cat indefinitely. Corinne hadn't even wanted to come here in the first place. Eva had told her to stay out of her way, and Corinne was inclined to take that seriously.

The wine cellar was the size of the common room in the Cast Iron, and Corinne was momentarily impressed by the rows upon rows of corked bottles tilted on the shelves. In the dim light, the bottles reminded Corinne of the handful of sea glass her brother had shown her one summer on Martha's Vineyard, all dusky greens and oceanic blues.

Charlie had rustled up some blankets from somewhere and was laying them on the floor. Saint had already flopped down on one, burying his head in his arms. Corinne slipped down another tight aisle of shelves, running her fingers along the glass. She pulled out a bottle and tried to read the label, but it was in German, accompanied by a sketch of a castle.

“Liebfraumilch,
” said a voice behind her.

Corinne turned to face Eva Carson. She was still in her robe, with her hair now pulled into a loose braid.

“Not my favorite,” Eva said. “I prefer a good brandy.”

Corinne slid the bottle back into place. There was still some blood crusted under her fingernails, and she felt momentarily nauseated. She squeezed her hands into fists at her sides.

“Thanks for putting us up,” she said to Eva.

“It's only for a few hours.” Eva examined her own nails, picking at a cuticle. “I still might change my mind if I don't like your explanation as to why you've shown up at my doorstep at six in the morning.”

“Ask Charlie.” Corinne had no desire to talk about the night before, much less with Eva Carson.

“I'm asking you.”

“Madeline Gretsky's dead,” Corinne snapped. “Johnny killed her while he was trying to kill us.”

A wrinkle formed in Eva's brow, but she wasn't shaken. “Why?”

Corinne tried to move past her, but Eva grabbed her wrist. Her nails dug into Corinne's skin.

“Why?” she asked again. Her voice had a barbed edge.

“You were right about him,” Corinne said, jerking her arm away. She stumbled back into the shelf. Glass rattled, but nothing fell. “He was trading hemopaths to Haversham for money, like we're goddamn baseball cards.”

Fury, restrained but undeniable, flashed across Eva's face. Most of the victims had been Carson's crew. Corinne wondered how many had been Eva's friends, or if a woman like Eva even had friends.

“Why did he fake his death?” Eva asked. “What else is he planning?”

“I don't know,” Corinne said.

“You're lying.”

“Do you think if we knew
anything,
we'd be crawling to you for help?” Corinne demanded.

“I think you know more than you're telling me, and if it's something that puts my business in danger, I have a right to know.”

Eva was much taller than Corinne, and the shadows cutting across her face transformed her graceful features into a portrait of severity. Corinne had the uncomfortable thought that if Eva was a hemopath, she had no idea what kind. If she didn't know what to expect, she couldn't guard herself against it.

“Cor, come on.” Ada was at the other end of the aisle. She had shed Charlie's coat, revealing the rust-colored blotches all over her dress.

Corinne watched Eva take in Ada's appearance, watched the twinge of horror in her expression when she realized it was blood. That made her feel better somehow. She went to stand by Ada.

“Is Madeline really dead?” Eva asked. The severity was muted now. She hadn't taken her eyes off the stains on Ada's dress.

Corinne nodded.

“And Silas Witcher was taken to Haversham?” Eva said.

“Yes,” said Corinne.

Without her lipstick, Eva's lips were a pale pink. She pressed them together and shook her head.

“I don't like admitting when I'm wrong,” she said. “I never trusted Dervish further than I could throw him, but even that was too much apparently. I should have helped you two when you came to the Red Cat that night to talk to Luke. If the HPA got to Witcher, then they can get to any of us.”

“They already have,” Corinne said. She was thinking about Gabriel again, about how much he knew, about how much she had
told
him.

“So what can I do?” Eva asked. She had recovered from her temporary distress and stood as regal as ever. She might as well have been wearing a coronation gown. Corinne couldn't fathom how she had ever thought that Luke Carson was in charge.

“Nothing yet,” Corinne said, exchanging a glance with Ada.

“Just let us stay for a couple of hours,” Ada said.

“And what are you planning on doing after that?” Eva asked, her left eyebrow cocking.

“Something daring and stupid, I'm sure,” Corinne said, locking her arm with Ada's.

“Our specialty,” Ada said.

Eva's eyes, canny and calculating, scrutinized each of them in turn.

“You're both really quite young, aren't you?” she said, and shook her head. “The liquor truck only delivers on Thursdays, so you can stay until five, when the club opens.”

She lifted her hand in what was ostensibly a wave but felt more like a dismissal. Then she left.

Corinne and Ada stayed behind the shelf, listening to her footsteps creaking on the stairs.

“Did the most powerful woman in Boston just offer to be our ally?” Corinne asked, once the door had shut.

“Seems like it.”

“I feel like we should celebrate. There should be cake or something.”

“There's plenty of champagne,” Ada said, dragging her fingers across the bottles. “But honestly, sleep sounds like a better reward right now.”

Corinne laughed. It felt strange, like the mirth was seeping through the cracks in her anger and grief. Ada smiled, but there was something sad behind her eyes. The moment was suddenly heavy, as if they had both just remembered what still hung between them.

“I wish there had been another way,” Ada said.