Iron and Blood (26 page)

Finian crossed himself, then he reached beneath his shirt for a saint’s medallion, kissed it, and closed his eyes in prayer. Drostan stared at the empty road and willed himself to stop shaking.

“What the hell was that?” Finian asked when he had gathered his wits.

“I have no idea,” Drostan said.

“Those shadows—were they
gessyan
?”

Drostan shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve heard tell of them, but have never come across an accurate description.”

“Where did that priest come from—and how’d he get away so fast?”

Drostan spread his hands wide. “You’re asking good questions, but I don’t know. Never saw him before.”

Finian looked at the ruined wagon. “Damn. If that corpse wasn’t already in pieces, it can’t be in good shape now. And the Captain will have my ass over this.” He sighed. “No one is going to believe me.”

Drostan took pity on the cop. He laid a hand on Finian’s shoulder. “No, they won’t. And if you try to explain what happened, they’ll hang you out to dry.”

“What’s my choice?”

“Tell them a story they’ll believe.”

Finian glared at him. “You want me to lie?”

“You want to keep your job?”

Finian gave a snort. “Like I have a chance of that, after what happened to the wagon and horses.” He smacked his forehead and grimaced. “Sweet Brigid and Mary! The horses! If they’ve gone lame or we can’t find them, they’ll take them out of my pay; I’ll be in debtors’ prison for sure.”

“I’ll help you find the horses,” Drostan said, cursing himself for making the night longer than it already had been. “But what will you tell your Captain? What would he believe?”

Finian was a smart guy, Drostan knew. He had come up the hard way, and this probably wasn’t the first time he had shaded the truth. His conscience likely kept him from doing it too often. But Drostan could see Finian’s mind working, thinking through the choices.

“We were heading back from the Highland Club, and got chased by a pack of wild dogs,” Finian said. “Spooked the horses. I kept control as long as I could, but the horses didn’t make the turn. The dogs came after us again, and I fired my revolver. They scattered.”

Drostan nodded. “All right. That’s good. Better fire your gun.”

“What? Oh, yeah.” Finian drew his pistol, aimed at the ground a ways off, and fired.

“I’d appreciate it if you kept me out of it, but if you need corroboration, I’ll back you,” Drostan said.

Finian gave a crooked grin. “Somehow, admitting I was with you doesn’t seem likely to keep me out of trouble.”

Drostan chuckled tiredly. “Let’s go. We’ve got horses to find.”

H
OURS LATER,
D
ROSTAN
headed back to the rooming house. Finian got lucky: the horses somehow made it back to the station house safely, and were waiting for them. Drostan had helped Finian check the horses over. Nothing worse than some bruises and a few superficial cuts—easily fixed with a little salve and a couple of apples to appease the skittish geldings.

Drostan felt the evening’s work in every muscle, bone and sinew. “I’m getting too old for this kind of thing,” he muttered to himself. He was jumpy as hell, flinching at every noise. In the distance, he heard hoots and shouts, and guessed that the pack of boys he had befriended, his informants, were having a late night, playing dice and drinking stolen ale. The sidewalks were deserted. Drostan walked quickly, forcing himself to be alert, unwilling to end the night the victim of a petty thief.

We got lucky
.
Tonight could have gone wrong in a hundred different ways.

A man in an overcoat came out of a side street and strode toward Drostan. The brim of his hat shadowed his face and he kept his gaze averted. Long habit made Drostan pay attention. The man was built solidly, dressed in the dark clothing of a manservant: curious attire for this part of town.

Just as Drostan moved to cross the street, the stranger moved lightning quick, seizing Drostan’s arm with a steel grip. The man’s head came up, revealing a face that was half-human, half-machine, with a mechanical eye and exposed gears.

“Come with me,” the clockwork man said. Drostan struggled, but the vise-like grip would have broken bone before it released, and reluctantly, he gave in, knowing that he was in no shape for a fight.

The stranger steered him towards the next alley. Drostan tried to reach his gun, but his captor bumped his hand out of the way. “You won’t be needing that,” he said in a voice oddly reminiscent of a recording cylinder. The clockwork man looked alive, at least the flesh-and-blood parts of him did.

Drostan and the stranger started down the darkened alley, and Drostan expected to feel a blackjack against his skull at any moment. Instead, the clockwork man stopped about halfway in, far enough from the street that they were unlikely to be disturbed.

Two figures stepped out of the shadows. “We heard you had a busy night, Drostan.” Jacob Drangosavich and Mitch Storm stood in the half-light. “Thank you, Hans. That will be all. I think we can count on the detective not to run away at this point. Please see that we’re not interrupted.”

Hans nodded and retreated to just inside the entrance of the alley.

“I thought you were working to keep a low profile?” Drostan snapped, still rubbing his wrist. “Why the metal thug?”

“We figured you’d be a little trigger-happy after what happened, and we didn’t want to surprise you in your room again,” Mitch replied.

“If you were watching me, I could have used some backup. We nearly got killed.”

“But you didn’t,” Mitch said.

Drostan wished he could wipe the smirk off Mitch’s face. “It was close enough. Look, I’m tired. What do you want?”

“We made sure the horses got back safely,” Mitch said. “You could be nicer.”

Drostan checked his temper with effort. “Thank you,” he said in a strained voice. “Finian is a good cop—and a good source. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

“He won’t,” Jacob said. “The Department will make sure the report gets ‘lost’, and the wagon won’t be a problem.”

Drostan eyed him skeptically. “I thought you were not acting officially.”

Mitch shrugged. “We’re not assigned to the case. But I told you—the Department is very interested in what’s happening out at Vesta Nine. If they have any suspicion that the river deaths have a connection to the mine, they’ll cover up anything strange.” He shrugged. “Jacob and I just want to nail Tumblety and Brunrichter for good.”

He paused. “And before you ask—no one from the Department is saying a word about any of this, which is pretty strange. When we’ve been in trouble before, my sources have kept me updated on everything. This time, they’re dry as a bone. Someone high-up is keeping this very quiet.”

“All right,” Drostan conceded. “What do I owe you for corralling the horses?”

“We want to know what you saw,” Mitch replied.

“I thought you were tailing me. If you saw me, you saw what happened.”

“We heard about the incident from a third party,” Jacob said.

“The priest.”

Jacob shrugged. Drostan felt his temper rise. “I’ll tell you what I saw, but I want to know who the priest was. Dammit! I can’t do my job if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“One thing at a time,” Mitch said. “Tell your story, and we’ll tell ours.”

Drostan glared, but recounted the evening’s adventure from the time he and Finian examined the body behind the Highland Club.

“You didn’t see any kind of witchy objects around the body?” Jacob prodded.

“No. And no one flew by on a broom, either,” Drostan said. “I saw a savaged corpse, and not enough blood on the ground for what was done. I saw shadows that didn’t come from any natural thing. And I saw a priest appear out of nowhere and dispel what I can best describe as a demon.”

Mitch and Jacob exchanged a glance. “It wasn’t a demon,” Mitch said “But it might have been a
gessyan
.”

“Tell me something I hadn’t figured out for myself.”

“All right,” Jacob said. “The priest who rescued you was Father Matija. He’s with the
Logonje
.”

“What are they, some kind of Slavic community group?”

Jacob managed a half-smile. “A secret society of priests committed to banishing evil spirits.”

Drostan was silent for a moment. “Well, damn. How’d he know where we were?”

Mitch shrugged. “That’s what he does. We don’t control him. He answers to a higher authority.”

“Who, God?”

“The President’s secret cabinet,” Jacob said drolly. “Seriously. The
Logonje
have a higher security clearance even than the Department.”

“But you know each other?”

Mitch nodded. “Sure. We all know each other. Whether or not we tell each other anything—that’s the rub. But in this case, we’re in luck. Matija is one of the good guys. He plays fair with us, even when the brass is mum.”

“Tell him thank you for me,” Drostan said, forcing down his bruised ego. “I really thought Finian and I were dead men.”

“You would have been, if he hadn’t gotten there in time,” Mitch replied. “He’s pretty sure that it was a
gessyan
that attacked you, but the truth is, we just don’t know much about them. And to our knowledge, this was the first sighting of this particular type of
gessyan
, since all prior reports have been of the Night Hag. That’s why we need your help.”

Drostan gave him a quizzical glare. “You’re the high-falutin’ Department. I’m a lousy private investigator. And you want
me
to help
you
?”

“A partnership, then,” Jacob said. “Since I speak the language of a lot of the miners over at the Vesta mines who might or might not have seen something.”

“And who definitely won’t say anything to anyone who looks like they’re official,” Mitch added.

“I think Vesta Nine dug too deep and let something out,” Drostan said, deciding that the night had already gone seriously cock-eyed, and one more crazy statement couldn’t hurt.

“We think so, too,” Jacob said. “But we’ve got no proof.”

“So we’ve got a supernatural force that just might be something loosed from the deep regions, and we’re flying blind,” Mitch added. “And we’ve got sightings that say Tumblety and Brunrichter are back in the area, but how they’re connected, we don’t know yet. And while we dither around, people keep dying.”

“About that—” began Drostan.

“I’m afraid that if anyone goes looking, what’s left of the police wagon and the body will be gone,” Jacob said. “That’s how the Department works, especially if they want to keep something secret. They’ll get to people, pull strings. The police won’t bother about the killing, because their records will say that it didn’t exist. The horses are safe. The dead man was a vagrant, so there won’t be a family inquiring. Only you and Finian—and a few others—will know differently.”

“I just wish someone would give that poor dead blighter an honest burial,” Drostan said wearily. “I don’t know who stirred up the Night Hag and the
gessyan
, or what they want, but I can’t imagine that a drunk in a carriage lot had aught to do with any of it.”

“That’s just it,” Jacob said. “None of us know much about it either. And there will be more casualties—like the miners at Vesta Nine, and like the dead vagabonds—unless we find out.”

“Father Matija doesn’t know?”

Mitch shook his head. “He’s an ally, not an investigator. Matija has other responsibilities. He doesn’t kick demon ass full-time.”

“On the other hand, I’m already in too far to back out, is that it?” Drostan grumbled. He was tired and he hurt, and right now, he wanted nothing more than his own bed.

“You said it,” Jacob said with a shrug. “But I don’t think you want to walk away from this. Not when you still haven’t figured out what all this has to do with Thomas Desmet’s murder.”

“All right,” Drostan said after a moment. “But I want something in return. If there’s anything—
anything
—you can do to help me find out who killed Thomas Desmet, I want your word that you’ll do it.”

Mitch and Jacob exchanged glances. “Fair enough,” Storm said finally.

“Anything else?” Drostan asked. “Because I’ve had a rough day, and I could use some shut-eye.”

“I’ll send you a mecha-pigeon,” Mitch said.

“A what?”

Mitch grinned. “A clockwork carrier pigeon. He’ll roost near your window, until you need him. When you want to get us a message, just slip it in the capsule on his leg. It’s a bit more discreet than blasting out a telegram.”

Drostan nodded. “When and if I find out anything—I’ll let you know. Now if you’ll excuse me—” He pushed past Mitch and headed for the street. “I could really use some sleep.”

Neither of the agents tried to detain Drostan as he headed resolutely toward the boarding house.

The night was far spent, and it would be dawn soon. Mrs. Mueller was fast asleep as Drostan trudged up the steps toward his room, trying to tread quietly so as not to wake her. He was relieved to find no surprises waiting for him when he opened the door to his room. Instead. Olivia the ghost girl paced by the window.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Drostan said quietly.

I was worried about you,
Olivia replied.
Bad things happened tonight.

Drostan tried to shrug it off. “I’m an investigator. It’s a rough business.”

Olivia turned toward him.
Ghosts talk among themselves. The ghosts out there,
they’re afraid. Not much scares the dead.

“Talk to me,” he whispered. “Because I’m missing pieces in all this.” Drostan took off his battered overcoat, stained with grass and mud from the night’s adventures, and pulled off his shoes. Then he sat down in his chair and waited for Olivia to speak.

There are more miners than usual among us,
she said.
Always a lot of them. Dangerous business. But now—something’s killing them. Something that lives in the shadows.

“What?
Gessyan
?”

Olivia gave an eloquent shrug.
I don’t know everything just because I’m dead
.
But these new ghosts are in a bad way. Something ate them—took their energy. No one should die like that.