Iron and Blood (31 page)

Nicki returned to the writing desk and her stack of letters. Wilfred brought a tray with tea and fresh cookies, and the women worked through the afternoon. Finally, Catherine looked up. “I think I’ve found something,” she said.

Cady and Nicki gathered around her. “This was Thomas’s last journal,” Catherine said. “His private notes, things he kept separate from official business.” She paused. “The entry is dated a little more than a month ago.”

Catherine’s finger pointed to a passage in neat script. “‘KJ came to see me. Wants a special job, a crate of books and a relic moved from Poland to New Pittsburgh, no questions asked. I pressed him about it, and after he explained further, I assured him we could assist him discreetly. My gut tells me this is important.’”

“
KJ
. Karl Jasinski,” Nicki mused. “And now he’s disappeared, either hiding out, kidnapped or dead. And we still don’t know why.” She looked at Catherine. “Does the journal say anything more about the books or the relic?”

Catherine frowned as she read down through the entry. “He says that shipping anything out of Poland and Russia is a headache, but ‘KJ’ had everything ready.”

Cady leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, fingers tented in front of her. “He wasn’t wealthy… where would he have come up with the money to pay for it? And if someone killed Jasinski, or if he already feared for his life and had gone into hiding, then there would be no one to pick up the shipment when it came in. And if that same someone thought your Uncle Thomas knew what was in the shipment—”

“He might have killed him in order to get his hands on it,” Nicki finished. “Or Jasinski didn’t have the money and he double-crossed Uncle Thomas to take it…”

“Both of which could explain the break-in and bombing at the office,” Catherine chimed in. “Either someone was trying to destroy the shipment, or frighten everyone out so they could get in.”

“We’ve got a missing Polish witch and government agents,” Cady said. “And a Night Hag—the timing can’t be an accident.”

Cady shrugged. “At the moment, the connection to Jasinski is just a hunch. But the Night Hag—
Nocnitsa
—had to come from somewhere.”

“Which would mean someone called it, or opened a way for it to come,” Nicki supplied.

Cady nodded. “It’s not the Thalbergs—they’re trying to figure this out like we are. And the names they recognized on Mr. Desmet’s list were witches—two of whom the agents just confirmed are dead.”

“If this Karl Jasinski was a witch, might he have somehow called the monster and then not known how to banish or control it?” Catherine mused. “Maybe he needed some other magical items, even relics, to get the monster back under control, or send it back where it came from? That would explain the items he wanted Thomas to smuggle out of Eastern Europe. The sightings and killings began long before he contacted Thomas.”

“Maybe,” Cady said. “Or perhaps someone else called it, and Jasinski was trying to figure out how to stop it, but didn’t have what he needed to do the job.” She sighed. “There are too many questions, and not enough answers.”

A thought occurred to Nicki, and she leveled a questioning look at Cady. “Exactly how did you get the information about Jasinski?”

Cady brightened. “I gave a generous tip to the Polish woman who cleans the classrooms at the Women’s College. She’s often around when I’m finishing up at night, and she’s a motherly type. I asked her if she knew a man named Karl Jasinski, and offered her a few more dollars if she could tell me something useful about him.”

She grinned. “Money speaks every language. Mrs. Zukowski said she didn’t know him herself, but she’d heard others speak of him. They call him ‘the Witch of Pulawski Way’; people went to him to have fortunes told, bad luck reversed, curses put on people. But she said that he had gone away suddenly, and no one knew where he was or when he’d be back.”

“Polish Hill isn’t very far from Brand and Desmet’s offices on Smallman Street,” Catherine said. “And it’s just across the river from where you said all the trouble is happening in Allegheny.”

“Actually,” Cady said, “there’s been trouble in more places than just Allegheny. There’s talk of bad things happening up the Mon and around the Point, like someone—or something—is following the rivers to hunt.”

Catherine nodded. “Drostan Fletcher said the same thing. I asked him to use his contacts to see if he could pinpoint where the bodies have been found on a map.”

Nicki sank down dramatically onto the divan. “My head hurts,” she said, closing her eyes. “We’ve got a missing witch and a nasty monster—both Polish—and federal agents outside.” She sighed. “We still don’t know who the men were in the carriage with the red falcon; the ones who followed me and tried to kidnap me when I went to see Cady the first time.”

Catherine blanched. “Did you say, ‘red falcon’?”

Nicki nodded.

“I’ve seen that before,” Catherine said. “It’s Richard Thwaites’s personal emblem. His name keeps coming up, doesn’t it? That can’t be a good thing.”

“And we’re no closer to solving Thomas’s murder,” Cady said. “Or knowing whether those boxes from Poland had anything to do with his death.”

“What if the Night Hag, whatever it is, wasn’t supposed to happen? What if it’s an accident, and now someone’s got to clean up the mess?” Nicki asked.

Cady nodded. “That’s possible. Something that came over with a new batch of immigrants and no one knows how to make it go away? Or maybe a spell that Jasinski did for someone went wrong? Someone like Thwaites.”

“I don’t know which sounds worse, going up against an ancient monster, or taking on the Oligarchy,” Catherine said. “Because Richard Thwaites is
very
well connected—and protected. He’s got his own men, and rumor has it he’s bought and paid for half of the New Pittsburgh police force.”

There were male voices outside, loud enough to stop their conversation. “Hold on,” Nicki went to the window.

“It’s Jake. He’s having a row with Agent Storm and the dowdy one.”

Catherine rolled her eyes. “I’m really not obsessed with our reputation, but I would like the neighbors to keep speaking to us.” She sighed.

“I don’t think you have much to worry about.” Nicki said. “There’s no one else out there that I can see except some White Wings.”

Three years earlier, New York City had initiated a campaign to smarten up its streets, employing legions of white-coated street cleaners, or ‘White Wings’. Not to be left out, New Pittsburgh immediately did the same, deploying its own white-clad clean-up crews to rid the streets of horse dung and trash. They made their rounds armed with long-handled brooms and water wagons to hose off particularly stubborn grime. This crew had two wagons: the water wagon, hauled by a lugubrious horse that looked ready for the knacker’s yard, and a second wagon to collect the trash.

Nicki frowned, and turned toward Catherine. “Aunt Catherine, what day do the White Wings come by?”

“Mondays, usually, and again on Thursdays,” Catherine replied absently, having gone back to reading through one of the journals.

“But it’s neither of those days. And this lot are wearing white, but their uniforms don’t all match.”

She gasped and yanked down the window sash. “Jake! Get down! Those aren’t the real White Wings!”

Even as she spoke, one of the sweepers kicked the broom-head from its handle and leveled the shaft at Jake and the agents.

The gunshot reverberated, sending the china clinking in the cabinet and the pendants in the crystal chandelier swaying. Cady had the Winchester at her shoulder, and the attacking White Wing swayed on his feet, a neat hole in his forehead.

“Oh, my God,” Catherine whispered. “Did you just shoot the street sweeper?”

A hail of gunfire sounded on Fifth Avenue. Mitch had pushed Jake to the ground and dragged him behind the low wall separating the Desmet house from the street, while he and Jacob returned fire. The false White Wings had dropped all pretense, rifle-brooms at the ready. There were at least twenty of them. Shots pinged off the wall; somewhere nearby, glass shattered.

Kovach’s men came running, as the snipers on the roof picked off two targets. Cady swung out from the safety of the wall to fire another shot, catching an attacker in the shoulder. An assailant veered close to the house, coming into Nicki’s range. Like Cady, Nicki was a crack shot, taking one of the enemy through the leg.

Wilfred ran into the room, alarm clear on his face. “Madam. I must insist that you and the young ladies retreat to safety.”

Cady squeezed off another shot. “We’ve got a better angle than Jake does, and—with the trees blocking some of the upstairs windows and roofline—maybe even than the snipers do on the roof. Even with the two government agents, our sharpshooters are outnumbered. They need us.”

The cleaners returned fire. Cady squealed and dropped to the floor as a bullet zinged through the top of the window, then rose to her feet and fired.

“Get out of here, Aunt Catherine. You’re in mourning. You can’t be shooting people,” Nicki said, reloading. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

“We’ve got problems,” Cady shouted.

“Did you just figure that out?” Nicki retorted.

“No,
bigger
problems.” Cady pointed. “I don’t think that water wagon is filled with water.”

“
Doux
Jésus
!” Nicki muttered. “Petrol.”

“Charles!” Catherine shouted.

“He’s already gone ’round to help Mr. Desmet,” Wilfred said. “Please, let me get you to safety.”

“My great-grandmother didn’t leave the homestead when the Davey Lewis gang came through town,” Catherine said. “My mother didn’t run off when the Molly Maguires set to. And I’m not going anywhere, not as long as my son’s out there and our home is at risk.” A determined glint had come into Catherine’s eyes. “Wilfred. Fetch me Thomas’s Colt revolver.” She headed for the stairs. “I’ll be in my room.”

Mitch, Jacob, and Jake were giving as good as they got from the deadly cleaning crew. Kovach’s men waded in with guns and fists, but the numbers still favored the attackers. If Cady’s fears about the water wagon were correct, firepower alone wasn’t going to be enough.

“Go, Charles!” Nicki cheered as the
werkman
ran toward the water wagon with inhuman speed. Shots clanged off his metal body, but Charles never slowed.

Three of the false White Wings threw themselves at Charles, but the
werkman
tossed them aside with ease.

“They’re going to set off the wagon!” Nicki shouted, loosing another shot amid a barrage of vulgar French.

“Let’s see if I can get the driver,” Cady said with a hard glint in her eye. She fired, but the bullet went astray, nicking the driver’s bench. “Damn.”

The wagon and its attackers were out of Nicki’s range. Charles was doing his best to move the wagon backward—water tank, horses and all—but several of the false street sweepers were trying to drag him away.

Bam-bam-bam
. Kovach’s sharpshooters hit their targets. From the open parlor window, Nicki could hear cursing in Hungarian. The men restraining Charles dropped in their tracks. A fourth attacker who had wriggled along the ground toward Jake’s hiding place jerked and went still as a bullet found its mark. From the angle of the shot, Nicki was pretty certain Catherine had pulled the trigger.

Charles brought a metal fist down, smashing the wagon tongue and freeing the horses, then he pushed the wagon toward an empty lot across the street. Kovach laid down covering fire so that none of the surviving attackers could get close. Nicki held her breath, watching as Charles put his mechanized muscle against the weight of the wagon. The wheels creaked over the curb, and the cart began to roll into the open field.

With a roar and a blinding flash, the tank exploded. Fire danced into the sky nearly as high as the two-story homes on either side of the empty lot. A plume of black smoke and the smell of burning gasoline filled the air. Charles was nowhere to be seen.

Sirens wailed, getting closer. Half a dozen of the surviving faux cleaners returned fire to cover their comrades, who dragged away the dead and wounded, then threw the bodies onto the remaining wagon and pulled a tarp over them before climbing aboard and heading away from the sirens.

“They’re getting away!” Cady shouted, raising her rifle once more.

Nicki put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Let them go. They’re taking the dead and wounded. We won’t have to explain the bodies to the police. And we’ve got to get Jake and the others to safety before awkward questions get asked.”

Cady raised an eyebrow. “We’ve just had a Wild West shoot-out on Fifth Avenue—you don’t think awkward questions are already being asked?”

“I think we have a much better chance of explaining it away if there isn’t a wagonful of corpses in front of the house,” Nicki said archly.

“And the burned-out wagon?” Cady asked.

Nicki smiled. “Spontaneous combustion. Darndest thing.”

Their attackers headed off at full gallop. Miska Kovach was already down at street level, hustling Jake, Mitch, and Jacob from their hiding place and around to the back of the house. Cady slid the window closed.

Just as Jake and the others rounded the corner of the house, the police wagons came clattering up. Cady watched from the cover of the heavy parlor drapes. “Uh-oh. They’re heading this way,” she gave a murmured warning.

Brusque knocking sounded at the front door. Wilfred appeared in the hallway, forever unflappable, standing straight and tall with an unreadable expression. “I’ll handle this,” he said, making his way down the hallway without a hint of hurry.

Nicki had a view of the hallway from behind the parlor door. A florid-faced policeman stood in the entranceway.

“We had a report that shots were fired,” the officer began abruptly, with a thick Irish brogue.

“We made no such report,” Wilfred replied. His glance strayed to the conspicuous crepe wreath on the door. “And since the household is in mourning, I’ll thank you to keep your voice low.”

The officer looked abashed, and removed his hat. “Sorry for your loss,” he mumbled. “But there are spent shell casings in the street from a variety of guns. They came from somewhere.” He pointed toward the still-burning wagon. “And there was an explosion. Surely you heard that!”