Iron Cast (5 page)

“You smoke?” he asked. His voice sounded husky and strange.

In the darkness, Corinne couldn't quite make out his features— just the lines of his profile, gray against the shadows. She shook her head but leaned against the wall beside him. Even though she wore heels, he was much taller than her, and she had to crane her neck to see his face.

“You didn't like the set?” she asked. The flush from her dancing was starting to wear off, and the cold was creeping along her arms.

He took another pull from the cigarette, held it for a second, then exhaled through his nose.

“It was incredible,” he said.

“You left during Ada's solo.”

“I've never— The way she was making me feel, it wasn't—” He hung his head.

“I understand,” Corinne said.

“I don't think you do.” There was a thread of anger in his voice that caught Corinne off guard. “You go into people's heads, and you root around in there and tug on strings for entertainment or profit. How can you realize what it's like for the rest of us?”

“Excuse me?” Corinne straightened and turned to confront him. “You knew what we did here when you signed on, and now you want to take me to task about it?”

Despite the chill on her arms, her cheeks flushed with heat as she glared at him. To her surprise, he didn't rise to her challenge. He didn't even move. In the shadows, his pale features were like cut glass: all sharp, unforgiving edges.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not trying to fight.”

Corinne considered him for a few seconds. She didn't know anything about him. He was just another hired gun who would soon tire of the low pay and bizarre company and move on. It made more sense to go back inside, to rejoin the party. Instead she leaned back against the wall.

“Ada's music affects some people more than others,” she said in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. “When she plays loss and longing, she can send people into fits of weeping.”

“It wasn't the loss,” he said. “It was the happiness.”

Corinne tilted her head, trying to read his expression in the gloom.

He still didn't meet her gaze. He exhaled a puff of smoke like a sigh. “It reminded me of things I . . . hadn't thought about in a long time.”

They were both quiet for a few minutes after that. Corinne could see puffs of her own breath in the air, mingling with the cigarette smoke. Finally Gabriel dropped the butt and ground it out with his heel.

“I have to make my rounds,” he said. “They're probably missing you at the party.”

“Probably,” Corinne agreed.

His lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile, and Corinne couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit triumphant. They walked back to the door, but before Corinne could open it, there was a sound farther down the alley. Some garbage cans fell over and a shape rose up, lumbering toward them. Gabriel grabbed Corinne's arm and yanked her behind him. Corinne sensed his gun before she saw it. The movement of steel sent a wave of nausea through her. No wonder she felt on edge around him.

“Put that away,” she said, pushing past him. “It's just Harry.”

“Who the hell is Harry?” he asked.

“He's nobody. He comes around sometimes.” Corinne took a few steps toward the scraggly man, who was dressed in a wrinkled suit, worn threadbare at the elbows and knees. His brown hair was matted and unkempt, and there were remains of some long-past meal in his beard.

“Johnny told you not to come back here,” Corinne said.

“Corinne, is that you?” he asked, shuffling forward. “I just need a little bit. Can't you ask Ada to—”

“Ada won't play for you anymore. Go home.”

“I can't.” There was a snuffling sound, and Corinne realized he
was crying. “Just a few bars, please. There's ghosts in my head, and she's the only one can shake them loose.”

“Go home,” Corinne repeated. She turned back toward the door, but then Harry was grabbing at the back of her dress. She could smell his sweat and grime and desperation.

“What about you?” He was crying. “You can give me some sunlight, some blue skies. I need to shake them loose.”

Corinne swung her elbow and felt it contact bone, but the man was unfazed. Gabriel pulled her free and shoved Harry away. Harry hit the concrete with a loud sob.

“He's never been this bad before,” Corinne said, retreating a few steps.

“He's drunk,” Gabriel said.

She shook her head. Even from a distance, Harry stank of urine and sweat—but not alcohol.

“No. He's an edger.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he uses hemopaths' talents as an escape, but he fell down the rabbit hole and there's no coming back.” She dusted off her dress in short, jerking movements, trying to hide the trembling of her hands. She told herself it was just the cold.

“Bitch,” Harry howled toward the black sky. He tried to drag himself upright, but he finally gave up and collapsed onto the concrete. “I hope the ironmongers get you. I hope you—”

He was interrupted by the rolling wail of sirens. Corinne's heart skipped a beat at the sound. They were coming closer. Too loud, too fast.

Harry was laughing. It was an unsettling sound, with barbed and bitter edges. He was still lying on his back, mindless of the alley's filth.

“Bulls are coming for you,” he managed to gasp out. “Better run, slaggers.”

Corinne whipped around and sprinted for the door with Gabriel at her heels. She took the half flight of stairs to the club two steps at a time, barely remembering to shout a warning to Gordon over her shoulder. Once inside, she lost track of Gabriel in the throng of people. That didn't matter, though. He would tell Johnny. She had to find Ada.

The band was still playing, and she couldn't hear the sirens over the music and clinking glasses and bursts of laughter. The patrons were still blissfully unaware. Corinne darted through the crowd to the dance floor, but she couldn't see Ada and Charlie among the whirling black jackets and sequined silk. She scrambled onto the stage to survey the entire club. Behind her, the musicians had stopped playing. She could see Johnny calmly shaking the senator's hand while Jackson waited to escort him and his wife out the back door. Some of the patrons had realized that something was wrong and were hastily gathering coats and purses. The last of the musicians had already packed up his instrument and was slipping out the back, headed for the basement to wait out the raid.

After the law had passed, Johnny made sure that his crew knew how to make themselves scarce at a moment's notice. It was illegal to perform or participate in any sort of hemopath activity, whether songsmiths' emotions, wordsmiths' illusions, or the less invasive talents, like Saint's. Technically, the regs who paid for the show were also breaking the law, but the cops never seemed interested in arresting them. The lawmakers had written the law with a vagueness that made it possible for police to arrest hemopaths for just gathering in large groups, even without evidence that they had been performing. Maybe in a court of law the charges wouldn't stick, but hemopaths
were carted straight to Haversham, and no one ever left Haversham. Except Ada.

Johnny caught Corinne's eye and waved expectantly toward the microphone in front of her. He didn't seem rattled by the turn of events. But then, Corinne couldn't remember ever seeing Johnny Dervish rattled by anything. She turned on the microphone and cleared her throat. The remaining laughter and conversation died down as the unsuspecting patrons turned their attention toward her.

“That's all for tonight, ladies and gents. Don't forget to tip the band.” She stepped away from the microphone, then changed her mind and leaned back. “By the way, the cops are about to break down the front door, so now would be an excellent time to start panicking.”

The reaction to her words wasn't immediate. A few people even laughed. But without the band playing, the sound of encroaching sirens swept through the room. The crowd of carefree patrons quickly degenerated into a seething mess of confusion and alarm. It wasn't likely that the cops would arrest the regs, but that didn't mean they wanted to stick around for a raid. Johnny would give her hell for it later—he liked to keep his patrons happy, and purposely throwing them into a panic was not the best business practice. But Corinne wasn't worried about the regs right now. The cops would have to fight their way through the fleeing patrons in order to find any hemopaths to arrest. An extra minute or two was all she needed. Satisfied with her work, Corinne slipped backstage to continue her search for Ada.

Ada couldn't hear the sirens from the basement, but she knew what was happening as soon as the first musicians started maneuvering down the stairs with their bulky instrument cases. She'd known a raid would happen eventually. According to Charlie, the cops broke up shows at the larger, ritzier Red Cat at least once a month. So far,
the Cast Iron had remained below the notice of the bulls, but the bribes Johnny paid could go only so far.

Ada had said good-bye to Charlie almost half an hour ago. He wanted to make it back to the Red Cat in time for the last set. She could have found another dance partner or asked Danny to make her a drink, but all she really wanted was some solitude. Now that the initial excitement of the evening had worn off, her fatigue had crept back, more insistent than ever.

She kept her seat on the couch as the musicians filed in. They didn't seem concerned by the ruckus upstairs. Someone pulled out a deck of cards and started dealing. Ada stood up when Johnny and Jackson emerged from the stairwell. Worry had started edging into her chest, pressing against her lungs.

“Where's Corinne?” she asked.

“Being a pain in my ass, as usual,” Johnny said, with uncharacteristic shortness. He disappeared into his office with Jackson right behind. The door slammed shut.

There was a creak of footsteps on the stairs, and Ada ran to the base. Gabriel was coming down, alone.

“Have you seen Corinne?” Ada asked, aware that panic was bleeding into her voice.

Gabriel hesitated on the bottom step, his eyes darting around the room. The thin line of a frown appeared between his eyes.

“I thought she would be with you,” he said.

Ada didn't need to hear more. She slid past him and ran up the stairs. He called after her, but she opened the panel and ducked out. Gordon had not left his post. He watched her with his usual air of unconcern as she closed the panel. He popped a few sunflower seeds into his mouth.

“Has Corinne come through here?” Ada asked.

Gordon pointed silently toward the door leading into the club. Ada could hear muffled shouts and banging that could only be the bulls, tearing the place apart in search of hemopaths. She swallowed the acidic fear rising in her throat. She didn't know if her escape had been reported to the local precinct yet. She did know that the next time they arrested her, they'd lock her so deep in Haversham Asylum that even Corinne would never be able to find her.

Ada sucked in a ragged breath and climbed the five steps to the door. She turned the brass handle in slow, agonizing degrees and pushed her palm against the smooth wood until the door creaked open a couple of inches. She peered through the crack, expecting any second that someone would yank it open from the other side. She could see Danny behind the bar, arguing with one of the cops.

After a few seconds, Danny caught sight of her and inclined his head toward the stage in the briefest of gestures, then resumed his vehement denial that he'd ever seen any hemopath activity in the Cast Iron. The backstage door was open, and Corinne was being prodded by a burly uniformed officer onto the stage and down the steps to the dance floor. She was loudly declaring that she'd only come here for a good time and had never so much as talked to a hemopath in her life. Ada bit her lip, thinking that they might actually be convinced. Corinne's dress was nice enough, and she knew how to carry herself like a blue blood.

Then another cop produced a burnished gray rod, no bigger than a pencil, and Ada knew it was over. She didn't let herself think anymore. There was no time for that. She was halfway to the stage when the cop pressed the iron against Corinne's neck and her gasp of pain revealed her as a hemopath. They were grabbing their earplugs as Ada reached the microphone, the melody already thrumming in her throat. She'd hummed only a few notes when the hands started
lowering, earplugs forgotten. She watched their faces as they searched the room in confusion. They spotted her, but not soon enough. Their faces were already slack, eyes glazing over.

Since the law had passed six months ago, there had been a push in law enforcement to develop hemopath-resistance techniques. Given enough time, the cops would probably find ways to withstand emotions and illusions, but Ada had been honing her skill a lot longer than they had been learning to resist it.

It was a fluid melody that she offered, deceptively complex—but then trust was a complex feeling. With enough focus, she could concentrate the full force of the music on the cops in the room. Danny would still feel residual effects, but he would be able to keep his head about him at least.

Corinne looked up and met Ada's eyes. She was smiling. She extricated herself easily from the cops, who were standing in dumb fascination, ready to believe anything that Corinne wanted to tell them . . . or show them.

She patted the shoulder of the man next to her in an exaggerated show of sympathy. Then she started to speak to them in quiet tones. She was fiddling with her brass pocket watch, a habit that had become a ritual. They hung on her every word, nodding occasionally, even laughing once. Ada focused on her melody, layering trust and blurring the edges of their memory. The instinctual harmony between her and Corinne extended beyond the shows they played for regs.

Movement on the other side of the room caught her attention. Gabriel was standing in the doorway to the storage room, watching the cluster of cops around Corinne with visible unease. He was reaching for his gun when Ada caught his eye. She shook her head, careful not to drop any notes. He would be starting to feel the effects
of her song now, though not with the same overwhelming intensity that she was aiming at the bulls. His hand drifted back to his side, and he blinked.