Ravencliffe (Blythewood series) (7 page)

8

“THANK THE BELLS
we found you!” Helen cried, crunching toward me over a sea of broken glass. “Mr. Marvel and Mr. Omar said you’d be in here.”

“Mr. Marvel?” I asked as Helen brushed mirror fragments from my skirt and straightened my shirtwaist.

“Kid Marvel,” the dwarf said, striding forward and sticking out his hand. “Showman and impresario, entertainer to the crowned heads of Europe, and,” he added with a wink, “dwarf. And not just the human variety, if you get my drift.”

“Oh,” I said, not sure I did, “do you mean you’re a fairy dwarf?”

“Right on the nose!” He tapped his own bulbous and painted proboscis. “Or as your folk would say, genus:
Fatus
; species:
dvergar
. I hope you’ll excuse the liberties taken back at the Blowhole. Just doing my job, you know. But then Omar here”—the tall Hindu bowed his head—“said you were looking for the girls gone missing, and when I saw you chasing the humbug I knew you’d get yourself in trouble.”

“The humbug?” I asked, remembering he’d used the word before.

“A fake, a con, a master of disguise.” Kid Marvel rattled off the names. “A gyp, a hoister, a goniff . . . a thing that ain’t what it’s got up to look like—”

“In short,” Omar interrupted, “what my esteemed colleague Mr. Marvel is attempting to establish is that the man you pursued is no longer a man, but a creature possessed by demons. In my land we called such a creature a
pishaca
, a flesh-eating demon wont to haunt cremation grounds and feed on human souls.”

I shivered at the description. “We call him a Shadow Master. This one’s name is Judicus van Drood.”

Kid Marvel and Omar exchanged looks. “Yeah, we seen him here before,” Kid Marvel said. “Bloke who’s always got a different bleak mort on his arm, spreading the muck around.”

“What—?” Helen began.

“He’s always got a pretty girl with him and plenty of spending money,” Nate translated, and then shrugged at Helen’s stare. “A fellow spends time in the gambling hells, he picks up the lingo.”

“You’d be well advised not to spend so much time in
hells
, sahib,” Omar said, staring sternly at Nathan. Then turning to Helen and me, he added, “Nor should you be allowing these young ladies to chase after dangerous creatures.”

“It’s not up to him to
allow
us,” Helen said, bristling. “And we’re not ordinary young ladies. We belong to the Or—”

“Helen!” Nathan and I cried.

“My dear young lady,” Omar said, bowing his head to Helen. “We know all about your Order. But I suggest if we are going to talk of such weighty and clandestine matters we repair to the privacy of my pavilion.”

Helen, Nathan and I looked at each other. Omar the Magnificent and Kid Marvel were clearly not ordinary humans—or even humans at all. If they knew about the Order, they knew we were charged with destroying their kind. They might be leading us into a trap. And yet they had come to my rescue and they knew about the shadows and had seen van Drood escorting young women around Coney Island . . .

“We shall be delighted,” Helen answered for us, as though accepting an invitation to tea. “I’ve never been to a hypnotist’s pavilion before!”

The Golden Pavilion of Omar the Magnificent turned out to be a wooden caravan plastered with theatrical posters parked between the fun house and the freak show. From the outside it looked too small to hold the five of us—even if one of us was a dwarf—but it proved to be surprisingly commodious on the inside. The floor was covered with thick Indian carpets, the walls and ceiling draped with beautiful silk scarves edged with tiny brass bells. We were offered seats on low tufted cushions and served spicy tea from a brass samovar in delicate gilt-edged glasses.

“How lovely!” Helen cried, sampling an iced cake from a brass tray. “I’m going to give my next tea party an Oriental theme.”

“We’re not here to trade recipes for scones,” I said sternly. “We’re here to find a girl.” I laid Ruth’s picture on the brass tea tray. “This is Ruth Blum. She went missing on July fourth. A change—a witness said she saw Ruth meeting a man who matched van Drood’s description at the Steeplechase entrance on the day she disappeared.”

“Your witness must not be an ordinary mortal if she was able to recall the
pishaca
’s face,” Omar said, seating himself cross-legged on the rug. “The
pishaca
is even more adept at the arts of mesmerism than I. To the undisciplined mind his face would appear as a blur.”

“
My
mind is quite disciplined,” Nathan objected. “And I only recall him as a blur.”

“You, sahib, have indeed a fine mind,” Omar said, bowing his head to Nathan, “but I am afraid it has been sadly addled by liquor—”

“The blue ruin, eh?” Kid Marvel concurred, tapping his nose. “What a cab moll serves at a flash-panny’ll give you the barrel fever in the end. Better stick with the scandal soup.” He held up his tea glass, took a sip, and screwed his face up.

“—and by melancholy,” Omar continued, leaning forward and pinning Nathan with his glittering black eyes. A fog seemed to rise in Nathan’s pale gray eyes, and he swayed like a cobra rising from a snake charmer’s basket.

“Stop that!” I cried, snapping my fingers in front of Nathan’s drugged gaze. “It’s not fair to use your powers on us.”

“No more than it’s fair for you to wander into our turf without laying all your cards on the table,” Kid Marvel snarled back, his voice an octave lower than it had been a moment before. “You know we’re madges and we knows you could turn us into the Order of the Ding-Dongs. Your kind has never shown our kind a bit of mercy. You hunt us down and kill us. Why do you think we’re hiding out here at the freak show? Where else can we go that’s safe from youse ding-dongs? Why should we trust you? Why should we help you?”

“Madges?” I echoed. “Ding-dongs?”

Helen had shrunk back at the dwarf’s venomous attack. Nathan was clenching his fists as if he’d like to punch the little man. Omar was silent and watching, his black eyes moving across our faces. When those eyes reached me I felt a pinprick behind each eye and an itching along my shoulder blades.

“By
madges
my esteemed colleague means magical beings, and by
ding-dongs
, well . . .” Omar spread his hands wide. “While I admit it’s not exactly a respectful name for the Order of the Bell, I’m afraid I must agree with Mr. Marvel’s assessment. We would be foolish to trust your kind. When your emissaries came to my country they rooted out our gods and ransacked our temples. They combed our ashrams looking for children with magical ability and took those children from their homes, promising their parents they would be raised as equals in their schools.”

Omar held up his hand. I heard Helen gasp as she recognized the ring on his finger. It bore the Bell and Feather insignia.

“But we were never equals. They used us to learn our magic and then treated us as servants. Why should we trust you now?”

“He’s right,” Nathan said. “Their kind and ours can never work together. They don’t care if helpless girls are being stolen from their families. They’ll never help us.” He unfolded his long legs and began to rise stiffly to his feet, pulling Helen up with him.

“It’s you who’d sacrifice those poor helpless girls instead of taking help from our kind!” Kid Marvel cried, jumping far more agilely to his feet and jabbing his finger at Nathan’s chest, jarring Helen’s arm in the process. She dropped her teacup. As it shattered on the brass tea tray it made a sound like a bell ringing. The sound expanded in my head, swelling into a maddening peal that filled the caravan. The tiny bells on the hanging scarves rang and the glasses on the brass tray chimed. The whole caravan was shaking. I looked at Omar, sure he must be making the caravan move, but saw from his wide, surprised eyes that he wasn’t. I was the one doing it.

“A chime child,” Omar said, with something like awe in his voice. “And an unusually powerful one.” He fastened his glittering eyes on me. I felt my wings straining against my corset as if Omar was a wing charmer and he was coaxing them out. Would he reveal my true nature to my friends?

“A ringer!” Kid Marvel cried. “We could use you in the business, kid, if you ever get tired of working for the ding-dongs.”

“You never know,” I answered, looking at Omar instead of Kid Marvel. “I might need a change of scenery.”

Omar bowed low to me. “We would be honored to have you among us,
garuda
.”

“Then you’ll help us?” I asked, wondering what he’d called me.

Omar nodded at Kid Marvel, who stuck out his hand to shake mine. “Sure, kid, for a ringer, anything you want.” I was sure, though, that the reason Omar had decided to help me was because he knew now what I was, and that I couldn’t turn him and Kid Marvel in without endangering my own secret. As far as Omar and Kid were concerned I was one of them. Another
madge
. I supposed there were worse clubs to be a member of.

“But I don’t know how easy it’ll be. These molls that the humbug makes away with aren’t just strolling down Fifth Avenue. He puts ’em in a flash-panny tight as the Tombs.”

I knew by “the Tombs” he was referring to the jailhouse, but still the word made me shiver. I wasn’t sure what a flash-panny was, so I asked.

“A house of ill repute,” Omar said. “This one’s called the Hellgate Club.”

I shivered at the memory of the churning whirlpool that had sucked Molly down into the river last night. “There’s a place in the East River called that.”

“Yeah, that’s what it’s named for. They say sailors who survive the Hellgate come to the club after. And,” Kid Marvel added in a lower, more ominous tone, “they say them that
don’t
survive frequent it too, if youse take my meaning. It’s down on the waterfront—not a neighborhood nice kiddies like yerselves ought to go. It’s surrounded by gin joints and hop dens. It looks nicer than those places, but it’s not. All them dives are havens of grace compared to the Hellgate. If your friend is there it’ll take a pretty big con to get her out.”

“Mr. Marvel is correct,” Omar said. “The Hellgate Club is protected by the most ruthless gangsters of the underworld, corrupt officers of the New York City police force and demons of the shadow world. The girls are never allowed out and the building is guarded night and day. All who work there—and all who enter—are held in thrall to the shadow demons. It would be easier to extract a prisoner from the Tombs. Only a master confidence man could get a girl out of the Hellgate.”

“And luckily,” Kid Marvel said, grinning, “you’ve found one.”

9

FIVE HOURS LATER
Miss Corey and I were sitting on the rooftop of the Hellgate Club, an unassuming brownstone on Water Street in the shadow of the looming Gothic tower of the nearly finished Woolworth Building and within sight—and smell—of the East River. The odor reminded me that the real Hellgate whirlpool was not far, and that poor Molly had escaped from here to throw herself in the river last night.

Once Kid Marvel had agreed to help us he had outlined his plan—or his
con
as he called it—so speedily I wondered how long he’d been devising it.

“Trick of the trade,” he’d confided. “I’m always workin’ the angle—how to get in a place, how to get out.”

It had been clear right away that we needed more players for the con and he’d agreed to let me enlist Miss Sharp, Miss Corey, and Agnes Moorhen. We’d met at the Henry Street Settlement after it closed for the night.

Once they’d agreed, despite Miss Corey’s reluctance to collaborate with “carnies,” as she called them, Kid Marvel had laid out the con. Agnes had suggested that her lawyer friend Sam Greenfeder could drive the “getaway” car. Sam had been in his last year of law school attending a lecture in the building next door to the Triangle factory when the fire had broken out. He and his fellow students had helped girls across the roof to safety. He’d met Agnes at the pier where the bodies were laid out and spent months helping her track me down. In recognition of his bravery, Sam Greenfeder had been deputized as a retainer to the Order and entrusted with the rudiments of its mysteries.

Miss Sharp suggested that we also enlist Mr. Bellows’ help.

“Rupert Bellows!” Miss Corey had cried. “Whyever would we use him?”

I knew that Miss Corey didn’t like our history teacher. I had begun to suspect that she was jealous of the attention he paid to Miss Sharp.

“Because a man has to accompany Nathan into the club, and I don’t think Agnes’s Mr. Greenfeder will fit the bill.”

“Are you saying that Rupert Bellows does?” Miss Corey squawked. “Do you honestly think Rupert Bellows has ever set foot in a house of ill fame?”

Miss Sharp blushed. “I most certainly hope not! But he is a knight of the Order. He is charged with going into hell itself if need be, and I have every confidence he will play his part admirably.”

“He looks like a two-bit dandy,” Miss Corey remarked now, looking over the edge of the rooftop. “I can smell his bay rum cologne from here.”

I looked over the edge of the roof and saw Mr. Bellows and Nathan standing on the club’s front stoop. Mr. Bellows, who usually wore muted tweeds, was dressed in a loud plaid suit, spats, and a top hat, which he now doffed, revealing slicked-back hair, as the door opened. A whiff of gin and tea-rose perfume merged with Mr. Bellows’ bay rum cologne and wafted up to our perch along with a woman’s voice. I leaned farther over the edge of the roof and opened up my inner ear to hear what she was saying.

“You needn’t flash your brass at me, Diamond Jim,” she purred in a rich, seductive voice. “Only gentlemen with references get past Madame LeFevre.”

Nathan, in an only slightly more subdued outfit, stepped forward and whispered something in Madame LeFevre’s ear. Even my bird ears couldn’t hear what he said, but everyone on the waterfront must have heard Madame LeFevre’s throaty laughter.

“Well, why didn’t you say you were friends with Big Jim O’Malley right away, boy-os? Any friends of Big Jim’s are always welcome here.”

“Big Jim O’Malley?” I repeated, sitting back on my heels as Nathan and Mr. Bellows disappeared inside. Miss Corey looked puzzled, and I remembered she couldn’t hear what I could, so I explained that I’d heard Nathan say that name.

“Hm . . .” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “Big Jim O’Malley is a bigwig in Tammany Hall politics. I can’t imagine how Nathan knows him, but it was clever of him to use that name to get in. Nathan’s a lot smarter than he lets on.”

I stared at her, surprised that she thought about Nathan Beckwith at all. “I didn’t think you liked any—” I began, but when I realized what I was about to say I clamped my hand over my mouth.

Miss Corey tilted her head and smiled. “Men?” she asked. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“I didn’t m-mean . . .” I stuttered, unsure what I
did
mean and feeling as if I’d stumbled on forbidden territory. Blood rose to my cheeks. Luckily the only light on the roof came from the welding torches of the workmen laboring through the night on the Woolworth Building eight blocks to the west.

“I think what you’ve probably noticed is that I don’t like Rupert Bellows,” she replied with a strained smile. In the light of the torches I could see how pale she had become. In the daytime she usually wore a veil to hide the marks on her face, but she had left it off for tonight’s operation
.
The marks on her face stood out like constellations of a distant universe. Remembering what Miss Sharp had told me about their origin, I felt a pang for her. Miss Corey had been kind to me at Blythewood. She had gotten me a part-time job as her assistant in the library to augment my allowance and give me independence. The last thing I wanted was to pry into her secrets and make her feel uncomfortable.

“Yes, of course, that’s what I meant,” I said, grateful for the exit she had offered me.

For a moment I thought she would leave it at that, but then she sighed and said, “Or perhaps you’ve noticed more than that.”

I could have pretended not to know what she meant, but then I remembered what it felt like to keep my own secret. “I suppose I’ve noticed that you like Miss Sharp very much,” I said.

She bit her lip. “Yes, I do like Vionetta
very
much,” she rasped in a strained voice. “I like her . . .” She looked away and stared up at the half-built Woolworth Building as if the words for her feelings could be found in the elaborately carved Gothic tower. “I like her more than as a friend. I would like to spend the rest of my life with her, I don’t care where or how.”

“Does she feel the same?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” she cried. “How can I know? If I tell her how I feel it might ruin the friendship we have.” She turned to me, her eyes glittering as if the flares of the welding torches had lodged in them. “You understand that the way I feel is not . . .
accepted.
It’s not the way I’m supposed to feel.”

“I don’t
understand
that at all,” I replied hotly. “How can anyone control the way they feel about someone else? And how can anyone tell someone how they’re
supposed
to feel? The way you feel about Miss Sharp . . . well . . .” I fumbled for what to say. “
I
accept it. Anyone with half a brain and two eyes in their head would have to!”

She laughed hoarsely and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Avaline Hall,” she said, “you are quite remarkable. If you ever have a secret burdening you, you know where to come.” She leaned forward and squeezed my hand.

“A secret . . . ?” I began, but then a noise drew our attention to the street.

“There’s Vi!” Miss Corey cried, leaning over the edge of the roof.

Below us stood a woman, but I was sure it couldn’t be Miss Sharp. She was drab and stooped, her head covered by a gray shawl. She looked shorter and older than Miss Sharp, but when she knocked on the door the noise resounded across the waterfront. The door opened and Madame LeFevre’s voice wafted up to our perch.

“Have you come about a job, dearie? I’ll have to see what’s under all them layers if you have.”

“I’ve come for my husband,” Miss Sharp replied in a quavering voice that nonetheless carried on the night air. “Mr. Robbins. He’s here with his friend, Mr. . . . er . . . Flyte.”

It had been Kid Marvel’s little joke to assign us all aliases based on birds or flying. I was “Phoenix” and Miss Corey, much to her chagrin, was “Magpie.”

“It’s not my policy to divulge the names of my clients or to let ladies into my establishment. Go home, duckie, and wait for your husband like a good little wifie.”

“Oooh,” Miss Corey whispered, “Vi won’t like that.”

“I most certainly will not!” Miss Sharp announced in the clear loud voice she used to reprimand students who didn’t do their assignments. “I will stand here and wait for my husband until he comes out!”

“Suit yerself, pet.” Madame LeFevre began to close the door, but before she did Miss Sharp shouted in a loud, commanding voice. “John! John Jacob Robbins! I know you’re in there. Come out this minute before you spend another penny on some painted harlot while our three children go hungry!”

A large man came out the door and remonstrated with her. “Ma’am, you can’t stay here. You’ll raise the whole neighborhood—”

“I will raise the hounds of hell if that’s what it takes to get my husband out of the clutches of that she-devil!”

“She could, too,” Miss Corey remarked admiringly. “I’ve seen her raise the hounds of hell.”

The front door opened and closed again. Miss Sharp’s voice rose ever higher and louder, raining threats and pleas that convinced
me
that she had three starving children at home. Lights went on in buildings around us and neighbors leaned out their windows to watch the fracas. In the building below us I heard slamming doors and querulous voices. I opened my inner ear and listened.

“Get a load of the bellows on that one!”

“No wonder the poor man came here for a little peace and quiet.”

“At least he has someone who cares enough to come looking for him.”

This last came from a girl on the top floor in back. I moved toward the back of the building and looked down into the rear alley. A patch of light from a top-floor window illuminated a rickety old fire escape clinging precariously to the crumbling brick walls. In the alleyway below, two large men stood guard smoking cigarettes and listening to Miss Sharp’s tirade. I focused on the voices coming from the top-floor window.

“I’m here to help you, Ruth,” I heard Nathan say. “I’m here to take you back to your family.”

“I told you my name’s not Ruth, it’s Fanny and I don’t have no family!”

“Not even a sister Etta?”

The only reply was a whimper that might have come from a small mouse, then the girl repeated in a monotone. “My name’s not Ruth, my name’s not Ruth, my name’s not . . .”

“There’s something wrong,” I told Miss Corey. “I have to go down there and talk to her. You keep an eye on Miss Sharp.”

Before she could stop me, I was on the fire escape heading down to the second floor. Each step I took made the whole contraption shake. I was afraid the noise would alert the guards in the alley, but they were too busy listening to Miss Sharp’s shrieks, which had now been joined by Mr. Bellows’ retorts delivered from a front window. The two of them were shouting back and forth like an old married couple.

“If I’da known you were such a lazy good-for-nothing layabout I’d never have married you, John Robbins!”

“If I’d have known you were such a sanctimonious shrew I’d never’ve let your father strong-arm me to the altar!”

They sounded like they were enjoying themselves.

I hurried down metal steps filigreed by rust to a lacy thinness, trying not to picture the fire escape at the Triangle. When I reached the window, I paused to breathe and looked through the glass.

I’m not sure what I thought a house of ill fame would look like—gaudy, I suppose, certainly not this well-appointed room with a four-poster canopy bed, lace curtains, and china bric-a-brac on the tables and chests. It looked more like a girl’s room in a wealthy home—until I looked at the girl inhabiting it. I recognized her features—dark thick hair, olive skin, high wide cheekbones and large brown eyes—from her photograph, but it was hard to believe she was that same laughing girl. She was wedged into a corner between a wardrobe and night table, her bare arms wrapped around her chest protectively, shivering so hard that her yellow silk dressing gown trembled like a butterfly’s wing. She looked so scared I thought one of the guards must be in the room, but when I looked around all I saw was Nathan standing as far as he could from her, raking his hands through his hair and staring at her as if she were an explosive device.

“Please,” he was pleading, “I’m here to help you. If you just come with me we’ll bring you to Etta.”

At the sound of Etta’s name, Ruth whimpered as if Nathan had struck her, causing Nathan to tear at his hair and look wildly around the room. When his gaze lit on me he flung his arms up and rushed to the window.

“Thank the Bells!” he cried, helping me into the room. “I thought she would start screaming any minute. She’s acting like I’m trying to murder her every time I mention Etta.”

Ruth whimpered and cringed as if she had been struck. I took a step toward her, holding my hands out, palms up, as if I were approaching a bating hawk.

“It’s all right, Ruth. I’m a friend of Etta’s. We worked together at the Triangle factory. My name’s Ava. Maybe she mentioned me?”

Ruth only whimpered and slid down the wall with her arms clasped around her knees, trying to make herself small. She stared at me out of eyes so wide and glassy I could see my reflection in them . . . only it wasn’t my image. Taking a cautious step forward I knelt down and stared into her eyes. Where my reflection should have been was a ghoul—decaying skin hanging over a hollow-eyed skull. When I opened my mouth smoke poured out.