The Broken Lands (23 page)

Jin tried to keep the disappointment from her face. “Is there something . . . anything we could be doing?” she asked.

“I think what you mean is, what are
we
doing? And I'm sorry to tell you, despite hours of discussion after you two left last night, we still haven't got a clue. But don't you worry a hair,” he said. “We are tenacious folks. We'll come up with a plan.”

Suddenly, the door of the saloon burst open and two young men dressed in long-tailed coats and unusually tall top hats strolled in like they owned the place.

Rough fellows, Jin recognized. The style might vary from city to city, but if you knew what to look for, you could always spot the hoodlum types. To further confirm what she already knew, Sam pushed her behind him.

“Jasper,” Mapp barked over his shoulder.

The two rowdies took long looks around the room, then one turned on his heel and called out the door, “All's clear, Jim.”

The man who entered then was tall and thin and deadly-looking, and it was obvious to Jin that everyone in the room—everyone but her—knew exactly who he was. Sam recognized the newcomer immediately, right along with Jasper Wills and Walter Mapp. “James Hawks,” he said quietly.

 

Sam didn't know much about the crime-ridden New York district called the Five Points. Then again, you didn't have to know much about the Points to have heard of James Hawks, keeper of the Bowery saloon called the Blind Tiger's Milk. When newspapers in the state wanted to rail about the evils of violence in the city of New York, they wrote about the Five Points. And when the bosses of the various gangs there needed to be reined in, it wasn't city police who came knocking on their doors. It was James Hawks, the only man even the most vicious thugs in the city doffed their hats to out of honest respect, which most folks figured really meant he was the only man they were truly afraid of.

Hawks glanced around the room, taking in Sam, Jin, and Mapp, before his eyes fell on Jasper Wills, who was already on his way out from behind the bar.

Hawks's eyes crinkled. He swept his beaver-skin top hat from his oiled hair and smiled. “Jasper. Always a pleasure.”

Wills shook Hawks's outstretched hand with a smile that managed to be only a little bit wary. “Welcome to West Brighton, Jim. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The man who entered then was tall and thin and deadly-looking.
 

Hawks handed his hat to one of his boys and clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, I'll tell you, Jasper, it seems you've got some odd happenings going on hereabouts. I heard, for instance, that a young lady”—his eyes flicked sideways at Jin—“discovered a fairly gruesome message not two streets from here only yesterday.”

“You know a thing or two about finding gruesome things in your neck of the woods, I suppose,” Jasper said, folding his arms. “I'd never insult you by asking what business it is of yours, but I admit I'm curious to know what brings you yourself out here to investigate.”

Sam's eyes widened. Jasper Wills had just, more or less, told James Hawks that what went on in West Brighton was none of his business. This was the stuff of nightmares, the kind of thing that got innocent bystanders killed. He took a deep breath and tried to figure what the best course of action would be if things started going south.

Hawks, however, only smiled wider. “Fair point, Jasper.” He turned to his backup. “Boys, outside with you. We'll be needing some privacy.”

Sam held that breath until the door had shut behind the two rowdies. Even then, he half-expected Hawks to casually pull out a knife and announce that he was going to kill them all with his own hands for the insult.

Instead, the tall saloonkeeper nodded at the nearest table. “May I invite myself to sit? And could I prevail upon the lot of you to join me?”

“We should . . .” Sam gestured halfheartedly toward the door, knowing that trying to leave was futile. Apart from the fact that
the lot of you
plainly included them, Jin was certainly not going to leave of her own will—not now that it was clear that Hawks's appearance had something to do with the body she'd found.

James Hawks lifted an eyebrow. “You should . . . what? Are you the kids who found the bodies?” Sam nodded reluctantly. Hawks turned his eyes on Jin. “And you're the girl from Fata Morgana? Liao's protégée?”

Jin's eyes widened. “How do you know that? How is it that
everyone
knows that?”

“You should join us,” Hawks said easily.

Brow furrowed, Jin allowed him to pull a chair out for her, and the matter was settled.

When Sam, Mapp, and Jasper Wills had taken seats as well, Hawks put his elbows on the table and rubbed a hand over his face. Suddenly he looked old, exhausted.

“Thank you,” he said tiredly. “I apologize for the theatrics. I'm accustomed to ordering people around, and usually it's necessary. But it wastes so much time, and we have so little to begin with.”

“What's this about, Jim?” Jasper asked.

Hawks sighed. “I'm here to speak to you about the man whose name was written on the walls.”

Sam opened his mouth, the name
Jack
on his lips, and Hawks held up his hand. “Don't, if you please. In ages past, they believed that naming a thing calls it, and while I pride myself on being a man of reason, in desperate times we may perhaps forgive ourselves our superstitions. We will not speak his name. I came here because of you,” Hawks continued, turning to Walter Mapp. “They tell me you're a headcutter, one of the oldest. Is this true?”

Jin elbowed Sam.
Headcutter?
she mouthed. Sam could only shrug.

“They say that, do they?” Mapp folded his arms. “They talk a lot, for being a nameless
they
.”

“Certainly you know there are many, many roamers in the city.”

“Certainly.”

“Well,” Hawks said patiently, “are you or are you not Walter Mapp the Liar, who bested the Devil and won a favor?”

A silence stretched over the table.
Who bested the Devil and won a favor?
Thinking immediately of the conversation from the night before and the strange coin on Tom Guyot's watch fob, Sam stared from Hawks to Mapp. He couldn't decide if he thought Hawks had lost his mind or if he was simply losing his. Had the two musicians actually been discussing calling in a favor from the
Devil
to defeat the man he'd refused to let into Hell?

Jasper Wills broke the stalemate first. He sighed, shoved his chair back, and stalked to the bar, muttering, “Plainly, I need a beer if I'm going to be able to handle this conversation.”

I
F
I'
M TALKING
to the wrong man,” James Hawks spoke calmly, as if he hadn't just said something completely insane, “I had better be on my way and find the right one.”

“Nope,” Mapp said, leaning his chin on his palm. “When you put it like that, I suppose I have to say you're in the right place. Haven't been called the Liar in ages, but I'm Mapp. I'm the one you're looking for.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Hawks said. “This man, whose name we will not use, is it fair to assume you have also learned who he is, what he wants?”

“We think we understand the stakes,” Mapp said. “Can't say we've figured out what to do about it. You?”

“Sure,” Hawks said with an easy smile. “I think you ought to use your favor and stop him.”

Mapp sighed and pushed back his chair. “If I hadn't spent it several lifetimes back, I'd do that in a minute.” He spread his empty palms helplessly. “But I did, so I can't.”

Sam waited for him to mention that there was another man in Coney Island who was owed a favor from the Devil. Then he realized he was hoping Mapp wouldn't do it. Now that he knew Tom had been talking about the Devil when he said using the favor would mean turning the whole thing over to someone they didn't necessarily want involved, he could see the sense in Tom's decision. Somehow, though, he couldn't picture Jim Hawks understanding Tom's reluctance.

Hawks looked closely at Mapp, as if trying to decide if he believed him or not. Then he nodded once, shortly. “Then I suppose we'll have to come up with another plan of attack.”

“Know much about this fellow?” Mapp asked. “The one we're not calling by his name, I mean.”

“I know of him only from stories from the road. From others like him and like you.” Hawks smiled coldly.

Mapp looked mildly offended. “Don't like the uncanny in your town, Hawks?”

The saloonkeeper's smile grew even more brittle. “Humans cause enough trouble all by themselves, I find.”

“We were all human once,” Mapp said with a shrug.

“Not all of you,” Hawks retorted. “Not all, not by a long shot. I've seen the two he sent, and I promise you they are not part of any race that lays claim to being human.” He cleared his throat. “Let me tell you what I know. Then, I ask that you return the favor.”

Mapp eyed him for a moment, then nodded. “Sounds fair to me.”

“There were five of us,” Hawks began. “Five people, five mortal humans out of every generation whose task it is to hold together the soul of the city. There is a term for our office, which I also will not use. While we stand, the city stands. It takes its character from us, imperfect and human though we are.” For a moment, his voice sounded almost humble. “Suffice it to say, the best, the most sure way for a creature like the man we are discussing to capture a city, to take it for his own, is through the five of us.”

“You said there
were
five?” Sam got up the courage to ask.

“
His
fixers, the murderers of the two men you found, have also killed one of our own. And I suspect they have won another over to their cause.”

At the end of the table, Mapp stirred. “When you say
through the five of us,
what are you talking about, exactly?”

“If he cannot convince us to share his vision for the city, he cannot remake it into what he needs. But he can kill us, claim the city before it finds its soul again, and replace us with stewards of his own.”

“Claim it how?” Jasper asked.

“By blood, by naming, and by fire.” Now Hawks looked at Jin. “The last, the claiming by fire, is called cinefaction. There used to be those who claimed cinefaction alone could take a city, but that required a particular type of artificier. In the old days, those artificiers were called conflagrationeers.”

Jin stiffened. Hawks smiled thinly. “You know the word.”

She shook her head, but the gesture lacked her usual confi­dence. “I may have heard it.”

“Your uncle—”

“No. My uncle would
never
—”

“Let me finish,” Hawks snapped. “Your uncle works for a company that can trace its roots back to one of the great conflagrationeers of old. The original Fata Morgana Company was formed by a partnership between a man named Burns and a conflagrationeer by the name of Ignis Blister.”

Jin opened her mouth again, and Hawks cut her off. “I don't know how you came to be here at the same time as these two, the fixers, but it cannot be coincidence.”

A faint flicker of a memory twitched in Sam's head. He looked at Jin, but she was still sitting rigidly, staring at James Hawks with a mixture of confusion and defiance.

Sam turned his attention back to Hawks. “How do you know all this?”

“We cannot uphold the city if we aren't educated in the things that threaten it,” Hawks told him. “The point is, it's a bad time for Fata Morgana to be in the neighborhood, if they are here innocently.”

He turned back to Jin. “They are going to come for you, girl. They are going to believe either your uncle or his partner can perform the cinefaction. And if they refuse or claim ignorance, these fixers will likely kill you all, beginning with
you,
with the very reasonable expectation that, if either man has the knowledge to perform the process, the sight of your suffering will convince him to do the work. And you've seen the suffering they're capable of inflicting.”

Jin's scarred hands began to shake on the table. She curled them into fists. “What about that?” she asked. “Who were the two men they killed?”

“I don't know.” James Hawks's expression softened. “I'm sorry to tell you I think they were killed in order to draw us out and bring us together—the five who stand for the city. They were killed to call attention to what was written over their bodies. Nothing more.”

Jin shoved her chair back from the table and stalked rigidly away across the room. Sam glanced from Hawks to Walter Mapp. The pianist nodded for him to go to her.

She stood by a shuttered window, arms folded across her chest, staring blankly at it as if there were a view to be seen. Sam came to stand beside her, hands in his pockets, and waited.