THE BOWERY AFIRE
1902—New York
By the time Jianyu Lee made it from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Bowery, his mind had turned to murder. Ironic that he was set on killing to avenge the man who had once saved him from a life of violence. Jianyu supposed that Dolph Saunders would have been amused by the turn of events. But Dolph was dead. The leader of the Devil’s Own and the one sāi yàn who had never looked at Jianyu with the suspicion that shimmered in the eyes of so many others had been shot in the back by one of his own—by someone he had trusted. Someone they all had trusted.
Nibsy Lorcan.
For Jianyu, it did not matter whether Esta and Harte made it through the Brink, as they planned. If their wild scheme to get through its devastating power worked, he doubted they would ever return. Why should they, if they found freedom on the other side? If he were able to escape from this trap of a city, he would certainly never look back. He would find the first ship heading to the East, to the home he never should have left.
He would see the land that had borne him once again.
He would breathe the clean air of the village where his family lived in Sānnìng and forget his ambitions.
Once he had been so young. So innocent in his headstrong confidence. After his parents had died, his older brother, Siu-Kao, had raised him. Siu-Kao was nearly a decade older and had a wife who, though beautiful, was cunning as a fox. She had married his brother as much for the magic that ran in their family as for the benefit of the family’s farmlands. But when their first child seemed not to have any affinity at all, she began to make clear that Jianyu was no longer welcome in her house. By the time he started to sprout hair beneath his arms, he was so angry at his place in his older brother’s home, so desperate to strike out on his own, that he had decided to leave.
He saw now that his youth had blinded him and his magic had made him reckless. Drawn into one of the packs of roving bandits that were so common in the more impoverished villages throughout Gwóng-dūng, he had lived freely for a time, repudiating his older brother’s control and choosing his own path. But then, he had lingered too long in one town, a tiny hamlet close to the banks of the Zyū Gōng, and had forgotten that magic was not a panacea for stupidity. He had been barely thirteen years of age when he was caught breaking into a local merchant’s home.
Then, he could not have gone back to face his brother. He refused.
Then, he had believed that leaving his homeland and starting anew was his only recourse.
He had not realized that there were places in the world where magic was caged. Now, he knew too well. There was a safety in fealty that he had failed to understand and freedom in the constraints of family duty that he had not appreciated as a boy.
Once, he had thought that, given the chance, he would repent and live the life that had been demanded of him, a life he had once run from. He would not make the same mistakes again.
Why else would he have given his loyalty to Dolph Saunders if not for the promise that one day the Brink would be brought down? Why else would he have kept the queue so many others had already discarded, if not for the hope that one day he would find a way to return to his homeland? Certainly, it would have been easier to cut the long braid that drew curious glances and wary stares—many of his countrymen already had. But cutting his hair would mean a final admission that he would never return.
From what Esta had told him, though, going back to Sānnìng would be pointless if the danger she foresaw ever came to pass. If Nibsy Lorcan managed to obtain the Ars Arcana, the Book that contained the very source of magic, or if he retrieved the Order’s five artifacts—ancient stones that the Order had used to create the Brink and maintain their power—the boy would be unstoppable. No land, no people—Mageus or Sundren—would be safe from the power Nibsy would wield. He would subjugate the Sundren, and he would use his control over Mageus to do so.
Jianyu saw it as his duty now to make sure that future could never be realized. If he could not return to his homeland, he would protect it from Nibsy Lorcan and his like.
Darrigan had left him with very specific instructions: Jianyu must protect the first of the Order’s artifacts—and the woman who carried it. But he did not have much time. Soon the boy Esta had warned them about would arrive—a boy with the power to find lost objects and with knowledge of the future to come. A boy who was loyal to Nibsy. That boy could not be allowed to reach Nibsy, especially not so long as somewhere in the city, one of the Order’s stones lay waiting to be found.
Jianyu would rather risk dying on foreign shores, his bones far from his ancestors, than allow Nibsy Lorcan to win. He would find the artifact and stop this “Logan.” And then Jianyu would kill Nibsy and avenge his murdered friend. Or he would die trying.
As Jianyu made his way through the Bowery, toward his destination in the Village, the scent of ash and soot was heavy in the air. For the last week—ever since Dolph Saunders’ team had robbed the Order of its most powerful artifacts and Khafre Hall had burned to the ground—much of the Lower East Side had been shrouded with smoke. In retaliation for the theft, one fire after another had erupted through the most impoverished neighborhoods of the city. The Order, after all, had a point to make.
Where Hester Street met the wide boulevard that was the Bowery, Jianyu passed the burned-out remains of a tenement. The sidewalk was heaped with the detritus of destroyed lives. The building had once housed Mageus, people who had lived under Dolph’s care. Jianyu wondered where they had gone and who they would depend upon now that Dolph was dead.
As Jianyu walked, he noticed a clutch of dark shadows lurking just beyond the circle of lamplight across from the remains of the building. Paul Kelly’s men. Sundren, all of them, the Five Pointers had nothing to fear from the Order.
Once, the Five Pointers wouldn’t have dared cross Elizabeth Street or come within four blocks of the Bella Strega, Dolph’s saloon. But now they walked the streets Dolph had once protected, their presence a declaration of their intent to occupy. To conquer.
It wasn’t unexpected. As news of Dolph’s death spread, the other gangs would begin to take the territory the Devil’s Own once held. It was no more surprising to see the Five Pointers in the neighborhood than it would be to see Eastman’s gang or any of the rest. If Jianyu had to guess, he suspected that even Tom Lee, the leader of the most powerful tong in Chinatown, would try to take what territory he could.
The Five Pointers were different, though. More dangerous. More ruthless.
They were a newer faction in the Bowery, and because of that they fought like they had something to prove. But unlike the other gangs, Kelly’s boys had managed to procure the protection of Tammany Hall. The year before, the Five Pointers had broken heads and flooded polling places to elect a Tammany puppet to the city council, and ever since, the police overlooked whatever crimes the Five Pointers committed.
It had been bad enough that Kelly had been working in league with the corrupt bosses at Tammany, but during the days preceding Dolph’s death, they had grown more brazen than ever. It had been an unmistakable sign that something was afoot. Everyone in the Strega had known that unrest was stirring in the Bowery, but it was a sign read too poorly and too late.
Feeling exposed, Jianyu drew on his affinity and opened the threads of light cast by the streetlamps. He bent them around himself like a cloak so that the Five Pointers wouldn’t see him pass. Invisible to their predatory vigilance, he allowed himself to relax into the comfort of his magic, the certainty of it when everything else was so uncertain. Then he picked up his pace.
A few blocks later, the familiar golden-eyed witch on the Bella Strega’s sign came into view. To the average person looking for warmth from the chill of the night or a glass of something to numb the pain of a life lived at the margins, the crowd of the Bella Strega might not have seemed any different from the other saloons and beer halls scattered throughout the city. Legal or illegal, those darkened rooms were a way for the city’s poor to escape the disappointment and trials of their lives. But the Strega was different.
Or it had been.
Mageus of all types felt safe enough to gather within its walls without fear and without need to hide what they were, because Dolph Saunders had refused to appease the narrow-mindedness bred from fear and ignorance or to tolerate the usual divisions between the denizens of the Bowery. Going to the Strega meant the promise of welcome—of safety—in a dangerous city, even for one such as Jianyu. On any single night, the barroom would be filled with a mixture of languages and people, their common bond the old magic that flowed in their veins.
That was before a single bullet had put Dolph into a cold grave, Jianyu reminded himself as he passed under the witch’s watchful gaze. Now that Nibsy Lorcan had control of the Devil’s Own, there would be no guarantee of safety within those walls. Especially not for Jianyu.
According to Esta, Nibsy had the uncanny ability to see connections between events and to predict outcomes. Since Jianyu was determined to end Nibsy’s reign, and his life, he couldn’t risk returning to the Strega.
Still, Nibsy had not managed to predict how Dolph had changed the plans at Khafre Hall, nor how Jianyu had intended to help Harte Darrigan fake his own death on the bridge just hours before. Perhaps the boy wasn’t as powerful as Esta believed, or perhaps his affinity simply had limitations, as all affinities did. Finishing Nibsy might be difficult, but it would not be impossible. Especially since Viola could kill a man without touching him.
That would have to wait for another day, though. Jianyu still had to find Viola and tell her everything. She likely still believed that he had not been on the bridge and that Harte Darrigan had betrayed them all.
The Strega behind him, Jianyu continued on. He could have taken a streetcar or one of the elevated trains, but he preferred to walk so that he could think and plan. Gaining Cela’s trust would be a delicate procedure, since Cela Johnson wouldn’t be expecting him and few in the city trusted his countrymen. Protecting her and the stone might be even more difficult, since she was Sundren and had no idea what danger the ring posed. But he had promised Darrigan, and he understood all that was at stake. He would not fail.
By the time he reached the South Village, Jianyu detected smoke in the air. As he drew closer to Minetta Lane, where Miss Johnson lived, the scent grew stronger, filling his nostrils with its warning and his stomach with dread.
Jianyu knew somehow, before he was even in sight of the building, that it would be Cela Johnson’s home that he found ablaze. Flames licked from windows, and the entire structure glowed from the fire within it. Even from across the street, the heat prickled his skin, making the wool coat he was wearing feel overwarm for the early spring night.
Nearby, the building’s tenants watched as their home was devoured by the flames. Huddled together, they tried to protect the meager piles of belongings they’d been able to salvage, while a fire brigade’s wagon stood by. The horses pawed at the ground, displaying their unease about the flickering light of the fire and the growing crowd. But the firemen did nothing.
It wasn’t surprising.
Jianyu knew the fire brigade’s current inaction was intentional. The brigades were mostly Irish, but being at least a generation removed from the boats and famine that had brought them to this land, they considered themselves natives. They looked with distaste on the newer waves of immigrants, from places to the east and the south, and on anyone whose skin wasn’t as white as theirs, no matter how long their families had been in this land. When those homes burned, the brigades often moved slower and took fewer risks. Sometimes, if it suited their purposes, they ignored the flames altogether.
If asked, they would say it had been too late. They would tell the people weeping and wringing their hands that the fire had already consumed too much, that it was too dangerous even to try entering the building. Their lives could not be wasted on lost causes.
It didn’t matter whether their words were true. The effect was the same. Even now, the men simply leaned against their wagon, their hands crossed over dark uniforms, impassive as the rows of brass buttons lining their chests. Their shining helmets reflected the light of the blaze, as the pale-faced men with long, narrow noses watched a home transform itself into ash. It had happened countless times before, and in the days to come, Jianyu knew that it would happen again.
Still under the cover of his magic, he approached the group of people slowly, listening for some indication that Cela was among them. For years now Jianyu had been Dolph Saunders’ eyes and ears in the Bowery. It wasn’t only that he was able to evade notice with his affinity. No, he also had a talent for understanding people and reading the words that remained unspoken, a skill he’d picked up when he’d traveled through Gwóng-dūng, before he was caught. He had wanted to start anew and to leave that life behind him, but because he hoped that the Brink could be destroyed, Jianyu had agreed to use his ability for Dolph, to warn him when danger was coming or to find those who needed help but didn’t know where to ask.
He used that skill now, listening to the group that had congregated to comfort the family.
“. . . saw her take off like the hellhound was on her tail.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“No . . .”
“You don’t think she started it?”
“She certainly didn’t stay around to help, now, did she? Left the Browns upstairs without so much as a warning.”
“Always thought there was something strange about that girl . . . Too uppity for her own good, if you ask me.”
“Hush. You can’t be telling lies about people like that. She was a good girl. A hard worker. She wouldn’t burn down her own house.”
“Abel wasn’t in there, was he?”
“Can’t be sure . . .”
“She wouldn’t do anything to her brother. Say what you want about her, but Abe doted on that girl.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a bitch bit the hand that fed her. Big house like that? She could sell it and go wherever she wanted.”
“Abel never would’ve sold.”
“That’s what I’m saying. . . . They paid the insurance man, same as everyone.”
“Carl Brown said there was a gunshot. . . .”
Jianyu turned away from the bitterness and jealousy that dripped like venom from their words. They knew nothing except that Cela was not inside the house.
The gunshot, the burning house. It could have been Cela’s doing, but from the way the fire brigade stood silent and watchful rather than putting out the blaze, Jianyu thought otherwise. It was too much like what had happened in other parts of the city. It had the mark of the Order.
Which meant that someone, somehow, might already suspect that Cela had the Order’s artifact. As long as she was alone in the city, without protection, she was in danger.
They all were.