Hexbreaker - Jordan L. Hawk Page 6

  “Oh, is that what I am,” Cicero drawled.

  Tom sighed in frustration and turned away. “Never mind.”

  “No, no.” Cicero caught him by the elbow. “Certainly it’s one of the things I am. Believe it or not, we don’t all know each other. There are a number of different cafés and restaurants throughout Manhattan that attract the…artistic sorts, shall we say.”

  Tom tried to imagine Cicero painting or playing the piano. “Are you? An artist, I mean.”

  Cicero’s mouth curled into a slow smile. “Perhaps. Although they say familiars make the best muses.”

  Tom had the sudden, unbidden image of Cicero posing for a painter. Stretched out languid and boneless on a couch in some dingy apartment, his hair artfully disheveled, his clothing arranged to reveal smooth skin, or perhaps gone altogether…

  “I’m going to try to find his household ledger,” Tom said hurriedly. “You keep looking at…this…”

  Tom found the ledger tucked into a drawer. While he perused it, Cicero continued to prowl the apartment. “Barshtein was trying his hand at poetry,” the familiar said as he shuffled through the papers on the table. “He wasn’t very good, mind you, but so few are. I wonder if he was beginning to find his life as a pawn broker a bit confining?”

  “Possible.” Tom tapped the ledger. “Look at this entry. It’s from a few weeks ago, but I recognize the name.”

  Cicero joined him, leaning in close to read Barshtein’s cramped handwriting. “I don’t.”

  Instead of explaining, Tom asked, “What did you say about slumming tours?”

  “In regards to the Rooster?”

  “Aye. You said it was popular?”

  “If one would call it that.” Cicero frowned slightly. “People don’t feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth unless they’ve been shocked by fairies. Though I would have thought Barshtein could have found plenty of them in a neighborhood like this.”

  “The neighborhood his wife and customers live in?” Tom countered.

  “You make an excellent point. Why?”

  Tom ran his finger over the name. “Barshtein might have had other business with him, but the fellow listed here runs slumming tours.”

  They made their way to a 24-hour restaurant not far from the Coven, the sort frequented by coppers and criminals alike. Tables crowded close together, their tops covered in cheap checkered cloth. The air reeked of boiled cabbage and onions.

  “I’m told the corned beef is good,” Cicero said with a delicate shudder.

  Tom settled into the seat across from him. “What, you think I like corned beef just because I’m Irish?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Aye,” he admitted. “Still.”

  The mirth faded slightly from Cicero’s face. “You’re right. I’ve made entirely too many assumptions about you already.”

  Before Tom could say anything, the waiter appeared. Cicero ordered coffee and a fish sandwich. Tom went for the corned beef and coffee. “And extra cream, if you would,” he called after the waiter.

  “From Dublin, are you?” Cicero asked while they waited on their food.

  Lord knew this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. He needed to divert it quickly. “Aye. But what about you? You look Italian, but you sound English.”

  Cicero smiled slyly. “The two things most guaranteed not to endear me to your heart. Or are you not an Irish heretic?”

  “I follow the pope in Belfast, if that’s what you mean. Not that I’ve been to confession in a while, mind you.” Not in eight years, because lying to the people around him was one thing, but lying to a priest was another. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t like. I figure we’re all New Yorkers now, and it don’t matter much where we started out.”

  “My parents moved to London long before I was born,” Cicero said with a graceful shrug. “My father had a little grocery in Clerkenwell. I spent most of my formative years there, until the place burned to the ground. My uncle was about to move his family to New York from some awful backwater in Italy, and suggested we all go together to make our fortunes. We ended up in the tenements, where my father promptly died from typhus.”

  Did Cicero still speak to his remaining family? His distant tone made Tom suspect the answer would be no, but it was too personal a question to ask a man he’d just met. “I’ve noticed you familiars don’t use last names,” he said instead. “Is it just tradition, or…?”

  A shadow crossed Cicero’s expressive face. “Mainly tradition,” he said. “Like a woman taking her husband’s last name. In the old days, our witch would give us a new name altogether, once we bonded.”

  “Like a pet?” Tom asked, revolted.

  A sort of mocking smile twisted Cicero’s mouth. “Exactly like a pet, darling,” he said, but the lightness of his voice seemed to hide something much darker beneath. “Or a slave. Or even a servant, I suppose—I’ve heard of rich folk who call all their housemaids Jane, so as not to bother learning a new name every time one leaves and another takes her place.”

  Molly had come with her own name, Tom knew that much at least. For all the bad Danny had done, at least he’d not treated his familiar like a possession. “That don’t seem right.”

  “Well, the practice has largely been given up.” Cicero shrugged. “Still, the tradition of relinquishing our surnames persists. I think the MWP encourages it so we see the force as our family.”

  “You ought to call me Tom, then. Especially as we’re to be working together.”

  “Perhaps I will.” Cicero’s sly grin returned. “Thomas.”

  Tom snorted. “Why do I get the feeling nothing is ever easy with you?”

  “Because that would be boring.”

  The coffee arrived, along with a small pot of cream. Tom added a splash to his coffee, then pushed the rest of the pot across the table to Cicero.

  Cicero looked down at it, then back up. “For me?”

  “I thought you might like it.”

  “What, you think I like cream just because I’m a cat?”

  “Don’t you?” Tom countered.

  Cicero laughed. “Yes. Still.” He lifted the pot to his lips and dipped his tongue in.

  Their eyes met. Cicero slowly curled his tongue, the cream white against his lips. Blood rushed to Tom’s groin, and he glanced away hastily. The restaurant was doing a good business, and he let his gaze drift over the other customers, focusing on them instead of the thoughts Cicero had put into his head.

  One of the men clearing his plate of corned beef seemed familiar. Someone Tom had seen on his beat?

  “Your food, sirs,” said the waiter.

  Tom tucked into his corned beef. Cicero took a dainty bite of his fish. “So, it seems Barshtein may have taken a slum tour recently,” Cicero said, “and the tour might have stopped at the Rooster.”

  “A lot of ‘seems’ and ‘mights’ I admit,” Tom remarked. “I could track down the fellow who does the tours and beat the truth out of him, if you’d like.”

  Cicero rolled his eyes. “I apologized once already.”

  “Only for the times you didn’t mean to insult me.”

  Cicero threw his napkin across the table at Tom. “We need some way to get inside the Rooster. If it is the source of whatever caused Barshtein and Gerald to go mad, we have to find out.”

  “Take the tour ourselves?” Tom suggested.

  Oh hell—Tom knew where he’d seen the man sitting across the restaurant before. He took a second look, heart beating in his throat. The years had put on their wear and tear, which was why Tom hadn’t recognized him immediately. Once-brown hair had gone gray, and deep lines carved the man’s weathered skin. His blue eyes seemed to have sunk back into his skull, as if they no longer wished to see the cruelty of the world. But the shape of the jaw, the arch of cheekbone, the old scar bisecting his hairline, brought his name to the surface of Tom’s mind.

  Horton Phelps. The leader of the old Muskrat gang. The very man Da betrayed to
get his hands on those damned hexes.

  Tom felt his heart stutter in his chest.

  Phelps. Here. Of all the damnable luck.

  Phelps hadn’t glanced in his direction. And if he did, most likely he’d only notice the police uniform, and not take a close look at Tom’s face. Even so, Tom desperately wished he could put on his helmet in the restaurant without looking either rude or insane, and drawing unwanted attention to himself.

  “No,” Cicero said. “If we took a tour, we’d only see the main rooms. The public areas.”

  It took Tom a moment to recall what they were even talking about. The slum tours. Right. “That’s all Barshtein saw. Probably.”

  “Perhaps.” Cicero tapped his fork lightly against his plate. “But let’s assume he’d developed an interest in the bohemian set, as you put it. I’ve never been to the Rooster myself, but I know people who have. My friend Noah, for one. It was he who suggested Isaac talk to Gerald about finding work there in the first place.”

  Tom shifted in his chair and tried to glance casually across the room. One of the waiters blocked his view of Phelps, so he couldn’t tell if the man was looking his way or not.

  “Barshtein might have gone back once the tour introduced him to the place,” Cicero went on, “both to meet with those he felt a kinship with, and to indulge certain desires in a neighborhood well away from his wife, as you suggested.”

  “More ‘ifs’ and ‘mights,’” Tom said distractedly.

  Cicero shrugged. “The Rooster is the only potential connection we have between Barshtein, Gerald, and Isaac. And we’ll have better luck discovering the truth if we can go behind the scenes, as it were. How good are you at acting?”

  Tom started, dropping his fork. “Um…I’m…all right, I suppose,” he lied frantically. “Never had the need.” Except for the entirety of his adult life.

  Cicero sighed and put a hand dramatically to his forehead. “We’re doomed. Maybe you can just play stupid.”

  Tom leaned over and hunted for the fork, which had made a loud clatter on the tile floor. When he sat back up, he found Phelps staring at him.

  Their eyes met, and time slowed to a crawl. The look of recognition dawning on Phelps’s face was clear for him to read.

  Saint Mary, he should never have come south of 42nd Street, not for anything.

  “Pay attention, Thomas,” Cicero said, snapping his fingers in Tom’s direction. “I have a plan.”

  The corned beef felt like it wanted to return the way it had come. Tom swallowed hard. “Tell me.”

  “If we worked at the Rooster, we’d have a much better chance at finding out what, if anything, is going on there.” Cicero leaned forward and dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Now, I’ll have no problem getting hired, but no one is going to pay you to look pretty and sit on their lap. And the gentlemen at this resort aren’t looking for the other sort of treatment.”

  Tom’s brain spun, torn between panic over Phelps and Cicero’s words. “Wait. Your plan involves sitting on men’s laps?”

  “Don’t be silly, darling. I have far too much talent for that.” Cicero took another sip of the cream. “I’ll be on the stage.”

  What on earth did the fellow mean to do? “You seem awfully confident.”

  “Of course I am.” Cicero winked at him. “I’m an artist.”

  Either Cicero’s confidence was completely warranted or wildly misplaced. Either way, there was nothing Tom could do about it. “You said some of the bohemians go to the Rooster. Won’t they recognize you? It ain’t a secret that you work for the MWP, is it?”

  Cicero’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “I could pretend to leave. Have a public row and quit dramatically. It would mean sneaking back into the Coven every day, but that won’t be a problem. Most people can’t tell one black cat from another.”

  This plan seemed more ill-thought-out by the moment. And Tom could barely keep himself from checking to see if Phelps was still staring. “Why would they believe you quit?”

  Cicero sipped his cream, his eyes distant. “Because I don’t have much time left to choose a witch.”

  Tom was beginning to suspect he hadn’t paid enough attention to familiars. With no feral colony in his precinct, he hadn’t given them much thought. Now his ignorance was making him feel like he’d been walking around with his eyes deliberately closed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the MWP doesn’t let familiars live on the dole forever,” Cicero snapped. “It’s a police force, not a charity. Eventually, we have to bond with someone so the MWP can get some real use out of us, even if we haven’t found our witch.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Tom asked. “‘Your’ witch?”

  “A familiar can bond with any witch. But there’s always one whose magic is the most…compatible, let’s say. Together they’ll make better hexes, stronger magic.” Cicero studied the pot of cream as though it held the answers to life inside it. “We recognize him or her on an instinctual level. It doesn’t always work out.”

  “Just because the magic is compatible, the rest maybe ain’t?” Tom guessed.

  Surprised flickered over Cicero’s face. “Indeed. But the point is, whether we find our witch or not, we have to decide eventually. My time is getting short, and everyone at the MWP knows it.”

  “Oh.” It made sense, in a way, but it didn’t sit right with Tom. It didn’t sound like familiars had any safe alternatives, so they had to bond with someone for life by a certain date, even if they weren’t sure it would work out?

  “I’ll pretend Chief Ferguson gave me an ultimatum,” Cicero went on, “and I quit because I’m not letting anyone tell me what to do.”

  “At least that part’s believable enough,” Tom muttered. “What about me?”

  Cicero eyed Tom as he finished off the rest of the cream. “Gerald was a bartender. I wonder if they’re still short a hand? Can you mix cocktails?”

  “I could learn, I suppose. But what if they’ve already hired someone?”

  “Rook can teach you,” Cicero said with airy confidence. “And I imagine the proprietor likes to keep a few brawny sorts around, in case anyone has too much to drink and gets rowdy. Or tries to make off without paying the fellows in the upstairs rooms. That might do for you, if we can’t get you hired otherwise.”

  Tom tried to think of some other possibility, but his mind kept circling back to Phelps. He risked a glance…and discovered only an empty chair.

  “I’ve no better ideas,” he said. “All right. I’ll come by the Coven in the morning.”

  “I’ll make my dramatic debut this afternoon, I think,” Cicero said

  “Good.” Tom tossed enough money to cover the bill and tip on the table and rose to his feet. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Cicero frowned at his hurried departure, but didn’t remark on it. “Ciao, Thomas. Thanks for the cream.”

  Tom left the restaurant, half-expecting Phelps to ambush him on the way out. But there was no sign of the man, either inside or on the crowded street. Tom cast about for several minutes, before admitting it was hopeless.

  Phelps had recognized him as Liam O’Connell. Whether a man who’d once headed a gang would go to the police, or take matters into his own hands, Tom didn’t know. But as he turned his steps toward home, he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d see Phelps again soon.

  Cicero burst through the doors of Techne. “That’s it!” he proclaimed at the top of his lungs. “I’m done with the MWP. Finished!”

  All eyes turned to him. He made certain he was dramatically framed by the door, head flung back, eyes closed. The only thing spoiling the moment was that it had started raining after he stormed away from his fake argument with Rook on the front steps of the Coven. That had almost been enough to get him to turn around, but he soldiered on for Isaac’s sake. Now his hair was wet, and his coat damp, and if he’d known the case would require this sort of sacrifice he might have reconsidered the whole thing.

  “Good!” c
alled Leona from her usual table. “To hell with the coppers! Just another part of a corrupt system designed to—”

  Cicero ignored the rest of her words to focus on Noah, who rushed over to him. “You poor thing!” Noah exclaimed, grabbing his hands. “And you’re wet—come upstairs, immediately.”

  Cicero let Noah lead him up the back stair to the apartment above the café. He’d been there many times before, of course. Noah was handsome and not at all bad between the sheets. Or on the pillows, or the couch, or wherever they ended up.

  He let Noah fuss over him a bit, drying his hair and wrapping him in a warm blanket. “What happened?” Noah asked, once he’d made Cicero comfortable.

  “It was awful, darling.” Cicero leaned against Noah’s shoulder, doing his best to look miserable. “Chief Ferguson called me into his office. He said that, since I hadn’t chosen a witch for myself, he’d do it for me.” He shuddered dramatically. “The man he picked…”

  He trailed off, the words sticking in his throat. He’d meant to describe Tom, but now that the moment had come, it felt wrong. Not that he’d ever bond with the fellow—that was out of the question. But Tom hadn’t proved quite the ogre Cicero had assumed. Casting him as such didn’t seem fair, somehow.

  Fortunately, Noah didn’t need any description. “The devil!” he bristled. “How dare he! What about the other familiars? Did they stand up for you?”

  Cicero dabbed at his eyes. “I thought Rook would. Instead, he accused me of having no loyalty, no honor!”

  That part they’d shouted at each other on the steps, in full view of any reporters and passers-by. Rook had probably enjoyed his side of the mock fight, but it had left Cicero feeling queasy.

  Because there was a grain of truth to all of this. Ferguson would never force Cicero to bond with someone he hated. But the ultimatum would come, and it wouldn’t be long.

  Time was running out. He had to choose, and do it soon.

  Noah clasped his hands and drew him close. “Bond with me.”

  Oh.

  He should have expected this. Noah frequently bragged about his witch potential, and they were friends and sometimes lovers. And yet, somehow the possibility had never occurred to Cicero until now.