The Serpent's Curse

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  For Sarah, whose fingerprints are on every page. Thank you for making this story immeasurably better.

  THE SERPENT

  1902—New York

  The Serpent waited, concealed in the shadows of the city. His attention was focused on the bunching and shifting of the Aether around him… and on the estate just across Fifth Avenue from where he stood. The mansion, like its neighbors, glowed with electric light, an island of impossible luxury in the midst of a city that teemed with poverty and violence. But it was no safe haven, not even for the powerful men inside.

  Despite all that had happened, the leaders of the Order still believed themselves to be inviolable. It did not matter that Khafre Hall was now a pile of ashes or that their artifacts and the Book of Mysteries had been taken from them. The Order of Ortus Aurea had continued on as though their greatest humiliation and defeat had been nothing more than a temporary embarrassment.

  Let them parade around in their silken finery, the Serpent thought. Let them put on their airs and believe in the illusion of their superiority. No amount of wealth would protect them from what was coming—a new world, where those with the old magic would no longer be held back and beaten down. A world where true magic would be the key to power and where he would wield more than anyone.

  As the Serpent waited, the Aether shifted around him again. Invisible to most, the Aether was the very quintessence of existence. To the Serpent, the world had a pulse. Soon his plans would begin to coalesce, and then he would be the one to make it race. To make it dance like a puppet on a string.

  Certain as his victory seemed, though, the Serpent tempered his anticipation. After all, nearly two years before, he’d stood in that very place, expecting a victory that had never arrived.

  The Aether lurched like an electric charge had sped through it, and the Serpent knew that the game was changing. If all went well, soon the cane he leaned against would be more than a crutch. Soon he would have the ring, and the cane would become a true weapon, just as it had once been for another. Once the power contained within the gorgon’s head was fully unlocked, those who wore the mark would be his to command, and with them under his control, he would begin to rebuild the world anew.

  By the time the door to the mansion opened to release a flood of people, the vibrations of the Aether had been whipped into a frenzy, and with it, the Serpent’s certainty grew. Dressed in silks and satins and the dark wool of fine tuxedos and top hats, the rich poured screaming from the mansion like rats from a sinking ship.

  The Serpent wasn’t surprised. Humans were basically animals, stupid and instinctual. Easily led with the right incentives. No amount of money changed that. Let them scurry and flee—it would do them no good in the end. He had already made his plans, had already positioned his pieces on the board, and now he had only to wait. Soon one of the Order’s artifacts would belong to him, and with it, true control over the Devil’s Own… and then so much more.

  THE GIRL WITH THE KNIFE

  1902—New York

  J. P. Morgan’s ballroom was a riot of noise and violence. Viola Vaccarelli watched as the people around her erupted into panic. Jack Grew had tried to set a trap for her brother, but the moment Jack had given the word for the police to arrest him, Paolo’s Five Pointers had revealed themselves and started to attack. As gunfire erupted in the ballroom, the members of the Order, along with their wives and rich friends, seemed suddenly to realize that their gala had turned deadly and that no amount of money would stop their blood from spilling. Tuxedoed men and silk-clad women toppled chairs and one another as they fled, but Viola cared for none of it. All she could see was the blood on her blade.

  Jianyu’s blood.

  She had not been aiming for him. There had been a girl—one of Morgan’s maids—with skin dark as any of the Turkish peddlers her father used to complain about back in the old country. The girl had been going for the ring. Viola had been sure of it.

  Viola had not stopped to consider who the girl might be or whether she even understood the artifact’s true value. She had simply pulled Libitina from its hidden sheath in a practiced fluid motion, as she’d done a hundred times before. Drawing back her arm, Viola had sent the knife flying. Then, out of nothing and nowhere, Jianyu had appeared, directly in the path between the girl and the blade.

  She had named the knife for the goddess of funerals because it never missed. Because her blade always struck deadly and true. The ballroom had continued to roar around her, but Viola’s eyes were fixed on Jianyu’s shoulder, where Libitina was sheathed to the hilt in the flesh and muscle and bone of a man she had once considered a friend.

  The brown-skinned girl had gone ashen with the sight, but Jianyu had paid her no attention. His eyes had been steady on Viola, despite the pain that had shadowed them. His mouth had formed careful words, but Viola heard only the roar of the room, the blood pounding behind her eyes, and her own shallow breathing.

  Still, Jianyu’s gaze had never wavered. His expression had creased with determination as he’d pulled Libitina from his shoulder. Blood had soaked the material of his tunic in response, and his hand had trembled as he held the dagger out to Viola. An offering. A truce. But all Viola could see was the blade, still sticky with his blood. It was a lurid stain on the shining metal and another dark mark on her soul.

  Viola knew too well the weight of a soul. As Dolph Saunders’ assassin, she’d taken so many lives. She’d accepted those black marks, one after another, in the hope that one day others like her would not have to struggle as she had. She’d made peace with her own certain damnation—had only hoped that it might have meaning. Now, staring at Jianyu’s blood, Viola understood that she’d been a fool to ever hope for redemption.

  Shame and guilt wrapped around her like a noose, but before her ears could clear, before she could understand Jianyu’s words, his legs wobbled beneath him, and a man with skin as dark brown as the girl’s scooped him up. Jianyu, who had always held himself with a determined strength, who had always seemed somehow apart from the rest of Dolph’s gang, did not fight this man, and Viola understood immediately that they were friends—Jianyu, the girl, and this man. She realized in that instant the depth of her mistake.

  Before Viola could say a word or take a step toward them, Jianyu’s head lolled back. His body went slack in the man’s arms, and his hand, which had been holding Libitina, went limp. Viola’s dagger fell to the floor, and the brown-skinned girl scooped the blade from the ground. She did not offer it, as Jianyu had, but instead lifted the knife in warning as she met Viola’s eyes with a silent challenge. Judgment and anger and fear all burned at once in her dark eyes—and rightfully so.

  Because Viola knew what the knife could do, she held steady. Even in the hands of a Sundren, a mere nick of the blade could be deadly.

  Which is why I need to make them understand. She could fix this—all of it. The misunderstanding. Jianyu. The blood on the blade. Her curse was her gift as well. But Viola saw Jianyu’s limp hand swinging listlessly—lifelessly—and felt a familiar heaviness pressing her down. For what she had done once again. For what she was.

  When they began to back away, taking Jianyu with them, Viola could not seem to make her feet move or her mouth speak, even as the words waited on her tongue. Urgent. Necessary . The room was still rollicking, and Viola knew that she needed to go—with them, away, it did not matter. She could not stay there, and yet she seemed to be rooted in place.

  Then a movement in the corner of her vision drew her attention back to her original destination, where a great stone beast sat upon a woman’s chest. It looked like something from a nightmare, roughly hewn from rock or perhaps from clay, but the beast moved as though it were alive. It shifted, puffing itself up in warning to any that might approach. Guarding its treasure.

  The ring.

  Viola had only agreed to accompany her brother to the Order’s gala because Nibsy Lorcan had told her that an artifact would be here. The last time she’d seen the ring was in the depths of the Order’s Mysterium. Then, it had been on Krzysztof Zeranski’s finger. The Order had taken the man, along with other powerful Mageus, and had bespelled him. They had been draining his affinity—killing Krzysztof and the others—with false magic, presumably to restore the power in the artifacts. Then, Viola had allowed Darrigan to get the better of her and slip away with the ring, but now Viola knew she had a second chance.

  The ring was within her reach again, there upon the dead woman’s hand. It was so close, this item that Dolph Saunders had desperately wanted. This artifact that Dolph had believed could help to free them all. Dolph had been her mentor and her friend. He’d given Viola a home and a purpose. He’d given her hope, too, that the world could be different.

  But he’d lied.

  Viola understood that now. She had seen the truth for herself, written in Dolph’s own hand. He might have scooped Viola from the gutter and saved her from a life of misery under her brother’s thumb, but she learned in the end that Dolph Saunders was a man of secrets. He’d done terrible things alongside the good.

  Viola turned back to Jianyu, but the man carrying him had already disappeared into the crowd, and Viola felt a sharp pang of something too close to longing. She could simply walk away from all of this—from the danger swirling around her, from her brother with his anger and threats, and especially from the mad path that Dolph Saunders had set them all upon. She could leave the ring and follow Jianyu and his new friends, whoever they were. She could make right her mistake.

  It’s already too late. She had seen Jianyu’s hand swinging lifelessly. She had no power over death.

  Then the great beast shifted again, drawing Viola’s attention back to the ring that glinted on the finger of the woman who lay dead beneath the heavy creature. The monstrous thing adjusted itself over the woman’s lifeless body with a menacing lurch, and Viola was reminded that it was not only Dolph Saunders who had been after the Order’s artifacts. Nibsy Lorcan had killed for his chance to possess them, and the Order would kill to retrieve them as well. Perhaps it already had. Perhaps this great stone beast was their work. Whatever Dolph Saunders might have been playing at, whatever his secrets or lies, Viola knew that neither Nibsy Lorcan nor the Order could be allowed to have the ring.

  Viola had no idea where the couple was taking Jianyu, and with each passing second it was growing more impossible to follow, but the ring was here. She could not leave it. Letting her affinity unfurl a little, she sensed the lives of each person in the room. Their heartbeats surrounded her, but she felt nothing from the creature.

  Because this was not life, she realized. The beast was nothing more than manipulation of matter, and Viola’s affinity was for the blood of the living. It had no power over this creature.

  Perhaps with her knife she could slay it.…

  But Libitina was gone. It had disappeared into the crowd, along with Jianyu.

  All around Viola, women still screamed and fainted, and men continued to run for cover as Paolo’s scagnozzi stirred the confusion with their own violent glee. She ignored all of them. She moved slowly, cautiously slinking on satin slippers toward the dais where the woman lay. Viola knew the beast watched her. Still, she inched steadily closer. When she was little more than an arm’s length away, the creature squared its shoulders in warning.

  Viola didn’t allow herself to hesitate or second-guess. She lunged for the woman, grabbed hold of her limp hand, and started to tug at the ring. But when Viola’s fingers brushed against the cool smoothness of the ring’s gemstone, suddenly the sound of blood became riotous in her ears. Her affinity flared, stirred by the power in the stone, and for a moment she felt the pulse of life in the room. Every beating heart. And she knew she could end them all.

  But the beast was already moving toward Viola, and before she could move away, the force of its weight knocked into her. Her hand lost contact with the stone, and the clamoring rush of blood went silent.

  The creature lurched again, and Viola thought her bones would crack beneath its weight as it shifted to press a broad clawed paw squarely on her throat. With the pressure, Viola could not draw breath, and she knew that with one more movement, the creature would snap her neck in two. Still, she reached for the woman’s hand, careful not to touch the stone this time.

  With the beast’s weight crushing her, Viola’s vision was starting to blur as she tugged at the ring until… there. Just as darkness pulled her under, the ring slipped free.

  ANTICIPATION

  1902—New York

  Watching his gala dissolve into madness, Jack Grew felt the Book tremble against his chest. As gunfire rang throughout his uncle’s ballroom, the most powerful men in New York revealed their cowardice. The leaders of the Order had lorded their power over him for so long. They’d thought him a failure—an embarrassment—but now they screamed like women as their fear exposed their truest selves.

  The old men who led the Order were weak. Impotent. They had allowed their wealth and position to blind them to the truth—their days of power were nearing an end. Jack had seen their faces while he commanded the stage. All the demonstrations he’d performed upon that stage were mere parlor tricks compared to the power that was still undiscovered within the pages of the Book. Still, the old men of the Order had been shocked. They’d been awed by what they’d seen, and perhaps most gratifying of all, they’d been afraid. And that was before Paul Kelly and his men had turned the gala into a melee.

  Jack’s lips twitched as the Order debased themselves in front of common criminals. So much for their power. So much for the Order’s great might. But the amusement of the moment could last for only so long. Across the room, Jack’s beast waited, as did his prize.

  The clay golem that Jack had formed with his own two hands and brought to life with knowledge he’d gleaned from the Book sat atop the broken and lifeless body of Evelyn DeMure. The harlot had tried to manipulate him with her siren’s song, but in the end, her feral magic was no match for the gifts the Book had bestowed upon him. Her end was only the beginning for Jack. Her death would bring into being the world he would build, a world where every maggot who lurked in the shadows would finally be dealt with. Once he had the ring, he’d rebuild his machine, and there would be nowhere for them to hide.

  Another shot rang out, but Jack barely heard it. The familiar bitterness of morphine lay on his tongue, emboldening him, and the power of the Book urged him on. Why should he bother to cower? What bullet could touch him now?

  The Book trembled like a second heartbeat in the breast pocket of his jacket, and his blood answered, churning in anticipation. But then Jack saw that someone had reached Evelyn before him. A girl in purple, whose bright satin stood out amid the sea of dark suits. She was tugging at Evelyn’s hand, trying to remove the ring.

  With her cheap gown and swarthy skin, she certainly wasn’t one of the fair porcelain dolls of society ballrooms. She came with Paul Kelly, Jack realized, remembering the girl from earlier in the evening. He’d dismissed her then as nothing but a trollop from the Bowery, but now he saw the determination in her dark features. Clearly, this girl knew what the ring was. The Book shuddered again, and Jack understood—she was one of them.

  Ignoring the chaos around him, he stepped down from the small stage where he’d bee n presiding over the evening’s events and pushed his way through the churning crowd. The Book beat an erratic tattoo against his chest as he clambered over toppled chairs, determined to reach Evelyn’s body before Kelly’s whore could take his victory. He was nearly there when another volley of shots rang out, and from nowhere, Jack found himself dragged down, pushed over, with the air knocked from his lungs.

  “Get off, you damn—” Jack was already bringing his arm back to swing at his attacker.

  “Now, just hold on there, Mr. Grew. It’s not safe to—”

  Jack stopped midswing, realizing it wasn’t one of Kelly’s men. It was instead one of the police who had been present to deal with Kelly. “This isn’t necessary,” he told the man through gritted teeth as he struggled against his would-be savior. “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “You need to stay down.” The man pressed Jack to the floor again as more shots were exchanged.

  He couldn’t move the officer, but Jack wasn’t without resources. His connection to the golem was stark and bright, and even pinned as he was, Jack’s lips moved in a silent incantation. To protect the artifact. To kill. Against his chest, the Book felt like a brand.

  Only when the gunshots ceased completely did the officer finally move and help Jack to his feet. From the corner of the room, Jack caught a flash of violet and saw the girl being carried away, limp and still, by one of Kelly’s men.

  He didn’t bother to go after them. Instead, he went for the dais. There lay Evelyn, broken as a painted doll. Her lips were still a bright, unnatural red, and the rouge on her cheeks looked luridly pink against the pallor of her lifeless skin. Her hand was outstretched, but the ring was gone.

  PART I

  AN UNFAMILIAR COUNTRY

  1904—Texas

  Esta Filosik stood on the open platform at the back of a train heading into the West. The wind tore at short strands of her hair, whipping them against her cheek as she took in the view. There was a wild beauty to the land, but the stark openness of the seemingly endless sky unnerved her. Despite the warmth in the air, a chill had sunk deep into her bones. It felt suspiciously like regret.