Chapter 17
17
S am gasped aloud when Sullivan’s impossibly lavish mansion came into view.
Alistair drove them in Wanda’s red Jordan Playboy roadster, looking debonair in his evening wear, the white of his shirt and tie contrasting with his olive skin. Bright lights illuminated the mansion’s exterior, focused on the soaring columns of the entryway. A stream of cars arrived, most of them shining and brand new. The guests who flowed between the two stone lions guarding the front of the mansion glittered with diamonds and other gems, their suits and dresses a dizzying kaleidoscope of color and beads.
They parked the car, and Alistair took Sam’s elbow as they strolled up the walk. “Stay close,” he said.
“Afraid I’m going to run off with another man?” Sam teased.
The corner of Alistair’s mouth twitched in a smile. “You never know, some of these guys are smooth-talkers. Almost as smooth as me.”
Sam snorted. “Oh yes, that’s you.”
A doorman checked their invitations and welcomed them to the party. They stepped inside the foyer and were immediately greeted by an explosion of greenery. Flowers and vines burst from vases and wound around marble pillars and Roman busts. Deep Persian carpets muffled their footsteps.
To one side, several women in livery collected presents for Mrs. Sullivan’s birthday, silently whisking each brightly wrapped package away to a side room. They joined the gift line, along with a dozen others. Most of the other guests were laughing, chatting, and exclaiming over the décor. A few seemed to have started on the evening early, their breath reeking of questionable alcohol. When they reached the front of the line, Alistair took out a small box in distinctive Tiffany Blue and passed it to one of the attendants.
“What was that?” Sam whispered as they followed the flow of the crowd deeper into the house. “I didn’t know you got something for Mrs. Sullivan. Was I supposed to get something, too?”
“Don’t worry. Both of our names and Wanda’s are on the card,” Alistair murmured back. “She keeps a stash of gifts for bribes and the like. It’s a little brooch shaped like a nightingale, hexed to sing when the wearer touches it. Not much, but Sullivan won’t expect much from small operators like us, and we want to keep on his good side for now.”
It would never have occurred to Sam to have spare bribes on hand. Once again, he felt painfully unsuited to the world he’d found himself in. No wonder Alistair worried about him still.
The crowd emptied out into a huge ballroom with a stained-glass ceiling lit by magic high above the Italian marble floor. A five-piece orchestra played in one corner, accompanied by a man on a piano that appeared to be made from solid gold. An enormous temporary bar dominated one end of the room, the bartenders accompanied by an entire team of witches and familiars casting hexes for potency and color on the drinks. They even appeared to be conjuring the ice, which seemed an almost obscene display of the amount of magic Sullivan could afford to waste.
Servers with trays of multi-hued champagne wound through the gathering. Cigarette girls in spangled outfits carried boxes filled with cigarettes, cigars, and mood-altering hexes with names like “Bliss” and “Partytime.” Diamonds flashed from the necks, wrists, or fingers of every woman, and from the cuffs and lapels of nearly every man. Gemstone beads and pearls glowed in the hexlight, and the battling scents of cigarette smoke and perfume filled the air.
Sam struggled not to gape at the display of wealth surrounding him. Ursino’s Black Rabbit casino had been impressive, but it couldn’t hold a candle to this mansion, these people.
Paired doors let out onto a patio, beyond which sprawled a garden. Another bar sat outside, and people milled around a dozen tables nearby, laughing and talking loudly. Many seemed to be intoxicated already. A few familiars had taken on animal form; two parrots chased each other in and out of the doors, and an elegant jaguar lounged on a leather couch.
Sam glanced around nervously. The party was bigger and more overwhelming than he’d expected. At least no one was paying him the slightest mind, all too caught up in their own dramas.
“I’m going to the bar,” Alistair said. “Want anything?”
“A pussyfoot?”
Alistair nodded and made for the crush at the bar. Hoping for a space that was a bit cooler than the jammed ballroom, Sam slipped out onto the patio.
Hexlights sparkled in the trees, their colors shifting through the rainbow, and tiny illusions of fairies flitted fancifully from flower to flower. A few exuberant young men attempted to catch one; when they touched it, it burst into a miniature display of magical fireworks. Hexed chimes tinkled out of time with the wind, creating an almost otherworldly harmony.
As he looked around for somewhere to sit down, he spotted Vic at an outer table, close to the fairytale garden. Vic met his eyes and raised a hand, beckoning him over.
Vic had a small whiskey in front of him; unlike most of the guests, he didn’t seem to be trying to get drunk as fast as possible. “How do you like the party?” he asked as Sam sat down.
“It’s…lively,” Sam settled on. “I didn’t realize it was going to be like, well, this.”
“This is an age of excess.” Vic took a sip of his drink. “And Mr. Sullivan is very much a creature of it.”
“I haven’t seen him yet.”
“He’s holding court inside.” Vic’s mouth turned down slightly. “There’s a lot of business to be done tonight. People come looking for favors, or to offer allegiance, or give gifts they hope he’ll remember when they need his help.”
“Oh.” That didn’t sound like a fun way to spend a party.
Alistair materialized from the crowd at that moment. His step hitched just slightly when he spotted Sam sitting beside Vic, but otherwise he gave no sign.
“Good evening,” he told Vic as he put the pussyfoot down in front of Sam. He held a brandy for himself. “Sam, Wanda wanted me to talk to a few people while I was here—business, you understand. And I need to thank Mr. Sullivan for his invitation.”
Which would serve as Alistair’s entry point into the mansion, Sam realized. A surge of fear reached for his throat; if Alistair was caught, if he couldn’t talk his way out of it, if…
He pushed it down before it could reach his face. Alistair didn’t need his doubts now. “All right.”
Alistair leaned down to kiss his cheek, nodded at Vic, then melted back into the crowd.
Vic watched him depart. “I don’t think your boyfriend likes me.”
“He just…it takes him a while to warm up to people, that’s all.” Sam took a sip of his drink. “He’s, uh, been through some things.”
“The war?” Vic asked shrewdly.
That was part of it, anyway. “Yeah.”
Vic nodded slowly. “I thought I recognized him earlier.”
Sam blinked in surprise. “You served with him? He didn’t say?—”
“We weren’t in the same unit,” Vic finished off his whiskey. “But all the witches and familiars went through training together—what little they gave us, anyway. I don’t think we ever spoke, but I never forget a face.” He nodded, as if to himself, then glanced at Sam. “What happened to his witch?”
Sam shifted uneasily in his seat. The story wasn’t his to tell, certainly not the details. “He didn’t make it,” Sam settled on.
Vic nodded again, as if he’d expected the answer. “Neither did any of mine.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam began, then realized just what Vic had said. “ Any of yours?”
A waiter came by and whisked away Vic’s glass. “Another, sir?”
Vic nodded, and a moment later a second waiter laden with a tray of whiskey tumblers replaced it, before slipping after the first man. Vic didn’t pick up his fresh drink, however, only sat back with a thoughtful look on his face.
“The army needed magic,” he said after a pause. “I didn’t know my first witch beforehand. We were paired up by the military. He was a lot like me, young and ready to serve his country. Naive. Machine gun fire mowed him down as we were going over the top.”
Sam swallowed past a constriction in his throat. Poor Vic; poor witch. “What was his name?”
“I was assigned my second witch the next day,” Vic went on, as if he hadn’t heard Sam’s question. “She lasted a little longer, until a shell landed nearby. The shrapnel got her. So command assigned me a third witch.”
He felt silent for a long moment, staring into nothingness. “We came under fire and took shelter in an old shell hole. The problem with those is, sometimes gas collects in the bottoms. I pulled on my mask before it got me. He wasn’t so lucky.”
Sam felt frozen with horror. “I’m sorry,” he said again, even though the words felt far too small.
“I was wounded that time,” Vic said, still ignoring him, as if he wouldn’t get the words out if he didn’t keep pushing forward. “I laid in the mud of that fucking hole for two days, while he rotted beside me. At night the sky would light up with shellfire, and the orange light made the shadows shift, so it looked like he was moving down there in the bottom of the hole. I was delirious from fever by then—I had medical hexes on me, but no way to charge them without a witch—and I thought he was trying to drag me down into the mud with him.”
Sam shook his head helplessly. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
At last Vic seemed to hear him. “I appreciate your sympathy.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and removed the quarter, turning it absently in his fingers. “This—all of this—is an illusion, Sam. All this money, all this power…it’s just an attempt to distract everyone here from the fact that death comes for us all. The reaper doesn’t take bribes.”
Sam thought of the people he knew at The Pride. Of Holly, who had been a messenger bird during the war, and now drank champagne for breakfast. Or Alistair, paranoid of losing everyone he loved.
“I think it’s more about pain. The war and the influenza hurt a lot of people,” he said at last. “I think they cope as best as they know how.”
“You’re a good egg, Sam.” Vic stared at his quarter, then held it out to Sam. “Know what this is?”
Sam took it. The front showed a woman with a crown, the back a kneeling woman with distaff and spindle. “No.”
“It’s an Isabella quarter, made for the World’s Columbian Exposition. My family went to the exposition a few weeks before it ended; I was five at the time. I begged for a souvenir, so my father bought this for me. It cost a dollar.” His mouth quirked in a faint smile. “The fair was magical. The Ferris Wheel, the pavilions showcasing the wonders of far-away nations, and oh the food of the Midway! I still remember the White City shining in the sun.” The smile faded. “Then the mayor was assassinated, just two days before it closed. Instead of a triumphant closing ceremony, the Exposition ended in a funeral. In death.”
“That’s awful.”
“It made me realize some things about the world, as young as I was. That’s why I keep the quarter on me—as a reminder that nothing, no matter how grand, escapes death.” He put the quarter away and lit a cigarette. “I suppose it makes me cynical. That’s why you’re a breath of fresh air, Sam—you aren’t world-weary like the rest of us.”
“Thanks?” Sam said uncertainly.
Vic gave him an unexpected smile. “The hexmakers of old recorded their work in symbol and parable, to conceal their true meaning from the foolish and the greedy. I don’t think you’re either one of those things. I wouldn’t have invited you to work with me if I did.”
“Thank you,” Sam replied, still unsure where the conversation was going. What did any of this have to do with their project?
Vic was silent a long moment, tapping the ash from his cigarette into a golden tray. “Your boyfriend, Mr. Gatti, is a familiar. But you aren’t going to bond.”
He said it with such certainty that Sam felt a momentary sinking in his gut. But no, Alistair had been clear they would, once he was ready. “It’s more complicated than that,” he settled on. “His first witch died, like I said, and…”
He trailed off, feeling stupid saying that to a familiar who’d lost three of them in quick succession.
A shadow crossed Vic’s face. “It hurts,” he said. “When the bond breaks, that is. Worse than any other pain I’ve ever felt. It takes a little part of your soul with it, each and every time.” His expression shifted, turning contemplative. “Mr. Gatti allowed it to break him. In my case, I realized the pain purified me. It destroyed the parts that held me back, and I emerged a stronger, better version of myself. It’s why I’ve had the success I have, after the war.”
“Alistair’s doing his best,” Sam said defensively.
Vic held up a placating hand. “I’m sure he is. The problem is, you’re not well matched.” He took a long pull on his cigarette, and when he spoke again, his breath smoked like a dragon’s. “You’re so much stronger than he is.”
Sam’s lips parted in shock. “What? No, that’s not true.”
“Mr. Sullivan looked into your past before hiring you,” Vic said, smiling for the first time that night. “Small-town boy runs off to the big city, fakes his death?—”
“That was an accident!”
“—learns the hex-making trade, and looks to make something of himself. Without losing his innocence.” Vic met his gaze. “Whereas Mr. Gatti goes where his sister goes, and doesn’t have anything she hasn’t given him.”
“That’s not fair.” Anger sparked in his chest on Alistair’s behalf. “Eldon took me in—without him, I don’t know what I would have done. And Alistair and Wanda and the rest have looked after me since he died.”
“Peace.” Vic held up a placating hand. “I didn’t mean to offend, merely to point out that you made an active choice to change your life, whereas he lets others decide for him. Of course there is no such thing as a self-made man; I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I only wish for you to see your own value. Your own strength. And to realize you have more options as a witch than to waste your life waiting for Mr. Gatti to make up his own mind.”
Sam felt as though they were having two parallel conversations. “I don’t understand.”
Vic stubbed out his cigarette and leaned across the table. “Mr. Gatti doesn’t want a witch. But I do. Specifically, I want you.”