Chapter 2
Elise Saint dreamed of death. Where death had once worn a pretty face in her nightmares, now it haunted her like a blood-soaked ghost and refused to let up even during the day.
She saw death in the letters she wrote, the guns she polished, the newspapers she read—everywhere.
The truth was, Elise spent most of her time thinking about it and believing she was as good as dead.
It had begun as mere thoughts. But weeks of her cyclical thinking turned the thoughts to full-on beliefs that could only be relieved, temporarily, with repetitive compulsions to regain control over her mind.
Yesterday, it had been the spin of Jamie’s pistol on her finger. She kept the gun in orbit, going around and around by her head, her finger rotating with the trigger. The sound of the metal had become her personal orchestra while she stared down at countless newspaper clippings before her.
Today it was the familiar smoothness of the rifle trigger beneath her finger.
She brushed over it again and again with each new thought.
For a moment, the rising tide of anxiety was quelled, but then it would return moments later, and she could only reset her hand and start the rhythmic compulsion again.
It did not help that last night’s snowfall had stuck, rendering the view outside Jamie’s living room window a mess of white flurries and hazy streets.
Snowflakes catching on the edge of her lashes and melting on her upper lip prevented her from sinking into the fantasy she had been conjuring for the past two months.
Through the snow, she could hardly see the people bustling around outside, much less pretend she was among them, instead of rotting inside.
Her knees ached from crouching by the window, waiting for an ounce of excitement.
“You should be resting,” Jamie called. He rested on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, the newspaper open on his lap. The angry gray cat he called his son purred on the couch arm.
In her hyperfixated state, she hadn’t noticed the gangster had returned from his morning errands. Elise carefully pulled the gun off the windowsill, and after setting it on the floor by her carefully annotated map of Harlem, she crossed the room to Jamie. “No need to rest. Mail?”
“Nothing for you.” The gangster snapped the newspaper once and looked at her with tired blue eyes. Melting snow darkened his blond hair, and the outside cold still had his cheeks tinged pink. “And not that you’ll listen, but I did already check this and there’s nothing noteworthy.”
“Sometimes you miss things,” Elise muttered as she took the paper from him, almost missing his eye roll.
“I can read, Saint.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“You implied it.” He fell silent for a while, the only sound filling the apartment being the hushed whistling of wind outside. Then: “You haven’t slept in three days, and your muttering and pacing is keeping me up as well. It’s starting to feel insane. You are starting to look insane.”
Elise settled back down by her board, ignoring his concerned tone as she read. “That is not important in the grand scheme of things.”
“Grand scheme—you know, I could turn you over to your father at any second,” Jamie said roughly.
As much as the words bit into her heart, all Elise could do was shrug and clutch the papers harder.
“I promise you, he does not care about me. Not while my sister is still missing.” Though Elise replayed her final moment with Valeriya in her mind every day, she could never find something new in the memory that would lead her to her sister.
The ancient reaper might as well have taken all traces of Josi with her in death.
Elise scanned the news stories, looking for any mentions of a little Black girl. Relief slumped her shoulders when her search came up empty. The only mention of children came from a brief article about their disappointment at the plans for a Negro Coney Island being shut down on Hart Island.
Jamie grumbled. “Maybe not, but he would take you back for a great deal of money.” He sighed. “I could use a great deal of money.”
“I take it your crime is not going well?” Elise asked, finally setting the papers down to look at him.
The gangster now had the cat in his lap as he stared intently at Elise.
He smiled while Hendricks purred. “I will have you know my crime is keeping the lights on here. It’s thanks to my crime that you now know how to shoot and protect yourself.
That being said, business is slow. Word is there’s another gang that’s moved in and is taking over major enterprises. ”
Elise frowned. “What happened to your speakeasies?”
“Layla says it’s—” Jamie cut himself off as Elise’s expression turned cold.
He held his hands up, apologetic. “I have heard it is unwise to sell liquor right now because of the risk of the product being tainted. We would not want a repeat of the happenings at the Cotton Club. I certainly would not want to be responsible. The police have been unbearable lately. Just sticking their noses in everything. Here’s something for your little map.
” Jamie pointed at Elise’s map of Harlem covered with a web of notes.
“There were two more bodies found in Jungle Alley. Presumed to be patrons of—”
“One of the blood houses?” Elise nodded. “I already have that down. It was reported in the news yesterday.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “You missed it.”
“I just don’t care. Not my men, not my problem.”
She scowled. “But somehow I am? Since you won’t let me leave the apartment.”
Jamie lifted his hands in defense. He gestured to the room, forcing a smile. “You do enough now. You polish my guns, you guard the apartment, you feed Hen, you clean—somewhat obsessively, but you get it done.”
The apartment had come a long way since Elise’s arrival.
Gray walls had gone from plain to picturesque with elegant art in golden frames, and couches had gone from lumpy seat options to comfortable velvet lounges.
The angry cat had even straightened out.
Though he still hissed at Elise whenever she came too close to him, he no longer yowled with displeasure just at the sight of her.
With all that done, however, Elise craved more purpose.
She didn’t like being kept a secret, and she hated doing nothing even more.
“None of that matters. You can teach me to shoot all you want, but what’s more important?
Knowing how to shoot? Or finding perhaps the only scientist who can finish Thalia’s research for a reaperhood cure?
” Elise turned back to pick up her map. She’d drawn a line that went out of Harlem and stopped at the edge of the page with a large question mark—indicative of the unknown whereabouts of Dr. Gray, Thalia’s mother.
She looked at Jamie. “I sent that letter to Dr. Gray’s address in Switzerland weeks ago.
I am certain if I could leave this place, I could find her much faster. ”
Jamie pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am certain if you practiced shooting as much as you complained or cried, you would be the best sharpshooter in New York. Maybe even the country.” He leaned against the couch and crossed his arms. “Why not find other scientists who would be more than happy to take advantage of Harlem’s decomposing state? ”
Wind swept over the roof of the apartment building, sending snow swirling over the windows.
Even the moonlight, half hidden by the thick clouds above, was not enough to illuminate the night outside.
Elise huffed out a breath. “It’s been too cold to go on the roof for practice.
And Dr. Gray is the only one I trust. After Dr. Harding and Stephen Wayne, and the scientists who plagued the world with reapers to begin with, we cannot hand the valuable research to just anyone. ”
“Well, Stephen Wayne is long gone. From here at least,” Jamie muttered.
At this, Elise blinked with surprise. “Last I’d heard, he still had a plan to use reapers as weapons. What’s happened since then?”
“He’s spreading his wealth in the South. Georgia, I think. He got to influence Mayor Arendale here; now he’s off to poison other areas.” Jamie pursed his lips. “You have not heard much at all, have you?”
“Whose fault is that? You don’t let me go anywhere.
And I am almost certain your mail is being intercepted because why have I not received anything?
” Elise reached for one of the chess pieces scattered across the board on the coffee table and placed it far beyond her map of Harlem.
Then she marked it with allegedly, Stephen.
“My mail would not be intercepted because much of it is written in code to protect against exactly that. You should know better. Half of Harlem likely wants you dead.”
“Likely. You don’t even know for certain.” Elise swallowed hard. “She promised she would not tell them I killed Valeriya. There is a chance no one knows it was me.”
Jamie took the newspaper and folded it neatly on top of the chessboard.
“No, they definitely want you dead. Many reapers are not great at keeping promises. When you kill the most famous reaper in the world, you have to take precautions. I actually find it funny. So many reapers want to kill you, you have become almost valuable. I am quite positive reapers would pay to torment you. And you being unable to say her name only proves my theory.”
He was not wrong. The bad blood with Layla had forced Elise to flee to France for five years, and that had been just one newly turned reaper with a deadly grudge.
Now, with an ancient reaper who’d had over three hundred years of history to her name dead at Elise’s hands, she might as well have granted herself a death sentence.
Layla, on the other hand…she was more an enigma than a danger, but any mentions of her wounded Elise in a way she had not experienced since she had first arrived in Paris all those years ago.
Elise knew her refusal to say Layla’s name was only a matter of superstition and obsessive paranoia.
As if speaking her name out loud would further solidify the distance that had grown between them.
But Jamie already suspected something was terribly wrong with Elise—she refused to continue to prove him right.
“Me dying would probably be for the best,” Elise murmured.
Her eyes grew damp. Three nights of no sleep for fear of giving in to the voices that plagued her nightmares and forced her to walk in the darkness, and yet all she could think about was getting to her sister.
Anything to make sure Josi was safe. But she couldn’t do that while she was trapped here, spiraling deeper into her own head.
The gangster spoke with a softer voice. “You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”
A low sigh slipped past Elise’s lips as she faced the map again.
“I am useless with no one to protect.” She’d had a legacy once, but that was now squandered in the name of believing in something that had turned out to be false.
All the damage she had done to her family’s empire could not have been for some reaper who refused to acknowledge her now. It could not have been for nothing.
“Just think about it. With these new shooting skills, you can easily protect your sister,” Jamie said softly.
Elise’s heart stumbled in its rhythm at the mention of Josi. She closed her fingers around the chess piece so hard, it dug into her palm. “If I ever find her.”