Chapter Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
The gas lamps flew past in a procession of yellow blurs as Maximilian’s coach raced through the city streets.
Every few seconds, Vesper glanced out one of its windows, checking the night sky for smoke. She chewed on the corner of her thumbnail, tapped a frantic rhythm against the coach’s floor with the heel of her boot.
Pierce Street is burning.
“Evans.”
Vesper looked up. Maximilian’s expression was concerned, and sympathetic.
“I’m sure everything’s fine, it won’t be as bad as he made it sound.”
Vesper swallowed. She wanted Maximilian to be right, but … she remembered the look on Richard’s face. She was trying to keep calm, but already her mind was filling with terrible images. The memories she worked so hard to keep caged were rattling their shackles. She heard Ethel’s voice.
Vesper, it’s so hot.
Vesper shook her head. No, this was different.
Maximilian was right. The fire probably wasn’t as bad as Richard had made it sound.
Everything would be all right. She took several deep breaths, and had just leaned back in her seat, when she felt the coach slow to a stop.
She looked at Maximilian, and knew he was thinking the same thing she was.
They’d only been in the coach for ten minutes.
They couldn’t possibly be back at the Globe already.
Seconds later, the door opened, and the footman’s head popped inside.
“Sir.” The man’s voice sounded slightly strained. “We may have a problem.”
“Where are we?” Maximilian asked.
“We’ve reached the start of Pierce Street, but the traffic is bad; it may take some time to get through.”
Vesper stiffened. With the coach’s door now open, the smell of smoke thickened the air. She looked out the window again, and this time there was no mistaking it: A thick vertical of black smoke was billowing into the air several blocks down. She pushed past the footman, and bolted from the coach.
“Miss Evans!” Maximilian called after her. “Wait!”
Vesper wove past the horses, people, and coaches that congested the road and headed down Pierce Street. Her heart pounded harder in her chest as she reached a slight curve in the road. She turned around the bend, then stopped short.
She knew at once that Maximilian had been wrong.
Massive flames licked the second-highest floor of the building before her, and several arms were waving bits of cloth frantically from the story above that.
Uniformed firefighters had surrounded the building, but they seemed to be at a loss as they stared up at its top floors.
Vesper’s eyes searched until she found a face she recognized.
“Cliff!”
The union president looked up, surprised. He was holding an empty pail.
“Miss Evans?”
“I heard there was trouble,” she said, out of breath as she reached him. She looked up at the building again. “What’s happened?”
Cliff ran a hand across his face. Up close, Vesper saw he looked exhausted.
“The fire started on the fourth floor of the textile factory, unknown cause,” he said. “It’s mostly women and children up there.”
Vesper’s eyes widened in horror.
“The structure isn’t sound enough for the firefighters to climb up. Apparently the doors are locked from the outside too. We don’t know why.”
“How many workers are in there?”
Cliff met her gaze. His eyes were wet. “I’m told at least fifty.”
Vesper felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. The people in that building were trapped, just like her own family had been trapped. With the smell of smoke filling her lungs and the heat of the fire on her face, she could feel herself being dragged back to that night.
“Everyone! If I could have your attention!”
Vesper and Cliff both looked in the direction of the new sharp voice. One of the firefighters was holding a red megaphone.
“This building is no longer secure,” he said. “We need everyone to stand back!”
“My wife’s in there!” one of the men standing a few feet away shouted. His face was ashen. “And both of my daughters!”
“I know there is concern,” the firefighter tried again. “But if you all could just—”
His words were cut off as a coach came racing down the road.
Vesper barely had enough time to wonder how it had gotten through the traffic that had stopped Maximilian’s coach before two well-dressed gentlemen got out.
One was tall and skinny, with an elegant mustache and top hat; the other was shorter, rounder, and bald.
They both ran over to the building and peered up at it, looking horrified. The bald man swore.
“Gentlemen.” The firefighter turned to address them now. “This street’s closed to the public. I need you both to return to your coach, and—”
“That’s our building!” the taller man said. “We own the lot! Can’t you people do something?”
“We are.” The firefighter sounded testier and testier by the minute. “But right now, we need everyone to stand back.”
“Well, hurry up!” The shorter bald gentleman was now glaring at the firefighter. He pointed toward the building. “The merchandise stored in that building is worth hundreds of thousands of gild!”
Vesper flinched, and something shifted in Cliff’s face. He turned toward the two gentlemen.
“Merchandise?” he said in a low voice. “Is that really all you care about right now? There are workers trapped in there who can’t get out and we don’t know why.”
The bald man turned his glare toward Cliff. “The doors to the work floor are locked per our company’s protocol.”
Vesper felt the blood drain from her face. Cliff stared at the man in horror.
“What?”
“They were taking too many bathroom and smoke breaks,” the taller, mustached man cut back in. “So we implemented a policy. It worked too; we’ve made several hundred more gild per week.”
“I don’t understand.” Vesper’s voice sounded hollow in her ears. “Are you telling me you locked those workers in so that they couldn’t get out? That’s inhumane.”
The mustached man looked at her the same way he might have looked at a cockroach on the wall.
“Young lady, we’re running a business, not a charity.
Be assured that every single one of our workers signs an agreement that says they will comply with all company policies.
No one’s forcing them.” He turned back to Cliff, and nodded toward his B.L.U.
pin. “Not everyone wants to unionize, you know. Maybe, if people like you did an honest day’s work instead of running around this city sowing dissent and discord, you’d actually make something of yourself. ”
Cliff started as though he’d been slapped.
“That’s the problem with you people,” he said, his tone scarily calm.
“You sit there with your money and your comforts, and you pretend that it’s the product of hard work.
” He shook his head. “The truth is, you make your profits off the backs of the hardworking men, women, and children of this city. The same ones you won’t give basic rights to.
” He pointed to the building. “The same ones you’d watch burn. ”
Vesper felt it then, an intangible shift in the air as the collective anxiety filling the street became something else, directed squarely at the two well-dressed gentlemen. Several of the men turned and began to close in around them. The bald man’s eyes darted around, now wary.
“Enough of this!” he snapped. “Tell your thugs to stand down at once.”
“Thugs.” Cliff Owen laughed, but it was a dry, humorless sound. “Of course that’s what you call us. It’s far easier to vilify and slander honest working-class men than to take any responsibility for your actions. You people did it to Jon Riggs last week, and you’ll do it now. You can’t be trusted.”
Vesper blinked, momentarily confused. Jon Riggs was the man who’d been arrested for shooting Charles Belver at the Main Street Farmer’s Market. What did he have to do with this?
The crackle of the fire pulled her gaze back toward the building.
The firefighters were gathered around its main door, preparing to breach, but the flames looked worse than ever.
Vesper looked to the men surrounding Cliff and the two gentlemen.
Many of their eyes had hardened and they were looking at the two men with the same open disgust. Both of the gentlemen seemed to realize this. They began backing toward their coach.
“I’m warning you!” The shorter one pointed his walking stick. “You people stay back!”
“Or what?” one of the men shouted.
“Cliff.” For the first time, Vesper spoke up. She had a distinct and growing sense of unease. The shorter gentleman closed his eyes and his lips began to move. Something clicked together in her mind.
“Cliff, watch out—”
The words came too late. Vesper watched it all play out as the world around her slowed.
The man’s grip on his walking stick tightened.
With his free hand, he made a motion as though swatting a fly.
The man standing nearest to him suddenly lurched back several feet, as though he’d been shoved hard, then fell to the ground. He did not get up again.
“Sorcerer scum!” one of the men roared. “He didn’t even touch you!”
More people were shouting now, and the men pressed in.
The bald sorcerer tried to use his walking stick again, but a man standing behind him shoved him hard in the back, so that he lost his balance.
Another ripped the stick out of his hand and struck his head with it.
A raucous cheer went up from the crowd as he crumpled to the ground.
In the distance, Vesper heard the shrill whistle of a police officer.
Cliff was now getting on top of a crate, addressing the growing crowd.
“You see this, boys!” he said in a voice that carried. “These rich folk don’t care about us!” He pointed behind him. “They’d lock us in a burning building if it meant they could still turn a profit. Well, I say, you hit at one of us, you hit at all of us, and now we’re hitting back!”