Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1) by Nick Wisseman (popular books to read .TXT) 📗

“Recognize anyone?”

Brin skimmed the most recent pages. “I don’t. Yourself?”

Neva took the book and did her own perusal, angling it towards the skull lamp they’d lit upon entering the room. “No. Not—wait.”

“What?”

“Wait,” she said again as she slumped in one of the red-stained chairs, still studying the guestbook. “Why was Mr. DeBell here?”

“Who’s Mr. DeBell?”

“Who’s there?” a new voice asked before Neva could respond. A male voice—a very drunk male voice—from downstairs.

The women froze for a moment as the sounds of more men drifted up from below. There were at least six, and several of them remarked about the skull lamps being lit. Another voice wondered if “Cuddy” had ordered them some “entertainment.”

Brin reacted first. She pointed to herself, then to Neva, then into the coffin.

Neva nodded. It was an awful option, but the room had no other viable hiding places. As quietly as she could, she returned the guestbook to the coffin and climbed in after. Brin wedged herself in just as stealthily, and together they slid the lid back to its original position—with luck, they’d lined its edges up convincingly enough to avoid inspection.

Now there was just the small matter of not killing each other.

Brin was slender and Neva short, but together they were more than the coffin had been sized for. Fitting as a pair required Neva to bend her bones and, as the air began to feel especially hot and thin, Brin to dissolve a few of the coffin’s metal studs to enable shallow breathing and the entrance of a little light and sound. In response to the Irishwoman’s use of her talent, Neva’s rashes started throbbing so badly she wondered if they’d rattle against the coffin’s walls; she could feel Brin quivering in turn. But they managed to control their respective fevers as several men climbed the stairs and lit the rest of the room’s skull lamps.

“Anything missing?” one of them asked.

“Not that I can see.”

“Was it the Pinkertons?”

“Probably just Cuddy. Or Appleton, stopping in for a nightcap. The Pinkertons would have made a mess.”

“Maybe Appleton came to admire the lady skulls again. I hear they put his wife to shame.”

Someone tried to open the coffin, but Brin, still trembling, snaked her arm around Neva, touched the lock, and fused it shut.

“The table’s still closed. Anyone have the key?”

“Cuddy’s got the only copy.”

“And I need to wet my beer street. Come on: no one’s up here, and the bar is calling.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“For drinking spirits!”

“While surrounded by spirits!”

Several of the men laughed, harder than warranted. Then they all tromped back downstairs.

When the carousing reached its full, noisy heights, Brin risked a whisper into Neva’s ear. “Are you all right?”

Neva realized her shaking had worsened—too much repressing aggression and contorting her bones the last few days. “I will be. Can you unlock this?”

“Sorry, love. We stay until they go.”

Another tremor went through Neva ... and then rippled through Brin. She was struggling just as much. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“It’s wise-er. There’s only one way down, and too many drunks at the bottom.”

“But we could stay up here ...”

“And if they climb the stairs again?”

“We hide again.”

“But perhaps not in time. Best to wait.”

Neva took a deep, slow breath and let it out even slower. “All right. But keep talking to me.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me about the Ferris Wheel.”

Brin tensed for a moment.

“Ready to get out now?”

Brin tried to shake her head, but there wasn’t enough room. So she chuckled instead. “Wiley said you overhead us. And that you might want to help.”

“I’m not opposed,” Neva lied. “But I want to know more.”

Brin shrugged as much as she was able. “It’s a symbol.”

“Of what?”

“Chicago—and the rest of the country—spent twenty-eight million dollars building this Fair. And it’s certainly grand enough, as close as we’re liable to get to a New Jerusalem. But outside the gates, people are starving. We’re sliding into one of the worst economic crises the nation’s ever seen—maybe the worst. Hundreds of thousands can’t get a job, and that’s just today. Tomorrow’s going to be even grimmer. And the day after that ... Well, it’s about as dark as the Fair is light.”

Neva looked for the right words to express herself, couldn’t find them, and resigned herself to bluntness. “But isn’t this what you want?”

“Come again?”

“Forgive me—I said that badly. I know you don’t want the suffering. But you’re an anarchist, aren’t you?”

“You mean I should be happy with capitalism’s collapse?”

“Thank you, yes.”

“It needs to happen. Any system besides that of free association of individuals is oppressive. But I wish we didn’t have to sink to such depths to wake people up.”

“Dynamiting the Wheel, though ... You think that will do the trick?”

Brin semi-shrugged again. “Quill does. He says we’ll make their symbol ours. That it will become ‘the spark that ignites a glorious revolution.’”

“And you?”

“I think it’ll make a glorious spectacle. And then we’ll see.”

“But you don’t mean to hurt anyone ...”

“The Wheel will be empty; I won’t light the charges otherwise. Who’s Mr. DeBell?”

Neva shifted awkwardly.

“Come now: I showed you mine.”

She hesitated, then froze—something had scraped against the floor just outside the coffin.

“Please,” a man said when Neva didn’t answer. “Who is this Mr. DeBell fellow? Would it be Mr. Edward DeBell? We’re all dying to know.”

“Shite,” Brin breathed.

“Boys,” the man called down to the first floor, his voice deep and brackish. “You’ll want to see this. Cuddy outdid himself.”

“Shite,” she murmured again.

“Reinforce the lock,” Neva suggested as softly as she could.

“It’ll shatter if I make it any stiffer. Just ... be ready.”

“Girls,” the man was explaining to the first of his companions to stamp back up the stairs. “In the coffin.”

“You’re drunk,” the companion responded.

“Absolutely muzzy,” the man agreed. “Didn’t trust myself to walk down the stairs with you lot. But I heard them—the girls. Talking politics. Sound like radicals.”

“What’s this?” a third man asked.

The first two filled him in.

“Well, open it then.”

“No key—remember, Billy Noodel?”

“Shut your bone box.”

More footsteps indicated the rest of the men had