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

Neva stayed standing. She wanted to remain mobile. Just in case. “I’m fine.”

“Flaming hell, no you’re not.” His eyes must have adjusted to the dimmer lighting backstage; he’d finally registered the bite marks. There weren’t as many as Neva had thought at first—most of the bugs had merely crawled over and under her clothes—but she was still well- chewed.

The guard made as if to put his hand on her shoulder, but she flinched, and he withdrew his arm. “My apologies. But you need to see to that. I can have an ambulance brought around if you’d like. If you feel up to walking, though, I’d be happy to escort you to the Exposition Hospital. I’m sure Dr. Gentles would ...”

The guard trailed off as the back of Neva’s right hand started to throb. Throb and expand. She wasn’t doing anything with her bones. This was her skin reddening and rising, swelling into the shape she still saw when she closed her eyes: the shape of two adjoined crescents.

And now that she saw the combination on her flesh, she noticed that the resulting symbol looked vaguely like an insect in flight.

For a moment, the only sound was that of Mohammed and Islem playing in the theatre; they’d been filling the void with an energetic number that would have been exhausting to dance to. But when another set of sickles rose rapidly on Neva’s left hand, and two more popped up on the tops of her feet, the guard found his voice: “I’ll send for a doctor to meet us at the Administration Building. We need to report this.”

She stepped back from him. The concern in his green eyes seemed genuine, and his well-kept brown beard rounded his face in a way that gave him a trustworthy air, but she still didn’t know him. “I need to find my brother.”

“I’ll have someone notify him.” The guard looked set to take her hand, but he restrained himself. “Please. Those marks—”

Wahib strode back into the off-left wing, clutching something in his hand. “You’ll want to see this.” He opened his fingers to reveal a sixth digit, this one unattached and slightly bloody.

The thumb Neva had seen fall to the stage. So it had been real. It had all been real.

Which only made her want to see Augie more.

“The rest of it is above,” Wahib said, placing the bloody digit in the guard’s hand. “I’ll lower the curtain so you can collect it.”

“Right ...” The guard lifted the finger with two of his own. “Do you have a bag?”

“Neva?” asked Wahib instead of answering.

But she was already darting into the changing room, sprinting past a surprised Camelia—whose shift came next—and pounding out the theatre’s back door and around to the front. Neva’s eyes took a moment to adjust, but she already knew what she’d see: the Indian Bazaar, the Vienna Café, throngs of people, and the towering Ferris Wheel.

Augie was in his regular position next to the line for the Wheel, regaling the captive audience with stories of the delights they’d find in the neighboring Algerian and Tunisian Village. “The Wheel may be the first of its kind,” he said in a spot-on imitation of President Cleveland’s timbre and tempo; her brother could twist his voice as adroitly as Neva could bend her bones, and when the country’s leader had opened the Fair back in May, Augie had taken careful notes on how Cleveland spoke and acted. “But the attraction you’ll remember forever is the dancing girls of the Algerian Theatre. Beautiful features? Certainly. Elegant dresses? Absolutely. But let’s be frank: it’s their hips you’ll never forget. My god, those hips. When they’re swaying to the hootchie-kootchie? Well, it’ll make you feel positively presidential.”

Augie’s audience laughed, but when he saw Neva, he cocked his head—he knew she was supposed to be onstage. She beckoned to him, and he switched to his normal voice to conclude his pitch: “And with that enticement, kind sirs and gentle ladies, I leave you to enjoy the second greatest attraction of the Exposition, with hopes you’ll soon experience the first.”

Several visitors promised they would, and Augie waved his thanks as he left the line and took Neva’s hand, his palm fitting to hers almost exactly; they weren’t identical twins, but they had the same lithe build and caramel coloring.

“What happened to your face?” he asked in a protective tone, so soft it was barely audible over the cries of other street performers, camels braying from the Street in Cairo complex, a lion roaring over at Hagenbeck’s Animal Show, and the Fair’s thousand other sounds. His fingers brushed the rash on the back of her hand, causing Neva to flinch. “Sorry. What is that?”

She pulled her hand away and turned it over for him to see.

His eyes widened. The rash had purpled in the few minutes since it appeared, but it was still distinguishable as two adjoined, unnatural sickle shapes. For once in his life, Augie was speechless.

“Bugs,” Neva whispered, displaying the mark on her other hand. “Hundreds of them. They fell on me while I was dancing, then disappeared as fast as they came. I can still feel them.” She glanced down to be sure nothing was creeping toward her. But there were no insects in sight. Just feet and trash.

“God in Heaven.” Augie bit his lip as he studied the rashes. “And they did that? Those look like brands.”

She nodded. The thought had occurred to her as well; their mother had been a slave before the Civil War.

Augie took Neva’s hand again, careful not to touch the rash. “Let’s get you tended. I’ll have Wahib call a doctor while I find some balm. Then I’ll see about getting the theatre scoured for pests. This is unacceptable.”

“Neva!”

She recognized the voice without turning around: it was the guard’s. “Augie, that man coming toward us ...”

“The Columbian Guard?”

“He found me after the bugs. He wants me to report this to Administration.”

“Why?”

“... There was something else on