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

“Bog!” he called to his fellow guard as he hurried through the doorway. “Take that nonsense off your head and listen to ... Neva?” Wiley’s eyes took in her near-naked body, then went to the cell door, no doubt noting that she was on the wrong side of it, behind bars with Mr. DeBell.

Or so it would appear.

Wiley whirled back to the other guard. “Bog!” he shouted again. “What’s the meaning of this? And Copeland, lower your weapon, for God’s sake. Get her OUT OF THERE!”

But the Pinkerton shook his head and fired.

Bog squeezed his trigger too, though less accurately: while Copeland’s shot took Mr. DeBell squarely in the chest, the wiry guard’s bullet winged one of the bars and deflected into Neva’s thigh.

She gasped twice, first in shock at the blood spilling from her father’s wound, then at the agony sprouting from her own. Mr. DeBell merely grunted at the impact and nodded at his would-be executioners.

Until he saw Neva’s injury. Then he whistled.

Wiley succumbed to the tune almost immediately, slamming into the wiry guard and knocking the pistol from his hands.

“He’s doing it again!” yelled Bog. “Blast the piper in the mouth!”

Copeland tried, but his next shot went wide, grazing Mr. DeBell’s ear as he slumped to the side.

Wiley tore off Bog’s wrap, exposing the wiry guard’s ears. The two men were on Copeland a second later, Wiley reaching for the Pinkerton’s weapon and Bog for his muffs. Both succeeded, but not before the pistol went off against Wiley’s side, spattering everyone in the room with blood and flinging a fleck of bone into Mr. DeBell’s already ruined chest.

“No!” screamed Neva, contorting her way through the bars. Yet her arms refused to reach out and catch Wiley. The chaos and pain had taken her by surprise, and she’d failed to plug her ears before Mr. DeBell’s implacable whistling compelled her to go, to let Wiley crumple to the floor while she limped out of the drunk tank and towards the Exposition Hospital.

Mr. DeBell’s tune was warbling, though, growing bubbly. His control remained complete enough to force Neva to exit the room, but not to prevent her from turning her head and witnessing the rest of the tragedy: Bog was kneeling in front of Copeland now, handing him the pistol Wiley had batted away moments earlier and trembling. Copeland, wearing an expression of dread (instead of earmuffs), accepted the gun and shot Bog through the temple.

Still whistling, Mr. DeBell dragged himself forward, leaving a crimson smear behind him. Upon reaching the bars, he nodded at Copeland and closed his eyes. He looked ... ready.

The Pinkerton did not. His brow was sweaty, and his mouth hung open—he appeared to be trying to scream. But nothing came out as he pressed both guns against Mr. DeBell’s chest and blazed away until the chambers clicked empty, dry-firing into the sudden silence.

The whistling had stopped.

Its notes echoed in Neva’s ears for a few more beats, long enough to direct her the rest of the way down the hallway, out of the Administration Building, and into the Court of Honor. There she collapsed, as she’d seen Copeland do amidst the jumble of bodies on the drunk tank’s red floor. Without the whistling to sustain her, she couldn’t rise, couldn’t take another step. All she could do was look at the picture Mr. DeBell had drawn—that she somehow still held—and think of him. And Wiley. And Augie.

And weep: she could weep perfectly well. So she did, violently, until Brin and Quill scooped her up and rushed her into Machinery.

PIETER WAS A SURPRISINGLY adept physician.

The pudgy anarchist turned out to have extensive knowledge, deft hands, and—in the Machinery Hall’s storage room—a carefully packed bag of surgical tools and bandages. “Stashed these for just such an emergency,” he explained while directing Brin and Quill to set Neva on the table. “Roland, I’ll need whiskey for the wound.”

Roland opened his mouth, but Quill cut him off. “If you so much as grumble about this,” he hissed, “once Pieter gets the ball out of Neva, I’ll load it back into a gun and shoot you in the goddamn head with it.”

Roland shook his head. “A scrap’s different. I don’t leave no one behind.” He jabbed a thick finger at Pieter. “Pulled you out of the muck at Homestead, didn’t I?”

“That you did,” Pieter agreed absently as he laid a variety of implements on the two closest chairs. “The whiskey?”

“Yeah, I’ll fetch it.”

“Wiley’s still in there,” Neva said through gritted teeth. “He was shot too—worse than me. You should be helping him.”

Brin pulled another chair around for Pieter. “We weren’t the only ones who heard the gunshots: a storm of Pinkertons, police, and guards pounded over from the Lagoon right after we found you. They’ll see to Wiley. You need to lie back. You’ve lost too much blood to do anything else.”

“Be still,” Pieter agreed. “There’s a good girl. It’s all right—I just need to see it.” He’d had her press her hands against the wound; now he eased them away, made a quick examination, and applied a temporary bandage he asked Brin to hold.

“I won’t ask why you decided to boycott your clothes,” he said as he reached again into his bag of supplies, “but it’s well you did; there’s no chance of cloth being carried into the flesh. We’ll get you fixed up—I dealt with worse in the war.” He pulled a pair of tongs from the bag. “Quill, Roland: hold her, if you please.”

The two anarchists took up positions at either end of the table, Quill grasping her arms and Roland her shins. Neither seemed to want to look directly at her. Aside from her near-nudity, her smallclothes were stained dark and growing darker, and the rashes on her legs acted as blood catchers, their ridges dripping crimson.

Pieter uncorked the flask of whiskey and lowered its mouth to Neva’s. “For courage.”

Gagging