Renascence

Rhodi Hawk and F. Paul Wilson

New York City

1878

1. Under a Harvest Moon

Rasheeda Basemore hid her impatience as one last relative lingered over Graziana Babilani’s coffin. Finally she approached the old woman.

“You were close to the deceased?”

The woman turned. She had a lined face and wore widow’s black.

“Graziana and me,” she said in a thick Sicilian accent, “we was family. She’s a-my baby cousin from Palermo.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Now please leave.

“She just a-come over here to America and now she die.” She dabbed her eyes with a yellowed lace handkerchief. “Such a shame.”

Rasheeda took the woman’s arm and gently tugged her toward the door. “We have to close the coffin now. Will you be at tomorrow’s ceremony?”

“Oh, yes. I’m a-come. And you? You be there?”

“Of course.”

The woman patted her hand. “You nice. You pretty. But you got no ring. No married?”

Rasheeda shrugged and put on a smile. How many times had she heard this? She looked a decade younger than her forty years, but to these people you were an old maid if you weren’t married with a clutch of bambini by the time you exited your teens.

“My fiancé was killed in a dirigible crash.” She worked a tremor into her voice, a quiver into her lips. “There will never be anyone else for me.”

She’d repeated the lie so many times she could almost believe it.

The woman squeezed her hand. “I’m a-so sorry.”

“Besides . . .” Rasheeda gestured around at the funeral parlor. “This keeps me too busy for anything else.”

The woman leaned close. “You do a-beautiful work, but this a-no job for a woman.”

“My darling dearest left it to me. I continue it in his honor.”

Finally Rasheeda ushered her out into the Harlem evening. She locked the door behind her and leaned against it just long enough to take a deep breath, then she was on the move again.

“Toby!” she called as she headed back to the viewing room.

She approached the coffin again and looked down at its occupant. Graziana Babilani was thirty-eight years old but looked fifty. She’d been healthy until last week, when she’d come down with pneumonia and died, leaving behind a husband and two teenage sons. While preparing her for the viewing, Rasheeda had noted her sturdy peasant body with approval. She’d succumbed quickly to the infection with only minimal wasting of her musculature. She was perfect.

Rasheeda leaned over the coffin and sniffed. Not quite to the peak of ripeness. But by tomorrow she’d be perfect.

“Yes, Miss Basemore?” Toby’s voice.

“Is the grave dug for Mrs. Babilani?” she said without looking around.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Time to fetch us a warm one then.”

“Can I do the ritual this time?”

She turned to face him. Toby Hecker stood a brawny six foot plus two with fair skin and blond hair and spoke with a barely perceptible German accent.

“Not till you’ve perfected your technique on animals.”

“But I have!”

“Do you really believe that? The result of your last trial was rather pathetic, don’t you think?”

He dropped his gaze to the Persian rug under the coffin. “I never get to do the important stuff.”

“What could be more important than procuring a warm one? I hope you don’t expect me to—”

“No, of course not, Miss Basemore. I’ll go now.”

He turned and hurried out. Rasheeda shook her head as she watched him go. If only his mind were as strong as his back.

Returning her attention to the coffin, she patted Mrs. Babilani on the cheek.

“Not to worry, dear. By this time tomorrow we’ll have you up and about again.”

TOBY PICKED UP the elevated Third Avenue pneumatic line at the 125th Street station and took it downtown. His car was crowded with Negroes, Jews, and Italians. The latter two groups were chattering in their native tongues, and he found himself, as always, resenting that. His own parents had fled the midcentury revolutions in Germany, but he had been born here and had grown up speaking English. He was an American. These were foreigners.

The Negroes spoke a form of English that Toby found hard to understand. Slave-speak, he called it. That’s what they’d all been until twenty or so years ago. The invention of the steam-powered spindle picker in the mid-1850s had dropped the bottom out of the slavery market—one machine could do the work of a hundred slaves—so most of them had been set free. And where did they come? New York, of course, making an already tight job market much worse.

He spotted a tattered copy of the morning Tribune under his seat and shuffled through it to the shipping news. He nodded as he found a notice that the German freighter Von Roon out of Bremen had docked yesterday with a cargo of fine fabrics and precision machinery. That meant clumps of German sailors staggering through the streets in search of wine and women. Perfect. All he had to do was find one who had strayed from his fellows.

That settled, he turned to the major news. As usual, all the bigwigs were decrying. President Greely had issued a statement from the White House decrying Germany’s superiority in the dirigible field and urging America to develop a superior alternative. Governor Westinghouse had already electrified Albany and was making progress in Manhattan; he wanted to run electric power through the entire state but was decrying the shortcomings of direct current.

Toby dropped it and kicked it across the floor. Why did he even bother reading the news? Nothing ever changed.

Just like his life. Sure, Miss Basemore paid him well—very well, in fact—but he wanted more. He wanted her respect. Truth be told, he wanted even more than that—he wanted her. Yes, she was an older woman, probably fifteen years older, but she didn’t look it. Her olive skin and her dark, dark eyes, and her voice . . . oh, Lord, she spoke perfect English with a British accent and an Indian lilt that sent shivers down his spine. Even her name: Rasheeda . . .

He knew she’d had an English father, but she’d spent the first half of her life in India. What had she learned there? He’d heard it said that Hindu women knew fabulous secrets about sex, and that a single one of them could please a man in more and better ways than a brothel full of whores.

But she didn’t seem interested in men. At least not the living kind. She seemed to prefer the dead. Toby could count on getting admiring looks from women almost everywhere he went, but never the slightest sign of interest from Miss Rasheeda Basemore.

He sighed. Perhaps his own interests would be best served if he could stop thinking of her as a beautiful woman and see her simply as his boss. Becoming personally involved could only lead to trouble for him. Not that it would ever happen. She was above and beyond him . . . unobtainable.

Still, he wished he could find a way to impress her. Just the slightest expression of admiration from her would complete his life and allow him to go on admiring her from afar. But all she assigned him were menial tasks like preparing the dead for burial and hunting down a “warm one” when needed.

When his train hissed to a stop at the Bowery station, he exited the tube and hurried down the stairs to street level. The Bowery area was full of brothels, faro parlors, and German beer gardens, just the sort of neighborhood visiting sailors from the Von Roon would seek out. If Toby came up empty here, he could always head a few blocks west to Five Points. That journey had proved unnecessary in recent years since a group called the Young Men’s Christian Association had opened a combination gymnasium–boarding house for, well, young men.

He had just crossed Delancey Street when he saw a lone sailor weaving along the sidewalk in his direction. He recognized the German merchant marine uniform.

“Guten Abend!” he called.

The bearded sailor grinned. “Sind Sie die Deutschen?”

Toby told him his parents had moved here from the old country. He and the sailor made small talk in German and he learned that the man’s name was Gustav and he was indeed on shore leave from the Von Roon. It didn’t take long for the inevitable question to surface.

“Where can I find women? Where’s the best place?”

Toby made a face. “Not in this neighborhood, that’s for sure. I mean, if all you’re looking for is a bend-over-and-lift-the-skirt type, fine. But if you’re interested in quality, you’ll have to travel some.”

“Where then?”

“Uptown.”

He frowned. “How far?”

“Harlem. The tube will take you there in minutes. Fine, clean women, good brandy and cigars for after.”

The sailor’s eyes widened. “Can you show me? Can you take me?”

Toby backed up a step and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d feel like a procurer.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re helping a new friend from the old country who’s a stranger in your city.”

Toby pretended to think about it, then shrugged. “Very well. I’ll do it for a countryman. But let’s buy some wine for the trip.”

“Excellent! I’ll buy!”

“No, I won’t hear of it. You are my guest.”

Buying the bottle would put Toby in control of it, allowing him to add the envelope of opium waiting in his pocket.

RASHEEDA SAT AT the steel mixing table in the top level of the tower and stirred the latest batch of sustaining oil. She’d brought it up from the cellar, safe for addition of the final spice. It had been curing for one lunar cycle now and had one more to go before it would be ready for use. Tomorrow she would have to start a brand-new batch.

She sighed. The process never ended.

The limited wall space of the tiny room had been put to full use—the exotic ingredients needed for the sustaining oil lined the narrow shelves. She’d been mixing a new batch on a monthly basis for over a decade now—she had no choice in the schedule since the oil didn’t keep—and knew the proportions by heart.

She heard the house creak below her. Although not that old, it always creaked. Initially she hadn’t cared for the blocky Second Empire building with its mansard roofs and central tower and feared the wrought-iron cresting would require extra maintenance. But it had come with the graveyard, and so she hadn’t had much choice. As the years passed she’d changed her mind, however. The first floor had proved perfect for the viewing rooms, and she’d put the basement to excellent use. Plus, the roomy backyard offered more than enough space for her gas-fired crematorium.

But the central tower was the best. The four eye windows in its fourth-floor room, one facing each point of the compass, let in the moonlight, which was crucial to this step in the process.

She rose and gazed up at the high moon through the north window. Tomorrow would mark the last night of its full cycle; she’d have to get an early start in the morning to finish the third and last round of monthly anointings for her clients. If only Toby’s fingers were a little more dexterous, she could send him on the monthly rounds. He’d like that—he’d think he was doing “important stuff.” But although he could repeat the chant phonetically, he couldn’t seem to master the necessary Sanskrit—Vedic Sanskrit, to be precise—and the sacred words had to be transcribed accurately or else they were useless.

A flash in the moonlit cemetery below caught her eye. Was someone out there—in her cemetery? Grave robbers perhaps? She couldn’t help a tiny smile. Slim pickings out there, fellows.

She picked up the telescope from a nearby shelf and extended it to its full length. Usually she used it to watch the stars, but now it could help her spot intruders.

She scanned the entire grounds but saw no one, and the flash never repeated. Probably just a trick of the light. She—

The outside door to the cellar slammed four stories below. She hadn’t imagined that. Toby most likely, but she wasn’t going to take a chance. She pulled her Remington derringer from the compact work desk against the wall and checked the over-under double barrel to make sure each chamber was fitted with a cartridge. Yes. Good. She placed the tiny pistol in a pocket of her lab coat. With the flask of sustaining oil in one hand, she slipped through the trapdoor and descended the ladder to the tower’s third floor.

She hurried down to the ground level. As she unlocked the door that led to the basement, she heard the metal clang of the cell door and knew it had to be Toby. Only she and Toby were allowed down there. Descending the steps, she found him hanging the cell key on its hook on the far wall.

The walls were heavy granite block, broken by the stairs to the first floor, the steps to the backyard entrance, and the heavy wooden door to the earth below the cemetery. The furnishings were minimal and functional: an extra embalming table, the iron-barred cell, and the steam-powered burrower, resting under a tarpaulin. The only items that might pass as decorative were the map of all the plots in her cemetery and the pair of silver collars linked by a ten-foot silver chain, all .999 fine. These hung on the wall next to the cell key.

“Well,” she said, eyeing the limp form of a bearded seaman on the floor of the cell, “that was quick.”

Toby smiled. “Yes, ma’am. He’s German. And since I speak the language, he was ready to follow me anywhere.”

“And a sailor. Excellent.”

Not uncommon for one or two to jump ship in a larger port. No one would be looking for him once his ship set sail again.

She spun the dial on the safe embedded in the wall near the cell and placed the sustaining oil within, next to the remainder of the ripened batch. If those flasks ever broke or spilled, there would quite literally be hell to pay.

Toby said, “He drank enough of the spiked wine to keep him out well into the morning. I left him the rest of the bottle just in case he wakes up.”

Adding the derringer to the safe’s contents, she relocked it and turned to smile at him. “What would I do without you, Toby?”

He blushed. She could always make him blush.

“I’m sure you’d survive, ma’am.”

“Yes, but you make it so much easier. See you in the morning then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“After we get Mrs. Babilani up and about tomorrow, we’ll try another Sanskrit lesson, yes?”

His eyes lit. “I’ve been practicing.” He made a squiggle in the air with his index finger. “I know I’ll be able to get it right this time.”

“I’m sure you will. Good night, Toby. See you tomorrow.”

She hoped he did get it right. And soon. Her business—Renascence Staffing, Ltd.—was expanding steadily, and she needed someone to share the monthly burden of anointings. If he couldn’t get it right, he’d wind up in the cell like the sailor.

Just like his predecessor.

THE NEXT MORNING Rasheeda escorted the last of the Babilani mourners through the cemetery gate—the same cousin who’d lingered at the wake last night had lingered again at the graveside—and then locked it. When she returned to the open grave, she found Toby waiting.

“Let’s get this over with.”

He nodded and jumped into the grave. Straddling the coffin, he lifted the lid and reached down past Mrs. Babilani’s corpse where he unfastened a set of latches. He climbed out and closed the lid. Anyone watching from a distance would assume he’d simply adjusted the position of the coffin.

As Toby slipped on his goggles and fired up the gravedigger/filler, Rasheeda walked back to the house and descended to the cellar. The German sailor was still out cold. Good. She didn’t want to have to listen to pleas for release—in German, no less.

She pulled the tarp off the burrower, revealing its fusiform shape and screwlike nose. On the wall above it she consulted the grid map listing the coordinates of every plot in the cemetery. According to the map, Graziana Babilani was buried in plot G-12. Rasheeda lifted the hinged cover over the navigation board and placed a peg in the G-12 hole. The Babbage analytical engine nestled beneath it would do the rest, guiding the burrower to plot G-12.

She closed the lid and patted the machine. It had made her life so much easier. Before its arrival, she and her assistant would have to go out in the dead of night and dig up the recently buried, then cart the remains back to the basement. It was not only difficult physical labor—they couldn’t risk the noisy gravedigger—but dangerous as well. They might be discovered in flagrante delicto, or a family member might notice alterations in the surface of the grave and raise an alarm. Or worse, demand an exhumation. The burrower obviated all those concerns.

All thanks to Purvis. He had been her second assistant and a bit on the lazy side. But laziness is often the mother of invention, and Purvis had found a way to modify a diamond-mining probe into an efficient grave-robbing device.

Purvis was long gone now. As valuable as he had been, his growing avarice and ambition—not to mention his pathetic attempt at blackmail—had outstripped his usefulness and so he’d wound up in the cell, just like this sailor. But his legacy of innovation remained.

Toby, goggles pushed back atop his sandy hair, arrived then.

“Time to start the burrower,” she said.

He nodded, lowered his goggles, and ignited the steam engine. While that was warming up, she opened the wall safe and removed the carafe of ripe sustaining oil. This older batch had perhaps twenty-four hours of usefulness left before it spoiled.

“I wish I could help you with that,” Toby said over the hiss of the burrower.

Rasheeda forced a smile. “I wish that too, Toby. Later we’ll try another lesson.”

Toby returned her smile, then pulled open the thick wooden door to reveal the entry tunnel to Rasheeda’s own private underground. Over the years the burrower had riddled the earth beneath her cemetery with wandering passages. It no doubt resembled a giant anthill in there.

Toby rolled the burrower to the entrance until its drilling head was just beyond the threshold, then put it in gear. The machine hissed as it trundled into the opening and disappeared from sight. It would follow existing tunnels and dig new ones until it reached plot G-12. Once there it would expose the bottom of Graziana Babilani’s coffin. Her body would fall through the trapdoor cut into its floor, and the burrower would return her here for the ritual.

Rasheeda waved. “See you in a few hours.”

“Can I perform the ritual when you come back?”

“We’ll see.” She gave him a hard stare. “I’m sure I don’t have to warn you against trying your undeveloped skills on Mrs. Babilani while I am out, do I?”

He blanched and raised his hands. “I wouldn’t even consider it! She’s too valuable.”

“Remember that.”

“ ‘WE’LL SEE,’ ” Toby muttered after she was gone, mimicking her accent. “ ‘We’ll see.’ ”

He knew that phrase too well. Her way of saying no without using the word itself. Why didn’t she have more confidence in him? He was sure he was ready to graduate from being a laborer to participating in the really important stuff. He just needed a chance to prove himself and convince her.

For a moment—a fleeting instant, no more—he considered defying her and performing the ritual on Mrs. Babilani himself. That would show her.

But then he remembered the lady’s cold rage when a certain client had stepped way out of line. That particular client had sickened and died in agony within a week. His doctors never determined the cause of his pain, but even the strongest opiates could not touch it.

Just as Toby would not touch Mrs. Babilani.

He busied himself around the basement while awaiting the burrower’s return. He checked on the unconscious sailor to make sure he was still among the living. He’d seen people stop breathing from too much opium, but no, this one’s chest was moving with regular respirations.

Finally he heard a whirring noise in the tunnel, growing louder: the burrower returning. He stood aside as it lurched out of the tunnel and hissed to a stop. He closed the door behind it—no telling what vermin might wander in if left open—and turned to the burrower.

He froze when he saw what lay in the receptacle atop the machine. A body, yes, but not Mrs. Babilani. Instead of a clean, middle-aged woman, this was a dirt-encrusted man. But equally dead.

Toby lifted him out of the burrower and placed him on the embalming table. Not that they ever did any embalming down here—they had a back room upstairs for that.

He looked him over. Dark hair, even features. Forty years, perhaps. Even though the clothing was caked with loose dirt, Toby could see it was of good quality. His shoes were shined beneath the grime. Something glinted in the corpse’s right hand. A gold ring? Toby looked closer and was shocked to see all four fingers fitted into a set of brass knuckles.

“Who were you, my friend?” Toby muttered.

Certainly not a savory fellow, despite his quality clothing—not if he was wearing brass knuckles. How did he die? Where was he buried? And by whom? He—

Toby noticed dried blood on the left breast area of the coat. The soil had mixed with it some, so it must have been still fresh when he’d been consigned to the earth. The blood surrounded a horizontal slit in the fabric. Gingerly he lifted the coat and suppressed a gasp at the grand expanse of red-brown stain on the embroidered vest and linen shirt beneath. The vest showed a slit similar to the one in the coat.

No doubt about the cause of death: a knife blade—a large one, from the size of the cut—driven deep into the heart. Death must have followed almost immediately.

“At least you didn’t suffer. But the question is: Are you an innocent victim or did you get what was coming to you?”

But a more immediate question: Why had the burrower delivered him instead of Mrs. Babilani?

He went over to the machine and checked the programming board. Not at all like Miss Basemore to make an error of this magnitude, and no, she hadn’t: the destination peg was firmly set in the G-12 hole.

What was going on? None of it made sense. Toby saw everyone who went into the ground here and he’d never laid eyes on this man. From the looks of him, he hadn’t been in a coffin, just thrown into a hole in the ground and covered up.

And then Toby Hecker had an epiphany.

This corpse, this unaccounted-for body from who knew where was like a gift from God—or perhaps Shiva. This stranger would allow him to prove himself to Rasheeda Basemore and demonstrate beyond all doubt that he was ready to handle the important stuff.

He ran to the wall and removed the chained silver collars from their hooks. He clamped one around the corpse’s throat, then threaded the other through the bars of the cage and fastened it around the neck of the unconscious sailor. He opened the safe—he knew the combination—and there among the fermenting batch of new oil and Miss Basemore’s derringer lay the book that contained the ritual.

He positioned himself between the two men and began reading . . .

“KATRINA!” MADAME LOUISA said. “Put that down and let Miss Basemore anoint you.”

The young woman, dressed in an extremely brief French maid’s uniform, lowered the heavy armoire she’d been carrying across the room and did as she was told. Rasheeda used the oil to draw the Sanskrit words on her forehead, cheeks, and the backs of her hands while muttering the chant. She worked to make sure the oil penetrated the thick rouge someone had troweled onto her cheeks.

“Fit as a fiddle till the next full moon, I assume?” Madame Louisa said with a broad Southern drawl.

She stood on a short stool in the center of the room while a tailor pinned and chalked a dress of golden velvet he was fitting to her curvy form. Her eyes were close-set and her jawline wide, a look that had probably made her appear vulnerable when she was younger. She was about Rasheeda’s age and pretty, but her gaze was cold and calculating. Rasheeda supposed those qualities were necessary in the madam of one of the city’s premier seraglios.

“Rest assured,” Rasheeda said, slipping the carafe of oil back into her satchel. “Renascence Staffing guarantees it.”

“I remain amazed that this oil of yours imparts such wondrous strength to those skinny little arms.”

It didn’t, of course—that was just one of the many fictions Rasheeda had concocted about her revenants.

“Yes. It’s miraculous, in a way.”

“And it’s really true that my dear Katrina would become torpid and useless without your monthly upkeep?”

Rasheeda nodded. “Yes, the ministrations are necessary. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know that. I have only your say-so.”

“Why would I make up a story?”

“Perhaps it’s just some excuse you’ve concocted so you can come by every month to collect your rent. I’ve half a mind to lock you out next month and see what happens.”

Oh, you don’t want to do that, Rasheeda thought as the muscles at the back of her neck tightened.

“That would be . . . regretful.”

Louisa gestured to one of her minions. A beefy fellow with long blond hair—one of her bouncers, most likely—stepped forward to hand Rasheeda a cash envelope to cover the monthly lease. That too went into the satchel along with the other payments collected today. This was the part about these rounds that Rasheeda didn’t mind at all.

“Tell me,” Louisa said. “Where do you find such perfect servants? They’re strong as oxen, don’t speak, and do whatever they’re told. Whatever is in that oil of yours?”

They’re dead, Rasheeda thought, but smiled and said, “Trade secret.”

Louisa’s affable expression wobbled. Obviously she wasn’t used to being refused and didn’t like it.

“I understand. However, I have a business proposition I wish to discuss with you.”

“I look forward to it,” Rasheeda said, backing away, “but I have my monthly round of anointings to complete.”

“Some other time, then.” Her gaze became pointed. “We will talk soon.”

“Of course.” Rasheeda turned to leave, then turned back. “Mister Traugott is a client of yours, I believe?”

Louisa’s eyebrows lifted. “I do not discuss my clients with anyone. They are assured of discretion here.”

“I appreciate that, so let me rephrase: Are you acquainted with Mister Traugott?”

Louisa smiled. “Come to think of it, I do believe I am. Why?”

“The Traugotts don’t seem to be answering their door. I tried yesterday and the day prior.”

“That’s because they are on holiday.”

Holiday? A wave of cold passed through Rasheeda. She’d had no idea.

“But if they aren’t back today, their maid Eunice will miss her anointing.”

Madame Louisa laughed. “Well, I guess that anointing’ll have to wait, because they don’t get back till tonight.”

Rasheeda noticed that she’d slipped her façade to reveal a more working-class manner of speech. Madame Louisa seemed to catch herself, and when she spoke again, she did so more slowly.

“Anyhow, what’s the worst that could happen? As you say, she’ll go all sleepy and someone else’ll have to bring Fritz his brandy and cigar after dinner. I’m sure Fritz’ll survive.”

Don’t count on that, Rasheeda thought.

Despite what Madame Louisa had told her, Rasheeda went directly to the Traugott house. Mr. Traugott was a member of the Rhinelander family, which had made a fortune in sugar and shipping. He and his wife and children lived in a Yorkville mansion on East Eighty-Fourth Street, so Rasheeda took the pneumatic tube uptown from the brothel.

Despite repeated poundings of the heavy brass knocker, no one answered their front door.

This could be bad, she thought as she hurried back toward the Eighty-Sixth Street pneumatic station. Very bad.

RASHEEDA RETURNED HOME to find an unaccountably exultant Toby.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, Miss Basemore!”

Oh, no.

“What is it, Toby?” she said, not wanting to hear the answer. “Not Mrs. Babi—”

“No no no! I wouldn’t touch her!”

She let out a breath. Well, that was a relief.

“Good. Excellent. What’s all the ado then?”

“It will be easier to show you.” He was vibrating with excitement. “Down in the basement. Come!”

He dashed ahead and she followed, hefting the satchel of lease payments that was bound for the safe. She entered the basement, where the burrower rested near the tunnel entrance like a faithful mastiff, pressurized air still burping from its tubes.

Toby spread his hands to the cage. “You see? I told you I could do it!”

The cage door was closed. Stretched across the stones beyond it lay a sailor, Toby’s donor, dead, still tethered to the silver chain. And on the opposite end of the silver sat—

Not Mrs. Babilani.

No, the fellow next to the dead sailor was dirty and scarred, drool sagging from lip to lapel.

Toby rattled the bars. “On your feet, now. Say hello to your new mistress.”

The man did not blink. The stream of drool neither slowed nor coursed afresh. He was beyond stupor.

Rasheeda felt her fingernails tighten around the satchel. “Toby, what have you done?”

“Give me a minute. I’m sure I did it right.”

Toby slipped the key into the lock and threw wide the cage door. He shook the man, though man was a generous word for this creature. No more animated than a bull thistle. And so covered in dirt he looked like he’d been buried without a box and crawled up through the soil on his own. Facial scars indicated that during his life some of the bones had broken and healed over a few times; and yet, were it not for his pallor and ghastly stupor, he might be otherwise handsome.

Toby shook him, but the man’s head lolled back without resistance. Only when Toby released him did the head slowly right itself to its normal posture.

This revenant was useless.

An inch at a time, Toby raised his gaze to Rasheeda.

“It was the burrower. It should have picked up the Babilani lady, but it brought him back instead.”

Rasheeda swung the satchel of coins and bills, catching Toby on the side of the head. He howled and stumbled backward, then jabbered about how he’d only been trying to salvage the situation. Wasn’t there something they could do? After all, this was Toby’s first revenant.

Rasheeda looked at the thing. “Certainly. We could sit him in Central Park as a means of attracting pigeon shite to spare the statues. I’m sure the Borough of Manhattan would pay . . . oh, let me see . . . nothing?!”

Toby sank to his knees and retrieved a gold eagle coin that had escaped Rasheeda’s satchel.

She snatched it from him. “You can’t revive just any old corpse. This one’s clearly been dead too long.”

“But he seemed so fresh. He was still leaking from the stab wound in his chest.”

Rasheeda pinched her brow. “Well, then, he probably wasn’t dead long enough. The timing is sensitive. There’s a reason I’m the only one who can do this. A good revenant is lively but dumb, docile, and compliant, and very plain to the eye.”

“But I never—”

“And you never will. We’ll have to get rid of this rubbish as it is. And the donor, too, which you’ve wasted. Now we have two bodies to dispose of, with no usable revenant to show for it. I should take the money I’d be getting for the Babilani woman out of your wages.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Miss Basemore.”

“You’re lucky he came to as a houseplant. These things can be dangerous.”

“I don’t know why the burrower didn’t bring her back. That part’s not my fault.”

Rasheeda scowled. But the burrower had made an error that she could not explain. She’d set it herself. She glared at Toby, then at the drooling heap he’d created.

“Oh, just . . . take me to the Babilani grave.”

EVEN IF TOBY hadn’t utterly failed, the man who sat liquefying back in the basement would have made a terrible revenant. Who would want that lurking around their pantry? Revenants sold best when uninteresting and unintimidating. And sexless. Wealthy ladies resented pretty maids; gentlemen hated chisel-jawed butlers. No one wanted a servant who was too feral. Or too exciting. Unless they were perverts.

Once the gravedigger excavated the soil, Toby clambered out from behind the controls and hopped into the hole, then opened the coffin. Rasheeda hated to risk exposure like this, but she needed a look inside.

Mrs. Babilani lay as they’d left her. Rasheeda stepped back from the grave.

Now that the gravedigger had gone quiet, the frogs’ calls filled the night. Ah-ah-ah. It sounded like they were jeering.

“Get the casket out,” she said.

Toby nodded and closed the cap over the corpse. He pulled the chains from the gravedigger, affixing them to the casket. Under his guidance, the gravedigger farted, reared, and plucked Mrs. Babilani’s casket from its not-so-final resting place. Dirt rained from its contours and sent dust billowing out in a ring.

Rasheeda lifted her lantern over the empty grave site.

Beneath the clean, chiseled, machine-cut grave: a crude hole. One just large enough for a man. A loose clod of dirt tumbled from its rim to the tunnel left by the burrower.

Despite herself, Rasheeda smiled. “Clever.”

“What’s that?” Toby asked as he jumped down to the grass, panting and slapping at a mosquito.

“That explains the light I saw in the graveyard last night. That is where your drooler got ditched.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Which fails to surprise me.” She drew a breath. “Someone or some people killed your man and dumped him beneath Mrs. Babilani’s gravesite. They must have spread dirt over his body, knowing that the Babilani casket would cover him forever. That’s why our burrower brought him back. He was under her.”

Toby gaped.

“Oh come on, you have to admit it’s clever!”

Toby said, “I still don’t get it.”

Rasheeda sagged. “Just . . . put Mrs. Babilani back, Toby.”

Rubbing her jaw, she turned away and headed for the house. Clever or not, she wouldn’t tolerate marauders in her graveyard.

This city knew all sorts of criminals. She couldn’t care less about any of them or what they did. But any criminals who trespassed on her property and cost her time and money—well, they’d soon wish they’d been caught by the police.

She’d take a better look at Toby’s drooler. Maybe she could find out who he was, where he came from. Maybe something on him could lead her to the trespassers who felt so entitled to her graveyard.

From somewhere behind her, the gravedigger resumed its coughing and groaning. The moon, close to the end of its full cycle, cast the lawn in tones of brown and gray. Rasheeda realized she was panting. She’d been striding faster than she’d intended, and her cheeks burned with blood. It occurred to her that she’d never felt so alive.

IN THE BASEMENT, the cage door still lay open. The sailor still lay dead. But Toby’s revenant was no longer drooling on the floor next to him. He wasn’t drooling anywhere. He was gone.

So were the keys—last she’d seen them, Toby had left them dangling in the cage lock.

Oh, no!

Rasheeda panned the room. The safe stood open. And empty.

Oh, no no no!

The implications were appalling, but not so appalling or urgent as a slavering revenant run amok.

There. A trail of dirt. Leading up the back staircase. The inside staircase.

She hitched her skirts and dashed halfway up before pausing and running back to the basement to retrieve . . . her derringer was gone. All she could find was a long embalming needle. It would have to do.

Back up the stairs, and when the clumps of dirt continued, up another flight to her own quarters.

He was in the lavatory. Probably rooting around, clumsy and mindless. She raised the needle and kneed the door open.

Toby’s revenant was seated in Rasheeda’s own bathtub. A pistol in one hand, a bar of soap in the other, the bathwater milky gray.

“Ah. I guess you’ll be the fine hostess, then.”

A thick Irish accent. And no drool.

This revenant was perfectly coherent. Perhaps a little too coherent. He eyed her embalming needle and lifted a brow, his fingers going snug on the pistol.

“You wouldn’t be having any men’s clothing around here now, would you?”

SHE DID. IN fact she had quite a stock of spare clothing, male and female.

“What’s your name?” she said as he dressed behind her screen.

She’d turned away just long enough to give him a pretense at modesty, but then watched him from the corner of her eye. He cleaned up well enough for a man who’d been killed and buried raw. The scars couldn’t be helped.

“Liath.”

“Lee?”

“Close enough. Liath O’Shea. Now I’ll be having a few questions for you, Miss Basemore.”

He knew her name! “How—?”

“I was listening to every word.”

She ground her teeth in frustration. Toby had a lot to answer for.

“Playing possum, as it were?”

“So to speak. Apparently I was dead and buried and you brought me back to life.” He stepped out from behind the screen, shirtless, dressed in ill-fitting gray trousers. “What sort of blasphemy is that?”

She sniffed. She didn’t believe in blasphemy or sacrilege or any of that nonsense.

“The kind that allows you to ask that question.”

He smiled. “Touché, as the French say.”

Not a bad smile. He reminded her of Alastair back in England. They’d been lovers. Poor boy had thought he was her one and only. When he found out about Rupert, he challenged him to a duel. It hadn’t ended well for Alastair—a bullet through the heart. She’d used the ritual—and Rupert—to bring him back but that hadn’t ended well either. That and complications from other impetuous acts had precipitated her flight to the New World.

“Well?” she said. “Out with it. What happened?”

Liath’s eyes clouded. “I don’t remember. All I know is that some guttersnipe stabbed me in the back.”

“Toby—the man who resurrected you—said you were stabbed through the heart from the front.” She pointed to the sealed wound in his chest.

“Was I?” He touched the spot. “Well, this is a new one. See, I don’t even remember that. I do remember walking past the docks on Pearl Street and then . . .” He shook his head. “I never saw him.”

“Come now. You can tell me. What happened that night?”

“Well . . . I remember I was on me way to me sister’s. She’s quite a cook, that one. Always stuffs me with brown bread and coddle—”

As he pulled the tunic over his head she saw her chance. She grabbed the parlor pistol from her bedside drawer—

“Hate to be disappointing you, dearie,” he said as his head popped through the collar, “but that toy is just a Flobert, and I removed the flint.”

She pulled the trigger anyway only to be rewarded by an impotent click. Silently cursing him, she tossed it on the settee.

He added, “And before you draw out that ghoulish-looking needle again, ask yourself a wee question: What’s become of them lovely liniments you were keeping in your safe, mm? And might you be wanting them back?”

Rasheeda fixed her teeth. “You . . .” She moved toward him, extending her neck. “ . . . impudent . . .” And drew in so close she had to tilt her face up to meet his gaze. “ . . . reckless philistine. How dare you steal my oil? Without me it’s no use to you or anyone else!”

“Seems of use to you, luv.”

“Oh, is that what this is? Imagine, a simple revenant, looking to make a penny!”

He shrugged, fastening his trousers.

She said, “The only reason I indulged your drivel was to learn who stuffed you in my graveyard so I could find them and grind them into sausage. Not because I give a fig about you. It’s my graveyard that’s been violated. And if you think you can blackmail me—”

“Ah, now look how you’ve got yourself in such a lather. You’ll get your liniments back. And not for money. Just give a helping hand in this.”

“In what?”

“Finding me killer, of course. It’s good for both of us. You said yourself you wanted to know who stuffed me in your garden.”

“Not that badly. And not likely I’d trust you. You’ve already fooled me with your drooling act.”

“Seemed the only way to get out of your basement on me own two feet. You’d’ve either thrown me in your oven or sold me off to rich folk.”

“How would you even know what I do?”

“Because I’ll be living in a part of the city that watches how the rest live. I’ve heard rumors about the strange house staff you rent out.” He eyed her. “And now I know where you recruit them: from graves.”

She straightened. “I prefer to refer to them as domiciliary revenants.”

“I don’t care if you call them coddled eggs, do we have a deal?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have time for this. I have a revenant who needs anointing before the moon changes. Tonight.”

She still had enough of the properly fermented oil for Eunice, the Traugott revenant, but what about the next lunar cycle? The mixture took two cycles to properly ferment. If he didn’t return that flask, she would lose everything by the end of the next cycle.

“I’ll be tagging along, and we can start looking for me killer along the way.”

“What? You’ve already been murdered once. I do not intend to be at your side should someone try again.”

His expression grew fierce. “Well, I’ll not be locking meself away, I can tell you that. I’ll find me killer and make him pay.”

LIATH STRODE ACROSS the dark New York City cobblestones in a long dress, a veiled hat, and pinchy heeled boots. The only visible emblem of his masculinity was the brass knuckles he wore on his right hand. What a fine state.

But the lady—whose name he’d learned was Rasheeda—was right: it wouldn’t do at all to be recognized by the one who murdered him. Better to let him think he’d succeeded. He’d be off his guard then.

But Liath felt he had to go out tonight because he didn’t want to let Rasheeda out of his sight.

She was striding next to him, all cat eyes and gilded scarlet in the streetlamps’ glow, and not the least bit sympathetic to his boots. Quite a specimen, she was. Her skin was flawless. Obviously from India but not as dark as others he’d seen from that mysterious subcontinent.

Liath’s attire had once belonged to a grand if horsey lady who’d outlived two husbands and then been trampled by a spooked gelding. No doubt the lady’s family believed that Rasheeda had disposed of the dress. But no. It went into one of many basement trunks. Fortunate for Liath that Rasheeda hoarded death clothes the way a spinster collected cats. She said she never sent a revenant out in clothes they died in, but they most certainly went out in clothes that someone else died in.

“How do you make your living, Mister O’Shea?”

“I guess you could be calling me an importer.”

“Importer of what?”

He grinned. “Anything with a high tariff—the higher the better, I always say.”

She laughed—a musical sound. “You’re a smuggler!”

“You prefer ‘domiciliary revenants,’ I prefer ‘tariff-free importer.’ Me trade is made possible by the wonderful Republicans down in Washington, bless their souls. They love tariffs so much they place them on all imports—averaging thirty-six percent, would you believe? Without them I’d be out of business.”

“Do you think one of your fellow smugglers did you in?”

He shrugged. “Could be, but I doubt it. There’s plenty to go round.” But he wasn’t interested in his trade. He was thinking about all the revenants that had come before him. “So, considering me new circumstances, have you got any advice for a man like me?”

“Yes. Stop thinking of yourself as a man.”

Considering the dress, her advice rang obvious. “You know what I mean. As a pet monster, or . . .”

“Domiciliary revenant.”

“Fine. What’s me upkeep? A dab of that oil now and again?”

She eyed him. “Not that simple. The anointing has very sensitive timing. If the revenant is salvageable. And there’s a recitation involved.”

“What, a spell?”

She shook her head. “The entire process is a delicate balance. Your existence is completely . . . anomalistic.” She shrugged.

He turned his gaze back to the stones down the alley. So. Maybe he would not continue to exist as the coherent, functioning lad from Meath. Maybe he would degenerate into . . . what?

No use giving over to dread. He’d long since been doomed.

Vengeance was all he had left. Vengeance and wrath, rich as whiskey in the blood. He’d have a taste before his final bow.

The streets were dark and quiet. They’d left Toby behind to handle disposing of the donor sailor in the crematorium. Later Rasheeda would use the ashes as substitutes for corpses she should cremate but would resurrect instead. All so very ghastly, but Liath could respect her business sense.

He himself had dabbled in racketeering, bribery, or whatever was required, but he’d found he had a knack for the smuggling trade. He considered it more of a gentleman’s racket, although every once in a very long while he might have to doff some bloke and shove his body off the pier. But those were rare and unfortunate circumstances, and then only if the bloke were a true maggot.

Rasheeda gave Liath an annoyed glance.

He realized he was whistling, same as he’d done on the night he’d died. Whistling along, thinking of his sister’s brown bread and coddle . . .

He snapped to. A shadow moved at the far end of the alley.

Liath cleared his head and squinted. The shadow swayed. Just some drunk. But something familiar about him just the same.

Ah. Liath knew him but couldn’t place the fellow. He was singing some made-up lyrics to an old opus, something about “promenading in the park, goosing statues after dark . . .”

. . . and Liath nearly groaned. Ricky the Rake. An alcoholic thief who was known for laying hands on the ladies. Usually without consent. And he often combined his lechery with pickpocketing. More the worse, he was stinky. To graze past him was to be saturated by him. Yes, Liath knew Ricky all too well.

And Ricky knew Liath.

Liath moved to Rasheeda’s other side so that he was now striding—actually, scrabbling in his pinchy boots—between Rasheeda and the Rake.

If that lout didn’t accost the two “ladies” in the alley, it would be a first. And if he laid one hand on Liath’s bum, he’d figure out that Liath was a he.

The Rake seemed at first to take no notice, but then: “Oh, ladies. Hullo and good—”

Liath swung the brass knuckles in a roundhouse punch to the left side of the Rake’s chest. Ricky crumpled to the stones.

Liath and Rasheeda kept walking. Behind them, a low, long squeak escaped from Ricky’s throat.

At the end of the alley Rasheeda finally asked, “Are you going to explain what just happened or are you counting on my frisky imagination?”

“Just someone I knew. Didn’t want to risk being recognized.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “Did you stab him?”

“No, luv. Just a little trick I learned from Five Points. They call it the Dead Rabbit punch.”

“He’s dead, I think.”

“Naw. That punch can stop a heart but our man there will see tomorrow, though he’ll remember that blow for weeks—every time he draws a breath.”

AS LIATH WORKED on the bit lock with an iron pick and a crooked finish nail, he heard Rasheeda grousing behind him.

“We’re too late, I think.”

He turned and saw her staring up at the moon. “Too late for what?”

“The moon . . . it’s past its full cycle. Damnation!”

The cylinder turned and he pushed the door open. The house was quiet, of course. Rasheeda had said the Traugotts were on holiday. Or supposed to be.

Then beyond the foyer, from the drawing room, came the sound of breathing. Loud, steady; a restless sleep sound.

And a wicked odor.

Rasheeda squeezed Liath’s elbow. “I was afraid of this! Turn on the light, I’ll cover the windows.”

She rushed to the far wall, pulling the sash and letting the drapes fall together. Liath switched on a Tiffany floor lamp.

There on the silk rug sat a gaunt and pasty waif, forearms resting on her knees and her skirts hitched so that her bloomers spilled apparent. A revenant dressed in a maid’s uniform. Her mouth was covered in gore. It formed a muzzle and stained her neckerchief and skirts.

The maid took no measure to conceal her disarray. She merely sat, staring, unresponsive to Rasheeda or Liath or the light that now bathed the room.

“What has she been . . . ?” Liath started and looked toward the hall.

“Oh, dear,” Rasheeda said softly. “Eunice, Eunice, Eunice.”

Kneeling next to the maid, she removed a carafe from her pocket and began streaking oil onto the revenant’s face.

“Go find the family,” she told him.

“And where might they be?”

“They will be dead and . . . not pretty.”

“Dead?”

She waved him on. “Go, go! See if anyone survived.”

Liath ventured deeper into the house. And one by one he found them: the husband, the wife, the children, a butler. Rasheeda had been right: not pretty. Each had been savaged as though by a rabid boar. Some were barely recognizable; others merely had their throats torn.

Of all the degenerates Liath had known, from Five Points to the Bowery, from the Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys to the Municipals and the Metropolitans; not from any rank of thuggery had he witnessed such wanton disregard for human life as what that revenant had done in the Traugott home.

Worst of all: Why didn’t he feel shock or revulsion? Was it because he was . . . oh, well, might as well be saying it: dead?

He stood in the kitchen and gazed at what was left of the butler. The poor man lay eviscerated atop tiny little black-and-white tiles, a cloth still draped neatly over his arm. Shattered bits of china and a tea tray lay at various points around the baseboard.

What disturbed Liath more was that his own stomach was not turning flip-flops as it ought to. Instead it felt . . . hungry.

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn them,” Rasheeda said behind him.

Liath jumped in his boots. “Godsake woman. Don’t be sidling up on me like that.”

“Wasn’t sidling. I was just saying that I’d warned them.”

“You mean to tell me, all these people knew they risked slaughter and still they dallied in their return?”

“Well, not slaughter exactly.”

“No? Well, then, what were you after telling them—exactly?”

“I told them what I tell all my clients: without the lunar anointing, their servant will become inactive—as you can see by that wretch in the drawing room.”

Liath looked in the direction of the revenant maid. “But if I might be hazarding a guess, it appears she went into some sort of berserker rage first.”

“Yes. They do tend to do that when the anointing is delayed past the full moon.”

“Well, if these folks knew she’d do that—”

“They didn’t know that, exactly.”

“What? You don’t tell your clients their lives could be at risk?”

“Of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Don’t you feel some sort of responsibility to give fair warning?”

“Don’t be silly! Who would lease from me then?”

“No one!”

“Exactly!”

She was cold, this one. Colder than his own dead arse.

“That’s . . .” He found himself at a loss for words. “That’s unconscionable!”

She raised her chin. “I’m not sure I care for an air of moral superiority in a career criminal—and a dead one, at that.”

“An air? Me? I’m not one for airs of any sort. I may be having a few failings now and again but—”

“A few? You’ve told me you’re a smuggler. That means your modus operandi is bribery, thievery, and probably extortion as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t have a murder or two on your hands to boot.”

“Oh, listen to herself talking about murder. As if there’s not a drop of blood on her lily-white hands.”

“I have no blood on my hands, and what you imply as murder on my part is anything but. It is a simple transfer of life force.”

“The poor bloke’s just as dead as a man with a bullet in his noggin.”

“Besides, it’s not as if they were doing anything useful with their lives in the first place. We’re careful in choosing the types who tend to go missing anyway. No one is looking for them, I assure you. But you—how many have you killed?”

“Only two, and never with glee, and never a one who didn’t deserve it.”

“And what criteria, in your estimation, are required for one to find a place on your ‘deserve it’ list?”

He hesitated, scratching his cheek even though it didn’t itch. This wasn’t a comfortable topic.

“All right: both times was because of a double cross.”

“A betrayal?”

“Yes. Someone who says he’ll be doing one thing and then he does another.”

She rocked her head back and forth. “Oh, and I suppose you, as a career criminal, never break your word?”

“Never. And I don’t think of meself as a criminal.”

“Smuggling is a crime.”

“It is, but I’m after thinking of meself as a businessman whose trade simply happens to be against the law.”

“One who’s never gone back on his word?”

“Well, sometimes I may not be delivering on a promise—”

She jabbed at finger at him. “Aha!”

“—but only because of circumstances beyond me control. Never because I had a better offer elsewhere, or something heinous like that.”

“You mean . . . let me understand this: you mean to tell me that you hold to your word no matter what?”

“If I say I’ll be doing something, I do it. People have to know that when Liath O’Shea says he’ll be delivering, he delivers. How else will business get done?”

“Even when it turns unprofitable?” She shook her head. “That’s like some silliness out of a penny dreadful.”

“It’s a matter of me personal pride.”

“So you fancy yourself a character from a penny dreadful then?”

“I do no such thing! You sound as though you think keeping one’s word is silly.”

“Of course it isn’t!” She looked mildly offended, then shrugged. “Unless of course it becomes inconvenient to do so.”

“How can you say that? Your word is your bond!”

“I always reserve the right to change my mind if things don’t go my way.”

Liath could only stare. Was it because she was from India? Was this how heathens over there conducted business?

Rasheeda stared back with a puzzled expression. “What?”

“Well, then, you can’t be expecting other people to hold up their end of a bargain, can you?”

“Of course I can—they gave their word!”

“B-but—”

She waved her hands in the air. “I’m tired of this discussion.”

“You’re tired! I’m exhausted!”

RASHEEDA LEFT WITH Eunice to take her back to the house and secrete her in the basement. After all, the maid had suffered no damage and, as Rasheeda said, no point in wasting a good revenant. She’d be cleaned up and rented out again in no time.

She left Liath to ransack the Traugott household and make it look like a robbery. Liath set to it, but only to get it over with. A week before and he would have been gleeful for the opportunity. But tonight the only thing that interested him were the Traugotts themselves. And their butler. He tried to ignore his growling stomach, but . . .

Mrs. Traugott lay on her fainting couch, her macerated liver exposed—Eunice had apparently dined on that. Liath stared at the bloody tissue. It looked so tempting. He’d always loved liver and onions—he did a lot of cooking and that was one of his favorites—but never raw . . . and never human.

God help him, his hand took on a life of its own and tore off a piece. He hesitated, then shoved it into his mouth. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back as he chewed. Ambrosia.

He swallowed, then, remembering it was supposed to look like a robbery, slipped the pearls from the lady’s neck. He glanced again at her liver. He wanted more, but a wave of self-loathing prevented it.

He fled to the second floor to remove himself from temptation. He might have sobbed had he still the capacity.

Not only was he dead, but a cannibal as well.

2. Under a Half Moon

A whole week wasted.

Worse than merely wasted—wasted wearing a dress and a veil.

Liath had crisscrossed the Five Points area and the Bowery time and again. He’d even dared the East River docks, which weren’t suitable for a lady, fending off more than one proposition. With the towers of the half-constructed Brooklyn Bridge looming in the background, he’d spied many a fellow smuggler wandering the streets there. He’d paid particular attention to the boyos he’d worked with, but not a one of them was giving anything away.

He’d spent his nights as a shadow in the city. Difficult work when you’ve got no coin. And yet he’d learned nothing of his murderer.

He’d had enough.

Wearing his own comfortable boots and a dark suit from Rasheeda’s collection, he headed for the rooms he rented on Fletcher Alley near the docks. The key had been missing from his suit pockets, but he went there anyway, figuring he could break in—and not by bashing down the door. Rasheeda had been quick to peg him as a common back-alley beef. Rasheeda and her opinions! No, he’d never met a lock he couldn’t pick. Even the new Yale tumblers.

As it turned out, no need for picking: the door sat ajar. He pushed it open and stood on the threshold surveying the premises. He could afford better but had never liked to advertise his affluence. The important thing was it had a gas stove where he could cook to his heart’s content. Otherwise he spent little time here, so a bit of shabbiness was tolerable. But now . . .

His room had been ransacked.

His pipe lay on the floorboards with the tobacco trampled into the cracks.

The ginger jar his sister had given him: smashed. His teakettle lay overturned. Every hinge bent on his gas stove; the basin upended. Clothes plucked from the line, the drawers pulled from the dresser, the mattress cut up. Even his calendar was torn—well, that might have been torn before.

Liath gritted his teeth. Not enough that some goat dogger should stab him through the heart. But his home? They had to vandalize his home? Looking for . . .

What?

If only that last night alive were a bit clearer.

He righted a stool and sat on it. He leaned back, rested his boot across his knee, and closed his eyes, trying to remember. He’d been on his way to his sister’s for supper. That much was firm in his mind—but not a reason to have got him killed.

No . . . nothing came to him but bits of his past. He’d been ten on his arrival here in New York with his parents and his older sister, Moira. That had been 1846, during the great Irish diaspora at the height of the potato blight. Two years later folks discovered gold in California, so his father took off to make his fortune in the rush and was never heard from again.

As a teen Liath worked in a chophouse where he learned to cook, but he supplemented his income—he was pretty much sole support of his mother and sister—by running with the Dead Rabbits gang in the Five Points area, stealing, rum-running, and helping them put the squeeze on illegal gambling dens and faro games.

Eventually he developed his own smuggling enterprise. Liath chose the items with the highest duty and smuggled them in quantity. His policy was to split the difference with the merchant so they’d both make out. His business had been thriving because he gave everyone a fair shake. Why not? Plenty to go round.

Of course he, like everybody else, had to pay a tribute to the Whyos, the current rulers of the city streets, but that was just the cost of doing business. And he always paid, so he couldn’t see them doing him in.

Ah, well, nothing was coming. He opened his eyes and was about to stand up when he noticed that his right boot heel was just a tad off center. He pushed on it and it swiveled, revealing a hollow.

The diamonds!

He rechecked the hollow to be sure it was empty, then swung it back into place before leaping to his feet.

Yes! He remembered. On the night he died, he’d received his cut of a shipment of velvet, plus half a dozen uncut diamonds. He’d hidden the gems in his heel and sold off a goodly portion of the fabric. He’d been paid in gold coins.

The coins . . .

He raised his gaze to the ceiling. The rusted tin squares were still in place. Flaking and sagging, but in place. Even the loose one.

He dragged the stool over and positioned it under the loose tin. It folded back on concealed hinges he himself had crafted. The loose square revealed the small hole in the lathe and beyond that, the gap between his ceiling and his neighbor’s floorboards.

They were still there, round and sweet, stacked in the little cubby between all that board and lathe. At least he had some spending money.

But the diamonds . . . now he knew the motive for his murder. Who had known about the diamonds?

As he stuffed some of his clothes into a duffel bag, Liath came to a decision: no more slinking around. Time to come out in the open and rattle some cages.

RASHEEDA STOOD BETWEEN a recently disinterred middle-aged man and a scrofulous drunk Toby had acquired from downtown—both connected by the silver chain—and chanted the ancient Vedic verses. This fellow would make someone an excellent butler.

The book was not the original Vedic manuscript, but a transcription hand copied by her father. She missed him. A little. Well, not really.

He’d been an archaeologist who’d married a descendant of Siraj ud-Daulah, the last Nawab of Bengal. Rasheeda had been born in Bengal and grew up in a bilingual household. In 1857, at age nineteen, she and her parents had fled India because of the Sepoy rebellion. A year after their arrival in London, her father had been killed during a robbery. Oddly enough, the only thing taken was an ancient Sanskrit Vedic manuscript that had been in her mother’s family for many generations.

Stolen, but not completely lost: her father had transcribed a copy before his demise. Rasheeda had never been interested in the book before, but now she delved into it. She found a ritual for supposedly raising the dead. As a lark, with no hope of success but little else to occupy her time, she tried it out on animals and, to her shock, found that it worked.

Alastair was the first human she resurrected—sacrificing her other lover, Rupert, to bring him back. She’d kept the revenant around for a while, but he proved such a dullard that she rekilled him.

The experience had kindled a fire in her, however. To gain access to more of the recently dead, she learned the undertaking trade—even though a woman undertaker was unheard of—and perfected the resurrection process. In 1865, under a cloud of suspicion and ugly rumors connecting her to disappearances of wastrels from the Limehouse district, she took her share of the money her father had left—not a great amount by any stretch—and emigrated to the States.

Shortly after opening her mortuary in Harlem, she innovated the first crematorium in the United States. Although she offered the service to her clients, few opted for it. No matter. She had her own uses for it.

She wished Toby were around to assist today, but she had sent him off to help that shanty Irishman find his killer. Anything to speed the return of her sustaining oil.

LIATH AND TOBY stood in a doorway on Bleecker Street, just east of Lafayette. The sun had dropped below the rooftops and traffic was light. Across the street, on the corner of Bleecker and Shinbone Alley, stood the Stone Ox pub.

“All right,” he said, pointing, “that’s where me boyos gather of an evening. I’ll be going in and buying a few rounds for the house. None of that crew will be leaving while there’s free drink to be had unless—”

“Unless they know you should be dead.”

“Exactly.” He clapped Toby on the back. “You’re a smart lad, that’s why I asked your help.”

“I don’t work for you,” Toby said stiffly. “Miss Basemore told me to help.”

“Only because I asked for you. I don’t think she appreciates your abilities, Toby. I know you can handle this.”

Toby visibly swelled with pride. Liath had noted his frustration and reluctantly decided to play on it. Reluctant because he did owe the young man his renewed life, such as it was. And as for Rasheeda, she had threatened Liath if anything happened to him. Toby had plenty of faults, she’d said, but she had no time to train a new assistant.

“I’m sure I can,” Toby said. “But what exactly do you have in mind?”

Liath pointed again at the Stone Ox. “Only two ways in or out. Obviously the front entrance, but there’s also a delivery door in the alley there. This vantage offers a view of both. If you see anyone come out, follow them.”

“That’s all? Just follow?”

“Yes. He knows me, but he’ll not be knowing you. I’m sure you could easily apprehend him, but I have a feeling that more than one miscreant was involved in me untimely demise, and I want them all.”

“We could catch him and make him talk.”

“Shaky business, that. You’re never knowing whether you’re hearing the truth or just what the fellow thinks you want to hear. Better if I see it with me own eyes.”

“Right, then,” Toby said with a confident nod. “Simple enough.”

“He’ll probably be slipping out into the alley. If he comes this way, just get behind him and follow. If he heads deeper into the alley, don’t follow him there—you’ll give yourself away. Shinbone turns left and opens onto Lafayette, so head over to the corner and watch for him there.”

Toby nodded his understanding.

Liath squared his shoulders. “Here I go.”

He crossed the street, dodging a mix of horse-drawn carriages and steamers. When he stepped through the Ox’s swinging doors, he wanted to have maximum impact on the guilty party. To that end he’d made a point of wearing the suit he’d died in—cleaning away the dirt and bloodstains first, of course.

He burst into the room and raised his hands.

“Who’ll be wanting a drink on me?”

Pipes and cigars were puffing, drinks were sitting on the bar and the tables, spilled beer wet the sawdust on the floor. Every eye in that smoke-filled space turned toward him, and every face, the familiar and the not-so, broke into a smile.

No, not every face. Jesse Timbers, a smuggler he’d worked with on occasion, went white as a virgin’s wedding dress.

Liath’s vision blurred for an instant as he remembered Timbers’s face looming out of the dark that night, just as his life faded. But Timbers hadn’t attacked him. His assailant had been extremely powerful, and skinny Jesse Timbers was anything but.

Liath staggered a step, then someone grabbed his elbow.

“Whoa there, mate. Looks like you’re a bit buckled already,” said Sean Healy, one of Liath’s oldest friends in the city.

“I’ve had a few.”

“And you’re so pale,” Sean said.

“Been off me feed, but I’m okay now.”

Pretending not to notice Timbers, Liath bellied up to the bar and slapped a gold piece down. “Give these beggars one of whatever they want!”

As a cheer went up and all the mild porter drinkers suddenly switched to whiskey, Liath kept watch on Timbers from the corner of his eye. His pallor was shading toward green now. And instead of shouting out a drink order like the others, he was edging toward the side door.

What was driving him away? Fear? Guilt? The need to get word to someone about how the man they’d shivved and robbed and buried was alive and well and in the Stone Ox buying for the house?

All three, he hoped.

As his mates yelled “Sláinte!” and slapped him on the back and asked him where he’d been hiding the past week, Liath watched Timbers slip out into Shinbone Alley.

All right, then. He had to trust Toby to take it from here.

He sipped his whiskey and almost gagged. It tasted like shite. He looked around. His mates were downing theirs with gusto. What had happened to him? He had no appetite for food and never slept. Was he to be denied strong drink as well?

All he had an appetite for was human offal, and he wasn’t giving in to that again. He’d bought slices of calf’s liver and tried it both raw and cooked, but neither did the least to assuage his hunger. What sort of a thing had he become? He couldn’t see spending year after year with this foul craving.

He shook his head. Once he found his killer and evened the score, he’d find a way to die again—permanently.

He waited around, resisting the urge to be out on the street following Toby. Instead he increased his popularity by buying a second round. Too soon, Toby appeared at the swinging doors, his expression grim.

“The news isn’t good, I take it,” Liath said as he joined him on the sidewalk.

Toby shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I followed him up Lafayette but lost him in the street by Cooper Institute.”

“Aw, no.”

“Well, it was dark, and he simply disappeared into the crowd around there.”

Liath wanted to scream that no one simply disappears but resisted the outburst along with the urge to throttle the boy.

“Don’t worry,” he forced himself to say. “All is not lost. After seeing him, I’m surer than ever that more than one snake was involved. He’s run off to tell someone. Five’ll get you ten there’ll be a snake slithering back here to confirm the dead man sighting.”

So they retreated to another doorway farther east on Bleecker but on the same side as the Ox, where they couldn’t be seen from the tavern.

“You’re sure he’s involved?” Toby said.

Liath nodded. “It fits. Jesse Timbers is a fellow smuggler, mostly gin.”

“We have plenty of gin here. Why smuggle it?”

“He specializes in Old Tom gin, which you can get here but only after paying a forty percent duty. But here’s the thing: Timbers knows I smuggle gems among other things and knows about me boot heel. He didn’t stab me, of that I’m sure, but that expression on his face when he saw me says he knows who did—maybe even put them up to it for a share.”

They waited, and, sure enough, less than a quarter hour later who appeared but Jesse Timbers himself, accompanied by a hulking, thuggish fellow, a hardchaw if Liath had ever seen one. The streetlamp revealed a long scar down his right cheek. He might have been the one who wielded the knife, though Liath was not convinced.

“Keep watch,” he told Toby, pressing himself deeper into the doorway. “I don’t want them to see me.”

“They’re entering the Stone Ox,” Toby said. Half a minute later he added, “Now they’re back on the sidewalk, looking around.” After a few seconds his voice rose in pitch: “They’re coming this way!”

“Good,” Liath said, fitting his fingers into his brass knuckles. “The time for watching is over. Tell me when they’re almost here.”

Toby stared into space, looking like he might be drunk or just banjaxed. Liath heard footsteps and voices approaching.

“—swear I saw him, big as day,” Timbers was saying.

“You been down Chinktown, suckin’ on a pipe? He’s dead! We buried him.”

“Wasn’t just me. You heard the others. They saw him—”

Liath jumped out in front of them. Timbers was the closest so he swung at his face. “Here’s your proof, you traitorous guttersnipe!”

The git tried to turn away, but Liath caught the side of his head with a brass-bolstered fist and he went down like a dead man.

The scarred man was quick. An automatic knife appeared in his hand as if by magic. He was already slashing at Toby as the blade snicked open. Toby cried out as it gashed his flank and blood splashed from the wound. Scar whirled toward Liath, aiming a backhanded slash for his throat. Liath raised his arm to fend it off, saving his throat, but the blade pierced his arm through and through.

The man’s mouth dropped open as he recognized Liath.

“You!” he cried, releasing the knife handle and stumbling back. “It’s really you!”

He turned and ran and Liath would have given chase but for Toby, who was down on his knees, groaning with pain and clutching his bloody flank.

And then the matter of Liath’s pierced forearm. Why didn’t it hurt more?

Never mind that now. He turned to Toby. “We need to be getting you to a hospital.”

“No! Miss Basemore can fix me.”

“Well, then, what about Timbers? How do you think we’ll get both you and him all the way to Harlem?”

Toby was staring at Timbers. “I don’t think he’ll be much use to you in Harlem or anywhere else.”

Liath turned and saw the weasel’s blank staring eyes.

“But I hit him only once!”

“That was all it took, I guess.”

“Do I not know me own strength then?” Liath looked at his pierced arm. “And why aren’t I bleeding?”

Toby struggled to rise and Liath helped him to his feet.

“Revenants are terribly strong. And they don’t bleed.”

Liath grabbed the knife handle and pulled the blade free. He felt only mild discomfort, and not a drop of his blood had spilled.

“YOU PROMISED TO keep him safe!” Rasheeda said through her teeth as she stitched up Toby’s flank.

The young man lay on his side on the resurrection table while she worked on him. Scar’s knife had pierced the skin and underlying fatty layer—lots of bleeding but not deep enough to damage any organs.

“Well, he’s safe enough now, isn’t he?” Liath said.

“I’m fine,” said Toby. He winced as Rasheeda jabbed a curved sewing needle through the skin at the edge of his wound, but otherwise seemed to be enjoying his boss’s hands on him.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“He’s young,” Liath said. “Feed him a steak and he’ll be good as new in two shakes.” Liath raised his arm. “Meself, on the other hand . . .”

He’d rolled his shirtsleeve up to the elbow and was inspecting his own knife wound, such as it was. The edges had sealed over, leaving two opposing seams on the upper and lower surfaces of his forearm.

“I told you,” Toby said. “Revenants don’t bleed.”

“How can you bleed?” Rasheeda said. “You have no blood.”

“No blood . . .” Liath stared at his arm. “How is that possible?”

He’d refolded Scar’s automatic knife down on Bleecker Street. Now he removed it from his pocket, found the button on the fancy ivory handle, and pressed it. The blade snapped out, bright and fine-edged. He pressed the point against the belly of his forearm. It felt dull rather than sharp. He pressed harder until it pierced the skin, causing only mild discomfort. He dragged the point toward his elbow, opening a four-inch gash that revealed the layers of the skin and the yellow fat beneath, but not a drop of blood.

“Like cutting open a dead man.”

He looked up to find Toby and Rasheeda staring at him.

“Well?” she said.

“But I’m not dead. I walk, I talk. I may not be knowing a lot about science, but I know that blood powers the muscles and the brain. Cut a man’s throat and he bleeds to death. If I’ve no blood, what’s powering me muscles?”

Rasheeda frowned. “That has long puzzled me. The ancient Veda never explained it. It calls revenants khokhala and—”

“What’s that mean?”

She concentrated on knotting the thread of her latest stitch. “Hollow.”

Liath looked at his bloodless wound, already healing. “Well, I guess I’m that. Hollow of blood anyways. What else am I hollow of now? A soul, perhaps?”

She looked up at him. “Some philosophers say there’s no such thing as a soul.”

“They’ll be heathens, then.”

“Irrelevant. Lots of ‘heathens,’ as you say, believe in souls. I was raised a Hindu, and Hindus believe in souls.”

“You say that like you no longer believe.”

She shrugged. “When you’ve resurrected as many of the dead as I have, it gives you cause to wonder. Consider: If your soul truly traveled on after your murder, then how can you be alive again and still be you?”

“Who else would I be?”

“I don’t know. That German sailor’s life force went into you—why aren’t you speaking German and yearning for the sea?”

“That so-called life force doesn’t pump blood through me veins.”

“That’s because your heart’s not beating.”

“What?”

He pressed his hand against his chest and felt nothing. He pressed harder—still nothing. He’d not noticed.

“Dear God!”

“You don’t need to breathe, either.”

“But I do.” He drew in a breath and let it out. “See?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I said you don’t need to—except to talk, that is.”

Liath felt as if the world were pulling away from him.

Her earlier words came back.

. . . if your soul truly traveled on after your murder. . .

“I’ve been robbed of me soul!”

Toby grimaced as Rasheeda again jabbed the needle through his skin.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said. “Even if you had a soul, I didn’t send it on. Your murderer did.”

Hollow . . . no blood, no heartbeat, no breath, no soul, and a hunger for human offal . . . he’d become an unholy thing.

“You’ve robbed me of an afterlife then! I’ll never get to heaven!”

She made a clucking noise. “Assuming there’s such a thing as a soul, and assuming there’s such a place as heaven, did you really believe yours would be welcomed there?”

Liath opened his mouth, then closed it. Good point, but that still didn’t lessen the feeling that he’d lost something of infinite value.

“What in God’s name am I then?”

“A khokhala.”

“Just a word! What allows me to move, to think?”

“The Veda says a khokhala is animated by Ajñata.”

“Another heathen word! And what, pray tell, would that mean?”

She shrugged. “It translates to English as ‘Nameless,’ which I suppose is a way of saying they don’t know.”

“Well, something is powering me muscles and me brain—such as it is.”

“My theory is that it comes from the aether—Aristotle’s fifth element.”

“Well, if you’re calling it ‘aether’ it’s not exactly nameless now, is it.”

“Well, no . . .”

For the first time since he’d met her she looked unsure. Liath found he preferred her usual supreme confidence.

He waved the knife at her. “See, aether or not, something is fueling all your cocoa-holidays—”

“Khokhalas,” she said.

“Whatever the name, something is powering us all, and that means you’re running up a terrible bill.”

She laughed. “It’s not like electricity!”

“How do you know?” he said, feeling uneasy. “We’re tapped into something. Call it aether or fifth element or ‘nameless’—”

“Ajñata.”

“—or whatever you like, but someday the bill is going to come due. What then? What will the price be? And who will be paying? You? Me?”

She shook her head. “You’re being silly.”

“Nothing is free, luv. There’s always a balance to be struck. It’s a rule of the world—of the whole universe. Sure as the sun rises tomorrow, that bill’s gonna come due someday, and I’m fearing there’ll be hell to pay when it does.”

3. Under a New Moon

Rasheeda had been under the impression she’d be meeting with a bereaved widow wishing to arrange a funeral for her husband. With a shock, she recognized the woman as soon as she entered the room, and knew she wasn’t married.

“Madame Louisa?” she said, rising behind her desk. “I don’t understand.”

Louisa’s smile had a smug twist. “Don’t fuss at your assistant. I played the grieving new widow for him.” She faked a sob as she dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “And rather convincingly, if I do say so myself.”

Rasheeda hadn’t grown up in the States, so she wasn’t familiar enough with American dialects to know if Louisa’s drawl was real or affected. The lady was dressed fashionably in a long-sleeved, form-fitting dress with a square neckline and a cuirass bodice. One never would have guessed that she ran a high-end bordello.

“And now I understand even less.”

Louisa laughed. “Y’all have some wine perhaps?”

“I keep a bottle of brandy in my desk for some of my more fainthearted clients.”

“That’ll do, I suppose. Pour us both a taste. You may very well need it before I’m through.”

Rasheeda did not like the sound of that.

“Whatever do you mean?” she said as she withdrew two snifters and a bottle of Armagnac from her bottom right drawer.

Louisa lowered herself into one of the chairs on the far side of the desk.

“The subject is the servant I hired from you.”

“Katrina?”

“Well, yes and no.”

Rasheeda poured two fingers into Louisa’s glass and only a dollop into her own. “Again, I do not understand.”

“Of course you do, Miss Basemore. You’re just being coy. Yes, I mean the servant I’m hiring from you, and no, her name ain’t Katrina. It’s Leni Schmidt. She’s the daughter of Otto and Margaretha Schmidt who emigrated from Germany in 1847. Or perhaps I should say, the deceased daughter of Otto and Margaretha Schmidt.”

Rasheeda hid her shock. She’d feared this day might come. She added another two fingers of brandy to her own glass.

“Wherever did you acquire such an outlandish idea?” she said, pushing a snifter across the desk.

Louisa reprised her smug smile as she swirled the brandy under her nose. “Smells like the good stuff.” She tossed it back in one gulp.

Rasheeda sipped. She didn’t enjoy brandy—didn’t like the burn—but she felt she needed the alcohol right now.

“VSOP. But you were about to explain . . . ?”

“Oh, yes. Well, just last week I was researching one of the newer, more affluent patrons of my establishment—I like to make sure they are who they say they are. I keep a file of Leslie’s because that seems to be the best source.”

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper . . . more like a magazine, a new copy appeared every Tuesday, and Rasheeda read it herself. It more than lived up to the Illustrated part of its name.

Vetting her patron? Rasheeda wondered. Or setting him up for blackmail?

“While I was perusing a back issue, I lay that you’d never guess what I found.”

“I’m simply dying to know.” Quite the contrary, she was dreading to know.

“A tragic story about the poor daughter of German immigrants, born soon after their arrival, who was caught in a cross fire between the police and some robbers outside a Harlem bank. A stray bullet pierced the heart of Leni Schmidt, killing her on the spot. Leslie’s printed a picture of the poor girl. Imagine my shock when I recognized my dear Katrina. And then my further shock when I read that the wake was to be held at the Basemore Funeral Home.”

Rasheeda tossed back her own brandy and, coughing from the burn, began to pour a second.

Louisa laughed softly. “I knew you’d need that.” She held out her glass. “Don’t forget the guest.”

When they each had another two fingers’ worth, Rasheeda leaned back.

“They say every person has a double. You must have seen Katrina’s.”

“My thought exactly at the moment. Then I remembered the remark of a patron who bedded her.”

Rasheeda wasn’t surprised, but reacted as if she were. “Bedded? That is not part of her duties.”

She shrugged. “I dress her in that frilly little French maid outfit for show, but one of my wealthier regulars took a shine to her and offered a pretty penny for an hour alone. I ordered her to do whatever he told her. He returned shortly and was good and angry. He said he could probably expect more response from a corpse. I gave it no further thought. I did try to school her in the French style—you know what that means?”

Rasheeda nodded. “I’m familiar with the term.”

“Well, that failed too. She had no, shall we say, head for it. Some women are simply not cut out for the life. But I remembered that patron’s ‘corpse’ remark as I gazed at Leni’s photo, and I began to wonder.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Louisa stared at her. “Must we continue this charade, Miss Basemore? Katrina, as you call her, doesn’t talk, never sleeps, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t eat—if she’s served a meal she simply pushes the food around on her plate. And now that I’ve been watching her, she doesn’t even breathe. Plus, she has a small round indentation on her left tit, just the size a bullet might make as it pierced through to her heart.”

Rasheeda quaffed half of her second brandy, then stared straight back. “What is your point?”

“My point is: when you brought her to me you said she was mute and mentally defective but could follow instructions. You didn’t tell me she was dead.”

What to say? What to say?

“She is obviously not dead if she—”

“She was killed, she was buried in your cemetery, and shortly thereafter you hired her out.” Louisa fixed her with a narrowed gaze. “Somehow, some way, Miss Basemore, you brought her back to life.”

“Madame Louisa, really—”

Louisa waved a hand. “Rest easy. I ain’t here to report you to the authorities or blackmail you. We’re both women in business, and as such we must stick together. I’ve come with a proposition: I could use young, attractive women who are like Katrina in all ways except, well . . . they should be able to put Nebuchadnezzar out to grass.”

Rasheeda gaped at her, perfectly confused.

Louisa rolled her eyes. “Come on, now, sugar. You know what I mean. They should be sexually responsive—or at least be able to fake it.”

Rasheeda drummed her fingers on the desk. She could see no way to win this showdown. Louisa had deduced all the important aspects of her resurrections except the how. The how was beyond ratiocination. But the more important how right now was how to play this shrewd woman . . .

She leaned back and steepled her fingers.

“Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that your accusations—”

“I don’t feel I’ve been the least bit accusatory. I prefer to think of them as deductions.”

“Very well. Let us assume that your deductions are accurate. You must then appreciate that I simply could not supply hirelings to order. I do not choose my clients. The dead must be brought to me, and I must work with what comes through my back door.”

“I’ve thought of that. But nubile women who have, shall we say, suffered sudden death without disfigurement could be brought to you.”

Rasheeda nodded. On the surface the plan had its merits, but Louisa was lacking some critical facts.

“Again, just for the sake of argument, let us stipulate that the timing of these supposed resurrections is critical. Too late and they are barely animate. Too early and they retain a mind of their own and can be quite willful.” As Rasheeda knew all too well these days. “But if reanimated somewhere in the middle, they are docile and obedient without any original thoughts in their heads—like Katrina.”

Louisa sighed. “The wonderful thing about Katrina is indeed her lack of will. I don’t have to worry about her running off or pilfering the silver or stealing the receipts.”

“Renascence Staffing personnel are all like that. But I fear one capable of the faux enthusiasm you desire would be lacking in the traits you find so attractive in Katrina.”

“Still . . . I would not be adverse to a trial.”

Rasheeda saw disaster looming but did not want to antagonize this woman. She knew too much.

“Continuing in the realm of supposition, perhaps there is a way the process can be modified to meet your needs.”

Louisa’s smile was genuine this time. “That’d be wonderful. My current crop of girls’re so unreliable, so unprofessional. They tend to drink too much, and some are opium eaters. A few have tried to rob my patrons.” She shook her head sadly. “Good help is so hard to find.” She brightened after finishing her brandy. “But I’m trusting you will solve that for me.”

Rasheeda showed her to the door and wished her well, while secretly hoping she’d fall out of the pneumatic on her way back downtown.

But after closing the door, she realized that none of this would matter if that Irish scoundrel didn’t return her sustaining oil in time. Madame Louisa would then see another side of Katrina. One she never dreamed existed.

Two weeks . . . two weeks from now and it would be too late.

4. Under a Gibbous Moon

The only way to recall was to relive that night and retrace his steps—at least the steps he remembered.

So Liath stood outside the door to his rooming house on Fletcher Alley and started walking toward his sister Moira’s place just as he had done that night some three weeks ago. She lived on the far side of the ramp to the half-finished Brooklyn Bridge, an easy trip.

He wore the same suit, he wore the same boots—although the hollow heel was empty this time—and across his shoulder, instead of fine velvet, he carried a bolt of cheap burlap. The velvet had been for her, as well as the tin of Canadian nutmeg in his pocket.

The main difference was the moon—it had been high and bright and full that night, shedding its pale light on the docked ships and reflecting off the bridge towers jutting from the East River. Tonight it gave only half the light.

He walked down the slope to Pearl Street and turned left, just as he’d done then. He continued north toward the ramp. The bridge builders had left space for Pearl Street to run beneath, but it was a dark place. Governor Westinghouse’s grand electrification project hadn’t reached the waterfront yet, and the underpass was a popular spot for low-end harlots to ply their trade. He remembered whistling, thinking of his sister’s kitchen and how she’d fill his bowl when she saw what he’d brought her. No public house in the city could measure up to the simple foods of Meath.

As he approached the dark rectangle, he stopped and re-created that night.

He remembered switching the bolt of velvet from his right shoulder to his left, and slipping his fingers through the four loops of his brass knuckles—just in case.

When he’d entered the shadows, he remembered noticing that the underpass was strangely deserted. No calls from the harlots to dally in the dark for a quick bit of the old in-and-out. He’d picked up his pace and had just reached the midpoint where he could see the glow of the gaslit street on the far side when he sensed movement in the darkness behind him. A shadow had separated from the wall and was approaching. He pivoted to his left, swung a hard right, and landed a solid brass-encased Dead Rabbit punch to his would-be assailant.

A heart punch! He’d forgotten. And he’d struck a solid blow.

He remembered an instant of astonishment that the blow had no effect. Not even a grunt of surprise. And then astonishment turned to horror as the knife point drove through his suit and between his ribs and into his chest. He remembered the excruciating pain of it piercing his heart, and even worse agony as it was yanked out. And then a ghastly sense of drowning as he dropped to his knees. He remembered falling over backward and landing hard against the cobblestones. As his vision faded he saw a wash of light and heard the hiss of a steamer pulling up. A quick glimpse of Jesse Timber’s face and then all went black.

Liath stood now and stared into the darkness. The heart punch . . . who could withstand a blow like that? Not as if his attacker had been wearing armor. He’d heard no clank of metal on metal. His fist had landed on flesh . . . soft flesh . . .

“Oh, dear God,” he shouted to the night. “Oh, dear God!”

RASHEEDA NEARLY DROPPED her flask as Liath clambered up the ladder into the top floor of the tower. She’d been adding the half-moon ingredients to her next batch of anointing oil—a batch that wouldn’t be ready for another five weeks.

“ ’Twas a woman done me in!”

She stared at him from behind her mixing table. His eyes were wide as he stood in the doorway, panting.

“What? How do you know?”

“I remember!”

“What did she look like?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then how—?”

He held up a brass-knuckled fist. “When I struck with me heart punch, I remember me fist hitting something soft and just realized I’d struck a bap.”

“A what?”

“A bap! A diddy! A knob!”

“What?”

“Goddamn it, woman! A breast!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” she said, gently placing the glass flask on the table.

“I just did—numerous times.”

Rasheeda recalled the man who had accosted them on their first outing together and remembered how he had dropped after Liath struck him that single blow.

“She must have been a very heavy woman, then, with quite ample padding.”

“That’s just it. She wasn’t. I could feel me fist hit her ribs through her bap. But she didn’t even flinch!”

As he paced the tiny room, which allowed no more than two steps this way and two steps that, an idea niggled the back of Rasheeda’s brain.

“What else do you remember?”

“I remember that as I lay on me back, gasping for air, a vehicle pulled up. Great puffs of steam and doors slamming, and I had a brief glimpse of that blackguard Jesse Timbers’s face before I passed on.”

“This Timbers is the one you killed down on Bleecker Street?”

“The same.”

“When was the last time you’d seen him before that?”

“At the Stone Ox.” Liath’s eyes narrowed. “I told the weasel-faced maggot I was going to visit me sister and take her some fine velvet. The sleeveen gave me a seed of nutmeg from a shipment he’d smuggled in from Canada as a gift to her. I was thinking what a fine fellow he was, never having met Moira and all.”

“Did he ask where she lived?”

Liath frowned. “Come to think of it now, he did. I wasn’t after giving him her exact address, but I said she was on the north side of the ramp they’d built for the bridge.”

“The Brooklyn Bridge?”

“Well, what other bridge would I be talking about?”

Rasheeda drummed her fingers on the mixing table as the pieces fell into place.

“I’ll assume he knew where you lived and knew you had gems in your boot heel.”

Liath’s expression grew sheepish. “It’s possible I may have been in me cups one night and mentioned something to that effect.”

“Well then, he would know the path you would take from your place to your sister’s and have his confederates waiting.”

“But that means he would have sent a woman to accost me—a strong woman who feels . . . no . . . pain . . .”

She nodded as the light grew in his eyes. “You were attacked by a revenant. Which means that one of my customers is behind your murder.”

He slammed his fist on her mixing table and would have upset her flask if she hadn’t grabbed it in time. “Who?”

“I have a list right here.” She leaned to her left and plucked her black ledger from a shelf. “Names and addresses.”

She allowed Liath to snatch it from her fingers and leaf through it. After a few pages, he glanced up at her.

“You’re making a nice living from this, aren’t you.”

“I manage. I don’t plan to be in it forever.”

He resumed flipping through the pages. “I don’t recognize—wait!” He jabbed a finger at a page. “Madame Louisa! She’s a weakness for fine fabrics. She’s a regular customer for me imports.” His features darkened. “She has a woman revenant?”

Rasheeda nodded. “Katrina.”

He snapped the book closed. “Then she’s the one.”

Rasheeda pulled her ledger from his hands. “I agree. Now where is my sustaining oil?”

“Not so fast. I’ll be needing to confirm it’s her. Once we accomplish that, you’ll have your oil.”

“Damn you!” she cried. “The moon will be full soon. If I don’t start anointing on time—”

“If Madame Louisa is the one, you’ll have your precious oil in plenty of time.”

She could feel her patience slipping away. “What will satisfy you?”

“I want to set up watch on her brothel. After Jesse Timbers ran from the Stone Ox, he returned with a man with a scarred face.”

“The one who stabbed Toby.”

“The same. If I see him lurking about her premises, that will be proof enough.”

“Then let’s get to it quickly. You’ll need that dress you were wearing.”

“Oh, no. I’ll not be donning that again.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re just going to walk in the front door of her seraglio and inquire after a man with a scarred face?”

“No, but—”

“She knows you’re alive. This scarred man you talk about will have told her. If she’s guilty—and I’ve no doubt she is—she’ll be watching for you. She killed you once, so she’ll have no hesitation about doing it again.”

“I can die again?”

“It takes some doing, but a revenant can be killed for good.”

For some odd reason he looked relieved.

“All right then. The dress it is. I’ll go down there tomorrow—”

“No. We will go down there tomorrow. Two, um, ladies will be less conspicuous. Besides, I don’t dare let you out of my sight. I don’t want anything happening to you before you return what’s mine.”

“All right then, ‘we’ it is. And if all goes well, you’ll have your heathen oil back before nightfall.”

“At what price?”

“I’ll already have me price: the name of me murderer.”

So he said now. But she’d seen the way he’d been eyeing the tallies in her ledger. He’d want a healthy sum of cash before handing over her missing carafe. She ground her teeth in frustration. He had her over a barrel, and she’d have to pay whatever he demanded.

But after that . . . she thought of her derringer. A .41-caliber bullet through his scheming revenant Irish brain would be sweet revenge. And then into the crematorium with him.

Good-bye and good riddance.

RASHEEDA WAS KNOWN at Madame Louisa’s, so she wore a veil as well this time. They strolled East Twenty-Seventh Street among the midday pedestrians, feigning animated conversation. Governor Westinghouse’s electrification program was in full bloom here.

“As much as I can’t wait for electricity to reach Harlem,” Rasheeda said, pointing to the utility poles, “I think they’re ugly.”

And they were. Five stories tall with at least a dozen crosspieces, and wires, wires, wires, running over the sidewalk and angling back and forth in the air above the street.

Liath didn’t reply. This close, she could make out his features through the veil draped from his hat; his gaze was fixed on the brownstone that served as Madame Louisa’s seraglio.

They slowed as they passed the building. The space to the right of the front steps displayed ferrotypes of the ladies available within.

“Rather fine-looking brassers,” Liath muttered.

“She brags that she runs a ‘quality establishment.’ ”

With no sign of activity, they walked on to the corner and turned around.

Liath said, “With that arena over on Madison Avenue, her business must be booming. Why would she want to kill me?”

“I wouldn’t take it personally. Some women have a fatal weakness for diamonds.”

They crossed Twenty-Seventh Street at Lexington and walked back on the other side. As they came abreast of the seraglio, a steam car pulled to a stop outside. Liath grabbed her arm and they stopped to watch. His grip tightened as a man with a long scar down his right cheek stepped out from behind the wheel and opened the rear door.

Then the lady herself emerged, resplendent in a dress of two-toned velvet, golden at first glance but indigo in the lowlights as the fabric moved. Liath’s hand became a vise.

“You’re hurting me,” Rasheeda whispered.

His grip relaxed, but his voice was tight and cold. “That’s the man who stabbed Toby. And the bitch Louisa is wearing the fabric I was carrying to me sister.”

He started toward the curb, but Rasheeda pulled him back.

“Don’t be a fool. She has a cadre of bouncers inside. A headlong rush will end in disaster. You need to plan your next move.”

He nodded. “You’re right. Must stay calm. Must approach this with a cool head.”

Must stay alive, Rasheeda thought. At least until I have my oil back.

RASHEEDA WAS SEATED in her office when Liath, still in the dress, entered without knocking. He placed a dirt-encrusted carafe on her desk.

“There. We’re even.”

She snatched it up, pulled the stopper, and sniffed. She closed her eyes and sighed at the familiar aroma.

Wait . . . what had he just said?

“ ‘Even’?”

“You held up your end, I’m holding up mine.”

“But . . . aren’t you going to demand cash too?”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“I know, but I assumed—”

“What? That I’d welsh?

“Well, yes.”

He smiled. “I’m a character from a penny dreadful, remember? I keep me word.”

Shock left her almost speechless. “But—”

“I believe we’ve already had this conversation.” He stepped to the door, then turned back to her. “I’ll be keeping the dress for a while, if you don’t mind.”

“Consider it yours. But tell me . . .” She pointed to the carafe. “Where did you hide it?”

He smiled again. “I buried it in your graveyard.”

He gave her a little salute, then turned and closed the door behind him.

Still in shock, Rasheeda leaned back and stared at her carafe. What a strange, strange man.

5. Under a Hunter’s Moon

Liath wished he had paid more attention to the brothel itself while they were surveilling Louisa. He’d spent days in this damn dress and bonnet watching the comings and goings and assessing the physical layout of the building. He had spied Louisa numerous times on a top-floor corner room overlooking the street. Unfortunately, the basement windows were barred and the first-floor windows were set high; unless he brought a ladder, the two doors—one front and one rear—were the only points of entry.

On the third day, he decided to make his move. He’d noticed during his two days on watch that Louisa’s four bouncers left as a group around noon and returned before two o’clock when the brothel opened its doors to the public. Today was no different. They exited the rear door—the “discreet entrance”—and disappeared down the alley that ran to East Twenty-Sixth.

Now was his chance. Despite his increased strength and diminished sensitivity to pain, Liath held no illusions about his ability to overcome those four burly thugs. So the best time to confront Louisa and retrieve his diamonds was when she was alone.

He dearly would have loved a peek indoors before entering, just to see if he might spot her whereabouts, but the high windows prevented that.

Raising the hem of his dress, he padded up the rear steps, his picks at the ready. But to his delight he found the discreet entrance unlocked. Were he in charge, he would have kept it bolted during the establishment’s off-hours; perhaps it was supposed to be locked, but obviously the bouncers had forgotten to do so.

He eased the door open and tiptoed through the back hall that led to some sort of sitting room. And there, reclining on a settee, he found the madam herself. Did his good fortune know no bounds?

He glanced around and saw a table for cards and perhaps meals. A pool table sat nearby, and a dartboard was fixed to the far wall. He wondered at a long rope running through a pulley fastened in the center of the ceiling, then through another near the wall, then down to a boat cleat bolted into the chair rail. Part of some strange deviant sexual contrivance, no doubt.

Pulling off his bonnet as he entered the room, he strode toward her and said, “Surprised, Louisa?”

Instead of the expected cry of shock and alarm, Louisa looked up and gave a serene smile.

“Well, well, well. Mister O’Shea. I was afraid you’d never gather the courage to come inside.”

Liath skidded to a halt. “What?”

She seemed to have been expecting him.

She laughed. “I do so love your expression just now.” Her features hardened. “Do you really take me for such a fool?”

Why wasn’t she afraid?

“And what would you be meaning by that?”

“I’ve been aware for some time now that you’d been brought back to life. I know who did it, though I don’t know why and I don’t know how.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I will learn.”

“Why did you set upon me?”

She ran a hand over her velvet dress. “I love this fabric. I wore it just for you.”

They both knew she hadn’t done him in for the fabric. Well, never mind all this. He’d lost the element of surprise, but he still had the upper hand. He stepped closer.

“Where are me diamonds?”

She laughed. “My dear man, they’re far out of reach, where no man shall go.”

Another step. She seemed to be goading him. Did she have a pistol hidden close by? Was that why she was so calm? Not that it would do her any good. He was already dead.

“Hand them over or you’ll end up like Jesse Timbers.”

She smiled. “Ah, yes, Jesse. He became a little talky trying to impress one of my girls. She mentioned it to me, and soon Jesse and I had a plan.”

He gave her a hard stare. “You know damn well—”

A sudden commotion behind him. He turned to face four men charging from the rear hallway. The bouncers had returned, each brandishing a truncheon. They hadn’t gone to lunch—they’d been hiding around the corner, waiting for him to make his move.

After an instant of shock and chagrin at how he had waltzed into Louisa’s trap, Liath instinctively stepped back into a boxing stance. As the first thug came at him, he ducked the truncheon swing and sent him tumbling back into his mates with a roundhouse right to the jaw. His brass knuckles were in the bodice of his dress, but before he could reach them the bouncers were upon him.

Truncheon blows from all sides rained upon his head and neck, driving him to his knees. As his vision blurred, he heard Louisa’s voice echo from increasingly far away.

“You didn’t think that dress fooled me, did you? All the while you’ve been watching me, I’ve been watching you!”

Her laughter faded into the enveloping darkness.

LIATH OPENED HIS eyes. His vision swam for a few seconds, then cleared. He tried to move his arms, but his hands were bound behind him. He kicked his legs, but they met no resistance. After a moment of confusion, he realized he was hanging in midair. And something was constricting his throat.

“He’s alive!” cried a voice from somewhere below him. “Good God, the bloody bastard’s still alive!”

He looked down and saw Louisa and her four bully boys staring up at him from the floor of her sitting room. The men looked awestruck, Louisa merely amused. Her blond revenant servant, Katrina, dressed in a short French maid costume, stood to the side and stared into space. Katrina had killed him, but he bore her no malice. She was little more than fleshy clockwork. Liath reserved his wrath for the ones who had plotted his death.

“I warned you it wouldn’t kill him,” Louisa said. “Now aren’t you glad you tied his hands as I told you?” She looked up at him. “I closed my business tonight in honor of your capture. We’ll devote the evening to trying to find a way to make you stay dead.”

Liath wouldn’t mind that terribly—as long as they went first.

“Well, if we can’t kill him,” said the one he knew, the one with the scarred cheek, “what do we do with him?”

One with long blond hair said, “I know!”

He hurried over to the far wall, plucked all the darts from the dartboard, and returned with them.

“First one hits him in the cock wins,” he said, handing two to each of his fellows.

Liath realized with a start then that he was as naked as the day he was born.

“Not much of a target,” cried the bearded one, and they all laughed.

Liath would have argued to the contrary but saw no point. He tried to wriggle out of the noose around his neck, but it had been pulled too tight. His wrists were behind him, locked into steel manacles. Here was the use for that rope and pulley: to hang him. His head was brushing the ceiling while the floor waited nine or ten feet below his soles.

“Wins what?” said one with a squinty eye.

“Yeah! We need a bet here!”

“Buck apiece then!” cried Blond.

They all cheered and dropped their coins onto the card table. Then they began tossing their darts. The pain was minimal, even when one of them scored a bull’s-eye on his manhood. But the humiliation was almost more than he could bear.

LIATH DIDN’T KNOW how long he hung there, first as the human dartboard, then as a target for billiard balls. The bouncers would fling them as hard as they could; Katrina would retrieve them from wherever they landed and hand them back. Sunlight had faded from the windows, replaced by the pale glow of the full moon.

Full moon!

He stared down at Katrina. He knew she hadn’t been anointed this cycle because he’d been watching the brothel and Rasheeda had not made an appearance.

“Louisa,” he called, and noticed that his voice sounded harsh and, well, strangled. “Let me be asking you: Has your maid been anointed this month?”

She looked up at him and frowned. “What do you know of that?”

“We are both revenants.” Figuring he might as well keep up the fiction Rasheeda had promulgated, he added, “If Miss Basemore doesn’t arrive soon with her magic oil, we’ll both be going limp as rag dolls.”

Though she said nothing, concern darkened Louisa’s features.

He added, “And then, what fun will I be?”

He prayed Rasheeda wouldn’t show. Tonight was the third night of the full moon. When it set, the unanointed Katrina would go mad, killing everyone in sight. And Liath would witness the deaths of those who successfully carried out his murder while he remained hanging here, safely above her berserker rage.

Wait . . . what about himself? Would he too go mad? Well, why not? He was a revenant just like Katrina. But he would not be able to join in the carnage. His rage would be spent on kicking the air.

Just then the doorman stepped into the room.

“I know you said no visitors, madam, but a Miss Basemore insists on seeing you.”

Louisa’s grin of triumph was like a knife through Liath’s still heart.

“Let her in. Immediately!”

A moment later Rasheeda swept into the room. She paused for a heartbeat when she glanced up at Liath, then continued toward Louisa.

“You’re late. The moon has almost set.”

“But still in time,” Rasheeda said. “I had unforeseen complications.”

“Rasheeda, no!” Liath cried. “You mustn’t!”

Louisa’s mouth twisted. “You know each other, of course.”

“Of course.” She stared up at Liath and shook her head in dismay. “My assistant brought him back from the dead.”

Louisa seemed surprised. “So you admit it.”

Rasheeda shrugged. “You’ve already guessed. Why continue the charade?”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” she said with a wicked smile. “But why did you raise him after I buried him.”

“Need I remind you: in my cemetery.”

Louisa’s turn to shrug. “The grave had been dug, and where better to hide a body?”

“Indeed.”

“Don’t you dare think of laying claim to him.”

“Quite the contrary. He was resurrected without my knowledge and has been nothing but trouble since.” She pulled a small glass carafe from her purse. “He even stole my sustaining oil. He’s the reason I’m late.”

“Let’s get this done.” Louisa clapped her hands. “Katrina! Here!”

The maid dutifully approached and stopped before her. Rasheeda stepped close, and Liath watched her mumble the chant as she traced the proper designs on the revenant’s face and throat with the green oil.

“There.” She stepped back. “Good for another month.”

Louisa looked from Katrina to Liath. “Why so different? She is a mindless slave, and he still has a will of his own.”

“He’s one of the willful ones I warned you about—resurrected too soon after death.”

“Ah! You did say that makes a difference. This is fascinating. You must share all your secrets with me someday.”

“It is not to be taken lightly. Someone must die so that another may live again.”

Louisa’s eyes glittered. “I have no problem with that.” She looked up at Liath. “What about him? Will he go all boneless if not anointed?”

“Of course.”

“I have interesting plans for him. Will there be an extra charge to work your magic in him?”

Rasheeda smiled. “You’re a loyal client. This one is on the house.”

“Rasheeda, no!” Liath cried.

Louisa made a flourish with her hand. “Then by all means.”

As the bouncers lowered him to the floor, he pleaded with her. “Please don’t be doing this!”

He prayed that this was all a ruse to get them to place him in reach so that she could produce a knife and cut the rope. He watched her hand slip into her shoulder bag, but instead of emerging with gleaming steel, it held that foul green oil.

Her gaze was unwavering as she held up the carafe. “You almost ruined my business for good by stealing this, then you blackmailed me with it, you rotter! And you expect forgiveness? Mercy? From me? You should know better.”

Yes . . . yes, he should have known better than to expect help from her. A woman without loyalty or conscience—what else should he expect? She cared for only one person in this world: Rasheeda Basemore.

The bouncers pinned his legs and steadied his head as she traced the designs and spoke the words. Then they hauled him back up to the ceiling.

“Now that that’s done,” Louisa said, handing her an envelope, “tell me: How does one kill one of your revenants?”

“With great difficulty.” She pointed up at Liath. “As you have learned, hanging doesn’t work.”

“How about beheading?”

“That immobilizes the body, but the head lives on.”

Liath watched in horror as a slow smile stretched Louisa’s lips. “Now that could be interesting.”

“The only way to cause final death is by destroying the brain—either by piercing or by boiling it within the skull. Burning the whole creature works, of course.”

Creature . . . was that all he was?

Louisa leaned closer. “You must have had to dispose of a few revenants in your time. What is your preferred method?”

“I slip them into my crematorium. I’ll put it at your disposal if you—”

“No, no.” Louisa waved a hand in the air. “I need something more creative, something with more . . . flair.”

Liath couldn’t believe this conversation. “Couldn’t you be discussing this somewhere else?”

Scar bounced a billiard ball off his skull. “Shut yer trap! This is interestin’.”

“Why don’t you take a page from Nero?” Rasheeda said.

Louisa frowned. “I’ve heard that name. Is he from Five Points?”

Rasheeda laughed. “No, he was a Roman emperor who used to coat Christians with tar, impale them on pikes, and set them ablaze as torches to light his winter garden.”

Louisa stared up at Liath with an avid expression. “Oh, I like that. No, I love it!”

“Well, I must be off,” Rasheeda said. “More stops to make before the moon sets.”

“Of course. I’ll walk you out. We must get together for lunch sometime. It’s so rare that I meet a kindred soul such as you.”

Liath watched them go. Rasheeda . . . beyond all reason he’d somehow expected better of her. More the fool he.

LIATH LOST TRACK. He suffered further indignities as a target while enduring gleefully demented discussions between Louisa and her minions on how best to immolate him. The “Nero method”—as they came to call it—was the runaway favorite, but debate raged as to whether to make a torch of his entire body, or just his head.

Then he heard Beard say, “Katrina! Pick up the balls.”

Liath looked down and saw the maid standing statue still, arms akimbo.

“Hey, you dumb bitch!” Beard said, stepping close and leaning into her face. “Did you hear what I said? Pick up the fucking balls!”

She cocked her head and swiveled toward him in a herky-jerky way, staring.

“I told you to—”

The rest of whatever he was going to say died in a gurgling crunch as her right hand shot up, gripped his voice box, and ripped it free. Beard fell away, spraying blood as he clutched at his ruined throat.

The room fell silent for an instant as Liath, Louisa, and the three remaining bouncers stared in horrified shock. Then pandemonium broke loose when Katrina shoved the bloody flesh into her mouth and charged. The bouncers recoiled for a heartbeat, then waded in with enthusiastic whoops. They were experts in dealing with unruly male brothel clients and this was just a maid.

Liath watched the melee in wonder. Katrina should have been bowled over by the men, but she fought like a wildcat. Her deadpan expression never changed, but within seconds Scar had a gouged eye hanging from its socket and Blond’s right ear had been torn off. Squint swung a billiard cue and broke it across her back. She barely noticed. Instead she snatched the remainder from his grasp and rammed the sharp, broken end deep into his chest.

The lady of the house must not have liked the way this was going for she was squeezing past on her way to the door. Katrina grabbed a huge handful of her hair and yanked back. Louisa screamed as half her scalp ripped from her skull. Then Katrina lifted her and slammed her against Blond. As both toppled to the floor, Katrina leaped atop them and literally tore them open.

The cries of pain that filled the room drew the doorman. When he saw what was happening, he pulled a knife and buried it in Katrina’s back. Katrina’s eyes widened—she’d felt that. She spun and grabbed him by his head, then lifted him and shook him like a doll. Even from up near the ceiling, Liath could hear vertebrae shattering. The doorman’s eyes rolled back and she dropped him.

The room had quieted now except for Scar’s moans. He staggered about, cradling his dangling eye against his cheek. Katrina grabbed the other end of the broken cue from the floor and stabbed him through the throat.

As Scar gurgled and choked on his own blood, Katrina looked up at Liath. Was he next? No, she couldn’t reach him. And even if she could, she didn’t seem interested in a fellow revenant.

Scar finally collapsed in death, and then . . . silence. Well, not exactly. Katrina was kneeling beside Louisa’s partially eviscerated body chewing noisily on a bloody handful of her liver. As tempting as that looked, Liath couldn’t think about food now. Any hunger was washed away in the flood of questions rushing through his brain.

What had just happened here? Rasheeda had anointed both Katrina and him, yet Katrina had gone berserk and he hadn’t. It made no sense. But then, nothing in his life had made sense since the night Katrina drove that blade through his heart.

AFTER SATING HERSELF on Louisa’s liver and Blond’s pancreas and a variety of other offal, Katrina lowered herself onto a chair near the wall and closed her eyes. Moments later she toppled to the floor like a sack of rice.

Now what? Liath thought as dawn began to pink the windows. Do I hang here until the harlots show up for work?

He heard the front door open.

Here comes one now.

But no. A harlot of another sort appeared.

Rasheeda stepped into the room and surveyed the carnage.

“Well,” she said, smiling and nodding with satisfaction. “That worked out rather well, didn’t it.”

“ ‘Well’? ‘Well’?” He was shouting as best he could with a rope around his neck. “You call this ‘well’?”

She looked up at him. “Better than well, I should say. Rather perfect, actually.”

It struck him then.

“You planned this?”

“Of course. Louisa had guessed what I’ve been up to. Not that she was threatening to expose me. Quite the contrary. As you heard tonight, she wanted to learn how to do resurrections. Can you believe it? She wanted me to teach her so she could become a competitor. Not likely.”

“But you anointed the maid and still she—”

“I anointed her with this,” she said, pulling the carafe from her bag.

“Exactly—”

She unstoppered it and poured the contents onto the floor. “Colored olive oil.”

Liath closed his eyes and fought a smile. An utterly devious, utterly ruthless, and ultimately amoral woman. And yet . . . somehow wonderful.

She removed another identical carafe from her bag and anointed Katrina. “She’ll be able to walk in a few minutes. I—oh, my.” She reached around and removed the doorman’s knife from the maid’s back. “How inconvenient for sitting.”

“But what about me?” Liath said.

She looked up at him again. “Yes . . . what about you? You weren’t supposed to be here. I had planned on dealing with only Madame Louisa and her thugs, but you managed to complicate matters by getting yourself captured and strung up like a side of beef. I had to alter my plans.”

“I meant, why didn’t I go berserk?”

“Because I used the genuine sustaining oil on you.”

“Why?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure. You look terribly undignified up there, by the way.”

Still holding the knife, she walked over to where the rope was cleated to the wall and placed the blade against the cord.

“Ready?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“More than ready.”

She began sawing through the heavy coils. Soon enough they frayed and then parted. With a thump, Liath dropped to the floor and flopped back onto his derriere.

“Now find some clothes,” she said as he struggled to stand. “And do remove those darts from your arse. They’re . . . unbecoming.”

“I’d be delighted to,” he said, rattling his manacled wrists behind him. “But there’s the small matter of these.”

Sighing with annoyance, she said, “Must I do everything?” She waved toward the bloody, ruined corpses. “You search their pockets. They’re quite messy and I don’t want to stain my dress.”

Liath did the best he could with his hands behind his back but fortunately Rasheeda found a key chain in Louisa’s purse. Once his hands were free, he appropriated the doorman’s clean coat and pants.

Rasheeda began leading a docile Katrina toward the discreet entrance. “We’d better leave before someone shows up.”

“Do you have a car?”

“Toby is waiting with the hearse by the alley.”

“Good old Toby. You go ahead. I’ll be along.”

“What are you up to?”

“Like last time, we’ll be needing to make it look like a robbery gone terribly wrong, plus I want to clean up any evidence that might be linking us to this carnage.”

A frown. “Evidence? What—?”

“Me dress, for one.”

Me dress . . . never in his strangest dreams had he imagined that phrase passing his lips.

“And most important, I want to find me diamonds.”

“Very well, but be quick about it.”

“I’ll be but a minute.”

As soon as she and the revenant had disappeared around the corner, Liath hurried over to Louisa’s eviscerated corpse and grabbed a handful of what Katrina had left of the liver.

God forgive me, he thought as he shoved it into his mouth, but this is delicious.

Still chewing, he hurried up to the top floor to the front room where he’d seen Louisa. He rummaged through her drawers until he found a lockbox, then fumbled through the key ring till he found one that would open it.

It held some nice bracelets and two diamond necklaces, which he pocketed. Also a stack of shares in something called Standard Oil. He shrugged and pocketed those too. Who knew? Might be worth something someday. But nowhere could he find his diamonds.

. . . out of reach, where no man shall go. . .

A strange thing to say. For all he knew that meant they were somewhere off the premises. Yes, most likely.

Returning to the first-floor abattoir, he found his dress balled in a corner. Before leaving he used it to wrap another piece of Louisa’s liver—for later—then hurried out to the waiting hearse. Rasheeda sat on the far side, the bloodied Katrina in the middle. Liath slipped in beside the maid.

“That was a long minute,” Rasheeda said as Toby got them moving.

“I couldn’t find me diamonds. Louisa said they were hidden ‘out of reach, where no man shall go,’ but where in hell that might be I’ve no idea. Odd thing to be saying, don’t you think?”

Rasheeda frowned. “Very. ‘Where no man shall go . . .’ I can’t—” Her eyes lit. “Oh, my!”

She lifted Katrina’s short, blood-soaked skirt and spread her thighs.

“Aha!” she said. “Look!”

Liath turned to the window. “Really, Ra—”

“I’m quite serious. Look.”

So look he did. He saw the revenant’s smooth thighs and frilly knickers. What did she—? Wait . . . was that a leather string protruding from the knickers?

“What . . . ?”

“Pull on it. Go ahead—pull!”

Hesitantly, Liath grabbed hold of the strip and pulled. Out came a small leather pouch. He pulled it open and found his uncut stones safe within. Sighing with relief, he looked from the pouch to Katrina’s knickers, to Rasheeda.

“ ‘Where no man shall go . . .’?”

She dropped Katrina’s skirt. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, thanks for waiting,” he said, tucking the pouch away. “I was afraid you’d be leaving without me.”

She stared ahead, smiling crookedly. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that—not after all the trouble it took to save you.”

“Save me? You suggested coating me with tar and setting me ablaze to use as a lantern!”

She laughed. “Oh, that. I knew they’d never survive long enough.”

“Really . . . why did you come back?”

“For Katrina, of course.”

“Of course. As you said before, why let a perfectly good revenant go to waste?”

“Exactly.”

He leaned across the docile maid. “Are you sure that’s all?”

“Well, if you want to know the real truth . . .”

He leaned closer. “Yes?”

She pushed him away . . . gently. “I’ve decided it might prove useful to have a revenant with a penny-dreadful sense of honor indebted to me.”

Was that the reason—the real reason? With this woman, yes, it could be that and nothing more. But he sensed it might be only half the story.

Liath leaned back and crossed his arms.

Maybe he’d put off his final dying a wee bit. Just long enough to find out. No worry about running out of time. As long as she kept anointing him with that sustaining oil, he had all the time in the world.