Last Descendants

  Javier had thus far let Cudgel lead the charge through his memories, but he recognized the clothing Owen’s ancestor had been wearing. A part of Javier wanted to call out, but as with David back at the Hole-in-the-Wall, that carried the risk of desynchronization.

  Owen’s Assassin appeared to know exactly where he was going, and once he achieved the hotel roof, he skirted along its edge to a particular point, and then climbed over the ledge. He then descended, spiderlike, to a certain darkened window, and climbed through it.

  Cudgel wondered what it was the Assassin sought within the hotel. As the Grand Master had said, it had to be something of tremendous worth. It could be an object, or perhaps a piece of information. The first would be easy enough to extract, but the latter would be more enjoyable. First, he’d anoint the bloke with his fists, and failing that, he’d acquaint him with his knives.

  But behind the line, Javier already knew what it was that Varius was after, or at least, what he hoped it was.

  The dagger. The Piece of Eden.

  That’s why Javier had been letting Cudgel run the show. As soon as they’d read the letter from the Grand Master, Javier had known this was what Monroe had sent the six of them into the Animus to find.

  Cudgel moved, and Javier retreated again as the Templar’s mind seized control and descended from the church’s tower. He crossed the darkened mouth of the churchyard, with its tombstone teeth, and crouched behind a tree to wait. He had a clear shot at the window, and he readied his rifle with a sleep dart. It was possible the fall could kill the Assassin, but it was a chance Cudgel was willing to take. He had a notion it was an object the Assassin was after, which could be recovered all the more easily from a corpse.

  A few stifling moments went by, with nary a wind through the tree branches overhead. A mosquito needled the back of Cudgel’s neck, behind his ear, but he never took his eyes from the window.

  When at last the Assassin’s long frock coat billowed outward from the shadows, Cudgel waited until the man seemed poised to climb back up to the roof, and then he fired. The air rifle popped, the dart hissed, but when it struck the coat, the fabric folded inward like a broken eggshell before whipping back into the hotel.

  Cudgel had fallen for a decoy.

  He cursed himself as he slung his rifle back over his shoulder, then scrambled up the tree and vaulted over the church’s fence into Vesey Street. He landed in a roll and raced up the hotel’s face to the window, but hung from the sill before entering. The Assassin was no doubt lying in wait for him.

  He let go one of his hands, dangling from the ledge by the other, and pulled a smoke grenade from his belt, which he tossed through the open window. It exploded with a muffled bang, and Cudgel heaved himself up and through the opening.

  He landed on thick carpet and dodged away from the window, out of the smoke cloud, but he knew instantly he was alone. Either the Assassin had already fled, or the smoke grenade had driven him from the room. Either way, Cudgel had to find him.

  He skulked forward, the only light that which the windows and cambric curtains admitted. The carpet was Turkish, the room well-appointed with armchairs and a table and a desk, but so far no clue as to who used it. There were two doorways, the one to his left standing open, and Cudgel went that way.

  He armed himself with two knives, one in each hand, both in plain sight to match the Assassin’s weapon of choice, the hidden blade. When he reached the doorway, he stopped to listen, and hearing nothing on the other side, not a breath or a heartbeat, he charged through, only to find another vacant but richly appointed room. Over the mantel of the fireplace hung an emblem, a military cross, with the words CITY OF MEXICO ARMY OF OCCUPATION printed on a circle at its center.

  These rooms belonged to the Aztec Club, which the Grand Master had once suspected of being linked to the Brotherhood. But then why would Varius break into the offices of his allies?

  Cudgel proceeded through the next doorway straight ahead, blades at the ready, and reached what appeared to be the suite’s marbled main entry. Another door stood open to the right, which led into a dining room, and from there Cudgel entered a library, all with no sign of the Assassin. The library’s second doorway led him back to the very first room, but he instantly realized its door had been closed when he’d first come through the window.

  The Assassin had circled him.

  Cudgel raced to the window, looked down into the empty street, and then looked up in time to see the Assassin’s coat flap over the ledge to the roof.

  He sheathed his knives and climbed out after him, then scaled the hotel wall. Up on the roof, Cudgel ducked and waited. No building stood close enough for a leap, which meant the Assassin was up there, somewhere, hiding among the labyrinth of chimneys and skylights.

  “I don’t know what’s stirring in that idea pot of yours!” Cudgel said, his voice echoing over the roof. “But you’re no match for me! My grandfather hunted down Assassins like you! He bested some of the greatest among you!”

  A moment of silence followed.

  He heard the sharp whistle of a blade flying toward him, and dropped to the ground just before it scalped him. The knife sailed off the roof, down into the street.

  “Your grandfather was an Assassin once,” came a reply. The voice seemed to be reaching toward Cudgel from somewhere off to the right. “He turned on the Brotherhood and the Creed he’d sworn to uphold! He was nothing but a coward and a traitor!”

  “Never a traitor to the truth! He never betrayed the Templar Order!” Cudgel readied his rifle with another sleep dart. “And he taught me how to kill vermin like you.”

  Cudgel knew the Assassin could make his voice seem as though it came from somewhere else, so he closed his eyes, stilled his breathing, and listened for other signs. When he heard the rustle of fabric to his left, he swiveled his rifle toward the sound, eyes still closed, guided by his ears and an inner sight. He fired.

  He opened his eyes when he heard a grunt, and then raced toward the ledge as the Assassin went over.

  Tommy walked up Broadway toward the brownstone where he’d been living since coming home from the war. The house, a newly built and fashionable building off Madison Park, belonged to his wealthy older brother and his wife. They had no children, and plenty of room, and they had generously allowed him to remain there even after the term of his convalescence. But he hoped he wouldn’t be pressing their indulgence for much longer. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy their presence. But they didn’t have any understanding of what Tommy had been through in the war. At times it seemed there wasn’t another soul in the entire city who understood. He felt alone, even in company with others. Especially in company with others, a familiar current of experience that Sean understood very well, even as he enjoyed the use of Tommy’s legs.

  He was still in his police uniform, having just got off his patrol, and his presence on the street seemed to be having a different than usual effect on the attitudes of his fellow pedestrians. They eyed him sidelong, and though they kept their distance, they were of a confident and hostile character.

  He saw Bowery Boys and Roach Guards, both well outside their territories downtown. They stalked up the street alongside one another, ignoring their sworn enemies with grim determination. They carried armloads of clubs and brickbats, axes and lengths of iron bar.

  Something was amiss.

  “Where you boys going with that?” Tommy asked a nearby bloke who had the Irish look of the Five Points about him.

  “I’ll answer ya tomorrow.” The man wore a smirk that was half-snarl. “That’s an oath.” And he walked on.

  Tommy could have detained the man until he achieved the truth, but it was late, he was off patrol and alone, and the streets were full of the man’s allies tonight. So Tommy kept on his own path toward home.

  His older brother had done well for himself in manufacturing, and while Tommy had gone off to war, his brother had made money selling the very equipment Tommy and his fellow Union soldiers used in the
field. Much of it had been useless on arrival; boots that fell apart in the rain, rations already spoiled in their tins. His brother had claimed ignorance of these defects, as well as a desire to make amends, and Tommy wanted to believe him sincere.

  He’d just reached Union Square and passed the high statue of George Washington astride his horse when he heard a woman’s scream, calling for help up ahead. Tommy unhooked his locust club from his belt and broke into a run, north through the park, and, deep within the current of that memory, Sean thrilled at the rush of it, the wind through his hair, the pounding of his boots on the gravel path.

  When Tommy reached the far side, he saw a carriage pulled over on Broadway. Two ruffians stood outside it, while another’s legs protruded from the open door. The driver sat by as if nothing was taking place, which meant he was clearly in on the robbery. Other pedestrians had cleared out.

  “Stop!” Tommy bellowed, brandishing his locust club. “Police!”

  “Sykes, we got a crusher!” one of the watchers said, and the two outside the carriage turned to face Tommy, one armed with a club of his own, the other with a meat cleaver.

  Tommy slowed to a walk some yards away, where he swung his locust club a few times through the air to loosen his arm.

  “Christ, he’s a giant, ain’t he?” the first said to the other. “But they fall the hardest.”

  “You think you can fell me?” Tommy said. “You’re welcome to try, boys. I’m with Broadway Squad.”

  Upon hearing that, the two balked visibly, shifting from foot to foot. The man within the carriage then withdrew from the vehicle and strode up between his two compatriots, his leaking nose clearly broken. A woman peered out from within the carriage behind them, her hair somewhat disheveled, but seeming otherwise unharmed. Even tossed about by the memory, Sean recognized Natalya’s singer ancestor.

  “I hear it takes at least five coves to bring down a pig from the Broadway Squad.” The leader slipped on a knuckleduster studded with nails. “I bet we can do it with three.”

  “I wouldn’t take that wager, boys,” Tommy said, spreading his stance.

  The three of them rushed him at once. Tommy ducked the cleaver, and the wide arc of his locust club caught the other two with the same swing, one in the arm, the other in the ribs. They fell back, and Tommy buried his fist in the mouth of the man with the cleaver, breaking teeth. That cove went down in a heap, while the other two came again.

  Tommy dodged the knuckleduster, but at the cost of a blow to his shoulder from the club, which only staggered him without doing serious damage. He rallied and returned with a fusillade from his own stick that cracked the man’s weapon in half and rendered his arm useless. Then Tommy turned as the other came in, and he smashed the hand wearing the knuckleduster. The nails the bloke had thought so deadly ended up mingled with the bones of his hand. Both men rolled on the ground, cradling their wounds and moaning.

  “Look out!” the woman cried.

  Tommy spun around just as the one with the ruined mouth was about to hurl the cleaver at him from the ground, but, before the weapon left his hand, the woman leapt from the carriage and bashed his head to the pavement with a very heavy-looking leather case. His body crumpled.

  The driver, no doubt stunned by the reversal of his fortunes, whipped his horses into a gallop, barreling away up Broadway.

  “What do you have inside that case?” Tommy asked.

  “Several pounds of gold,” she replied, breathing heavily. She was a beautiful woman, and more petite than Tommy would have thought after rendering a blow like that. “And fortunately, gold is heavy,” she said, smiling.

  “Truly?” he said. “What are you doing with several pounds of gold? At this time of night? Unaccompanied?”

  “Why?” she asked. “Are you about to suggest it was my fault I was attacked?”

  “Well, it seems that—”

  “It seems that if you are going to blame the victim for the crime, then you might also be a man who would blame this horrendous heat on the thermometer, which is a very curious civic position for a policeman to take.”

  Tommy opened his mouth, then closed it and fought the smile attempting to break through. “Perhaps you are right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” she said.

  “But I think we ought to carry this discussion elsewhere.” He tapped one of the groaning ruffians with his boot. “Allow me to escort you home?”

  “You’re not going to arrest them?”

  “A judge won’t teach them anything more valuable than the lesson I’ve just given them. Class is dismissed.”

  She nodded. “Very well, then I would very much appreciate an escort. You’re not injured?”

  “Just a bruise or two.” He picked up her case of gold. “What is the address?”

  “The Fifth Avenue Hotel,” she said. “Not far from here, actually.”

  Tommy extended his hand to gesture her ahead, and they set off up Broadway, walking close to each other, though he towered over her small frame. “You look familiar to me,” he said. “But I can’t decide how.”

  “Oh, well, my face appears on posters from time to time.”

  Her face was certainly pretty enough for a poster, but he wondered why she would be so advertised. Then he realized. “Oh, that’s it,” he said. “You’re a singer.”

  “I am.”

  “What is your name, if I may ask?”

  “Adelina Patti. And you are?”

  “Tommy Greyling,” he said. “At your service.”

  “Clearly,” she said. “But in all things, I wonder?”

  The flirtatious way she asked it roused heat in his cheeks. He hefted the leather case. “Miss Patti, do you often carry several pounds of gold about your person?”

  “Only when I have been paid for a performance.”

  “You sang tonight?” he asked. “Where?”

  “Niblo’s,” she said.

  That was a theater for the swells, the kind of place Tommy’s brother and his wife attended on occasion. The only theater Tommy had been to was the Bowery for a bloody melodrama he hadn’t much enjoyed. “The Metropolitan Hotel is right next door to Niblo’s. But you chose not to stay there?”

  “The Fifth Avenue Hotel is much finer,” she said. “Did you know it has a vertical screw railroad?”

  “Pardon, miss?”

  “An elevator,” she said. “Driven by steam. It whisks you from the ground floor to the top. And also, Jenny Lind stayed at the Fifth Avenue.”

  “Who is Jenny Lind?”

  “You do not know your singers, do you? She has an exquisite voice, and is older than me by several years. But you see, I can’t have a reputation for staying in lesser hotels than she, or else theater managers might think me a lesser singer. What I do is only half talent. The rest is careful illusion.”

  Tommy shook his head. “Yours is a foreign world to me, miss.”

  “As is your world to me. Have you always been a policeman?”

  “No, miss.” Tommy hesitated to go further. Doing so turned his mind into a dangerous, chaotic place where the present and the past intermingled. Memories of war overwhelmed him, the acrid scent of gunpowder so thick in the air he couldn’t see ten yards in any direction, the ghastly howl of the Rebel yell, the feeling of something underfoot he knew, without looking, to be someone’s limb torn from their body. But she made him feel as though he would be safe to venture there. “Before this, I was a soldier.”

  “Were you really?”

  “I was.”

  “And you fought? In the war with the Confederates?” But then she waved her hands before her. “Forgive me. You would probably rather not speak of it.”

  “No, it’s all right,” he said. “Though it’s true I don’t speak of it often. I did fight in the war. I’d be there still if I hadn’t been shot—”

  She gasped. “You were shot?”

  “I was.” He tapped his trouser leg directly over the puckered crater of a scar in his thigh. “But th
e bullet missed the bone, so I got to keep my leg. Many, many other men weren’t so fortunate. And I fear many more will be unfortunate, still.”

  “You’re referring to the draft?”

  He nodded. “It has set the city in turmoil.” But it wasn’t just that. Both sides, the Union and the Rebels, looked to any success, no matter how minor, as a sign of hope that victory was nigh, but Tommy feared the conflict would yet go on for years. Even with the recent victory at Gettysburg, Lee and the army of the South would not stay in Virginia for long.

  “I live in London now,” Miss Patti said. “It is better for my career, since I tour Europe often. But it distances me from the events going on here.”

  “Do you enjoy touring?” he asked, glad for a change in the subject of conversation.

  “At times, yes,” she said. “But it can be lonely. I am surrounded by people so much of the time, and yet I am alone. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  “Not to me,” Tommy said.

  She looked up at him, studying him to the point where he felt another awkward flush in his cheeks. “No, not to you,” she said. “You understand, I think, when few people do.”

  They reached the park at Madison Square, and there was her hotel, five stories tall, skirted with fancy shops long closed for the night. Tommy walked a few paces toward it, but realized Miss Patti had stalled in the sidewalk. He turned back toward her. “Is there something wrong, miss?”

  “Would you like to take a walk with me in the park?” she asked, and then laughed, seeming self-conscious. “I know that seems absurd at this hour. But I am wide awake after all the excitement. And I enjoy your company.”

  Tommy swallowed. He was technically off duty, and though others might see impropriety in her request, he didn’t care. Somehow, she set his mind at ease, and made it safe for his thoughts to go places he ordinarily forbade them. “I enjoy your company as well, miss,” Tommy said.