Rooks and Romanticide (18 page)

Cain wasn't sure what compelled him, but he made his way to Kelvin's desk and started going through the drawers.

What was he looking for? A snack, perhaps. Something better than what they were rationed. Or money. Or secrets. Or a gun. A blade. A letter opener would do. He wanted to feel protected.

He'd found his father's rings, and
that
was when the apathy shattered.

There was more incoherent yelling outside the office, and some thuds and sounds of violence. The Dietrich in Cain's blood had never actually been corroded, and in a moment of tragic clarity, it
reawakened
.

Cain grabbed his father's rings.

He didn't even take the chance to peek around the corners outside Kelvin's office to see if the coast was clear—that would have wasted too much vital time. Wolfe and Father Kelvin were fighting, and probably with many others now. This was an opportunity he'd never see again. Nobody was paying heed to the circus workers. Nobody would see him. This was his chance. Instinct hissed in the back of his mind:
Now. Now. Now
!

Cain sped out of the office and down the winding halls. Pieces of ceiling that had been broken by bullets scraped at his bare toes. He almost tripped on a painting thrown from the wall. There were shouts, slamming doors, the echo of someone's infuriated howl, and voices from a room some of Father Kelvin's ladies had fearfully closed themselves into. Cain's breath ripped in and out of his chest, hot with urgency, and his feet pounded on the floor as he ran from Father Kelvin's.

Out of the labyrinth of halls, down the dim corridor to the stairs, and up into the secret hall behind the sanctuary.

Out, out of the church, the cobblestones biting at his feet as he ran through New London. The sunlight was blinding. It made the world blurry with tears. It hurt his head. The fresh air made his lungs feel new again.

Did he look lost? Did he look starved? Did he look abused? Did he look mad? Did someone on the streets reach out and try to stop him, suspicion and goodwill piqued by the obvious shades of
wrong
? If they did, he hadn't noticed.

Cain didn't stop until he was outside the gates of the Dietrich manor. He didn't even remember the surroundings he'd passed on his way, navigating the streets intuitively, and as the guards rushed to open the wrought iron gates in shock, Cain opened up his hand and found that he'd clutched his father's rings so tight, they'd left deep imprints in the skin of his palm and fingers.

He was Cain Dietrich, he was sixteen by then, surely, and he was an orphan. He was good in bed, he was alive, and in March of 1887, he was home again.

 

 

“T
AKING
YOUR
coffee in the garden, I see.”

Levi looked over his shoulder, all bundled up in fleece and a fur collar.

His father stood behind him, smiling small but cheerily. His graying hair fell loose about gentle, liver-spotted jowls. He had his walking stick, clutched in old fingers that trembled this morning. His many jewels and rings looked as if they might cut off his circulation. His breath hung on the air, as his son's did, and Levi licked the taste of coffee off his lips and offered a polite smile. He really didn't feel like talking; he hadn't felt like talking to anyone for days now. But he'd known it was only going to be a matter of time before his father approached him, ready to ask questions again after so long.

“
Dobroye utro
,” Levi murmured.
Good morning
. “I'm sorry, did you want me at the table for breakfast?”

His father waved a hand dismissively as he moved up the flagstone steps to the patio. Levi reached over to pull the chair out for him, but his father swatted his hand away, frowning. He eased down into the chair with a loud sigh. Crow's feet branched from his eyes.

Levi frowned again, deeply. He lifted his coffee to his lips and glanced away, because he didn't like seeing his father on the days he seemed to feel his oldest.

There was a small silence, comfortable. Neither required much conversation, anyway. They were very alike each other in that way. Morning fog rolled along the Ruslaniv grounds, and the orchards and trees were gray in the pale light. Birds chirped somewhere, hesitantly.

“You haven't been out all night lately,” his father declared. He took some fresh fruit from Levi's breakfast plate. Levi smiled faintly, pushing the dish over to his father.

“I haven't,” he confirmed.

“Not even with BLACK?”

“No.”

“You've been going out by yourself quite often, anyway, I've heard.”

Levi shrugged listlessly. “I have….”

“My son, the romantic.”

Even his father's chuckle commanded respect. Levi let him make his assumptions. From the few fountains, birds scattered.

My son, the romantic….
Levi's smile softened just a bit. His lashes lowered on clouded eyes. His father always spoke as though Quinton had never existed—or, at least, wasn't his blood son. But Quinton had been much older, almost thirteen when Levi had been born, and he'd left with the other senior members of BLACK. Nobody had heard from him since.

Levi frowned around his coffee. Besides, Quinton had never
acted
like a son. Or a brother.

Levi, the romantic. Quinton, the monster. Maybe he was dead somewhere, banished from New London.

“How are you feeling today, Father?”

His father skirted the question easily. “Do you remember what I told you when I designated you as the new leader of BLACK? That I was confident in your being levelheaded? You are, Lawrence. That's what's good about a fighter being a romantic at heart.”

It was meant to be a compliment, surely, but it stung him, just as it stung him to hear his first name fall from his father's mouth. He was so accustomed to being called by his second name. In fact he felt sometimes he didn't even know who
Lawrence
was supposed to be. “Father—”

“The Dietrichs have been digging around in documents and records related to St. Mikael's.”

Father's eyes met son's over the table as these words sank in like claws.

“I'm still a little angry about the incident in October,” his father eventually went on, meaning the gunfight at the Dietrich masquerade, “but I think you'll be able to persuade the others to honor the gravity of the situation. This isn't a game, Lawrence. BLACK is not separate from me, and I've made sure of that by making you leader. Remember that you may be such, but you still answer to me.”

“What exactly are you getting at, prefacing with such a lecture?” Levi propped an elbow on the table, cradling his temple in his hand.
My son, the romantic….
“I told you, our little joke at the All Hallows masque was pointless and ridiculous, and I've already taken all the blame for even letting Eliott talk me into it—”

“They're digging around, Lawrence, and I don't know why. Surely the stunt BLACK pulled in October didn't help any. You know how murky our history with St. Mikael's is. Are they searching for blackmail, or is there some secret I'm not aware of? I just don't know. It makes me nervous. But I'm too old to play this game of war any longer, so I want you to watch them. Watch the Dietrichs like a hawk. Anything suspicious, anything uncovered…. Just keep an eye on everything. That is all I'm requesting.”

The weight of guilt was almost enough to crush Levi right then and there. It had been so long since he'd heard his father mention St. Mikael's, so long, and still it pained him so much to know that he knew more than his own father, the head of their house. He knew more about what had happened with Quinton and St. Mikael's than Lord Ruslaniv himself!

Levi cleared his throat, slumping down on crossed arms like a brooding child. “That's all?” he mumbled.

“Yes.” His father shrugged, and it too was somehow regal even in his weariness. “I'm asking you as your father
and
the head of this family, so please do your best. No—I know you'll do your best, Lawrence. You wouldn't allow anything less.”

Another silence fell, but Levi was not at rest. He shifted in his chair, rubbed his aching head. He dug in his pocket for his engraved cigarette case and closed his eyes, pulling his scarf down to feel the cool December air on his skin.

The Dietrichs are digging around….
Yes, yes they were. Levi had no doubt of it. In St. Mikael's, nonetheless. God, if Cain found the incriminating past of St. Mikael's—

Well, Cain had been perfectly honest about his intentions once he found the killers of his parents and his bastard kidnappers, who had all seemed to drop off the face of the earth once the missing Dietrich heir had returned home that wondrous day three years ago.

And Levi didn't doubt Cain's fortitude or his ability to keep his word. He didn't doubt any of it in the
least
.

And now for his father, he was to
keep an eye on everything
.

If only they all knew.

 

 

I
T
WAS
1882. A set of peace laws had been established the year before, but the Ruslaniv family wasn't taking any chances.

“My lord, your sons are the most well protected in all of New London,” they said, the guards, the men who watched from the fringes of sight to make sure Levi and his brother didn't get too close to the manor wall.

“Both of my sons will know how to take care of themselves, regardless,” their father had declared from the head of the long dining table, and Levi had frowned at his soup and Quinton had raised his glass in a toast of agreement.

Quinton was always thinking about guns and bullets and strategic perfection, so when he'd been of age, he'd had no problem leaving the manor to be trained.

But Levi hated it.

They had to bid
adieu
to the comfort of the Ruslaniv estate and stay at a militia camp outside Yekaterinburg. They were drilled on loading guns, aiming guns, shooting guns, cleaning guns, running, dodging, hiding—running-dodging-hiding with guns, running-dodging-hiding-
aiming-unloading-reloading
guns—instincts should a gun jam, the best guns for the best situations, and too many other useless lessons that Levi retained and excelled at but did not prefer.

He was twelve years old. It was fun, but he had other inclinations.

Like finishing
Gulliver's Travels
and the treatises on the four humors he'd found in the library.

The militia camp was small. They'd all slept in one room, lined with cots—Eliott and William, and those others, the manic Blond One and the smug One with the Glasses. The beds were uneven and the blankets scratchy, and sometimes Levi had tried to read with a lighter to illuminate the words at night. Eliott's bed was next to his. They'd lie awake at night and make exciting shadows with their hands and talk about what kinds of girls they'd marry, and other times they'd exchange funny faces and muffled laughter every time they heard Petyr taking someone new to bed. Some nights it was Claude, some nights it was Wolfe, or Red, or Vyncent, and once or twice it was even Quinton.

“How old is he again?” Levi had mouthed to Eliott, and Eliott had shaken his head, bedtime ponytail bobbing in the darkness, eyes wide and face aghast.

The senior members of BLACK ran the training. The militia camp had been abandoned by the Queen's soldiers long ago and served more as a shooting range for the Ruslaniv family, after they'd bought it.

With the absence of real military, the atmosphere of stifling formality was gone too. There was training, and then evenings were spent in the cafeteria, while the senior members smoked cigarettes and played cards and led by gangster example.

Levi and the others graduated from the training as junior members of BLACK.

Lord Ruslaniv rewarded his youngest son with an ivory-gripped Merwin Hulbert, the word
R O O K
engraved on the barrel. He presented it to him rather ceremoniously, sitting in red velvet in a cherrywood case. Levi blushed about it, but not really because he was honored. He was kind of embarrassed by the pomp and procedure of it all.

Being officially trained did not at all mask the truth about BLACK.

BLACK carried themselves with a royal pride, but Levi knew they were hardly any better than the gangs of the commoners. BLACK took advantage of their anonymity, of nobody on the streets knowing they were comprised of members of a House. They gambled and drank and fought and partied. It was all magnificent fun to them, like bullies out of view of the nurse.

Levi turned thirteen. His hair was long. He wore it tied back, high off his neck. He walked with the grace of a privileged child and the distant eyes of a saint. He met with private tutors twice a week, but he was at the age where anything more to learn would be found in the experiences of life—which, for him, was a life of gold and bright flowers and indulgent parents, and the random and erratic “assignments” with BLACK that felt more like simple troublemaking.

They patrolled the streets and kept other gangs kissing their feet. They spied on Dietrichs and terrorized Dietrich citizens the same way they terrorized the general public, parading around in honor of the “greatest house in all New London.” They hit the scene when a street gang in Ruslaniv colors was in a fight, and they protected Ruslaniv supporters and Ruslaniv family at all times and at all costs.

His first real gunfight happened in the August before he was fourteen, when the air was sticky and heavy with the end of summer.

The thrill of it was distinctly addicting.

He was good at it, and he knew it. But Levi got bored of it quickly. It became tedium: the senior members gave him orders, Levi obeyed, and then he returned to his secret corner of the library and tried to immerse himself in the words and the fantasies, not the blood or the sounds of bullets hitting flesh, the shatter of glass, the way people screamed as if demons from Hell had just crossed over and into their world.