Echo City Read online

  It's true I wear a collar and tie ..."

  She winked at me and Fresca. I boggled back at her.

  "Technically it isn't right," Geraldine interrupted the song to say. "Ma Rainey sang Chicago blues. Not a trace of Harlem in her soul. But my mother used to sing this song while she did housework when I was just a little girl, and if any song ever made me think of Mama, this song is it.

  "Say I do it, ain't nobody caught me,

  Sure got to prove it on me."

  And, still singing, she opened the door into Harlem.

  Chapter 17

  I'd hoped that finding Lily-Bell in Harlem would be a simple matter of following our resident Lassie, but Creiddylad's usefulness as a guide had apparently run out. Instead she looked up at me with the hopeful expression of a dog who trusts that the humans will take over from here. So I tried to find the club where I'd met St. Clair, pretending like I knew where I was going and trying to keep my companions moving when all they wanted to do was stare at everything, and, in Fresca's case, take pictures of it.

  "Please tell me you're not going to put those online," I muttered at her.

  "What else would I do with them? Don't worry. I'll lock it."

  "So only your two thousand Internet friends can see it? That's not better."

  Fresca turned to frown at me. "You know why bad things happen to people, like what happened to me? Because of this stupid, secretive, 'oh noes, the supernatural, we mustn't talk about it' conspiracy of silence. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, Kay." She waved the shotgun to indicate the street around us. I caught the barrel and pointed it at the ground. "This is my life too. And I like sharing pictures of my life, and I'm going to keep doing it. So what if people think they're fake? Or whatever you're afraid of?"

  "Don't you think people who've been dealing with this for hundreds of years might know what they're talking about, Fresca?"

  "Don't you want to grow up and stop believing everything authority figures tell you, Kay?"

  "Do you think you'll ever grow out of rebelling for the hell of it?"

  "Do you think you're ever going to grow up and learn to think for yourself?"

  Even by the standards of the casual-for-their-era 1920s, a green-haired girl toting a shotgun and having a very loud argument with a shaven-headed girl in pants was a bit outré—or so I judged, based on the looks we were getting. "Perhaps we should have this conversation somewhere else," I said stiffly.

  "Perhaps," Fresca said, nose in the air, and took a picture of me scowling, just for spite.

  Anyway, I'd finally managed to locate the club. Geraldine looked like her knees were on the verge of giving out, so we found her a bench to sit on and left Creiddylad with her while Fresca and I trooped down the stairs to the front door. The doorman was, as far as I could tell after only seeing him once, still the same guy as the last time. Of course, things like shift changes probably didn't happen to shadow-ghosts.

  "I'm here to see Lily-Bell Taylor," I said. "Or Madame St. Clair."

  His expression didn't change at either name. "No one of that name here, honey."

  Fresca bristled visibly at "honey." I maneuvered myself between her and the doorman; since she only came up to my chest, I could do very effective Fresca-blocking when I wanted to. "I'm here on important business. I need to get a message to Ms. Taylor."

  "Don't know a Miss Taylor."

  "I was here with her a couple of days ago."

  "Don't remember you."

  Aargh. I couldn't be sure if he was deflecting us on general bodyguarding principles, or telling the truth. If he lived his life in some kind of ghost-loop, he really might not remember. I herded Fresca up the stairs back to the street, where we found Geraldine—

  —talking to Lily-Bell. Huh.

  My great-grandmother was dressed in more period-appropriate attire this time: a knee-length, apricot-colored dress with a net shawl over the top of it and one of those bowl-shaped cloche hats that flappers wear. She wore a slim jeweled bracelet, and the silver snowflake pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat.

  She was also wearing a wide belt and a machete in a beaded hip sheath that matched the dress.

  Bright animation suffused both women, making the resemblance between them even more clear. Creiddylad had taken up happy residence at Lily's side; it seemed the wolfhound had found her favorite person in the world, and didn't plan on losing her again.

  "Kay!" Lily cried with delight upon seeing me. "Geraldine tells me you think you can find the sword."

  "With your help," I said. "Oh, this is Fresca. Fresca, meet my great-grandmother Lily-Bell."

  "Dude," Fresca said. "I mean, hi."

  Lily insisted on getting us off the street as quickly as possible, so she took us back to her place. She rented a single small room above a nightclub which I guessed, from the glimpses I got of the clientele and the way they were paired off, was almost certainly a gay bar. The 1920s had a gay scene? But of course it did. Fresca looked intrigued.

  The room was as tidy and bare as a monk's cell. The only furnishings were a bed, a washstand with basin, and a padlocked trunk—all of them crowded into a space so small that I had to pull my long legs up onto the bed to accommodate the whole group of us. The handful of personal touches (a neat stack of dime-store novels on the washstand, a framed black-and-white picture on the wall) did little more than throw the severity of the room into relief.

  I shed my clammy rain slicker, and looked more closely at the picture. Two girls in their early teens sat on a bale of hay, their hair in short braids and their grins wide and bright. They looked so similar they might have been twins, except one was a bit taller.

  "That's me and my sister," Lily said, noticing me looking at the picture.

  "Aunt Cora?" Geraldine twisted to look.

  "You have an aunt?" I asked. My grandmother had never mentioned any close relatives.

  "She died a long time ago," Geraldine said, to my intensely curious look. Lily's face crumpled a little.

  "I haven't heard from her in years," Lily said. "I mean ... the me that used to ... you know what I mean. She was two years older than me, and she was fifteen when she left."

  Geraldine looked quizzical. "I always thought your sister died when you were children. Or was there another sister?"

  "What? No. Did I—the other me tell you that?" Lily looked at the picture again. "No, Cora left us. She moved to—" She stopped and took a breath. I could see that what she was about to say hurt her. "Hollywood, was where she said she was going. She wanted to be a big movie star. She was always yellower than me. Changed her name, passed for white, cut us out. It hurt Mother so, she never talked about it."

  Geraldine stared at her. So did I.

  My immediate family is tiny, just me, my parents, and Grandma Geraldine. Grandma never had brothers or sisters, and my dad is a lot older than my mom, so his parents are dead, as well as his older brother, an uncle I never met. I have some cousins that are Mom's age, but I'm not close to them. The idea that I might have a whole branch of the family I didn't know about hit me like a rock between the eyes.

  "But you have to tell me—" Geraldine began.

  "We can talk about our family history later," Lily said. "I'm sorry. I'm in a little bit of a hurry. Kay, I really need to take you to Madame. The rest of you should be safe here until we come back."

  "Or you could go home," I offered. "I don't think it's safe to go back the way we came, but I can take you to the real New York, or Lily can."

  "Right," Fresca said, "then we'd have a four-hour bus ride back to Ithaca, all the while wondering how you were doing here."

  Geraldine squeezed my hand. "We're in this with you all the way."

  Those words would be more reassuring if they weren't coming from an 80-year-old woman with bad knees. On the other hand, Fresca had a shotgun. Right now I'd take all the armed backup I could get.

  "Thanks, guys."

  "Do you think there's a kitchen here?" Fresca asked wistfully as we left.<
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  With Lily to introduce me, the doorman had no problem letting us into St. Clair's Room o'Light. I looked at him closely to see if he remembered me from half an hour ago, but his face was blank as usual.

  There were no theatrics this time. St. Clair was waiting for us, sitting in one of the prim-backed parlor chairs with her legs crossed, a glass of whiskey in one hand, a cigarette in the other. With my eyes squinted against the glare, all I could see was a dim shape wreathed in curling smoke, like a dragon.

  "Kay and I will talk alone," St. Clair told Lily, and as my great-grandmother withdrew, she nodded to the open door of the liquor cabinet. "Have a drink."

  It sounded more like an order than an invitation. I meekly poured myself a glass of wine, choosing it over the numerous hard liquor selections.

  "Things have changed, I hear," St. Clair said.

  "Yes, ma'am." After a brief inner tug-of-war with myself, I decided the truth would help more than hurt. I seated myself cautiously across from her and gave her a broad outline of recent events, including the sword's theft and Muirin's disappearance. St. Clair listened with a fierce, hot hunger in her eyes.

  "Can you find it?" she asked me, interrupting.

  "Yes, if I'm near it," I said. "Otherwise, I'm not sure."

  "Let's imagine someone could get you near it."

  "Okay," I said with more confidence than I felt.

  She lit a new cigarette from the stump of the last. "I would say the odds are very good that Tweed or one of his Tigers is your thief." On Tweed's name, her voice twisted in loathing. "It's only a guess, but I know we don't have it, and while there are plenty of independent agents operating in this city, I can't imagine very many of them have the resources to do this."

  "I don't know why—" I began, and then paused. Actually, if Tweed ran the city, there was one very obvious reason why he might want it: to keep it away from the resistance. Oh God, what had I gotten myself mixed up in?

  "Only one thing to do, I suppose." St. Clair smiled, thin-lipped and without humor. "If you were able to get close to him, then you would know if the sword was nearby, correct?"

  "I assume so," I said, my heart pounding.

  "Do you expect you could retrieve it?"

  "I don't know. It depends on how well it's guarded."

  "But it cannot be hidden from you," St. Clair said. "You would be able to detect it no matter what."

  "Yes," I said. I could still feel the sword's compass-needle tug, though not quite as strongly as in Central Park. "I believe so."

  "Excellent. Then, if we can place you in position to recover the sword, may I count on your aid once you've retrieved it?"

  I hesitated before answering. "I want to get the sword back. You want me to get it back, too. At that point—"

  St. Clair slammed her glass onto the end table, slopping whiskey onto the polished surface. "You can retrieve the sword on your own, or accept our help on our terms. Those are your choices."

  Calm, I thought. Think. Don't let her push you into anything. I wished Muirin was here. Or Lily. Anyone. "What are your terms?"

  "That you will help us against Tweed, if we help you recover the sword."

  It wasn't an unfair request, actually. If Tweed or someone working for him was the thief, the resistance would be risking themselves hugely to help me. Asking me to reciprocally risk myself wasn't too much to bear. But I needed concessions in return. "I will help you, but only in the understanding that I have other, pre-existing commitments outside Shadow New York. I can't abandon my other promises for my promise to you. But I will help you as much as I am able."

  St. Clair leaned back in her chair, her long, strong hands lying loose on the arms. "That's fair," she said at last. "In order to do what we must now do, I need to tell you a secret, little girl. Should I ever hear that you've spoken of this to anyone, I will kill you."

  Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact. I shivered. "I won't tell," I said.

  St. Clair pulled up her sleeve.

  Her dark skin was mottled darker, from the middle of her forearm to the point where her arm vanished under the bunched fabric. It looked like a birthmark. I looked from her arm to her face, which had contorted with anger and something bleaker.

  "I don't understand," I said.

  "You don't?" She let her sleeve fall back into place. "I'm one of his ... that bastard. The change has already begun. Sacred God. He made me want it. In the end, he made me beg."

  That dark mottling on her skin—stripes emerging, floating up to the surface, like a bruise rising from an injury already received.

  "You're a Tiger," I whispered.

  Her mouth twisted. It wasn't a smile. "And now I am in your power, as you are in mine." There was no mistaking the threat in her quiet words. Her face was composed, but I was all too conscious of the cauldron of anger simmering below the surface. "You can imagine what the resistance would do if they learned of this."

  I nodded. "Why?" I asked, my mouth so dry that I could barely get the word out. "Why did you do it?"

  "Why?" She drew her lips back from her teeth. "Because I wanted to live, child. To be fully alive, rather than settling for the half-life of a shadow creature. That's what the bastard is looking for, of course. Those who are stronger than other shadows, whose thirst for life is so great they'll take even the illusion of life he offers. Everyone has a price, and men like him get what they want by finding that price."

  I prudently didn't point out that Madame St. Clair, crème de la crème of the Harlem gangsters, must be no slouch at finding other people's price point herself. She'd certainly done it to me. With the wine fueling my courage, I nerved myself to ask, "How does it work?"

  "He feeds energy into us. The raw dreamstuff of this place, in its purest form. It makes us real—for a little while. But we are made of dreamstuff ourselves, and it changes us. I can feel it in me, all the time, twisting like snakes under my skin ..." She stopped, closed her eyes and breathed out a long slow cloud of blue smoke. I fought not to cough.

  "You have to fight to hold onto yourself," she said at last, her eyes still closed. "All the time. Remind yourself who you are, who you used to be. Dream your own dreams and not Tweed's. No one holds out forever. You can slow it down by taking only the energy you need to survive, the barest whisper of it. And then you are starving, all the time ... starving."

  I wasn't sure what to say, afraid of igniting her temper again. "Can't you—" I began, and then waited. She looked at me with those heavy-lidded eyes. I started over, framing it as a statement rather than a question. "When I fought the Tigers, I thought they were drawing energy themselves, from me and the world around me."

  "They do," St. Clair said. "We do ..." and for an instant I felt that familiar cold chill slide through me, raising the hairs on my arms. "But we don't keep it," she went on, settling back in her chair, as I sank back with a gasp. "We are only conduits, feeding it to Tweed. This is the currency of his power here. Every neighborhood has a boss; every boss siphons their tithe of energy and Tweed gathers it up, crouching like a spider at the center of his web. We can't hold it ourselves. It's like swallowing fire, like knives in your blood."

  I didn't feel tired or tapped out. She hadn't taken much. I clenched my hand on the wine glass, seeking courage. "But you said Tweed gives energy to you?"

  "He does, yes. We need him for it." Oh, the loathing in her voice. "We cannot use the energy we take ourselves, only what he feeds back to us. And once you've tasted reality, you can't go back to being a cold shadow of yourself. Tweed feeds us, and in return, we feed him. I fought, God above knows I did. But the bastard won in the end. He always does. They always do. But ..." She smiled grimly, wreathed in smoke, a dragon clothed in woman's flesh. "There is always another way. I've never let anyone dominate me, and I never will, not for long."

  Stubbing out her cigarette, she rose from her chair and reached for her fur coat, slung across the back of a nearby couch. "Let's go."

  I choked on my wine. "What? Now?"


  "Always take the initiative, girl. That's your first lesson."

  Madame St. Clair strode down the street like she owned it, her fur coat belling out behind her. Despite my long legs, I had trouble keeping up.

  The room of light had turned out to have a back exit, so I hadn't even had a chance to tell Lily where I'd gone. I could only hope that Fresca and Grandma wouldn't be too worried by my absence. Or, well, if I got into trouble (a not-unlikely possibility), I hoped they would be exactly worried enough, and would call in some sort of cavalry.

  "I made my fortune and my power on the numbers racket, did you know that?" St. Clair said when I managed to catch up. "The white gangsters weren't interested in it, or for that matter, in Harlem itself. Not enough money in it, they thought. Pfft. Fools. So I found my niche and I did it better than anyone else." She laughed. "Tweed thinks he has his boot heel on my neck, but I know what he doesn't know. This Negro woman is too slippery for him."

  "You built the—" I stopped right before I said the word resistance on a public street corner. But her sly smile was answer enough.

  I needed to look up the historical Madame St. Clair when I got back, because this one was something else.

  When I got back. Oh crap. It felt too rude to take out my phone and check the time, but I suspected I was already late. I chewed my lip and finally worked up my nerve to ask about it. "Ma'am," I said politely, "since we're going through the doors anyway, do you suppose we could take a little detour to the other New York while we're at it? I really need to make a phone call—"

  "Doors? We aren't taking the doors. Where we're going is right here in Harlem. In fact ..." She stopped and planted her hands on her hips. "This is the place."

  COTTON CLUB: Entrance on Lennox Avenue, read the glittering marquee on the building looming over us. I followed her around the side—the building itself was the Douglas Theatre, according to its sign. I'd heard of the Cotton Club, very vaguely, as a place where a lot of famous Harlem entertainers launched their careers. And it seemed to me that there was something else about the place that I should remember ...