Ghosts of Manhattan (A Ghost Novel) E-Book

George Mann

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 433

Beschreibung

1926, New York City. It's the roaring twenties but not as history remembers it. Coal-powered cars line the streets, while zeppelins and biplanes patrol the skies. The US is locked in a bitter cold war with a British Empire that still covers half the globe and the "Lost Generation" is drinking away the nightmares of the trenches. In Manhattan a run-down police force is losing the fight against a tide of powerful mobsters, and against one in particular: The Roman. His henchmen - not all of them human - stalk the streets, and the body count is rising. It's a time in need of a hero. It's a time in need of The Ghost.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by George Mann

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

One: Downtown Manhattan, November 1927

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty Two

Twenty Three

Twenty Four

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

ALSO BY GEORGE MANN AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

THE GHOST

Ghosts of War (March 2015)

Ghosts of Karnak (October 2015)

Ghosts of Empire (October 2016)

NEWBURY & HOBBES

Newbury & Hobbes: The Executioner’s HeartNewbury & Hobbes: The Revenant Express (August 2015)

The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the DeadSherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box

Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

GHOSTS OF MANHATTAN

Print edition ISBN: 9781783294084

E-book edition ISBN: 9781783294138

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan edition September 2014

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

George Mann asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2010, 2014 George Mann

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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To Lou Anders, for boundless passion, enthusiasm, and friendship.

PROLOGUE

He had watched cities rise and fall, had seen civilizations crumble. He had led armies across the wastes of old empires and sat in state as the world steadily reshaped itself around him. He had lived entire lives while those around him withered and died. He had been forgotten and reinvented, had been present at the founding of nations. He had held the darkest magick and the brightest technology in the palm of his hand, and stood shoulder to shoulder with kings and paupers alike.

Now, he had come to the New World, to the glittering city where even the very buildings reached for the sky, cathedrals raised in the worship of profit. It lay before him like a shining jewel, fresh for the taking. New York City. The thriving metropolis, the symbol of a new age.

The people, these “Americans,” thought themselves immortal, the future theirs for the taking. They’d survived the Great War, and they knew themselves to be unstoppable.

He, of course, knew better. They were nothing but a fledgling race, fresh upon the planet—upstarts who had yet to trip and fall. He had watched from afar as they’d grown in confidence, and now he had come to teach them the true meaning of power.

A new epoch was dawning. This was the time of the Roman.

ONE

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN, NOVEMBER 1927

Something stirred in the shadows.

“Fat Ollie” Day flicked the stub of his cigarette toward the gutter, watching it spiral through the air like a tumbling star. It landed in a puddle of brackish rainwater and fizzed out with a gentle hiss. Nervously, he rested his sweaty palm on the butt of his pistol and edged forward, trying to see what had made the noise. It was too dark to discern anything other than the heaps of trash piled up against the walls of the alleyway, illuminated by the silvery beams of the car’s headlamps. The air was damp. Ollie thought it was going to rain.

Behind him, the car engine purred with a low growl. He’d left it running, ready for a quick getaway. Ollie had stoked it himself a few minutes earlier, shoveling black coal from the hopper into the small furnace at the rear of the vehicle, superheating the fluid in the water tank to build up a head of steam. It was a sleek model—one of the newer types—and Ollie couldn’t help grinning every time he ran his hands over its sweeping curves. Who said crime didn’t pay?

Now his smart gray suit was covered in coal dust and soot, but he knew after they’d finished with the job they were doing, he could buy himself another. Heck, he could buy himself a whole wardrobe full if he had the inclination. The boss would see him right. The Roman knew how to look after his guys.

Inside the tall bank building to his left, the four men he’d ferried downtown in the motorcar were carrying out a heist—their third in a week—and once again he’d been left outside to guard the doors. It suited Ollie just fine; he’d never had a stomach for the dirty stuff. Being on the periphery didn’t worry him—as long as he still got his share of the proceeds.

There was another scuffing sound from up ahead, like a booted foot crunching on stone. Ollie felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with anxiety. The pressure valve on the vehicle gave an expectant whistle, as if in empathy, calling out a shrill warning to its driver. Ollie glanced back, but the car was just as he’d left it, the side doors hanging open like clamshells, waiting for the others to finish the job inside.

“Who’s there?” He slid his pistol from its holster, easing it into his palm. “I’m warning you. Don’t you mess with Ollie Day.”

There was a sudden, jerky movement as a nearby heap of trash was disturbed, causing cardboard boxes to tumble noisily to the ground. Ollie swung his pistol round in a wide arc. His hand was shaking. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom. Then more movement, to his right. Something crossed the beam of the headlamps. He spun on the spot, his finger almost squeezing the trigger of his pistol…

…and saw a black cat dart across the alleyway, scuttling away from the pile of boxes. Ollie let out a long, wheezing sigh of relief. “Hey, cat. You got Ollie all jumpy for a minute there.” He slipped his pistol back into its holster, grinning to himself. “Man, I gotta learn to take it easy.” He looked up.

Two pinpricks of red light had appeared, thirty feet further down the alleyway, hovering in the air at head height. Ollie stood silent for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. For a minute he thought he was seeing things, and made to rub his eyes, but then the lights began to move, sweeping toward him through the gloom.

Footsteps running. Ragged breath. Ollie fumbled for his weapon, but he was already too late.

The man sprang at him from nearly ten feet away, hurtling through the air toward him like a panther, body coiled for an attack. Ollie caught only glimpses of his assailant as the man was crisscrossed by the headlamp beams: dressed fully in black, a long cape or trench coat whipping up around him, a fedora on his head. And those glowing red eyes, piercing in the darkness. Ollie thought they might bore right into him, then and there.

He got the gun loose just as his attacker came down on him, hard, causing the weapon to fly from his hand and skitter across the ground toward the car. It clattered to a stop somewhere out of sight. The man was fast, and Ollie was hardly able to bring his hands up in defense before he was punched painfully in the gut and he doubled over, all of the air driven out of his lungs. The man grabbed a fistful of Ollie’s collar and heaved him into the air. Ollie tried desperately to kick out, or to cry for help, but was able only to offer an ineffectual whimper.

Before he knew what was happening, Ollie felt himself being flung backward. He sailed through the air, his limbs wheeling, and slammed down across the bonnet of the car. He felt the thin metal give way beneath his bulk, but he had no time to lament the damage to his precious vehicle. Pain blossomed in his shoulder. He realized that his arm had been crushed and was hanging limply by his side. The back of his head, too, felt like it was on fire, and he could sense a warm liquid—blood?—running down the side of his face. He emitted a heartfelt wail, just in time to see the grim face of his attacker looming over him.

The man was unshaven and unkempt. His eyes—his real eyes—were obscured by a pair of glowing goggles, strange red lights shining bright behind the lenses, transfixing the mob driver as he struggled to inch backward on the car bonnet, to get away from this terrifying apparition. He had nowhere to go. He was going to die. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the fatal blow. Seconds passed. Tentatively, he opened them again.

The man was still hovering over him. After a moment, he spoke. “In there?” He gestured toward the set of double doors that the others were planning to use as their escape route from the bank.

Ollie nodded. He knew he was likely signing his own death warrant by giving them away, but all he could think about was getting free from this maniac, this… vigilante. He could taste blood. If the car would still drive…

The stranger grabbed the front of Ollie’s jacket with both fists and hauled him into the air again. “Oh no. No, no, no…”

Turning, the man charged at the double doors, swinging Ollie in front of himself like a battering ram. Ollie’s shoulder connected painfully with the heavy wooden doors as they burst through, causing the hinges to splinter and the doors to cave inward with a huge crash.

Stars bloomed in his field of vision. His head spun. He couldn’t remember what it was like not to feel numb with pain. He felt as if he was going to die, and realized that he probably was.

They were standing in the main lobby of the bank. The scene inside was one of utter chaos. Around thirty or forty civilians were scattered over the polished marble floor, laying prone on their bellies, their hands behind their heads, their distraught faces pressed to the ground. Another of the Roman’s men was standing over them with a gun, keeping guard. Two further men were standing by the bank tellers as they stuffed cloth bags full of paper bills, and a fourth was up in the gallery overhead, surveying the scene below, a tommy gun clutched tightly in his hands.

A huge holographic statue of Pegasus dominated the lobby space, flickering ghostly blue as it reared up on its hind legs, its immense wings unfurled over the swathe of terrified civilians below. Above that, an enormous chandelier shimmered in the bright light.

Silence spread through the lobby as everyone turned at once to see who had burst through the doors in such violent fashion. A woman screamed. The four mobsters offered Ollie and the other man a silent appraisal before raising their weapons.

Ollie was struggling to catch his breath. He couldn’t feel his left arm anymore, and he didn’t know if this was troubling or a blessed relief. He didn’t have time to consider it any further before he found himself unceremoniously dumped against the wall.

“Stay there.”

The man in black stepped forward, glancing from side to side. Ollie could see now that his billowing trench coat concealed a number of small contraptions, including what looked like the long barrel of a weapon under his right arm. Dazed, he watched the chaos erupt again before his eyes.

His attacker spread his arms wide, facing the rest of the Roman’s men. “Time’s up, gentlemen.”

One of the mobsters opened fire. There was a series of loud reports as he emptied his chamber, yelling at the others to take the newcomer down. The man in black seemed unconcerned by the spray of bullets, however, simply stepping aside as they thundered into the wall behind him. He didn’t even flinch.

Ollie watched in dismayed awe as the man gave a discreet flick of his right arm, causing the long brass barrel of the concealed weapon to spin up on a ratchet and click into place along the length of his forearm. It made a sound like a steel chain being dragged across a metal drum.

The man swung his arm around toward the crook who had fired on him and squeezed something in his palm. There was a quiet hiss of escaping air, and then he gave his reply. A storm of tiny steel fléchettes burst from the end of the strange weapon, a rain of silver death, hailing down on the crook and shredding him as they impacted, bursting organs and flensing flesh from bone. It was over in a matter of seconds. The ruined body crumpled to the floor, gore and fragments of human matter pattering down around it in a wide arc. The teller who’d been standing beside the felon dropped in a dead faint, the pile of cash in his hands billowing out to scatter all around him as he fell.

The vigilante didn’t wait for the stutter of another gun. He dropped and rolled forward and left, moving with ease. He came up beside the holographic statue, his weapon at the ready. Another hail of fléchettes dropped the man in the gallery above, sending him tumbling over the rail, his face a mess of blood and broken bone. He crashed to the marble with a sickening crunch, his limbs splayed at awkward angles.

The mobster guarding the civilians—who Ollie knew as Bobby Hendriks—wasn’t taking any chances. He leapt forward, grappling with one of the women on the floor and dragging her to her feet. Looking panicked, the heavily set man pressed a knife to her throat, which glinted in the bright electric light as he turned the blade back and forth, threatening to pull it across her soft, exposed flesh. The woman—a pretty blonde in a blue dress—looked terrified and froze rigid, trying not to move in case she somehow made the situation worse.

“I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!” Hendriks’s voice was a gravelly bark.

The man in black flicked a glance at Hendriks, and then back at the other mobster guarding the tellers, who were still furiously emptying the cash drawers. He took a step toward Hendriks and the hostage.

Hendriks stepped back, mirroring the movement. He pressed the blade firmly against the woman’s throat, drawing a tiny bead of blood. She wailed in terror, trying to pull away.

A shot went off. The vigilante flinched as a bullet stroked his upper arm, tearing a rent in his clothing and drawing a line of bright blood on his skin. He turned on the gunman, but Ollie realized he wasn’t able to draw a clear bead due to the tellers. Instead, the man reached inside his trench coat and gave a sharp tug on a hidden cord.

There was a roaring sound, like the rumble of a distant explosion. Bright yellow flames shot out of two metal canisters strapped to the backs of the man’s boots, scorching the floor. Ollie stared on, bewildered, as the stranger lifted entirely into the air, propelled by the bizarre jets, and shot across the lobby at speed, flitting over the prone civilians and swinging out over the mobster’s head. He didn’t even need to fire his weapon. Bringing his feet around in a sweeping movement, he introduced the searing flames to the gunman’s face, who gave a gut-wrenching wail as his flesh bubbled and peeled in the intense heat. He dropped on the spot, still clutching his gun, hungry flames licking around his ears and collar.

The man in black reached inside his coat and pulled another cord. The flames spat and guttered out. He crashed to the floor, landing on one knee. All eyes were on him. He climbed slowly to his feet and stood, regarding the last of the felons.

“I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!” Hendriks was swinging the girl around as he looked for an escape route, edging away from this terrifying man who had come out of nowhere and murdered his companions. “I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!”

When he spoke, the vigilante’s voice was drenched in sorrow. “You already have.”

Hendriks looked down at the girl in his arms. Sudden realization flashed on his face. His knife was half buried in the woman’s throat, blood seeping down to drench the front of her dress, matting the fine hairs on his forearm. Shocked, he stumbled backward, allowing the dead woman to slide to the floor, the knife still buried in her flesh. “Oh crap. Oh crap. I didn’t mean to do it. Hey, mister, I didn’t mean it! I just—”

There was a quiet snick. Something bright and metallic flashed through the air. Hendriks’s head toppled from his shoulders, the stump spouting blood in a dark crimson fountain. The body pitched forward, dropping to the floor. The head rolled off to one side. Ollie glanced round to see a metal disk buried in the wall behind the body. He started to scramble to his feet.

All around, people were screaming, getting up off the floor and rushing toward the exits. The massacre was over. Or at least Ollie hoped it was over. He needed to get to his car, fast. Wincing, he scrabbled to his feet.

The man in black stooped low over the body of the dead hostage. He seemed to be whispering an apology, but Ollie wasn’t quite able to hear over the noise of the crowd.

Ollie backed up, edging toward the burst double doors. His arm was hanging limp and useless by his side, he was sure his ribs had been shattered, and he was still bleeding from the wound in the back of his head. Even if he made it out of there alive, he’d never be the same again.

He saw the stranger’s red eyes lift and fix on him from across the lobby. He didn’t know what to do; didn’t dare turn and run or take his eyes off the stranger for a second. The man watched him for a moment, unmoving. Then in three or four graceful strides, he was on top of him. He grasped Ollie by the collar. The fat man whimpered as the vigilante leaned in close. He could feel the hot breath on his face, smell the coffee and whisky it carried. Ollie’s heart was hammering hard in his chest. Was this how it was going to end?

“Today, you get to live.”

Ollie nearly fainted with relief. “I… I—”

“But you take a message to the Roman for me.”

Ollie nodded enthusiastically, and nearly swooned from the movement.

“You tell him he’s not welcome in this town anymore.”

The stranger dropped Ollie in a heap on the ground and then stepped over him, making slowly for the exit, his boots clicking loudly on the marble floor.

Ollie’s mouth was gritty with blood. He called after the mysterious figure. “Who… who are you?”

The man shrugged and kept on walking. “Death,” he said, without bothering to look back.

TWO

“Eggs! I need eggs, Henry. Two of them. With a side of toast.” Gabriel Cross dropped the morning paper onto the breakfast table and leaned back in his armchair, stretching his weary limbs. He was a thin, wiry man in his mid-thirties, clean-shaven, with hair the color of Saharan sand. He was dressed in an impeccable black suit of the expensive variety, but wore his collar splayed open, betraying his innate sense of informality. Some, he knew, would call him louche for such behavior, but he preferred to consider himself freethinking, unbound by the stuffy conventions of the age. In truth, he was simply unbound by the conventions of money; he had about him the casual air of the exceptionally rich.

Yawning, Gabriel surveyed the aftermath of the prior evening’s entertainment. His eyelids were heavy with lack of sleep. All around him, devastation reigned. The drawing room was cluttered with discharged glasses, a few still holding the remnants of their former owners’ drinks. Accompanying these were the pungent stubs of fat brown cigars and pale cigarettes; even a woman’s red silk scarf and a man’s topcoat, abandoned there in the early hours by drunken lovers, carefree and searching for intoxication of a different kind.

Gabriel had a love/hate relationship with New York society: it loved him—or rather, it loved his wealth and status—and he hated it. He disliked “society” as a concept. To him it was a metaphor for the socially inept, the “upper” classes, a means of filling one’s head with notions of self-import and grandeur. Yet he adored people. He needed people. He surrounded himself with them, night and day. He was an observer, a man who watched life. An artist without a canvas, a writer without a page. He lived to amuse himself, to attempt to fill the vacant space where a real life should have been.

Gabriel Cross was a nothing. A man defined by his inheritance, characterized by his former life. He’d heard people whispering in hushed tones at the party, huddled in small groups under the canopy on the veranda, or leaning up against the doorjambs in the drawing room, drinks in hand. “Yes, it’s true! He used to be a soldier. I heard he fought in the war.” Or, “A pilot, I heard. But now he just throws parties. Parties! Who needs parties?”

Gabriel knew they were right. Yet they swarmed to his Long Island parties like honeybees in search of pollen, intent on finding something there that would make their own lives that little bit easier to bear. He had no idea what it was. If he did, he would administer it to himself in liberal doses.

Gabriel rubbed a hand over his bristly chin. “Better send a Bloody Mary with those eggs, Henry. God knows, it’s going to be one of those days.” He turned and looked out of the window at the sound of a motorcar hissing onto the driveway in the watery morning sun. Its wheels stirred the gravel track, whilst black smoke belched from its rear funnel. He recognized the sleek curves of its black bodywork, as well as those of its owner, who sat in the driving seat, her head and shoulders exposed to the stiff breeze. It ruffled her shock of bright auburn hair as she turned toward the house and saw him watching. Smiling, she raised her hand and offered him a brief wave. Gabriel smiled and raised his own hand in reply. He watched her climb out of the side door, swinging her shapely legs down from the cab. Gabriel felt his heart beat a little faster in his breast. Celeste. Celeste Parker.

He’d missed her at the party. Missed the opportunity to peel away with her to a quiet spot and blot out the presence of everyone else. But he was also pleased, in a sense, that she hadn’t come. She didn’t need the party, not like everyone else needed the party. And for that reason, if no other, he was very much in love with her.

Gabriel listened to the sound of her heels crunching on the gravel, a soft rap on the front door with a gloved fist, Henry’s footsteps as he crossed the hallway to let her in. Smiling, Gabriel retrieved the newspaper from the breakfast table and rustled it noisily, as if intent on continuing with an article he had earlier abandoned. He attempted to exude his most nonchalant air. He knew Celeste would see through this ruse, but then, such was the game they played.

A moment later the drawing room door creaked open. Gabriel didn’t look up from the newspaper to watch Celeste enter the room. She hovered for a moment at the threshold, silent save for her soft inhalation, awaiting his acknowledgement. The moment stretched. Gabriel turned the page and pretended to scan the headlines.

Finally, the visitor broke the silence. “You look terrible, Gabriel. I see the party was up to its usual… standards.” Her voice was soft and melodious; it had broken many hearts.

Gabriel folded the left page of his New York Times and peered inquisitively over the crease, as if he’d only just realized she was there. Framed in the doorway, the soft light of the morning streaming in from the hallway, she seemed to him like an angel; surrounded by a wintery halo, beautiful, ethereal. She dressed with the confidence of a woman who knew she would turn heads: a black, knee-length dress, stockings, high-heeled shoes, and a black jacket. Her auburn hair was like a shock of lightning, bright and electrifying, her lips a slash of glossy red.

“You didn’t come.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Of course I didn’t come. Did you expect me to come?”

“You were missed.”

Celeste laughed. She stepped further into the room, placing her handbag on the sideboard beside the door. Gabriel crumpled the newspaper and tossed it on the breakfast table, where it disturbed the ashtray, sending a plume of gray dust into the air. Henry had yet to tidy away the last vestiges of the party. The house was in a dreadful state. Gabriel wrinkled his nose. “Yes, it does rather make a terrible mess of one’s house.” He paused, as if thoughtful. “I think next time we’ll stay outside. We’ll all have to wear beach clothes. A bathing party, out by the pool.”

Celeste looked confused, despite herself. She offered him a wan smile. “In November? Whatever are you talking about?”

Gabriel grinned profusely. He leaned forward in his chair. “Yes! Why not! There’s that place down in Jersey selling some newfangled contraption. A thing that heats your pool. The Johnson and Arkwright Filament, they call it. Just imagine. It would be a showstopper! I’ll order one next week. A pool party in November! Oh, do say you’ll come?” He knew she wouldn’t come. But he had a role to play, and so did she.

“I’m busy.”

He glanced out of the window. His voice was quiet. “Yes. Of course.”

“Oh really, Gabriel. You need a drink. And I need a cigarette.”

Gabriel smiled. He reached for the small silver cigarette case he kept in his jacket pocket. It was engraved with his initials: GC. “Do you want eggs? Henry’s making eggs. Sit down.”

She sat. “No. Not eggs.” She reached over and took one of his proffered cigarettes. He noticed her fingernails matched the color of her hair. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, pulling the tab on the end of her smoke so that it sparked and ignited. A blue wreath encircled her head.

“Are you singing tonight?”

“Yes. At Joe’s. Will you come?”

“I’m busy.”

“Yes. Of course.” Her lips parted in a knowing smile.

Gabriel grinned. Celeste was a jazz singer at a club in downtown Manhattan. That was where Gabriel had met her, six months earlier. He’d taken a pretty girl named Ariadne, a perfectly lovely young thing, all lipstick and short skirts and oozing sexuality. But Celeste had stolen his attention. It had nothing to do with romance; it was dark and harsh and exotic, an attraction of a different kind. When she’d parted her lips at the microphone the entire world had ceased spinning. Her voice carried truth. It spoke to him—not to Gabriel Cross, but to the real man who hid behind that name. It carried knowledge of the world, and poor Ariadne hadn’t stood a chance.

He’d driven Ariadne home in silence; abandoned her on the front steps of her house. She’d been sanguine yet desperate, resigned yet somehow wanting more. She still came to his parties sometimes, floating around ethereally in her sequined dresses, catching his eye as he showered platitudes and cigarettes on his other guests. She needed a reason, an understanding of what had passed between them. She needed to know what she had done wrong, what fatal act of sabotage she had committed. But Gabriel couldn’t bear to tell her the truth, couldn’t bear to strip away civilities and reveal to her the hollow reality of the matter: that poor Ariadne was just another girl in just another city. That her life filled with parties and laughing and booze didn’t mean anything. That she could never compare to a woman like Celeste. She couldn’t see the world for what it was.

Ghosts. New York was full of people like that. So were his parties. People who drifted through life as if it didn’t matter, as if it were simply something that they had to do. Get up in the morning, pass time, sleep, fuck, die. Even Gabriel Cross was a member of that illustrious set, as much as he hated to admit it. But Celeste was not, and her allure had been unavoidable, her effect on Gabriel predetermined from the outset. He had been ensnared, and for the rest of that night he had lain awake in the stifling summer heat, drunk on whisky and desire, replaying the sound of Celeste’s voice over and over in his mind.

The next night Gabriel had returned to the club by himself in search of the jazz singer. He’d found her haunting the bar, drinking orange juice laced with cheap illegal gin. He’d bought her drinks, offered her cigarettes, watched her as she brushed aside the other men who each lined up to make a play for her attention. At first she’d seemed amused by his presence—the confident interloper—intrigued by the fact that he had returned to the club so soon after his previous visit, this time without the pretty embellishment on his arm. But Gabriel had seen where the other men had tried and failed. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. Not this time. So, instead, he had simply offered her a final cigarette for the evening, before retiring. He didn’t leave his name or his number. He didn’t need to.

A week later he had found her playing cards in his breakfast room with three other girls whose names he could never remember. His party was in full swing; it was dark outside, but drunken men strutted loudly on the lawn by the light of the moon, and women laughed gaily as though being treated to the height of theatrical endeavor. All around them the house was full of bustle, of noise and tension and sex and booze. Of people looking for a way to force some feeling into their lives, or else to numb the pain. But when Celeste had turned to smile at him, he’d wanted nothing more than for them all to disappear. He’d wanted the world to stand still again, like it had a week before, the night he’d first watched her open her mouth to sing.

He’d fucked her that night at the party, hot and fast and urgent. And in the morning, as the sunlight streamed in through the window to dapple the pillow where she had lain, he knew then that he was in love with her.

He looked up. She was watching him now while she gently rolled the end of her cigarette around the rim of the cut-glass ashtray. He turned to meet her gaze. “Have you read the papers?”

Celeste shrugged. “It’s not news, you know, Gabriel. Not real news. It’s just hearsay and opinion. It’s what people tell each other to make the time go by.”

Gabriel smiled. “But what about this ‘Ghost’? Did you hear about that? The crazy vigilante who burst in on that bank job and killed all the crooks? Now that’s news.”

Celeste shrugged, pursing her lips. “Yes, I suppose it is. But I don’t know why it’s so surprising. It was only ever a matter of time before someone tried to take the law into their own hands. Crooks and vigilantes, they’re just different sides of the same coin. He’s as bad as the rest of them.”

Gabriel nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. The papers certainly share your opinion. But I can’t help wondering if the guy is actually a hero. He saved people’s lives.”

“And took others. He caused that woman’s death. The hostage.”

Gabriel fingered his cigarette case before turning it over, flicking the catch, and withdrawing a cigarette. He pulled the tab, and met Celeste’s penetrating gaze through a brief wall of smoke. “Perhaps… but I’d still be inclined to blame that on the crook who put the knife in her throat, rather than the guy who tried to save her.”

Celeste looked as if she was about to speak, but then she turned to watch Henry, the valet, enter the room through another door. On a tray he bore a plate of toast and eggs, with a Bloody Mary on the side. He smiled genially when he saw her looking. “Will Miss Parker be taking breakfast this morning?” He’d made her breakfast before, on more than one occasion.

Celeste folded the stub of her cigarette into the ashtray. “Not today, Henry. I have rehearsals. And I think Mr. Cross could use some more sleep.”

Henry nodded politely and placed the silver tray on the table beside the crumpled newspaper. He straightened his back, glancing at his employer. “Will that be all, sir?”

Gabriel nodded. “Yes, that’ll be all, Henry.” He glanced at the eggs. His stomach growled. “I’ll be taking a trip into town later. I intend to watch Miss Parker’s show this evening. Could you ask Graves to prepare one of the cars?”

“Very good, sir.”

Celeste flashed Gabriel a wry smile. Gabriel offered her an abundant grin.

“I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” She regarded him with something approximating satisfaction, and then stood, collecting her handbag from where she’d left it on the sideboard. “Until this evening, then.”

Gabriel dropped his still-smoldering cigarette into the ashtray and pushed himself up out of his easy chair, riffles of blue smoke billowing from his nostrils. “I’ll walk you out.” He took her arm and led her into the hall.

“What about your eggs?”

“Never mind the eggs.” He stopped her at the foot of the stairs and took her face in his hands, pulling her near, kissing her deeply on the lips. Once again he felt his heart hammering in his chest. He wondered if she could feel it too.

They stood for a moment, staring into one another’s eyes. Then Celeste broke away, moving toward the door. She pushed it open and Gabriel felt a cold breeze sweep into the hallway. He shivered involuntarily.

Celeste crossed to her motorcar, the gravel crunching noisily with every step. Gabriel followed to open the door for her, watching as she smoothly lowered herself into the driver’s seat. A moment later the engine roared, a shot of black smoke belched out from the exhaust pipe, and the vehicle hissed away. Celeste didn’t look back.

Gabriel watched the car slide off into the distance, steam rising from the rear funnels to leave long vapor trails in the crisp morning air. As he turned back to the house, already lamenting the fact that she’d had to leave so soon, he noticed a small, dark bundle on the ground, resting on the driveway at the bottom of the step. He crouched so that he could get a better look. It was a dead bird, its black feathers ruffling in the breeze. It looked as if it had been mangled somehow, caught and abandoned by a predator, perhaps, its head twisted awkwardly to one side, its wings broken out of shape. He’d seen a man like that once, lying in a ditch in France. His neck had been broken, too, blood caked ominously around his ear, eyes glazed and milky-white. If it hadn’t been for the startled look of terror frozen on the dead man’s face, Gabriel could almost have imagined he was resting, his head on a soft pillow of mud, watching the plumes of distant explosions as innumerable airships drifted lazily above, relentlessly bombarding the landscape below.

Sighing, he stood. He wished his mind wasn’t full of such memories. He’d have Henry come and clear the remains of the bird away later. Now, he needed eggs. And he needed to clear his head. The Bloody Mary would help.

THREE

Felix Donovan was having a terrible day.

He’d been dragged from his bed at five-thirty by the buzzing of the holotube, only to find his sergeant on the line, nervously informing him there’d been a homicide. From the look of the flickering blue image that appeared in the mirrored cavity in his holotube terminal, he’d been able to tell that Mullins was calling from a private booth in a hotel or bar, and that he very much considered himself out of his depth.

Nevertheless, for a moment Donovan had actually considered going back to bed. It wasn’t as if murders were anything new or unusual in downtown Manhattan. Another dead body on another apartment floor. He was sure it could wait until a reasonable hour of the morning, at least until he’d showered and eaten his breakfast. But then Mullins had told him who had been murdered, and suddenly everything had changed.

Now, at a quarter after eleven, his head was still thick with lack of sleep, and he was desperately in need of a coffee.

“Inspector?”

Donovan turned to see Mullins standing sheepishly behind him. The sergeant was a portly man who sported a short, clipped moustache and appeared to Donovan to have a permanently ruddy complexion. He was currently dressed in a long gray overcoat, which covered his disordered blue suit: a symptom of being roused from his bed at such an ungodly hour of the morning. The inspector could forgive him that. Donovan himself, however, was dressed immaculately, as usual; his black suit and crisp white collar were pressed and pristine, and he had taken the time to freshen up before driving out to the scene of the crime. It was a small, fruitless rebellion, but it made him feel better just the same. After all, he was alive and the victim was dead, and the dead man wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Regardless, the man had been an odious toad. Politicians, Donovan found, were very rarely anything else.

He regarded Mullins with an impatient eye. “What is it, Sergeant? Have you finally managed to search out some coffee?”

Mullins wouldn’t meet his eye. “No, sir. Not coffee. But there’s a gathering crowd of reporters out front, and they’re calling for a statement. Are you planning to say anything?”

Donovan looked round at the tall revolving doors of the lobby. Beyond, through the glass panes, he could see a gaggle of reporters and photographers being shepherded back from the sidewalk by a couple of uniformed men. Flashbulbs blinked, reflecting in the glass and causing miniature shimmering coronas to burst momentarily to life.

He and Mullins were standing in the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel, all plush modernity and chandeliers. It was a bit rich for Donovan’s decidedly down-to-earth palate. He gritted his teeth. “No. They can wait.” He looked back at Mullins. “They can wait like everyone else. We haven’t even informed his wife yet, for God’s sake.” He was muttering now, as if to himself more than his sergeant. “How the hell are we going to break it to his wife?” A sigh. “And then there’s the matter of the scandal. The Commissioner might want to keep the details out of the press.” He gestured at Mullins. “Tell them to get back to the gutter.”

Mullins sucked in his breath. For a moment Donovan thought he looked even redder in the face than usual. He hadn’t thought that was possible. “They’re asking, sir, if it’s the work of the Roman.”

“Well, yes. I’d very much imagine they are.” Donovan gave another plaintive sigh. His voice was tinged with weariness. “Look, Mullins. Find that coffee. And let’s have another look at the crime scene. Then the ambulance crew can take the bodies to the morgue. After that—we’ll see about facing those reporters.”

“Yes, sir.” Mullins nodded and shot off in the direction of the kitchens.

* * * 

The murder of James Landsworth Senior had taken place in the early hours of the morning on the top floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel. It was a sordid affair, and Donovan, standing on the threshold of the room with a cigarette dangling from his lips, didn’t quite know what to make of it.

The dead man was a senator—and a well-respected one at that—and this whole affair, Donovan had concluded, had been set up to discredit him. There was no doubt the scene inside the hotel room had been posed; a grisly diorama intended to embarrass the government.

Landsworth was—or had been, Donovan corrected himself—a middle-aged man of about fifty, with a full head of graying hair and a significant paunch, and he had built his career on a foundation of right-wing policies and conservative opinions. He supported prohibition. He had a healthy hatred for the British Empire and he campaigned against “progress,” claiming that science was “dehumanizing” the American people. He sold himself as a family man, and was often seen around town with his wife and two young children. He never attended parties or large social gatherings, and the newspapers had a dog of a time digging up anything about the man that could even be considered controversial.

But nevertheless, here he was, his pants round his ankles, chained to a bedpost, wearing rouge, with a half-drunk bottle of illegal whisky on the bedside table. His chest was covered in cigarette burns and there was lipstick all over his prick. His mouth was hanging slack-jawed and two small Roman coins had been placed over his eyelids. They glinted in the lamplight as if they had been freshly minted.

Across the room, a dead whore lay on the floor, her skirt pulled up around her hips, stockings torn, her face bruised and split where she had been viciously beaten. Donovan couldn’t even tell what she had looked like before the beating, except for the fact that the lipstick smeared across her lower face matched the color of that now found on Landsworth’s corpse. Mullins had told him she’d been asphyxiated, but Donovan hadn’t yet brought himself to take a proper look. He’d needed a coffee and a cigarette before even contemplating that.

Donovan looked from one body to the other, and shuddered. The reporters were right to be asking. This was clearly the Roman’s handiwork. It was the third murder in as many weeks, and each victim had been a man of standing: a councilor, a surgeon, and now a senator. Each of them had also been found with identical Roman coins resting on their eyelids: a calling card, of sorts, from the mob boss responsible for their deaths. Donovan had had the coins analyzed, assuming them to be recent copies that he could somehow trace through the city’s dealers, but had been startled to discover they were actual Roman coins, dating from the reign of Vespasian. They looked as fresh and new as if they had been pressed the day before, not nearly two thousand years in the past. He didn’t know what to make of that, either.

The Roman had seemingly come from nowhere, but had quickly risen to become one of the most powerful mob bosses in the city. His network of heavies, informants, and petty criminals was unparalleled, and he managed to inspire an unflinching dedication in his men. Donovan suspected it was a reign of terror, but so far he hadn’t managed to get close enough to find out.

No one had ever seen the Roman. That was the most bizarre factor in the whole matter. It was supposed he was Italian—thus the moniker—but the truth of the matter was that the police had been unable to establish any information regarding who he really was, or even where he could be found. Whoever he was, the only certainty was that he had somehow managed to bring the city to its knees. And it was Donovan’s job to find a means to stop him.

He took another draw on his cigarette and then stubbed it out on the doorframe, ignoring the appalled look this inspired from his sergeant. As if in response, he nonchalantly handed the butt to Mullins, who accepted it with a surprised expression, and then, seeing no obvious place to discard it, slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat without a word.

Donovan crossed to the bed, screwing his face up in disgust. Landsworth was a mess. He couldn’t let the papers get hold of the details, of that much he was certain. He might not be able to put right what the Roman had done, but he could prevent him gaining any satisfaction from it. He turned to Mullins. “Do you think he was already here, with the good-time girl, before the Roman’s men… interrupted things?”

Mullins shook his head. “No. I think he was killed elsewhere and brought here later. The girl was killed here, though. There’re signs of a struggle.” He indicated for Donovan to follow him across the hotel suite. “Watch you don’t step on the bloodstains, sir.”

Donovan swallowed. The girl had been viciously brutalized. He couldn’t be sure, but she must only have been nineteen, twenty years old.

Mullins lowered his voice, as if trying to mask his horror. “What a waste of life.”

Donovan didn’t know whether he meant the fact that she’d been murdered, or the fact that such a young girl had been forced into whoring herself to unscrupulous politicians and gangsters. Either way, the sergeant was right.

Donovan glanced around. An overturned table, a smashed lamp, a rug all ruffled up at one end. Yes, there’d been a struggle here. She’d been a spirited girl. “She probably thought she had a good paying gig here, at this hotel, before all this.” He shook his head and glanced at the uniformed officer who was still lurking in the doorway. “Cover her up,” he said, with a resigned gesture. He wondered what they’d made her do before they killed her. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Is there anything here, Mullins, that might give us any clues? Anything different about this one? Different from the others?”

Mullins shook his head but remained silent. Just like Landsworth’s corpse, splayed out on the bed, unable to tell Donovan what the hell he should tell the Commissioner when he got back to the station. Unable, too, to bring him any closer to understanding who the Roman was, or how on earth he was going to set about bringing him to justice for his crimes.

FOUR

The man looked out, surveying the scene across the city. Electric lights glowed like pinpricks in the darkness, causing apartment blocks to take on the appearance of jewel-encrusted towers. Police dirigibles drifted lazily overhead, their searchlights punctuating the gloaming with long, brilliant columns of white. Above them, a full moon hung low over the city like the smoldering tip of a cigarette, shrouded in wispy clouds.

He’d heard it said that New York was a city that never slept, but his own experience told him that wasn’t entirely true; Manhattan spent its days in a state of bleary-eyed lethargy, only truly coming alive after nightfall. That was the city that most people didn’t see, the city full of urgency and emotion and life, the city he had grown to know and to need, and that—more than ever—needed someone like him in return. The police operated with one hand tied constantly behind their backs. They could never do what was necessary, bound as they were by law and convention. Yet the city was falling to crime and corruption, the government and politicians giving way to an endless series of crime lords. It was a war, and it called for brutal measures. The wound needed to be cauterized before the festering grew worse.

The man the newspapers were calling “the Ghost” shifted slightly, reaching inside his long coat to produce a packet of cigarettes. He popped the lid and extracted one of the thin white sticks. With his gloved fingers he pulled the tab on the end of it and watched it flare, briefly under-lighting his face, before bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a long, deep draw. The nicotine flooded his lungs, giving him a light-headed rush. He left the cigarette drooping from his bottom lip as he once again surveyed the city streets below.

From his vantage point atop the roof terrace on Fifth Avenue—above his city apartment—the Ghost watched the comings and goings of the people down below. Coal-powered cars hissed along the road, whilst lonely pedestrians drifted along the sidewalks, solitary specters in the wan light thrown down from the surrounding buildings. If it hadn’t been for—

He stopped, suddenly, snapping his head to the right. He’d caught a sound, carried to him on the stiff breeze that rumpled the tails of his long coat. The sound of a man calling out in pain, from somewhere far below. Leaving his position at the front of the building, he rushed over to the other side of the terrace. He scanned the streets below. Nothing.

Reaching up, the Ghost felt under the brim of his hat until his fingers located the rim of his goggles. He tugged them down over his eyes, turning the lenses slowly away from the bridge of his nose. Everything took on a red sheen. Targeting circles floated, disembodied, before his vision. He cranked the lenses once again, tiny cogs whirring inside the device, and the view suddenly magnified, becoming sharp and bright. He could see the sidewalk five stories below as if he were only a few feet away.

The sound came to him again, a stifled cry. The Ghost tracked along the sidewalk toward where he thought it had originated. There, by the mouth of an alleyway, was a large armored car, thick iron plates cladding its sides to form a tank-like vehicle, the windshield just a slit in the otherwise impenetrable metal sheeting. The engine was running, and the exhaust chimney was belching oily black smoke as it burned coal at a furious rate. Behind this, in the alleyway itself, he sensed movement. He decided to investigate.

The Ghost flicked a switch on the side of his goggles and the lenses snapped back into place, returning his vision to normal. He glanced along the edge of the building, looking for the quickest route down to street level. Just a few feet away, a steel fire-escape ladder was fixed to the outside of the building. Shrugging his shoulders, the Ghost pulled himself up onto the stone lip of the building, ran sure-footed but carefully along the top of it and dropped easily onto the metal platform below. His heavy boots rang out into the quiet night. Then, gripping the railings with his gloved fists, he used his weight to slide down from platform to platform, hitting the sidewalk a matter of moments later.