Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

Ransom spent a few moments with the father-a man calling himself Gideon Tell-commiserating about his inability to find work. Ransom made a few suggestions, people to speak to, an alderman in the district, telling him to use his name to break the ice as a kind of letter of introduction. “There is the chance in this to feed your family,” finished Alastair. “You, too, Crusoe, but you’ll have to supply your real name.”

Crusoe grunted. “That’d be Robert Louis Stevenson.”

Across town at the same time

Jane and Gabby had not been able to sit idle all this time and had gone in search of Audra. They located her on a street corner in the company of others, including King Robin. All of the children had undoubtedly heard of Danielle’s fate, and most of them scattered on seeing Jane and Gabby, but Audra, Robin, and a handful held their ground.

Jane convinced those remaining to accept a carriage ride to Hull House where she had friends who would take care of them. “At least until the police catch this madman who killed Danielle,” she pleaded.

“No one can catch the Devil,” countered Robin, even as he urged his followers to climb into the carriage. None of them had ever been in a cab before, and they took it as a great opportunity that would not come again. It quickly became a free-for-all.

In fact, the ride to Hull House was boisterous and fun for all, but as they neared their destination, Gabby began interrogating Audra, asking when she had last seen Danielle and who might have been with her when she’d disappeared. “Why was she alone? Where were the other children in her gang?”

“Danny…she sometimes went off on her own,” said Robin.

“Said she needed thinking time.” Audra began sobbing. None of the other children could add to this.

Robin explained that the two bands mutually supported one another, and that everyone liked Danny as they affectionately called her. After this, Robin opened up, telling Jane and Gabby a story about himself and his mother. “One night last year, we made a bed out of a large freight box, newspapers, and some brush in the park by the lake, the place where a lotta drunks gather after all the bars are closed. And it was my turn to stand guard against the “screamers.”

“Screamers?” Jane asked, making all of Robin’s followers laugh.

“Packs of roaming addicts-screamers.”

“What sort of addicts?”

“All sorts. Booze, heroin, opium. Anyhow, while mama slept, I guarded her. That’s when all of a sudden Charlie was standing before me, dressed in his army uniform.”

“And Charlie is?”

“My dead brother. Died in the Indian Wars out West.”

“I’m so sorry Robin,” Jane replied, placing a hand over his, but he quickly withdrew.

Robin then gnashed his teeth, gulped, and teared up but kept on with his story, pretending some lint had flown into his eye. “My brother’s spirit, says he, ‘The Devil got loose from under the river!’”

“The river?”

“The Chicago River. He found a hole under Lake Michigan and came up through the river is what Charlie was saying out of his dead mouth. Then he said, ‘The rich people didn’t stop him!’ And then he says, ‘The angels need soldiers.’”

“So he was warning you, your brother?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. He’s close by, watching us right now .”

Gabby piped in. “One of the good angels, heh?”

“Where is your brother now?”

Robin opened the window sash on the carriage and looked about. Seeing nothing, he stuck his head out farther and returned his head with a smile. “He’s atop the coach, beside the driver, enjoying the ride.”

“He’s perched on the coach seat?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Gabby asked, “Is he, you know, stuck on this plane of existence, this realm?”

“Charlie’s spirit thinks he is needed in the war.”

“The war?” Gabby repeated just as the coach hit a huge pothole, jarring her but making the children cheer.

“War of angels, the one you’ve been told about.”

“He’s lingering here so he can fight back?” asked Jane.

“Now he has the power, yes.”

“So where now is your mother, Robin?”

Robin looked about the cab at all the expectant faces. It was a secret he had not told anyone; he informed them now, prefacing what he wanted to unload. “Mum is in county hospital.”

“Cook County?” asked Gabby.

“Sick…sick she is…up here.” Robin pointed to his head.

A chubby Polish boy piped in, his name Stanley. “My dead cousin told me that as soon as water touches the Devil’s skin, it turns deep burgundy and…and horns, they grow from his head. The river itself turns into blood; spirit screams and the bones of murdered children float on the water.”

“And just when the angels think they’ve convinced Good Streets -people like us-that they are in as much danger as Bad Streets, Satan vanishes through a secret gateway beneath the river, or lake, or pond, or ocean depending where you are.”

“I see,” said Jane, her heart silently sobbing for these children.

“Now he’s coming your way,” Audra warned.

Robin quicky added, “You’ll need to learn how to fight.”

“Teach me,” replied Jane.

At the same time Gabby asked Stanley why he was carrying a ratty old school book that’d been torn and beaten.

“I can’t go to school,” replied Stanley.

“But you carry school books?”

“Only cause Robin got them for me. He ought to grow up to be a teacher.”

“Perhaps he will.”

Stanley dropped his wide-eyed gaze in a gesture of sadness.

“‘Study hard,’ Robin tells us all,” said another of the children.

“Stay strong and smart so’s you count on yourself, no one else, is what he always says,” added Audra.

“And he taught us to never stop watching out for one another,” added little Stanley, his blond hair wispy and wild.

“To watch our backs,” said Audra.

“For Bloody Mary, you mean?” asked Gabby.

“And Satan?” added Jane. “Zoroaster?”

“I tell them what I’m telling you now, ladies,” Robin said, his voice ominous. “Bloody Mary is coming with Satan. And she’s seen your face. She’s picked you out for a no good end.”

Jane placed a hand on Gabby’s shoulder at this warning.

“What about this predator, the one the police and the press are after, the child killer?” Jane asked Robin point-blank. “How does he figure into this war of angels and with Bloody Mary?”

“How do you know that Leather Apron is a he?” Robin asked in return.

“Guess I’ve assumed it a statistical probability.”

“I think Bloody Mary is Leather Apron,” replied Robin.

“What makes you say so?”

“At least, she is directing his movements.”

“Why do you say so?” asked Jane.

“I saw her with Danny a couple of times lately.”

“Why do you think Danny’d go off with Bloody Mary, if she feared her so?” asked Gabby.

“Nothing goes on here on the streets without Bloody Mary having a hand in it,” added the sullen Noel.

Jane’s frustration filtered through in her voice. “Zoroaster, Satan…and the Blue Lady?”

“God, she works for God.”

“And where are God and the Angel Warriors and the Blue Lady?”

“Hiding out. Lickin’ their wounds…”

“Hiding out where?”

“Hiding out in plain sight. In hospitals, banks, schools. Here on the street. Danielle was an angel, and for all I know, you and your daughter, you could be warrior angels.”

“That’s sweet of you to say.”

“It’s not sweet. It’s instinct.” Robin then looked her hard in the eye and added, “You…you remind me of my mother before…before she got sick.”