Chapter Text
The window only overlooked the street below, a couple of construction sites for skyscrapers, and a few bare trees, but at least the room had a window. It might have even been a decent view if the chill of a few days ago hadn’t spooked all the buds on the trees into dormancy for another, oh, week at least, probably. Helen ran her fingers along the windowsill and debated the merits of cracking the window to air out the smells of wilting flowers, watered down bleach, and carbolic soap. Although the day was warm enough that Helen had forewent her heavy winter coat for a warm shawl, the almanac predicted another chill soon, and who knew what the cold air would do to Gen’s battered insides.
Helen turned away from the window to fiddle with the listing carnations on the table beside the narrow bed, making a note to bring fresh ones in from the greenhouse down the road in the morning. She did her best to look at Gen as little as possible to avoid just getting angrier. It wouldn’t do anyone any good at this point. Soon she ran out of things to straighten, plump, and snap at in the tiny private hospital room and let herself stare at Gen, at the way the arm strapped across his chest rose and fell with every breath.
“Your face is fucked,” she whispered to him, gently tucking a stray curl on his forehead back behind his ear. “If any of that damage is permanent, you’re going to be so, so angry.” It was true; he’d been spitting angry when he’d collected a scar under one eye that didn’t look it would fade at all, a few years ago. After hearing him wail about his beauty being gone for days, their cousin Gus had held Gen down while Helen rubbed peroxide into his hair. Looking like a spotted skunk with mange for a week before Hector helped him shave it all close to his scalp had shut him up, and Hector slipped Helen and Gus both some change for it; Hector hadn’t cared for how long Gen had let his hair grow out anyway.
She’d peroxide her own hair if he’d wake up faster to laugh at her and complain about his own face. Even Galen couldn’t really tell if he’d only been beaten or if something worse had happened, with as swollen and shattered as Gen was. The mottled bruise that could be generously called a black eye covered more than a quarter of his face, and his jaw was fat where he was missing a molar. His breathing was slow and labored, but steady, and Helen was grateful she couldn’t see what kind of shape his chest was in with the arm and hand splinted over it and the starched hospital sheet pulled up to his collarbones. It was bad enough, listening to Galen fret and warn them of possible internal damage while he wrung his hands.
Someone knocked on the door and Helen looked up just in time for Galen to come in. “Any change?” he asked, gently closing the door behind him and crossing to the other side of Gen’s bed.
Helen shook her head with a yawn. “He hasn’t even twitched. It’s so strange seeing him like this. He’s such a light sleeper.”
Galen sighed. “Have you been here all night?”
“Only since four. It was Aulus before that, then Uncle Hector.”
“You don’t need to keep someone posted by his bed every hour of the day, you know.” Helen said nothing, but fixed Galen with a particular look as if that comment were particularly stupid. And it was. There was no way anyone was going to leave Gen unattended in a hospital full of people—normal people, who had no connection to the Eddis family and most of whom would have no gifts of their own—when he hadn’t been the one controlling his body when he’d been found.
Galen sighed again, longsuffering, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “Alright, alright. I’ve got some free time now, I can take over. I want to try to set up a fluids line, anyway.”
“Fluids?” Helen asked, tilting her head.
“He’s been unconscious for three days now, my girl. Much longer and we’ll have to start worrying about his body dehydrating and weakening, or worse.”
“We’ve been able to coax a little water down his throat.”
“Yes, and that’s good, but I don’t want to inadvertently cause a lung collapse because he’s coughing around broken ribs while he drinks. Don’t worry,” he added at Helen’s pinched frown and look back down at her unconscious brother. “I’ve inserted hollow needles before and monitored the administering of water and salt. Everything will be fine.”
“I’m sending Gus up just in case,” she warned, shooting Gen another look as she walked around his bed. “Not because I don’t trust you, because you’re family and I do. But because you’re going to need help if he wakes up and he’s…not himself.”
Galen waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Go home, Helen. Have a bath, eat something, see to your shop and hotel. Get some sleep. I’d like to not see you back here before tomorrow.”
She gave him another look. “I’ll be back this evening.”
“I wish you Eddises weren’t so damn stubborn.”
“We can’t help it, Galen. We wouldn’t be Eddises if we weren’t.” She blew him a kiss as she slipped out of the room. Whatever mask of goodwill she wore for him slid neatly off her face the instant her foot hit the stairs down. Her jaw tightened almost painfully, teeth grinding together, the hand that wasn’t on the railing curling into a fist at her side.
A quick glance at her pocket watch told her it was only half past eleven in the morning. She left the hospital, picking up a sandwich from the deli counter halfway between the hospital and the omnibus stop and digging into it without fanfare. She finished it on the bus ride east, for once having plenty of elbow room for herself as the furious expression on her face kept people out of the seats beside her. The omnibus took her far enough that she could smell the sea in the air, and she departed the carriage to catch a cab to the dockyards.
Gryphon Shipping may have been nominally owned by Hector for the purposes of the law, but it didn’t fool anyone who recognized her at the docks. It didn’t stop dock workers and rough sailors from going silent and parting like the Red Sea as Helen stomped toward the shipping offices, progress unimpeded by the crowds. She walked into the office and just looked at the secretary there, who turned bright red beneath his spectacles and pointed to the room Ornon was in. Helen nodded to him briskly and walked in without knocking. Ornon looked up from the thick folder he was reading and winced, pausing to rub his eyes. “Miss Helen.”
“Have you found anything?” Helen asked, resting both palms on the desk and leaning over it, scanning the stack of papers in front of him. Ledgers, mostly—dealings with the other half of the Eddis family, who still smuggled goods up and down the Atlantic coast and knew all the fences in every major port city from Maine to Barbados. Helen’s grandmother had been the head of the family when they broke off in 1850, Grandma Alene taking her criminal enterprise and dedicating it to smuggling a different kind of contraband out of the South while leaving her husband and their four children to turn the shipping depot into a legitimate business to offer employment and education to the people she dropped off after her visits. The brothers stayed legal after the war while the sisters went off to inherit the smuggling ring.
They were still family, and fairly close, but every competent criminal knew which Eddises they needed and which they didn’t, and any incompetent criminals learned soon enough.
Ornon shook his head. He had large bags under his eyes. “I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground, listening for rumors, checking records—ours and what of the other half of the family we know of—if anyone knows who took Eugene, they’re not saying a word.”
Helen struck her fist into the table, just enough to sting. “No one’s gloating? What about any of Gen’s recent clients? Were his books stolen?”
“No, ma’am. We don’t know if anything was taken from his apartment. He keeps his valuables scattered and I found his ledgers easily enough.” He slid a slim book out from under the Gryphon stack and pushed it at Helen. An appointment diary, in Gen’s untidy handwriting, with the occasional times and dates crossed out and replaced with different ones, because Gen was terrible with times and dates. She scanned the whole year’s entries, but nothing stood out.
Mar 2, 12:30 pm, K Granger. Summoned mother, shouting match. 3.50
Feb 21, 2 pm, G Teleus. No summoning necessary. No charge, tipped 1.50
Feb 19, 3:30 pm, strange activity, 63 St. Need to go back, couldn’t get a handle on it. No charge.
Feb 16, 3 pm 3:45 pm, B Miles & B Hudson. Summoned Miles’ son. Hard summoning, 6
Feb 10, 9, 12:30 pm 4 pm, I McGuillis. Summoned SIL, 3.50
Feb 1, 11 AM, P Brown. Summoned brother, 3.50, tipped .45
Jan 22, 2 pm, house haunting, Bronson Ave. Ghost was fine. Shooed him to other apartment, 5
Jan 19, 3:30 pm, Q Alcott & Y Alcott. Talked out of summoning, no charge, tipped 1
Jan 14, 15, 4 pm, house haunting, 51 St. Cleared. 7.50, tipped .20
Jan 9, 3:00 pm, I Carmichael & R Dunhaven. Summoned Carmichael’s husband. Asshole. No charge, refused tip.
“K. Granger?” she asked.
“Tracked down a Katherine Granger who confirmed Eugene summoned her mother and was very reasonable while she and the ghost yelled at each other. I haven’t investigated any farther than that. Didn’t think I needed to.”
Helen sighed and shook her head. “I can’t imagine anyone coming back to the building to do that kind of damage, if it was someone disgruntled about a reading or a summoning. There’s nothing listed for March 8th.”
“Honestly, if it wasn’t for the housebreaking, I’d have sworn this is just a…strange mugging.” Ornon took the diary as Helen handed it back. “The other Eddises aren’t in conflict with anyone right now, either. I sent a telegram to your aunt to confirm.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said say the word and she’ll send back a steamer of Eddises. And here I thought she didn’t like Gen.”
Helen snorted. She flattened her palms against the wood of the desk and pressed, hard enough to feel the stretch of her wrist all the way up to her shoulder. “She likes me, though, and everyone knows Gen is my favorite. I can’t believe someone managed to do this and not leave any trace anywhere. There must be something.”
“We’ll find out who did it. We just might need a little more time. It’s only been three days, Helen.”
“Just…just keep an ear out.” Helen relaxed her arms and stood up straight again, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Do you think it could have been another thief?”
Ornon blinked, tilting his head. “Oh, that…could be very likely. Though I’ve never known a cat burglar to travel with muscle, and I’m sure there was more than one person in Gen’s apartment.”
“Maybe not just a cat burglar, then. Maybe he accidently stumbled onto a ring, or cut into a group of thieves’ territory. Or perhaps someone he burgled found out where he lived and went for revenge. But why not just go to the police, in that case?”
“Perhaps he stole something someone doesn’t want publicized? Or he stole from a thief and they couldn’t go to the police.”
“There’d be no reason to take him out of his home, then, Ornon.” She pursed her lips. “…I think that bothers me, apart from what they did to him. They took him out of his home, to another location, and then they hurt him. If they knew where he lived, surely they knew he was alone in the building. And if they were after something he stole from them, why not just try to take it? If they were trying to burglarize him and he walked in on it, the scene would make so much more sense.”
Ornon frowned and straightened a few papers, giving her a firm look as she scrubbed at her face. “Go home, Helen. Get some sleep.”
“Only if you do. Your eyebags could double as coin purses. Have you seen Uncle Hector? Damn,” she added when Ornon just shook his head. “Alright. Okay. If you find anything, send me a telegram. And if Hector comes to work—”
“I’ll probably just send him home. I think he’s getting less sleep than either of us.”
That probably was true. The last time Helen had seen him outside the hospital, Hector had been sitting at the kitchen table staring at a wide glass bowl filled with water, an empty bottle of beer still clutched in his hand. She’d tried to speak to him, but he hadn’t responded. She might have tried harder to snap him out of it if she hadn’t had Sophos with her at the time, so she’d just kissed his head, said hello to Aunt Effie (Sophos had echoed her with only a little hesitance) and left. Only later did she discover he’d just finished calling his other children and telling them their baby brother might be dead, his body just hadn’t caught up yet.
Helen shook her head as if that could shake the fear that Gen wouldn’t come back this time, and left the office after a quick goodbye. She called a cab to take her back home for a nap, knowing already that sleep wouldn’t come easy.
Without the need to hurry or look presentable to people she might need to impress, Helen changed into her cycling bloomers after a few hours of sleep and a quick meal. She checked her post box twice for potential messages she may have missed before pinning a hat to her short curls, locking up her apartment, and grabbing her bicycle. The sun was only just beginning to sink low into the horizon. Under ordinary circumstances, Helen would have enjoyed a golden hour bicycle ride as a pleasant outing all its own, though a quick ride to Gen’s or Uncle Hector’s, or a longer ride to the Upper East side to meet Sophos’ family for dinner would have been a delightful way to spend an evening. Perhaps even a ride to the park where a group of women she rode with in the summer usually met, to see if anyone was around early in the year to trade smokes and talk politics with.
Instead, she barely noticed the flattering light and comfortable weather cooling for the night as she pedaled for the hospital. Although she doubted she was far enough outside her own neighborhood that people wouldn’t recognize her or her bicycle, she still took the time on arrival to lock the chain and padlock around the spokes of the front wheel to a hitching post outside the building before pocketing the key and making her way to Gen’s room. Uncle Hector was there, leaning against the wall just outside the room, looking more haggard than Helen had seen him in years. Agape was with him, hand over Hector’s elbow, muttering to him in a low voice. They both stood up straighter as she approached, Hector with a long sigh. “Any change?”
Aggie shook her head. “The evening nurse is inside doing dressing changes.”
“Helen,” Hector said, reaching out to squeeze her wrist as she drew close. “Has Ornon heard anything?”
“No. Have you?”
“Only from Eulalie. She’s coming into the city this weekend. Tom can’t get away, but Katerina called and said she’d update him personally when she has chance to come down next week.”
That was all Hector’s children but one. “Stan?”
“He’s on a train now. Marina will meet him at the station,” Aggie said. Helen nodded absently, and she carried on. “I was just trying to convince Hector to go home. Especially if Stan will be staying in his old room. I can go home and help fix up the house.”
“Stanley won’t be expecting a perfect house, and his old room is fine as it is,” Hector grumbled.
Helen and Aggie traded looks. “Is Sly coming with Stan? It couldn’t hurt to change the sheets, Uncle Hector.” She doubted Stan’s long-term partner would come down for short of a funeral to avoid excess suspicion on the pair, though he was popular with the family and got along with Gen like a house on fire. They’d originally planned for Gen to stay with the pair several years back when Gen had crossed the criminal Eddises by mistake and needed to disappear for a while, though Gen had thwarted that plan by absconding with himself instead.
Hector only shook his head again, frowning deeper in a way that meant he was getting angry, though it only made him look more exhausted now. “Sylvester isn’t coming, just Stan, and I don’t need to go home.”
“Hector,” Aggie began, and Helen winced internally at the tone. Placating wouldn’t work here.
“I am fine to sit with my son another few hours,” Hector said, not snapping, but with voice like coffin nails regardless. “And I don’t need the two of you treating me like a doddering old man or an invalid. I’m neither.”
Helen crossed her arms. “No one thinks that, Uncle Hector.” No one could. He’d only just turned fifty and was one of the strongest and healthiest people she knew.
“It’s just, you both look like you need a good night’s sleep—”
“Aggie, I just woke up from a four hour nap, I am fine—”
“Please remember that I can sleep absolutely anywhere, at any time, and still—”
A shout from inside Gen’s room made all three of them jump. Helen and Hector both went for the door knob and bounced off each other. A metal crash and the door was opening anyway, a woman in a nurse’s uniform with her hat askew jumping out and shutting the door to press her back against it. She looked at the three Eddises with wide, frightened eyes. “He’s—he just—”
“Is he awake?” Helen demanded, pulling the nurse out of Hector’s way as he wrenched the door open and ran inside.
The nurse swallowed, her chest heaving. “I—I need to phone the doctor—”
“Helen!” Hector shouted, followed by another crash and a long hiss that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Helen pushed the poor nurse out of the way to run inside. What met her there only made her stop short for a split second before she moved to the other side of Gen’s bed, grabbing the arm not strapped to his chest.
Gen’s eyes were open, but his head lolled gracelessly on his neck as if he couldn’t hold it up. He sat upright and the good arm was spurting blood where he’d somehow managed to yank out the needle attached to rubber tubing that was dripping water into his veins. Helen clamped her hand over the spot, fingers quickly drenching in blood, and held the arm down to the cot. “Eugene!” Hector was shouting, his face inches away from Gen’s, as he tried to brace Gen down on the other side while his back arched with the effort to throw them off. His legs kicked out, never mind that one of them ended in a plaster cast nearly two inches thick around his broken ankle and shin. “Eugene Alaric Eddis—”
“He’s not in there!” Helen shouted back, leaning over to try to wrap her other hand over Gen’s thigh. She wasn’t sure how much weight she could afford to put on him, when he was already so shattered, but the thing piloting him around was going to hurt him further if they couldn’t keep him still.
“He is somewhere!”
They didn’t know that, was the problem, and this wasn’t the time to argue it. “He’s not there now.”
Agape had rushed in behind them, but had slipped and fallen in the growing pool of fluids near the bed. She rose now, splattered with water and gore, and tried to brace Gen’s legs. Helen grimaced at the sight of her more than the feeling of more blood welling from beneath her hand. She knew in her head he hadn’t lost much, but it didn’t keep the panic from rising. “Agape, get Galen.”
“The nurse has gone to do that—”
“She’ll have gone for the doctor on duty, that’s Abernathy,” Hector argued. “We need Galen. He’ll be here.”
“Can you hold him—”
“Go,” Helen and Hector snapped at once. Agape fled.
Helen shot Hector a look; when he nodded to her, she climbed into bed over Gen, digging one of her knees into one of his thighs, using the top of her boot to keep his calf still. She used as much weight as she dared to press his shoulder and good arm down. The other leg thrashed. Gen’s mouth fell open. His rolling eyes fixed on her, empty but also aware, pinning her like a beetle on a card. Goosebumps broke out over her arms and legs as the thing moving Gen around made a horrible, horrible growling sound, the kind that shouldn’t be possible to make with human vocal cords. His chest vibrated under Helen’s hands with the sound. It filled the room even though it never became loud. She often internally compared Gen’s under-voice to the sound of a lion she’d heard roaring in the zoo once—the kind of sound that was more felt than heard, even at a distance, something that didn’t seem natural even though it was. This was like that but worse, because it didn’t have the pinpoint focus and control Gen had when he used it. His head rolled toward Helen as the growl intensified, spit dripping from his lips as the thing snapped Gen’s teeth at her, once, twice, barely missing his limp tongue the second time. Hector’s broad hand fell onto Gen’s forehead, trying to keep his head still. Gods knew what would happen if it succeeded in biting Helen.
She was vaguely aware of someone else coming into the room and crying out in surprise. It must have been the other doctor; Hector shouted at him and he ran off to help find Galen, though he needn’t have bothered. Agape’s gift lay in finding whatever she searched for.
They held Gen down for an eternity that couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes long before Agape and Galen both burst in, Galen steering some kind of cart. “Get back, get back!” he cried, and Helen hoped he was talking to Hector, because she’d had to put more pressure on Gen’s body the longer the thing shredded his voice to make those awful sounds. Hector did jump back, and Galen took his place at Gen’s side, grabbing Gen’s head and forcing a mask over his mouth and nose.
“What is that?” Helen asked, flinching as the thing forced Gen’s hand back to claw at her wrist.
“Nitrous oxide.”
“From dentistry? What the fuck, you really think you can drug whatever kind of demon this is into submission?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Galen shouted.
She didn’t, so she gritted her teeth and readjusted her grip and waited. Through some miracle, the gas did seem to be working, as the growls lessened and the fighting died down until Helen didn’t feel she needed to put as much pressure on his injuries anymore. She still didn’t move from on top of him until the body went entirely motionless again, eyelids drooping over those slack, empty eyes, limbs going limp. Galen waited, keeping the mask on him until he was sure Gen was out. When a minute went by without the gas and no sign of him stirring, Helen climbed out of the hospital bed with an exhale that felt punched out of her, falling into the chair she’d kicked backwards away from the bed. She watched Gen breathing peacefully for a moment before looking up around the room—Hector, slumped in exhaustion back by the wall, hands on his knees; Galen, hovering by the cart and inspecting Gen’s injuries without touching him just yet; Agape by the door, damp and blood spattered the same as Helen herself was; the other doctor nearby, pale, his face a mask of confusion and horror. There, at least, was something she could do.
“Dr. Abernathy, yes?” she asked, lifting her chin and speaking with command even though she didn’t want to bother standing. The man nodded and looked to her, lost and eager for someone to tell him what to do, which never stopped being funny on a white man’s face no matter how many times Helen put the look there. “If you’d be so kind as to bring in medical restraints.”
“Of course,” he muttered, slipping away.
Agape exchanged looks with her, dry and harried, with a slight shake of her head. “I’ll ring Diana to bring us changes of clothes.”
“Thank you, Aggie. Uncle Hector—”
“Don’t,” he warned, holding up a hand.
Helen frowned at him, letting her eyes flash just enough that even he set his jaw to avoid flinching. “Uncle Hector. I don’t care where you stay tonight, but if we’re not together you need to send me a telegram the instant Stan arrives. We need to talk to him. And I need to talk to Sophos, and Titan Magus.”