Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 9

It was raining by the time I left the Night Chapel, my hideout on the north end of Joplin Heights, and set out for Vice Mile, the Fen's heart of darkness. Instead of taking the Night-Wheel, I went underground, hitching a ride through the sewers on the Psychopomp's raft.

"Where does your journey end, soul of wrath?" the old man wheezed.

"Vice Mile," I said, handing him one of the rare quarters from what remained of my old coin collection. "The north end."

"To the Phlegethon, then," he replied grimly. "The infernal river of unquenchable fire."

It wasn't just avoiding the rain that made me prefer the dark journey through Marbrose's abandoned sewer systems. Organized crime in Marbrose City was on high alert. Between me, the Nihilist, and whoever stole all those weapons from the Polish mob, the Montagneses were spooked. The minute I took to the streets on the Night-Wheel, word would travel, and Vice Mile would be locked down like a fortress. So, I took a quieter approach.

"Do you ever go up to the surface?" I asked as we glided silently through the darkness. The ferryman shook his head.

"I have no business in the world of the living. The souls of the dead require a guide."

He dropped me off at a slimy stone staircase leading up out of the murky water and into the tangle of underground passages beneath the east end of the Fen. Ellie had pre-plotted my route, and by following the map on my phone, I made my way to a maintenance hatch just a few blocks from The Canton Lily—Michael Anselmo's cathouse of choice.

Michael "Buffalo Mick" Anselmo was one of Augusto Vaccari's top lieutenants—on par with Frankie Markopolos as a veteran soldier of the regime. If he was assigned to track down the Nihilist, that meant his caporegime was getting nervous, and wanted quick results. I caught a glance of him a few months earlier at Chaffers Fish Market—when Augusto Vaccari mustered all the made men in the Fen—but I knew him mainly from the city's mugshot collection, which I flipped through like flashcards to learn the faces of the bad people I was up against.

Anselmo had a long face dominated by a large, aquiline nose and thick, ruddy lips. His eyes were set far apart, and he had a tuft of prickly black hair above his heavy brow. The overall effect was undeniably bovine, which was probably how he originally got his nickname—though he pretended that it was a complimentary reference to his strength and ruthlessness.

(Mafia nicknames, like Roman cognomina, are rarely complimentary.)

I sized up Buffalo Mick as I crouched on the fire escape across from the back entrance of The Canton Lily. Officially, this was a "bathhouse," but it was the thinnest of thin veneers, and nobody could have any doubt what they were really buying when they stepped inside. Most of the girls who worked here were Hmong, though they dressed more like Chinese or Japanese courtesans to meet the rather unsophisticated expectations of their clientele. I think the aesthetic was supposed to be "rapey Orientalized nostalgia," at least if Carmine Aurelio gave any thought to how he branded his nightclubs and brothels.

Like I said, we weren't exactly dealing with Rothko Scholars here.

Apart from a lamp with a single bulb just above the door, the alley behind The Canton Lily was dark. Michael Anselmo wasn't wearing a raincoat, and he seemed to be having some trouble finding his keys. Perfect. I closed my fingers around one of the choking gas pellets in my satchel. I had never tried these in the rain before. Hopefully I wouldn't need a plan B.

"Michael Anselmo," I growled.

He gave a small jump of surprise and reached for his gun, but not before I hurled a pellet of choking gas in his direction. Before he even caught sight of me, he was engulfed in smoke, and I pounced from my perch. I smacked the gun out of his hand before he got off a single shot, which was lucky—no one would be coming to investigate the sound of gunshots. Ordinarily, a man of Anselmo's bulk would be a threat even without his gun, but he had already inhaled enough choking gas to take out a man twice his size, and he couldn't do much more than beat impotently at his chest as he tried not to hack up his own lungs.