“Wait and see.” Her voice was low with warning, and Celeste remembered Hypatia had tussled with the Virtues once before and had the thick, slicing scars down her back to prove it. Celeste looked again at that sword, and for a moment, she could almost feel the heat of it against her skin. Her eyes met the ones hidden behind the Azrael’s mask, and she found herself looking away.
Sheriff Ybarra came out of the Eden, and the crowd parted for him. He wore a black dinner jacket and matching waistcoat with a white collared shirt, evidence he’d come from the mayor’s affair. Ybarra was a regular fixture in town, a big-shouldered man fit for rounding up drunkards and settling disputes. He was nothing like the uncanny horrors of the Virtues. Celeste felt a touch of relief to see him, but his head was bowed, face hidden beneath his hat. The tin star pinned to his breast gleamed in the light of the Azrael’s fiery sword.
“He won’t look at the crowd with the Virtues around,” Zeke observed, and any hope Celeste had of him fixing things sank like lead in her belly.
Mariel followed, half-collapsed between two Virtues, her bright red skirts dragging through the street. Her black curls had come undone and hung down her back, and something dark and sticky clung to her arms and hands.
Celeste moved before she could think, instinct calling her to her sister’s side.
Zeke’s arms clamped around her waist, pulling her back. “Steady.”
“They mean to execute her!” she hissed. All she could think about was that flaming sword and heavenly fire at Mariel’s neck.
“No, not in front of this crowd. Can’t you feel it?”
He was right. The crowd was restless, muttering, unhappy that their hellish revelry had been ruined by this posse of God’s men.
“What’s she done?” someone shouted, and then the crowd picked it up.
“What’s her crime, Sheriff?”
“Why the Virtues?”
“Leave her alone!”
The Virtues ignored them, pulling Mariel along before throwing her up onto the back of a horse to share a saddle with a masked rider. Her face was swollen and purpled, her nose and mouth bloodied, her head loose on her neck like she was stunned.
“They beat her.” Zeke sounded dismayed, as if he hadn’t quite believed it before he saw it, but Hypatia only snorted, experience telling her full well what kind of monsters they were.
The crowd was with Zeke, though, and their voices rose in indignation.
Celeste was shaking, and somehow her dagger was in her hand. What good it would do against a dozen armed men wearing masks, she had no idea. But she had to try something, didn’t she?
“Steady, Celeste,” Hypatia whispered in her ear. “And put that pigsticker away. You won’t do her any good if they take you away, too. Let’s see how this plays out.”
Reluctantly, Celeste drew the blade back into its sheath.
Someone threw a bottle that shattered near the horses’ feet. The riders struggled to control their suddenly skittish mounts. Sheriff Ybarra looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he came to the edge of the Virtues’ circle, putting himself between them and the crowd.
“They’re here at my request,” he said, hands raised for calm. “There’s a crime been committed, and they’re the proper arresting body.”
“What’s she done?” Celeste cried. Hypatia may have wanted her to stay quiet, but she couldn’t, not when they were about to take her sister away to who knew where. She was scared that if they rode away with Mariel now, she might never see her again. Her fear was not unfounded. Fallen had been known to disappear in Elect hands, only to show up headless in a ditch days later.
Ybarra scanned the crowd, pausing when he saw her. Goetia’s permanent residents were small in number, especially those who were female and spent time dealing at the card tables. He recognized Celeste well enough.
“I’m not at liberty to share the details, but know that an innocent man is dead.”
Disbelief rippled through the crowd. Goetia was as rough as any mining town, but murders were confined to the hard men who worked the mines or the darker haunts of Perdition. The Eden saw its share of brawls, but murder was still uncommon, and a murder that brought out the Virtues ten times as much.
“Who’s dead?” Zeke shouted.
As if on cue, four Virtues came out bearing a body. It was wrapped in one of Hypatia’s fine brocade curtains, but deep rust-colored stains had seeped through the silk, evidence of violence. They lifted the body up to another rider, who held it across his lap. Their expressions were lost behind their masks, but their straight backs and stiff movements betrayed their outrage.
“The dead is a Virtue,” Ybarra said into the sudden quiet, his voice carrying. “That’s why they’ve come. And the accused is a Fallen.” He meant Mariel, and Celeste wanted to shout that her sister had a name, and someone who loved her, but what would Ybarra care? He spread his hands, as if the crowd had to understand his dilemma. As if there could be no other way.
“Will she hang?”
Celeste glared at the woman who’d asked it, an older Elect lady wearing costume devil wings.
Ybarra shook his head. “The Order of Chamuel will decide that, not me. Now, go on home and get some sleep. Leave justice to God.”
He mounted his own horse, a modest bay, and gestured to the Virtues. As one, they turned their horses and cantered down Perdition, fading into the night, with the sheriff following. The last thing Celeste saw of them was the light of the Azrael’s fiery sword.
“I’m going after them,” she said, but even as she said it, she had no idea where they’d gone and no horse to get her there. The Virtues didn’t loiter on Main Street or advertise a secret lair up in the mountains. Their comings and goings were mysterious, and since they kept their identities secret, it was hard to track them down.
Hypatia was thinking more clearly. “Go home, Celeste. I’ve got some favors I can call in. I’ll find out where they’ve taken her and what comes next.”
“What comes next?” she shouted. Her outburst drew eyes, but she didn’t care. “You know better than anyone that if a Virtue has been murdered, they’ll make someone pay, and that someone is going to be Mariel. That’s what’s next!”
Hypatia folded her arms over her chest, unmoved, but Celeste could tell by the way Hypatia chewed at her lip that she was worried.
“I’ve got to do something!” she pleaded. “Please!”
“I know you do.” Hypatia’s voice was calm, but there was a thread of fear there.
“Can’t leave justice up to God,” Zeke added morosely.
He and Hypatia exchanged a look. They knew as well as Celeste did.
God’s justice always ended in blood.
CHAPTER 4
At Hypatia’s request, Zeke walked Celeste back to the ladies’ boardinghouse where she and Mariel rented a room. He offered to sit with her in the parlor until they heard word from Hypatia, but Celeste was worried that Zeke’s presence would only lead to questions from her landlady, so she declined. No doubt, Mrs. Ruth would find out about Mariel’s arrest soon enough, but Celeste was hopeful she could find a few hours of sleep before facing her landlady’s outrage over the scandal.