The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

“If you don’t need a ride, then shove off,” the man said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “You’re scaring away actual customers.”

Harte thanked the man for his time before walking a bit farther down the sidewalk, toward the next intersection, where another entrance was guarded by another pair of armed men. Harte felt Seshat pacing like a caged tiger, but he wasn’t sure what was making her so nervous—that he was getting closer to retrieving the artifact or the risk he might be taking by breaching the quarantine.

Plague or not, the Dragon’s Eye was beyond the barricade. Maybe he could go around, but it would take more time and it was already getting late. Besides, he had no idea how far Chinatown stretched, and he didn’t want to waste time figuring it out. Even now Esta might have the dagger. She might already be on her way to meet him at the bridge, and he would not leave her waiting. The faster he reached his destination, the better. He looked down the stretch of the street, considered the seemingly endless checkpoints, and decided to go through.

Harte approached the checkpoint like he belonged there, and his show of confidence seemed to work. The guard gave him only the briefest of glances before letting him pass. On the other side, the streets changed. The buildings were the same Italianate style as those throughout the city, but they dripped with red banners, hand-painted with the elegant, curling scrollwork of Chinese characters. Most were also canopied by wooden balconies that clung precariously to the walls of the buildings.

The sights and smells reminded Harte of Mott Street in New York, where dried shrimp would be piled in baskets along the sidewalk and roasted duck hung in the windows of the stalls. He found himself briefly, uncharacteristically homesick. But New York felt like a lifetime ago, and Harte couldn’t afford to dwell on the past.

Pulling out the map he’d purchased earlier, he double-checked his direction and located the quickest route to the street name that he’d memorized as a boy. Then he set out, determined.

He wouldn’t have discovered that such a place even existed if his father hadn’t been so drunk that day. Usually, Samuel Lowe didn’t return to the cramped two-room apartment that he shared with Harte’s mother until late at night, when he was thoroughly drunk and ready for a fight. One day, though, Harte had come home to find the man who had fathered him sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the afternoon. His father had looked lifeless as he lay there in a puddle of his own vomit, and Harte’s first thought had been, It’s over. Then a snorting snore told Harte that his father wasn’t dead, only unconscious.

It would have been safer to retreat and pretend he’d never seen that particular scene. But he had seen it. Harte had also noticed the loose papers on the table and the stack of letters tied with twine. The sheets were already soaking up the amber-colored whiskey that had spilled.

Harte had been barely twelve then, but he’d known what would happen if his father woke and found the papers soaked and damaged—Samuel Lowe never accepted responsibility for any of his misfortunes. Instead, he would take his frustration out on whoever happened to be closest. If Harte had left, he knew that person would have been his mother, and her bruises had barely started to heal from the last time.

Careful not to wake his father, Harte had taken the sopping papers and tried to shake the liquid from them before the ink smeared. He hadn’t intended to look at the uneven scrawl on the damp pages, but the word “California” had shimmered up from the front of an envelope, drawing his attention as surely as a fairy tale.

When he was younger, Harte had never given any thought to who Samuel Lowe had been before he’d arrived in New York and started drinking himself into nightly stupors. Harte had spent so much energy avoiding his father’s fists that it had never occurred to him that his father could possibly be the kind of person anyone would want to write letters to. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from skimming over the contents, and the next thing he knew, he’d untied the other stack and was reading the correspondence in earnest.

As he read, Harte had discovered that his father had family in California, a mother he’d been sending money to. The more Harte read, the more his blood turned to fire. Samuel Lowe had never seen Molly O’Doherty as anything but a convenience. He’d used Harte’s mother for the money she brought home each night, but he’d never planned to stay with her. It was all there, stark on the page. Molly O’Doherty had worked herself into exhaustion because she believed that Samuel Lowe loved her, never knowing that she was actually paying for his escape.

Harte had been so engrossed that he hadn’t noticed when his father had started to stir. The old man’s face had been blotchy with rage as he demanded the letters back. His father’s demands always came with a raised fist, and that time had been no exception. But Harte had refused to take one more beating. Instead of cowering, he’d demanded answers. Of course, his old man had refused to give him any.

Maybe he should have simply taken the letters and left. Harte could have shown his mother the proof of his father’s betrayal. But he was young and brash and filled with an anger that made it difficult to see straight. Instead, he’d used his affinity and issued a command, ordering Samuel Lowe to leave the city and to forget that anyone was waiting for him in California.

It was only later that Harte understood the consequences of that decision. Instead of understanding—instead of thanking Harte for saving her—his mother had recoiled. She’d called Harte a liar and went after the man she loved.