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

If Harte had any doubts about who this was, they evaporated. Even so many years later, his body still remembered the fear that tone used to inspire.

But Harte wasn’t a child any longer. He was a few inches taller than his father, his body lean and strong from years of discipline and training, and he’d survived in a world that was bent on destroying him for too long to fear much of anything now. Instead of cowering, as he might have before, he straightened a little, jutting out his chin in an unmistakable challenge.

“You know exactly who I am,” Harte said flatly, tossing the words out like a dropped gauntlet. “Or don’t you recognize your own son?”

CORSICANA

1904—Texas

Jack Grew wiped the sweat from his brow as he directed his horse to follow along behind the sheriff of Corsicana, Texas. Once he’d received news that Esta had been spotted, Jack had taken the first train he could get out of St. Louis, but he’d still been too late. The Devil’s Thief had evaded him again. Darrigan as well. And they’d left a trail of destruction in their wake.

Some of the men who had witnessed the events of the day before were with him. Riding behind Jack were Jot Gunter and other members of the Ranchers’ Syndicate. Gunter was like many of the Syndicate’s members: old, rich, and entirely too convinced of his own importance. But then, the ranchers in the Syndicate thought far too highly of themselves in general. They might own large swaths of the country, land where oil had been discovered a few years back, but they were still upstarts. Parvenus. Without breeding or history. The horses they rode had finer pedigrees than the men themselves, and the fact that the men seemed so proud of their backwater dump of a town only proved how pointless they were.

The last time Jack had seen Gunter was in New York at the Conclave, back in 1902. Gunter had been one of the representatives from the Syndicate. Like the men from the other Brotherhoods, he’d come to gloat. The members of the other Brotherhoods had believed the Order had been dealt a blow when Khafre Hall had burned, but they’d found out differently that cold December night two years before. Thanks to Jack, the Order had prevailed and would continue to lead the Brotherhoods through the new century.

Not that Jack would remind these men of this. He could pretend that they hadn’t once been adversaries now that he had won. After all, it was always good to have allies, especially when they were weak men who could be controlled.

A quarter mile from the town itself was the site of the engine’s explosion. There, the ground was scarred and split. Deep gashes spread from a larger chasm in the dusty earth, which was being guarded by a group of men with guns at the ready. As they got closer, a pair of men on horseback with bronze stars on their lapels rode out to meet the group. Other men, both on horseback and on foot, stood watch, probably to keep away the scavengers and newspapermen who swarmed around tragedies like vultures.

Federal marshals. Jack should know—he’d given the order for them to be there. The last thing anyone needed was for the locals to muck up the investigation.

Gunter and the mayor exchanged some words with the pair of marshals. Gunter made a show of puffing himself up as he spoke, but the two lawmen listened with uninterested silence, their faces shadowed by the broad brims of their hats. They simply shook their heads. Impatient with their lack of cooperation, the sheriff nudged his horse forward and tried to speak with the men. That didn’t make any difference either. The two marshals only frowned at him as they exchanged words in low, hard tones, and the sheriff grew more agitated by the second.

Jack could feel the sweat rolling down his back as he allowed the sheriff and Syndicate men a little more time to display their own ineptitude. Then, growing bored, he urged his horse forward.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Jack drawled, giving the marshals a status they didn’t quite deserve. “I’ve come to survey the site on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt.”

The marshals recognized him immediately. To the sheriff’s irritation—and Jack’s immense satisfaction—they moved quickly, so the group could pass. This time it was Jack who took the lead out toward the crevasse that had been torn into the earth by the explosion of the train.

The wreckage was still in place, but the engine itself was hardly recognizable, a twisted shell of metal and soot that might have at one time resembled a locomotive. But the destroyed engine wasn’t what truly interested Jack. The deep hole that had been ripped into the ground and the gaping pit carved in the earth where the remains of the train lay were far more interesting. The medallion that Jack had taken from Hendricks and now wore on his own lapel began singing its high, dissonant warning call. Its blue glow indicated feral magic was nearby, and beneath his jacket, the Book seemed to almost shudder against his chest.

Jack had seen the same sort of scar carved into the earth before. It had been over two years now—the day Esta Filosik and Harte Darrigan destroyed a different train and escaped from his clutches. That day had set him on this new path in his life.

One look at the wreckage confirmed what Jack had suspected. Esta Filosik had been there. Probably Darrigan had as well. But whatever the sheriff of Corsicana or the men from the Syndicate thought, the wreckage didn’t mean that the Thief was dead. Jack knew exactly how slippery Esta and Darrigan could be, and he wouldn’t believe they were gone until he saw their bodies for himself.

ON THE HOOK

1904—Somewhere in the West

Esta surfaced slowly, the remnants of a strangely vivid