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

men in the gallery around Esta whistled and shouted slurs. Under his command, his horse didn’t so much as flinch when a bottle lobbed from the crowd shattered on the ground before him. Beneath the broad brim of his hat, his expression was placid, uninterested. Like he knew exactly who he was, even if everyone else was a fool. While the Curtis brothers droned on about Pickett’s achievements, he busied himself with tying a rope into a lasso.

Esta admired confidence like that, and as she watched Pickett work—methodically, carefully—she thought she understood why Harte had entrusted the Pharaoh’s Heart to this particular man. There was something steady about him. Something that set him apart from the others she’d seen prancing around the arena that day.

Once the Curtis brothers retreated, the mood in the arena changed again. The drums rolled once more, and at the sound of a rim shot, a steer was released into the ring. Pickett was off, faster than anything Esta could have expected. Faster than anyone she’d seen yet that day. In a matter of seconds, he chased the animal down and tossed a rope around its horns in one try, jumped from his horse and wrestled it to the ground in a single, fluid motion, and finished by tying up the animal’s four legs. The entire process couldn’t have even taken a whole minute, and then Pickett was back up on his horse, tearing around the arena again in a victory lap, while a couple of other men wrangled the steer away.

The audience cheered, whooping and hooting their approval, but the cheers were peppered with the same slurs from before. The men standing near Esta seemed more disgusted by Pickett’s expertise than impressed, but Pickett continued to ignore them as he circled the ring, waving his hat but not letting so much as a smile curl beneath the heavy mustache. As he passed the standing gallery, Esta saw that Pickett’s eyes were sharp, probably on the lookout for any others who might mean to cause him trouble.

Another drumroll rose, and another steer was released into the arena. Pickett kicked his horse into a gallop until he was next to the animal, but this time, instead of using the rope, which was still on the other animal, he swung himself out of his own saddle and leapt five, maybe six feet, onto the steer’s back. The animal was more than twice Pickett’s size, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He grabbed it by the horns and then slid off so he could dig his boot heels into the ground to slow the beast. He twisted the horns until the steer’s nose was pointing upward, and then he did something—Esta couldn’t quite tell what it was, but she thought he might have latched onto the animal with his mouth—and a moment later Pickett’s hands were in the air. He waved them in a victory wave as he was dragged along. The steer took maybe three or four more steps before, unbelievably, impossibly, it stumbled to its knees and went down. The bull writhed beneath Pickett’s hold until, finally, it seemed to give up and remained there on the ground, completely subdued.

Esta searched for the feel of magic sifting through the air once more, but of course there wasn’t any of the telltale warmth. Pickett never would have gotten out of Manhattan if he’d had the old magic. This was something else—talent, perhaps. Mastery, definitely. All born of a lifetime of work.

The crowd was strangely silent for a second before the arena exploded in shouts and cheers. As he stood and waved his hat to the crowd, Pickett looked even smaller than he had atop his horse. Next to the steer, he seemed utterly human.

It was the strangest and perhaps most impressive thing Esta had ever witnessed. Even once Pickett had released it, the steer remained on the ground, as shocked by what had happened as everyone else.

Esta was so taken by the display in the ring that she almost didn’t notice the movement of the two men to her right. A pair of other performers were dragging the stunned animal out of the arena and Pickett was taking his final bow, but at the edge of the standing room, a group of marshals weren’t watching the show. They had already started moving into the crowded standing-room area, and soon they were joined by others. Even if they weren’t looking for her specifically, Esta realized they’d find her easily enough with the way they’d surrounded the crowd of men.

With her affinity, it would have been simple to slip away unseen, but the Quellant was still thick in her blood. Her affinity was out of reach.

The Thief is dead, Esta reminded herself. The marshals could be looking for anyone, but she wasn’t going to take a chance of being accidentally found. Considering her options, she decided on the most expedient and gave the man in front of her a violent shove, which caused him to topple into the man next to him.

The effect was immediate. In a matter of seconds, the standing room erupted into angry shouting, and Esta ducked away from the heat of the growing brawl and slipped out the back of the big top as the marshals rushed in.

THE MARK OF THE ANTISTASI

1904—Texas

Jack Grew rolled the whiskey around in his cup and studied the way it sloshed from side to side. Watery and sharp, it had definitely been cut with something else, but the drink was doing its job, at least. The tension of the day had started to ease after the first biting swallow, but it wasn’t gone. And it wasn’t going fast enough.

The amber liquid stared back at him, mocking. The porter who’d first reported seeing Esta on the train had been no help. The man had been bewitched so resolutely that what came out of his mouth was nothing but rubbish. Which meant that Jack was